Part I. 5th May to 13th 8

-- II. 14th 22d 8 -- III. 23d 31st 8 -- IV. 2d June to 11th 8 -- V. 12th 20th 8 -- VI. 21st 9th July 17 Addition 10th July to 13th 3 Appendix 14th 18th 5 -- _Days_ 65

_Leicester House._

The first exhibition of the Leverian Museum in London, was at “Leicester house,” Leicester-square. “This house was founded,” Mr. Pennant says, “by one of the Sydnies, earls of Leicester. It was for a short time the residence of Elizabeth, daughter of James I., the titular queen of Bohemia, who, on February 13, 1661, here ended her unfortunate life. It was successively the _pouting-place_ of princes. The late king (George II.) when prince of Wales, after he had quarrelled with his father, lived here several years. His son, Frederick, followed his example, succeeded him in his house, and in it finished his days.”

Mr. Pennant then proceeds, more immediately to our purpose, to observe, “No one is ignorant of the magnificent and instructive museum, exhibited in this house by the late sir Ashton Lever. It was the most astonishing collection of the subjects of natural history ever collected, in so short a space, by any individual. To the disgrace of our kingdom, after the first burst of wonder was over, it became neglected; and when it was offered to the public, by the chance of a guinea lottery, only eight thousand out of thirty-six thousand tickets were sold. Finally, the capricious goddess frowned on the spirited proprietor of such a number of tickets, and transferred the treasure to the possessor of only two, Mr. Parkinson.” Further on, Mr. Pennant says, “I must not omit reminding the reader, that the celebrated museum collected by the late sir Ashton Lever, is transported to the southern end of _Blackfriars_-bridge by Mr. Parkinson, whom fortune favoured with it in the Leverian lottery. That gentleman built a place expressly for its reception, and disposed the rooms with so much judgment, as to give a most advantageous view of the innumerable curiosities. The spirit of the late worthy owner seems to have been transfused into the present. He spares no pains or expense to augment a collection, before equally elegant and instructive.”

* * * * *

Mr. Pennant, in his “History of Quadrupeds,” likewise makes mention of the Leverian Museum, as “a liberal fund of inexhaustible knowledge in most branches of natural history,” and he especially names “the matchless collection of animals” there exhibited, to which he had recourse while correcting the descriptions for the last edition of his work.

We have gathered from Mr. Pennant, that the Leverian Museum was disposed of by lottery, and his own opinion, as a naturalist, of its merit. The evidence whereon the committee of the house of commons founded its report in behalf of the bill, which afterwards passed and enabled sir Ashton Lever to dispose of his museum in that manner, amply testifies the opinion conceived of it by individuals fully qualified to decide on its importance.

Mr. Tennant who had been upwards of twenty years a collector of subjects of natural history, and had seen all the cabinets of curiosities, both public and private, of any note in Holland, France, and Portugal, and those at Brussels, Dresden, Brunswick, and Vienna, and had also seen the Spanish cabinet while collecting in Holland, said, that he had never seen any collection more rare, more curious, or more instructive than sir Ashton Lever’s, nor any that could be compared with it; that it exceeded all others in the beauty and preservation of the numerous articles it contained, which were better selected than any he had seen elsewhere; and that it contained many specimens that could not be procured at any expense.

Sir William Hamilton gave similar testimony. Having a particular love for natural history, in different journeys to and from Naples, where he was ambassador from Great Britain, he had seen every public and private museum in Holland, France, Germany, Italy, and Sicily, and he thought sir Ashton Lever’s collection was in every respect the finest.

Baron Dimsdale said he had seen the cabinets of curiosities at Moscow and St. Petersburgh, and also those at Paris and Dresden, which are esteemed very curious and valuable, and that they were not, all together, to be compared with sir Ashton Lever’s museum.

* * * * *

After such distinguished and unquestionable testimonials respecting this collection, it would be trifling to adduce a poem in proof that it merited praise; but as a curiosity, which, on account of the youth of its author, sir Ashton Lever himself must have deemed a “curiosity,” the following may be perused with interest.

VERSES,

ADDRESSED TO SIR ASHTON LEVER, BY A LITTLE BOY OF TEN YEARS OLD ON BEING FAVOURED WITH A SIGHT OF HIS MUSEUM.

_November 6, 1778._

If I had Virgil’s judgment, Homer’s fire, And could with equal rapture strike the lyre, Could drink as largely of the muse’s spring, Then would I of sir Ashton’s merits sing. Look here, look there, above, beneath, around, Sure great Apollo consecrates the ground. Here stands a tiger, mighty in his strength, There crocodiles extend their scaly length: Subtile, voracious to devour their food, Savage they look, and seem to pant for blood. Here shells and fish, and finny dolphins seen, Display their various colours blue and green. View there an urn which Roman ashes bore, And habits once that foreign nations wore. Birds and wild beasts from Afric’s burning sand, And curious fossils rang’d in order stand. Now turn your eyes from them, and quick survey, Spars, diamonds, crystals, dart a golden ray View apes in different attitudes appear, With horns of bucks, and goats, and shamois deer. Next various kinds of monsters meet the eye; Dreadful they seem, grim-looking as they lie. What man is he that does not view with awe The river-horse that gives the Tigris law? Dauntless he looks, and, eager to engage, Lashes his sides, and burns with steady rage. View where an elephant’s broad bulk appears, And o’er his head his hollow trunk he rears: He seems to roar, impatient for the fight, And stands collected in his utmost might. Some I have sung, much more my muse could name; A nobler muse requires sir Ashton’s fame. I’ve gained my end, if you, good sir, receive This feeble present, which I freely give. Your well-known worth, to distant nations told, Amongst the sons of Fame shall be enroll’d.

T. P.[262]

_Kennington, Nov. 8, 1778._

It seems appropriate and desirable to give the above representation of Mr. Parkinson’s ticket, for there are few who retain the original. Besides--the design is good, and as an engraving it is an ornament.

And--as a memorial of the method adopted by sir Ashton Lever to obtain attention to the means by which he hoped to reimburse himself for his prodigious outlay, and also to enable the public to view the grand prize which the adventure of a guinea might gain, one of his advertisements is annexed from a newspaper of January 28, 1785.

SIR ASHTON LEVER’s Lottery Tickets are now on sale at Leicester-house, every day (Sundays excepted) from Nine in the morning till Six in the evening, at One Guinea each; and as each ticket will admit four persons, either together or separately, to view the Museum, no one will hereafter be admitted but by the Lottery Tickets, excepting those who have already annual admission.

This collection is allowed to be infinitely superior to any of the kind in Europe. The very large sum expended in making it, is the cause of its being thus to be disposed of, and not from the deficiency of the daily receipts (as is generally imagined) which have annually increased, the average amount for the last three years being 1833_l._ per annum.

The hours of admission are from Eleven till Four.

Good fires in all the galleries.

* * * * *

The first notice of the Leverian Museum is in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for May, 1773, by a person who had seen it at Alkerington, near Manchester, when it was first formed. Though many specimens of natural history are mentioned, the collection had evidently not attained its maturity. It appears at that time to have amounted to no more than “upwards of one thousand three hundred glass cases, containing curious subjects, placed in three rooms, besides four sides of rooms shelved from top to bottom, with glass doors before them.” The works of art _particularized_ by the writer in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” are “a head of his present majesty, cut in cannil coal, said to be a striking likeness; indeed the workmanship is inimitable--also a drawing in Indian ink of a head of a late duke of Bridgewater, valued at one hundred guineas--a few pictures of birds in straw, very natural, by Miss Gregg; a basket of flowers, cut in paper, a most masterly performance; the flowers are justly represented, not the least dot of the apices of the stamina wanting, or the least fault in the proportion; every part is so truly observed, that it was new to me every time I went to see it, and gave me great delight. This curious basket of flowers was executed by Mrs. Groves. There are a great number of antique dresses and parts of dresses of our own and other nations--near two hundred species of warlike instruments, ancient and modern; but as I am no friend to fighting, of these I took no further notice, or else I might have mentioned the tomahawk, the scalping-knife, and many more such desperate diabolical instruments of destruction, invented, no doubt, by the devil himself.”

* * * * *

Down in the Potteries it’s “a sight,” The whole day long, from morn till night, To see the girls, and women grown, The child, the damsel, and old crone By the well-sides at work, or singing, While waiting for the water’s springing; Telling what Francis Moore presages, Or who did not bring home his wages. P’rhaps one exclaims, “time runs away!” Her neighbour cries, “Why, what’s to-day?” And, when she knows, feigns mighty sorrow-- She thought to-day would be to-morrow? Another thinks another’s daughter Grows monstrous tall----“Halloo! the water!” Up it rises, and they skurry, In a skimble skamble hurry, Shouting and bawling “Where’s the pot?” “Why I was first”--“No, you were not.”-- As quick as thought they empt’ the well, And the last comers take a spell, At waiting, while the others go, With their full pitchers, dawdling so, You’d think they’d nothing else to do But to keep looking round at you. However, all are honest creatures, And some have pretty shapes and features: So, if there be an end of lotteries, You may find prizes in the Potteries.

*

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 62·52.

[262] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~July 19.~

K. George IV. crowned.

Holiday at all the public offices.

“THE GLORY OF REGALITY.”

This is the title of “A Historical Treatise on the Anointing and Crowning of the Kings and Queens of England, by Arthur Taylor, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. London: 1820.” 8vo. pp. 440.

The present notice is designed to acquaint inquirers with the most important and satisfactory work regarding our regal ceremonies that exists. Mr. Taylor’s volume is a storehouse of information concerning the kingly title and office, the regalia, the assistants at the coronation, the tenants of the crown by grand sergeantry performing services, the ceremonial, the processions, and the feast. That part of the book entitled a “Chronicle of the Coronations,” is full of singular details. The “History of the Coronation Oath” is remarkably curious and interesting. There is likewise an appendix of important documents and records, a valuable index, and, according to a good old custom, which modern authors find it convenient to neglect, the reader is referred to every source of information on the subjects treated of, by a list of upwards of two hundred and thirty works resorted to, and quoted by Mr. Taylor, in the course of his labours. Few writers of the present day have achieved a monument of so much diligence as this work.--The trifling sum at which it was published can scarcely have remunerated its erudite author, beyond the expense of the paper and print and wood engravings.

Mr. Arthur Taylor is in the foremost rank of learned typographers; and, better for himself in a pecuniary view, he is printer to the corporation of London, to which office he was elected while travelling in Italy, after the publication of his “Glory of Regality.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·87.

~July 20.~

ST. MARGARET.

This saint is in the church of England calendar and the almanacs.

Butler speaks of her merely as a virgin, who is “said” to have been instructed in the faith by a christian nurse, and persecuted by her father, who was a pagan priest; that after being tormented, she was martyred by the sword “in the last general persecution;” that “her name occurs in the litany inserted in the old Roman order,” and in ancient Greek calendars; that, from the east, her veneration was exceedingly propagated in England, France, and Germany during the holy wars; that “Vida, the glory of the christian muses,” honoured her as “one of the titular saints of Cremona, his native city, with two hymns, begging of God through her prayers” a happy death and a holy life; and that “her body is now kept at Monte Fiascone, in Tuscany.”

The Egyptians are not more famous for embalming, than the Romish church is celebrated for the keeping of saints’ bodies--with the additional reputation of a peculiar tact at discovering them. It was not at all uncommon to distinguish their bones, from other mortuary remains, a few centuries after death.

We are told that St. Margaret received the crown of martyrdom in the year 278,[263] therefore her body, “now kept at Monte Fiascone,” may be regarded to have been as well “kept” through one thousand five hundred years, as those of other saints; for it must be observed that none but saints’ bodies “keep.” There is not an instance of the body of any lay individual, however virtuous or illustrious, having remained to us through fifteen centuries.

* * * * *

The illustrious father of the order of the Jesuits, Peter Ribadeneira, rather confusedly relates that St. Margaret was devoured by the devil; and “in an other place it is sayd that he swalowed her into his bely,” and that while in his inside she made the sign of the cross, and she “yssued out all hole and sounde,” though it is added that this account “is apocrifum.” We are told that a devil appeared to her in the likeness of a man, but she caught him by the head, threw him down, set her right foot on his neck, and said, “Lye still thou fende, under the fote of a woman.” In that situation the devil admitted he was vanquished, and declared he would not have cared if a young man had conquered him, but he was very vexed to have been overcome by a young woman. St. Margaret asked him what he was, and he answered that his name was Veltis, that he was one of a multitude of devils who had been enclosed in a brass vessel by Solomon, and that after Solomon’s death this vessel was broken at Babylon by persons who supposed it contained a treasure, when all the devils flew out and took to the air, where they were incessantly espying how to “assayle ryghtfull men.” Then she took her foot from his neck, and said to him, “Flee hens thou wretched fende,” and behold “the earth opened and the fende sanke in.”[264]

However “right comfortable” this relation may be, there is more “delection” in that of St. Margaret being swallowed by the devil; it is a pity it is “apocrifum.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·25.

[263] Mr. Audley.

[264] Golden Legend.

~July 21.~

ST. VICTOR OF MARSEILLES.

We are informed by Butler that this saint was a martyr under the emperor Maximian. From his silence as to the saint’s life, it is to be inferred that biographers of saints were rare, while, from his elaborate account of the saint’s death, it is to be inferred that their martyrdoms were attended by able reporters.

The abbey of St. Victor at Marseilles was one of the most celebrated religious foundations in Europe. It claimed to have been the first monastery established in France. Its ruins are striking objects of curiosity to visiters of the town.

* * * * *

St. Victor’s monastery was founded by St. Cassien, patriarch of Constantinople, in the fourth or fifth century. The spot was fixed upon by St. Cassien for his new foundation, from the ground being already considered as sacred by the Marseillais, for we are assured that Mary Magdalen and her brother Lazarus arrived in Provence with a cargo of saints, fixed their residence at Marseilles, and converted a great number of the inhabitants; and that Mary Magdalen after remaining there some time, desirous of being more secluded, withdrew to a grotto in the rock on which the abbey of St. Victor now stands. Still, pressed by crowds, she removed a league from Marseilles to the quarter of Aygalades, where afterwards was founded a monastery of the Carmes. Even here she could not find seclusion, and she finally fixed her retreat at the _Sainte Beaume_, a grotto in the mountain of St. Pilon, in a more remote part of the country where she ended her days.

On the spot sanctified by her first retreat, a chapel was erected and dedicated to the Holy Virgin under the title of “Nôtre Dame de la Confession.” A little confusion seems here to have been made between Mary Magdalen, in remembrance of whom the spot was considered as sacred, and the virgin mother; for after the monastery was built, a chapel in it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, while little notice was taken of Mary the penitent.

The monastery of St. Cassien many years after the body of the celebrated St. Victor was interred there, was called the monastery of St. Victor. His foot was said to have been cut off by order of Maximian, for having kicked down a statue of Jupiter when required to sacrifice to it; this foot has been a relic in high esteem ever since. Afterwards his head was cut off, and the head became another relic of very high value. Various miracles are reported to have been wrought at his tomb, particularly in the cure of demoniacs.

It is also related that the tomb of the emperor Maximian, who died and was interred at Marseilles, was discovered about the middle of the eleventh century, and recognised to be his by an inscription. The body was in a leaden coffin, and found entire, having been preserved by an odoriferous liquor with which it was anointed without, and filled within. Two chalices of gold, full of the same liquor, were placed on each side of the head. As a persecutor of the christian church, his body was by order of Raimbaud, archbishop of Aries, thrown into the sea; and it is alleged that for some time after the water of the spot where it was thrown bubbled furiously, as if boiling over a fire, and cast up smoke and flames from the bosom of the deep.

* * * * *

There is a tradition respecting St. Victor in the archives of the abbey, that a dragon of the wood adjoining devoured every thing that came in his way, human beings as well as animals; whereupon St. Victor went forth to fight him, armed cap-à-piè, and mounted on a mettled courser, and that he slew him and freed the country from so terrible a scourge. An effigy of the saint, engaged with his fearful antagonist, was carved in stone, and placed over the porch of the great church: and the same device was adopted as the great seal of the monastery. The carving over the church porch remains to this day, though somewhat defaced: it is the exact counterpart of the English St. George and the dragon. Underneath is inscribed

_Massiliam vere._ (VICTOR) _civesque tuere_.

* * * * *

On the St. Victor’s day, which is the twenty-first of July, there were formerly held at Marseilles a festival and procession in honour of him, called “La Triomphale.” The relics of the saint were carried round the town by the prior of the monastery, attended by the whole community. At the head of the procession marched a cavalier in complete armour, highly ornamented, carrying a lance in one hand, and in the other the standard of the abbey, on which were the arms richly embroidered; he wore a rich scarf, and his horse had a housing of white damask, ornamented with blue crosses. This cavalier was intended to represent St. Victor. He was preceded by twelve cavaliers carrying lighted tapers, and accompanied by a band of music with drums and trumpets. Six pages followed him. As soon as the people heard the music, and saw the standard, they flocked in crowds to join the procession. As it passed along the quay of the port, all the vessels hoisted their colours, and saluted it with a discharge of cannon and musquetry; and the consuls, with the rest of the magistrates, met it at an appointed place, to pay their homage to the saint, and attend him back to the abbey.

This ceremony had been observed every year from time immemorial, till monsieur de Belsunce, the bishop of Marseilles, who distinguished himself so much in the great plague of 1720, prevailed upon the magistrates to consent to the abolition of it, for the following reason. He was about to publish a biography of the bishops, his predecessors, from the first conversion of the town to the christian faith, among whom it was necessary to include St. Victor; and not wishing him to appear otherwise than a christian bishop and martyr, he thought he would not be considered in these lights only, while the people were accustomed to see him every year in a character directly opposite; so that no way appeared of making the impression he desired, except by abolishing the annual ceremony. Until then the relics of St. Victor, who was esteemed the patron saint of Marseilles were always borne in the procession. They were likewise carried in procession at the time of any public calamity; but on these occasions the armed cavalier did not make his appearance.

* * * * *

The _grotto_, which for a short time had been the residence of Mary Magdalen, was, on the foundation of the monastery converted into a chapel, and a tomb erected to her memory. It was said that no woman could enter this chapel without being immediately struck blind; and for some centuries no female attempted to penetrate the sanctity of the place, till the celebrated queen Joan insisted on admission, when it is said she had sooner passed the portal than she was deprived of her sight. It was afterwards restored, on her putting a balustrade of solid silver round the image of the virgin. This image has been preserved, and a place has been allotted her in the church; but one of the remarkable effects of the French revolution is, that a woman can now look at it without experiencing the least inconvenience.

On the tomb of the Magdalen, which was of white marble, were many curious figures carved in relief--among others a wolf suckling two children; and in the inferior church were seven very fine marble columns of the Corinthian order. These are supposed to have been some of the many spoils of the Pagan temples, which the monks of St. Victor are known to have appropriated to their own use.

It was formerly a popular belief, that in this place were deposited the bodies of seven brothers who were not dead, but lay there to sleep till the general resurrection. What became of them at the demolition of the abbey does not appear.

* * * * *

Among the curiosities of the abbey of St. Victor was a well, with a small column of granite on each side of it. On one of the columns was a figure which was called the impression of the devil’s claw; and the story concerning it was, that the old gentleman, being envious of the superior sanctity of the holy fathers, stole one day into the monastery with a malicious intention to corrupt them. What form he assumed is not stated by the record, but he was soon discovered, and obliged to make his escape; in doing which he stepped over these two columns, and left the impression of his claw upon one of them. The truth was, that the columns were ancient ones, and the devil’s claw the remains of an acanthus’ leaf.

* * * * *

The abbey of St. Victor was secularized under Louis XV. Formerly none but natives of Marseilles could be members of the community, and the city had the right of placing in it, a certain number of youth for education free of expense. These valuable privileges were surrendered, and the canons were in future only to be chosen from among such families of Provence, as could produce a title of a hundred and fifty years’ nobility on the paternal side. From that time the foundation assumed the title of “the noble and illustrious collegiate church of St. Victor.”

In a few years afterwards, the new canons, being all nobles, petitioned the king for a badge to distinguish them from the other chapters of the province; and they obtained permission to wear a cross, or rather a star of enamel, similar to that worn by the knights of Malta, slung round the neck with a deep red ribband. In the centre of the cross was represented on one side the figure of St. Victor with the dragon, and round it “Divi Victoris Massiliensis,” and on the other, the great church of the abbey, with the words “Monumentis et nobilitate insignis.”

The luxury and libertinism of the new canons were matter of notoriety and scandal, and in the great overthrow of the sceptre and priesthood, the abbey of St. Victor became one of the first objects of popular vengeance. So complete was the demolition of many parts of the buildings, that even the very stones were carried away; but in the greater part fragments of the walls are still left standing. Among the ruins are many fragments of carved work, which the monks had appropriated to the decoration of their monastery. The most beautiful of these remains were deposited in the Lyceum at Marseilles.[265]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·87.

[265] Miss Plumptre.

~July 22.~

MAGDALENE.

This name is in the church of England calendar and the almanacs.

The character of Magdalen is ably vindicated from the common and vulgar imputation by the illustrious Lardner, in a letter to the late Jonas Hanway, wherein he urges on the eminent philanthropist, the manifest impropriety of calling a receptacle for female penitents by the name of Magdalen.

_St. Mary Magdalen._

Sainte Beaume near Marseilles is a vast cavity in a mountain, thence called the mountain of the Sainte Beaume. Here Mary Magdalen has been reputed to have secluded herself during the latter years of her life, and to have died. The spot is considered as holy ground; and in former times the pilgrimages undertaken to it from very distant parts, occasioned the cavern to be converted into a chapel dedicated to the Magdalen. About the end of the thirteenth century, a convent of Dominican friars was built close to the cavern, and the chapel was from that time served by the monks of the convent. Afterwards an _hospice_, or inn, for the accommodation of pilgrims, and travellers, was added, and in this state it remained till the revolution.

* * * * *

Miss Plumptre describes an interesting visit to _Sainte Beaume_:--

From Nans we soon began to ascend the lesser mountains, which form the base of the principal one, and, after pursuing a winding path for a considerable distance, came to a plain called the Plan d’Aulps, at the foot of the great mountain. The whole side of this latter is covered with wood, except an interval in one spot, which presents to the eye an enormous rock, almost perpendicular. As this opened upon us in crossing the plain, monsieur B----, who was acquainted with the spot, said, “Now you can see the convent.” We looked around, but saw no signs of a habitation: “No,” said he, “you must not look round, you must look upwards against the rock.” We did so, and to our utter astonishment descried it about halfway up this tremendous precipice; appearing, when beheld in this point of view, as if it had no foundation, but was suspended against the rock, like any thing hung upon a nail or peg. The sensation excited by the idea of a human habitation in such a place was very singular; it was a mixture of astonishment mingled with awe, and an involuntary shuddering, at the situation of persons living in a spot which had the appearance of being wholly inaccessible: it seemed as if the house could have been built only by magic, and that by magic alone the inhabitants could have been transported into it.

Having crossed the plain, we entered the wood through which the pathway that leads up to the grotto and the convent winds. A more complete or sublime scene of solitude can scarcely be conceived. Though great numbers of the trees were cut down during the revolution, sufficient still remain to form a thick shade.

On arriving at the convent, we found that the appearance we had observed from below, was a deception occasioned by the distance; that it was built on a narrow esplanade on the rock, which just afforded room for the building and a walk before it, guarded on the side of the precipice by a parapet. It was indeed a formidable sight to look over this upon the precipice below. Both the convent and the inn were pillaged in the revolution, and little more than their shells remain.

The grotto is a fine specimen of the wild features of nature. The roof is a natural vault, and the silence of the place is only interrupted by the dripping of water from the roof at the further end, into a basin formed by the rock, which receives it below. This water is remarkably clear and limpid, and is warm in winter, but very cold in summer. It is considered of great efficacy in the cure of diseases, from the miraculous powers with which it is endowed through the sanctity of the place. The cures it performs are confined, therefore, to those who have faith enough to rely upon its efficacy. The great altar of the chapel was very magnificent, all of marble, enclosed within an iron balustrade. The iron is gone, but most of the marble remains, though much broken and scattered about; and what appeared remarkable was that a great many _fleurs-de-lys_ in mosaic, with which the altar was decorated, were left untouched. Behind the altar is a figure in marble of the Magdalen, in a recumbent posture, with her head resting upon her right hand.

* * * * *

Another point of the mountain, directly above the grotto of the Sainte Beaume, is called St. Pilon: it is nearly six hundred feet higher than the esplanade on which the convent stands, and between two-thirds and three-quarters of an English mile perpendicular height above the level of the sea. It is said, that while the Magdalen was performing her penitence in the grotto, she was constantly carried up to St. Pilon by angels seven times a day to pray; and in aftertimes a chapel in form of a rotunda was erected there in commemoration of this circumstance; but this is now destroyed. Very small models of it in bone, containing a chaplet and crucifix, used to be made at the convent, which were purchased by visiters.

* * * * *

Among the illustrious visiters to Sainte Beaume, were Francis I., with his mother, the queen his first wife, and the duchess of Alençon his sister. In commemoration of this visit, which was in 1516, a statue of Francis was erected in the grotto: it remained there nearly to the time of the revolution. In 1517, the duchess of Mantua, accompanied by a numerous train of attendants, made a pilgrimage thither, as she was passing through Provence; sixteen years afterwards it was visited by Eleanor of Austria, second wife to Francis, with the dauphin and the dukes of Orleans and Angoulême. In 1660 it was honoured with the presence of Louis XIV., his mother, the duke of Anjou, and the numerous train by whom they were attended in their progress through the south.

Since this period it does not appear that any persons of note visited the shrine from devotional motives; but it has always been a great object of the devotion of the Provençeaux, particularly of the lower class. It was often made a part of the marriage contract among them, that the husband should accompany the wife in a pilgrimage thither, within the first year after they were married; but even if no express stipulation was made, the husband who did not do so was thought to have failed very much in the attention and regard due to his wife. Whitsun week was the usual time for making these visits, and all the avenues to the grotto were at this time thronged with company, as if it had been a fair. All the way from Nans to the grotto are little oratories by the road side at certain distances, in which there used to be pictures of the Magdalen’s history.

* * * * *

Among the most illustrious guests the grotto ever received, must be reckoned Petrarch. He went at the solicitation of Humbert, dauphin of the Viennois, and of cardinal Colonna, very much against his own inclination. In a letter which he wrote thirty-four years afterwards to his intimate friend Philip of Cabassole, bishop of Cavaillon, he says, “We passed three days and three nights in this holy and horrible cavern. Wearied with the society of persons whom I had accompanied spite of myself, I often wandered alone into the neighbouring forest. I had even recourse to my usual remedy for chasing the ennui which arises from being in company not perfectly agreeable to me. My imagination at such moments recurs to my absent friends, and represents them as if present with me: though my acquaintance with you was not then of long standing, yet you came to my assistance; I fancied that you were seated by me in the grotto, and invited me to write some verses in honour of the holy penitent, towards whom you had always a particular devotion; when I immediately obeyed, and wrote such as first occurred.” The verses are little more than a poetical description of the place.

* * * * *

A carmelite friar of the seventeenth century, whose name was Jean Louis Barthelemi, but who always called himself Pierre de St. Louis, determined to amuse his solitary hours with writing a poem upon some illustrious saint. He hesitated awhile between Elias, whom he considered as the founder of his order, and Mary Magdalen, a female with whom he had been enamoured before his retirement. Love at length decided the question, and he composed a poem in twelve books, which he entitled, “_The Magdalenéïde, or Mary Magdalen at the Desert of the Sainte Beaume in Provence, a Spiritual and Christian Poem_.” This work cost five years of close application, and came forth one of the most whimsical effusions that ever flowed from the pen of pious extravagance. Some idea of it may be collected from a few extracts literally translated.

Having treated at large of the Magdalen’s irregular conduct in the early part of her life, and of her subsequent conversion, he says, “But God at length changed this coal into a ruby, this crow into a dove, this wolf into a sheep, this hell into a heaven, this nothing into something, this thistle into a lily, this thorn into a rose, this sin into grace, this impotence into power, this vice into virtue, this caldron into a mirror.” Again, speaking of the thirty years which she is reputed to have passed in the grotto and the woods adjoining, deploring the sins of her youth, he says, “The woods might make her pass for a Hamadryad, her tears might make her to be thought a Naiad;--come then, ye curious, and you may behold an aquatic nymph in the midst of a forest.” And again, in a panegyric upon her penitence, is the following very extraordinary passage: “While she occupies herself in expatiating the offences of her _preterite_ time, which was but _imperfect_, the _future_ is destined to repair the loss;--the _present_ is such that it is _indicative_ of a love which mounts to the _infinitive_, and in a degree always _superlative_, turning against herself the _accusative_.” The poet concludes his work by saying, “If you desire grace and sweetness in verses, in mine will you find them; and if you seek ingenious thoughts, you will find that the points of these are not blunted.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 62·47.

~July 23.~

LONGEVITY.

Died, at Elderslie, on the twenty-third of July, 1826, Hugh Shaw, at the great age of 113 years. Till within the previous eighteen months he walked every Saturday to Paisley, and returned, a distance of seven miles. While able to go about, he had no other means of support than what he collected by begging from door to door. After his confinement to the house, he was supported by private bounty. Previous to the last three weeks of his life, he was able to leave his bed every day. Latterly he was blind and deaf. He is said to have left strict charges that, as he had never received parish relief, he should be buried without its aid, even if he were interred without a coffin. His funeral was attended by a number of respectable inhabitants of Paisley, and by a party of the forty-second regiment, wherein he had served.[266]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 64·25.

[266] Scotch paper.

~July 24.~

REMARKABLE EARTHQUAKE.

The following communication was received too late for insertion on the fifteenth of the month, under which day the reader will be pleased to consider it to belong.

_For the Every-Day Book._

JULY 15.

On the fifteenth of July, 1757, a violent shock of an earthquake was felt on the western part of Cornwall. Its operations extended from the islands of Scilly, as far east as Leskeard, and as far as Camelford north. The noise exceeded that of thunder; the tremours of the earth were heard and seen in different mines, particularly the following:--In Carnoth Adit in St. Just, the shock was felt eighteen fathoms deep; and in Boseadzhil Downs mine, thirty fathoms. At Huel-rith mine in the parish of Lelant, the earth moved under the miners, quick, and with a trembling motion. In Herland mine, in the parish of Gwinear, the noise was heard sixty fathoms deep. In Chace-water mine, near Redruth, at seventy fathoms deep, a dull and rumbling sound. The effect on the miners may easily be conceived; they are generally a very superstitious race of men.[267]

_Cornish Hurling._

“Hurling matches” are peculiar to Cornwall. They are trials of skill between two parties, consisting of a considerable number of men, forty to sixty aside, and often between two parishes. These exercises have their name from “hurling” a wooden ball, about three inches diameter, covered with a plate of silver, which is sometimes gilt, and has commonly a motto--“Fair play is good play.” The success depends on catching the ball dexterously when thrown up, or _dealt_, and carrying it off expeditiously, in spite of all opposition from the adverse party; or, if that be impossible, throwing it into the hands of a partner, who, in his turn, exerts his efforts to convey it to his own goal, which is often three or four miles’ distance. This sport therefore requires a nimble hand, a quick eye, a swift foot, and skill in wrestling; as well as strength, good wind, and lungs. Formerly it was practised annually by those who attended corporate bodies in surveying the bounds of parishes; but from the many accidents that usually attended that game, it is now scarcely ever practised. Silver prizes used to be awarded to the victor in the games.

_Cornish Wrestling and the Hug._

The mode of wrestling in Cornwall is very different from that of Devonshire, the former is famous in the “hug,” the latter in kicking shins. No kicks are allowed in Cornwall, unless the players who are in the ring mutually agree to it. A hat is thrown in as a challenge, which being accepted by another, the combatants strip and put on a coarse loose kind of jacket, of which they take hold, and of nothing else: the play then commences. To constitute a fair fall, both shoulders must touch the ground, at, or nearly, the same moment. To guard against foul play, to decide on the falls, and manage the affairs of the day, four or six _sticklers_ (as the umpires are called) are chosen, to whom all these matters are left.

In the “Cornish hug,” Mr. Polwhele perceived the Greek palæstral attitudes finely revived; two Cornishmen in the act of wrestling, bear a close resemblance to the figures on old gems and coins.

The athletic exercise of wrestling thrives in the eastern part of Cornwall, particularly about Saint Austle and Saint Columb. At the latter place resides Polkinhorne, the champion of Cornwall, and by many considered to be entitled to the championship of the four western counties. He keeps a respectable inn there, is a very good-looking, thick-set man--still he does not look the man he is--“he has that within him that surpasses show.” A contest between him and Cann, the Devonshire champion, was expected to take place in the course of this summer; much “chaffing” passed between them for some time in the country papers, but it appears to be “no go;” no fault of the Cornish hero, “who was eager for the fray”--the Devonshire lad showed the “white feather” it is acknowledged by all. Polkinhorne has not practised wrestling for several years past; while Cann has carried off the prize at every place in Devon that he “showed” at. They certainly are both “good ones.” Parkins, a friend of the Cornish hero, is a famous hand at these games; and so was James Warren, of Redruth, till disabled in February, 1825, by over exertion on board the Cambria brig, bound for Mexico--the vessel that saved the crew and passengers of the Kent East Indiaman. He has been in a very ill state of health ever since; the East India Company and others have voted him remuneration, and many of the sufferers have acknowledged their debt of gratitude to him for saving their lives.

With a view of maintaining the superiority in amusements in which the Cornish delight, John Knill, Esq. of great eminence at St. Ives, bequeathed the income of an estate to trustees, that the same might be distributed in a variety of prizes, to those who should excel in racing, rowing, and wrestling. These games he directed should be held every fifth year for ever, around a mausoleum which he erected in 1782, on a high rock near the town of St. Ives.

The first celebration took place in July, 1801, when, according to the will of the founder, a band of virgins, all dressed in white, with four matrons, and a company of musicians, commenced the ceremony by walking in pairs to the summit of the hill, where they danced, and chanted a hymn composed for the purpose round the mausoleum, in imitation of druids around the cromlechs of the departed brave. Ten guineas were expended in a dinner at the town, of which six of the principal inhabitants partook. Some idea of the joyous scene may be conceived by reading an account of an eye-witness.

“Early in the morning the roads from Helston, Truro, and Penzance were lined with horses and vehicles of every description, while thousands of travellers on foot poured in from all quarters till noon, when the assembly formed. The wrestlers entered the ring; the troop of virgins, dressed in white, advanced with solemn step to the notes of harmony; the spectators ranged themselves along the hills; at length the mayor of St. Ives appeared in his robes of state. The signal was given; the flags were displayed in waving splendour from the towers of the castle; the sight was grand. Here the wrestlers exerted their sinewy strength; there the rowers in their various dresses of blue, white, and red, urged the gilded prows of their boats through the sparkling waves--the dashing of oars--the songs of the virgins--all joined to enliven the picture. The ladies and gentlemen of Penzance returned to an elegant dinner at the Union hotel, and a splendid ball concluded the evening entertainments.”

These games were again celebrated in 1806, 1811, 1816, and 1821, with increased fervour and renewed admiration.

The following chorus was sung by the virgins:--

Quit the bustle of the bay, Hasten, virgins, come away; Hasten to the mountain’s brow Leave, oh! leave St. Ives below; Haste to breathe a purer air, Virgins fair, and pure as fair. Quit St. Ives and all her treasures, Fly her soft voluptuous pleasures; Fly her sons, and all the wiles Lurking in their wanton smiles Fly her splendid midnight-halls, Fly the revels of her balls; Fly, oh! fly the chosen seat, Where vanity and fashion meet. Hither hasten; form the ring, Round the tomb in chorus sing, And on the loft mountain’s brow, aptly dight, Just as we should be--all in white, Leave all our baskets and our cares below.

The celebration of the foregoing game falls in this year, 1826. Should any thing particular transpire more than the foregoing, you shall hear from

SAM SAM’S SON.

_July 20, 1826._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·70.

[267] Friday, July 15, 1757, about seven in the evening, a smart shock of an earthquake was felt at Falmouth, attended with great noise, which almost every one heard, and saw the windows and things in the houses in motion. As the shock did not last above half a minute, the people were not sensible what it was till afterwards. It was thought to come from the south-west and to go eastward.--_Gentleman’s Magazine._

~July 25.~

ST. JAMES.

This name in the calendar refers to St. James the Great, who was so called “either because he was much older than the other James, or because our Lord conferred upon him some peculiar honours and favours.”[268] He was put to death under Herod.

“THE DEATH FETCH.”

A new piece under the title of “_The Death Fetch_, or the Student of Gottingen,” was brought out on this day in 1826, at the English Opera-house, in the Strand. The following notice of its derivation, with remarks on the tendency of the representation, appeared in the “Times” the next morning:--“It is a dramatic resurrection of the story of ‘The Fetches,’ which is to be found in the ‘Tales of the O’Hara Family,’ and has been introduced to the stage by Mr. Benham, the author of those tales. Considering that it is exceedingly difficult, through the medium of a dramatic entertainment, to impress the minds of an audience with those supernatural imaginings, which each individual may indulge in while reading a volume of the mysterious and wonderful, we think Mr. Benham has manifested considerable adroitness in adapting his novel to the stage. We think, at the same time, that his abilities might have been much better employed. The perpetuation of the idea of such absurd phantasies as fetches and fairies--witches and wizards--is not merely ridiculous, but it is mischievous. There was scarcely a child (and we observed many present) who last night witnessed the ‘_fetch_’ or _double_ of the Gottingen student and his mistress, and who recollects the wild glare of Miss Kelly’s eye, (fatuity itself, much less childhood, would have marked it,) that will not tremble and shudder when the servant withdraws the light from the resting-place of the infant. Such scenes cannot be useful to youth; and, leaving the skill of the actor out of the question, we know not how they can give pleasure to age. This theatre was ostensibly instituted as a sort of stay and support to legitimate ‘English opera;’ and we feel convinced that one well-written English opera, upon the model of the old schooll--that school so well described by general Burgoyne, in his preface to his own excellent work, ‘The Lord of the Manor,’ would do more credit to the proprietor of this theatre, and bring more money to his treasury, than ‘a wilderness of _Frankensteins_ and _Fetches_.’”

* * * * *

Rightly ordered minds will assent to the observations in the “Times.” Every correct thinker, too, is aware that from causes very easily to be discovered, but not necessary to trace, the “regular houses” must adopt degrading and mischievous representations or close their doors. Nor is any accession to our “stock plays” to be expected; for if perchance a piece of sterling merit were written, its author would be lamentably ignorant of “the business of the stage” were he to think of “offering it.” The “regular drama” is on its last legs.

* * * * *

Leaving the fable of the play of the “Death Fetch” altogether, and merely taking its name for the purpose of acquainting the reader with the attributes of a “_fetch_,” recourse is had in the outset to the “Tales of the O’Hara Family.” The notions of such of the good people of Ireland, as believe at this time in that “airy thing,” are set forth with great clearness by the author of that work, who is a gentleman of the sister kingdom with well-founded claims to distinction, as a man of genius and literary ability. The following is extracted preparatory to other authorities regarding “fetches” in general.

_A Tale of the O’Hara Family._

I was sauntering in hot summer weather by a little stream that now scarce strayed over its deep and rocky bed, often obliged to glance and twine round some large stone, or the trunk of a fallen tree, as if exerting a kind of animated ingenuity to escape and pursue its course. It ran through a valley, receding in almost uniform perspective as far as the eye could reach, and shut up at its extremity by a lofty hill, sweeping directly across it. The sides of the valley bore no traces of cultivation. Briers and furze scantily clothed them; while, here and there, a frittered rock protruded its bald forehead through the thin copse. No shadow broke or relieved the monotonous sheet of light that spread over every object. The spare grass and wild bushes had become parched under its influence; the earth, wherever it was seen bare, appeared dry and crumbling into dust; the rocks and stones were partially bleached white, or their few patches of moss burnt black or deep red. The whole effect was fiercely brilliant, and so unbroken, that a sparrow could not have hopped, or a grass-mouse raced across, even in the distance, without being immediately detected as an intrusion upon the scene.

The desertion and silence of the place, sympathized well with its lethargic features. Not a single cabin met my eye through the range of the valley; over head, indeed, the gables of one or two peeped down, half hidden by their sameness of colour with the weather-tanned rocks on which they hung, or with the heather that thatched them; but they and their inmates were obviously unconnected with the solitude in which I stood, their fronts and windows being turned towards the level country, and thence the paths that led to them must also have diverged. No moving thing animated my now almost supernatural picture; no cow, horse, nor sheep, saunteringly grazed along the margin of my wizard stream. The very little birds flew over it, I conveniently thought, with an agitated rapidity, or if one of them alighted on the shrivelled spray, it was but to look round for a moment with a keen mistrustful eye; and then bound into its fields of air, leaving the wild branch slightly fluttered by his action. If a sound arose, it was but what its own whispering waters made; or the herdsboy’s whistle faintly echoed from far-off fields and meadows; or the hoarse and lonesome caw of the rook, as he winged his heavy flight towards more fertile places.

Amid all this light and silence, a very aged woman, wildly habited, appeared, I know not how, before me. Her approach had not been heralded by any accompanying noise, by any rustle among the bushes, or by the sound of a footstep; my eyes were turned from the direction in which she became visible, but again unconsciously recurring to it, fixed on the startling figure.

She was low in stature, emaciated, and embrowned by age, sun, or toil, as it might be; her lank white hair hung thickly at either side of her face; a short red mantle fell loosely to her knees; under it a green petticoat descended to within some inches of her ankles; and her arms, neck, head, and feet, were bare. There she remained, at the distance of only about twenty yards, her small grey eyes vacantly set on mine; and her brows strenuously knit, but, as I thought, rather to shadow her sight from the sun, than with any expression of anger or agitation. Her look had no meaning in it; no passion, no subject. It communicated nothing with which my heart or thought held any sympathy; yet it was long, and deep, and unwincing. After standing for some time, as if spell-bound by her gaze, I felt conscious of becoming uneasy and superstitious in spite of myself; yet my sensation was rather caused by excitement than by fear, and saluting the strange visitant, I advanced towards her. She stood on a broad slab in the centre of the bed of the stream, but which was now uncovered by the water. I had to step from stone to stone in my approach, and often wind round some unusually gigantic rock that impeded my direct course; one of them was, indeed, so large, that when I came up to it, my view of the old woman was completely impeded. This roused me more: I hastily turned the angle of the rock; looked again for her in the place she had stood--but she was gone.--My eye rapidly glanced round to detect the path she had taken. I could not see her.

Now I became more disturbed. I leaned my back against the rock, and for some moments gazed along the valley. In this situation, my eye was again challenged by her scarlet mantle glittering in the sunlight, at the distance of nearly a quarter of a mile from the spot where she first appeared. She was once more motionless, and evidently looked at me. I grew too nervous to remain stationary, and hurried after her up the stony bed of the stream.

A second time she disappeared; but when I gained her second resting-place, I saw her standing on the outline of the distant mountain, now dwindled almost to the size of a crow, yet, boldly relieved against the back-ground of white clouds, and still manifested to me by her bright red mantle. A moment, and she finally evaded my view, going off at the other side of the mountain. This was not to be borne: I followed, if not courageously, determinedly. By my watch, to which I had the curiosity and presence of mind to refer, it took me a quarter of an hour to win the summit of the hill; and she, an aged woman, feeble and worn, had traversed the same space in much less time. When I stood on the ridge of the hill, and looked abroad over a widely-spreading country, unsheltered by forest, thicket, or any other hiding-place, I beheld her not.

Cabins, or, to use the more poetical name, authorized by the exquisite bard of “O’Connor’s child,” _sheelings_, were now abundantly strewed around me, and men, women, and children, at work in the fields, one and all assured me no such person had, that day, met their notice, and added, it was impossible she could have crossed without becoming visible to them. I never again beheld (excepting in my dreams) that mysterious visitant, nor have ever been able to ascertain who or what she was.

After having spoken to the peasants, I continued my walk, descending the breast of the mountain which faced the valley, but now avoiding the latter, and sauntering against the thready current of the stream, with no other feeling that I can recollect, but an impatience to ascertain its hidden source. It led me all round the base of the hill. I had a book in my pocket, with which I occasionally sat down, in an inviting solitude; when tired of it, I threw pebbles into the water, or traced outlines on the clouds; and the day insensibly lapsed, while I thus rioted in the utter listlessness of, perhaps, a diseased imagination.

Evening fell. I found myself, in its deepest shades, once more on the side of the mountain opposite that which turned towards the valley. I sat upon a small knoll, surrounded by curves and bumps, wild and picturesque in their solitude. I was listening to the shrill call of the plover, which sounded far and faint along the dreary hills, when a vivid glow of lightning, followed by a clattering thundercrash, roused me from my reverie. I was glad to take shelter in one of the cabins, which I have described as rather numerously strewed in that direction.

The poor people received me with an Irish _cead mille phalteagh_--“a hundred thousand welcomes”--and I soon sat in comfort by a blazing turf fire, with eggs, butter, and oaten bread, to serve my need as they might.

The family consisted of an old couple, joint proprietors of my house of refuge; a son and daughter, nearly full grown; and a pale, melancholy-looking girl of about twenty years of age, whom I afterwards understood to be niece to the old man, and since her father’s death, under his protection. From my continued inquiries concerning my witch of the glen, our conversation turned on superstitions generally. With respect to the ancient lady herself, the first opinion seemed to be--“the Lord only knows what she was:”--but a neighbour coming in, and reporting the sudden illness of old Grace Morrissy, who inhabited a lone cabin on the edge of the hill, my anecdote instantly occurred to the auditory, one and all; and now, with alarmed and questioning eyes, fixed on each other, they concluded I had seen her “fetch:” and determined amongst themselves that she was to die before morning.

The “fetch” was not entirely new to me, but I had never before been afforded so good an opportunity of becoming acquainted with its exact nature and extent among the Irish peasantry. I asked questions, therefore, and gathered some--to me--valuable information.

In Ireland, a “fetch” is the supernatural fac-simile of some individual, which comes to ensure to its original a happy longevity, or immediate dissolution; if seen in the morning the one event is predicted; if in the evening, the other.

During the course of my questions, and of the tales and remarks to which they gave rise, I could observe that the pale, silent girl, listened to all that was said with a deep, assenting interest: or, sighing profoundly, contributed only a few melancholy words of confirmation. Once, when she sighed, the old man remarked--“No blame to you, Moggy mavourneen, fur it’s you that lives to know it well, God help you, this blessed night.” To these words she replied with another long-drawn aspiration, a look upwards, and an agitation of feature, which roused my curiosity, if not my sympathy, in no ordinary degree. I hazarded queries, shaped with as much delicacy as I could, and soon learned that she had seen, before his death, the “fetch” of her beloved father. The poor girl was prevailed on to tell her own story; in substance as follows:--

Her father had, for some days, been ill of a fever. On a particular evening, during his illness, she had to visit the house of an acquaintance at a little distance, and for this purpose, chose a short cut across some fields. Scarcely arrived at the stile that led from the first into the second field, she happened to look back, and beheld the figure of her father rapidly advancing in her footsteps. The girl’s fear was, at first, only human; she imagined that, in a paroxysm, her father had broken from those who watched his feverish bed; but as she gazed, a consciousness crept through her, and the action of the vision served to heighten her dread. It shook its head and hand at her in an unnatural manner, as if commanding her to hasten on. She did so. On gaining the second stile, at the limit of the second field, she again summoned courage to look behind, and again saw the apparition standing on the first stile she had crossed, and repeating its terrible gesticulations. Now she ran wildly to the cottage of her friend, and only gained the threshold when she fainted. Having recovered, and related what she saw, a strong party accompanied her by a winding way, back to her father’s house, for they dared not take that one by which she had come. When they arrived, the old man was a corpse; and as her mother had watched the death-struggle during the girl’s short absence, there could be no question of his not having left his bed in the interim.

The man who had come into us, and whom my humble host called “gossip,” now took up the conversation, and related, with mystery and pathos, the appearance to himself of the “fetch” of an only child. He was a widower, though a young man, and he wept during the recital. I took a note of his simple narrative, nearly in his own words; and a rhyming friend has since translated them into metre.

The mother died when the child was born, And left me her baby to keep; I rocked its cradle the night and morn, Or, silent, hung o’er it to weep

’Twas a sickly child through its infancy, Its cheeks were so ashy pale; Till it broke from my arms to walk in glee Out in the sharp fresh gale.

And then my little girl grew strong, And laughed the hours away; Or sung me the merry lark’s mountain song, Which he taught her at break of day.

When she wreathed her hair in thicket bowers, With the hedge-rose and hare-bell, blue; I called her my May, in her crown of flowers, And her smile so soft and new.

And the rose, I thought, never shamed her cheek, But rosy and rosier made it; And her eye of blue did more brightly break, Through the blue-bell that strove to shade it.

One evening I left her asleep in her smiles, And walked through the mountains, lonely; I was far from my darling, ah! many long miles, And I thought of her, and her only;

She darkened my path like a troubled dream, In that solitude far and drear; I spoke to my child! but she did not seem To hearken with human ear;

She only looked with a dead, dead eye, And a wan, wan cheek of sorrow-- I knew her “fetch!” she was called to die, And she died upon the morrow.

* * * * *

Our young readers are required to observe that these “Tales of the O’Hara Family” are merely tales, invented to amuse the mind, or create wonder. Yet things of this sort are still believed by ignorant people, and in the dark ages they were credited, or affected to be credited, by those who ought to have known better. Mr. Brand has heaped together a great many of these superstitions.

* * * * *

Besides general notices of death, certain families were reputed to have particular warnings; some by the appearance of a bird, and others by the figure of a tall woman in white, who shrieked about the house. This in Ireland is called the _banshee_, or “the shrieking woman.”

* * * * *

In some of the great families an admonishing demon or genius was supposed to be a visiter. The family of Rothmurchas is alleged to have had the _bodack au dun_, “the ghost of the hill;” and the Kinchardines “the spectre of the bloody hand.” Gartinberg-house was said to have been haunted by Bodach Gartin, and Tulloch Gorms by _Maug Monlack_, or “the girl with the hairy left hand.”

The highlanders, like the Irish, imagined their deaths to have been foretold by the cries of the _benshi_, or “the fairies’ wife,” along the paths that their funerals were to take.

* * * * *

In Wales--the exhalations in churchyards, called corpse candles, denoted coming funerals. Very few of the good people of Carmarthen died without imagining they saw their corpse candles, or death-lights.

In Northumberland, the vulgar saw their _waff_, or “whiff,” as a death token, which is similar to the Scotch _wraith_, or the appearance of a living person to himself or others.

* * * * *

In some parts of Scotland, the “fetch” was called the _fye_. It was observed to a woman in her ninety-ninth year, that she could not long survive. “Aye,” said she, with great indignation, “what _fye-token_ do you see about me?” This is quoted by Brand from the “Statistical Account of Scotland,” vol. xxi. p. 150; and from the same page he cites an anecdote to show with what indifference death is sometimes contemplated.

James Mackie, by trade a wright, was asked by a neighbour for what purpose he had some fine deal in his barn. “It is timber for my coffin,” quoth James. “Sure,” replies the neighbour, “you mean not to make your own coffin. You have neither resolution nor ability for the task.” “Hout away man,” says James, “if I were once begun, I’ll soon ca’t by hand.” The hand, but not the heart, failed him, and he left the task of making it to a younger operator.

This anecdote brought to Mr. Brand’s remembrance what certainly happened in a village in the county of Durham, where it is the etiquette for a person not to go out of the house till the burial of a near relation. An honest simple countryman, whose wife lay a corpse in his house, was seen walking slowly up the village: a neighbour ran to him, and asked “Where in heaven, John, are you going?” “To the joiner’s shop,” said poor John, “to see them make my wife’s coffin; it will be a little diversion for me.”

* * * * *

In Cumberland, _wraiths_ are called _swarths_, and in other places “fetches.” Their business was to appear at the moment preceding the death of the person whose figure they assumed. “Sometimes,” says Brand, “there is a greater interval between the appearance and the death.”

According to Dr. Jamieson, the appearance of the _wraith_ was not to be taken as indicating immediate death, “although, in all cases, it was viewed as a premonition of the disembodied state.” The season of the day wherein it was seen, was understood to presage the time of the person’s departure. If early in the morning, it was a token of long life and even old age; if in the evening, it indicated that death was at hand.

* * * * *

A worthy old lady of exceeding veracity, frequently acquainted the editor of the _Every-Day Book_ with her supposed superhuman sights. They were habitual to her. One of these was of an absent daughter, whom she expected on a visit, but who had not arrived, when she left her chamber to go to a lower part of the house. She was surprised on meeting her on the stairs, for she had not heard the street door opened. She expressed her surprise, the daughter smiled and stood aside to let her mother pass, who naturally as she descended, reached out her hand to rest it on her daughter’s arm as assistance to her step; but the old lady mistook and fell to the bottom of the stairs. In fact her daughter was not there, but at her own home. The old lady lived some years after this, and her daughter survived her; though, according to her mother’s imagination and belief, she ought to have died in a month or two.

* * * * *

In 1823, the editor of this work being mentally disordered from too close application, left home in the afternoon to consult a medical friend, and obtain relief under his extreme depression. In Fleet-street, on the opposite side of the way to where he was walking, he saw a pair of legs devoid of body, which he was persuaded were his own legs, though not at all like them. A few days afterwards when worse in health, he went to the same friend for a similar purpose, and on his way saw himself on precisely the same spot as he had imagined he had seen his legs, but with this difference that the person was entire, and thoroughly a likeness as to feature, form, and dress. The appearance seemed as real as his own existence. The illusion was an effect of disordered imagination.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 64·20.

[268] Mr. Audley.

~July 26.~

ST. ANN.

She was the mother of the Virgin Mary, and is a saint of great magnitude in the Romish church. Her name is in the church of England calendar, and the almanacs.

There are curious particulars concerning Ann and her husband St. Joachim, in vol. i. col. 1008.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·67.

~July 27.~

FALL OF NANNEU OAK.

This is a remarkable incident in the annals of events relating to the memorials of past times.

THE HAUNTED OAK OF NANNEU,

_Near Dolgelly, in Merionethshire_.

On the twenty-seventh of July, 1813, sir Richard Colt Hoare, bart., the elegant editor of “Giraldus Cambrensis,” was at _Nanneu_, “the ancient seat of the ancient family of the _Nanneus_,” and now the seat of sir Robert Williams Vaughan, bart. During that day he took a sketch of a venerable oak at that place, within the trunk of which, according to Welsh tradition, the body of Howel Sele, a powerful chieftain residing at Nanneu, was immured by order of his rival Owen Glyndwr. In the night after the sketch was taken, this aged tree fell to the ground. An excellent etching of the venerable baronet’s drawing by Mr. George Cuitt of Chester, perpetuates the portrait of this celebrated oak in its last moments. The engraving on the next page is a mere extract from this masterly etching.

It stood alone, a wither’d oak Its shadow fled, its branches broke; Its riven trunk was knotted round, Its gnarled roots o’erspread the ground Honours that were from tempests won, In generations long since gone, A scanty foliage yet was seen, Wreathing its hoary brows with green, Like to a crown of victory On some old warrior’s forehead grey, And, as it stood, it seem’d to speak To winter winds in murmurs weak, Of times that long had passed it by And left it desolate, to sigh Of what it was, and seem’d to wail, A shadeless spectre, shapeless, pale.

_Mrs. Radclife._[269]

The charm which compels entrance to Mr. Cuitt’s print within every portfolio of taste, is the management of his point in the representation of the beautiful wood and mountain scenery around the tree, to which the editor of the _Every-Day Book_ would excite curiosity in those who happen to be strangers to the etching. But this gentleman’s fascinating style is independent of the immediate object on which he has exercised it, namely, “the spirit’s Blasted Tree,” an oak of so great fame, that sir Walter Scott celebrates its awful distinction among the descendants of our aboriginal ancestors, by the lines of “Marmion,” affixed to the annexed representation.

All nations have their omens drear, Their legions wild of woe and fear, To Cambria look--the peasant see, Bethink him of Glendowerdy, And shun “the spirit’s Blasted Tree.”

_Marmion._

“The spirit’s Blasted Tree” grew in a picturesque part of Wales, abounding with local superstitions and memorials of ancient times. At the distance of a few miles from the beautiful valley of _Tal y Lyn_, the aspect of the country is peculiarly wild. The hills almost meet at their basis, and change their aspect. Instead of verdure, they have a general rude and savage appearance. The sides are broken into a thousand forms; some are spiring and sharp pointed; but the greater part project forward, and impend in such a manner as to render the apprehension of their fall tremendous. A few bushes grow among them, but their dusky colour as well as the darkness of the rocks only add horror to the scene. One of the precipices is called _Pen y Delyn_, from its resemblance to a harp. Another is styled _Llam y Lladron_, or “the Thieves’ Leap,” from a tradition that thieves were brought there and thrown down. On the left is the rugged and far-famed height of _Cader Idris_, and beneath it a small lake called _Llyn y tri Graienyn_, or “the lake of the Three Grains,” which are three vast rocks tumbled from the neighbouring mountain, which the peasants say were “Three Grains” that had fallen into the shoe of the great _Idris_, and which he threw out here, as soon as he felt them hurting his foot.

From thence, by a bad road, Mr. Pennant, in one of his “Tours in Wales,” reached _Nanneu_. “The way to _Nanneu_ is a continual ascent of two miles; and perhaps it is the highest situation of any gentleman’s house in Britain. The estate is covered with fine woods, which clothe all the sides of the dingles for many miles.”

The continuation of Mr. Pennant’s description brings us to our tree as he saw it: “On the road side is a venerable oak in its last stage of decay, and pierced by age into the form of a gothic arch; yet its present growth is twenty-seven feet and a half. The name is very classical, _Derwen Ceubren yr Ellyll_, ‘the hollow oak, the haunt of demons.’ How often has not warm fancy seen the fairy tribe revel round its trunk! or may not the visionary eye have seen the Hamadryad burst from the bark of its coeval tree.”

The inscription beneath Mr. Cuitt’s print mentions, that when sir Richard Colt Hoare sketched this oak, it was within the kitchen-garden walls of sir Robert W. Vaughan.

“Above Nanneu,” Mr. Pennant mentions “a high rock, with the top incircled with a dike of loose stones: this had been a British post, the station, perhaps, of some tyrant, it being called _Moel Orthrwn_, or ‘the Hill of Oppression.’” Mr. Pennant says, the park is “remarkable for its very small but very excellent venison:” an affirmation which may be taken for correct, inasmuch as the tour of an antiquary in such a region greatly assists tasteful discrimination. Within the park Mr. Pennant saw “a mere compost of cinders and ashes,” the ruins of the house of Howel Sele, whose body is alleged to have been buried in “the spirit’s Blasted Tree” by Owen Glyndwr.

* * * * *

Owen Glyndwr, or Glendower, is rendered popular in England by the most popular of our dramatic poets, from whom it may be appropriate to take the outlines of his poetical character, in connection with the legend of Howel Sele’s singular burial.

The first mention of Owen Glyndwr, in the works of our great bard, is in “King Richard II.” by Henry of Lancaster, afterwards king Henry IV. Before he passes over into Wales, he says in the camp at Bristol--

--------------------- Come lords, away, To fight with Glendower and his complices, A while to work, and after, holiday.

This line relating to Glendower, Theobald deemed an interpolation on Shakspeare, and it has been so regarded by some subsequent commentators. We have “Owen Glendower,” however, as one of the dramatis personæ in “Henry IV.” wherein he is first mentioned by the earl of Westmoreland as “the irregular and wild Glendower:” king Henry calls him “the great magician, damn’d Glendower;” Hotspur terms him “great Glendower;” and Falstaff tells prince Henry--

“There’s villainous news abroad--that same mad fellow of the north, Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado--and swore the devil his true liegeman--he is there too; that devil Glendower. Art thou not horribly afraid?”

In the conference between “Glendower” and his adherents, he says to Henry Percy:--

-------------------Sit good cousin Hotspur: For by that name as oft as Lancaster Doth speak of you, his cheeks look pale; and, with A rising sigh, he wisheth you in heaven. _Hot._ And you in hell, as often as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of. _Glend._ I cannot blame him: at my nativity The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets; and--at my birth, The frame and huge foundation of the earth Shak’d like a coward---- The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes; The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields. These signs have mark’d me extraordinary; And all the courses of my life do show, I am not in the roll of common men. Where is he living,--clipp’d in with the sea, That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,-- Which calls me pupil, or hath read to me? And bring him out, that is but woman’s son, Can trace me in the tedious ways of art, And hold me pace in deep experiments.-- I can call spirits from the vasty deep-- I can teach thee, cousin, to command the devil.

On occasion of the chiefs taking leave of their wives, before they separate for battle with the king, Glendower gives proof of his supernatural powers. The wife of Mortimer proposes to soothe her husband by singing to him in her native Welsh, if he will repose himself.

_Mort._ With all my heart, I’ll sit-- _Glend._ Do so. And those musicians that shall play to you, Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence; Yet straight they shall be here: sit, and attend. [_The music plays._ _Hot._ Now, I perceive, the devil understands Welsh-- By’r lady, he’s a good musician.

Without going into the history of Owen Glyndwr, it may be observed that he claimed the throne of Wales, and that the presages which Shakspeare ascribed to his birth, are the legends of old chronicles. Howel Sele, of Nanneu, was his first cousin, yet he adhered to the house of Lancaster, and was therefore opposed to Owen’s pretensions. The abbot of Cymmer, in hopes of reconciling them, brought them together, and apparently effected his purpose. Howel was reckoned the best archer of his day. Owen while walking out with him observed a doe feeding, and told him there was a fine mark for him. Howel bent his bow, and, pretending to aim at the doe, suddenly turned and discharged the arrow full at the breast of Glyndwr, who wearing armour beneath his clothes received no hurt. He seized on Sele for his treachery, burnt his house, and hurried him away from the place; nor was it known how he was disposed of till forty years after, when the skeleton of a large man, such as Howel, was discovered in the hollow of the great oak before described; wherein it was supposed Owen had immured him in reward of his perfidy. While Owen was carrying him off, his rescue was attempted by his relation Gryffydd ap Geoyn of Ganllwyd in Ardudwy, but he was defeated by Owen with great loss of men, and his houses of Berthlwyd and Cefn Coch were reduced to ashes.[270]

* * * * *

Sir Walter Scott to illustrate his lines in “Marmion,” inserts, among the notes on that poem, a legendary tale by the rev. George Warrington with this preface:--

“The event, on which this tale is founded, is preserved by tradition in the family of the Vaughans of Hengwyrt; nor is it entirely lost, even among the common people, who still point out this oak to the passenger. The enmity between the two Welsh chieftains, Howel Sele and Owen Glendwr, was extreme, and marked by vile treachery in the one, and ferocious cruelty in the other. The story is somewhat changed and softened, as more favourable to the characters of the two chiefs, and as better answering the purpose of poetry, by admitting the passion of pity, and a greater degree of sentiment in the description. Some trace of Howel Sele’s mansion was to be seen a few years ago, and may perhaps be still visible in the park of Nanneu, now belonging to sir Robert Vaughan, baronet, in the wild and romantic tracts of Merionethshire. The abbey mentioned passes under two names, Vener and Cymmer. The former is retained, as more generally used.”

THE SPIRIT’S BLASTED TREE.

_Ceubren yr Ellyll._

Through Nannau’s Chace as Howel passed, A chief esteemed both brave and kind, Far distant borne, the stag-hound’s cry Came murmuring on the hollow wind.

Starting, he bent an eager ear,-- How should the sounds return again? His hounds lay wearied from the chace, And all at home his hunter train.

Then sudden anger flash’d his eye, And deep revenge he vowed to take On that bold man who dared to force His red deer from the forest brake.

Unhappy chief! would nought avail, No signs impress thy heart with fear, Thy lady’s dark mysterious dream, Thy warning from the hoary seer?

Three ravens gave the note of death, As through mid air they winged their way; Then o’er his head, in rapid flight, They croak,--they scent their destined prey.

Ill omened bird! as legends say, Who hast the wonderous power to know, While health fills high the throbbing veins, The fated hour when blood must flow.

Blinded by rage alone he passed, Nor sought his ready vassals’ aid: But what his fate lay long unknown, For many an anxious year delayed.

A peasant marked his angry eye, He saw him reach the lake’s dark bourne, He saw him near a blasted oak, But never from that hour return.

Three days passed o’er, no tidings came;-- Where should the chief his steps delay? With wild alarm the servants ran, Yet knew not where to point their way.

His vassals ranged the mountain’s height, The covert close, and wide-spread plain; But all in vain their eager search, They ne’er must see their lord again.

Yet fancy, in a thousand shapes, Bore to his home the chief once more Some saw him on high Moel’s top, Some saw him on the winding shore.

With wonder fraught the tale went round, Amazement chained the hearer’s tongue; Each peasant felt his own sad loss, Yet fondly o’er the story hung.

Oft by the moon’s pale shadowy light, His aged nurse, and steward grey, Would lean to catch the stoned sounds, Or mark the flittering spirit stray.

Pale lights on Cader’s rocks were seen, And midnight voices heard to moan; ’Twas even said the blasted oak, Convulsive, heaved a hollow groan:

And, to this day, the peasant still, With cautious fear, avoids the ground; In each wild branch a spectre sees, And trembles at each rising sound.

Ten annual suns had held their course, In summer’s smile, or winter’s storm; The lady shed the widowed tear, As oft she traced his manly form.

Yet still to hope her heart would cling As o’er the mind illusions play,-- Of travel fond, perhaps her lord To distant lands had steered his way.

’Twas now November’s cheerless hour, Which drenching rain and clouds deface; Dreary bleak Robell’s tract appeared, And dull and dank each valley’s space.

Loud o’er the wier the hoarse flood fell, And dashed the foamy spray on high; The west wind bent the forest tops, And angry frowned the evening sky.

A stranger passed Llanelltid’s bourne, His dark-grey steed with sweat besprent, Which, wearied with the lengthened way, Could scarcely gain the hill’s ascent.

The portal reached,--the iron bell Loud sounded round the outward wall Quick sprang the warder to the gate, To know what meant the clamorous call.

“O! lead me to your lady soon; Say,--it is my sad lot to tell, To clear the fate of that brave knight, She long has proved she loved so well.”

Then, as he crossed the spacious hall, The menials look surprise and fear: Still o’er his harp old Modred hung, And touched the notes for griefs worn ear.

The lady sat amidst her train; A mellowed sorrow marked her look: Then, asking what his mission meant, The graceful stranger sighed and spoke:--

“O could I spread one ray of hope, One moment raise thy soul from woe, Gladly my tongue would tell its tale, My words at ease unfettered flow!

“Now, lady, give attention due, The story claims thy full belief: E’en in the worst events of life, Suspense removed is some relief.

“Though worn by care, see Madoc here, Great Glyndwr’s friend, thy kindred’s foe, Ah, let his name no anger raise, For now that mighty chief lies low.

“E’en from the day, when, chained by fate, By wizard’s dream or potent spell, Lingering from sad Salopia’s field, ’Reft of _his_ aid the Percy fell:--

“E’en from that day misfortune still, As if for violated faith, Pursued him with unwearied step Vindictive still for Hotspur’s death.

“Vanquished at length, the Glyndwr fled Where winds the Wye her devious flood; To find a casual shelter there, In some lone cot, or desert wood.

“Clothed in a shepherd’s humble guise, He gained by toil his scanty bread; He who had Cambria’s sceptre borne, And her brave sons to glory led!

“To penury extreme, and grief, The chieftain fell a lingering prey; I heard his last few faultering words, Such as with pain I now convey.

“‘To Sele’s sad widow bear the tale Nor let our horrid secret rest; Give but _his_ corse to sacred earth, Then may my parting soul be blest.’--

“Dim waxed the eye that fiercely shone, And faint the tongue that proudly spoke And weak that arm, still raised to me, Which oft had dealt the mortal stroke.

“How could I _then_ his mandate bear Or how his last behest obey? A rebel deemed, with him I fled; With him I shunned the light of day.

“Proscribed by Henry’s hostile rage, My country lost, despoiled my land, Desperate, I fled my native soil, And fought on Syria’s distant strand.

“O, had thy long lamented lord The holy cross and banner viewed, Died in the sacred cause! who fell Sad victim of a private feud!

“Led, by the ardour of the chace, Far distant from his own domain; From where Garthmaelan spreads her shades, The Glyndwr sought the opening plain.

“With head aloft, and antlers wide, A red buck roused, then crossed in view, Stung with the sight, and wild with rage, Swift from the wood fierce Howel flew.

“With bitter taunt, and keen reproach, He, all impetuous, poured his rage, Reviled the chief as weak in arms, And bade him loud the battle wage.

“Glyndwr for once restrained his sword, And, still averse, the fight delays; But softened words, like oil to fire, Made anger more intensely blaze.

“They fought; and doubtful long the fray! The Glyndwr gave the fatal wound! Still mournful must my tale proceed, And its last act all dreadful sound.

“How could we hope for wished retreat His eager vassals ranging wide? His bloodhounds’ keen sagacious scent, O’er many a trackless mountain tried?

“I marked a broad and blasted oak, Scorched by the lightning’s livid glare; Hollow its stem from branch to root, And all its shrivelled arms were bare.

“Be this, I cried, his proper grave!-- (The thought in me was deadly sin.) Aloft we raised the hapless chief, And dropped his bleeding corpse within.”

A shriek from all the damsels burst, That pierced the vaulted roofs below, While horror-struck the lady stood, A living form of sculptured woe.

With stupid stare, and vacant gaze, Full on his face her eyes were cast, Absorbed!--she lost her present grief, And faintly thought of things long past.

Like wild-fire o’er the mossy heath, The rumour through the hamlet ran: The peasants crowd at morning dawn, To hear the tale,--behold the man.

He led them near the blasted oak, Then, conscious, from the scene withdrew: The peasant’s work with trembling haste, And lay the whitened bones to view!--

Back they recoiled!--the right hand still, Contracted, grasped a rusty sword; Which erst in many a battle gleamed, And proudly decked their slaughtered lord.

They bore the corse to Vener’s shrine, With holy rites, and prayers addressed; Nine white-robed monks the last dirge sang, And gave the angry spirit rest.

* * * * *

It must be remembered that the real history of Howel Sele’s death is to be collected from Mr. Pennant’s account of their sudden feud already related; though he by no means distinctly states whether Glyndwr caused him to be placed in the oak after he had been slain, or “immured” him alive and left him to perish. It is rather to be inferred that he was condemned by his kinsmen to the latter fate. According to Pennant he perished in the year 1402, and we see that his living burial place survived him, pierced and hallowed by the hand of time, upwards of four centuries.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’S OAK.

In an elegant volume called “_Sylvan Sketches_, a companion to the park and the shrubbery, with illustrations from the works of the poets by the author of the _Flora Domestica_,” there is a delightful assemblage of poetical passages on the oak, with this memorial of a very celebrated one:--

“An oak was planted at Penshurst on the day of sir Philip Sidney’s birth, of which Martyn speaks as standing in his time, and measuring twenty-two feet round. This tree has since been _felled_, it is said by _mistake_; would it be impossible to make a similar _mistake_ with regard to the _mistaker_?

“Several of our poets have celebrated this tree: Ben Jonson in his lines to Penshurst, says,--

‘Thou hast thy walks for health as well as sport; Thy mount to which thy Dryads do resort, Where Pan and Bacchus their high seats have made, Beneath the broad beech and the chesnut shade, That taller tree which of a nut was set, At his great birth where all the muses met. There in the writhed bark are cut the names Of many a sylvan taken with his flames.’

“It is mentioned by Waller:--

‘Go, boy, and carve this passion on the bark Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark Of noble Sidney’s birth.’

“Southey says, speaking of Penshurst--

--------‘Sidney here was born. Sidney than whom no greater, braver man, His own delightful genius ever feigned, Illustrating the vales of Arcady With courteous courage, and with loyal loves. Upon his natal day the acorn here Was planted; it grew up a stately oak, And in the beauty of its strength it stood And flourished, when its perishable part Had mouldered dust to dust. That stately oak Itself hath mouldered now, but Sidney’s name Endureth in his own immortal works.’

“This tree was frequently called the ‘bare oak,’ by the people of the neighbourhood, from a resemblance it was supposed to bear to the oak which gave name to the county of Berkshire. Tradition says, that when the tenants went to the park gates as it was their custom to do to meet the earl of Leicester, when they visited that castle, they used to adorn their hats with boughs from this tree. Within the hollow of its trunk was a seat which contained five or six persons with ease and convenience.”

THE OAK OF MAMRE.

We are told that this oak was standing in the fourth century. Isidore affirms that when he was a child in the reign of the emperor Constantius, he was shown a turpentine tree very old, which declared its age by its bulk, as the tree under which Abraham dwelt; that the heathens had a surprising veneration for it, and distinguished it by an honourable appellation.[271] Some affirm that it existed within the last four centuries.

At the dispersion of the Jews under Adrian, about the year 134, “an incredible number of all ages and sexes were sold at the same price as horses, in a very famous fair called the fair of the _turpentine tree_: whereupon the Jews had an abhorrence for that fair.” St. Jerome mentions the place at which the Jews were sold under the name of “Abraham’s tent;” where, he says, “is kept an annual fair very much frequented.” This place “on Mamre’s fertile plains,” is alleged to have been the spot where Abraham entertained the angels.[272]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·50.

[269] See this lady’s “Posthumous Works,” vol. iv. _Stonehenge_ stanza 53, from whence these lines are capriciously altered.

[270] Pennant.

[271] Bayle, art. Abraham.

[272] Bayle, art. Barcochebas.

~July 28.~

ST. DECLAN.

The festival of this saint, who was the first bishop of Ardmore, in the county of Waterford, is held on the twenty-fourth of the month. The brief memoir of St. Declan, by Alban Butler, did not seem to require notice of him on that day; but the manner wherein the feast was celebrated in 1826, is so remarkably particularized in an Irish paper, as to claim attention.

_Ardmore and its Patron._

St. Declan is represented to have been the friend and companion of St. Patrick, and, according to tradition, Ardmore was an episcopal see, established in the fifth century by St. Declan, who was born in this county, and was of the family of the Desii. He travelled for education to Rome, resided there for some years, was afterwards ordained by the pope, returned to his own country about the year 402, and about that time founded the abbey and was made bishop of Ardmore. He lived to a great age; and his successor, St. Ulthan, was alive in the year 550. A stone, a holy well, and a dormitory, in the churchyard, still bear the name of St. Declan. “St. Declan’s stone” is on the beach; it is a large rock, resting on two others, which elevate it a little above the ground. On the twenty-fourth of July, the festival of the saint, numbers of the lowest class do penance on their bare knees around the stone, and some, with great pain and difficulty, creep under it, in expectation thereby of curing or preventing, what it is much more likely to create, rheumatic affections of the back. In the churchyard is the “dormitory of St. Declan,” a small low building, held in great veneration by the people in the neighbourhood, who frequently visit it in order to procure some of the earth, which is supposed to cover the relics of the saint.[273]

On the twenty-fourth of July, 1826, several thousand persons of all ages and both sexes assembled at Ardmore. The greater part of the extensive strand, which forms the western side of the bay, was literally covered by a dense mass of people. Tents and stands for the sale of whiskey, &c. were placed in parallel rows along the shore; the whole at a distance bore the appearance of a vast encampment. Each tent had its green ensign waving upon high, bearing some patriotic motto. One of large dimensions, which floated in the breeze far above the others, exhibited the words “Villiers Stuart for ever.”

At an early hour, those whom a religious feeling had drawn to the spot, commenced their devotional exercises by passing under the holy rock of St. Declan. The male part of the assemblage were clad in trowsers and shirts, or in shirts alone; the females, in petticoats pinned above the knees, and some of the more devout in chemises only. Two hundred and ninety persons of both sexes thus prepared, knelt at one time indiscriminately around the stone, and passed separately under it to the other side. This was not effected without considerable pain and difficulty, owing to the narrowness of the passage, and the sharpness of the rocks. Stretched at full length on the ground on the face and stomach, each devotee moved forward, as if in the act of swimming, and thus squeezed or dragged themselves through. Upwards of eleven hundred persons of both sexes, in a state of half nudity, were observed to undergo the ceremony in the course of the day. A reverend gentleman, who stood by part of the time, was heard to exclaim, “O, great is their faith.” Several of their reverences passed and re-passed to and from the chapel close by the “holy rock,” during the day. The “holy rock,” of so great veneration, is believed to be endued with miraculous powers. It is said to have been wafted from Rome upon the surface of the ocean, at the period of St. Declan’s founding his church at Ardmore, and to have borne on its top a large bell for the church tower, and vestments for the saint.

At a short distance from this sacred memorial, on a cliff overhanging the sea, is the well of the saint. Thither the crowds repair after the devotions at the rock are ended. Having drank plentifully of its water, they wash their legs and feet in the stream which issues from it, and, telling their beads, sprinkle themselves and their neighbours with the fluid. These performances over, the grave of the patron saint is then resorted to. Hundreds at a time crowded around it, and crush each other in their eagerness to obtain a handful of the earth which is believed to cover the mortal remains of Declan. A woman stood breast high in the grave, and served out a small portion of its clay to each person requiring it, from whom in return she received a penny or halfpenny for the love of the saint. The abode of the saint’s earthly remains has sunk to the depth of nearly four feet, its clay having been scooped away by the finger nails of the pious. A human skull of large dimensions was placed at the head of the tomb, before which the people bowed, believing it to be the identical skull of the tutelar saint.

This visit to St. Declan’s grave completed the devotional exercises of a day held in greater honour than the sabbath, by those who venerate the saint’s name, and worship at his shrine. The tents which throughout the day, from the duties paid to the “patron,” had been thronged with the devotionalists of the morning, resounded from evening till daybreak, with sounds inspired by potations of whiskey; and the scene is so characterised by its reporter as to seem exaggerated.[274]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·65.

[273] Ryland’s History of Waterford.

[274] Waterford Mail.

~July 29.~

ST. MARTHA.

On the festival of this saint of the Romish church, a great fair is held at Beaucaire, in Languedoc, to which merchants and company resort from a great distance round. It is a great mart for smugglers and contraband traders, and is the harvest of the year both to Beaucaire and Tarascon; for, as the former is not large enough to accommodate the influx of people, Tarascon, in Provence, which is separated from it by the Rhone, is generally equally full.

* * * * *

Tarascon, according to a popular tradition, has its name from a terrible beast, a sort of dragon, known by the name of the _tarasque_, which, in ancient days, infested the neighbourhood, ravaging the country, and killing every thing that came in its way, both man and beast, and eluding every endeavour made to take and destroy it, till St. Martha arrived in the town, and taking compassion on the general distress, went out against the monster, and brought him into the town in chains, when the people fell upon him and slew him.

St. Martha, according to the chronicles of Provence, had fled from her own country in company with her sister Mary Magdalen, her brother Lazarus, and several other saints both male and female. They landed at Marseilles, and immediately spread themselves about the country to preach to the people. It fell to the lot of St. Martha to bend her steps towards Tarascon, where she arrived at the fortunate moment above mentioned. She continued to her dying day particularly to patronise the place, and was at her own request interred there. Her tomb is shown in a subterranean chapel belonging to the principal church. It bears her figure in white marble, as large as life, in a recumbent posture, and is a good piece of sculpture, uninjured by the revolution. In the church a series of paintings represent the escape of St. Martha and her companions from their persecutors, their landing in Provence, and some of their subsequent adventures. She is the patron saint of Tarascon.

* * * * *

It is presumed that the story of a beast ravaging the neighbouring country had its origin in fact; but that instead of a dreadful dragon it was a hyena. Bouche, however, in his _Essai sur l’Histoire de Provence_, while he mentions the popular tradition of the dragon, makes no mention of the supposed hyena, which he probably would have done had there been any good ground for believing in its existence.

Be this as it may, the fabulous story of the dragon was the occasion of establishing an annual festival at Tarascon, the reputed origin of which seems no less fabulous than the story itself. According to the tradition, the queen, consort to the reigning sovereign of the country, unaccountably fell into a deep and settled melancholy, from which she could not be roused. She kept herself shut up in her chamber, and would not see or be seen by any one; medicines and amusements were in vain, till the ladies of Tarascon thought of celebrating a festival, which they hoped, from its novelty might impress the mind of their afflicted sovereign.

A figure was made to represent the “tarasque,” with a terrible head, a terrible mouth, with two terrible rows of teeth, wings on its back, and a terrible long tail. At the festival of St. Martha, by whom the “tarasque” was chained, this figure was led about for eight days successively, by eight of the principal ladies in the town, elegantly dressed, and accompanied by a band of music. The procession was followed by an immense concourse of people, in their holyday clothes; and during the progress, alms were collected for the poor. All sorts of gaieties were exhibited; balls, concerts, and shows of every kind--nothing, in short, was omitted to accomplish the purpose for which the festival was instituted.

And her majesty condescended to be amused: that hour her melancholy ceased, and never after returned. Whether the honour of this happy change was wholly due to the procession, or whether the saint might not assist the efforts of the patriotic ladies of Tarascon, by working a miracle in favour of the restoration of the queen’s health, is not on record; but her malady never returned; and the people of Tarascon were so much delighted by the procession of the “tarasque,” that it was determined to make the festival an annual one.

* * * * *

This festival was observed till the revolution; but in “the reign of terror,” the people of Arles, between whom and those of Tarascon a great jealousy and rivalship had for many years subsisted, came in a body to the latter place, and, seizing the “tarasque,” burnt it in the market-place. This piece of petty spite sadly chagrined the Tarasconians. Their “tarasque” was endeared to them by its antiquity, as well as by the amusement it afforded them. For four years the festival of the “tarasque” remained uncelebrated, when an attempt was made to reestablish it; a new “tarasque” was procured by subscription among the people; but this also was seized by the Arletins, and carried over the river to Beaucaire, where it remained ever since.

“However,” said a hostess of Tarascon to Miss Plumptre, “since Buonaparte has happily restored order in France, we are looking forward to better times, and hope before the next festival of St. Martha, to be permitted to reclaim our ‘tarasque,’ and renew the procession.”

“Ah, ladies,” she added, “you have no idea how gay and how happy we all used to be at that time! The rich and the poor, the old and the young, the men and the women, all the same! all laughed, all danced, all sung; there was not a sad face in the town. The ladies were all so emulous of leading the ‘tarasque!’ They were all dressed alike; one was appointed to regulate the dress, and whatever she ordered the rest were obliged to follow. Sometimes the dresses were trimmed with gold or silver, sometimes with lace, so rich, so grand! God knows whether we shall ever see such times again. Ah! it was only because we were so happy that the people of Arles envied us, and had such a spite against us; but they have no reason to envy us now, we have had sorrow enough: ninety-three persons were guillotined here, and you may think what trouble that has spread among a number of families. I myself, ladies, have had my share of sorrow. My husband was not indeed guillotined, but he was obliged to fly the town to avoid it: he never quitted France, but went about from place to place where he was not known, working and picking up a livelihood as well as he could; and it is only since Buonaparte has been first consul that he has ventured to return. Besides, every thing that I had of any value, my linen, my mattresses, my silver spoons and forks, were all taken away by the requisition, and I can only hope to have things comfortably about me again by degrees, if we are so lucky as to get tolerable custom to our inn.” And then she entered upon a long string of apologies for the state of her house. “She was afraid,” she said, “that we should find things very uncomfortable, but it was not in her power to receive ladies and gentlemen as she had been used to do before her misfortunes. A few years hence, if Buonaparte should but live, she hoped, if we should happen to pass that way again, we should see things in a very different state.”[275]

THE SEASON.

“Now,” we perceive in the “Mirror of the Months,” that, “_now_, on warm evenings after business hours, citizens of all ages grow romantic; the single, wearing away their souls in sighing to the breezes of Brixton-hill, and their soles in getting there; and the married, sipping syllabub in the arbours of White Conduit-house, or cooling themselves with hot rolls and butter at the New River Head.

“Now, too, moved by the same spirit of romance, young patricians, who have not yet been persuaded to banish themselves to the beauty of their paternal groves, fling themselves into funnies, and fatigue their _ennui_ to death, by rowing up the river to Mrs. Grange’s garden, to eat a handful of strawberries in a cup-full of cream.

“Now, adventurous cockneys swim from the Sestos of the Strand stairs to the Abydos of the coal-barge on the opposite shore, and believe that they have been rivalling Lord Byron and Leander--not without wondering, when they find themselves in safety, why the lady for whom the latter performed a similar feat is called the Hero of the story, instead of the Heroine.

“Finally,--now pains-and-pleasure-taking citizens hire cozey cottages for six weeks certain in the Curtain-road, and ask their friends to come and see them ‘in the country.’”

_The Feast of Cherries._

There is a feast celebrated at Hamburg, called the “feast of cherries,” in which troops of children parade the streets with green boughs, ornamented with cherries, to commemorate a victory, obtained in the following manner:--In 1432, the Hussites threatened the city of Hamburg with an immediate destruction, when one of the citizens, named Wolf, proposed that all the children in the city, from seven to fourteen years of age, should be clad in mourning, and sent as supplicants to the enemy. Procopius Nasus, chief of the Hussites, was so touched with this spectacle, that he received the young supplicants, regaled them with cherries and other fruits, and promised them to spare the city.

The children returned crowned with leaves, holding cherries, and crying “victory!”--and hence, the “feast of cherries” is an annual commemoration of humane feelings.[276]

* * * * *

TO THE GNAT.

_For the Every-Day Book._

Native of Ponds! I scarce could deem Thee worthy of my praise, Wert thou not joyous in the beam Of summer’s closing days.

But who can watch thy happy bands Dance o’er the golden wave, And be not drawn to fancy’s lands,-- And not their pleasures crave?

Small as thou art to vulgar sight, In beauty thou art born:-- Thou waitest on my ears at night, Sounding thine insect horn.

The sun returns--his glory spreads In heaven’s pure flood of light; Thou makest thine escape from beds, And risest with a _bite_.

Where’er thy lancet draws a vein, ’Tis always sure to swell; A very molehill raised with pain As many a maid can tell.

Yet, for thy brief epitome Of love, life, tone and thrall; I’d rather have a _bump_ from thee, Than _Spurz_-heim, or from _Gall_.

J. R. P.

_Fish._

It is noted by Dr. Forster, that towards the end of July the fishery of pilchards begins in the west of England. Through August it continues with that of mullets, red surmallets, red gurnards, and several other fish which abound on our south-west coasts. In Cornwall, fish is so cheap and so commonly used as an article of food, that we remember so lately as August, 1804, the then rector of Boconnoc used to have turbot for supper, which he considered as a good foundation for a large bowl of posca, a sort of weak punch drank in that country. Having witnessed on this day in 1822, the grand Alpine view of the lake of Geneva, and the Swiss and Savoyard mountains behind it, from Mount Jura, we are reminded to present the reader with the following excellent lines which we have met with in “Fables, by Thomas Brown, the Younger,” London, 1823.

VIEW OF THE ALPS AND THE LAKE OF GENEVA FROM THE JURA.

’Twas late, the sun had almost shone His last and best, when I ran on, Anxious to reach that splendid view Before the daybeams quite withdrew; And feeling as all feel, on first Approaching scenes, where they are told Such glories on their eyes shall burst As youthful bards in dreams behold.

’Twas distant yet, and as I ran, Full often was my wistful gaze Turned to the sun, who now began To call in all his outpost rays, And form a denser march of light, Such as beseems a hero’s flight.

Oh! how I wished for Joshua’s power To slay the brightness of that hour! But no, the sun still less became, Diminished to a speck, as splendid And small as were those tongues of flame That on the apostles’ heads descended.

’Twas at this instant, while there glowed This last intensest gleam of light, Suddenly through the opening road The valley burst upon my sight; That glorious valley with its lake, And Alps on Alps in clusters swelling, Mighty and pure, and fit to make The ramparts of a godhead’s dwelling.

I stood entranced and mute as they Of Israel think the assembled world Will stand upon the awful day, When the ark’s light, aloft unfurled Among the opening clouds shall shine, Divinity’s own radiant sign! Mighty Mont Blanc, thou wert to me That minute, with thy brow in heaven, As sure a sign of Deity As e’er to mortal gaze was given Nor ever, were I destined yet To live my life twice o’er again, Can I the deepfelt awe forget, The ecstacy that thrilled me then.

’Twas all the unconsciousness of power And life, beyond this mortal hour; Those mountings of the soul within At thoughts of heaven, as birds begin By instinct in the cage to rise, When near their time for change of skies; That proud assurance of our claim To rank among the sons of light, Mingled with shame! oh, bitter shame! At having risked that splendid right, For aught that earth, through all its range Of glories, offers in exchange!

’Twas all this, at the instant brought, Like breaking sunshine o’er my thought; ’Twas all this, kindled to a glow Of sacred zeal, which, could it shine Thus purely ever, man might grow, Even upon earth, a thing divine, And be once more the creature made To walk unstained the Elysian shade.

No, never shall I lose the trace Of what I’ve felt in this bright place: And should my spirit’s hope grow weak, Should I, oh God! e’er doubt thy power, This mighty scene again I’ll seek, At the same calm and glowing hour; And here, at the sublimest shrine That nature ever reared to thee, Rekindle all that hope divine, And feel my immortality.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·80.

[275] Miss Plumptre’s Travels in France.

[276] Phillips’s Account of Fruits.

~July 30.~

THE OLD GATES OF LONDON.

On the 30th of July, 1760, the materials of the three following city gates were sold before the committee of city lands to Mr. Blagden, a carpenter in Coleman-street, viz.--

Aldgate, for £177 10_s._ Cripplegate, 91 0 Ludgate, 148 0[277]

NEW BISHOP OF DURHAM--

BISHOP AUCKLAND CUSTOM.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_July 30, 1826._

Dear Sir,--In the “Times,” of the twenty-second instant, there is the following paragraph, copied from the Newcastle paper. “The bishop of Durham arrived at his castle at Bishop Auckland, on Friday last. On his entering into the county at Croft-bridge, which separates it from the county of York, he was met by the officers of the see, the mayor and corporation of Stockton, and several of the principal nobility and others of the county. Here a sort of ceremony was performed, which had its origin in the feudal times,” &c.

The origin of the ceremony above alluded to is this. About the commencement of the fourteenth century, sir John Conyers slew with his _falchion_ in the fields of Sockburne, a monstrous creature, a dragon, a worm, or flying serpent, that devoured men, women, and children. The then owner of Sockburne, as a reward for his bravery, gave him the manor with its appurtenances to hold for ever, on condition that he met the lord bishop of Durham, with this falchion, on his first entrance into his diocese, after his election to that see. And in confirmation of this tradition, there is painted in a window of Sockburne church, the _falchion_ just now spoken of; and it is also cut in marble, upon the tomb of the great ancestor of the Conyers’, together with a dog and the monstrous worm or serpent, lying at his feet. When the bishop first comes into his diocese, he crosses the river Tees, either at the Ford of Nesham, or Croft-bridge, at one of which places the lord of the manor of Sockburne, or his representative, rides into the middle of the river, if the bishop comes by Nesham, with the ancient _falchion_ drawn in his hand, or upon the middle of Croft-bridge; and then presents it to the bishop, addressing him in the ancient form of words. Upon which the bishop takes the _falchion_ into his hands, looks at it, and returns it back again, wishing the lord of the manor his health and the enjoyment of his estate.

There are likewise some lands at Bishop’s Auckland, called _Pollard’s_ lands, held by a similar service, viz. showing to the bishop one _fawchon_, at his first coming to Auckland after his consecration. The form of words made use of is, I believe, as follows:--

“My Lord,--On behalf of myself as well as of the several other tenants of _Pollard’s_ lands, I do humbly present your lordship with this _fawchon_, at your first coming here, wherewith as the tradition goeth, _Pollard_ slew of old, a great and venomous serpent, which did much harm to man and beast, and by the performance of this service these lands are holden.”

The drawing of the _falchion_ and tomb in Sockburne church, I have unfortunately lost, otherwise it should have accompanied this communication: perhaps some of your numerous readers will be able to furnish you with it.

I remain,

Dear Sir, &c.

J. F.

* * * * *

The editor joins in his respected correspondent’s desire to see a representation in the _Every-Day Book_, of “the falchion and tomb in Sockburne church.” A _correct_ drawing of it shall be accurately engraven, if any gentleman will be pleased to communicate one: such a favour will be respectfully acknowledged.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·57.

[277] British Chronologist.

~July 31.~

MAYOR OF BARTLEMASS.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_July 4, 1826._

Sir,--The following is a brief notice of the annual mock election of the “mayor of Bartlemass,” at Newbury, in Berkshire.

The day on which it takes place, is the first Monday after St. Anne’s; therefore, this year if not discontinued, and I believe it is not, it will be held on the thirty-first day of July. The election is held at the Bull and Dog public-house, where a dinner is provided; the principal dishes being bacon and beans, have obtained for it the name of the “bacon and bean feast.” In the course of the day a procession takes place. A cabbage is stuck on a pole and carried instead of a mace, accompanied by similar substitutes for the other emblems of civic dignity, and there is, of course, plenty of “rough music.” A “justice” is chosen at the same time, some other offices are filled up, and the day ends by all concerned getting completely “how came ye so.”

In the same town, a mock mayor and justice are likewise chosen for Norcutt-lane, but whether on the same day or not I cannot say; how long these customs have existed, or whence they originated I do not know; they were before I, or the oldest man in the town, can remember.

A SHOEMAKER.

THE SEASON.

By the “Mirror of the Months,” the appearance of natural scenery at this season is brought before us. “The corn-fields are all redundant with waving gold--gold of all hues--from the light yellow of the oats, (those which still remain uncut,) to the deep sunburnt glow of the red wheat. But the wide rich sweeps of these fields are now broken in upon, here and there, by patches of the parched and withered looking bean crops; by occasional bits of newly ploughed land, where the rye lately stood; by the now darkening turnips--dark, except where they are being fed off by sheep flocks; and lastly by the still bright-green meadows, now studded every where with grazing cattle, the second crops of grass being already gathered in.

“The woods, as well as the single timber trees that occasionally start up with such fine effect from out of the hedge-rows, or in the midst of meadows and corn-fields, we shall now find sprinkled with what at first looks like gleams of scattered sunshine lying among the leaves, but what, on examination, we shall find to be the new foliage that has been put forth since midsummer, and which yet retains all the brilliant green of the spring. The effect of this new green, lying in sweeps and patches upon the old, though little observed in general, is one of the most beautiful and characteristic appearances of this season. In many cases, when the sight of it is caught near at hand, on the sides of thick plantations, the effect of it is perfectly deceptive, and you wonder for a moment how it is, that while the sun is shining so brightly _every where_, it should shine so much _more_ brightly on those particular spots.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·60.

The ears are fill’d, the fields are white, The constant harvest-moon is bright To grasp the bounty of the year, The reapers to the scene repair, With hook in hand, and bottles slung, And dowlas-scrips beside them hung. The sickles stubble all the ground, And fitful hasty laughs go round; The meals are done as soon as tasted, And neither time nor viands wasted. All over--then, the barrels foam-- The “Largess”-cry, the “Harvest-home!”

*

The “Mirror of the Months” likens August to “that brief, but perhaps best period of human life, when the promises of youth are either fulfilled or forgotten, and the fears and forethoughts connected with decline have not yet grown strong enough to make themselves felt; and consequently when we have nothing to do but look around us, and be happy.” For it is in this month that the year “like a man at forty, has turned the corner of its existence; but, like him, it may still fancy itself young, because it does not begin to feel itself getting old. And perhaps there is no period like this, for encouraging and bringing to perfection that habit of tranquil enjoyment, in which all true happiness must mainly consist: with _pleasure_ it has, indeed, little to do; but with _happiness_ it is every thing.”

The author of the volume pursues his estimate by observing, that “August is that debateable ground of the year, which is situated exactly upon the confines of summer and autumn; and it is difficult to say which has the better claim to it. It is dressed in half the flowers of the one, and half the fruits of the other; and it has a sky and a temperature all its own, and which vie in beauty with those of the spring. May itself can offer nothing so sweet to the senses, so enchanting to the imagination, and so soothing to the heart, as that genial influence which arises from the sights, the sounds, and the associations, connected with an August evening in the country, when the occupations and pleasures of the day are done, and when all, even the busiest, are fain to give way to that ‘wise passiveness,’ one hour of which is rife with more real enjoyment than a whole season of revelry. Those who will be wise (or foolish) enough to make comparisons between the various kinds of pleasure of which the mind of man is capable, will find that there is none (or but one) equal to that felt by a true lover of nature, when he looks forth upon her open face silently, at a season like the present, and drinks in that still beauty which seems to emanate from every thing he sees, till his whole senses are steeped in a sweet forgetfulness, and he becomes unconscious of all but that _instinct of good_ which is ever present with us, but which can so seldom make itself felt amid that throng of thoughts which are ever busying and besieging us, in our intercourse with the living world. The only other feeling which equals this, in its intense quietude, and its satisfying fulness, is one which is almost identical with it,--where the accepted lover is gazing unobserved, and almost unconsciously, on the face of his mistress, and tracing their sweet evidences of that mysterious union which already exists between them.

“The whole face of nature has undergone, since last month, an obvious change; obvious to those who delight to observe all her changes and operations, but not sufficiently striking to insist on being seen generally by those who can read no characters but such as are written in a _text_ hand. If the general _colours_ of all the various departments of natural scenery are not changed, their _hues_ are; and if there is not yet observable the infinite variety of autumn, there is as little the extreme monotony of summer. In one department, however, there _is_ a general change, that cannot well remain unobserved. The rich and unvarying green of the corn-fields has entirely and almost suddenly changed to a still richer and more conspicuous gold colour; more conspicuous on account of the contrast it now offers to the lines, patches, and masses of green with which it every where lies in contact, in the form of intersecting hedge-rows, intervening meadows, and bounding masses of forest. These latter are changed too; but in _hue_ alone, not in colour. They are all of them still green; but it is not the fresh and tender green of the spring, nor the full and satisfying, though somewhat dull, green of the summer; but many greens, that blend all those belonging to the seasons just named, with others at once more grave and more bright; and the charming variety and interchange of which are peculiar to this delightful month, and are more beautiful in their general effect than those of either of the preceding periods: just as a truly beautiful woman is perhaps more beautiful at the period immediately before that at which her charms begin to wane, than she ever was before. Here, however, the comparison must end; for with the year its incipient decay is the signal for it to put on more and more beauties daily, till, when it reaches the period at which it is on the point of sinking into the temporary death of winter, it is more beautiful in general appearance than ever.”

~August 1.~

LAMMAS DAY.

Though the origin of this denomination is related in vol. i. col. 1063, yet it seems proper to add that _Lammas_ or _Lambmas_ day obtained its name from a mass ordained to St. Peter, supplicating his benediction on lambs, in shearing season, to preserve them from catching cold. St Peter became patron of lambs, from Christ’s metaphorical expression, “Feed my lambs,” having been construed into a literal injunction.[278] Raphael makes this misconstruction the subject of one of his great cartoons, by representing Christ as speaking to Peter, and pointing to a flock of lambs.

_Lammas Towers in Mid-Lothian._

There was a Lammas festival, which prevailed in the Lothians from very early times among the young persons employed during summer in tending the herds at pasture. The usage is remarkable.

It appears that the herdsmen within a certain district, towards the beginning of summer, associated themselves into bands, sometimes to the number of a hundred or more. Each of these communities agreed to build a _tower_ in some conspicuous place, near the centre of their district, which was to serve as the place of their rendezvous on Lammas day. This tower was usually built of sods; for the most part square, about four feet in diameter at the bottom, and tapering to a point at the top, which was seldom above seven or eight feet from the ground. In building it, a hole was left in the centre for admitting a flag-staff, on which to display their colours. The tower was usually begun to be built about a month before Lammas, and was carried up slowly by successive additions from time to time, being seldom entirely completed till a few days before Lammas; though it was always thought that those who completed their’s soonest, and kept it standing the longest time before Lammas, behaved in the most gallant manner, and acquired most honour by their conduct.

From the moment the foundation of the tower was laid, it became an object of care and attention to the whole community; for it was reckoned a disgrace to suffer it to be defaced; so that they resisted, with all their power, any attempts that should be made to demolish it, either by force or fraud; and, as the honour that was acquired by the demolition of a tower, if affected by those belonging to another, was in proportion to the disgrace of suffering it to be demolished, each party endeavoured to circumvent the other as much as possible, and laid plans to steal upon the tower unperceived, in the night time, and level it with the ground. Great was the honour that such a successful exploit conveyed to the undertakers; and, though the tower was easily rebuilt, and was soon put into its former state, yet the news was quickly spread by the successful adventurers, through the whole district, which filled it with shouts of joy and exultation, while their unfortunate neighbours were covered with shame. To ward off this disgrace, a constant nightly guard was kept at each tower, which was made stronger and stronger, as the tower advanced; so that frequent nightly skirmishes ensued at these attacks, but were seldom of much consequence, as the assailants seldom came in force to make an attack in this way, but merely to succeed by surprise; as soon, therefore, as they saw they were discovered, they made off in the best manner they could.

To give the alarm on these, and other occasions, every person was armed with a “tooting horn;” that is, a horn perforated in the small end, through which wind can be forcibly blown from the mouth, so as to occasion a loud sound; and, as every one wished to acquire as great dexterity as possible in the use of the “tooting horn,” they practised upon it during the summer, while keeping their beasts; and towards Lammas they were so incessantly employed at this business, answering to, and vying with each other, that the whole country rang continually with the sounds; and it must no doubt have appeared to be a very harsh and unaccountable noise to a stranger who was then passing through it.

As the great day of Lammas approached, each community chose one from among themselves for their captain, and they prepared a stand of colours to be ready to be then displayed. For this purpose, they usually borrowed a fine table napkin of the largest size, from some of the farmer’s wives within the district; and, to ornament it, they borrowed ribbons, which they tacked upon the napkin in such fashion as best suited their fancy. Things being thus prepared, they marched forth early in the morning on Lammas day, dressed in their best apparel, each armed with a stout cudgel, and, repairing to their tower, there displayed their colours in triumph; blowing horns, and making merry in the best manner they could. About nine o’clock they sat down upon the green; and each taking from his pocket, bread and cheese, or other provisions, made a hearty breakfast, drinking pure water from a well, which they always took care should be near the scene of banquet.

In the mean time, scouts were sent out towards every quarter, to bring them notice if any hostile party approached; for it frequently happened, that on that day the herdsmen of one district went to attack those of another district, and to bring them under subjection to them by main force. If news were brought that a hostile party approached, the horns sounded to arms, and they immediately arranged themselves in the best order they could devise; the stoutest and boldest in front, and those of inferior prowess behind. Seldom did they wait the approach of the enemy, but usually went forth to meet them with a bold countenance, the captain of each company carrying the colours, and leading the van. When they met, they mutually desired each other to lower their colours in sign of subjection. If there appeared to be a great disproportion in the strength of the parties, the weakest usually submitted to this ceremony without much difficulty, thinking their honour was saved by the evident disproportion of the match; but, if they were nearly equal in strength, none of them would yield, and it ended in blows, and sometimes bloodshed. It is related, that, in a battle of this kind, four were actually killed, and many disabled from work for weeks.

If no opponent appeared, or if they themselves had no intention of making an attack, at about mid-day they took down their colours, and marched with horns sounding, towards the most considerable village in their district; where the lasses, and all the people, came out to meet them, and partake of their diversions. Boundaries were immediately appointed, and a proclamation made, that all who intended to compete in the race should appear. A bonnet ornamented with ribbons was displayed upon a pole, as a prize to the victor; and sometimes five or six started for it, and ran with as great eagerness as if they had been to gain a kingdom; the prize of the second race was a pair of garters, and the third a knife. They then amused themselves for some time, with such rural sports as suited their taste, and dispersed quietly to their respective homes before sunset.

When two parties met, and one of them yielded to the other, they marched together for some time in two separate bodies, the subjected body behind the other; and then they parted good friends, each performing their races at their own appointed place. Next day, after the ceremony was over, the ribbons and napkin that formed the colours, were carefully returned to their respective owners, the tower was no longer a matter of consequence, and the country returned to its usual state of tranquility.

The above is a faithful account of this singular ceremony which was annually repeated in all the country, within the distance of six miles west from Edinburgh, about thirty years before Dr. Anderson wrote, which was in the year 1792. How long the custom prevailed, or what had given rise to it, or how far it had extended on each side, he was uninformed. He says, “the name of Lammas-towers will remain, (some of them having been built of stone,) after the celebration of the festival has ceased. This paper will at least preserve the memory of what was meant by them. I never could discover the smallest traces of this custom in Aberdeenshire, though I have there found several towers of stone, very like the Lammas-towers of this country; but these seem to have been erected without any appropriated use, but merely to look at. I have known some of those erected in my time, where I knew for certain that no other object was intended, than merely to amuse the persons who erected them.”[279]

THE COBBLERS’ FESTIVAL AT PARIS ON THE FIRST OF AUGUST, 1641.

A rare old “broadside” in French, printed at the time, with a large and curious wood-cut at the head, now before the editor, describes a feast of the cobblers of Paris in a burlesque manner, from whence he proposes to extract some account of their proceedings as closely as may be to the original.

First, however, it is proper to observe that the wood engraving, on the next page, is a fac-simile of one third, and by far the most interesting portion of the original.

The entire occupation of the preceding page by a cut, which is the first of the kind in the _Every-Day Book_, may startle a few readers, but it must gratify every person who regards it either as a faithful transcript of the most interesting part of a very rare engraving, or as a representation of the mode of feasting in the old pot-houses of Paris.

Nothing of consequence is lost by the omission of the other part of the engraving; for it is merely a crowd of smaller figures, seated at the table, eating and drinking, or reeling, or lying on the floor inebriated. The only figure worth notice, is a man employed in turning a spit, and he has really so lack-a-daisical an appearance, that it seems worth while to give the top corner of the print in fac-simile.

We perceive from the page-cut that at the period when the original was executed, the French landlords “chalked up the score” as ours do, and that cobblers had music at their dinners as well as their betters. The band might not be so complete, but it was as good as they could get, and the king and his nobles could not have more than money could procure. The two musicians are of some consideration, as well suited to the scene; nor is the mendicant near them to be disregarded; he is only a little more needy, and, perhaps, a little less importunate than certain suitors for court favours. The singer who accompanies himself on the guitar at the table, is tricked out with a standing ruff and ruffles, and ear-rings, and seems a “joculator” of the first order;--and laying aside his dress, and the jaunty set of his hat, which we may almost imagine had been a pattern for a recent fashion, his face of “infinite humour” would distinguish him any where. However rudely the characters are cut, they are well discriminated. The serving man, with a spur on one foot and without a shoe on the other, who pours wine into a glass, is evidently a person--

“contented in his station who minds his occupation.”

Vandyke himself could scarcely have afforded more grace to a countess, than the artist of the feast has bestowed on a cobbler’s wife.

* * * * *

From the French of the author who drew up the account referring to the engraving, we learn that on the first day of August, 1641, the “Society of the Trade of Cobblers,” met in solemn festival (as, he observes, was their custom) in the church of St. Peters of Arsis, where, after having bestowed all sorts of praises on their patron, they divided their consecrated bread between them, with which not one third of them was satisfied; for while going out of the church they murmured, while the others chuckled.

After interchanging the reciprocal honours, they were accustomed to pay to each other, (which we may fairly presume to have been hard blows,) many of the most famous of their calling departed to a pot-house, and had a merry-making. They had all such sorts of dishes at their dinner as their purses would afford; particularly a large quantity of turnip-soup, on account of the number of persons present; and as many ox-feet and fricasees of tripe, as all the tripe-shops of the city and its suburbs could furnish, with various other dishes which the reporter says he does not choose to name, lest he should give offence to the fraternity. He mentions cow-beef, however, as one of the delicacies, and hints at their excesses having disordered their stomachs and manners. He speaks of some of them having been the masters, and of others as more than the masters, for they denominated themselves _Messieurs le Jurez_, of their honourable calling. He further says, that to know the whole history of their assembly, you must go to Gentily, at the sign of St. Peter, where, when at leisure, they all play together at bowls. He adds, that it is not necessary to describe them all, because it is not the custom of this highly indispensable fraternity to do kindness, and they are always indignant at strong reproaches.

Finally, he says, “I pray God to turn them from their wickedness.” He subjoins a song which he declares if you read and sing, will show he has told the truth, and that you will be delighted with it. He alleges, that he drew it up to make you better acquainted with the scene represented in the wood-cut, in order that you might be amused and laugh. Whether it had that tendency cannot be determined, for unluckily the song, which no doubt was the best part, has perished from the copy of the singular paper now described.

LAMMAS DAY

_Exeter Lammas Fair._

The charter for this fair is perpetuated by a glove of immense size, stuffed and carried through the city on a very long pole, decorated with ribbons, flowers, &c. and attended with music, parish beadles, and the mobility. It is afterwards placed on the top of the Guildhall, and then the fair commences; on the taking down of the glove, the fair terminates.

P.

RIPPON LAMMAS FEAST.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--If the following sketch of St. Wilfrid’s life, as connected with his feast at Rippon, be thought sufficiently interesting for insertion, you will oblige an old contributor.

The town of Rippon owes its rise to the piety of early times, for we find that Eata, abbot of Melross and Lindisfarne, in the year 661 founded a monastery there, for which purpose he had lands given him by Alchfrid, at that time king of Deira, and afterwards of the Northumbrians; but before the building was completed, the Scottish monks retired from the monastery, and St. Wilfrid was appointed abbot in 663, and soon afterwards raised to the see of York. This prelate was then in high favour with Oswy and Egfrid, kings of Northumberland, and the principal nobility, by whose liberality he rose to such a degree of opulence as to vie with princes, and enable him to build several rich monasteries; but his great pomp and immense wealth having drawn upon him the jealousy of the king and the archbishop of Canterbury, he was exiled. After an absence of ten years he was allowed to return to his see, and died in the monastery of Oundle in 711, aged seventy-six, and was interred there. In 940, his remains were removed to Canterbury, by Odo, archbishop of that see. Amongst all the miracles recorded of Wilfrid by the author of his life,[280] one, if true, was very extraordinary, and would go far to convert the most obdurate pagan. It is said, that at this time, God so blessed the holy man’s endeavours towards the propagation of the faith, that, on a solemn day for baptizing some thousands of the people of Sussex, the ceremony was no sooner ended but the heavens distilled such plentiful showers of rain, that the country was relieved by it from the most prodigious famine ever heard of. So great was the drought, and provision so scarce, that, in the extremity of hunger, fifty at a time joined hand in hand and flung themselves into the sea, in order to avoid the death of famine by land. But by Wilfrid’s means their bodies and souls were preserved.

The town of Rippon continues to this day to honour the memory of its benefactor by an annual feast. On the Saturday following Lammas-day, the effigy of St. Wilfrid is brought into the town with great ceremony, preceded by music, when the people go out to meet it in commemoration of the return of their favourite saint and patron from exile. The following day called St. Wilfrid’s Sunday is dedicated to him. On the Monday and Tuesday there are horse-races for small sums only; though formerly there were plates of twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty pounds.[281]

The following is a literal copy of part of an advertisement from the “Newcastle Courant” August 28, 1725.

“TO BE RUN FOR. The usual four miles’ course on Rippon Common, in the county of York, according to articles. On Monday the thirteenth of September a purse of twenty guineas by any horse, mare, or gelding that was no more than five years old the last grass, to be certified by the breeder, each horse to pay two guineas entrance, run three heats, the usual four miles’ course for a heat, and carry nine stone, besides saddle and bridle. On Tuesday the fourteenth, THE LADY’S PLATE of fifteen pounds’ value by any horse, &c. _Women_ to be the riders: each to pay one guinea entrance, three heats, and twice about the common for a heat.”

During the feast of St. Wilfrid, which continues nearly all the week, the inhabitants of Rippon enjoy the privilege of rambling through the delightful grounds of “Studley Royal,” the seat of Mrs. Laurence, a lady remarkable for her amiable character and bounty to the neighbouring poor. On St. Wilfrid’s day the gates of this fairy region are thrown open, and all persons are allowed to wander where they please.

No description can do justice to the exuberant distribution of nature and art which surrounds one on every side on entering these beautiful and enchanting grounds; the mind can never cease to wonder, nor the eye tire in beholding them.

The grounds consist of about three hundred acres, and are laid out with a taste unexcelled in this country. There is every variety of hill and dale, and a judicious introduction of ornamental buildings with a number of fine statues; among them are Hercules and Antæus, Roman wrestlers, and a remarkably fine dying gladiator. The beauties of this terrestrial paradise would fill a volume, but the chief attraction is the grand monastic ruin of Fountain’s abbey. This magnificent remain of olden time is preserved with the utmost care by the express command of its owner, and is certainly the most perfect in the kingdom. It is seated in a romantic dale surrounded by majestic oaks and firs. The great civility of the persons appointed to show the place, is not the least agreeable feeling on a visit to Studley Royal.

I am, &c.

J. J. A. F.

DISSENTERS’ FESTIVAL.

The first of August, as the anniversary of the death of queen Anne, and the accession of George I., seems to have been kept with rejoicing by the dissenters. In the year 1733, they held a great meeting in London, and several other parts of the kingdom to celebrate the day, it being that whereon the “schism bill” was to have taken place if the death of the queen had not prevented it. If this bill had passed into a law, dissenters would have been debarred the liberty of educating their own children.[282]

DOGGET’S COAT AND BADGE.

Also in honour of this day there is a rowing match on the river Thames, instituted by Thomas Dogget an old actor of celebrity, who was so attached to the Brunswick family, that sir Richard Steele called him “a whig up to the head and ears.”

In the year after George I. came to the throne, Dogget gave a waterman’s coat and silver badge to be rowed for by six watermen on the first day of August, being the anniversary of that king’s accession to the throne. This he continued till his death, when it was found that he had bequeathed a certain sum of money, the interest of which was to be appropriated annually, for ever, to the purchase of a like coat and badge, to be rowed for in honour of the day by six young watermen whose apprenticeships had expired the year before. This ceremony is every year performed on the first of August, the claimants setting out, at a signal given, at that time of the tide when the current is strongest against them, and rowing from the Old Swan, near London-bridge, to the White Swan at Chelsea.[283]

Broughton, who was a waterman, before he was a prize-fighter, won the first coat and badge.

* * * * *

This annual rowing-match is the subject of a ballad-opera, by Charles Dibdin, first performed at the Haymarket, in 1774, called “The Waterman, or the First of August.” In this piece Tom Tugg, a candidate for Dogget’s coat and badge, sings the following, which was long a popular

SONG.

And did you not hear of a jolly young waterman, Who at Blackfriars-bridge used for to ply; And he feather’d his oars with such skill and dexterity, Winning each heart and delighting each eye: He looked so neat, and rowed so steadily, The maidens all flocked in his boat so readily, And he eyed the young rogues with so charming an air, That this waterman ne’er was in want of a fare.

What sights of fine folks he oft row’d in his wherry! ’Twas clean’d out so nice, and so painted withal; He was always first oars when the fine city ladies, In a party to Ranelagh went, or Vauxhall: And oftentimes would they be giggling and leering, But ’twas all one to Tom, their gibing and jeering, For loving, or liking, he little did care, For this waterman ne’er was in want of a fare.

And yet, but to see how strangely things happen, As he row’d along, thinking of nothing at all, He was plied by a damsel so lovely and charming, That she smiled, and so straightway in love he did fall; And, would this young damsel but banish his sorrow, He’d wed her to-night before to-morrow: And how should this waterman ever know care, When he’s married and never in want of a fare?

Tom Tug wins Dogget’s coat and badge under the eyes of his mistress, who sits with her friends to see the rowing-match from an inn window overlooking the river; and, with the prize, he wins her heart.

DOGGET.

Colley Cibber calls Dogget “a prudent, honest man,” and relates anecdotes highly to our founder’s honour. One of them is very characteristic of Dogget’s good sense and firmness.

The lord chamberlain was accustomed to exercise great power over actors. In king William’s reign he issued an order that no actor of either company should presume to go from one to the other without a discharge, and the lord chamberlain’s permission; and messengers actually took performers who disobeyed the edict into custody. Dogget was under articles to play at Drury-lane, but conceiving himself treated unfairly, quitted the stage, would act no more, and preferred to forego his demands rather than hazard the tediousness and danger of the law to recover them. The manager, who valued him highly, resorted to the authority of the lord chamberlain. “Accordingly upon his complaint, a messenger was immediately despatched to Norwich, where Dogget then was, to bring him up in custody. But doughty Dogget, who had money in his pocket, and the cause of liberty at his heart, was not in the least intimidated by this formidable summons. He was observed to obey it with a particular cheerfulness, entertaining his fellow-traveller, the messenger, all the way in the coach (for he had protested against riding) with as much humour as a man of his business might be capable of tasting. And, as he found his charges were to be defrayed, he, at every inn, called for the best dainties the country could afford, or a pretended weak appetite could digest. At this rate they jollily rolled on, more with the air of a jaunt than a journey, or a party of pleasure than of a poor devil in durance. Upon his arrival in town, he immediately applied to the lord chief justice Holt for his _habeas corpus_. As his case was something particular, that eminent and learned minister of the law took a particular notice of it: for Dogget was not only discharged, but the process of his confinement (according to common fame) had a censure passed upon it in court.”

“We see,” says Cibber, “how naturally power, only founded on custom, is apt, where the law is silent, to run into excesses; and while it laudably pretends to govern others, how hard it is to govern itself.”[284]

* * * * *

Scarcely any thing is known of this celebrated performer, but through Cibber, with whom he was a joint patentee in Drury-lane theatre. They sometimes warmly differed, but Cibber respected his integrity and admired his talents. The accounts of Dogget in “Cibber’s Apology,” are exceedingly amusing, and the book is now easily accessible, for it forms the first volume of “Autobiography, a collection of the most instructive and amusing lives written by the parties themselves;”--a work printed in an elegant form, and published at a reasonable price, and so arranged that every life may be purchased separately.

Cibber says of Dogget, “He was a golden actor.--He was the most an original, and the strictest observer of nature, of all his contemporaries. He borrowed from none of them; his manner was his own; he was a pattern to others, whose great merit was, that they had sometimes tolerably imitated him. In dressing a character to the greatest exactness he was remarkably skilful; the least article of whatever habit he wore, seemed in some degree to speak and mark the different humour he presented; a necessary care in a comedian, in which many have been too remiss or ignorant. He could be extremely ridiculous without stepping into the least impropriety to make him so. His greatest success was in characters of lower life, which he improved from the delight he took in his observations of that kind in the real world. In songs and particular dances, too, of humour, he had no competitor. Congreve was a great admirer of him, and found his account in the characters he expressly wrote for him. In those of Fondlewife, in his ‘Old Batchelor,’ and Ben, in ‘Love for Love,’ no author and actor could be more obliged to their mutual masterly performances.”

Dogget realized a fortune, retired from the stage, and died, endeared to watermen and whigs, at Eltham, in Kent, on the twenty-second of September, 1721.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 64·77.

[278] Mr. Brady’s Clavis Calendara.

[279] Dr. James Anderson, in Trans. Soc. Antiq. Scot.

[280] V. Wilfridi inter xx Scriptores.

[281] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[282] Ibid.

[283] Jones’s Biographia Dramaticæ.

[284] Autobiography, 1826, 18mo. vol. i. p. 202.

~August 2.~

CHRONOLOGY.

Thomas Gainsborough, eminent as a painter, and for love of his art, died on the second of August, 1788. His last words were, “We are all going to heaven, and Vandyke is of the party.” He was buried, by his own desire, near his friend Kirby, the author of the Treatise on “Perspective,” in the grave-yard of Kew chapel.

Gainsborough was born at Sudbury, in Suffolk, in 1727, where his father was a clothier, and nature the boy’s teacher. He passed his mornings in the woods alone; and in solitary rambles sketched old trees, brooks, a shepherd and his flock, cattle, or whatever his fancy seized on. After painting several landscapes, he arrived in London and received instructions from Gravelot and Hayman: he lived in Hatton-Garden, married a lady with 200_l._ a year went to Bath, and painted portraits for five guineas, till the demand for his talent enabled him gradually to raise the price to a 100_l._ He settled in Pall-mall in 1774, with fame and fortune.

Gainsborough, while at Bath, was chosen a member of the Royal Academy on its institution, but neglected its meetings. Sir Joshua Reynolds says, “whether he most excelled in portraits, landscapes, or fancy pictures, it is most difficult to determine.” His aërial perspective is uncommonly light and beautiful. He derived his grace and elegance from nature, rather than manners; and hence his paintings are inimitably true and bewitching. Devoted to his art, he regretted leaving it; just before his death, he said, “he saw his deficiences, and had endeavoured to remedy them in his last works.”

No object was too mean for Gainsborough’s pencil; his habit of closely observing things in their several particulars, enabled him to perceive their relations to each other, and combine them. By painting at night, he acquired new perceptions: he had eyes and saw, and he secured every advantage he discovered. He etched three plates; one for “Kirby’s Perspective;” another an oak tree with gypsies; and the third, a man ploughing on a rising ground, which he spoiled in “biting in:” the print is rare.

In portraits he strove for natural character, and when this was attained, seldom proceeded farther. He could have imparted intelligence to the features of the dullest, but he disdained to elevate what nature had forbidden to rise; hence, if he painted a butcher in his Sunday-coat, he made him, as he looked, a respectable yeoman; but his likenesses were chiefly of persons of the first quality, and he maintained their dignity. His portraits are seldom highly finished, and are not sufficiently estimated, for the very reason whereon his reputation for natural scenery is deservedly high. Sir Joshua gave Gainsborough one hundred guineas for a picture of a girl and pigs, though its artist only required sixty.[285]

Gainsborough had what the world calls eccentricities. They resulted rather from his indulgence in study, than contempt for the usages of society. It was well for Gainsborough that he could disregard the courtesies of life without disturbance to his happiness, from those with whom manners are morals.

A series of “Studies of Figures” from Gainsborough’s “Sketch Books,” are executed in lithography, in exact imitation of his original drawings by Mr. Richard Lane. Until this publication, these drawings were unknown. Mr. Lane’s work is to Gainsborough, what the prints in Mr. Otley’s “Italian School of Design,” are to Raphael and Michael Angelo. Each print is so perfect a fac-simile, that it would be mistaken for the original drawing, if we were not told otherwise. This is the way to preserve the reputation of artists. Their sketches are often better than their paintings; the elaboration of a thought tends to evaporate its spirit.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 64·95.

[285] Pilkington.

~August 3.~

CHRONOLOGY.

Michael Adanson, an eminent naturalist of Scottish extraction, born in April, 1727, at Aix, in Provence, died at Paris on the third of August, 1806. Needham, at one of his examinations, presented Adanson, then a child, with a microscope, and the use of the instrument gave the boy a bias to the science which he distinguished as a philosopher. His parents destined him for the church, and obtained a prebend’s stall for him, but he abandoned his seat, made a voyage to Senegal in 1757, and published the result of his labours in a natural history of that country. This obtained him the honour of corresponding member in the Academy of Sciences. In 1763, his “Famille des Plantes” appeared; it was followed by a design of an immense general work, which failed from Louis XV., withholding his patronage. He formed the project of a settlement on the African coast for raising colonial produce without negro slavery, which the French East India company refused to encourage: he refused to communicate his plan to the English, who, after they had become martyrs of Senegal, applied for it to Adanson, through lord North. He declined invitations from the courts of Spain and Russia, and managed as well as he could with pensions derived from his office of royal censor, his place in the academy, and other sources inadequate to the expense of forming his immense collections. He was reduced to poverty by the revolution. The French invited him to join it as a member; he answered, “he had no shoes.” This procured him a small pension, whereon he subsisted till his death.[286]

* * * * *

So early as thirteen years of age, Adanson began to write notes on the natural histories of Aristotle and Pliny; but soon quitted books to study nature. He made a collection of thirty-three thousand existences, which he arranged in a series of his own. This was the assiduous labour of eight years. Five years spent at Senegal, gave him the opportunity of augmenting his catalogue. He extended his researches to subjects of commercial utility, explored the most fertile and best situated districts of the country, formed a map of it, followed the course of the Niger, and brought home with him an immense collection of observations, philosophical, political, moral, and economical, with an addition to his catalogue of about thirty thousand hitherto unknown species, which, with his former list, and subsequent additions brought the whole number to more than ninety thousand.

* * * * *

The arrangement of Adanson’s “Families des Plantes,” is founded upon the principle, “that if there is in nature a system which we can detect, it can only be founded on the totality of the relations of characters, derived from all the parts and qualities of plants.” His labours are too manifold to be specified, but their magnitude may be conceived from his having laid before the academy, in 1773, the plan of his “Universal Natural Encyclopædia,” consisting of one hundred and twenty manuscript volumes, illustrated by seventy-five thousand figures, in folio. In 1776, he published in the “Supplement of the first Encyclopædia,” by Diderot and D’Alembert, the articles relative to natural history and the philosophy of the sciences, comprised under the letters A. B. C. In 1779, he journied over the highest mountains in Europe, whence he brought more than twenty thousand specimens of different minerals, and charts of more than twelve hundred leagues of country. He was the possessor of the most copious cabinet in the world.

Adanson’s first misfortune from the revolution was the devastation of his experimental garden, in which he had cultivated one hundred and thirty kinds of mulberry to perfection; and thus the labour of the best part of his life was overthrown in an instant. One privation succeeded another, till he was plunged in extreme indigence, and prevented from pursuing his usual studies for want of fire and light. “I have found him in winter (says his biographer) at nine in the evening, with his body bent, his head stooped to the floor, and one foot placed upon another, before the glimmering of a small brand, writing upon this new kind of desk, regardless of the inconvenience of an attitude which would have been a torment to any one not excited by the most inconceivable habit of labour, and inspired with the ecstacy of meditation.”

Adanson’s miserable condition was somewhat alleviated by the minister Benezech; but another minister, himself a man of letters, Francois de Neufchateau, restored Adanson to the public notice, and recommended him to his successors. The philosopher, devoted to his studies, and apparently little fitted for society, sought neither patron nor protector; and indeed he seems never to have been raised above that poverty, which was often the lot of genius and learning in the stormy period of the revolution. His obligations to men in power were much less than to a humbler benefactor, whose constant and generous attachment deserves honourable commemoration. This was Anne-Margaret-Roux, the wife of Simon Henry, who, in 1783, at the age of twenty-eight, became the domestic of Adanson, and from that time to his death, stood in the place to him of relations, friends, and fortune. During the extremity of his distress, when he was in want of every necessary, she waited upon him during the day, and passed the night, without his knowledge, in labours, the wages of which she employed in the purchase of coffee and sugar, without which he could do nothing. At the same time, her husband, in the service of another master in Picardy, sent every week bread, meat, and vegetables, and even his savings in money, to supply the other wants of the philosopher. When Adanson’s accumulated infirmities rendered the cares of the wife insufficient, Simon Henry came and assisted her, and no more quitted him.

From the time of his residence at Senegal, Adanson was exceedingly sensible of cold and humidity; and from inhabiting a ground floor, without cellars, in one of the lowest streets in Paris, he was continually labouring under rheumatic affections. The attitude in which he read and wrote, which was that of his body bent in an arm-chair, and his legs raised high on each side of the chimney-place, contributed to deposit humours upon his loins, and the articulations of his thighs. When he had again got a little garden, he used to pass whole days before his plants, sitting upon his crossed legs; and he often forgot, in the ardour of study, to go to bed. This mode of life occasioned an osseous disease in the right thigh. In January, 1806, as he was standing by his fire, he perceived his thigh bend, and would have fallen, had he not been supported by his devoted domestic. He was put to bed, the limb was replaced, and he was attended with the utmost assiduity by the faithful pair, who even tore up their own linen for his dressings. Except his surgeon, they were the only human beings he saw during the last six months of his life--a proof how little he had cultivated friendship among his equals. Napoleon informed of his wretched situation, sent him three thousand livres, which his two attendants managed with the greatest fidelity. Whilst confined to his bed, he continued his usual occupation of reading and writing, and was seen every morning with the pen in his hand, writing without spectacles, in very small characters, at arm’s length. The powers of his understanding were entire when he expired.[287]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 64·25.

[286] General Biography, vol. i. 17.

[287] Dr. Aikin’s Athenæum.

~August 4.~

LONG BOWLS.

On the fourth of August, 1739, a farmer of Croydon undertook for a considerable wager, to bowl a skittle-bowl from that town to London-bridge, about eleven miles, in 500 times, and performed it in 445.[288]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·72.

[288] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~August 5.~

ST. JAMES’S DAY, _Old Style_.

It is on this day, and not on St. James’s day new style, as mistakingly represented in vol. i. col. 978, that oysters come in.

OYSTER DAY.

_For the Every-Day Book._

Greengrocers rise at dawn of sun-- August the fifth--come haste away! To Billingsgate the thousands run,-- ’Tis Oyster Day!--’tis Oyster Day!

Now at the corner of the street With oysters fine the tub is filled; The cockney stops to have a treat Prepared by one in opening skilled.

The pepper-box, the cruet,--wait To give a relish to the taste; The mouth is watering for the bait Within the pearly cloisters chased.

Take off the beard--as quick as thought The pointed knife divides the flesh;-- What plates are laden--loads are bought And eaten raw, and cold, and fresh!

Some take them with their steak for sauce, Some stew, and fry, and scollop well; While, Leperello-like, some toss; And some in gutting them excel.[289]

Poor creatures of the ocean’s wave! Born, fed, and fatted for our prey;-- E’en boys, your shells when parted, crave, Perspective for the “Grotto day.”

With watchful eye in many a band The urchin wights at eve appear; They raise their “lights” with voice and hand-- “A grotto comes but once a year!”

Then, in some rustic gardener’s bed The shells are fixed for borders neat; Or, crushed within a dustman’s shed, Like deadmen’s bones ’neath living feet.

*, *, P.

CHRONOLOGY.

Sir Reginald Bray, the architect of king Henry the seventh’s chapel, died August 5, 1503. His family came into England with the Conqueror, and flourished in Northampton and Warwickshire. He was second son to sir Richard Bray, a privy counsellor to king Henry VI. In the first year of Richard III. Reginald had a general pardon, for having adhered, it is presumed, to Henry VI. He favoured the advancement of the earl of Richmond to the throne as Henry VII., who made him a knight banneret, probably on Bosworth field. At this king’s coronation he was created a knight of the bath, and afterwards a knight of the garter.

Sir Reginald Bray was a distinguished statesman and warrior. He served at the battle of Blackheath in 1497, on the Cornish insurrection under lord Audley, part of whose estates he acquired by grant. He was constable of Oakham castle in Rutlandshire, joint chief justice of the forests south of Trent, high steward of the university of Oxford, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and high treasurer. Distinguished by the royal favour, he held the Isle of Wight for his life at an annual rent of three hundred marks, and died possessed of large estates, under a suspicious sovereign who extorted large sums from his subjects when there was very little law to control the royal will. His administration was so just as to procure him the title of “the father of his country.” To his skill in architecture we are indebted for the most eminent ecclesiastical ornament of the metropolis--the splendid chapel founded by Henry in his lifetime at Westminster; and he conducted the chapel of St. George, at Windsor palace, to its completion.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·47.

[289] See the supper scene in “Don Giovanni,”--also the Irishman’s joke of eating the oysters and taking his master the shells. Speaking of “Oysters”--the song sung by Grimaldi senior,--“An oyster crossed in love,”--has been very popular.

~August 6.~

TRANSFIGURATION.

For this denomination of the day see vol. i. col. 1071.

It is alleged that this festival was observed at Rome in the fifth century, though not universally solemnized until in 1457 pope Calixtus III. ordained its celebration to commemorate the raising of the siege of Belgrade by Mahomet II.[290]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·37.

[290] Butler. Brady.

~August 7.~

NAME OF JESUS.

A festival in honour of the _name_ of Jesus appears was anciently held on the second Sunday in Epiphany, from whence it was removed at the reformation to this day, and the name of St. Donatus expunged by the English reformers to make room for it. That saint’s name had previously been substituted for that of St. Afra, to whom the day had first been dedicated in honour of her martyrdom.

* * * * *

Augsburg cathedral was rebuilt by St. Ulric to whom and St. Afra jointly it was dedicated: a Latin folio with engravings by Kilian describes its magnificence.[291] In the church were preserved the sculls of several saints, blazing with jewellery, mitred or crowned, reposing on embroidered cushions, and elevated on altars or reliquaries. One of these is selected as a specimen of the sumptuous adornment of deceased mortality in Roman catholic churches.

ST. AFRA.

This saint is alleged to have suffered martyrdom under Dioclesian. She had led an abandoned life at Augsburg, but being required to sacrifice to the heathen deities she refused; wherefore, with certain of her female companions, she was bound to a stake in an island on the river Lech, and suffocated by smoke from vine branches. She is honoured as chief patroness of Augsburg.

ST. ULRIC.

This saint was bishop of Augsburg, which city he defended against the barbarians by raising walls and erecting fortresses around it, and died in 973, surrounded by his clergy, while lying on ashes strewed on the floor in the form of a cross.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·20.

[291] Basilica S. S. Udalrici et Afræ, Imperialis Monasterii ord. S. Benedicti Augustæ Vindel. Historice descripta; edit. secunda. August. Vindel. 1653.

~August 8.~

THE SEASON.

This time of the year is usually remarkably fine. The rich glow of summer is seldom in perfection till August. We now enjoy settled hot weather, a glowing sky, with varied and beautiful, but not many clouds, and delightfully fragrant and cool evenings. The golden yellow of the ripe corn, the idea of plenty inspired by the commencing harvest of wheat, the full and mature appearance of the foliage, in short the _tout ensemble_ of nature at this time is more pleasing than perhaps that of any of the other summer months.

One of the editors of the “Perennial Calendar,” inserts some verses which he found about this time among his papers; he says they are “evidently some parody,” and certainly they are very agreeable.

* * * * *

INFANTINE RECOLLECTIONS

In Fancy how dear are the scenes of my childhood Which old recollections recal to my view! My own little garden, its plants, and the wild wood, The old paper Kite that my Infancy flew.

The cool shady Elm Grove, the Pond that was by it, My small plaything Mill where the rain torrent fell; My Father’s Pot Garden, the Drying Ground nigh it, The old wooden Pump by the Melon ground well.

That Portugal Laurel I hail as a treasure, For often in Summer when tired of play, I found its thick shade a most exquisite pleasure, And sat in its boughs my long lessons to say.

There I first thought my scholarship somewhat advancing, And turning my Lilly right down on its back, While my thirst for some drink the Sun’s beams were enhancing I shouted out learnedly--_Da mihi lac_.

No image more dear than the thoughts of these baubles, Ghigs, Peg Tops, and Whip Tops, and infantine games The Grassplot for Ball, and the Yewwalk for Marbles, And the arbours for whoop, and the vine trellis frames.

Those three renowned Poplars, by Summer winds waved By Tom, Ben, and Ned, that were planted of yore, ’Twixt the times when these Wights were first breeched and first shaved May now be hewn down, and may waver no more!

How well I remember, when Spring flowers were blowing, With rapture I cropt the first Crocuses there! Life seemed like a Lamp in eternity glowing, Nor dreamt I that all the green boughs would be sear.

In Summer, while feasting on Currants and Cherries, And roving through Strawberry Beds with delight, I thought not of Autumn’s Grapes, Nuts, and Blackberries, Nor of Ivy decked Winter cold shivering in white.

E’en in that frosty season, my Grandfather’s Hall in, I used to sit turning the Electric Machine, And taking from Shockbottles shocks much less galling, If sharper than those of my manhood I ween.

The Chesnuts I picked up and flung in the fires, The Evergreens gathered the hot coals to choke; Made reports that were emblems of blown up desires, And warm glowing hopes that have ended in smoke.

How oft have I sat on the green bench astonished To gaze at Orion and Night’s shady car, By the starspangled Sky’s Magic Lantern admonished Of time and of space that were distant afar!

But now when embarked on Life’s rough troubled ocean, While Hope with her anchor stands up on the bow, May Fortune take care of my skiff put in motion, Nor sink me when coyly she steps on the prow.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 62·97.

~August 9.~

THE EAGLE--A ROYAL BIRD.

The “Gentleman’s Magazine” records that, on August the ninth, 1734 a large eagle was taken near Carlton, in Kent, by a taylor: its wings when expanded were three yards eight inches long. It was claimed by the lord of the manor, but afterwards demanded by the king’s falconer as a royal bird and carried to court.

* * * * *

It was formerly a custom with itinerant showmen, who had tolerably sized eagles among their “wonders of nature,” to call them “Eagles of the Sun.”

TO THE SUN.

Most glorious orb! that wert a worship, ere The mystery of thy making was reveal’d! Thou earliest minister of the Almighty, Which gladden’d, on their mountain tops, the hearts Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they pour’d Themselves in orisons! Thou material God! And representative of the Unknown-- Who chose thee for His shadow! Thou chief star! Centre of many stars! which mak’st our earth Endurable, and temperest the hues And hearts of all who walk within thy rays; Sire of the seasons! Monarch of the climes, And those who dwell in them! for near or far, Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee, Even as our outward aspects;--thou dost rise, And shine, and set in glory. Fare thee well!

_Byron._

SUNSET.

We walked along the pathway of a field, Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o’er, But to the west was open to the sky: There now the sun had sunk; but lines of gold Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points Of the far level grass and nodding flowers, And the old dandelion’s hoary beard, And, mingled with the shades of twilight lay On the brown massy woods: and in the east The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose Between the black trunks of the crowded trees, While the faint stars were gathering overhead.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 62·45.

~August 10.~

This is the festival day of St. Lawrence.

CHRONOLOGY.

Old Anthony Munday, the pleasant continuator of Stow’s “Survey,” renders this day remarkable by a curious notice.

This is an exactly reduced fac-simile representation of the wood-cut in Stow, and the following is Anthony Munday’s story:--

“This monument, or that of which this is a shadow, with their characters engraven about it, stands in Petty France, at the west end of the lower churchyard of St. Botolphes, Bishopsgate, (not within, but without the walls, the bounds of our consecrated ground,) and was erected to the memory of one _Coya Shawsware_, a Persian merchant, and a principal servant and secretary to the Persian ambassadour, with whom he and his sonne came over. He was aged forty-four, and buried the tenth of August, 1626: the ambassadour himselfe, young Shawsware his sonne, and many other Persians (with many expressions of their infinite love and sorrow) following him to the ground betweene eight and nine of the clocke in the morning. The rites and ceremonies that (with them) are done to the dead, were chiefly performed by his sonne, who, sitting crosse-legged at the north end of the grave, (for his tombe stands north and south,) did one while reade, another while sing; his reading and singing intermixt sighing and weeping: and this, with other things that were done in the grave in private (to prevent with the sight the relation) continued about halfe an houre.

“But this was but this dayes businesse: for, as this had not beene enough to performe to their friend departed, to this place and to this end (that is, prayer, and other funerall devotions) some of them came every morning and evening at sixe and sixe, for the space of a moneth together; and had come (as it was then imagined) the whole time of their abode here in England, had not the rudenesse of our people disturbed and prevented their purpose.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·69.

~August 11.~

_Dog Days end._

CLOUDS.

Clouds are defined to be a collection of vapours suspended in the atmosphere, and rendered visible.

Although it be generally allowed that clouds are formed from the aqueous vapours, which before were so closely united with the atmosphere as to be invisible, it is not easy to account for the long continuance of some very opaque clouds without dissolving; or to assign the reason why the vapours, when they have once begun to condense, do not continue to do so till they at last fall to the ground in the form of rain or snow, &c. It is now known that a separation of the latent heat from the water, of which vapour is composed, is attended with a condensation of that vapour in some degree; in such case it will first appear as a smoke, mist, or fog; which, if interposed between the sun and earth, will form a cloud; and the same causes continuing to operate, the cloud will produce rain or snow. It is however abundantly evident that some other cause beside mere heat or cold is concerned in the formation of clouds, and the condensation of atmospherical vapours. This cause is esteemed in a great measure the electrical fluid; indeed electricity is now so generally admitted as an agent in all the great operations of nature, that it is no wonder to find the formation of clouds attributed to it; and this has accordingly been given by Beccaria as the cause of the formation of all clouds whatsoever, whether of thunder, rain, hail, or snow.

But whether the clouds are produced, that is, the atmospheric vapours rendered visible, by means of electricity or not, it is certain that they do often contain the electric fluid in prodigious quantities, and many terrible and destructive accidents have been occasioned by clouds very highly electrified. The most extraordinary instance of this kind perhaps on record, happened in the island of Java, in the East Indies, in August, 1772. On the eleventh of that month, at midnight, a bright cloud was observed covering a mountain in the district called Cheribon, and several reports like those of a gun were heard at the same time. The people who dwelt upon the upper parts of the mountain not being able to fly fast enough, a great part of the cloud, eight or nine miles in circumference, detached itself under them, and was seen at a distance, rising and falling like the waves of the sea, and emitting globes of fire so luminous, that the night became as clear as day. The effects of it were astonishing; every thing was destroyed for twenty miles round; the houses were demolished; plantations were buried in the earth; and two thousand one hundred and forty people lost their lives, besides one thousand five hundred head of cattle, and a vast number of horses, goats, &c.

* * * * *

The _height_ of the clouds is not usually great: the summits of high mountains being commonly quite free from them, as many travellers have experienced in passing these mountains. It is found that the most highly electrified clouds descend lowest, their height being often not more than seven or eight hundred yards above the ground; and sometimes thunderclouds appear actually to touch the ground with one of their edges; but the generality of clouds are suspended at the height of a mile, or little more, above the earth.

* * * * *

The _motions_ of the clouds, though often directed by the wind, are not always so, especially when thunder is about to ensue. In this case they are seen to move very slowly, or even to appear quite stationary for some time. The reason of this probably is, that they are impelled by two opposite streams of air nearly of equal strength; and in such cases it seems that both the aërial currents ascend to a considerable height; for Messrs. Charles and Robert, when endeavouring to avoid a thunder cloud, in one of their aërial voyages with a balloon, could find no alteration in the course of the current, though they ascended to the height of four thousand feet above the earth. In some cases the motions of the clouds evidently depend on their electricity, independent of any current of air whatever. Thus, in a calm and warm day, small clouds are often seen meeting each other in opposite directions, and setting out from such short distances, that it cannot be supposed that any opposite winds are the cause. Such clouds, when they meet, instead of forming a larger one, become much smaller, and sometimes quite vanish; a circumstance most probably owing to the discharge of opposite electricities into each other. And this serves also to throw some light on the true cause of the formation of clouds; for if two clouds, the one electrified positively, and the other negatively, destroy each other on contact, it follows that any quantity of vapour suspended in the atmosphere, while it retains its natural quantity of electricity, remains invisible, but becomes a cloud when electrified either plus or minus.

* * * * *

The _shapes_ of the clouds are probably owing to their electricity; for in those seasons in which a great commotion has been excited in the atmospherical electricity, the clouds are seen assuming strange and whimsical shapes, that are continually varying. This, as well as the meeting of small clouds in the air, and vanishing upon contact, is a sure sign of thunder.

* * * * *

The _uses_ of the clouds are evident, as from them proceeds the rain that refreshes the earth, and without which, according to the present state of nature, the whole surface of the earth must become a mere desert. They are likewise useful as a screen interposed between the earth and the scorching rays of the sun, which are often so powerful as to destroy the grass and other tender vegetables. In the more secret operations of nature too, where the electric fluid is concerned, the clouds bear a principal share; and chiefly serve as a medium for conveying that fluid from the atmosphere into the earth, and from the earth into the atmosphere: in doing which, when electrified to a great degree, they sometimes produce very terrible effects; an instance of which is related above.[292]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·35.

[292] Dr. Hutton.

~August 12.~

K. GEORGE IV. BORN.

On the twenty-fifth of August, 1761, the princess Charlotte of Mecklinburgh Strelitz, embarked with her attendants at Cuxhaven, on board the royal yacht, under the salute of a squadron destined to convey her to England, as the affianced bride of his majesty George III. On the twenty-eighth, she sailed, and after that day, no despatches were received until she arrived at Harwich, on the sixth of September.

The court was in some concern lest the tediousness of her voyage might have affected her health; but her highness, during her tedious passage, continued in very good health and spirits, often diverting herself with playing on the harpsichord, practising English tunes, and endearing herself to those who were honoured with the care of her person. She had been twice in sight of the British coast, and as often driven off by contrary winds; one day in hopes of landing on English ground, and the next in danger of being driven to the coasts of Norway. Her arrival, therefore, was a desirable event; but as it was night when she came to Harwich, her highness slept on board, and continued there till three in the afternoon the next day, during which time her route had been settled, and instructions received as to the manner of her proceeding to St. James’s.

At her landing, she was received by the mayor and aldermen of Harwich, in their usual formalities. About five o’clock she came to Colchester, and stopped at the house of Mr. Enew, where she was received and waited upon by Mrs. Enew and Mrs. Rebow; but captain Best attended her with coffee, and lieutenant John Seaber with tea. Being thus refreshed, she proceeded to Witham, where she arrived at a quarter past seven, and stopped at lord Abercorn’s, and his lordship provided as elegant an entertainment for her as the time would admit. During supper, the door of the room was ordered to stand open, that every body might have the pleasure of seeing her highness, and on each side of her chair stood the lords Harcourt and Anson. She slept that night at his lordship’s house.

A little after twelve o’clock next day, her highness came to Romford, where the king’s coach and servants met her; and after stopping to drink coffee at Mr. Dutton’s where she was waited upon by the king’s servants, she entered the king’s coach. The attendants of her highness were in three other coaches. In the first were some ladies of Mecklenburgh, and in the last was her highness, who sat forward, and the duchess of Ancaster and Hamilton backward.

On the road she was extremely courteous to every body, showing herself, and bowing to all who seemed desirous of seeing her, and ordering the coach to go extremely slow through the towns and villages as she passed, that as many as would might have a full view of her. The carriages were attended by an incredible number of spectators, both on horse and foot, to Stratford-le-Bow and Mile-end, where they turned up Dog-row, and prosecuted their journey to Hackney turnpike, then by Shoreditch church, and up Old-street to the City-road, across Islington, along the New-road into Hyde-park, down Constitution-hill into St. James’s park, and then to the garden-gate of the palace, where she was received by all the royal family. She was handed out of the coach by the duke of York, and met in the garden by his majesty, who in a very affectionate manner raised her up and saluted her, as she was going to pay her obeisance, and then led her into the palace, where she dined with his majesty, the princess dowager, and the princess Augusta. After dinner her highness was pleased to show herself with his majesty in the gallery and other apartments fronting the park.

About eight o’clock in the evening, the procession began to the chapel-royal. Her highness was attended by six dukes’ daughters as bride-maids; her train was supported by the daughters of six earls, and she was preceded by one hundred and twenty ladies in extremely rich dresses, who were handed into the chapel by the duke of York. The marriage ceremony was performed by the archbishop of Canterbury. The duke of Cumberland gave the princess’s hand to his majesty, and, immediately on the joining of their hands, the park and tower guns were fired. There was afterwards a public drawing-room; but no one was presented. The metropolis was illuminated, and there were the utmost public demonstrations of joy.

On the following day, the ninth of September, there was the most brilliant court at St. James’s ever remembered.

On the fourteenth, the lord mayor, aldermen, and common council of London, waited on their majesties and the princess dowager of Wales, with their addresses of congratulation. On the same day the chancellor and university of Cambridge presented the university address, and in the evening, about a quarter after six, their majesties went to Drury-lane theatre in chairs, and most of the royal family in coaches, to see the “Rehearsal;” they were attended by the horse guards. The theatre was full almost as soon as the doors were opened. Of the vast multitude assembled, not a fiftieth part gained admission. Never was seen so brilliant a house; the ladies were mostly dressed in the clothes and jewels they wore at the royal marriage.

* * * * *

On the twelfth of August, 1762, at twenty-four minutes after seven, an heir apparent to the throne afterwards king George IV., was born. The archbishop of Canterbury was in the room, and certain great officers of state in a room adjoining, with the door open into the queen’s apartment. The person who waited on the king with the news, received a present of a five hundred pound bank bill.[293]

On this occasion, congratulatory addresses flowed in on their majesties from every part of the kingdom.

The quakers’ address was presented to his majesty on the first of October, and read by Dr. Fothergill, as follows:--

_George the Third, king of Great Britain, and the dominions thereunto belonging._

_The humble address of his Protestant subjects, the people called Quakers._

May it please the king,

The satisfaction we feel in every event that adds to the happiness of our sovereign, prompts us to request admittance to the throne, on the present interesting occasion.

The birth of a prince, the safety of the queen, and thy own domestic felicity increased, call for our thankfulness to the Supreme Dispenser of every blessing; and to the king our dutiful and unfeigned congratulations.

In the prince of Wales we behold another pledge of the security of those inestimable privileges, which we have enjoyed under the monarchs of thy illustrious house--kings, distinguished by their justice, their clemency, and regard to the prosperity of their people: a happy presage, that under their descendants, our civil and religious liberties will devolve, in their full extent, to succeeding generations.

Long may the Divine Providence preserve a life of so great importance to his royal parents, to these kingdoms, and to posterity; that formed to piety and virtue, he may live beloved of God and man, and fill at length the British throne with a lustre not inferior to his predecessors.

_The King’s answer._

I take very kindly this fresh instance of your duty and affection, and your congratulations on an event so interesting to me and my family. You may always rely on my protection.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 64·35.

[293] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~August 13.~

CHRONOLOGY.

August 13, 1783.--The eminent lawyer, John Dunning (lord Ashburton) died. He was the second son of an attorney at Ashburton, in Devonshire, where he was born, October 18, 1731, educated at the free-school there, and articled to his father. Preferring the principles to the practice of the law, he obtained admission to the bar, and attended on the court and circuits without briefs, till, in 1759, he drew a memorial in behalf of the East India company against the claims of the Dutch, which was deemed a masterpiece in language and reasoning, and brought him into immediate notice. His able arguments against general warrants obtained him high reputation, and he was engaged in almost every great case. He became successively recorder of Bristol, member for Calne, and solicitor-general, which office he surrendered on the resignation of his friend lord Shelburne. When this nobleman returned to power he made Mr. Dunning chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and a peer of parliament. At the bar he was a most eloquent and powerful orator, and in the house of commons a distinguished opponent of the American war. He is reputed to have been the soundest common and constitutional lawyer of his time.[294]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 62·77.

[294] General Biographical Dictionary, vol. i. p. 673.

~August 14.~

CHRONOLOGY.

August 14, 1794, died George Colman _the elder_, an elegant scholar, and dramatist. He was born in 1733, at Florence, where his father was appointed resident from Great Britain to the court of Tuscany. He received his education at Westminster-school, and Christchurch-college, Oxford, where he became acquainted with Lloyd, Churchill, and Bonnel Thornton. In conjunction with the latter he wrote “the Connoisseur,” which procured him many eminent literary friendships. By the advice of lord Bath he went to the bar, but neglected its duties to court the muses. His fame as a dramatist is maintained by the “Clandestine Marriage,” the “Provoked Husband,” and the “Jealous Wife.” He wrote several other pieces for the stage, translated Terence, and Horace’s “Art of Poetry,” and became manager of Covent-garden theatre, and afterwards the patentee of the little theatre in the Haymarket, which he managed till paralysis impaired his faculties, and he sunk into a state of helplessness, from whence he never recovered.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·27.

~August 15.~

ASSUMPTION, B. V. M.

This Romish festival is retained in the church of England calendar.

* * * * *

Our old acquaintance Barnaby Googe rhimes of this festival from Naogeorgus:--

The blessed virgin Marie’s feast, hath here his place and time, Wherein departing from the earth, she did the heavens clime; Great bundels then of hearbes to Church, the people fast doe beare, The which against all hurtfull things, the priest doth hallow theare. Thus kindle they and nourish still, the people’s wickednesse, And vainly make them to beleeve whatsoever they expresse: For sundrie witchcrafts by these hearbs ar wrought, and divers charmes, And cast into the fire, are thought to drive away all harmes, And every painefull griefe from man, or beast, for to expell, Farre otherwise than nature, or the worde of God doth tell.

* * * * *

There is a volume printed at Amsterdam, 1657, entitled, “Jesus, Maria, Joseph; or the Devout Pilgrim of the Everlasting Blessed Virgin Mary, in his Holy Exercises, Affections, and Elevations, upon the sacred Mysteries of Jesus, Maria, Joseph.” From this curious book an amusing extract may be adduced, as a specimen of the language employed by certain writers of the Romish church in their addresses to the virgin:--

“You, O Mother of God, are the spiritual Paradise of the second Adam; the delicate cabinet of that divine marriage which was made betwixt the two natures; the great hall wherein was celebrated the world’s general reconciliation; you are the nuptial bed of the eternal word; the bright cloud carrying him who hath the cherubins for his chariot; the fleece of wool filled with the sweet dew of heaven, whereof was made that admirable robe of our royal shepherd, in which he vouchsafed to look after his lost sheep; you are the maid and the mother, the humble virgin and the high heaven both together; you are the sacred bridge whereby God himself descended to the earth; you are that piece of cloth whereof was composed the glorious garment of hypostatical union, where the worker was the Holy Ghost, the hand the virtue of the Most High, the wool the old spoils of Adam, the woof your own immaculate flesh, and the shuttle God’s incomparable goodness, which freely gave us the ineffable person of the word incarnate.

“You are the container of the incomprehensible; the root of the world’s first, best, and most beautiful flower; the mother of him who made all things; the nurse of him who provides nourishment for the whole universe; the bosom of him who unfolds all being within his breast; the unspotted robe of him who is clothed with light as with a garment; you are the sally-port through which God penetrated into the world; you are the pavilion of the Holy Ghost; and you are the furnace into which the Almighty hath particularly darted the most fervent sunbeams of his dearest love and affection.

“All hail! fruitful earth, alone proper and only prepared to bring forth the bread corn by which we are all sustained and nourished; happy leaven, which hath given relish to Adam’s whole race, and seasoned the paste whereof the true life-giving and soul-saving bread was composed; ark of honour in which God himself was pleased to repose, and where very glory itself became sanctified; golden pitcher, containing him who provides sweet manna from heaven, and produces honey from the rock to satisfy the appetites of his hungry people; you are the admirable house of God’s humiliation, through whose door he descended to dwell among us; the living book wherein the Father’s eternal word was written by the pen of the Holy Ghost. You are pleasing and comely as Jerusalem, and the aromatical odours issuing from your garments outvie all the delights of Mount Lebanus; you are the sacred pix of celestial perfumes, whose sweet exhalations shall never be exhausted; you are the holy oil, the unextinguishable lamp, the unfading flower, the divinely-woven purple, the royal vestment, the imperial diadem, the throne of the divinity, the gate of Paradise, the queen of the universe, the cabinet of life, the fountain ever flowing with celestial illustrations.

“All hail! the divine lantern encompassing that crystal lamp whose light outshines the sun in its midday splendour, the spiritual sea whence the world’s richest pearl was extracted; the radiant sphere, enclosing him within your sacred folds, whom the heavens cannot contain within their vast circumference; the celestial throne of God, more glistering than that of the glorious cherubims, the pure temple, tabernacle, and seat of the divinity.

“You are the well-fenced orchard, the fruitful border, the fair and delicate garden of sweet flowers, embalming the earth and air with their odoriferous fragrance, yet shut up and secured from any enemy’s entrance and irruption; you are the holy fountain, sealed with the signet of the most sacred Trinity, from whence the happy waters of life inflow upon the whole universe; you are the happy city of God, whereof such glorious things are everywhere sung and spoken.”[295]

NOTRE DAME DES ANGES.

One of the highest mountains of the chain that encircles the territory of Marseilles, has upon its summit a very singular rock, which appears exactly like the ruin of an old castle. This mountain derived its name from a chapel about halfway up, dedicated to the holy virgin, under the name of “Notre Dame des Anges,” but destroyed during the revolution. On the day of the Assumption, there is held on the mountain in the vicinity of the chapel, what is called in the Provençal tongue, a _roumaragi_, which is a country feast. The people from the neighbouring parts assemble on the spot, dressed in their Sunday clothes, where they join in dancing, playing at bowls, of which the Provençaux are passionately fond, quoits, running races, and other rural sports. Every village in Provence has a similar fête on some day in the year. In case of the village being named after any saint, which is very common, as St. Joseph, St. Barnabé, St. Zacharie, St. Louis, and many others, the roumaragi is held on that saint’s day. That on the mountain of Notre Dame des Anges is held on the Assumption, on account of the chapel having been dedicated to the holy virgin. During the revolution there was a general suspension of these festivals, but to the great joy of the Provençaux, they were resumed under Napoleon.[296]

PAGEANT OF THE ASSUMPTION AT ROUEN.

It is related in Mr. Dawson Turner’s “Tour through Normandy,” that formerly a pageant in honour of the virgin was held in the archbishopric of Rouen. Des Marêts, the governor of Dieppe, in 1443, established it in honour of the final expulsion of the English. The first master of the _Guild of the Assumption_ was the founder of it, under whose auspices and direction it was conducted.

About midsummer the principal inhabitants used to assemble at the _hotel de ville_, or townhouse of Dieppe, and there they selected the girl of the most exemplary character to represent the Virgin Mary, and with her six other young women, to act the parts of the daughters of Sion. The honour of figuring in this holy drama was greatly coveted; and the historian of Dieppe gravely assures us, that the earnestness felt on the occasion mainly contributed to the preservation of that purity of manners and that genuine piety, which subsisted in this town longer than in any other of France! But the election of the virgin was not sufficient: a representative of St. Peter was also to be found among the clergy; and the laity were so far favoured, that they were permitted to furnish the eleven other apostles.

This done, upon the fourteenth of August the virgin was laid in a cradle of the form of a tomb, and was carried early in the morning, (of the fifteenth,) attended by her suite of either sex, to the church of St. Jacques; while, before the door of the master of the guild, was stretched a large carpet, embroidered with verses in letters of gold, setting forth his own good qualities, and his love for the holy Mary. Hither also, as soon as _lauds_ had been sung, the procession repaired from the church, and then it was joined by the governor of the town, the members of the guild, the municipal officers, and the clergy of the parish of St. Remi. Thus attended, they paraded the town, singing hymns, which were accompanied by a full band. The procession was increased by the great body of the inhabitants; and its impressiveness was still further augmented by numbers of the youth of either sex, who assumed the garb and attributes of their patron saints, and mixed in the immediate train of the principal actors. They then again repaired to the church, where _Te Deum_ was sung by the full choir, in commemoration of the victory over the English; and high mass was performed, and the sacrament administered to the whole party.

During the service, a scenic representation was given of the _Assumption of the Virgin_. A scaffolding was raised, reaching nearly to the top of the dome, and supporting an azure canopy intended to emulate the “spangled vault of heaven;” and about two feet below the summit of it appeared, seated on a splendid throne, an old man as the image of the Father Almighty, a representation equally absurd and impious, and which could alone be tolerated by the votaries of the worst superstitions of popery. On either side four pasteboard angels, of the size of men, floated in the air, and flapped their wings in cadence to the sounds of the organ; while above was suspended a large triangle, at whose corners were placed three smaller angels, who, at the intermission of each office, performed upon a set of little bells the hymn of “Ave Maria gratiâ Dei plena per Secula,” &c., accompanied by a larger angel on each side with a trumpet. To complete this portion of the spectacle, two others, below the old man’s feet, held tapers, which were lighted as the services began, and extinguished at their close; on which occasions the figures were made to express reluctance by turning quickly about; so that it required some dexterity to apply the extinguishers. At the commencement of the mass, two of the angels by the side of the Almighty descended to the foot of the altar, and, placing themselves by the tomb, in which a pasteboard figure of the virgin had been substituted for her living representative, gently raised it to the feet of the Father. The image, as it mounted, from time to time, lifted its head and extended its arms, as if conscious of the approaching beatitude; then, after having received the benediction, and been encircled by another angel with a crown of glory, it gradually disappeared behind the clouds. At this instant a buffoon, who all the time had been playing his antics below, burst into an extravagant fit of joy; at one moment clapping his hands most violently, at the next stretching himself out as if dead. Finally he ran up to the feet of the old man, and hid himself under his legs, so as to show only his head. The people called him Grimaldi, an appellation that appears to have belonged to him by usage; and it is a singular coincidence, that the surname of the noblest family of Genoa the Proud, thus assigned by the rude rabble of a seaport to their buffoon, should belong of right to the sire and son, whose _mops_ and _mowes_ afford pastime to the upper gallery at Covent-garden.

Thus did the pageant proceed in all its grotesque glory; and, while

These laboured nothings in so strange a style Amazed th’ unlearned, and made the learned smile,

the children shouted aloud for their favourite Grimaldi; the priests, accompanied with bells, trumpets, and organs, thundered out the mass; the pious were loud in their exclamations of rapture at the devotion of the virgin, and the whole church was filled with a hoarse and confused murmuring sound. The sequel of this, as of most other similar representations, was a hearty dinner.

* * * * *

This adoration of the virgin, so prevalent in Romish worship, is adverted to in a beautiful passage of “Don Roderick.”

How calmly gliding through the dark blue sky The midnight moon ascends! Her placid beams, Through thinly scattered leaves and boughs grotesque, Mottle with mazy shades the orchard slope; Here, o’er the chesnut’s fretted foliage grey And massy, motionless they spread; here shine Upon the crags, deepening with blacker night Their chasms; and there the glittering argentry Ripples and glances on the confluent streams. A lovelier, purer light than that of day Rests on the hills; and oh, how awfully Into that deep and tranquil firmament The summits of Auseva rise serene! The watchman on the battlements partake The stillness of the solemn hour; he feels The silence of the earth, the endless sound Of flowing water soothes him, and the stars, Which in that brightest moonlight well nigh quenched, Scarce visible, as in the utmost depth Of yonder sapphire infinite are seen, Draw on with elevating influence Toward eternity the attempered mind Musing on worlds beyond the grave he stands, And to the virgin mother silently Breathes forth her hymn of praise.

_Southey._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·62.

[295] Dr. Aikin’s Athenæum.

[296] Miss Plumptre.

~August 16.~

CHRONOLOGY.

August 16, 1678, died Andrew Marvel, a man who “dared be honest in the worst of times.” He was the son of a clergyman at Hull in Yorkshire, where he was born in 1620. In 1633, he was sent to Trinity-college, Cambridge; in 1657, he became assistant to Milton in his office of Latin secretary to Cromwell; and at the restoration he was chosen to represent his native town in the house of commons.

His conduct was marked by inflexible adherence to the principles of liberty, and his wit as a writer was levelled at the corruptions of the court; yet Charles II. courted his society for the pleasure of his conversation. He lived in a mean lodging in an obscure court in the Strand, where he was visited by lord Danby, at the desire of the king, with his majesty’s request, to know in what way he could serve him; Marvel answered, it was not in the king’s power to serve him. Lord Danby in the course of conversation assured him of any place he might choose; Marvel replied, he could not accept the offer without being unjust to his country by betraying its interests, or ungrateful to the king by voting against him. Before lord Danby took leave he told him his majesty had sent him a thousand pounds as a mark of his private esteem. Marvel did not need the assurance; he refused the money, and after his noble visiter departed, borrowed a guinea which he wanted of a friend. This great man after having served his constituents for twenty successive years in parliament, was buried at their expense in the church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 62·65.

~August 17.~

BALL AND CROSS OF ST. PAUL’S.

August 17, 1736, died Mr. Niblet, master of the copper mills at Mitcham, Surrey, renowned in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” and in this column, for having made the ball and cross of St. Paul’s cathedral, London.[297]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·52.

[297] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~August 18.~

CHRONOLOGY.

August 18, 1746, William, earl of Kilmarnock, aged forty-two, and Arthur, baron Balmerino, aged fifty-eight, were beheaded on Tower-hill, as traitors, for levying war against king George II., in behalf of the pretender.

At the foot of a flight of stairs in the tower, lord Kilmarnock met lord Balmerino, and embracing him said, “My lord, I am heartily sorry to have your company in _this_ expedition.” At the Tower-gates, the sheriffs gave receipts for their bodies to the lieutenant, who, as usual, said, “God bless king George,” whereon the earl of Kilmarnock bowed; lord Balmerino exclaimed, “God bless king James.” They were preceded by the constable of the Tower hamlets, the knight-marshal’s men, tipstaves, and the sheriff’s officers, the sheriffs walking with their prisoners, followed by the tower warders, and a guard of musqueteers. Two hearses and a mourning coach terminated the procession, which passed through lines of foot soldiers to the scaffold on the south side of the hill, around which the guards formed an area, and troops of horse wheeled off, and drew up in their rear five deep.

The lords were conducted to separate apartments in a house facing the scaffold, and their friends admitted to see them. The rev. Mr. Hume, a near relative of the earl of Hume, with the rev. Mr. Foster, an amiable dissenting minister, who never recovered the dismal effect of the scene, assisted the earl of Kilmarnock; the chaplain of the tower, and another clergyman of the church of England accompanied lord Balmerino, who on entering the house, hearing several of the spectators ask, “which is lord Balmerino?” answered with a smile, “I am lord Balmerino, gentlemen, at your service.” Earl Kilmarnock spent an hour with Mr. Foster in devotional exercises, and afterwards had a conference with lord Balmerino, who on their taking leave said, “My dear lord Kilmarnock, I am only sorry that I cannot pay this reckoning alone: once more farewell for ever!”

As lord Kilmarnock proceeded to the scaffold attended by his friends, the multitude showed the deepest signs of pity and commiseration. Struck by the sympathy of the immense assemblage, and the variety of dreadful objects on the stage of death, his coffin, the heading-block, the axe, and the executioners, he turned to Mr. Hume and said, “Hume! this is terrible,” but his countenance and voice were unchanged. The black baize over the rails of the scaffold was removed, that the people might see all the circumstances of the execution, and a single stroke from the headsman, separated him from the world.

Lord Balmerino in the mean time having solemnly recommended himself to the Supreme Mercy, conversed cheerfully with his friends, took wine, and desired them to drink to him “ane degree ta haiven.” The sheriff entered to inform him that all was ready, but was prevented by the lordship inquiring if the affair was over with lord Kilmarnock. “It is,” said the sheriff. He then inquired, and being informed, how the executioner performed his office, observed, “It was well done;” turning himself to the company, he said, “Gentlemen I shall detain you no longer,” and saluted them with unaffected cheerfulness. He mounted the scaffold with so easy an air, as to astonish the spectators. No circumstance in his whole deportment showed the least fear or regret, and he frequently reproved his friends for discovering either, upon his account. He walked several times round the scaffold, bowed to the people, went to his coffin, read the inscription, and with a nod, said “it is right;” he then examined the block, which he called his “pillow of rest.” Putting on his spectacles, and taking a paper out of his pocket, he read it with an audible voice, and then delivering it to the sheriff, called for the executioner, who appearing, and being about to ask his lordship’s pardon, he interrupted him with “Friend, you need not ask my forgiveness, the execution of your duty is commendable,” and gave him three guineas, saying, “Friend, I never was rich, this is all the money I have now, and I am sorry I can add nothing to it but my coat and waistcoat,” which he then took off, together with his neckcloth, and threw them on his coffin. Putting on a flannel waistcoat, provided for the purpose, and taking a plaid cap out of his pocket, he put it on his head, saying he died “a Scotchman.” He knelt down at the block, to adjust his posture, and show the executioner the signal for the stroke. Once more turning to his friends, and looking round on the crowd, he said, “Perhaps some may think my behaviour too bold, but remember, sir, (said he to a gentleman who stood near him,) that I now declare it is the effect of confidence in God, and a good conscience, and I should dissemble if I should show any signs of fear.”

Observing the axe in the executioner’s hand as he passed him, he took it from, him, felt the edge, and returning it, clapped the executioner on the shoulder to encourage him. He then tucked down the collar of his shirt and waistcoat, and showed him where to strike, desiring him to do it resolutely, for “in that,” said his lordship, “will consist your kindness.”

Passing to the side of the stage, he called up the wardour, to whom he gave some money, asked which was his hearse, and ordered the man to drive near.

Immediately, without trembling or changing countenance, he knelt down at the block, and with his arms stretched out, said, “O Lord, reward my friends, forgive my enemies, and receive my soul,” he gave the signal by letting them fall. His firmness and intrepidity, and the unexpected suddenness of the signal, so surprised the executioner, that the blow was not given with strength enough to wound him very deep; another blow immediately given rendered him insensible, and a third completed the work of death.

* * * * *

Lord Balmerino had but a small estate. His lady came to London, and frequently attended him during his confinement in the Tower. She was at dinner with him when the warrant came for his execution the Monday following. Being very much shocked, he desired her not to be concerned. “If the king had given me mercy,” he said, “I should have been glad of it; but since it is otherwise, I am very easy, for it is what I have expected, and therefore it does not at all surprise me.” She was disconsolate, and rose immediately from table; on which he started from his chair, and said, “Pray, my lady, sit down, for it shall not spoil my dinner.”[298]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 64·17.

[298] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~August 19.~

EARWIGS.

It is noted in the “Historical Chronicle” of the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” on the nineteenth of August, 1755, under the head, “Stroud,” that at that time there were such quantities of _earwigs_ in that vicinity that they distroyed not only the flowers and fruits, but the cabbages, were they ever so large. The houses, especially the old wooden buildings, were swarming with them. The cracks and crevices were surprisingly full, they dropped out in such multitudes that the floors were covered; the linen, of which they are very fond, were likewise full, as was also the furniture, and it was with caution that people eat their provisions, for the cupboards and safes were plentifully stocked with the disagreeable intruders.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 62·72.

~August 20.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On the twentieth of August, 1589, James VI. of Scotland afterwards James I. of England married the princess Anne of Denmark, daughter to Frederick II. She became the mother of the ill-fated Charles I.

LOVE TOKENS.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--It was the custom in England in “olden tyme,” as the ancient chronicles have it, for “enamoured maydes and gentilwomen,” to give to their favourite swains, as tokens of their love, little handkerchiefs about three or four inches square, wrought round about, often in embroidery, with a button or tassel at each corner, and a little one in the centre. The finest of these favours were edged with narrow gold lace, or twist; and then, being folded up in four cross folds, so that the middle might be seen, they were worn by the accepted lovers in their hats, or at the breast. These favours became at last so much in vogue, that they were sold ready made in the shops in Elizabeth’s time, from sixpence to sixteen-pence a piece. Tokens were also given by the gentlemen, and accepted by their fair mistresses; thus ascribed in an old comedy of the time:--

Given earrings we will wear Bracelets of our lover’s hair; Which they on our arms shall twist (With our names carved) on our wrists.

I am, &c.

H. M. LANDER

_King’s Bench Walk, Temple._

* * * * *

_For the Every-Day Book._

AN EVENING WALK.

_Love Lane._

’Tis fitter now to ease the brain, To take a quiet walk in a green lane.

_Byron._

This observation of our matchless bard, the idol and delight of our own times, though just, few I fear follow--either from want of inclination, or what is as bad, want of time. But there are some whose hours of toil, mental and bodily, do not preclude them from seeking the tranquil haunts of nature. With me, after nervous irritability and mental excitement, it has been, and is a favourite enjoyment, to quit the dusky dwellings of man, and wander among the fields and green lanes of our southern shore, while the sun is declining, and stillness begins to settle around.

Listlessly roving, whither I cared not, I have sauntered along till I felt my unquiet sensations gradually subside, and a pleasing calmness steal upon me. I know of nothing more annoying than that nervous thrilling or trembling, which runs through the whole frame after the mind has been troubled; it seems to me like the bubbling and restless swell of the ocean after a storm--one mass of fretful and impatient water, knowing not how to compose itself. But to come to the green fields. There is a lane leading from the grove at Camberwell called Love-lane; it is well so called--long, winding, and quiet, with scenery around beautifully soft--the lover might wander with the mistress of his soul for hours in undisturbed enjoyment. This lane is dear to me, for with it is linked all my early associations--the bird--the butterfly--the wild white rose--my first love. The bird is there still, the butterfly hovers there, and the rose remains; but where is my first love? I may not ask. Echo will but answer, “where!” yet I may in imagination behold her--I call up the shadowy joys of former times, and like the beautiful vision in “Manfred,” she stands before me:--

A thousand recollections in her train Of joy and sorrow, ere the bitter hour Of separation came, never again To meet in this wide world as we have met, To feel as we have felt, to look, to speak, To think alone as we _have_ thought allow’d.

What happy feelings have been ours in that quiet lane! We have wandered arm in arm, gazed on the scenery, listened to the bird. We have not spoken, but our eyes have met, and thoughts too full for utterance, found answers there. Those days are gone; yet I love to wander there alone, even now; to press the grass that has been pressed by her feet, to pluck the flower from the hedge where she plucked it, to look on the distant hills that she looked on, rising in long smooth waves, when not a sound is heard save the “kiss me dear,” which some chaffinch is warbling to his mate, or the trickling of waters seeking their sandy beds in the hollows beneath the hedgerows. I strolled thither a few evenings ago: the sun was softly sinking, and the bright crimson which surrounded him, fading into a faint orange, tinged here and there with small sable clouds; the night-cloud was advancing slowly darkly on; afar in the horizon were

The light-ships of the sky Sailing onward silently.

One bird, the lark, was singing his evening song among the cool grass; softly, sweetly, it died away, and all was silent deep tranquillity; a pleasing coolness came on the faint breeze over the neighbouring fields, pregnant with odours, refreshing as they were fragrant. It was twilight; the green of the distant hills changed to a greyish hue, their outlines were enlarged, the trees assumed a more gigantic appearance, and soft dews began to ascend; faint upshootings of light in the eastern horizon foretold the rising of the moon; she appeared at length above the clouds, and a deeper stillness seemed to come with her, as if nature, like man at the presence of a lovely women, was hushed into silent admiration; the grey clouds rolled away on each side of her as rolls the white foam of the ocean before the bows of the vessel; her course was begun, and,

“Silently beautiful, and calmly bright Along her azure path I saw her glide Heedless of all those things that neath her light In bliss or woe or pain or care abide. Wealth, poverty, humility, and pride, All are esteemed as nothing in her sight, Nor make her for one moment turn aside. So calm philosophy unmoved pursues Throughout the busy world its quiet way; Nor aught that folly wiles or glory woos, Can tempt awhile its notice or its stay: Above all earthly thoughts its way it goes And sinks at length in undisturbed repose.”

Coldly and calmly the full orb glided through the stillness of heaven. My thoughts were of the past, of the millions who had worshipped her, of the many she had inspired--of Endymion, of the beautiful episode of Nisus and Euryalus in Virgil, of Diana of the Ephesians, of the beautiful descriptions of her by the poets of every age, of every clime. The melancholy yet pleasing feeling which came on me I can hardly describe: my disquietude had ceased; an undisturbed calmness succeeded it; my thoughts were weaned from the grosser materiality of earth, and were soaring upward in silent adoration. I felt the presence of a divinity, and was for a moment happy. Ye who are careworn, whose minds are restless, go at the peaceful hour of eve to the green fields and the hedge-clothed lanes. If you are not poets, you will feel as poets; if you doubt, you will be convinced of Supreme Power and Infinite Love; and be better in head and heart for your journey.

S. R. J.

* * * * *

SONG.

BY SAMUEL DANIEL, 1590.

Love is a sickness full of woes, All remedies refusing; A plant that most with cutting grows, Most barren with best using. Why so? More we enjoy it, more it dies, If not enjoyed it sighing cries Heigh ho!

Love is a torment of the mind, A tempest everlasting; And Jove hath made it of a kind Not well, nor full, nor fasting. Why so? More we enjoy it, more it dies, If not enjoyed it sighing cries Heigh ho![299]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·92.

[299] Communicated by C. T.

~August 21.~

MERLIN’S CAVE, AND STEPHEN DUCK.

We are told on the thirtieth of June, 1735, that her majesty (the queen of George II.) ordered “Mr. Rysbrack to make the bustos in marble of all the kings of England from William the Conqueror, in order to be placed in her new building in the gardens at Richmond.”

On the twenty-first of August, in the same year, we learn that the figures her majesty had ordered for Merlin’s cave were placed therein, viz. 1.--Merlin at a table with conjuring books and mathematical instruments, taken from the face of Mr. Ernest, page to the prince of Wales; 2.--King Henry VIIth’s queen, and 3.--Queen Elizabeth, who come to Merlin for knowledge, the former from the face of Mrs. Margaret Purcell, and the latter from Miss Paget’s; 4.--Minerva from Mrs. Poyntz’s; 5.--Merlin’s secretary, from Mr. Kemp’s, one of his royal highness the duke’s grenadiers; and 6.--a witch, from a tradesman’s wife at Richmond. Her majesty ordered also a choice collection of English books to be placed therein; and appointed Mr. Stephen Duck to be cave and library keeper, and his wife to an office of trust and employment.[300]

* * * * *

Stephen Duck was a versifying thrasher, whom she got appointed a yeoman of the guard, and afterwards obtained orders for, and the living of Byfleet, in Surrey. The poor fellow sought happiness at the wrong end, and drowned himself in 1756.

Contentment, rosy, dimpled maid, Thou brightest daughter of the sky, Why dost thou to the hut repair, And from the gilded palace fly?

I’ve trac’d thee on the peasant’s cheek; I’ve mark’d thee in the milkmaid’s smile; I’ve heard thee loudly laugh and speak, Amid the sons of want and toil.

Yet, in the circles of the great, Where fortune’s gifts are all combined, I’ve sought thee early, sought thee late, And ne’er thy lovely form could find. Since then from wealth and pomp you flee, I ask but competence and thee!

_Lady Manners._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·65.

[300] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~August 22.~

BATTLE OF BOSWORTH.

This is the anniversary of the memorable conflict wherein Richard III. lost his life and crown.

_For the Every-Day Book._

The well of which the above is a representation, is situate on the spot where the celebrated battle of Bosworth field was fought, by which, the long-existing animosities between the rival houses of York and Lancaster were finally closed. The king is said, during the heat of the engagement, to have refreshed himself with water from this spring. A few years ago a subscription was entered into, for the purpose of erecting some memorial of this circumstance, and the late learned Dr. Parr being applied to, furnished an inscription, of which the following is a copy.

AQVA . EX . HOC . PVTEO . HAVSTA SITIM . SEDAVIT RICARDVS . TERTIVS . REX . ANGLIAE CVM . HENRICO . COMITE . DE . RICHMONDIA ACERRIME . ATQVE . INFENSISSIME PRAELIANS ET . VITA . PARITER . AC . SCEPTRO AVTE . NOCTEM . CARITVRVS XI KAL . SEPT . A. D. MCCCCLXXXV.

TRANSLATION.

_Richard the III. King of England, most eagerly and hotly contending with Henry, Earl of Richmond, and about to lose before night both his sceptre and his life, quenched his thirst with water drawn from this well.--August 22, 1485._

The Roman month was divided into kalends, nones, and ides, all of which were reckoned _backwards_. The kalends are the first day of the month.--Thus the first of September being the kalends of September, the thirty-first of August would be _pridie kalendarum_, or the second of the kalends of _September_; the thirtieth of August would then be the third of the kalends of September. Pursuing this train the twenty-second of August, and the XI of the kalends of September will be found to correspond.

The battle of Bosworth field was fought on the twenty-second of August, 1485, “on a large flat spacious ground,” says Burton, “three miles distant from this town.” Richmond, afterwards Henry VII., landed at Milford-haven on the sixth of August, and arrived at Tamworth on the eighteenth. On the nineteenth he had an interview with his father-in-law, lord Stanley, when measures were converted for their further operations. On the twentieth, he encamped at Atherstone, and on the twenty-first, both armies were in sight of each other the whole day. Richard entered Leicester with his army on the sixteenth, having the royal crown on his head; he slept at Elmesthorpe on the night of the seventeenth. On the eighteenth he arrived at Stapleton, where he continued till Sunday the twenty-first. The number of his forces exceeded sixteen thousand--those of Richmond did not amount to five thousand. On each side the leader addressed his troops with a splendid oration “which was scarcely finished” says an old historian, “but the one army espied the other. Lord! how hastily the soldiers buckled their helms! how quickly the archers bent their bows and brushed their feathers! how readily the billmen shook their bills and proved their staves, ready to approach and join when the terrible trumpet should sound the bloody blast to victory or death!” The first conflict of the archers being over, the armies met fiercely with sword and bills, and at this period Richmond was joined by lord Stanley, which determined the fortune of the day.

In this battle, which lasted little more than two hours, above one thousand persons were slain on the side of Richard. Of Richmond’s army, scarcely one hundred were killed, amongst whom, the principal person was sir William Brandon, his standard bearer. Richard is thought to have despised his enemy too much, and to have been too dilatory in his motions. He is universally allowed to have performed prodigies of valour, and is said to have fallen at last by treachery, in consequence of a blow from one of his followers. His body was thrown across a horse, and carried, for interment, to the Greyfriars at Leicester. He was the only English monarch, since the conquest, that fell in battle, and the second who fought in his crown. Henry V. appeared in his at Agincourt, which was the means of saving his life, (though, probably, it might provoke the attack,) by sustaining a stroke with a battle-axe, which cleft it. Richard’s falling off in the engagement, was taken up and secreted in a bush, where it was discovered by sir Reginald Bray and placed upon Henry’s head. Hence arises the device of a crown in a hawthorn bush, at each end of Henry’s tomb in Westminster-abbey.

In 1644, Bosworth field became again the scene of warfare; an engagement, or rather skirmish, taking place between the parliamentary and royal forces, in which the former were victorious without the loss of a single individual.

G. J.

* * * * *

The late Mr. William Hutton, the historian of Birmingham, wrote an account of “The Battle of Bosworth Field,” which Mr. Nichols published, and subsequently edited with considerable additions. Mr. Hutton apprehended that the famous well where Richard slaked his thirst would sink into oblivion. A letter from Dr. Parr to Mr. Nichols, dated Hatton, September 13, 1813, removes these apprehensions:--

“As to Bosworth Field, six or seven years ago I explored it, and I found Dick’s Well, out of which the tradition is that Richard drank during the battle. It was in dirty, mossy ground, and seemed to me in danger of being destroyed by the cattle. I therefore bestirred myself to have it preserved, and to ascertain the owner. The bishop of Down spoke to the archbishop of Armagh, who said that the ground was not his. I then found it not to be Mrs. Pochin’s. Last year I traced it to a person to whom it had been bequeathed by Dr. Taylor, formerly rector of Bosworth. I went to the spot, accompanied by the rev. Mr. Lynes, of Kirkby-Malory. The grounds had been drained. We dug in two or three places without effect. I then applied to a neighbouring farmer, a good intelligent fellow. He told me his family had drawn water from it for six or seven years, and that he would conduct me to the very place. I desired him to describe the signs. He said there were some large stones, and some square wood, which went round the well at the top. We dug, and found things as he had described them; and, having ascertained the very spot, we rolled in the stones, and covered them with earth. Now lord Wentworth, and some other gentlemen, mean to fence the place with some strong stones, and to put a large stone over it with the following inscription; and you may tell the story if you please.

“Yours, &c.

“S. PARR.”

The inscription is given in the preceding notice of the battle of Bosworth by G. J., who likewise obligingly transmitted the drawing of the well in its present state.

* * * * *

The editor is highly favoured by the interesting communication from a gentleman profoundly erudite in genealogical lore.

_For the Every-Day Book._

The ravages inflicted by the all-subduing hand of time are not more distinctly traceable in the deserted hall of the dismantled castle, and the moulding fane of the dilapidated abbey, than in the downfall or extinction of ancient and distinguished races of nobility, who in ages long past by have shook the senate and field, have scattered plenty o’er a smiling land, or, as alas! is too frequently the melancholy reverse, shut the gates of mercy on mankind.

Considerations of this nature have suggested a review of the few families remaining in our peerage, whose ancestors enjoyed that distinction.

“Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent Their antient rage on Bosworth’s purple field.”

The protracted duration and alternated reverses of the contest between the houses of Lancaster and York, added to the rancorous inveteracy indispensably inherent in a barbarous age, will account for the comparatively rare sprinkling of the immediate descendants of the followers and councillors of the Plantagenets in our present house of peers. In France, on the other hand, the contemporary struggle for the throne laid between an indisputed native prince, Charles VII. and a foreign competitor, our Henry VI. The courtesies of war (imperfect even as they existed in those days) were allowed fairer play, and those who escaped the immediate edge of the foeman’s sword were not handed over to the axe of the executioner.

The awful mortality which befell one eminent branch of our gallant Plantagenets at the period in question, is recorded in emphatic terms by their animated and faithful chronicler, Shakspeare:--

“Two of thy name, both dukes of Somerset, Have sold their lives unto the house of York, And thou shalt be the third, if this sword hold.”

_List of English Peerages now existing on the Roll, of which the Date of Creation is prior to the Accession of Henry VII._

Duke of Norfolk. Duke of Beaufort, as Baron de Botetourt. Marquis Townshend, as Baron de Ferrars. Marquis of Hastings, as Baron Hastings. Earl of Shrewsbury. Earl of Berkeley, as Baron Berkeley. Earl Delawarr, as Baron Delawarr and West. Earl of Abergavenny, as Baron Abergavenny. Baroness de Roos. Baron Le Despencer. Baron de Clifford. Baron Audley. Baron Clinton. Baron Dacre. Baron de la Zouche. Baroness Willoughby d’Eresby. Baroness Grey de Ruthyn. Baron Stourton.

_List of Families now invested with the Dignity of Peerage, whose Ancestors in the Male Line, enjoyed the Peerage before the Accession of Henry VII._

Where a well-grounded doubt exists, an asterisk is prefixed to the name.

Howard * Spencer * Montagu Clinton Talbot Stanley Hastings Grey Berkeley Windsor Lumley West Neville Devereux Courtenay Stourton Clifford Willoughby * Basset

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 62·50.

~August 23.~

CHRONOLOGY.

August 23, 1305, sir William Wallace, “the peerless knight of Elleslie,” who bravely defended Scotland against Edward I. was executed by order of that monarch on Tower-hill. This distinguished individual is popular in England five hundred years after his death, through the well-known ballad

“Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,” &c.

THE SEASON.

Swallows are now preparing for their departure. On this day, in 1826, the editor observed hundreds of them collecting so high in the air that they seemed of the size of flies; they remained wheeling about and increasing in number upwards of an hour before dusk, when they all took their flight in a south-western direction.

CHELDONIZING, OR SWALLOW SINGING.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book_

Sir,--The recent, and it is hoped still continued subscriptions in aid of suffering humanity, induce an observation, that to the very remote origin of collecting general alms, may be traced most of the mummeries practised in Christendom in the gothic centuries, and in the English counties, even till within our own memory. Among the Rhodians one method of soliciting eleemosynary gifts, called cheldonizing, or swallow-singing, is corroboratory of the assertion. This benevolence, or voluntary contribution, was instituted by Cleobulus of Lindos, at a time when public necessity drove the Lindians to the expedient of soliciting a general subscription. Theognis speaks of cheldonizing as taking place among the sacred rites practised at Rhodes in the month Boëdromion, or August, and deriving its name from the customary song:--

The swallow, the swallow is here, With his back so black, and his belly so white; He brings on the pride of the year, With the gay months of love and the days of delight.

Come, bring out the good humming stuff, Of your nice tit-bits let the swallow partake, Of good bread and cheese give enough, And a slice of your right Boëdromion cake.

Our hunger, our hunger it twinges, So give my good masters, I pray; Or we’ll pull off your door from its hinges, And, ecod! we’ll steal young madam away.

She’s a nice little pocket-piece darling, And faith ’twill be easy to carry her hence; Away with old prudence so snarling, And toss us down freely a handful of pence.

Come, let us partake of your cheer, And loosen your purse strings so hearty; No crafty old grey beards are here, And see we’re a merry boy’s party, And the swallow, the swallow is here!

Plutarch refers to another Rhodian custom, which is particularly mentioned by Phœnix of Colophon, a writer of iambics, who describes the practice being that of certain men going about to collect donations for the crow, and singing or saying--

My good, worthy masters, a pittance bestow, Some oatmeal, or barley, or wheat, for the crow; A loaf or a penny, or e’en what you will, As fortune your pockets may happen to fill.

From the poor man a grain of his salt may suffice, For your crow swallows all, and is not very nice; And the man who can now give his grain and no more, May another day give from a plentiful store.

Come, my lad, to the door, Plutus nods to our wish, And our sweet little mistress comes out with a dish; She gives us her figs, and she gives us a smile, Heaven bless her, and guard her from sorrow and guile;

And send her a husband of noble degree, And a boy to be danc’d on his grand-daddy’s knee; And a girl like herself to rejoice her good mother, Who may one day present her with just such another.

God bless your dear hearts all a thousand times o’er! Thus we carry our singing to door after door; Alternately chanting, we ramble along, And treat all who give, or give not, a song.

The song thus concludes--

My good, worthy masters, a pittance bestow, Your bounty, my good, worthy mistresses throw; Remember the crow, he is not very nice, Do but give as you can, and the gift will suffice.

Pamphilius of Alexandria, in his chapter on names, says these men making collections for the crow, were called coronistæ, or crow-mummers; and their songs were named coronismata, as Hagnooles, the Rhodian, relates in his work, entitled “Coronistæ.”

I am, &c.

J. H. B.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 62·92.

~August 24.~

ST. BARTHOLOMEW.

For St. Bartholomew, see vol. i. col. 1131.

MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW.

This horrible slaughter is noticed in the same volume at the same place. For particulars of the probable amount of the persons massacred, and the different accounts of historians, the reader is referred to a most able article in the “Edinburgh Review, June, 1826,” on the extraordinary misrepresentations of the event and its perpetrators in Mr. Lingard’s “History of England.”

A RESIDENT IN THE FLEET.

On the twenty-fourth of August, 1736, a remarkably fat boar was taken up in coming out of Fleet Ditch into the Thames: it proved to be a butcher’s, near Smithfield-bars, who had missed him five months, all which time, it seems, he had been in the common sewer, and was improved in price from ten shillings to two guineas.[301]

THE FIRST PIGS IN SCOTLAND.

Within the last century (probably about 1720) a person in the parish of Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire, called the “Gudeman o’ the Brow,” received a young swine as a present from some distant part; which seems to have been the first ever seen in that part of the country. This pig having strayed across the Lochar into the adjoining parish of Carlavroc, a woman who was herding cattle on the marsh, by the sea side, was very much alarmed at the sight of a living creature, that she had never seen or heard of before, approaching her straight from the shore as if it had come out of the sea, and ran home to the village of Blackshaw screaming. As she ran, the pig ran snorking and grunting after her, seeming glad that it had met with a companion. She arrived at the village so exhausted and terrified, that before she could get her story told she fainted away. By the time she came to herself, a crowd of people had collected to see what was the matter, when she told them, that “There was a diel came out of the sea with two horns in his head and chased her, roaring and gaping all the way at her heels, and she was sure it was not far off.” A man called Wills Tom, an old schoolmaster, said if he could see it he would “cunger the diel,” and got a bible and an old sword. The pig immediately started behind his back with a loud grumph, which put him into such a fright, that his hair stood upright in his head, and he was obliged to be carried from the field half dead.

The whole crowd ran some one way and some another; some reached the house-tops, and others shut themselves in barns and byres. At last one on the house-top called out it was “the Gudeman o’ the Brow’s grumphy,” he having seen it before. Thus the affray was settled, and the people reconciled, although some still entertained frightful thoughts about it, and durst not go over the door to a neighbour’s house after dark without one to set or cry them. One of the crowd who had some compassion on the creature, called out, “give it a tork of straw to eat, it will be hungry.”

Next day the pig was conveyed over the Lochar, and on its way home, near the dusk of evening, it came grunting up to two men who were pulling thistles on the farm of Cockpool. Alarmed at the sight, they mounted two old horses they had tethered beside them, intending to make their way home, but the pig getting between them and the houses, caused them to scamper out of the way and land in Lochar moss, where one of their horses was drowned, and the other with difficulty relieved. The night being dark, they durst not part one from the other to call for assistance, lest the monster should find them out and attack them singly; nor durst they speak above their breath for fear of being devoured. At day-break next morning they took a different course, by Cumlongon castle, and made their way home, where they found their families much alarmed on account of their absence. They said that they had seen a creature about the size of a dog, with two horns on its head, and cloven feet, roaring out like a lion, and if they had not galloped away, it would have torn them to pieces. One of their wives said, “Hout man, it has been the Gudeman of the Brow’s grumphy; it frightened them a’ at the Blackshaw yesterday, and poor Meggie Anderson maist lost her wits, and is ay out o ae fit into anither sin-syne.”

The pig happened to lay all night among the corn where the men were pulling thistles, and about day-break set forward on its journey for the Brow. One Gabriel Gunion, mounted on a long-tailed grey colt, with a load of white fish in a pair of creels swung over the beast, encountered the pig, which went nigh among the horse’s feet and gave a snork. The colt, being as much frightened as Gabriel, wheeled about and scampered off sneering, with his tail on his “riggin,” at full gallop. Gabriel cut the slings and dropt the creels, the colt soon dismounted his rider, and going like the wind, with his tail up, never stopped till he came to Barnkirk point, where he took the Solway Frith and landed at Bownes, on the Cumberland side. Gabriel, by the time he got up, saw the pig within sight, took to his heels, as the colt was quite gone, and reached Cumlongon wood in time to hide himself, where he staid all that day and night, and next morning got home almost exhausted. He told a dreadful story! The fright caused him to imagine the pig as big as a calf, having long horns, eyes like trenchers, and a back like a hedgehog. He lost his fish; the colt was got back, but never did more good; and Gabriel fell into a consumption, and died about a year afterwards.

About the same time a vessel came to Glencaple quay, a little below Dumfries, that had some swine on board; one of them having got out of the vessel in the night, was seen on the farm of Newmains next morning. The alarm was spread, and a number of people collected. The animal got many different names, and at last it was concluded to be a “brock” (a badger). Some got pitchforks, some clubs, and others old swords, and a hot pursuit ensued; the chase lasted a considerable time, owing to the pursuers losing heart when near their prey and retreating. One Robs Geordy having rather a little more courage than the rest, ran “neck or nothing,” forcibly upon the animal, and run it through with a pitchfork, for which he got the name of “stout hearted Geordy” all his life after. A man, nearly a hundred years of age, who was alive in 1814, in the neighbourhood where this happened, declared that he remembered the Gudeman of the Brow’s pig, and the circumstances related, and he said it was the first swine ever seen in that country.[302]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·80.

[301] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[302] Henderson on the Breeding of Swine. 1814, 8vo.

~August 25.~

ISLINGTON CATTLE MARKET.

August 25, 1746, a distemper which arose among the horned cattle, broke out afresh in the parts adjacent to London, and “the fair for the sale of Welsh cattle near Islington was kept at Barnet.”[303]

IMPORTANT TO HOUSEKEEPERS.

The following letter from a lady claims the attention of every good housewife at this particular season.

BLACKBERRY JAM.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_Westbury, Wiltshire, Aug. 15, 1826._

Sir,--The importance that I attach to the above _sweet_ subject,--the uses of “a _jam_” even may be important,--induces me to offer you the option of republishing a few lines on the occasion, which first appeared in a very condensed form last autumn, in the “Examiner” newspaper. I am anxious to obtain further celebrity, and a wider circulation of the merits which this wholesome dainty justly lay claim, and the success that attended my former little notice of it, encourage me to persevere; for I was informed that after the publication alluded to, the “Herald” copied it, and that subsequently it was cried in the streets of your dingy metropolis.

I can only judge of the prevailing quantity of the kindly blackberry, by the vast profusion that enriches _our_ woody vales, where nature seems resolved to solace herself for the restrictions to which she has been confined by the dreary downs that skirt our beautiful vicinity; and where Falstaff must surely have originated his happy expression of “reasons being plenty as blackberries!” But I am keeping you too long from the subject. The method of preparing the delicate conserve that forms so large a portion of my children’s favourite _adjunctive_ aliment, is so simple, that it can be achieved by the merest novice in the _nice_ department of “domestic management.”

Boil the blackberries with half their weight of coarse moist sugar for three quarters of an hour,[304] keeping the mass stirred constantly. It is a mistake to suppose that a stewpan is a necessary vehicle on the occasion; the commonest tin saucepan will answer the purpose equally well. The more luxurious preserves being made with _white_ sugar, and that of equal weight with the fruit, are necessarily unwholesome; but the cheapness of this homely delicacy, besides its sanative properties renders it peculiarly desirable for scantily furnished tables. It has been a “staple commodity” in my family for some years past, and with the exception of _treacle_, I find it the most useful aliment in “regulating _the bowels_” of my children;--you as a “family man,” sir, will excuse, nay, appreciate the observation, and all your readers who have “_their quivers full of them_,” will not disdain the _gratis_ prescription that shall supersede the _guinea fee!_ Indeed, to the sparing use of butter, and a liberal indulgence in _treacle_ and _blackberry jam_, I mainly attribute the extraordinary health of my young family. The prodigal use, or rather the abuse, of butter that pervades all classes, has often surprised me: the very cottage children, whose tattered apparel bespeaks abject poverty, I continually meet munching their “_hunks_” of bread, smeared with butter; how much should I rejoice to see, because I _know_ its superiority in _every_ respect, my favourite jam substituted! But _cottage children_ are far from being objects of my compassion, for they live in the “country,” which comprehensive word conveys delicious ideas of sun, fresh air, exercise, flowers, shady trees, and this wholesome fruit clustering about them, and inviting their chubby fingers at every healthful step. My pity is reserved for their forlorn little brethren, doomed to breathe the unwholesome atmosphere of crowded manufactories, and close narrow alleys in populous cities! What a luxury would a supper be twice a week, for instance, to the poor little “bottoms” in Spitalfields.[305] Who knows but they might receive their first taste for Shakspeare while being fed, like their great prototype in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with blackberries! “_Dewberries_,” which Titania ordered for the refreshment of her favourite, are so nearly allied to their glossy neighbours, that when the season is far advanced the two are not easily distinguished. Shakspeare, who knew every thing, was of course aware that the dewberry ripens earlier than the blackberry; namely, in the season for “apricots.” It must be confessed that nothing but the associations that are connected with the elegant and romantic name “dewberry,” fit only for the mouth of a fairy to pronounce, could induce me to give a preference to the latter; they are not so numerous, nor consequently so useful. I own I am sanguine respecting the _general_ introduction of blackberries into the London street cries. What an innovation they would cause! what a rural sight, and sound, and taste, and smell, would they introduce into that wilderness of houses! What a conjuring up of happy feelings--almost as romantic as those that are inspired by “bilberries, ho!” When I resided in London, I recollect the wild, and exquisite, and undefinable sensations that were excited by the peculiar and un-city-like cry of these “whorts.”[306] I used to look out at the blue-frocked boys who sold them, with their heavy country faces; capacious “_gabardines_,” that hinted of Caliban; round hats, that knew no touch of form; and unaccountable laced up boots; with as much astonishment, as if I had beheld and heard purveyors from the wilderness shouting “_Manna!_” which we all know is “_angel’s food!_”

I have taken up sadly too much of your time, sir, I feel assured. I intended but to name the method of making blackberry jam, to assure you of its salubrity, and to request you to recommend its general use:--and I have only now to request that you will not suffer the very imperfect manner in which _I_, who cannot write for the public eye, have handled the subject to deter you from doing it justice.

I am, Sir,

Yours respectfully,

I. J. T.

P. S. It has just occurred to me to say, why should not grocers, confectioners, fruiterers, and chandlers, speculate in the “new article,” and provide a store of it to meet a probable demand? I should think it might be sold, with a reasonable profit, at sixpence or eightpence a pound.

* * * * *

DEATH OF THE LOTTERY.

In the spring, and for three weeks after midsummer, 1826, the lottery-office keepers incessantly plied every man, woman, and child in the United Kingdom, and its dependencies, with petitions to make a fortune in “the last lottery that can be drawn.” Men paraded the streets with large printed placards on poles, or pasted on their backs, announcing “All Lotteries End for Ever! 18th of July.” The walls were stuck, and hand-bills were thrust into the hands of street passengers, with the same heart-rending intelligence, and with the solemn assurance that the demand for tickets and shares was immense! Their prices had so risen, were so rising, and would be so far beyond all calculation, that to get shares or tickets at all, they must be instantly purchased! As the time approached, a show was got up to proclaim that the deplorable “Death of the Lottery,” would certainly take place on the appointed day; but on some account or other, the pathetic appeal of the benevolent contractors was disregarded, and the gentlemen about to be “turned off,” were as unheeded, and as unlamented as criminals, who say or sing in their last moments--

“Gentlefolks all Pity our fall! Have pity all, Pity our fall!”

At length the stoney-hearted public were “respectfully” informed that “the lords of the treasury had issued a “_reprieve_,” and that the “drawing” and “quartering” and so forth was, “postponed from Tuesday, 18th July,” to some dull day in October, “when Lotteries will finish for ever?”

* * * * *

Of late years lotteries have been drawn at Coopers’-hall. Formerly they were drawn at the place, and in the manner exhibited in the preceding representation, after an engraving by Cole.

PHRENOLOGY.

PHRENOLOGICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. _By George Cruikshank._ London: Published by George Cruikshank, Myddelton-terrace, Pentonville. 1826.

“In the name of wonder,” a reader may inquire, “is the _Every-Day Book_ to be a Review.” By no means;--but “George Cruikshank” is a “remarkable person;” his first appearance in the character of an author is a “remarkable event,” in the August of 1826; and, as such, deserves a “remarkable notice.”

Every reader is of course aware, that, as certainly as a hazel-rod, between the fingers of a gifted individual, discovers the precious metals and waters beneath the earth, so certainly, a phrenological adept, by a discriminating touch of the nodosities on the surface of the head, detects the secret sources, or “springs of human action.” To what extent Mr. Cruikshank has attained this quality, or whether he is under obligations to Dr. Combe for “a touch” of his skill, or has bowed his head to Mr. De Ville for “a cast” in plaster, is not so clear, as that his “Phrenological Illustrations” will be as popular, and assuredly as lasting as the science itself--“Cruikshank and Craniology--_for ever_!”

Be it observed, however, that “Craniology,” which alliterates so well with “Cruikshank,” was only a “proper” term, while the disciples of doctors Gall and Spurzheim were traversing the exterior of the cranium; but after they had gained a knowledge of the interior, and classified and arranged their discoveries, they generalized the whole, and relinquished the term “craniology” for the denomination “phrenology.” This change was obviously imperative, because “craniology” signifies no more than an acquaintance with the outside of the head, and “phrenology” implies familiarity with its contents.

Still, however, the incipient phrenologist must avail himself of “craniology,” as an introduction to the nobler science. To him it is as necessary a guide as topography is to a student in geology, who without that requisite, and supposing him ignorant of the characters of mountains may lose his way, and be found vainly boring Schehalion, or sinking a shaft within the crater of an exhausted volcano. To prevent such mistakes in “phrenology,” the “estate under the hat” has been thoroughly explored, and divided and subdivided: names and numbers have been assigned to each portion, and the entire globe of the microcosm accurately measured, and mapped, “according to the latest surveys.”

Mr. Cruikshank’s “Illustrations of Phrenology” form a more popular introduction to the science than its most ardent admirers could possibly hope. He acknowledges his obligations to doctors Gall and Spurzheim, and implicitly adopts their arrangement of the “organs;” a word, by the by, that signifies those convexities which may be seen by the eye, or touched by the finger, on the exterior of the greater convexity called the head; and which are produced, or thrown up thereon, by the working or heaving of the ideas internally. From this process it appears that a man “bores” his own head, so as to form concavities within and convexities without; and, in the same way, by the power of speech, “bores” the heads of his friends. The term “to bore,” however, as commonly used, signifies “to bother,” or “perplex and confound,” and therefore is not admitted in the nomenclature of “phrenology,” which condescends to level every “bump,” to the right understanding of the meanest capacity.

Of Mr. Cruikshank’s proficiency or rank in the phrenological school, the writer of this article is incompetent to judge; but, as regards his present work, whether he be a master, or only a monitor, is of little consequence; he seems well grounded in rudiments, and more he does not profess to teach. Instead of delivering a mapped head in plaister of Paris with his book, he exhibits an engraving of three “bare polls,” or polls sufficiently bare to discover the position of every convexity or “organ” whereon he duly marks their numbers, according to the notation of doctors Gall and Spurzheim. From hence we learn that we have nine propensities, nine sentiments, eleven knowing faculties, and four reflecting faculties. Adhering to the doctrinal enumeration and nomenclature of the “organs” worked out, or capable of being worked out, by these propensities, sentiments, and faculties, on every human head, he wisely prefers the Baconian as the best method of teaching “the new science,” and exhibits the effects of each of the thirty-three “organs” in six sheets of etchings by himself, from his own views of each “organ.”

It is now proper to hint at the mode wherein the artist has executed his design, and to take each organ according to its number, and under its scientific term.

I.--AMATIVENESS.

Mr. Cruikshank seems to imagine that this organ may induce a declaration of undivided attachment to an intermediate object, in order to arrive at the object _sincerely_ desired: under the circumstances represented, this deviation of “amativeness” may be denominated “cupboard love.”

II.--PHILOPROGENITIVENESS.

The tendency of this perplexing organ hastens the necessity of extending our “colonial policy.” This sketch is full of life and spirit.

III.--INHABITIVENESS.

The subject of the artist’s point, a “tenant for life,” doubtless has an amazing developement of the organ.

IV.--ADHESIVENESS.

Is “enough to frighten a horse.” This organ will be further observed on presently.

V.--COMBATIVENESS.

Its vigorous cultivation is displayed with much animation.

VI.--DESTRUCTIVENESS.

A familiar illustration of this organ is derived from a common occurrence in almost every market-town. Its contemplation, and a few recent incidents, suggest a query or two. A bull ran into a china shop, but instead of proceeding to the work of demolition, threw his eye around the place, thrust his horn under the arm of a richly painted vase, and ran briskly into the street with his prize. Was this act ascribable to the organ of “colour,” or that of “covetiveness?” An _ox_ walked into a well-furnished parlour, and withdrew without doing further mischief than ogling himself in the looking-glass. Were these “stolen” looks occasioned by “covetiveness,” or “self-love?” Another of the _bos_ tribe rapidly passed men, women, and children, ran up the steps to an open street door, hurried through the passage, ascended every flight of the stair-case, nor stopped till he had gained the front attic, from whence he put his head through the window, and looked down from his proud eminence, over the parapet, upon his “followers.” On this third example may be quoted what Mr. Cruikshank says of another organ, “_Inhabitiveness_. To this organ is ascribed, in man, _Self Love_, and in other animals, _Physical height_. The artist has endeavoured to give _his_ idea of _inhabitiveness_ in plate 2.” On comparing the anecdote last related, with the artist’s idea in the plate he refers to, it is clear that, on this occasion, his view might have been more _elevated_. In the last-mentioned bull, “Inhabitiveness” seems to have been the prevailing organ. Separately considering the three animals, and their general character, and the tempting objects by which each was surrounded, without their manifestation of any action to denote the existence of “destructiveness,” a question arises, whether counteracting organs may not be cultivated in such animals, to the extent of neutralizing the primary developement.

VII.--CONSTRUCTIVENESS.

This is so elegant an exhibition of the propensity in connection with certain vegetable tendencies, that it is doubtful whether developements from the action of the sap in plants, may not admit of classification with our own.

VIII.--COVETIVENESS.

In this representation, the countenance of a boy is frightfully impressed by the incessant restlessness of the “organ,” combined with “cautiousness.” See No. XII.

IX.--SECRETIVENESS.

Exhibits one of the advantages of this “propensity” in the sex.

X.--SELF LOVE.

Narcissus himself could not be more strongly marked, than this “heart-breaking” personage.

XI.--APPROBATION. See No. XXXIII.

XII.--CAUTIOUSNESS.

Prudence and indecision are here united by a decisive touch. The accessory, who assists this “procedure of the human understanding,” is exceedingly

--------------“light and airy; Brisk as a bee, blithe as a fairy.”

XIII.--BENEVOLENCE.

A “benevolent” individual, receiving loud acknowledgments from the object of his favours.

XIV.--VENERATION.

Mr. Cruikshank says, that “Dr. Gall observed this organ chiefly in persons with bald heads.” The artist satisfactorily exemplifies, that when its absence occurs in Englishmen, it is a rare exception to the national character.

XV.--HOPE.

This sentiment is always allegorized with an anchor, and Mr. Cruikshank represents a poor animal under its influence, “brought to an anchor.”

XVI.--IDEALITY.

Mr. Cruikshank says, that “Mr. Forster calls this the organ of _mysterizingness_. It is supposed that a peculiar developement of this organ, which is remarkably conspicuous in all poets, occurs in persons who are disposed to have visions, see ghosts, demons, &c.” The artist represents certain appearances, which will be recognised as “familiars.”

XVII.--CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.

“According to Dr. Spurzheim, this is the organ of _righteousness_;” but, “Dr. Gall thinks there is no organ of _conscience_.” Mr. Cruikshank exemplifies the latter opinion, by the surprise of a female on receiving “an unexpected offer.” It will not surprise the reader if he looks at the print.

XVIII.--FIRMNESS.

“Firmness,” he regards in the light of “a character now being consigned rapidly to oblivion.” But, “while there is life there is hope,” and the character alluded to cannot be destroyed without the annihilation of “adhesiveness,” which Mr. Cruikshank defines in the language of the science, and “has endeavoured to give a strong but faithful illustration of, in plate 2;” a representation, alas! too accurate. See No. IV.

XIX.--INDIVIDUALITY.

A more select specimen could not have been produced.

XX.--FORM.

This is well represented. “Persons,” says Mr. Cruikshank, “endowed with this organ, are fond of seeing pictures, &c.” They may likewise be frequently detected in jelly-rooms, and the upper boxes of the theatres.

XXI.--SIZE.

Remarkably developed in “a great man now no more!”

XXII.--WEIGHT.

A compliment from the artist, “to which he is confident no loyal man will offer an objection.”

XXIII.--COLOUR.

As a specimen of art, this is the most successful of the illustrations.

XXIV.--SPACE.

An enlarged view of a deep seated organ, bottomed on the character of a people whom we have outrivalled.

XXV.--ORDER.

This organ as a ruling power, is placed by Mr. Cruikshank in the hand; its developement manifestly generates “Veneration.”

XXVI.--TIME.

In Mr. Cruikshank’s words, “the artist’s illustration of it will be familiar to every one.”

XXVII.--NUMBER.

A portrait of an individual in whom the power of this organ is supposed to have been preeminent.

XXVIII.--TUNE.

This organ, according to the artist, produces rectitude in the dog.

XXIX.--LANGUAGE.

XXX.--COMPARISON.

The organ of “Comparison” is exemplified by full developements from “Long Acre,” and “Little St. Martin’s-lane,” within one door from the residence of “Mr. Thomas Rodd, bookseller, Great Newport-street,” whose stock of books, large as it is, cannot furnish any thing like the “words that burn,” in the artist’s representation of “LANGUAGE.”[307]

XXXI.--CAUSALITY.

“This is nothing more than the organ of _Inquisitiveness_,” and the artist himself exercises it, by gently feeling his reader’s pulse.

XXXII.--WIT.

There is great difficulty in defining this organ. Mr. Cruikshank’s representation of it is humorous.

XXXIII.--IMITATION.

This is an admirable exhibition of the organ, as we may imagine it to be cultivated by “Mr. Mathews-At home!” with decided “APPROBATION.” See No. XI.

Having hastily gone over the organs of the science, we have an additional one, “_The Organ of_ DRAWING.” Mr. Cruikshank says, he “cannot satisfy himself as to the precise seat of this organ, or as to the extent of its sphere of activity, but he has attempted an illustration of it.” He thinks it not improbable “that the possession of this special faculty, now only at his fingers’ ends, may enable him to venture again” if his present efforts are successful. Why they should not be it is difficult to conceive; for however whimsical and ludicrous his “Phrenological Illustrations” may sometimes be, they are so connected with the vocabulary of the science at the commencement of his publication, as to form the horn-book, the primer, the reading made easy, and the grammar of phrenology.

Such a production as this, at such a price, (eight shillings plain, and twelve shillings coloured,) from such an artist, could not have been expected. His inimitable powers have hitherto entertained and delighted the public far more to the emolument of others than himself; and now that he has ventured to “take a benefit” on his own account, there cannot be a doubt that his admirers will encourage “their old favourite” to successive endeavours for their amusement and instruction. His entire talents have never been called forth; and some are of a far higher order than even the warmest friends to his pencil can conceive.

Though the work is to be obtained of all the booksellers in London, and every town in the united kingdom, yet it would be a well-timed compliment to Mr. Cruikshank if town purchasers of his “Phrenological Illustrations” were to direct their steps to his house, No. 25, Myddelton Terrace, Pentonville.

SHOWERS OF BLOOD.

On the 25th of August, 1826, the editor of the _Every-Day Book_, while writing in his room, took up the open envelope of a letter he had received about ten minutes before, and to his surprise, observed on its inner side, which had been uppermost on the table, several spots which seemed to be blood. They were fresh and wet, and of a brilliant scarlet colour. They could not be red ink, for there was none in the house; nor could they have been formed on the paper by any person, for no one had entered the room; nor had he moved from the chair wherein he sat. The appearances seemed unaccountable, till considering that the window sashes were thrown up, and recollecting an anecdote in the “Life of Peiresc,” he was persuaded that they were easily to be accounted for; and that they were a specimen of those “showers of blood,” which terrified our forefathers in the dark ages, and are recorded by old chroniclers.

It is related, for instance, that in the fifth century, “at Yorke, it rained bloud;” and in 697, “corne, as it was gathered in the harvest time, appeared bloudie,” and “in the furthermost partes of Scotland it rayned bloud.”[308] In 1553, it was deemed among the forewarnings of the deaths of Charles and Philip, dukes of Brunswick, that there were “drops of bloude upon hearbes and trees.”[309]

* * * * *

As a solution of the origin, or cause of bloody spots on the paper, the anecdote in Gassendi’s “Life of Peiresc” is added.

“Nothing in the whole year, 1608, did more please him,--than _that_ he observed and philosophized about--the _bloody rain_, which was commonly reported to have fallen about the beginning of July; great drops thereof were plainly to be seen, both in the city itself, upon the walls of the churchyard of the great church, which is near the city wall, and upon the city walls themselves; also upon the walls of villages, hamlets, and towns, for some miles round about; for in the first place, he went himself to see those wherewith the stones were coloured, and did what he could to come to speak with those husbandmen, who beyond Lambesk, were reported to have been so affrighted at the falling of the said rain, that they left their work, and ran as fast as their legs could carry them into the adjacent houses. Whereupon, he found that it was a fable which was reported, touching those husbandmen. Nor was he pleased that the naturalists should refer this kind of rain to vapours drawn up out of red earth aloft into the air, which congealing afterwards into liquor, fall down in this form; because such vapours as are drawn aloft by heat, ascend without colour, as we may know by the alone example of red roses, out of which the vapours that arise by heat, are congealed into transparent water. He was less pleased with the common people, and some divines, who judged that it was a work of the devils and witches, who had killed innocent young children; for this he counted a mere conjecture, possibly also injurious to the goodness and providence of God.

“In the mean while an accident happened, out of which he conceived he had collected the true cause thereof. For some months before, he shut up in a box a certain palmer-worm which he had found, rare for its bigness and form; which, when he had forgotten, he heard a buzzing in the box, and when he opened it, found the palmer-worm, having cast its coat, to be turned into a very beautiful butterfly, which presently flew away, leaving in the bottom of the box a red drop as broad as an ordinary sous or shilling; and because this happened about the beginning of the same month, and about the same time an incredible multitude of butterflies were observed flying in the air, he was therefore of opinion, that such kind of butterflies resting upon the walls, had there shed such like drops, and of the same bigness. Wherefore, he went the second time, and found by experience, that those drops were not to be found on the house tops, nor upon the round sides of the stones which stuck out, as it would have happened, if blood had fallen from the sky, but rather where the stones were somewhat hollowed, and in holes, where such small creatures might shroud and nestle themselves. Moreover, the walls which were so spotted, were not in the middle of towns, but they were such as bordered upon the fields, nor were they on the highest parts, but only so moderately high as butterflies are commonly wont to flie.

“Thus, therefore, he interpreted that which Gregory of Tours relates, touching a bloody rain seen at Paris in divers places, in the days of Childebert, and on a certain house in the territory of Senlis; also that which is storied, touching raining of blood about the end of June, in the days of king Robert; so that the blood which fell upon flesh, garments, or stones, could not be washed out, but that which fell on wood might; for it was the same season of butterflies, and experience hath taught us, that no water will wash these spots out of the stones, while they are fresh and new. When he had said these and such like things to Varius, a great company of auditors being present, it was agreed that they should go together and search out the matter, and as they went up and down, here and there, through the fields, they found many drops upon stones and rocks; but they were only on the hollow and under parts of the stones, but not upon those which lay most open to the skies.”

Thus the first mentioned appearances on the paper, may be naturally accounted for, and so

----------“ends the history Of this wonderful mystery.”

* * * * *

On the evening of the same day, the 25th of August, 1826, the editor witnessed the terrific tempest of thunder and lightning, mentioned in the newspapers. He was walking in the London-road near the Surrey obelisk, when the flashes sheeted out more rapidly in succession, and to greater extent than have ever been witnessed in this country, within the memory of man. They were accompanied by a gale of wind that took up light objects, such as hay, leaves, and sticks, and immense clouds of dust to a great height, and impelled people along against their will. The sudden loud claps of thunder, and the red forking of the flashes were tremendously grand and appalling. At one time there was a crashing burst of thunder, and a rushing sound from the electric fluid, like the discharge of a flight of rockets close at hand. This was in the midst of a torrent of rain, which lasted only a few minutes, and was as heavy as from the bursting of a number of water spouts. This storm was literally a tornado.

* * * * *

Lightning was looked upon as sacred both by the Greeks and Romans, and was supposed to be sent to execute vengeance on the earth. Hence persons killed with lightning, being thought hateful to the gods were buried apart by themselves, lest the ashes of other men should receive pollution from them. All places struck with lightning were carefully avoided and fenced round, from an opinion that Jupiter had either taken offence at them, and fired upon them the marks of his displeasure, or that he had by this means pitched upon them as sacred to himself. The ground thus fenced about, was called by the Romans bidental. Lightning was much observed in augury, and was a good or bad omen, according to the circumstances attending it.[310]

When a stormy cloud, which is nothing but a heap of exhalations strongly electrified, approaches near enough to a tower, or a house, or a cloud not electrified; when it approaches so near, that a spark flies from it, this occasions the explosion, which we call a clap of thunder. The light we then see is the lightning, or the thunderbolt. Sometimes we see only a sudden and momentary flash, at other times it is a train of fire, taking different forms and directions. The explosion attending the lightning, shows that it is the vapours which occasion the thunder; by taking fire suddenly, they agitate and dilate the air violently. At every electrical spark a clap is heard. The thunder is sometimes composed of several claps or prolonged and multiplied by echoes.

As soon as we see a flash of lightning, we have only to reckon the seconds in a watch, or how often our pulse beats, between the flash and the clap. Whoever can reckon ten pulsations between the lightning and the thunder, is still at the distance of a quarter of a league from the storm; for it is calculated that the sound takes nearly the time of forty pulsations, in going a league. The lightning does not always go in a direct line from top to bottom. It often winds about and goes zigzag, and sometimes it does not lighten till very near the ground. The combustible matter which reaches the ground, or takes fire near it, never fails to strike. But sometimes it is not strong enough to approach us, and like an ill-charged cannon, it disperses in the atmosphere and does no harm. When, on the contrary, the fiery exhalations reach the ground, they sometimes make terrible havoc.

We may judge of the prodigious force of the lightning by the wonderful effects it produces. The heat of the flame is such, that it burns and consumes every thing that is combustible. It even melts metals, but it often spares what is contained in them, when they are of a substance not too close to leave the passage free. It is by the velocity of the lightning that the bones of men and animals are sometimes calcined, while the flesh remains unhurt. That the strongest buildings are thrown down, trees split, or torn up by the root, the thickest of walls pierced, stones and rocks broken, and reduced to ashes. It is to the rarification and violent motion of the air, produced by the heat and velocity of the lightning, that we must attribute the death of men and animals found suffocated, without any appearance of having been struck by lightning.

“Experience teaches us, that the rain which falls when it thunders, is the most fruitful to the earth. The saline and sulphurous particles which fill the atmosphere during a storm, are drawn down by the rain, and become excellent nourishment for the plants; without mentioning the number of small worms, seeds, and little insects which are also drawn down in thunder showers, and are with the help of a microscope, visible in the drops of water.”[311]

* * * * *

In August, 1769, a flash of lightning fell upon the theatre at Venice, in which were more than six hundred persons. Besides killing several of the audience, it put out the candles, singed a lady’s hair, and melted the gold case of her watch and the fringe of her robe. The earrings of several ladies were melted, and the stones split; and one of the performers in the orchestra, had his violincello shattered in a thousand splinters, but received no damage himself.[312]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·97.

[303] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[304] If the berries be gathered in wet weather, an hour will not be too long a time to boil them.

[305] I have heard of the distress among the weavers, and heaven forbid that I should speak lightly of their calamities!--But eat they _must_, and _eat they do_: and if reduced to _bread, so called_, butter, or cheese, is included; it is this I regret, for jam would be cheaper as well as more wholesome, and should be purchased at the shops as other articles of consumption are.

[306] As they are called, near the uncultivated moorland waste where they grow. _Wortleberrey_ is the correct name.

[307] Mr. Rodd seldom adventures in paper and print, yet he has put forth a “second edition, with considerable additions,” of a curious and useful little volume bearing the modest title of “An Attempt at a Glossary of some words used in Cheshire, communicated to the Society of Antiquarians. By Roger Wilbraham, Esq. F. R. S. and S. A. London, 1826,” royal 18mo. pp. 120.

If a person desires to collect books, or to be acquainted with the writers on any given subject, ancient or modern, rare or common, I know of no one to whom he can apply more successfully, or on whom he can rely for judgment and integrity more implicitly, than Mr. Thomas Rodd. His mind is as well stored with information, as his shop is with good authors, in every class of literature; and he is as ready to communicate his knowledge gratuitously, as he is to part with his books at reasonable prices “to those who choose to buy them.”--_Editor._

[308] Hollinshed.

[309] Batman’s Doome.

[310] Ency. Brit.

[311] Sturm.

[312] Annual Register.

~August 26.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 26th of August, 1635, died Lope de Vega, called the “Spanish Phenix,” aged sixty-three years. His funeral was conducted with princely magnificence by his patron, the duke of Susa, and his memory was celebrated with suitable pomp in all the theatres of Spain.

Lope de Vega was the rival and conqueror of Cervantes in the dramatic art; yet in his youth he embarked in the celebrated Spanish armada, for the invasion of England, and spent part of his life in civil and military occupations.

His invention is as unparalleled in the history of poetry, as the talent which enabled him to compose regular and well constructed verse with as much ease as prose. Cervantes, on this account, styled him a prodigy of nature. His verses flowed freely, and such was his confidence in his countrymen, that as they applauded his writings, which were unrestrained by critical notes, he refused conformity to any restrictions. “The public,” he said, “paid for the drama, and the taste of those who paid should be suited.”

He required only four-and-twenty hours to write a versified drama of three acts, abounding in intrigues, prodigies, or interesting situations, and interspersed with sonnets and other versified accompaniments. In general the theatrical manager carried away what De Vega wrote before he had time to revise it, and a fresh applicant often arrived to prevail on him to commence a new piece immediately. In some instances he composed a play in the short space of three or four hours. This astonishing facility enabled him to supply the Spanish theatre with upwards of two thousand original dramas. According to his own testimony he wrote on an average five sheets every day, and at this rate he must have produced upwards of twenty millions of verses.

He was enriched by his talents, and their fame procured him distinguished honours. He is supposed at one time to have possessed upwards of a hundred thousand ducats, but he was a bad economist, for the poor of Madrid shared his purse. He was elected president of the spiritual college in that capital; and pope Urban VIII. sent him the degree of doctor in divinity with a flattering letter, and bestowed on him the cross of Malta; he was also appointed fiscal of the apostolic chamber, and a familiar of the inquisition, an office regarded singularly honourable at that period. Whenever he appeared in the streets, boys ran shouting after him; he was surrounded by crowds of people, all eager to gain a sight of the “prodigy of nature;” and those who could not keep pace with the rest, stood and gazed on him with wonder as he passed.

Lope de Vega’s inexhaustible fancy and fascinating ease of composition, communicated that character to Spanish comedy; and all subsequent Spanish writers trod in his footsteps, until its genius was banished by the introduction of the French taste into Spain.[313]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 60·77.

[313] Bouterwek.

~August 27.~

1688. A DATE IN PANYER-ALLEY.

The editor has received a present from Mr. John Smith of a wood block, engraved by himself, as a specimen of his talents in that department of art, and in acknowledgment of a friendly civility he is pleased to recollect at so long a distance from the time when it was offered, that it only dwelt in his own memory.

The impression from this engraving, and the accompanying information, will acquaint the reader with an old London “effigy” which many may remember to have seen. It is the only cut in the present sheet; for an article on a popular amusement, which will require a considerable number of engravings, is in preparation, and the artists are busily engaged on them.

Concerning this stone we must resort to old Stow. According to this “honest chronicler,” he peregrinated to where this stone now stands, and where in his time stood “the church of St. Michael ad Bladudum, or at the _corne_ (‘corruptly,’ he says, ‘at the _querne_,’) so called, because in place thereof, was sometime a corne-market. At the west end of this parish church is a small passage for people on foot thorow the same church;” and he proceeds to throw the only light that seems to appear on this stone, “and west from the said church, some distance, is another passage out of Paternoster-row, and is called (of such _a signe_) Panyer-alley, which commeth out into the north, over against Saint Martin’s-lane.”

It is plain from Stow’s account, that Panyer-alley derived its name from “a signe,” but what that “signe” was we are ignorant of. It may have been a tavern-sign, and this stone _may_ have been the ancient sign in the wall of the tavern. It represents a boy seated on a panyer, pressing a bunch of grapes between his hand and his foot. By some people it is called “the Pick-my-toe.” The inscription mentions the date when it was either repaired or put up in its present situation in a wall on the east side of the alley, and affirms that the spot is the highest ground of the city.

While we are at this place, it is amusing to remark what Stow observes of Ivy-lane, which runs parallel with Panyer-alley westward. He says, that “Ivie-lane” was “so called of _ivie_ growing on the walls of the prebend’s houses,” which were situated in that lane; “but now,” speaking of his own days, “the lane is replenished on both sides with faire houses, and divers offices have been there kept, by registers, namely, for the prerogative court of the archbishop of Canturbury, the probate of wils, which is now removed into Warwicke-lane, and also for the lord treasurer’s remembrance of the exchequer, &c.”

Hence we see that in Ivy-lane, now a place of mean dwelling, was one of the great offices at present in Doctors’ Commons, and another of equal importance belonging to the crown; but the derivation of its name from the ivy on the walls of the prebends’ houses, an adjunctive ornament that can scarcely be imagined by the residents of the closely confined neighbourhood, is the pleasantest part of the narration.

* * * * *

And Stow also tells us of “Mount-goddard-street,” which “goeth up to the north end of Ivie-lane,” of its having been so called “of the tippling there, and the _goddards_ mounting from the tappe to the table, from the table to the mouth, and some times over the head.”

_Goddards._

These were cups or goblets made with a cover or otherwise. In “Tancred and Gismunda,” an old play, we are told, “Lucrece entered, attended by a maiden of honour with a covered _goddard_ of gold, and, drawing the curtains, she offered unto Gismunda to taste thereof.” So also Gayton, in his “Festivous Notes on Don Quixote,” mentions--

“A _goddard_, or an anniversary spice bowl, Drank off by th’ gossips.”

_Goddard_, according to Camden, means “godly the cup,” and appears to Mr. Archdeacon Nares, who cites these authorities to have been a christening cup. That gentleman can find no certain account of the origin of the name.

Perhaps _goddard_ was derived from “godward:” we had looking godward, and thinking godward, and perhaps drinking godward, for a benediction might have been usual at a christening or solemn merry-making; and from thence godward drinking might have come to the godward cup, and so the _goddard_.

THE CUCKOO.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--If the following “Address to the Cuckoo,” from my work on birds, should suit the pages of the _Every-Day Book_, it is quite at your service.

Of the cuckoo, I would just observe, that I do not think, notwithstanding all that Dr. Jenner has written concerning it, its natural history is by any means fully developed. I have had some opportunities of observing the habits of this very singular bird, and in me there is room for believing that, even when at maturity, it is sometimes, if not frequently, _fed by other birds_. It is very often attended by one, two, or even more, small birds, during its flight, for what purpose is not, I believe, at present known. The “wry-neck,” _junx torquilla_, called in some provinces the “cuckoo’s maiden,” is said to be one of these. Perhaps it may be novel information to your readers to be told, that there is a bird in the United States of America, called “Cowpen,” _emberiza pecoris_, by Wilson, which lays her eggs in other bird’s nests, in a similar way to the cuckoo in this country: the “cowpen” is, however, a much smaller bird than the cuckoo.

I am, &c.

JAMES JENNINGS.

_Dalby-terrace, City-road,_

_August 28, 1826._

TO THE CUCKOO.

Thou monotonous bird! whom we ne’er wish away, Who hears thee not pleas’d at the threshold of May Thy advent reminds us of all that is sweet, Which nature, benignant, now lays at our feet; Sweet flowers--sweet meadows--sweet birds and their loves; Sweet sunshiny mornings, and sweet shady groves; Sweet smiles of the maiden--sweet looks of the youth, And sweet asseverations, too, prompted by truth; Sweet promise of plenty throughout the rich vale; And sweet the bees’ humming in meadow and vale; Of the summer’s approach--of the presence of spring, For ever, sweet cuckoo! continue to sing. Oh, who then, dear bird! could e’er wish thee away, Who hears thee not pleas’d at the threshold of May

As every trait in the natural history of birds is interesting, I beg leave to state that I shall be greatly obliged to any reader of the _Every-Day Book_ for the communication of any _novel_ fact or information concerning this portion of the animal kingdom, of which suitable acknowledgment will be made in my work. I understand the late lord Erskine wrote and printed for private circulation, a poem on the rook. Can any of your readers oblige me with a copy of it, or refer me to any person or book so that I might obtain a sight of it?

J. J.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·35.

~August 28.~

ST. AUGUSTINE.

Of this father of the church, whose name is in the church of England calendar, there is a memoir in vol. i. col. 1144.

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 28th of August, 1736, a man passing the bridge over the Savock, near Preston, Lancashire, saw two large flights of birds meet with such rapidity, that one hundred and eighty of them fell to the ground. They were taken up by him, and sold in Preston market the same day.

HOAX AT NORWICH.

The following bill was in circulation in Norwich and the neighbourhood for days previous, and on the evening of August 28, 1826, 20,000 sagacious people from the city and country around, on foot, on horseback, in chaises, gigs, and other vehicles, collected below the hill to witness the extraordinary performance.

“_St. James’s-hill, back of the Horse-barracks._

“The public are respectfully informed that signor Carlo Gram Villecrop, the celebrated Swiss mountain-flyer, from Geneva and Mont Blanc, is just arrived in this city, and will exhibit, with a Tyrolese pole fifty feet long, his most astonishing gymnastic flights, never before witnessed in this country. Signor Villecrop has had the great honour of exhibiting his most extraordinary feats on the continent before the king of Prussia, Emperor of Austria, the Grand duke of Tuscany, and all the resident nobility in Switzerland. He begs to inform the ladies and gentlemen of this city, that he has selected St. James’s-hill and the adjoining hills for his performances, and will first display his remarkable strength, in running up the hill with his Tyrolese pole between his teeth. He will next lay on his back, and balance the same pole on his nose, chin, and different parts of his body. He will climb up on it with the astonishing swiftness of a cat, and stand on his head at the top; on a sudden he will leap three feet from the pole without falling, suspending himself by a shenese cord only. He will also walk on his head, up and down the hill, balancing his pole on one foot. Many other feats will be exhibited, in which signor Villecrop will display to the audience the much admired art of toppling, peculiar only to the peasantry of Switzerland. He will conclude his performance by repeated flights in the air, up and down the hill, with a velocity almost imperceptible, assisted only by his pole, with which he will frequently jump the astonishing distance of forty and fifty yards at a time. Signor Villecrop begs to assure the ladies and gentlemen who honour him with their company, that no money will be collected till after the exhibition, feeling convinced that his exertions will be liberally rewarded by their generosity. The exhibition to commence on Monday, the 28th of August, 1826, precisely at half-past 5 o’clock in the evening.”

Signor Carlo Gram Villecrop did not make his appearance. The people were drawn together, and the whole ended, as the inventor designed, in a “hoax.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·55.

~August 29.~

_St. John Baptist beheaded._

The anniversary of the baptist’s decollation is in the church of England calendar. His death is known to have been occasioned by his remonstrance to Herod against his notorious cruelties. “In consequence of this,” says Mr. Audley, “Herod imprisoned him in the castle of Machærus, and would have put him to death, but was afraid of the people.” Herodias also would have killed John, had it been in her power. At length, on Herod’s birthday, Salome, the daughter of Herodias, by her former husband, Philip, danced before him, his captains, and chief estates, or the principal persons of Galilee. This so pleased Herod, that he “promised her, with an oath, whatsoever she should ask, even to the half of his kingdom.” Hearing this, she ran to her mother and said, “what shall I ask?” The mother, without hesitation, replied, “the head of John the Baptist.” Herod was exceedingly sorry when he heard such a request; but out of regard to his oaths and his guests, he immediately sent an executioner to behead John in prison. This was instantly done, and the head being brought in a charger, was given to Salome; and she, forgetting the tenderness of her sex, and the dignity of her station, carried it to her mother.

Jerome says, that “Herodias treated the baptist’s head in a very disdainful manner, pulling out the tongue which she imagined had injured her, and piercing it with a needle.” Providence, however, as Dr. Whitby observes, interested itself very remarkably in the revenge of this murder on all concerned. Herod’s army was defeated in a war occasioned by his marrying Herodias, which many Jews thought a judgment on him for the death of John. Both he, and Herodias, whose ambition occasioned his ruin, were afterwards driven from their kingdom, and died in banishment, at Lyons, in Gaul. And if any credit may be given to Nicephorus, Salome, the young lady who made the cruel request, fell into the ice as she was walking over it, which, closing suddenly, cut off her head.

It is added by Mr. Audley, that the abbot Villeloin says in his memoirs, “the head of St. John the Baptist was saluted by him at Amiens, and it was the _fifth_ or _sixth_ he had had the honour to kiss.”

ARCHBISHOP CHICHELEY.

Lord Orford, in a letter dated the 29th of August, says, “I have just been reading a new public history of the colleges of Oxford, by Anthony Wood, and there found a feature in a character that always offended me, that of archbishop Chicheley, who prompted Henry V. to the invasion of France, to divert him from squeezing the overgrown clergy. When that priest meditated founding All Souls college, and ‘consulted his friends, who seem to have been honest men, what great matters of piety he had best perform to God in his old age, he was advised by them to build an hospital for the wounded and sick soldiers, that daily returned from the wars then had in France.’ I doubt his grace’s friends thought as I do of his artifice.--‘But,’ continues the historian, ‘disliking these motions, and valuing the welfare of the deceased more than the wounded and diseased, he resolved with himself to promote his design--which was to have masses said for the king, queen, and himself, &c., while living, and for their souls when dead;’ and that mummery, the old foolish rogue, thought more efficacious than ointments and medicines for the wretches he had made! and of the chaplains and clerks he instituted in that dormitory, one was to teach grammar, and another prick song. How history makes one shudder and laugh by turns!”

AN ECCENTRIC CHARACTER.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--I trouble you with an account of an eccentric character, which may, perhaps, amuse some of your numerous readers, if it should meet your approbation.

Yours, most respectfully,

C. C----y, M. R. C. S. E.

Ashton Under Lyne,

_July 17th, 1826_.

BILLY BUTTERWORTH.

Near the summit of a small hill, called Gladwick Lowes, situated on the borders of Lancashire, near the populous town of Oldham, commanding a very extensive prospect, stands the solitary, yet celebrated hut of “Billy Butterworth.” The eccentric being who bears this name from his manner of dressing an immense beard reaching to his girdle, and many other singularities, has obtained the name of the “hermit,” though from the great numbers that daily and hourly visit him from all parts, he has no real claim to the title.

Billy Butterworth’s hut is a rude building of his own construction, a piece of ground having been given him for the purpose. In the building of this hut, the rude hand of uncultivated nature laughed to scorn the improvements of modern times, for neither saw, nor plane, nor level, nor trowel, assisted to make it appear gracious in the eye of taste; a rude heap of stones, sods of earth, moss, &c. without nails or mortar are piled together in an inelegant, but perfectly convenient manner, and form a number of apartments. The whole building is so firmly put together, that its tenant fears not the pelting of a merciless storm, but snug under his lowly roof appears equally content with the smiles or frowns of fortune.

To give a proper description of the hermit’s hut, would be very difficult, but a brief sketch will enable the reader to form a pretty good idea of the object. It is surrounded by a fancy and kitchen garden, fancifully decorated with rude seats, arches, grottos, &c., a few plaister of Paris casts are here and there placed so as to have a pleasing effect. The outer part of the hut consists of the hermit’s chapel, in which is a half-length figure of the hermit himself. To this chapel the hermit retires at certain hours, in devotion to his Maker; besides the chapel is an observatory, where the hermit amuses his numerous visiters, by exhibiting a small and rather imperfect camera obscura of his own construction, by which he is enabled to explain the surrounding country for four or five miles. Near the camera obscura is a raised platform, almost on a level with the roof of the hermitage--this he calls “the terrace.” From the terrace there is a beautiful view of country.--The towns of Ashton-under-Lyne, Stockport, Manchester, lie in the distance, with the adjacent villages, and the line of Yorkshire hills, from among which “_Wild Bank_” rises majestically above its neighbours. The hermit makes use of this situation, to give signals to the village at the foot of the hill, when he wishes to be supplied with any article of provision for the entertainment of his visiters, such as liquors, cream, sallads, bread, &c.; of confectionary, he has generally a good stock.

We next come to his summer arbours, which are numerous in his garden, and furnished with table and seats for parties to enjoy themselves separately, without interfering with others. The dovehouse is placed in the garden, where he keeps a few beautiful pairs of doves. Of the out-buildings, the last we shall describe, is the carriage-house. The reader smiles at the word “carriage” in such a situation, and would be more apt to believe me had I said a wheel-barrow. But no! grave reader, “Billy Butterworth” runs his carriage, which is of the low gig kind, drawn by an ass, and on some extra visits, by two asses. A little boy, called Adam, is the postillion, as there is only seating for one in the carriage. The boy acts as a waiter in busy times. In this carriage “Billy Butterworth” visits his wealthy neighbours, and meets with a gracious reception. He frequently visits the earl of Stamford, earl de Wilton, &c. &c. From his grotesque dress and equipage, he excites mirth to a great degree.

The inner part of this hermit’s hut consists of many different apartments, all of which are named in great style; such as the servants’ hall--pavilion--drawing-room--dining-room--library, &c. &c. The walls are lined with drapery, tastefully hung, and the furniture exhibits numerous specimens of ancient carved woodwork. Pictures of all sorts from the genuine oil painting, &c. prints of good line engraving down to the common caricature daubs, are numerously hung in every part of the hut. Natural curiosities are so placed, as to excite the curiosity of the gazing ignoramus.

“Billy Butterworth” is himself a tall man, of rather a commanding figure, with dark hair and dark sparkling eyes. His countenance is of a pleasing but rather melancholy appearance, which is increased by an immensely long black beard which makes him an object of terror to the neighbouring children. On the whole, although he is now in the evening of life, the remains of a once handsome man are very evident. His dress is varied according to the seasons, but always resembling the costume in king Charles’s days; a black cap, black ostrich feather and buckle, long waistcoat, jacket with silk let into the sleeves, small clothes of the same, and over the whole a short mantle.

“Billy Butterworth” has practised these whims, if I may call them so, for twelve or fourteen years in this solitary abode. His reason for this manner of life is not exactly known, but he seems to acknowledge in some degree, that a disappointment in love has been the cause. Let that rest as it will, he has a handsome property, accumulated, it is said, by these eccentric means. Indeed he acknowledged to the author of this, that on fine days in summer, he has realized from selling sweetmeats, and receiving gifts from visiters, five guineas a day. He is so independent now that he will not receive a present from friends. He is communicative as long as a stranger will listen, but if the stranger is inquisitive he ceases to converse any thing more. He is polite and well informed on general topics, and has evidently read much.

* * * * *

While the hermit was lately on a journey to his friends, a mischievous wag advertised “the hut,” &c. to be let. The day fixed upon being rainy, no bidders made their appearance. I send you a copy of the advertisement from a printed one in my possession.

* * * * *

TO BE LET,

For a term of years, or from year to year; and may be entered upon immediately, all that hut, garden, and premises, with the appurtenances, situate at Gladwick Lowes, near Oldham, in the county of Lancaster, now occupied as an

HERMITAGE,

_By Mr. Wm. Butterworth_.

This romantic spot being the only place of fashionable resort in the vicinity of the populous town of Oldham, and the unrivalled reputation which it has so long deservedly enjoyed, render it peculiar desirable to any gentleman who may wish to acquire an independency at a trifling risk. The motive for the intended removal of the present proprietor is, his having already secured a comfortable competency, joined to a desire of giving some gentleman of a disposition similar to his own, an opportunity of participating in the advantages which he has so long derived from this delightful retirement.

Among the many curiosities with which his sequestered hut abounds, may be particularized the following valuable articles.

His celebrated self-constructed Bed.

_A Table_,

which is supposed formerly to have belonged to some of the ancient saxon monarchs, and was presented to Mr. B., by her grace the duchess of Beaufort.

Praxitele’s stature of Jupiter Ammon, brought from Greece, by the right honourable the earl of Elgin, and came into the hands of the present possessor, through the medium of the duke of Devonshire, after it had, for a considerable period, formed one of the most permanent ornaments of his grace’s splendid mansion, Chatsworth house.

A capital portrait of Mrs. Siddons, painted by B. West, Esq., P. R. A.

A most excellent and peculiarly constructed Camera Obscura, which distinctly represents objects at the distance of thirty miles.

A sonorous Speaking Trumpet, wonderfully adapted to the present situation.

A brace of pistols, formerly the property of Blind Jack of Knaresborough, by whom they were cut out of solid rock.

A very ancient and most curious Trebduchet, a relic of Ptolemy the Third’s Sarcophagus.

A variety of coins, medals, shells, fossils, and other mineral productions, tastefully classified and arranged.

It would be very desirable if the above could be disposed of with the hermitage, but if not, Mr. B. would be willing to enter into a separate agreement for them. For further particulars, apply to Mr. W. B.

N.B. The stock of pop, peppermint, gingerbread, and Eccles cakes, with the signboards, dials, inscriptions, rams’ horns, and other tasteful and appropriate decorations, will be required to be taken at a valuation.

To be let Monday August 29, 1825.

A HOAX “IN CHANCERY.”

There is a spirit of waggery which contributes to public amusement, and occasionally annoys individual repose. The following lines are in a journal of this day 1826.

A VISION.

BY THE AUTHOR OF CHRISTABEL.

“Up!” said the spirit, and ere I could pray One hasty orison, whirl’d me away To a limbo, lying--I wist not where-- Above or below, in earth or air; All glimmering o’er with a _doubtful_ light, One couldn’t say whether ’twas day or night; And crost by many a mazy track, One didn’t know how to get on or back; And I felt like a needle that’s going astray (With its _one_ eye out) through a bundle of hay: When the spirit he grinn’d, and whisper’d me, “Thou’rt now in the Court of Chancery!”

Around me flitted unnumber’d swarms Of shapeless, bodiless, tailless forms; (Like bottled-up babes, that grace the room Of that worthy knight, sir Everard Home)-- All of them, things half-kill’d in rearing; Some were lame--some wanted _hearing_; Some had through half a century run, Though they hadn’t a leg to stand upon.

Others, more merry, as just beginning, Around on a _point of law_ were spinning; Or balanced aloft, ’twixt _Bill_ and _Answer_, Lead at each end, like a tight rope dancer.-- Some were so _cross_, that nothing could please ’em;-- Some gulp’d down _affidavits_ to ease ’em; All were in motion, yet never a one, Let it _move_ as it might, could ever move _on_. “These,” said the spirit, “you plainly see, Are what they call suits in Chancery!”

I heard a loud screaming of old and young, Like a chorus by fifty Vellutis’ sung; Or an Irish dump (“the words by Moore”) At an amateur concert scream’d in score;-- So harsh on my ear that wailing fell Of the wretches who in this limbo dwell! It seem’d like the dismal symphony Of the shapes Æneas in hell did see; Or those frogs, whose legs a barbarous cook Cut off and left the frogs in the brook, To cry all night, till life’s last dregs, “Give us our legs!--give us our legs!” Touched with the sad and sorrowful scene, I ask’d what all this yell might mean, When the spirit replied with a grin of glee, “’Tis the cry of the suitors in Chancery!”

I look’d, and I saw a wizard rise, With a wig like a cloud before men’s eyes. In his aged hand he held a wand, Wherewith he beckoned his embryo hand, And then mov’d and mov’d, as he wav’d it o’er, But they never got on one inch more, And still they kept limping to and fro, Like Ariels’ round old Prospero-- Saying, “dear master, let us go,” But still old Prospero answer’d “No.” And I heard, the while, that wizard elf, Muttering, muttering spells to himself, While over as many old papers he turn’d, As Hume e’er moved for or Omar burn’d. He talk’d of his virtue--though some, less nice, (He own’d with a sigh) preferr’d his _Vice_-- And he said, “I think”--“I doubt”--“I hope”-- Call’d God to witness, and damn’d the Pope; With many more sleights of tongue and hand I couldn’t, for the soul of me, understand. Amaz’d and poz’d, I was just about To ask his name, when the screams without The merciless clack of the imps within, And that conjurer’s mutterings, made such a din, That, startled, I woke--leap’d up in my bed-- Found the spirit, the imps, and the conjurer fled. And bless’d my stars, right pleas’d to see, That I wasn’t, as yet, in Chancery.

For several years before the appearance of his solemn “Aids to Reflection” in 1825, Mr. Coleridge had been to the world “as though he was not;” and since that “Hand-book” of masterly sayings his voice has ceased from the public. Forgotten he could not be, yet when he was remembered it was by inquiries concerning his present “doings,” and whispers of his “whereabout.” On a sudden the preceding verses startle the dull town, and dwelling on the lazy ear, as being, according to their printed ascription, “by the author of Christabel.” In vindication of himself against the misconception of the wit of their real author, the imputed parent steps forth in the following note.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

_Grove, Highgate, Tuesday Evening._

Sir,--I have just received a note from a city friend, respecting a poem in “The Times” of this morning ascribed to me. On consulting the paper, I see he must refer to “A Vision,” by the author of “Christabel.” Now, though I should myself have interpreted these words as the author, I doubt not, intended them, viz., as a part of the fiction; yet with the proof before me that others will understand them literally, I should feel obliged by your stating, that till this last half hour the poem and its publication were alike unknown to me; and I remain, Sir, respectfully yours,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

This little “affair” exemplifies that it is the fortune of talent to be seldom comprehended.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·45.

~August 30.~

CHRONOLOGY.

August 30, 1750. Miss Flora Macdonald was married to a gentleman of the same name related to sir Alexander Macdonald, bart. This lady is celebrated in Scottish annals for having heroically and successfully assisted the young Pretender to escape, when a price was set upon his head. Her self-devotion is minutely recorded in the late Mr. Boswell’s “Ascanius,” and Johnson has increased her fame by his notice of her person and character, in his “Tour to the Hebrides.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 62·95.

~August 31.~

GRASSHOPPERS.

It was observed at the end of August, 1742, great damage was done to the pastures in the country, particularly about Bristol by swarms of grasshoppers; and the like happened in the same year at Pennsylvania to a surprising degree.[314]

* * * * *

In 1476, “Grasshoppers and the great rising of the river Isula did spoyle al Poland.”[315]

* * * * *

Grasshoppers are infested by a species of “insect parasites” thicker than a horse hair, and of a brown colour. It consumes the intestines, and at first sight in the body of the grasshopper, has been mistaken for the intestines themselves.

The eminent entomologist who mentions this fact, observes that “insects generally answer the most beneficial ends, and promote in various ways, and in an extraordinary degree, the welfare of man and animals.” The evils resulting from them occur partially when they abound beyond their natural limits, “God permitting this occasionally to take place, not merely with punitive views, but also to show us what mighty effects he can produce by instruments seemingly the most insignificant: thus calling upon us to glorify his power, wisdom, and goodness, so evidently manifested, whether he relaxes or draws tight the reins by which he guides insects in their course, and regulates their progress; and more particularly to acknowledge his overruling Providence so conspicuously exhibited by his measuring them, as it were, and weighing them, and taking them out, so that their numbers, forces, and powers, being annually proportioned to the work he has prescribed to them, they may neither exceed his purpose, nor fall short of it.”[316]

* * * * *

THE VALLEY OF NIGHTINGALES.

_A Scene near the Hotwells, Bristol._[317]

“Then said I, master, pleasant is this place And sweet are those melodious notes I hear; And happy they, among man’s toiling race, Who, of their cares forgetful, wander near.”

_Bowles._

To those who might not happen to know St. Vincent’s rocks, Clifton, and the very beautiful scenery near the Hotwells, Bristol, it might be desirable to state that the river Avon winds here through a sinuous defile, on one side of which “the rocks” rise perpendicularly in a bold yet irregular manner, to the height of many hundred feet; the opposite side is not so bold, but it is, nevertheless, extremely beautiful, being clothed in many places with wood, and has besides a VALLEY, through which you may ascend to Leigh Down. This valley has been named the “_Valley of Nightingales_,” no doubt, in consequence of those birds making it their resort.

“Where foliaged full in vernal pride Retiring winds thy favourite vale; And faint the moan of Avon’s tide, Remurmurs to the nightingale.”

_C. A. Elton’s Poems, Disappointment._

In a note, Mr. ELTON informs us that this stanza alludes to the “Valley of Nightingales opposite St. Vincent’s rocks at Clifton.” The lovers of the picturesque will here find ample gratification. If, in the following poem, the truth in natural history be a little exceeded in reference to a _troop_ of nightingales, it is hoped that the poetical licence will be pardoned. The vicinity of the Hotwells has been lately much improved by a carriage drive beneath and around those rocks.

Seest thou yon tall ROCKS where, midst sunny light beaming, They lift up their heads and look proudly around; While numerous _choughs_, with their cries shrill and screaming, Wheel from crag unto crag, and now o’er the profound?

Seest thou yonder VALLEY where gushes the fountain; Where the _nightingales_ nestling harmoniously sing; Where the _mavis_ and _merle_ and the merry _lark_ mounting, In notes of wild music, now welcome the spring.

Seest thou yonder shade, where the _woodbine_ ascending, Encircles the _hawthorn_ with amorous twine, With the _bryony_ scandent, in gracefulness blending; What sweet mingled odours scarce less then divine!

Hearest thou the blue _ring-dove_ in yonder tree cooing; The _red-breast_, the _hedge-sparrow_, warble their song; The _cuckoo_, with sameness of note ever wooing; Yet ever to pleasure such notes will belong!

And this is the VALLEY OF NIGHTINGALES;--listen To those full-swelling sounds, with those pauses between, Where the bright waving shrubs, midst the pale hazels, glisten, There oft may a troop of the songsters be seen.

Seest thou yon proud ship on the stream adown sailing, O’er ocean, her course, to strange climes she now bends; Oh! who may describe the deep sobs or heart-wailing Her departure hath wrought amongst lovers and friends?

The rocks now re-echo the songs of the sailor As he cheerfully bounds on his watery way; But the maiden!--ah! what shall that echo avail her, When absence and sorrow have worn out the day?

Behold her all breathless, still gazing, pursuing, And waving, at times, with her white hand adieu; On the rock now she sits, with fixed eye, the ship viewing; No picture of fancy--but often too true.

Dost thou see yon flush’d HECTIC, of health poor remainder, With a dark hollow eye, and a thin sunken cheek; While AFFECTION hangs o’er him with thoughts that have pained her, And that comfort and hope, still forbid her to speak?[318]

Yes, FRIENDSHIPS! AFFECTIONS! ye ties the most tender! Fate, merciless fate, your connection will sever; To that tyrant remorseless--all, all must surrender! I once had a SON--HERE we parted for ever![319]

Now the sun, o’er the earth, rides in glory uncloud The rocks and the valleys delightedly sing; The BIRDS in wild concert, in yonder wood shrouded, Awake a loud CHORUS to welcome the spring.

And this is the valley of nightingales;--listen To those full-swelling sounds, with those pauses between, Where the bright waving shrubs, midst the pale hazels, glisten, There oft may a troop of the songsters be seen.

J.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·72.

The last in-gathering of the crop Is loaded, and they climb the top, And there huzza with all their force, While Ceres mounts the foremost horse: “Gee-up!” the rustic goddess cries, And shouts more long and loud arise; The swagging cart, with motion slow, Reels careless on, and off they go!

*

* * * * *

HARVEST-HOME is the great August festival of the country.

An account of this universal merry-making may commence with a communication from a lady, which the engraving is designed to illustrate.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_Westbury, Wiltshire, August 8, 1826._

Sir,--The journal from whence I extract the following scene was written nearly two years ago, during a delightful excursion I made in company with one “near and dear,” and consequently before your praiseworthy endeavours to perpetuate old customs had been made public. Had my journey taken place during the present harvest month, the trifle I now send should have been better worth your perusal, for I would have investigated for _your_ satisfaction a local custom, that _to me_ was sufficiently delightful in a passing glance.

I am, Sir, &c.

I. J. T.

HAWKESBURY HARVEST HOME.

_September, 1824._--After dinner, at Wotton-under-edge, we toiled up the side and then struck off again towards the middle of the hills, leaving all beauty in the rear; and from thence, until our arrival at Bath the next day, nothing is worth recording, but one little pleasing incident, which was the celebration of a harvest-home, at the village of Hawkesbury, on the top of Cotswold.

As we approached the isolated hamlet, we were “aware” of a _Maypole_--that unsophisticated trophy of innocence, gaiety, and plenty; and as we drew near, saw that it was decorated with flowers and ribands fluttering in the evening breeze. Under it stood a waggon with its full complement of men, women, children, flowers, and corn; and a handsome team of horses tranquilly enjoying their share of the finery and revelry of the scene; for scarlet bows and sunflowers had been lavished on their winkers with no niggard hand. On the first horse sat a damsel, no doubt intending to represent Ceres; she had on, of course, a white dress and straw bonnet--for could Ceres or any other goddess appear in a rural English festival in any other costume? A broad yellow sash encompassed a waist that evinced a glorious and enormous contempt for classical proportion and modern folly in its elaborate dimensions.

During the rapid and cordial glance that I gave this questionable scion of so graceful a stock, I ascertained two or three circumstances--that she was good-natured, that she enjoyed the scene as a downright English joke, and that she had the most beautiful set of teeth I ever beheld. What a stigma on all tooth-doctors, tooth-powders, and tooth-brushes. There was something very affecting in this simple festival, and I felt my heart heave, and that the fields looked indistinct for some minutes after we had lost sight of its primitive appearance; however it may now, I thought, be considered by the performers as a “good joke,” it had its origin, doubtless, in some of the very finest feelings that can adorn humanity--hospitality, sociality, happiness, contentment, piety, and gratitude.

Our fair correspondent adds:--

P.S.--Intelligence could surely be obtained from the spot, or the neighbourhood, of the manner of celebrating the festival; it is probably peculiar to the range of the Cotswold; and a more elaborate account of so interesting a custom would, doubtless, be valuable to yourself, sir, as well as to your numerous readers. I can only regret that my ability does not equal my will, on this or any other subject, that would forward your views in publishing your admirable _Every-Day Book_.

The editor inserts this hint to his readers in the neighbourhood of Cotswold, with a hope that it will induce them to oblige him with particulars of what is passing under their eyes at this season every day. He repeats that accounts of these, or any other customs in any part of the kingdom, will be especially acceptable.

* * * * *

Another correspondent has obligingly complied with an often expressed desire on this subject.

HARVESTING ON SUNDAY.

_London, August 4, 1826._

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--As you request, on the wrapper of your last part, communications, &c., respecting harvest, I send you the following case of a very singular nature, that came before the synod of Glasgow and Ayr.

In the harvest of 1807, there was a great deal of wet weather. At the end of one of the weeks it brightened up, and a drying wind prepared the corn for being housed. The rev. Mr. Wright, minister of Mayhole, at the conclusion of the forenoon service on the following sabbath-day, stated to his congregation, that he conceived the favourable change of the weather might be made use of to save the harvest on that day, without violating the sabbath. Several of his parishioners availed themselves of their pastor’s advice. At the next meeting of presbytery, however, one of his reverend brethren thought proper to denounce him, as having violated the fourth commandment; and a solemn inquiry was accordingly voted by a majority of the presbytery. Against this resolution, a complaint and appeal were made to the synod at the last meeting. Very able pleadings were made on both sides, after which it was moved and seconded,--“That the synod should find that the presbytery of Ayr have acted in this manner, in a precipitate and informal manner, and that their sentence ought to be reversed.” It was also moved and seconded,--“That the synod find the presbytery of Ayr have acted properly, and that it should be remitted to them to take such further steps in this business as they may judge best.” After reasoning at considerable length, the synod, without a vote, agreed to set aside the whole proceedings of the presbytery in this business.[320]

This subject reminds me of the following verses to urge the use of “the time present.”

DELAYS.

_By Robert Southwell, 1595._

Shun delays, they breed remorse; Take thy time, while time is lent thee; Creeping snails have weakest force; Fly their fault, lest thou repent thee; Good is best, when soonest wrought, Ling’ring labours come to naught.

Hoist up sail while gale doth last, Tide and wind stay no man’s pleasure; Seek not time, when time is past, Sober speed is wisdom’s leisure. After wits are dearly bought, Let thy fore-wit guide thy thought.

Time wears all his locks behind; Take thou hold upon his forehead; When he flies, he turns no more, And behind his scalp is naked. Works adjourn’d have many stays; Long demurs breed new delays.

I am, Sir,

Your obliged and constant reader,

R. R.

* * * * *

We are informed on the authority of Macrobius, that among the heathens, the masters of families, when they had got in their harvest, were wont to feast with their servants, who had laboured for them in tilling the ground. In exact conformity to this, it is common among Christians, when the fruits of the earth are gathered in, and laid in their proper repositories, to provide a plentiful supper for the harvest men and the servants of the family. At this entertainment, all are in the modern revolutionary idea of the word, perfectly equal. Here is no distinction of persons, but master and servant sit at the same table, converse freely together, and spend the remainder of the night in dancing, singing, &c., in the most easy familiarity. Bourne thinks the origin of both these customs is Jewish, and cites Hospinian, who tells us that the heathens copied after this custom of the Jews, and at the end of their harvest, offered up their first-fruits to the gods, for the Jews rejoiced and feasted at the getting in of the harvest.

This festivity is undoubtedly of the most remote antiquity. That men in all nations, where agriculture flourished, should have expressed their joy on this occasion by some outward ceremonies, has its foundation in the nature of things. Sowing is hope; reaping, fruition of the expected good. To the husbandman, whom the fear of wet, blights, &c. had harrassed with great anxiety, the completion of his wishes could not fail of imparting an enviable feeling of delight. Festivity is but the reflex of inward joy, and it could hardly fail of being produced on this occasion, which is a temporary suspension of every care.[321]

* * * * *

Mr. Brand brings a number of passages to show the manner of celebrating this season.

One of the “Five hundred points of husbandry” relates to August.

Grant harvest-lord more, by a penny or twoo, To call on his fellowes the better to doo: Give gloves to thy reapers a _Larges_ to crie, And daily to loiterers have a good eie.

_Tusser._

“Tusser Redivivus,” in 1744, says, “He that is the lord of harvest, is generally some stayed sober-working man, who understands all sorts of harvest-work. If he be of able body, he commonly leads the swarth in reaping and mowing. It is customary to give gloves to reapers, especially where the wheat is thistly. As to crying _a Largess_, they need not be reminded of it in these our days, whatever they were in our author’s time.”

* * * * *

Stevenson, in his “Twelve Moneths,” 1661, mentions under August, that “the furmenty pot welcomes home the harvest cart, and the garland of flowers crowns the captain of the reapers; the battle of the field is now stoutly fought. The pipe and the tabor are now busily set a-work, and the lad and the lass will have no lead on their heels. O! ’tis the merry time wherein honest neighbours make good cheer; and God is glorified in his blessings on the earth.”

* * * * *

THE HOCK CART, OR HARVEST HOME.

Come sons of summer, by whose toile We are the Lords of wine and oile; By whose tough labours, and rough hands, We rip up first, then reap our lands, Crown’d with the eares of corne, now come, And, to the pipe, sing harvest home. Come forth, my Lord, and see the cart, Drest up with all the country art. See here a maukin, there a sheet As spotlesse pure as it is sweet: The horses, mares, and frisking fillies, Clad, all, in linnen, white as lillies, The harvest swaines and wenches bound For joy, to see the hock-cart crown’d. About the cart heare how the rout Of rural younglings raise the shout; Pressing before, some coming after, Those with a shout, and these with laughter. Some blesse the cart; some kisse the sheaves; Some prank them up with oaken leaves: Some crosse the fill-horse; some with great Devotion stroak the home-borne wheat: While other rusticks, lesse attent To prayers than to merryment, Run after with their breeches rent. Well, on brave boyes, to your Lord’s hearth Glitt’ring with fire, where, for your mirth, You shall see first the large and cheefe Foundation of your feast, fat beefe: With upper stories, mutton, veale, Add bacon, which makes full the meale; With sev’rall dishes standing by, As here a custard, there a pie, And here all-tempting frumentie, And for to make the merrie cheere If smirking wine be wanting here, There’s that which drowns all care, stout beere, Which freely drink to your Lord’s health, Than to the plough, the commonwealth; Next to your flailes, your fanes, your fatts Then to the maids with wheaten hats; To the rough sickle, and the crookt sythe Drink, frollick, boyes, till all be blythe, Feed and grow fat, and as ye eat, Be mindfull that the lab’ring neat, As you, may have their full of meat; And know, besides, ye must revoke The patient oxe unto the yoke, And all goe back unto the plough And harrow, though they’re hang’d up now. And, you must know, your Lord’s word’s true, Feed him ye must, whose food fils you. And that this pleasure is like raine, Not sent ye for to drowne your paine. But for to make it spring againe.

_Herrick._

* * * * *

Hoacky is brought Home with hallowin, Boys with plumb-cake The cart following.

_Poor Robin_, 1676.

* * * * *

Mr. Brand says, “the respect shown to servants at this season, seems to have sprung from a grateful sense of their good services. Every thing depends at this juncture on their labour and despatch. Vacina, (or Vacuna, so called as it is said _à vacando_, the tutelar deity, as it were, of rest and ease,) among the ancients, was the name of the goddess to whom rustics sacrificed at the conclusion of harvest. Moresin tells us, that popery, in imitation of this, brings home her chaplets of corn, which she suspends on poles, that offerings are made on the altars of her tutelar gods, while thanks are returned for the collected stores, and prayers are made for future ease and rest. Images too of straw or stubble, he adds, are wont to be carried about on this occasion; and that in England he himself saw the rustics bringing home in a cart, a figure made of corn, round which men and women were singing promiscuously, preceded by a drum or piper.”

The same collector acquaints us that Newton, in his “Tryall of a Man’s owne Selfe,” (12mo. London, 1602,) under breaches of the second commandment, censures “the adorning with garlands, or presenting unto any image of any saint whom thou hast made speciall choice of to be thy patron and advocate, the firstlings of thy increase, as corne and graine, and other oblations.”

_Ceres._

As we were returning, says Hentzner, in 1598, to our inn, we happened to meet some country people celebrating their harvest-home; their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which perhaps they would signify Ceres. This they keep moving about, while men and women, men and maid-servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn.

“I have seen,” says Hutchinson in his “History of Northumberland,” “in some places, an image apparelled in great finery, crowned with flowers, a sheaf of corn placed under her arm, and a scycle in her hand, carried out of the village in the morning of the conclusive reaping day, with music and much clamour of the reapers, into the field, where it stands fixed on a pole all day, and when the reaping is done, is brought home in like manner. This they call the harvest queen, and it represents the Roman Ceres.”

Mr. Brand says, “an old woman, who in a case of this nature is respectable authority, at a village in Northumberland, informed me that not half a century ago, they used every where to dress up something similar to the figure above described, (by Hutchinson,) at the end of harvest, which was called a harvest doll, or _kern baby_. This northern word is plainly a corruption of corn baby, or image, as is the _kern_ supper, of corn supper. In Carew’s ‘Survey of Cornwall,’ p. 20. b. ‘an ill kerned or saved harvest’ occurs.”

* * * * *

At Wellington in Devonshire, the clergyman of the parish informed Mr. Brand, that when a farmer finishes his reaping, a small quantity of the ears of the last corn are twisted or tied together into a curious kind of figure, which is brought home with great acclamations, hung up over the table, and kept till the next year. The owner would think it extremely unlucky to part with this, which is called “a knack.” The reapers whoop and hollow “a knack! a knack! well cut! well bound! well shocked!” and, in some places, in a sort of mockery it is added, “well scattered on the ground.” A countryman gave a somewhat different account, as follows: “When they have cut the corn, the reapers assemble together: ‘a knack’ is made, which one placed in the middle of the company holds up, crying thrice ‘a knack,’ which all the rest repeat: the person in the middle then says--

‘Well cut! well bound! Well shocked! well saved from the ground.’

He afterwards cries ‘whoop,’ and his companions holloo as loud as they can.”

“I have not,” says Mr. Brand, “the most distant idea of the etymology of the ‘knack,’ used on this occasion. I applied for one of them. No farmer would part with that which hung over his table; but one was made on purpose for me. I should suppose that Moresin alludes to something like this when he says, ‘Et spiceas papatus (habet) coronas, quas videre est in domibus,’ &c.”

* * * * *

It is noticed by Mr. Brand, that Purchas in his “Pilgrimage,” speaking of the Peruvian superstitions, and quoting Acosta, tells us, “In the sixth moneth they offered a hundred sheep of all colours, and then made a feast, bringing the mayz from the fields into the house, which they yet use. This feast is made, coming from the farm to the house, saying certain songs, and praying that the mayz may long continue. They put a quantity of the mayz (the best that groweth in their farms) in a thing which they call pirva, with certain ceremonies, watching three nights. Then do they put it in the richest garment they have, and, being thus wrapped and dressed, they worship this pirva, holding it in great veneration, and saying, it is the mother of the mayz of their inheritance, and that by this means the mayz augments and is preserved. In this moneth they make a particular sacrifice, and the witches demand of this pirva if it hath strength enough to continue until the next year; and if it answers no, then they carry this maiz to the farm whence it was taken, to burn, and make another pirva as before: and this foolish vanity still continueth.”

On this Peruvian “pirva,” the rev. Mr. Walter, fellow of Christ’s-college, Cambridge, observes to Mr. Brand, that it bears a strong resemblance to what is called in Kent, an _ivy girl_, which is a figure composed of some of the best corn the field produces, and made, as well as they can, into a human shape; this is afterwards curiously dressed by the women, and adorned with paper trimmings, cut to resemble a cap, ruffles, handkerchief, &c. of the finest lace. It is brought home with the last load of corn from the field upon the waggon, and they suppose entitles them to a supper at the expense of their employers.

“_Crying the Mare._”

This custom is mentioned by Mr. Brand as existing in Hertfordshire and Shropshire. The reapers tie together the tops of the last blades of corn, which they call “mare,” and standing at some distance, throw their sickles at it, and he who cuts the knot, has the prize, with acclamations and good cheer. Blount adds, respecting this custom, that “after the knot is cut, then they cry with a loud voice three times, ‘I have her.’ Others answer as many times, ‘what have you?’--‘A mare, a mare, a mare.’--‘Whose is she,’ thrice also.--‘J. B.’ (naming the owner three times.)--‘Whither will you send her?’--‘To J. a Nicks,’ (naming some neighbour who has not all his corn reaped;) then they all shout three times, and so the ceremony ends with good cheer. In Yorkshire, upon the like occasion, they have a harvest dame; in Bedfordshire, a Jack and a Gill.”

* * * * *

Having been preceded “into the bosom of the land” by a lady, and become acquainted with accounts from earlier chroniclers of harvest customs, we now pay our respects to the communications of other correspondents, who have been pleased to comply with our call for information.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE AND SUFFOLK.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--With pleasure I have read your entertaining and instructing collection from its commencement, and I perceive you have touched upon a subject in one of your sheets, which in my youth used to animate my soul, and bring every energy of my mind and of my body into activity; I mean, harvest.

Yes, sir, in my younger days I was introduced into the society of innocence and industry; but, I know not how it was, Dame Fortune kicked me out, and I was obliged to dwell in smoke and dirt, in noise and bustle, in wickedness and strife compared with what I left; but I forgive her, as you know she is blind. May I, Mr. Editor, converse with you in this way a little?

In _Gloucestershire_ this interesting season is thus kept. Of course the good man of the house has informed the industrious and notable dame the day for harvest-home; and she, assisted by her daughters, makes every preparation to keep out famine and banish care--the neighbours and friends are invited, hot cakes of Betty’s own making, and such butter that Sukey herself had churned, tea, ale, syllabub, gooseberry wine, &c. And what say you? Why, Mr. Editor, this is nothing, this is but the beginning--the grand scene is out of doors. Look yonder, and see the whole of the troop of men, women, and children congregated together. They are about to bring home the last load. You have seen election chairings, Mr. Editor; these are mere jokes to it. This load should come from the furthest field, and that it should be the smallest only just above the rails, a large bough is placed in the centre, the women and children are placed on the load, boys on the horses, they themselves trimmed with cowslips and boughs of leaves, and with shouts of “harvest-home,” the horses are urged forward, and the procession comes full gallop to the front of the farm-house, where the before happy party are waiting to welcome home the _last load_. Now, he who has the loudest and the clearest voice, mounts upon a neighbouring shed, and with a voice which would do credit to your city crier, shouts aloud--

We have ploughed, we have sowed, We have reaped, we have mowed, We have brought home every load, Hip, hip, hip, _Harvest home_!

and thus, sir, the whole assembly shout “huzza.” The strong ale is then put round, and the cake which Miss made with her own hands:--the load is then driven round to the stack-yard or barn, and the horses put into the stable. John puts on a clean white frock, and William a clean coloured handkerchief: the boys grease their shoes to look smart, and all meet in the house to partake of the harvest supper, when the evening is spent in cheerfulness. Here, Mr. Editor, is pomp without pride, liberality without ostentation, cheerfulness without vice, merriment without guilt, and happiness without alloy.

They say that old persons are old fools and although I am almost blind, yet I cannot resist telling you of what I have also seen in my boyish days in _Suffolk_. I do not mean to be long, sir, but merely to give you a few particulars of an ancient custom, which I must leave you to finish, so that while you take a hearty pinch of snuff (I know you don’t like tobacco) I shall have completed.

At the commencement of harvest one is chosen to be “my lord.” He goes first in reaping, and mowing, and leads in every occupation. Now, sir, if you were to pass within a field or two of this band of husbandmen, “my lord” would leave the company, and approaching you with respect, ask of you a _largess_. Supposing he succeeded, which I know he would, he would hail his companions, and they would thus acknowledge the gift: my lord would place his troop in a circle, suppose fifteen men, and that they were reaping, each one would have a hook in his hand, or, if hoeing of turnips, he would bring his hoe. My lord then goes to a distance, mounts the stump of a tree, or a gate post, and repeats a couplet (forgive the treachery of my memory, for I forget the words). The men still standing in the circle listen with attention to the words of my lord, and at the conclusion each with his reap-hook pointing with his right hand to the centre of the circle, and with intent as if watching and expecting, they utter altogether a groan as long as four of your breves (if you go by notes): then, as if impelled together, their eyes are lifted to the heavens above them, their hooks point in the same direction, and at the same time they change the doleful groan to a tremendous shout, which is repeated three distinct times.

The money thus got during harvest, is saved to make merry with at a neighbouring public-house, and the evening is spent in shouting of the _largess_, and joyful mirth.

I am, Sir, &c.

S. M.

* * * * *

Another correspondent presents an interesting description of usages in another county.

NORFOLK.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_---- Norfolk, August, 14, 1826._

Sir,--In this county it is a general practice on the first day of harvest, for the men to leave the field about four o’clock, and retire to the alehouse, and have what is here termed a “whet;” that is, a sort of drinking bout to cheer their hearts for labour. They previously solicit any who happen to come within their sight with, “I hope, sir, you will please to bestow a _largess_ on us?” If the boon is conceded the giver is asked if he would like to have his _largess_ halloed; if this is assented to, the hallooing is at his service.

At the conclusion of wheat harvest, it is usual for the master to give his men each a pot or two of ale, or money, to enable them to get some at the alehouse, where a cheerful merry meeting is held amongst themselves.

The _last_, or “horkey load” (as it is here called) is decorated with flags and streamers, and sometimes a sort of _kern baby_ is placed on the top at front of the load. This is commonly called a “ben;” why it is so called, I know not, nor have I the smallest idea of its etymon, unless a person of that name was dressed up and placed in that situation, and that, ever after, the figure had this name given to it. This load is attended by all the party, who had been in the field, with hallooing and shouting, and on their arrival in the farmyard they are joined by the others. The mistress with her maids are out to gladden their eyes with this welcome scene, and bestir themselves to prepare the substantial, plain, and homely feast, of roast beef and plumb pudding.

On this night it is still usual with some of the farmers to invite their neighbours, friends, and relations, to the “_horkey supper_.” Smiling faces grace the festive board; and many an ogling glance is thrown by the rural lover upon the nut-brown maid, and returned with a blushing simplicity, worth all the blushes ever made at court. Supper ended, they leave the room, (the cloth, &c. are removed,) and out of doors they go, and a hallooing “_largess_” commences--thus

[Music: Hallo! Lar- - - - - - - - -gess.

(_ad infinitum._)

(_with three successive Whoops._)]

The men and boys form a circle by taking hold of hands, and one of the party standing in the centre, having a _gotch_[322] of horkey ale placed near him on the ground, with a horn or tin sort of trumpet in his hand, makes a signal, and “halloo! lar-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-ge-ess” is given as loud and as long as their lungs will allow, at the same time elevating their hands as high as they can, and still keeping hold. The person in the centre blows the horn one continued blast, as long as the “halloo-largess.” This is done three times, and immediately followed by three successive whoops; and then the _glass_, commonly a _horn_ one, of spirit-stirring ale, freely circles. At this time the hallooing-largess is generally performed with three times three.

This done, they return to the table, where foaming nappy ale is accompanied by the lily taper tube, and weed of India growth; and now mirth and jollity abound, the horn of sparkling beverage is put merrily about, the song goes round, and the joke is cracked. The females are cheerful and joyous partakers of this “flow of soul.”

When the “juice of the barrel” has exhilarated the spirits, with eyes beaming cheerfulness, and in true good rustic humour, the lord of the harvest accompanied by his lady, (the person is so called who goes second in the reap, each sometimes wearing a sort of disguise,) with two plates in his hand, enters the parlour where the guests are seated, and solicits a largess from each of them. The collection made, they join their party again at the table, and the lord recounting to his company the success he has met with, a fresh zest is given to hilarity, a dance is struck up, in which, though it can hardly be said to be upon the “light fantastic toe,” the stiffness of age and rheumatic pangs are forgotten, and those who have passed the grand climactric, feel in the midst of their teens.

Another show of _disguising_ is commonly exhibited on these occasions, which creates a hearty rustic laugh, both loud and strong. One of the party habited as a female, is taken with a violent pang of the tooth ache, and the doctor is sent for. He soon makes his appearance, mounted on the back of one of the other men as a horse, having in his hands a common milking stool, which he bears upon, so as to enable him to keep his back in nearly a horizontal position. The doctor brings with him the tongs, which he uses for the purpose of extracting the tooth: this is a piece of tobacco pipe adapted to the occasion, and placed in the mouth; a fainting takes place from the violence of the operation, and the bellows are used as a means of causing a reviving hope.

When the ale has so far operated that some of the party are scarcely capable of keeping upon their seat, the ceremony of drinking healths takes place in a sort of glee or catch; one or two of which you have below. This health-drinking generally finishes the horkey. On the following day the party go round among the neighbouring farmers (having various coloured ribands on their hats, and steeple or sugar-loaf formed caps, decked with various coloured paper, &c.,) to taste _their horkey beer_, and solicit largess of any one with whom they think success is likely. The money so collected is usually spent at the alehouse at night. To this “largess money spending,” the wives and sweethearts, with the female servants of their late masters, are invited; and a tea table is set out for the women, the men finding more virtue in the decoction of Sir John Barleycorn, and a pipe of the best Virginia.

I have put together what now occurs to me respecting harvest-home, and beg to refer you to Bloomfield’s “Wild Flowers,” in a piece there called the “Horkey;” it is most delightfully described.

The glee or catch at the health-drinking is as follows:--

Here’s a health unto our master, He is the finder of the feast: God bless his endeavours, And send him increase, And send him increase, boys, All in another year.

Here’s your master’s good health So drink off your beer; I wish all things may prosper, Whate’er he takes in hand; We are all his servants, And are all at his command.

So drink, boys, drink, And see you do not spill; For if you do, You shall drink two, For ’tis your master’s will.

_Another Health Drinking._

Behold, and see, his glass is full, At which he’ll take a hearty pull, He takes it out with such long wind, That he’ll not leave one drop behind.

Behold and see what he can do, He has not put it in his shoe; He has not drank one drop in vain, He’ll slake his thirst, then drink again.

Here’s a health unto my brother John, It’s more than time that we were gone; But drink your fill, and stand your ground, This health is called the plough-boys round.

To this may be added the following.

_A Health Drinking._

There was a man from London came, With a rum-bum-bum-bare-larum; Drink up your glass for that’s the game, And say ne’er a word, except--Mum.

The great object is to start something which will catch some unguarded reply in lieu of saying “Mum,” when the party so unguardedly replying, is fined to drink two glasses.

For the beginning of Harvest there is this

_Harvest Song._

Now Lammas comes in, Our harvest begin, We have done our endeavours to get the corn in; We reap and we mow And we stoutly blow And cut down the corn That did sweetly grow.

The poor old man That can hardly stand, Gets up in the morning, and do all he can, Gets up, &c. I hope God will reward Such old harvest man.

But the man who is lazy And will not come on, He slights his good master And likewise his men; We’ll pay him his wages And send him gone, For why should we keep Such a lazy drone.

Now harvest is over We’ll make a great noise, Our master, he says, You are welcome, brave boys; We’ll broach the old beer, And we’ll knock along, And now we will sing an old harvest song.

I shall be happy if this will afford the readers of the _Every-Day Book_ any information concerning the harvest customs of this county.

I am, Sir, &c.

~G. H. I.~

* * * * *

A valuable correspondent transmits a particular account of his country custom, which will be read with pleasure.

DEVON.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--As the harvest has now become very general, I am reminded of a circumstance, which I think worthy of communicating to you. After the wheat is all cut, on most farms in the north of Devon, the harvest people have a custom of “crying the neck.” I believe that this practice is seldom omitted on any large farm in that part of the country. It is done in this way. An old man, or some one else well acquainted with the ceremonies used on the occasion, (when the labourers are reaping the last field of wheat,) goes round to the shocks and sheaves, and picks out a little bundle of all the best ears he can find; this bundle he ties up very neat and trim, and plats and arranges the straws very tastefully. This is called “the neck” of wheat, or wheaten-ears. After the field is cut out, and the pitcher once more circulated, the reapers, binders, and the women, stand round in a circle. The person with “the neck” stands in the centre, grasping it with both his hands. He first stoops and holds it near the ground, and all the men forming the ring, take off their hats, stooping and holding them with both hands towards the ground. They then all begin at once in a very prolonged and harmonious tone to cry “the neck!” at the same time slowly raising themselves upright, and elevating their arms and hats above their heads; the person with “the neck” also raising it on high. This is done three times. They then change their cry to “wee yen!”--“way yen!”--which they sound in the same prolonged and slow manner as before, with singular harmony and effect, three times. This last cry is accompanied by the same movements of the body and arms as in crying “the neck.” I know nothing of vocal music, but I think I may convey some idea of the sound, by giving you the following notes in gamut.

[Music: _Very Slow._

We yen! We yen!]

Let these notes be played on a flute with perfect _crescendos_ and _diminuendoes_, and perhaps some notion of this wild sounding cry may be formed. Well, after having thus repeated “the neck” three times, and “wee yen” or “way yen” as often, they all burst out into a kind of loud and joyous laugh, flinging up their hats and caps into the air, capering about and perhaps kissing the girls. One of them then gets “the neck,” and runs as hard as he can down to the farm-house, where the dairy-maid, or one of the young female domestics, stands at the door prepared with a pail of water. If he who holds “the neck” can manage to get into the house, in any way unseen, or openly, by any other way than the door at which the girl stands with the pail of water, then he may lawfully kiss her; but, if otherwise, he is regularly soused with the contents of the bucket. On a fine still autumn evening, the “crying of the neck” has a wonderful effect at a distance, far finer than that of the Turkish muezzin, which lord Byron eulogizes so much, and which he says is preferable to all the bells in Christendom. I have once or twice heard upwards of twenty men cry it, and sometimes joined by an equal number of female voices. About three years back, on some high grounds, where our people were harvesting, I heard six or seven “necks” cried in one night, although I know that some of them were four miles off. They are heard through the quiet evening air, at a considerable distance sometimes. But I think that the practice is beginning to decline of late, and many farmers and their men do not care about keeping up this old custom. I shall always patronise it myself, because I take it in the light of a thanksgiving. By the by, I was about to conclude, without endeavouring to explain the meaning of the words, “we yen!” I had long taken them for Saxon, as the people of Devon are the true Saxon breed. But I think that I am wrong. I asked an old fellow about it the other day, and he is the only man who ever gave me a satisfactory explanation. He says, that the object of crying “the neck” is to give the surrounding country notice of the _end_ of harvest, and that they mean by “we yen!” _we have ended_. It may more probably mean “we end,” which the uncouth and provincial pronunciation has corrupted into “we yen!”

I am, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

_July, 1826._

R. A. R.

P. S. In the above hastily written account, I should have mentioned that “the neck” is generally hung up in the farm-house, where it remains sometimes three or four years. I have written “we yen,” because I have always heard it so pronounced; they may articulate it differently in other parts of the country.

ESSEX.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--As harvest has began in various counties, I beg leave to give you a description of what is called the “harvest supper,” in Essex, at the conclusion of the harvest.

After the conclusion of the harvest, a supper is provided, consisting of roast beef and plum pudding, with plenty of strong ale, with which all the men who have been employed in getting in the corn regale themselves. At the beginning of the supper, the following is sung by the whole of them at the supper.

Here’s a health to our master, The lord of the feast, God bless his endeavours, And send him increase; May prosper his crops, boys, That we may reap another year, Here’s your master’s good health, boys, Come, drink off your beer.

After supper the following:--

Now harvest is ended and supper is past, Here’s our mistress’s good health, boys, Come, drink a full glass; For she is a good woman, she provides us good cheer, Here’s your mistress’s good health, boys, Come, drink off your beer.

The night is generally spent with great mirth, and the merry-makers seldom disperse till “Bright Phœbus has mounted his chariot of day.”

I am, &c.

AN ESSEX MAN AND SUBSCRIBER.

* * * * *

It is the advice of the most popular of our old writers on husbandry, that--

In harvest time, harvest folke, servants and all, Should make, altogether, good cheere in the hall: And fill out the black bole, of bleith to their song, And let them be merry all harvest time long. Once ended thy harvest, let none be beguilde, Please such as did please thee, man, woman, and child. Thus doing, with alway such help as they can, Thou winnest the praise of the labouring man.

_Tusser._

“Tusser Redivivus” says, “This, the poor labourer thinks, crowns all; a good supper must be provided, and every one that did any thing towards the Inning must now have some reward, as ribbons, laces, rows of pins to boys and girls, if never so small, for their encouragement, and, to be sure, plumb-pudding. The men must now have some better than best drink, which, with a little tobacco and their screaming for their _largesses_, their business will soon be done.”

_Harvest Goose._

For all this good feasting, yet art thou not loose, Til Ploughman thou givest his _harvest home goose_; Though goose goe in stubble, I passe not for that, Let goose have a goose, be she lean, be she fat.

_Tusser._

Whereon “Tusser Redivivus” notes, that “the goose is forfeited, if they overthrow during harvest.” A MS. note on a copy of Brand’s “Antiquities,” lent to the editor, cites from Boys’s “Sandwich,” an item “35 Hen. VIII. Spent when we ete our harvyst goose iij^{s}. vi^{d}. and the goose x^{d}.”

In France under Henry IV. it is cited by Mr. Brand from Seward, that “after the harvest, the peasants fixed upon some holiday to meet together and have a little regale, (by them called the _harvest gosling_,) to which they invited not only each other, but even their masters, who pleased them very much when they condescended to partake of it.”

* * * * *

According to information derived by Mr. Brand, it was formerly the custom at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, for each farmer to drive furiously home with the last load of his corn, while the people ran after him with bowls full of water in order to throw on it; and this usage was accompanied with great shouting.

HARVEST-HOME.

Who has not seen the cheerful harvest-home, Enliv’ning the scorch’d field, and greeting gay The slow decline of Autumn. All around The yellow sheaves, catching the burning beam, Glow, golden lustre; and the trembling stem Of the slim oat, or azure corn-flow’r, Waves on hedge-rows shady. From the hill The day-breeze softly steals with downward wing, And lightly passes, whisp’ring the soft sounds Which moan the death of Summer. Glowing scene! Nature’s long holiday! Luxuriant, rich, In her proud progeny, she smiling marks Their graces, now mature, and wonder-fraught! Hail! season exquisite!--and hail, ye sons Of rural toil!--ye blooming daughters!--ye Who, in the lap of hardy labour rear’d, Enjoy the mind unspotted! Up the plain, Or on the side-long hill, or in the glen, Where the rich farm, or scatter’d hamlet, shows The neighbourhood of peace ye still are found, A merry and an artless throng, whose souls Beam thro’ untutor’d glances. When the dawn Unfolds its sunny lustre, and the dew Silvers the out-stretch’d landscape, labour’s sons Rise, ever healthful,--ever cheerily, From sweet and soothing rest; for fev’rish dreams Visit not lowly pallets! All the day They toil in the fierce beams of fervid noon-- But toil without repining! The blithe song Joining the woodland melodies afar, Fling its rude cadence in fantastic sport On Echo’s airy wing! the pond’rous load Follows the weary team: the narrow lane Bears on its thick-wove hedge the scatter’d corn, Hanging in scanty fragments, which the thorn Purloin’d from the broad waggon. To the brook That ripples, shallow, down the valley’s slope, The herds slow measure their unvaried way;-- The flocks along the heath are dimly seen By the faint torch of ev’ning, whose red eye Closes in tearful silence. Now the air Is rich in fragrance! fragrance exquisite! Of new-mown hay, of wild thyme dewy wash’d, And gales ambrosial, which, with cooling breath, Ruffle the lake’s grey surface. All around The thin mist rises, and the busy tones Of airy people, borne on viewless wings, Break the short pause of nature. From the plain The rustic throngs come cheerly, their loud din Augments to mingling clamour. Sportive hinds, Happy! more happy than the lords ye serve!-- How lustily your sons endure the hour Of wintry desolation; and how fair Your blooming daughters greet the op’ning dawn Of love-inspiring spring! Hail! harvest-home! To thee, the muse of nature pours the song, By instinct taught to warble! Instinct pure, Sacred, and grateful, to that pow’r ador’d, Which warms the sensate being, and reveals The soul, self-evident, beyond the dreams Of visionary sceptics! Scene sublime! Where the rich earth presents her golden treasures; Where balmy breathings whisper to the heart Delights unspeakable! Where seas and skies, And hills and vallies, colours, odours, dews, Diversify the work of nature’s God!

_Mrs. Robinson._

* * * * *

It was formerly the custom in the parish of Longforgan, in the county of Perth North Britain, to give what was called _a maiden feast_. “Upon the finishing of the harvest the last handful of corn reaped in the field was called _the maiden_. This was generally contrived to fall into the hands of one of the finest girls in the field, and was dressed up with ribands, and brought home in triumph with the music of fiddles or bagpipes. A good dinner was given to the whole band, and the evening spent in joviality and dancing, while the fortunate lass who took the _maiden_ was the queen of the feast; after which this handful of corn was dressed out generally in the form of a cross, and hung up with the date of the year, in some conspicuous part of the house. This custom is now entirely done away, and in its room each shearer is given sixpence and a loaf of bread. However, some farmers, when all their corns are brought in, give their servants a dinner and a jovial evening, by way of harvest-home.”[323]

* * * * *

The festival of the in-gathering in Scotland, is poetically described by the elegant author of the “British Georgics.”

THE KIRN.

_Harvest Home._

The fields are swept, a tranquil silence reigns, And pause of rural labour, far and near. Deep is the morning’s hush; from grange to grange Responsive cock-crows, in the distance heard, Distinct as if at hand, soothe the pleased ear; And oft, at intervals, the flail, remote, Sends faintly through the air its deafened sound.

Bright now the shortening day, and blythe its close, When to the _Kirn_ the neighbours, old and young, Come dropping in to share the well-earned feast. The smith aside his ponderous sledge has thrown, Raked up his fire, and cooled the hissing brand His sluice the miller shuts; and from the barn The threshers hie, to don their Sunday coats. Simply adorned, with ribands, blue and pink, Bound round their braided hair, the lasses trip To grace the feast, which now is smoking ranged On tables of all shape, and size, and height, Joined awkwardly, yet to the crowded guests A seemly joyous show, all loaded well: But chief, at the board-head, the haggis round Attracts all eyes, and even the goodman’s grace Prunes of its wonted length. With eager knife, The quivering globe he then prepares to broach; While for her gown some ancient matron quakes, Her gown of silken woof, all figured thick With roses white, far larger than the life, On azure ground,--her grannam’s wedding garb, Old as that year when Sheriffmuir was fought. Old tales are told, and well-known jests abound, Which laughter meets half way as ancient friends, Nor, like the worldling, spurns because thread bare.

When ended the repast, and board and bench Vanish like thought, by many hands removed, Up strikes the fiddle; quick upon the floor The youths lead out the half-reluctant maids, Bashful at first, and darning through the reels With timid steps, till, by the music cheered, With free and airy step, they bound along, Then deftly wheel, and to their partner’s face, Turning this side, now that, with varying step. Sometimes two ancient couples o’er the floor, Skim through a reel, and think of youthful years.

Meanwhile the frothing bickers,[324] soon as filled, Are drained, and to the gauntress[325] oft return, Where gossips sit, unmindful of the dance. Salubrious beverage! Were thy sterling worth But duly prized, no more the alembic vast Would, like some dire volcano, vomit forth Its floods of liquid fire, and far and wide Lay waste the land; no more the fruitful boon Of twice ten shrievedoms, into poison turned, Would taint the very life blood of the poor, Shrivelling their heart-strings like a burning scroll.

_Grahame._

In the island of Minorca, “Their harvests are generally gathered by the middle of June; and, as the corn ripens, a number of boys and girls station themselves at the edges of the fields, and on the tops of the fence-walls, to fright away the small birds with their shouts and cries. This puts one in mind of Virgil’s precept in the first book of his ‘Georgics,’

‘Et sonitu terrebis aves,’----

and was a custom, I doubt not, among the Roman farmers, from whom the ancient Minorquins learned it. They also use for the same purpose, a split reed, which makes a horrid rattling, as they shake it with their hands.”

* * * * *

In Northamptonshire, “within the liberty of Warkworth is Ashe Meadow, divided amongst the neighbouring parishes, and famed for the following customs observed in the mowing of it. The meadow is divided into fifteen portions, answering to fifteen lots, which are pieces of wood cut off from an arrow, and marked according to the landmarks in the field. To each lot are allowed eight mowers, amounting to one hundred and twenty in the whole. On the Saturday sevennight after midsummer-day, these portions are laid out by six persons, of whom two are chosen from Warkworth, two from Overthorp, one from Grimsbury, and one from Nethercote. These are called field-men, and have an entertainment provided for them upon the day of laying out the meadow, at the appointment of the lord of the manor. As soon as the meadow is measured, the man who provides the feast, attended by the hay-ward of Warkworth, brings into the field three gallons of ale. After this the meadow is run, as they term it, or trod, to distinguish the lots; and, when this is over, the hay-ward brings into the field a rump of beef, six penny loaves, and three gallons of ale, and is allowed a certain portion of hay in return, though not of equal value with his provision. This hay-ward and the master of the feast have the name of crocus-men. In running the field each man hath a boy allowed to assist him. On Monday morning lots are drawn, consisting some of eight swaths and others of four. Of these the first and last carry the garlands. The two first lots are of four swaths, and whilst these are mowing, the mowers go double; and, as soon as these are finished, the following orders are read aloud:--‘Oyez, Oyez, Oyez, I charge you, under God, and in his majesty’s name, that you keep the king’s peace in the lord of the manor’s behalf, according to the orders and customs of this meadow. No man or men shall go before the two garlands; if you do, you shall pay your penny, or deliver your scythe at the first demand, and this so often as you shall transgress. No man, or men, shall mow above eight swaths over their lots, before they lay down their scythes and go to breakfast. No man, or men, shall mow any farther than Monksholm-brook, but leave their scythes there, and go to dinner; according to the custom and manner of this manor. God save the king!’ The dinner, provided by the lord of the manor’s tenant, consists of three cheesecakes, three cakes, and a new-milk cheese. The cakes and cheesecakes are of the size of a winnowing-sieve; and the person who brings them is to have three gallons of ale. The master of the feast is paid in hay, and is farther allowed to turn all his cows into the meadow on Saturday morning till eleven o’clock; that by this means giving the more milk the cakes may be made the bigger. Other like customs are observed in the mowing of other meadows in this parish.”[326]

* * * * *

Harvest time is as delightful to look on to us, who are mere spectators of it, as it was in the golden age, when the gatherers and the rejoicers were one. Now, therefore, as then, the fields are all alive with figures and groups, that seem, in the eye of the artist, to be made for pictures--pictures that he can see but one fault in; (which fault, by the by, constitutes their only beauty in the eye of the farmer;) namely, that they will not stand still a moment, for him to paint them. He must therefore be content, as we are, to keep them as studies in the storehouse of his memory.

Here are a few of those studies, which he may practise upon till doomsday, and will not then be able to produce half the effect from them that will arise spontaneously on the imagination, at the mere mention of the simplest words which can describe them:--The sunburnt reapers, entering the field leisurely at early morning, with their reaphooks resting on their right shoulders, and their beer-kegs swinging to their left hands, while they pause for a while to look about them before they begin their work.--The same, when they are scattered over the field: some stooping to the ground over the prostrate corn, others lifting up the heavy sheaves and supporting them against one another, while the rest are plying their busy sickles, before which the brave crop seems to retreat reluctantly, like a half-defeated army.--Again, the same collected together into one group, and resting to refresh themselves, while the lightening keg passes from one to another silently, and the rude clasp-knife lifts the coarse meal to the ruddy lips.--Lastly, the piled-up wain, moving along heavily among the lessening sheaves, and swaying from side to side as it moves; while a few, whose share of the work is already done, lie about here and there in the shade, and watch the near completion of it.[327]

KENTISH HOP PICKING.

Who first may fill The bellying bin, and cleanest cull the hops. Nor ought retards, unless invited out By Sol’s declining, and the evening’s calm, Leander leads Lætitia to the scene Of shade and fragrance--Then th’ exulting band Of pickers, male and female, seize the fair Reluctant, and with boisterous force and brute, By cries unmov’d, they bury her in the bin. Nor does the youth escape--him too they seize, And in such posture place as best may serve To hide his charmer’s blushes. Then with shouts They rend the echoing air, and from them both (So custom has ordain’d) a _largess_ claim.

_Smart._

[314] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[315] Bateman’s Doome.

[316] Kirby and Spence’s Entomology.

[317] From “Ornithologia; or the Birds, a Poem, _with an introduction, to their natural history, and copious notes_, by _James Jennings, author of Observations on the Dialects of the West of England,” &c. &c._ This work has been for some time ready for the press, but its appearance is delayed in consequence of the depressed state of trade.

[318] The hot wells are, unfortunately, too often the last resort of the consumptive.

[319] A promising youth who died some years since at Berbice.

[320] Literary Panorama, 1807.

[321] Brand’s Popular Antiquities.

[322] A large stone, or earthen pitcher.

[323] Statistical Account of Scotland.

[324] Beakers.

[325] Wooden frames on which beer casks are set.--_Johnson._

[326] Bridges’ Northamptonshire.

[327] Mirror of the Months.

The harvest-men ring Summer out With thankful song, and joyous shout; And, when September comes, they hail The Autumn with the flapping flail.

*

This besides being named “gerst-monat” by the Anglo-Saxons,[328] they also called _haligemonath_, or the “holy-month,” from an ancient festival held at this season of the year. A Saxon menology, or register of the months, (in Wanley’s addition to Hickes,) mentions it under that denomination, and gives its derivation in words which are thus literally translated “_haligemonath_--for that our forefathers, the while they heathens were, on this month celebrated their _devil-gild_.” To inquire concerning an exposition which appears so much at variance with this old name, is less requisite than to take a calm survey of the month itself.

* * * * *

I at my window sit, and see Autumn his russet fingers lay On every leaf of every tree; I call, but summer will not stay.

She flies, the boasting goddess flies, And, pointing where espaliers shoot, Deserve my parting gift, she cries, I take the leaves, but not the fruit.

Still, at this season--

The rainbow comes and goes, The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth;-- But yet we know, where’er we go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

“I am sorry to mention it,” says the author of the _Mirror of the Months_, “but the truth must be told even in a matter of age. The year then is on the wane. It is ‘declining into the vale’ of months. It has reached ‘a certain age.’--It has reached the summit of the hill, and is not only looking, but descending, into the valley below. But, unlike that into which the life of man declines, _this_ is not a vale of tears; still less does it, like that, lead to that inevitable bourne, the kingdom of the grave. For though it may be called (I hope without the semblance of profanation) ‘the valley of the _shadow_ of death,’ yet of death itself it knows nothing. No--the year steps onward towards its temporary decay, if not so rejoicingly, even more majestically and gracefully, than it does towards its revivification. And if September is not so bright with promise, and so buoyant with hope, as May, it is even more embued with that spirit of serene repose, in which the only true, because the only continuous enjoyment consists. Spring ‘never _is_, but always _to be_ blest;’ but September is the month of consummations--the fulfiller of all promises--the fruition of all hopes--the era of all completeness.

“The sunsets of September in this country are perhaps unrivalled, for their infinite variety, and their indescribable beauty. Those of more southern countries may, perhaps, match or even surpass them, for a certain glowing and unbroken intensity. But for gorgeous variety of form and colour, exquisite delicacy of tint and pencilling, and a certain placid sweetness and tenderness of general effect, which frequently arises out of a union of the two latter, there is nothing to be seen like what we can show in England at this season of the year. If a painter, who was capable of doing it to the utmost perfection, were to dare depict on canvas one out of twenty of the sunsets that we frequently have during this month, he would be laughed at for his pains. And the reason is, that people judge of pictures by pictures. They compare Hobbima with Ruysdael, and Ruysdael with Wynants, and Wynants with Wouvermans, and Wouvermans with Potter, and Potter with Cuyp; and then they think the affair can proceed no farther. And the chances are, that if you were to show one of the sunsets in question to a thorough-paced connoisseur in this department of fine art, he would reply, that it was very beautiful, to be sure, but that he must beg to doubt whether it was _natural_, for he had never seen one like it in any of the old masters!”

* * * * *

In the “Poetical Calendar” there is the following address “to Mr. Hayman,” probably Francis Hayman, the painter of Vauxhall-gardens, who is known to us all, through early editions of several of our good authors, “with copper-plates, designed by Mr. Hayman.”

AN AUTUMNAL ODE.

Yet once more, glorious God of day, While beams thine orb serene, O let me warbling court thy stay To gild the fading scene! Thy rays invigorate the spring, Bright summer to perfection bring, The cold inclemency of winter cheer, And make th’ autumnal months the mildest of the year.

Ere yet the russet foliage fall I’ll climb the mountain’s brow, My friend, my Hayman, at thy call, To view the scene below: How sweetly pleasing to behold Forests of vegetable gold! How mix’d the many chequer’d shades between The tawny, mellowing hue, and the gay vivid green!

How splendid all the sky! how still! How mild the dying gale! How soft the whispers of the rill, That winds along the vale! So tranquil nature’s works appear, It seems the sabbath of the year: As if, the summer’s labour past, she chose This season’s sober calm for blandishing repose.

Such is of well-spent life the time, When busy days are past; Man, verging gradual from his prime, Meets sacred peace at last: His flowery spring of pleasures o’er, And summer’s full-bloom pride no more, He gains pacific autumn, mild and bland, And dauntless braves the stroke of winter’s palsied hand.

For yet a while, a little while, Involv’d in wintry gloom, And lo! another spring shall smile, A spring eternal bloom: Then shall he shine, a glorious guest, In the bright mansions of the blest, Where due rewards on virtue are bestow’d, And reap’d the golden fruits of what his autumn sow’d.

* * * * *

It is remarked by the gentleman-usher of the year, that “the fruit garden is one scene of tempting profusion.

“Against the wall, the grapes have put on that transparent look which indicates their complete ripeness, and have dressed their cheeks in that delicate bloom which enables them to bear away the bell of beauty from all their rivals. The peaches and nectarines have become fragrant, and the whole wall where they hang is ‘musical with bees.’ Along the espaliers, the rosy-cheeked apples look out from among their leaves, like laughing children peeping at each other through screens of foliage; and the young standards bend their straggling boughs to the earth with the weight of their produce.

“Let us not forget to add, that there is _one_ part of London which is never out of season, and is never more _in_ season than now. Covent-garden market is still the garden of gardens; and as there is not a month in all the year in which it does not contrive to belie something or other that has been said in the foregoing pages, as to the particular season of certain flowers, fruits, &c., so now it offers the flowers and the fruits of every season united. How it becomes possessed of all these, I shall not pretend to say: but thus much I am bound to add by way of information,--that those ladies and gentlemen who have country-houses in the neighbourhood of Clapham-common or Camberwell-grove, may now have the pleasure of eating the best fruit out of their own gardens--provided they choose to pay the price of it in Covent-garden market.”[329]

* * * * *

The observer of nature, where nature can alone be fully enjoyed, will perceive, that, in this month, “among the birds, we have something like a renewal of the spring melodies. In particular, the thrush and blackbird, who have been silent for several weeks, recommence their songs,--bidding good bye to the summer, in the same subdued tone in which they hailed her approach--wood-owls hoot louder than ever; and the lambs bleat shrilly from the hill-side to their neglectful dams; and the thresher’s flail is heard from the unseen barn; and the plough-boy’s whistle comes through the silent air from the distant upland; and snakes leave their last year’s skins in the brakes--literally creeping out at their own mouths; and acorns drop in showers from the oaks, at every wind that blows; and hazel-nuts ask to be plucked, so invitingly do they look forth from their green dwellings; and, lastly, the evenings close in too quickly upon the walks to which their serene beauty invites us, and the mornings get chilly, misty, and damp.”

Finally, “another singular sight belonging to this period, is the occasional showers of gossamer that fall from the upper regions of the air, and cover every thing like a veil of woven silver. You may see them descending through the sunshine, and glittering and flickering in it, like rays of another kind of light. Or if you are in time to observe them before the sun has dried the dew from off them in the early morning, they look like robes of fairy tissue-work, gemmed with innumerable jewels.”[330]

* * * * *

SEPTEMBER.

_An Ode._

Farewell the pomp of Flora! vivid scene! Welcome sage Autumn, to invert the year-- Farewell to summer’s eye-delighted green! Her verdure fades--autumnal blasts are near. The silky wardrobe now is laid aside, With all the rich regalia of her pride.

And must we bid sweet Philomel adieu? She that was wont to charm us in the grove? Must Nature’s livery wear a sadder hue, And a dark canopy be stretch’d above? Yes--for September mounts his ebon throne, And the smooth foliage of the plain is gone.

Libra, to weigh the harvest’s pearly store, The golden balance poizes now on high, The calm serenity of Zephyr o’er, Sol’s glittering legions to th’ equator fly, At the same hour he shows his orient head, And, warn’d by Thetis, sinks in Ocean’s bed.

Adieu! ye damask roses, which remind The maiden fair-one, how her charms decay; Ye rising blasts, oh! leave some mark behind, Some small memorial of the sweets of May; Ah! no--the ruthless season will not hear, Nor spare one glory of the ruddy year.

No more the waste of music sung so late From every bush, green orchestre of love, For now their winds the birds of passage wait, And bid a last farewell to every grove; While those, whom shepherd-swains the sleepers call, Choose their recess in some sequester’d wall.

Yet still shall sage September boast his pride, Some birds shall chant, some gayer flowers shall blow, Nor is the season wholly unallied To purple bloom; the haler fruits shall grow, The stronger plants, such as enjoy the cold, And wear a livelier grace by being old.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·69.

[328] See vol. i. p. 1147.

[329] Mirror of the Months.

[330] Ibid.

~September 1.~

GILES.

This popular patron of the London district, which furnishes the “Mornings at Bow-street” with a large portion of amusement, is spoken of in vol. i. col. 1149.

* * * * *

Until this day partridges are protected by act of parliament from those who are “privileged to kill.”

_Application for a License._

In the shooting season of 1821, a fashionably dressed young man applied to sir Robert Baker for a license to kill--not _game_, but _thieves_. This curious application was made in the most serious and business-like manner imaginable. “Can I be permitted to speak a few words to you, sir?” said the applicant. “Certainly, sir,” replied sir Robert. “Then I wish to ask you, sir, whether, if I am attacked by thieves in the streets or roads, I should be justified in using fire-arms against them, and putting them to death?” Sir Robert Baker replied, that every man had a right to defend himself from robbers in the best manner he could; but at the same time he would not be justified in using fire-arms, except in cases of the utmost extremity. “Oh! I am very much obliged to you, sir; and I can be furnished at this office with a license to carry arms for that purpose?” The answer, of course, was given in the negative, though not without a good deal of surprise at such a question, and the inquirer bowed and withdrew.

* * * * *

THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER.

Here the rude clamour of the sportsman’s joy, The gun fast-thundering, and the winded horn, Would tempt the muse to sing the _rural game_: How, in his mid-career, the spaniel struck, Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose, Out-stretched, and finely sensible, _draws_ full, Fearful, and cautious, on the latent prey; As in the sun the circling covey bask Their varied plumes, and watchful every way Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye. Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat Their idle wings, entangled more and more: Nor on the surges of the boundless air, Though borne triumphant, are they safe; the gun, Glanc’d just, and sudden, from the fowler’s eye, O’ertakes their sounding pinions; and again, Immediate brings them from the towering wing, Dead to the ground: or drives them wide-dispers’d, Wounded, and wheeling various, down the wind.

These are not subjects for the peaceful muse, Nor will she stain with such her spotless song; Then most delighted, when she social sees The whole mix’d animal creation round Alive, and happy. ’Tis not joy to her, This falsely-cheerful barbarous game of death This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth Awakes impatient, with the gleaming morn; When beasts of prey retire, that all night long, Urg’d by necessity, had rang’d the dark, As if their conscious ravage shunn’d the light, Asham’d. Not so the steady tyrant man, Who with the thoughtless insolence of power Inflam’d, beyond the most infuriate wrath Of the worst monster that e’er roam’d the waste, For sport alone pursues the cruel chase, Amid the beamings of the gentle days. Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage, For hunger kindles you, and lawless want; But lavish fed, in nature’s bounty roll’d, To joy at anguish, and delight in blood, Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.

So sings the muse of “The Seasons” on the one side; on the other, we have “the lay of the last minstrel” in praise of “Fowling,” the “rev. John Vincent, B. A. curate of Constantine, Cornwall,” whose “passion for rural sports, and the beauties of nature,” gave birth to “a poem where nature and sport were to be the only features of the picture,” and wherein he thus describes.

Full of th’ expected sport my heart beats high, And with impatient step I haste to reach The stubbles, where the scatter’d ears afford A sweet repast to the yet heedless game. How my brave dogs o’er the broad furrows bound, Quart’ring their ground exactly. Ah! that point Answers my eager hopes, and fills my breast With joy unspeakable. How close they lie! Whilst to the spot with steady pace I tend. Now from the ground with noisy wing they burst, And dart away. My victim singled out, In his aërial course falls short, nor skims Th’ adjoining hedge o’er which the rest unhurt Have pass’d. Now let us from that lofty hedge Survey with heedful eye the country round; That we may bend our course once more to meet The scatter’d covey: for no marker waits Upon my steps, though hill and valley here, With shrubby copse, and far extended brake Of high-grown furze, alternate rise around.

Inviting is the view,--far to the right In rows of dusky green, potatoes stretch, With turnips mingled of a livelier hue. Towards the vale, fenc’d by the prickly furze That down the hill irregularly slopes, Upwards they seem’d to fly; nor is their flight Long at this early season. Let us beat, With diligence and speed restrain’d, the ground, Making each circuit good.

Near yonder hedge-row where high grass and ferns The secret hollow shade, my pointers stand. How beautiful they look! with outstretch’d tails, With heads immovable and eyes fast fix’d, One fore-leg rais’d and bent, the other firm, Advancing forward, presses on the ground! Convolv’d and flutt’ring on the blood stain’d earth, The partridge lies:--thus one by one they fall, Save what with happier fate escape untouch’d, And o’er the open fields with rapid speed To the close shelt’ring covert wing their way.

When to the hedge-rows thus the birds repair, Most certain is our sport; but oft in brakes So deep they lie, that far above our head The waving branches close, and vex’d we hear The startled covey one by one make off. Now may we visit some remoter ground; My eager wishes are insatiate yet, And end but with the sun. Yet happy he, Who ere the noontide beams inflame the skies, Has bagg’d the spoil; with lighter step he treads, Nor faints so fast beneath the scorching ray. The morning hours well spent, should mighty toil Require some respite, he content can seek Th’ o’er-arching shade, or to the friendly farm Betake him, where with hospitable hand His simple host brings forth the grateful draught Of honest home-brew’d beer, or cider cool. Such friendly treatment may each fowler find Who never violates the farmer’s rights, Nor with injurious violence, invades His fields of standing corn. Let us forbear Such cruel wrong, though on the very verge Of the high waving field our days should point.

* * * * *

The pen of a country gentleman communicates an account of a remarkable character created by “love of the _gun_.”

THE LOSCOE MISER.

_For the Every-Day Book._

About sixty years ago, at Loscoe, a small village in Derbyshire, lived James Woolley, notorious for three things, the very good clocks he made, his eccentric system of farming, and the very great care he took of his money. He was, like Elwes and Dancer, an old bachelor, and for the same reason, it was a favourite maxim with him, and ever upon his lips, that “fine wives and fine gardens are mighty expensive things:” he consequently kept at a very respectful distance from both. He had, indeed, an unconquerable dread of any thing “fine,” or that approached in any way that awful and ghost-like term “expensive.”

It would seem that Woolley’s avaricious bias, was not, as is generally the case, his first ruling passion, though a phrenologist, might entertain a different opinion. “When young,” says Blackner in his History of Nottinghamshire, “he was partial to shooting; but being detected at his sport upon the estate of the depraved William Andrew Horne, Esq. of Butterly (who was executed on the 11th of December, 1759, at Nottingham, for the murder of a child) and compelled by him to pay the penalty, he made a vow never to cease from labour, except when nature compelled him, till he had obtained sufficient property to justify him in following his favourite sport, without dreading the frowns of his haughty neighbour. He accordingly fell to work, and continued at it till he was weary, when he rested, and “to it again,”--a plan which he pursued without any regard to night or day. He denied himself the use of an ordinary bed, and of every other comfort, as well as necessary, except of the meanest kind. But when he had acquired property to qualify him to carry a gun, he had lost all relish for the sport; and he continued to labour at clock-making, except when he found an opportunity of trafficking in land, till he had amassed a considerable fortune, which he bequeathed to one of his relations. I believe he died about 1770.”

It must have been a singular spectacle to any one except Woolley’s neighbours, who were the daily observers of his habits, to have seen a man worth upwards of 20,000_l._ up at five in the morning brushing away with his bare feet the dew as he fetched up his cows from the pasture, his shoes and stockings carefully held under his arm to prevent them from being injured by the wet; though, by the by, a glance at them would have satisfied any one they had but little to fear from the dew or any thing else. A penny loaf boiled in a small piece of linen, made him an excellent pudding; this with a halfpenny worth of small beer from the village alehouse was his more than ordinary dinner, and rarely sported unless on holydays, or when he had a friend or tenant to share the luxury.

Once in his life Woolley was convicted of liberality. He had at great labour and expense of time made, what he considered, a clock of considerable value, and, as it was probably too large for common purposes, he presented it to the corporation of Nottingham, for the exchange. In return he was made a freeman of the town. They could not have conferred on him a greater favour: the honour mattered not--but election-dinners were things which powerfully appealed through his stomach to his heart. The first he attended was productive of a ludicrous incident. His shabby and vagrant appearance nearly excluded him from the scene of good-eating, and even when the burgesses sat down to table, no one seemed disposed to accommodate the miserly old gentleman with a seat. The chairs were quickly filled: having no time to lose, he crept under the table and thrusting up his head forced himself violently into one, but not before he had received some heavy blows on the bare skull.

The most prominent incident in his history, was a ploughing scheme of his own invention. He had long lamented that he kept horses at a great expense for the purposes of husbandry. To have kept a saddle-horse would have been extravagant--and at last fancying he could do without them, they were sold, and the money carefully laid by. This was a triumph--a noble saving! The winter passed away, and his hay and corn-stacks stood undiminished; ploughing time however arrived, and his new plan must be carried into effect. The plough was drawn from its inglorious resting-place, and a score men were summoned from the village to supply the place of horses. At the breakfast-table he was not without fears of a famine--he could starve himself, but a score of brawny villagers, hungry, and anticipating a hard day’s work, would eat, and drink too, and must be satisfied. They soon proceeded to the field, where a long continued drought had made the ground almost impenetrable; the day became excessively hot, and the men tugged and puffed to little purpose; they again ate heartily, and drank more good ale than the old man had patience to think of; and difficult as it was, to force the share through the unyielding sward, it was still more difficult to refrain from laughing out at the grotesque figure their group presented. They made many wry faces, and more wry furrows, and spoiled with their feet what they had not ploughed amiss. But this was not all. Had a balloon been sent up from the field it could scarcely have drawn together more intruders; he tried, but in vain, to keep them off; they thronged upon him from all quarters; his gates were all set open or thrown off the hooks; and the fences broken down in every direction. Woolley perceived his error; the men, the rope traces, and the plough were sent home in a hurry, and with some blustering, and many oaths, the trespassers were got rid of. The fences were mended, and the gates replaced, and having to his heart’s content gratified his whim, he returned to the old-fashioned custom of ploughing with horses, until in his brains’ fertility he could discover something better and less “expensive!”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 60·40.

~September 2.~

LONDON BURNT, 1666.

This notice in our almanacs was descriptively illustrated in vol. i. col. 1150-1165.

BARTHOLOMEW FAIR, 1826.

Another year arrives, and spite of corporation “resolutions,” and references to “the committee,” and “reports,” and “recommendations,” to abolish the fair, it is held again. “Now,” says an agreeable observer, “Now arrives that Saturnalia of nondescript noise and nonconformity, ‘Bartlemy fair;’--when that prince of peace-officers, the lord mayor, changes his sword of state into a sixpenny trumpet, and becomes the lord of misrule and the patron of pickpockets; and lady Holland’s name leads an unlettered mob instead of a lettered one; when Mr. Richardson maintains, during three whole days and a half, a managerial supremacy that must be not a little enviable even in the eyes of Mr. Elliston himself; and Mr. Gyngell holds, during the same period, a scarcely less distinguished station as the Apollo of servant-maids; when ‘the incomparable (not to say _eternal_) _young_ Master Saunders’ rides on horseback to the admiration of all beholders, in the person of his eldest son; and when all the giants in the land, and the dwarfs too, make a general muster, and each proves to be, according to the most correct measurement, at least a foot taller or shorter than any other in the fair, and in fact, the only one worth seeing,--‘all the rest being impostors!’ In short, when every booth in the fair combines in itself the attractions of all the rest, and so perplexes with its irresistible merit the rapt imagination of the half-holyday schoolboys who have got but sixpence to spend upon the whole, that they eye the outsides of each in a state of pleasing despair, till their leave of absence is expired twice over, and then return home filled with visions of giants and gingerbread-nuts, and dream all night long of what they have not seen.”[331]

* * * * *

The almanac day for Bartholomew fair, is on the third of the month, which this year fell on a Sunday, and it being prescribed that the fair shall be proclaimed “on or before the third,” proclamation was accordingly made, and the fair commenced on Saturday the second of September, 1826. Its appearance on that and subsequent days, proves that it is going out like the lottery, by force of public opinion; for the people no longer buy lottery tickets even in “the _last_ lottery,” nor pay as they used to do at “Bartlemy fair.” There were this year only three shows at sixpence, and one at twopence; all the rest were “only a penny.”

The _sixpenny_ shows were, Clarke, with riders and tumblers; Richardson, with his tragi-comical company, enacting “Paul Pry;” and wicked Wombwell, with his fellow brutes.

In the _twopenny_ show were four lively little crocodiles about twelve inches long, hatched from the eggs at Peckham, by steam; two larger crocodiles; four cages of fierce rattle snakes; and a dwarf lady.

In the _penny_ shows were a glass-blower, sitting at work in a glass wig, with rows of curls all over, making pretty little teacups at threepence each, and miniature tobacco pipes for a penny; he was assisted by a wretched looking female, who was a sword-swallower at the last figure, and figured in this by placing her feet on hot iron, and licking a poker nearly red hot with her tongue. In “Brown’s grand company from Paris,” there were juggling, tight-rope dancing, a learned horse, and playing on the salt-box with a rolling-pin, to a tune which is said to be peculiar to the pastime. The other penny shows were nearly as last year, and silver-haired ladies and dwarfs, more plentiful and less in demand than learned pigs, who, on that account, drew “good houses.”

In this year’s fair there was not one “up-and-down,” or “round-about.”

The west side of Giltspur-street was an attractive mart to certain “men of letters;” for the ground was covered with “relics of literature.” In the language of my informant, for I did not visit the fair myself, there was a “path of genius” from St. Sepulchre’s church to Cock-lane. He mentions that a person, apparently an agent of a religious society, was anxiously busy in the fair distributing a bill entitled--“Are you prepared to die?”

ROMAN REMAINS AT PENTONVILLE,

and

THE WHITE CONDUIT.

I am not learned in the history or the science of phrenology, but, unless I am mistaken, surely in the days of “craniology,” the organ of “inhabitiveness” was called the organ of “travelling.” Within the last minute I have felt my head in search of the development. I imagine it must be very palpable to the scientific, for I not only incline to wander but to locate. However that may be, I cannot find it myself--for want, I suppose, of a topographical view of the cranium, and I have not a copy of Mr. Cruikshank’s “Illustrations of Phrenology” to refer to.

At home, I always sit in the same place if I can make my way to it without disturbing the children; all of whom, by the by, (I speak of the younger ones,) are great sticklers for rights of sitting, and urge their claims on each other with a persistence which takes all my authority to abate. I have a habit, too, at a friend’s house of always preferring the seat I dropped into on my first visit; and the same elsewhere. The first time I went to the Chapter Coffee-house, some five-and-twenty years ago, I accidentally found myself alone with old Dr. Buchan, in the same box; it was by the fireplace on the left from Paternoster-row door: poor Robert Heron presently afterwards entered, and then a troop of the doctor’s familiars dropped in, one by one; and I sat in the corner, a stranger to all of them, and therefore a silent auditor of their pleasant disputations. At my next appearance I forbore from occupying the same seat, because it would have been an obtrusion on the literary community; but I got into the adjoining box, and that always, for the period of my then frequenting the house, was my coveted box. After an absence of twenty years, I returned to the “Chapter,” and involuntarily stepped to the old spot; it was pre-occupied; and in the doctor’s box were other faces, and talkers of other things. I strode away to a distant part of the room to an inviting vacancy, which, from that accident, and my propensity, became my desirable sitting place at every future visit. My strolls abroad are of the same character. I prefer walking where I walked when novelty was charming; where I can have the pleasure of recollecting that I formerly felt pleasure--of rising to the enjoyment of a spirit hovering over the remains it had animated.

One of my oldest, and therefore one of my still-admired walks is by the way of Islington. I am partial to it, because, when I was eleven years old, I went every evening from my father’s, near Red Lion-square, to a lodging in that village “for a consumption,” and returned the following morning. I thus became acquainted with Canonbury, and the Pied Bull, and Barnesbury-park, and White Conduit-house; and the intimacy has been kept up until presumptuous takings in, and enclosures, and new buildings, have nearly destroyed it. The old site seems like an old friend who has formed fashionable acquaintanceships, and lost his old heartwarming smiles in the constraint of a new face.

In my last Islington walk, I took a survey of the only remains of the Roman encampment, near Barnesbury-park. This is a quadrangle of about one hundred and thirty feet, surrounded by a fosse or ditch, about five-and-twenty feet wide, and twelve feet deep. It is close to the west side of the present end of the New Road, in a line with Penton-street; immediately opposite to it, on the east side of the road, is built a row of houses, at present uninhabited, called Minerva-place. This quadrangle is supposed to have been the prætorium or head quarters of Suetonius, when he engaged the British queen, Boadicea, about the year 60. The conflict was in the eastward valley below, at the back of Pentonville. Here Boadicea, with her two daughters before her in the same war-chariot, traversed the plain, haranguing her troops; telling them, as Tacitus records, “that it was usual to the Britons to war under the conduct of women,” and inciting them to “vengeance for the oppression of public liberty, for the stripes inflicted on her person, for the defilement of her virgin daughters;” declaring “that in that battle they must remain utterly victorious or utterly perish: such was the firm purpose of her who was a woman; the men, if they pleased, might still enjoy life and bondage.” The slaughter was terrible, eighty thousand of the Britons were left dead on the field; it terminated victoriously for the Romans, near Gray’s-inn-lane, at the place called “Battle Bridge,” in commemoration of the event.

The pencil of the artist has been employed to give a correct and picturesque representation as it now appears, in September, 1826, of the last vestige of the Roman power in this suburb. The view is taken from the north-east angle of the prætorium. Until within a few years the ground about it was unbroken; and, even now, the quadrangle itself is surprisingly complete, considering that nearly eighteen centuries have elapsed since it was formed by the Roman soldiery. In a short time the spirit of improvement will entirely efface it, and houses and gardens occupy its site. In the fosse of this station, which is overrun with sedge and brake, there is so pretty a “bit,” to use an artist’s word, that I have caused it to be sketched.

This may be more pleasantly regarded when the ancient works themselves have vanished. Within a few yards of the western side of the fosse, and parallel with it, there is raised a mound or rampart of earth. It is in its original state and covered with verdure. In fine mornings a stray valitudinarian or two may be seen pacing its summit. Its western slope has long been the Sunday resort of Irishmen for the game of foot-ball.

Getting back into the New Road, its street which stands on fields I rambled in when a boy, leads to “White Conduit-house,” which derives its name from a building still preserved, I was going to say, but I prefer to say, still standing.

Mr. Joseph Fussell who resides within sight of this little edifice, and whose pencil took the Roman general’s station, and the well, also drew this Conduit; and his neighbour, Mr. Henry White, engraved the three, as they now present themselves to the reader’s eye.

The view of the “White Conduit” is from the north, or back part, looking towards Pentonville, with Pancras new church and other buildings in the distance. It was erected over a head of water that formerly supplied the Charter-house, and bore a stone in front inscribed “T. S.” the initials of Sutton, the founder, with his arms, and the date “1641.”[332]

About 1810, the late celebrated Wm. Huntington, S.S., of Providence chapel, who lived in a handsome house within sight, was at the expense of clearing the spring for the use of the inhabitants; but, because his pulpit opinions were obnoxious, some of the neighbouring vulgar threw loads of soil upon it in the night, which rendered the water impure, and obstructed its channel, and finally ceasing to flow, the public was deprived of the kindness he proposed. The building itself was in a very perfect state at that time, and ought to have been boarded up after the field it stood in was thrown open. As the new buildings proceeded it was injured and defaced by idle labourers and boys, from mere wantonness and reduced to a mere ruin. There was a kind of upper floor or hayloft in it, which was frequently a shelter to the houseless wanderer. A few years ago some poor creatures made it a comfortable hostel for the night, with a little hay. Early in the morning a passing workman perceived smoke issuing from the crevices, and as he approached heard loud cries from within. Some mischievous miscreants had set fire to the fodder beneath the sleepers, and afterwards fastened the door on the outside: the inmates were scorched by the fire, and probably they would all have been suffocated in a few minutes, if the place had not been broken open.

The “White Conduit” at this time merely stands to shame those who had the power, and neglected to preserve it. To the buildings grown up around, it might have been rendered a neat ornament, by planting a few trees and enclosing the whole with an iron railing, and have stood as a monument of departed worth. This vicinity was anciently full of springs and stone conduits; the erections have long since gone to decay, and from their many waters, only one has been preserved, which is notoriously deficient as a supply to the populous neighbourhood. During the heats of summer the inhabitants want this common element in the midst of plenty. The spring in a neighbouring street is frequently exhausted by three or four o’clock in the afternoon, the handle of the pump is then padlocked till the next morning, and the grateful and necessary refreshment of spring-water is not to be obtained without going miles in search of another pump. It would seem as if the parochial powers in this quarter were leagued with publicans and sinners, to compel the thirsty to buy deleterious beer and bowel-disturbing “pop,” or to swallow the New River water fresh with impurities from the thousands of people who daily cleanse their foul bodies in the stream, as it lags along for the use of our kitchens and tea-tables.

“White Conduit-house,” has ceased to be a recreation in the good sense of the word. Its present denomination is the “Minor Vauxhall,” and its chief attraction during the passing summer has been Mrs. Bland. She has still powers, and if their exercise here has been a stay and support to this sweet melodist, so far the establishment may be deemed respectable. It is a ground for balloon-flying and skittle-playing, and just maintains itself above the very lowest, so as to be one of the most doubtful places of public resort. Recollections of it some years ago are more in its favour. Its tea-gardens then in summer afternoons, were well accustomed by tradesmen and their families; they are now comparatively deserted, and instead, there is, at night, a starveling show of odd company and coloured lamps, a mock orchestra with mock singing, dancing in a room which decent persons would prefer to withdraw their young folks from if they entered, and fire-works “as usual,” which, to say the truth, are usually very good.

Such is the present state of a vicinage which, “in my time,” was the pleasantest near spot to the north of London. The meadow of the “White Conduit” commanded an extensive prospect of the Hampstead and Highgate hills, over beautiful pastures and hedge-rows which are now built on, or converted into brick clamps, for the _material_ of irruption on the remaining glades. The pleasant views are wholly obstructed. In a few short years, London will distend its enormous bulk to the heights that overlook its proud city; and, like the locusts of old, devour every green field, and nothing will be left to me to admire, of all that I admired.

* * * * *

ELEGY

_Written in Bartlemy Fair, at Five o’clock in the morning, in 1810._

The clock-bell tolls the hour of early day, The lowing herd their Smithfield penance drie, The watchman homeward plods his weary way And leaves the fair--all solitude to me!

Now the first beams of morning glad the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds; Save when the sheep-dog bays with hoarse affright, And brutal drovers pen the unwilling folds.

Save that where sheltered, or from wind or shower, The lock’d-out ’prentice, or frail nymph complain, Of such as, wandering near their secret bower, Molest them, sensible in sleep, to pain.

Beneath those ragged tents--that boarded shade, Which late display’d its stores in tempting heaps; There, children, dogs, cakes, oysters, all are laid, There, guardian of the whole, the master sleeps.

The busy call of care-begetting morn, The well-slept passenger’s unheeding tread; The showman’s clarion, or the echoing horn, Too soon must rouse them from their lowly bed.

Perhaps in this neglected booth is laid Some head volcanic, oft discharging fire! Hands--that the rod of _magic_ lately sway’d; Toes--that so nimbly danc’d upon the wire.

Some clown, or pantaloon--the gazers’ jest, Here, with his train in dirty pageant stood: Some tired-out posture-master here may rest, Some conjuring swordsman--guiltless of his blood!

The applause of listening cockneys to command, The threats of city-marshal to despise; To give delight to all the grinning band, And read their merit in spectators’ eyes,

Is still their boast;--nor, haply, theirs alone, Polito’s lions (though now _dormant_ laid) And human monsters, shall acquire renown, The spotted Negro--and the armless maid!

Peace to the youth, who, slumbering at the _Bear_, Forgets his present lot, his perils past: Soon will the crowd again be thronging there, To view the man on wild Sombrero cast.

Careful their booths, from insult to protect, These furl their tapestry, late erected high; Nor longer with prodigious pictures deck’d, They tempt the passing youth’s astonish’d eye.

But when the day calls forth the belles and beaux, The cunning showmen each device display, And many a clown the useful notice shows, To teach ascending strangers--_where to pay_.

Sleep on, ye imps of merriment--sleep on! In this short respite to your labouring train; And when this time of annual mirth is gone, May ye enjoy, in peace, your hard-earned gain![333]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 60·40.

[331] Mirror of the Months.

[332] Nelson’s History of Islington.

[333] The Morning Chronicle, 1810.

~September 3.~

PURTON FAIR, WILTS.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_August 18, 1826._

Dear Sir,--Perhaps you, or some of your readers, may be acquainted with a small village in the north of Wiltshire, called _Purton_, very pleasantly situated, and dear to me, from a child; it being the place where I passed nearly all my boyish days. I went to school there, and there spent many a pleasant hour which I now think of with sincere delight; and perhaps you will not object to a few particulars concerning a fair held there on the first day of May and the third day of September in every year.

The spot whereon Purton fair is annually celebrated, is a very pleasant little green called the “close,” or play-ground, belonging to all the unmarried men in the village. They generally assemble there every evening after the toils of the day to recreate themselves with a few pleasant sports. Their favourite game is what they call _backswording_, in some places called _singlestick_. Some few of the village have the good fortune to be adepts in that _noble art_, and are held up as beings of transcendent genius among the rustic admirers of that noted science. They have one whom they call their umpire, to whom all disputes are referred, and he always, with the greatest possible impartiality, decides them.

About six years ago a neighbouring farmer, whose orchard joins the green, thought that his orchard might be greatly improved. He accordingly set to work, pulled down the original wall, and built a new one, not forgetting to take in several feet of the green. The villagers felt great indignity at the encroachment, and resolved to claim their rights. They waited till the new wall should be complete, and in the evening of the same day a party of about forty marched to the spot armed with great sticks, pickaxes, &c., and very deliberately commenced breaking down the wall. The owner on being apprised of what was passing, assembled all his domestics and proceeded to the spot, when a furious scuffle ensued, and several serious accidents happened. At last, however, the aggressor finding he could not succeed, proposed a settlement; he entirely removed the new wall on the following day, and returned it to the place where the old one stood.

On the morning of the fair, as soon as the day begins to dawn, all is bustle and confusion throughout the village. Gipsies are first seen with their donkies approaching the place of rendezvous; then the village rustics in their clean white Sunday smocks, and the lasses with their Sunday gowns, caps, and ribands, hasten to the green, and all is mirth and gaiety.

I cannot pass over a very curious character who used regularly to visit the fair, and I was told by an ancient inhabitant that he had done so for several years. He was an old gipsy who had attained to high favour with all the younkers of the place, from his jocular habits, curious dress, and the pleasant stories he used to relate. He called himself “Corey Dyne,” or “Old Corey,” and those are the only names by which he was known. He was accustomed to place a little hat on the ground, from the centre of which rose a stick about three feet high, whereon he put either halfpence or a small painted box, or something equally winning to the eye of his little customers. There he stood crying, “Now who throws with poor old Corey--come to Corey--come to Corey Dyne; only a halfpenny a throw, and only once a year!” A boy who had purchased the right to throw was placed about three feet from the hat, with a small piece of wood which he threw at the article on the stick, and if it fell in the hat, (which by the by it was almost invariably sure to do,) the thrower lost his money; but if out of the hat, on the ground, the article from the stick was claimed by the thrower. The good humour of “Old Corey” generally ensured him plenty of custom. I have oftentimes been a loser with him, but never a winner. I believe that no one in all Purton knows from whence he is, although every body is acquainted with him.

There was a large show on the place, at which the rustics were wont to gaze with surprise and admiration. The chief object of their wonder was our “punch.” They could not form the slightest idea how little wooden figures could talk and dance about; they supposed that there must be some life in them. I well remember that I once undertook to set them right, but was laughed at and derided me for my presumption and boast of _superior knowledge_.

There was also another very merry fellow who frequented the fair by the name of “Mr. Merryman.” He obtained great celebrity by giving various imitations of birds, &c., which he would very readily do after collecting a sufficient sum “to clear his pipe,” as he used to say. He then began with the nightingale, which he imitated very successfully, then followed the blackbird--linnet--goldfinch--robin--geese and ducks on a rainy morning--turkies, &c. &c. Then, perhaps, after collecting some more money “to clear his pipe,” he would imitate a jackass, or a cow. His excellent imitation of the crow of a cock strongly affected the risible muscles of his auditors.

The amusements last till near midnight, when the rustics, being exhilarated with the effects of good strong Wiltshire ale, generally part after a few glorious battles.

The next day several champions enter the field to contest the right to several prizes, which are laid out in the following order:--

1st. A new smock.

2nd. A new hat with a blue cockade.

3rd. An inferior hat with a white cockade.

4th. A still inferior hat without a cockade.

A stage is erected on the green, and at five o’clock the sport commences; and a very celebrated personage, whom they call their _umpshire_, (umpire,) stands high above the rest to award the prizes. The candidates are generally selected from the best players at singlestick, and on this occasion they use their utmost skill and ingenuity, and are highly applauded by the surrounding spectators. I must not forget to remark that on this grand, and to them, interesting day, the inhabitants of Purton do not combat against each other. No--believe me, sir, they are better acquainted with the laws of chivalry. Purton produces four candidates, and a small village adjoining, called Stretton, sends forth four more. These candidates are representatives of the villages to which they respectively belong, and they who lose have to pay all the expenses of the day; but it is to the credit of the sons of Purton I record, that for seven successive years their candidates have been returned the victors. The contest generally lasts two hours, and, after that, the ceremony of chairing the representatives takes place, which is thus performed:--Four chairs made with the boughs of trees are in waiting, and the conquerors are placed therein and carried through the village with every possible demonstration of joy, the inhabitants shouting “Purton for ever! huzza! my boys, huzza!” and waving boughs over their triumphant candidates. After the chairing they adjourn to the village public-house, and spend the remainder of the evening as before.

The third day is likewise a day of bustle and confusion. All repair to a small common, called the cricket ground, and a grand match takes place between the Purton club and the Stretton club; there are about twenty candidates of a side. The vanquished parties pay a shilling each to defray the expense of a cold collation, which is previously provided in a pleasant little copse adjoining the cricket-ground, and the remainder of the day is spent convivially.

I remember hearing the landlord of the public-house at Purton, (which is situated on one side of the green,) observe to a villager, that during the three days’ merriment he had sold six thousand gallons of strong beer and ale; the man of course doubted him, and afterwards very sarcastically remarked to me, “It’s just as asy, measter, for he to zay zix thousand gallons as dree thousand!” Does not this, good Mr. Editor, show a little genuine Purton wit?

I have now, my dear sir, finished, and have endeavoured to describe three pleasant days spent in an innocent and happy manner; and if I have succeeded in affording you any service, or your readers any amusement, I am amply rewarded. Allow me to add I feel such an affection for old Purton, that should I at any time in my life visit Wiltshire, I would travel twenty miles out of my road to ramble once more in the haunts of my boyhood.

Believe me, my dear Sir,

Yours very sincerely,

_August, 18, 1826._

C. T.

* * * * *

P.S. Since writing the above I have received a letter from a very particular friend who went to Purton school five years, to whom I applied for a few extra particulars respecting the fair, &c., and he thus writes, “Dear C. You seem to think that with the name I still retain all the characteristics and predilections of a _hodge_; and therefore you seek to me for information respecting the backsword-playing, fair, &c. Know that as to the first, it is (and has been for the last two years) entirely done away with, as the principal ‘farmers’ in the place ‘_done_’ like it, and so don’t suffer it. As to the fair, where lads and lasses meet in their best gowns, and ribands, and clean smocks, you must know, most assuredly, more of it than I do, as I seldom troubled about it. You must bear in mind that this fair is exactly the same as that held in the month of May, but as no notice has been taken of it by Mr. Hone in either of his volumes, I suppose it very little matters whether your description is of the fair held in May or September.”

I have to lament, my dear sir, the discontinuance of the ancient custom of backswording at Purton village; but so long as they keep up their fairs, the other loss will not be so much felt.

C. T.

* * * * *

_August 30, 1826._

I forgot to mention in my particulars of Purton-fair, that Old Corey, and the other _celebrated_ worthies, only come to the September fair, as the May fair is disregarded by them, it being a fair principally for the sale of cattle, &c. and the September fair is entirely devoted to pleasure. Perhaps you can introduce this small piece of intelligence, together with the following doggrel song written for the occasion.

C. T.

TO THE WORTHY AND RESPECTABLE INHABITANTS OF PURTON,

_This_ SONG _is most respectfully inscribed_,

_By their ever true and devoted humble servant_,

CHARLES TOMLINSON.

=SONG.=

PURTON FAIR.

Come, neighbours, listen, I’ll sing you a song, Which, I assure you, will not keep you long; I’ll sing a good song about old Purton fair, For that is the place, lads, to drive away care.

The damsels all meet full of mirth and of glee, And they are as happy as happy can be; Such worth, and such beauty, fairs seldom display, And sorrow is banished on this happy day.

There’s the brave lads of Purton at backsword so clever, Who were ne’er known to flinch, but victorious ever; The poor boys of Stretton are basted away, For Purton’s fam’d youths ever carry the day.

’Tis “Old Corey Dyne,” who wisely declares, Stretton’s lads must be beaten at all Purton’s fairs; They can’t match our courage, then, huzza! my boys, To still conquering Purton let’s kick up a noise.

“Old Corey’s” the merriest blade in the fair, What he tells us is true, so, prithee, don’t stare; “Remember poor Corey, come, pray have a throw, ’Tis _but_ once a year, as you very well know.”

_But_--here ends my song, so let’s haste to the green, ’Tis as pretty a spot as ever was seen; And if you are sad or surrounded with care, Haste quickly! haste quickly! to OLD PURTON FAIR.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·07.

~September 4.~

HOW TO KEEP APPLES.

Gather them dry, and put them with clean straw, or clean chaff, into casks; cover them up close, and put them into a cool dry cellar. Fruit will keep perfectly good a twelvemonth in this manner.

_How to mark your fruit._

Let the cultivator of choice fruit cut in paper the initial letters of his name, or any other mark he likes; and just before his peaches, nectarines, &c. begin to be coloured, stick such letters or mark with gum-water on that side of the fruit which is next the sun. That part of the rind which is under the paper will remain green, in the exact form of the mark, and and so the fruit be known wheresoever found, for the mark cannot be obliterated.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 59·92.

~September 5.~

OLD BARTHOLOMEW.

This day has been so marked in our almanacs since the new style.

THE SEASON.

We may expect very pleasant weather during this month. For whether the summer has been cold, warm, or showery, September, in all latitudes lying between 45 and 55 degrees north, produces, on an average, the finest and pleasantest weather of the year: as we get farther south the pleasantest temperature is found in October; more northward than 55 degrees the chills of autumn are already arrived, and we must look for temperature to August.[334]

* * * * *

THE GYMNASIUM.

_For the Every-Day Book._

Hæc opera atque hæ sunt generosi Principis artes.

Juv. Sat. 8. L. 224.

Let cricket, tennis, fives, and ball, The active to amusement call; Let sportsmen through the fields at morn Discharge the gun and sound the horn,-- Gymnastic sport shall fill my hours, Renew my strength and tone my powers.

I learn to climb, to walk and run, I make defence, and dangers shun; Now quick, now slow, now poised on high, I stand in air and vault the sky; The sailor’s skill, the soldier’s part, I compass by Gymnastic art.

All life’s concerns require that health Should be secured to gather wealth; That limb and muscle, nerve and vein, Should vigorous force and motion gain:-- Seek the Gymnasium,--try the plan, And be the strong and graceful man.

The Olympic games, of Grecian birth, Gave many a youth athletic worth; Hence Romans shone;--hence Britons fought, The Picts and Vandals influence caught; The lance, the spear, and arrow flew, And prove what deeds Gymnastics do.

With ease the horseman learns to ride And keep his hobby in his pride; Bloodless the feats are here pursued, And vanquished contests are renewed. Hey for Gymnastics!--’tis the rage Both with the simple and the sage.

Clias, and Voelker as the chief, Each makes his charge and gives relief; Each points his pupils to the goal, And, more than Parry, gains the pole:-- Up and be trim!--the sport is fine,-- Fling down the gauntlet,--mount the line.

Caleidoscopes were once the taste,-- Velocipedes were rode for haste,-- Those fed the eye with pleasing views, These ran the streets and tithed their dues; Thrown to the shade like fashions past, Gymnastics reign, for they are last.

Nature with art is like a tower, Strong in defence in every hour; Nature with art can nearly climb The Alp and Appenine of time; Make life more lasting, life more bold, By true Gymnastic skill controlled.

J. R. PRIOR.

_Sept. 1826._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 60·35.

[334] Perennial Calendar.

~September 6.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 6th of September, 1734, died in France, the Sieur Michael Tourant, aged ninety-eight, of whom it is said he never eat salt, and had none of the infirmities of old age.[335]

A TOTAL ECLIPSE IN CALIGRAPHY.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--As a subscriber to your highly entertaining work, I take the liberty of sending you the following.

In the first volume of the _Every-Day Book_, page 1086, I found an account of some small writing, executed by Peter Bales, which Mr. D’Israeli presumed to have been the whole bible written so small, that it might be put in an English walnut no bigger than a hen’s egg. “The nut holdeth the book; there are as many leaves in this little book as in the great bible, and as much written in one of the little leaves, as a great leaf of the bible.”--There is likewise an account in the same pages of the “Iliad” having been written so small that it might be put in a nut-shell; which is nothing near so much as the above.

I have lately seen written within the compass of a new penny piece, with the naked eye, and with a common clarified pen, the lord’s prayer, the creed, the ten commandments, the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth collects after Trinity, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c., the name of the writer, place of abode, nearest market town, county, day of the month and date of the year, all in words at length, and with the whole of the capital letters and stops belonging thereto, the commandments being all numbered. It was written by, and is in the possession of, Mr. John Parker of Wingerworth, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire: the writing bears date September 10, 1823. This piece of writing, I find, upon calculation, to be considerably smaller than either of the before-mentioned pieces. My calculation is as follows:--

A moderate sized egg will hold a book one inch and three quarters by one inch and three-eighths. Bibles have from about sixty to eighty lines in a column; I have not seen more. In this ingenious display of fine penmanship, there are eighty lines in one inch, and two half-eighths of an inch, which in one inch and three quarters, (the length of the bible,) is one hundred and six lines, which would contain one-third more matter than the bibles with eighty lines in a column; and one line of this writing, one inch and two-half eighths of an inch in length, (which is the sixteenth of an inch less in bread than the small bible,) is equal to two lines from one column of the great bible--for example.

Isaiah. Chap. XXIV.--Two lines of verse 20, the bible having seventy-nine lines in a column:--

“and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again.”

Ezekiel, Chap. XXX.--Two lines of verse 12, the bible having sixty-three lines in a column:--

“and I will make the Land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers.”

One line of Mr. Parker’s writing being part of the seventh collect after Trinity:--

“good things; graft in our hearts the love of thy name, increase in us true religion, now”--

Another line being part of the ninth and tenth commandments:--

“false witness against thy neighbour. 10.--Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house.”--

Mr. Parker very obligingly submits his writing to the inspection of the curious, and would execute one similar for a proper reward. If this account should be thought worthy of a place in your “_Every-Day Book_,” I shall feel much obliged by its insertion, and will endeavour to send you something amusing respecting the customs, pastimes, and amusements of this part of Derbyshire.

I am, Sir,

Your well-wisher

And obedient servant,

JOHN FRANCIS BROWNE.

_Lings, near Chesterfield,_

_August, 30, 1826._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 59·17.

[335] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~September 7.~

ENURCHUS.

For this saint, in the church of England calendar, see vol. i. col. 1253.

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 7th of September, 1772, a most astonishing rain fell at Inverary, in Scotland, by which the rivers rose to such a height, as to carry every thing along with the current that stood in the way. Even trees that had braved the floods for more than one hundred years, were torn up by the roots and carried down the stream. Numbers of bridges were swept away, and the military roads rendered impassable. All the duke of Argyle’s cascades, bridges, and bulwarks, were destroyed at his fine palace, in that neighbourhood.[336]

A Latin line beneath his name May lift along the laureate’s fame, As on a crutch, and make it go For half an age, for all to know That there was one, in our time, Who thought mere folly not a crime; And, though he scorn’d to be a scorner And offer Brown to Poets Corner, Imagined it a fit proceeding To give his life--let who will sneer at It--“PALMAM QUI MERUIT FERAT.”

MR. JOHN SYKES, bookseller, Johnson’s-head, Newcastle, in the “Local Records, or Historical Register of Remarkable Events,” which, in 1824, he compiled into a very interesting octavo volume, inserts the death, with some account of the “life, character, and behaviour,” of the self-celebrated poet-laureate of Durham, whose portrait adorns this page. He has not been registered here under the day of his decease according to Mr. Syke’s obit, but it is not fitting as regards this work, that Brown should die for ever, and therefore, from a gentleman who knew him, the reader will please to accept the following

MEMOIR OF JAMES BROWN.

_For the Every-Day Book._

This curious personage was well known for a long series of years to the inhabitants of Northumberland and Durham, and we believe few men have figured on the stage of the world more remarkable for their peculiarities and eccentricities.

Of the early part of James Brown’s life little is known that can be depended upon, but the compiler of the present article has heard him assert that he was born at Berwick-on-Tweed; if this be the case it is probable he left that town at a very early age, as in his speech none of the provincialisms of the lower order of inhabitants of Berwick could be observed, and had he resided there for any length of time, he must have imperceptibly imbibed the vulgar dialect. Certain, however, it is, that when a young man he resided in that “_fashionable_” part of Newcastle-upon-Tyne called “the Side,” where he kept a rag-shop, and was in the habit of attending the fairs in the neighbourhood with clothes ready-made for sale. During his residence in Newcastle his first wife died; of this person he always spoke in terms of affection, and was known long after her death, to shed tears on her being alluded to. In all probability it was owing to his loss of her that his mind became disturbed, and from an industrious tradesman he became a fanatic. A few years after her decease he married a Miss Richardson, of Durham, a respectable though a very eccentric character, and who survived him a year. This lady being possessed of a theatre, and some other little property in Durham, he removed to that city to reside.

When Brown first devoted himself to the muses is uncertain, but about thirty-three years ago, he lived in Newcastle, styled himself the poet-laureate of that place, and published a poem explanatory of a chapter in the Apocalypse, which was “adorned” with a hideous engraving of a beast with ten horns. Of this plate he always spoke in terms of rapture. We have heard that it was designed by the bard; but as Mr. B., though a poet, never laid any claim to the character of an artist, it is our belief that he had no hand in its manufacture, but that it was the work of some of those waggish friends who deceived him by their tricks, and rendered his life a pleasure. Their ingenious fictions prevented his dwelling on scenes by which his existence might have been embittered, and it is but justice to his numerous hoaxers to assert, that without their pecuniary assistance he would have often been in want of common necessaries. Though credulous he was honest; though poor he was possessed of many virtues; and while they laughed at the fancies of the visionary, they respected the man. Brown once indulged a gentleman in Durham with a sight of the drawing above alluded to, and on a loud laugh at what the poet esteemed the very perfection of terrific sublimity, Brown told him “he was no christian, or he would not deride a scriptural drawing _which the angel Gabriel had approved_!”

Brown’s poesy was chiefly of a serious nature, (at least it was intended to be so,) levity and satire were not his _forte_. Like Dante, his imagination was gloomy--he delighted to describe the torments of hell--the rattling of the chains, and the screams of the damned; the mount of Sisyphus was his Parnassus, the Styx was his Helicon, and the pale forms that flit by Lethe’s billows, the muses that inspired his lay. His poems consisted chiefly of visions, prophecies, and rhapsodies, suggested by some part of the sacred volume of the contents of which he had an astonishing recollection. When he was at the advanced age of ninety-two it was almost impossible to quote any passage of scripture to him without his remembering the book, chapter, and frequently the verse from whence it was taken. Of his poetry (though in his favourite city he has left many imitators) we cannot say any thing in praise; it had “neither rhyme nor reason,” it was such as a madman would inscribe on the walls of his cell. His song, like that of the witches in Thalaba, was “an unintelligible song” to all but the writer, on whose mind in reading it, to use the words of one of the sweetest of our modern poets, “meaning flashed like strong inspiration.” The only two lines in his works that have any thing like meaning in them are--

“When men let Satan rule their heart They do act the devil’s part.”

Our author’s last, and as he esteemed it, his best work--his _monumentum ære perennius_, was a pamphlet published in Newcastle in 1820, by Preston and Heaton, at the reasonable price of one shilling; for, unlike his brother bards, Mr. Brown never published in an expensive form. He was convinced that merit would not lie hid though concealed in a pamphlet, but like Terence’s beauty, _diu latere non potest_, and that nonsense, though printed in quarto with the types of a Davison, would be still unnoticed and neglected. On his once being shown the quarto edition of the “White Doe,” and told that he ought to publish in a similar manner, his answer was that “none but the _devil’s_ poets needed fine clothes!” The pamphlet above alluded to was entitled “Poems on Military Battles, Naval Victories, and other important subjects, the most extraordinary ever penned, a Thunderbolt shot from a Lion’s Bow at Satan’s Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Devil and the Kingdom of this World reserving themselves in darkness for the great and terrible Day of the Lord, as Jude, the servant of God, declareth: By JAMES BROWN, P. L.” This singular work was decorated with a whole length portrait of the author treading on the “devil’s books,” and blowing a trumpet to alarm sinners; it was, as we have heard him say, the work of a junior pupil of the ingenious Mr. Bewick.

During the contest for Durham, in 1820, a number of copies of an election squib, written by a humble individual connected with a northern newspaper, and entitled “A Sublime Epistle, Poetic and Politic, by James Brown, P. L.” was sent him for distribution; these, after printing an explanatory address on the back of the title, wherein he called himself S. S. L. D., the “Slayer of Seven Legions of Devils,” and disowned the authorship, he turned to his own emolument by selling at sixpence a copy.

In religious affairs Brown was extremely superstitious; he believed in every mad fanatic who broached opinions contrary to reason and sense. The wilder the theory, the more congenial to his mind. He was successively a believer in Wesley, Messrs. Buchan, Huntington, Imanuel Swedenburg, and Joanna Southcote; had he lived a little longer he would probably have been “a ranter.” He was a great reader, and what he read he remembered. The bible, of which he had a very old and curious pocket edition in black letter, was his favourite work; next to that he esteemed Alban Butler’s wonderful lives of the saints, to every relation of which he gave implicit credit, though, strange to tell, he was in his conversation always violent against the idolatries of the catholic church.

When Brown was a follower of Mr. Buchan, he used to relate that he fasted forty days and forty nights, and it is to this subject that veterinary doctor Marshall, of Durham, his legitimate successor, alludes in the following lines of an elegy he wrote on the death of his brother poet and friend:--

“He fasted forty days and nights When Mr. Buchan put to rights The wicked, for a wonder; And not so much, it has been thought, As weigh’d the button on his coat, He took to keep sin under.”

So said a Bion worthy of such an Adonis! but other accounts differ. If we may credit Mr. Sykes, the respectable author of “Local Records,” Marshall erred in supposing that the poet, camelion-like, lived on air for “forty days and forty nights.” Mr. Sykes relates that in answer to a question he put to him as to how he contrived for so long a time to sustain the cravings of nature, Brown replied, that “they (he and the rest of the party of fasters) only set on to the fire a great pot, in which they boiled water, and then stirred into it oatmeal, and supped _that_!”

Brown was very susceptible of flattery, and all his life long constantly received letters in rhyme, purporting to come from Walter Scott, Byron, Shelley, Southey, Wilson, and other great poets; with communications in prose from the king of England, the emperor of Morocco, the sultan of Persia, &c. All of these he believed to be genuine, and was in the habit of showing as curiosities to his friends, who were frequently the real authors, and laughed in their sleeves at his credulity.

In 1821, Brown received a large parchment, signed G. R., attested by Messrs. Canning and Peel, to which was suspended a large unmeaning seal, which he believed to be the great seal of Great Britain. This document purported to be a patent of nobility, creating him “baron Durham, of Durham, in the county palatine of Durham.” It recited that this title was conferred on him in consequence of a translation of his works having been the means of converting the Mogul empire! From that moment he assumed the name and style of “baron Brown,” and had a wooden box made for the preservation of his patent.

Of the poetic pieces which Brown was in the habit of receiving, many were close imitations of the authors whose names were affixed to them, and evinced that the writers were capable of better things. One “from Mr. Coleridge,” was a respectable burlesque of the “Ancient Mariner,” and began:--

It is a lion’s trumpeter, And he stoppeth one of three.

Another, “from Mr. Wilson,” commenced thus:--

Poetic dreams float round me now, My spirit where art thou? Oh! art thou watching the moonbeams smile On the groves of palm in an Indian isle; Or dost thou hang over the lovely main And list to the boatswain’s boisterous strain; Or dost thou sail on sylphid wings Through liquid fields of air, Or, riding on the clouds afar, Dost thou gaze on the beams of the evening star So beautiful and so fair. O no! O no! sweet spirit of mine Thou art entering a holy strain divine A strain which is so sweet, Oh, one might think ’twas a fairy thing, A thing of love and blessedness, Singing in holy tenderness, A lay of peaceful quietness, Within a fairy street! But _ah! ’tis_ BROWN, &c. &c.

A piece “from Walter Scott” opened with:--

The heath-cock shrill his clarion blew Among the heights of Benvenue, And fast the sportive echo flew, Adown Glenavin’s vale. But louder, louder was the knell, Of Brown’s Northumbrian penance-bell,[337] The noise was heard on Norham fell, And rung through Teviotdale.

These burlesques were chiefly produced by the law and medical students in Newcastle and Durham, and the young gentlemen of the Catholic College of Ushaw, near the latter place. As the writer of this sketch was once congratulating Mr. Brown on his numerous respectable correspondents, the old man said that he had an acquaintance far superior to any of his earthly ones, and no less a personage than the angel Gabriel, who, he stated, brought him letters from Joanna Southcote, and call to carry back his answers! This “Gabriel” was a young West Indian then residing in Durham, who used to dress himself in a sheet with goose wings on his shoulders and visit the poet at night, with letters purporting to be written to him in heaven by the far-famed prophetess. After “Gabriel” left Durham, Brown was frequently told of the deception which had been practised upon him, but he never could be induced to believe that his nocturnal visiter was any other than the angel himself. “Did I not,” he once said, “see him clearly fly out at the ceiling!” Brown used to correspond with some of Joanna’s followers in London, on the subject of these supposed revelations, and actually found (_credite posteri_) believers in the genuineness.

Amongst Brown’s strange ideas, one was that he was immortal, and should never die. Under this delusion when ill he refused all medical assistance, and it induced him at the age of 90 to sell the little property which he acquired by marriage, for a paltry guinea a week, to be paid during the life of himself and Mrs. Brown, and the life of the survivor. The property he parted from, in consideration of this weekly stipend, was a leasehold house in Sadler-street, (the theatre having been pulled down soon after the erection of the present one opposite to it,) and the house was conveyed to two Durham tradesmen, Robinson Emmerson and George Stonehouse, by whom the allowance was for some time regularly paid; but on the latter becoming embarrassed in his circumstances, the payment was discontinued, and poor Brown and his aged wife were thrown on the world without a farthing, at a time when bodily and mental infirmities had rendered them incapable of gaining a livelihood. Far be it from the writer of this to cast any aspersion on Messrs. Emmerson and Stonehouse, but it does certainly appear to him that their conduct to Brown was unkind to say the least of it. After this calamity Brown became for a few months an inhabitant of a poor-house, which he subsequently left for a lodging at an obscure inn, where, on the 11th of July, 1823, he died in a state of misery and penury at the advanced age of 92; his wife shortly afterwards died in the poorhouse. They are both interred in the churchyard of St. Oswald.

Such was James Brown the Durham poet, who with all his eccentricities was an honest, harmless and inoffensive old man. Of his personal appearance, the excellent portrait which accompanies this memoir from a drawing by Mr. Terry is an exact resemblance. All who knew him will bear testimony to its correctness. It is indeed the only one in existence that gives a correct idea of what he was. The other representations of him are nothing better than caricatures.

D.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·45.

[336] Annual Register.

[337] Ringing the penance-bell was an expression which frequently occurred in his writings. As--

We toll’d the devil’s penance-bell, And warn’d you to keep from hell, &c.

The penance-bell occurs three or four times in each of his several poems.

~September 8.~

NATIVITY B. V. M.

The legend of this festival retained in the church of England calendar, is related in vol. i. col. 1274.

CHRONOLOGY.

_Fatal Puppet Play._

_Extract from the Parish Register of Burwell, in Cambridgeshire_, “1727, September 8. N. B. About nine o’clock in the evening, a most dismal fire broke out in a barn in which a great number of persons were met together to see a puppet-show. In the barn there were a great many loads of new light straw; the barn was thatched with straw, which was very dry, and the inner roof of the barn was covered with old dry cobwebs; so that the fire, like lightning, flew round the barn in an instant, and there was but one small door belonging to the barn, which was close nailed up, and could not be easily broke open; and when it was opened, the passage was so narrow, and every body so impatient to escape, that the door was presently blocked up, and most of those that did escape, which were but very few, were forced to crawl over the heads and bodies of those that lay on a heap at the door, and the rest, in number seventy-six, perished instantly, and two more died of their wounds within two days. The fire was occasioned by the negligence of a servant, who set a candle and lantern to, or near, the heap of straw that was in the barn. The servant’s name was Richard Whitaker, of the parish of Hadstock, in Essex, near Linton, in Cambridgeshire, who was tried for the fact at the assizes held at Cambridge, March 27, 1728, but he was acquitted.”[338]

STAINES CHURCH, MIDDLESEX.

_Exhumation._

In a small apartment under the staircase leading to the gallery at the west end of the church, is presented the singular and undesirable spectacle of two unburied coffins, containing human bodies. The coffins are covered with crimson velvet and are otherwise richly embellished. They are placed beside each other on trestles, and bear respectively the following inscriptions:--

“JESSIE ASPASIA.

The most excellent and truly beloved wife of F. W. Campbell, Esq. of Barbreck, N. B. and of Woodlands in Surrey. Died in her 28th year,

July 11th, 1812.”

“HENRY E. A. CAULFIELD, ESQ. Died Sept. 3, 1808. Aged 29 years.”

As it was necessarily supposed that coffins thus open to inspection would excite much curiosity, a card is preserved at the sexton’s house, which states, in addition to the intelligence conveyed by the above inscriptions, that the deceased lady was daughter of W. T. Caulfield, Esq. of Rahanduff in Ireland, by Jessie, daughter of James, third lord Ruthven; and that she bore, with tranquil and exemplary patience, a fatal disorder produced by grief on the death of her brother, who removed from a former place of sepulture, now lies beside her in unburied solemnity.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 57·87.

[338] Lysons.

~September 9.~

THE SEASON.

At this period of the year the fashionable people of unfashionable times were accustomed to close their sojournments on the coasts, and commence their inland retreats before they “came to town for _good_.” In this respect manners are altered. The salubrity of the ocean-breeze is now courted, and many families, in defiance of gales and storms, spend the greater part of the winter at the southern watering places. The increase of this remarkable deviation deserves to be noticed, as a growing accommodation to the purposes of life.

* * * * *

A literary gentleman on his arrival from viewing the world of waters, obliges the editor with some original flowings from his pen, so fresh and beautiful, that they are submitted immediately to the reader’s enjoyment.

SONNET.

_Written in a Cottage by the Sea-side. Hastings._

Ye, who would flee from the world’s vanities From cities’ riot, and mankind’s annoy, Seek this lone cot, and here forget your sighs, For health and rest are here--guests but too coy. If the vast ocean, with its boundless space, Its power omnipotent, and eternal voice, Wean not thy thoughts from wearying folly’s choice, And mortal trifling, unto virtue’s grace, To high intent, pure purpose, and sweet peace, Leaving of former bitter pangs no trace;-- If each unworthy wish it does not drown, And free thee from ennui’s unnerving thrall, Then art thou dead to nature’s warning call, And fit but for the maddening haunts of town.

_August, 1826._

W. T. M.

SONNET STANZAS.

_On the Sea._

I never gaze upon the mighty sea, And hear its many voices, but there steals A host of stirring fancies, vividly Over my mind; and memory reveals A thousand wild and wondrous deeds to me; Of venturous seamen, on their daring keels; And blood-stain’d pirates, sailing fearlessly; And lawless smugglers, which each cave conceals; In his canoe, the savage, roving free; And all I’ve read of rare and strange, that be On every shore, o’er which its far wave peals: With luxuries, in which Imagination reels, Of bread fruit, palm, banana, cocoa tree, And thoughts of high emprize, and boundless liberty!

I ne’er upon the ocean gaze, but I Think of its fearless sons, whose sails, unfurl’d, So oft have led to Art’s best victory. Columbus upon unknown waters hurl’d, Pursuing his sole purpose, firm and high, The great discovery of another world; And daring Cook, whose memory’s bepearled With pity’s tears, from many a wild maid’s eye; Their Heiva dance, in fancy I espy, While still the dark chief’s lip in anger curled: O’er shipwreck’d Crusoe’s lonely fate I sigh, His self-form’d bark on whelming billows whirled; And oft, in thought, I hear the Tritons cry, And see the mermaid train light gliding by.

I never gaze upon the boundless deep, But still I think upon the glorious brave, Nelson and Blake, who conquered but to save; I hear their thunders o’er the billows sweep, And think of those who perish’d on the wave, That Britain might a glorious harvest reap! High hearts and generous, Vain did foemen Peace to their souls, and sweetly may they sleep, Entomb’d within the ocean’s lonely cave! Still many a lovely eye for them shall weep, Tears, far more precious than the pearls, that keep Their casket there, or all the sea e’er gave, To the bold diver’s grasp, whose fearless leap With wealth enriches, or in death must sleep!

W. T. M.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·55.

~September 10.~

THE RAINBOW.

Behold yon bright, ethereal bow, With evanescent beauties glow; The spacious arch streams through the sky, Decked with each tint of nature’s dye: Refracted sunbeams, through the shower, A humid radiance from it pour; Whilst colour into colour fades, With blended lights and softening shades.

LUNAR RAINBOW.

On the 10th of September, 1802, a very beautiful lunar rainbow was observed at Matlock, in Derbyshire, between the hours of eight and nine in the evening: its effect was singularly pleasing. The colours of these phenomena are sometimes very well defined; but they have a more tranquil tone than those which originate in the solar beams. They are not unfrequent in the vicinity of Matlock, being mentioned by some writers among the natural curiosities of that delightful spot.

On Saturday evening, September 28, 1822, an extremely interesting iris of this description was distinctly observed by many persons in the neighbourhood of Boston, in Lincolnshire. It made its appearance nearly north, about half-past eight in the evening. This bow of the heavens was every way complete, the curvature entire, though its span was extensive, and the altitude of its apex seemed to be about 20 degrees. The darkness occasioned by some clouds pregnant with rain, in the back ground of this white arch of beauty, formed a striking contrast, while several stars in the constellation of Ursa Major, (the great bear,) which were for a time conspicuous, imparted additional grandeur to the scene.[339]

* * * * *

An observer of a nocturnal rainbow on the 17th of August 1788, relates its appearance particularly. “On Sunday evening, after two days, on both of which, particularly the former, there had been a great deal of rain, together with lightning and thunder, just as the clocks were striking nine, three and twenty hours after full moon, looking through my window, I was struck with the appearance of something in the sky which seemed like a rainbow. Having never seen a rainbow by night, I thought it a very extraordinary phenomenon, and hastened to a place where there were no buildings to obstruct my view of the hemisphere. The moon was truly ‘walking in brightness,’ brilliant as she could be, not a cloud was to be seen near her; and over-against her, toward the northwest, or perhaps rather more to the north, was a rainbow, a vast arch, perfect in all its parts, not interrupted or broken as rainbows frequently are, but unremittedly visible from one horizon to the other. In order to give some idea of its extent, it is necessary to say, that, as I stood toward the western extremity of the parish of Stoke Newington, it seemed to take its rise from the west of Hampstead, and to end, perhaps, in the river Lea, the eastern boundary of Tottenham; its colour was white, cloudy, or greyish, but a part of its western leg seemed to exhibit tints of a faint, sickly green. I continued viewing it for some time, till it began to rain; and at length the rain increasing, and the sky growing more hazy, I returned home about a quarter or twenty minutes past nine, and in ten minutes came out again, but by that time all was over, the moon was darkened by clouds, and the rainbow of course vanished.”[340]

A “walking” man should not refrain To take a saunter up Webb’s-lane, Tow’rds Shepherd’s bush, and see a rude Old lumb’ring pump. It’s made of wood, And pours its water in a font So beautiful--that if he do’n’t Admire how such a combination Was form’d, in such a situation, He has no power of causation, Or taste, or feeling; but must live Painless, and pleasureless; and give Himself to doing what he can; And die a sort of sort-of-man.

Some persons walk the strait road from Dan to Beersheba, and finding it firm beneath the foot, have no regard to any thing else, and are satisfied when they get to their journey’s end. I do not advise these good kind of people to go to Hammersmith; but, here and there, an out-of-the-way man will be glad to bend his course thitherward, in search of the object represented. It is fair to say I have not seen it myself: it turned up the other day in an artist’s sketch-book. He had taken it as an object, could tell no more than that he liked it, and, as I seemed struck by its appearance, but could not then go to look at it and make inquiries, he volunteered his services, and wrote me as follows:--“I went to Hammersmith, and was some time before I could find the place again; however, I at length discovered it in Webb’s-lane, opposite the Thatched-house, (Mr. Gowland is the landlord.) There I took some refreshment, and gained what information I could, which was but little. The stone _font_ with other things (old carved ornaments, &c., which were used in fitting up the upper rooms of some cottages that the pump belongs to) were purchased at a sale; and this was all I could obtain at the Thatched-house. Coming from thence I learned from a cobler at work that there was originally a _leaden_ pump, but that it was doubled up, and rolled away, by some thieves, and they attempted to take the font, but found it too heavy. The Crispin could not inform me where the sale was, but he told me where his landlady lived and her name, which was Mrs. Springthorp, of Hammersmith, any one could tell me her house: so, being very tired, I took coach, and rode to town without inquiry. Please to send me word whether I shall do it for next week.”

To the latter inquiry my answer of course was “yes,” but I am as dark as my informant, as to the origin of what he calls the “font” which forms the sink of this pump. It does not appear to me to be a font, but a vase. I could have wished he had popped the question to “Mrs. Springthorp” respecting the place from whence it came, and concerning the “other things, old carved ornaments, &c.” I entreat some kind reader to diligently seek out and obligingly acquaint me with full particulars of these matters. In the mean time I console myself with having presented a picturesque object, and with the hope of being enabled to account for the agreeable union.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·07.

[339] Butler’s Chronological Exercises.

[340] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~September 11.~

WOODLAND WALKS.

These are delightful at any time. At about this season of the year, 1817, the following poetical description appeared in a newspaper which no longer exists:--

LINES

BY MR. J. H. REYNOLDS.

Whence is the secret charm of this lone wood, Which in the light of evening sweetly sleeps!-- I tread with lingering feet the quiet steeps, Where thwarted oaks o’er their own old age brood;-- And where the gentler trees, in summer weather, Spring up all greenly in their youth together; And the grass is dwelling in a silent mood, And the fir-like fern its under forest keeps In a strange stillness. My winged spirit sweeps Not as it hath been wont,--but stays with me Like some domestic thing that loves its home; It lies a-dreaming o’er the imagery Of other scenes,--which from afar do come, Matching them with this indolent solitude. Here,--I am walking in the days gone by,-- And under trees which I have known before. My heart with feelings old is running o’er-- And I am happy as the morning sky. The present seems a mockery of the past-- And all my thoughts flow by me, like a stream, That hath no home, that sings beneath the beam Of the summer sun,--and wanders through sweet meads,-- In which the joyous wildflower meekly feeds,-- And strays,--and wastes away in woods at last. My thoughts o’er many things fleet silently,-- But to this older forest creep, and cling fast. Imagination, ever wild and free, With heart as open as the naked sea, Can consecrate whate’er it looks upon:-- And memory, that maiden never lone, Lights all the dream of life. While I can see This blue deep sky,--that sun so proudly setting In the haughty west,--this spring patiently wetting The shadowy dell,--these trees so tall and fair, That have no visiters but the birds and air:-- And hear those leaves a gentle whispering keep, Light as young joy, and beautiful as sleep,-- The melting of sweet waters in the dells,-- The music of the loose flocks’ lulling bells, Which sinks into the heart like spirit’s spells. While these all softly o’er my senses sweep,-- I need not doubt that I shall ever find Things, that will feed the cravings of my mind. My happiest hours were past with those I love On steeps;--in dells, with shadowy trees above; And therefore it may be my soul ne’er sleeps, When I am in a pastoral solitude:-- And such may be the charm of this lone wood, That in the light of evening sweetly sleeps.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·40.

~September 12.~

STORM AT ENGHIEN.

On the 12th of September, 1817, the gentlemen forming a deputation of the “Caledonian Horticultural Society,” while inspecting Mr. Parmentier’s gardens at Enghien, were suddenly overtaken by a violent thunder storm, and compelled to flee for shelter to Mr. Parmentier’s house. “As this thunder storm was of a character different from what we are accustomed to in Scotland, and much more striking than what we had witnessed at Brussels, a short notice of it may be excused.--A dense, black cloud was seen advancing from the east; and as this cloud developed itself and increased in magnitude, one-half of the horizon became shrouded in darkness, enlivened only by occasional flashes of forked lightning, while the other half of the horizon remained clear, with the sun shining bright. As the black cloud approached, the sun’s rays tinged it of a dull copper colour, and the reflected light caused all the streets and houses to assume the same lurid and metallic hue. This had a very uncommon and impressive effect. Before we reached the mayor’s house, scarce a passenger was to be seen in the streets; but we remarked women at the doors, kneeling, and turning their rosaries as they invoked their saints. Meantime ‘thick and strong the sulphurous flame descended;’ the flashes and peals began to follow each other in almost instantaneous succession, and the tout-ensemble became awfully sublime. A sort of whirlwind, which even raised the small gravel from the streets, and dashed it against the windows, preceded the rain, which fell in heavy drops, but lasted only a short time. The sun now became obscured, and day seemed converted into night. Mr. Parmentier having ordered wine, his lady came to explain that she could not prevail on any of the servants to venture across the court to the cellar. The mayor, in spite of our remonstrances, immediately undertook the task himself; and when, upon his return, we apologised for putting him to so much trouble, he assured us that he would not on any account have lost the brilliant sight he had enjoyed, from the incessant explosions of the electric fluid, in the midst of such palpable darkness. Such a scene, he added, had not occurred at Enghien for many years; and we reckoned ourselves fortunate in having witnessed it. We had to remain housed for more than two hours; when the great cloud began to clear away, and to give promise of a serene and clear evening.”

Two days before, on the 10th, the same party had been surprised at Brussels by a similar tempest. They were on a visit to the garden of Mr. Gillet, and remarking on the construction of his forcing-house. “In this forcing-house, as is usual, the front of the roof extends over the sloping glass, till it reaches the perpendicular of the parapet. Mr. Gillet had no doubt, that the object of this sort of structure is to help to save the glass from the heavy falls of hail, which frequently accompany thunder storms. Just as he had made this observation, we perceived menacing thunder clouds approaching: the gardener hastened to secure his glazed frames; Mr. Gillet took his leave; and before we could get home, the whole horizon was overcast; lightning flashed incessantly; the streets seemed to have been suddenly swept of the inhabitants, the shop-doors were shut, and we could scarcely find a person of whom to inquire the way.”--The day had been altogether sultry; and at ten o’clock P. M. the mercury in the thermometer stood at seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit.[341]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 56·42.

[341] Journal of a Horticultural Tour.

~September 13.~

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 56·90.

~September 14.~

HOLY CROSS.

The origin of the festival of “Holy Cross,” standing in the church of England calendar and almanacs, is related in vol. i. col. 1291, with some account of the _rood_ and the _rood-loft_ in churches.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·20.

~September 15.~

“THE DEVIL LOOKING OVER LINCOLN.”

On the 15th of September, 1731, “the famous devil that used to overlook Lincoln college in Oxford, was taken down, having, about two years since, lost his head, in a storm.”

On the same day in the same year “a crown, fixed on the top of Whitehall gate in the reign of king Charles II., fell down suddenly.”[342]

* * * * *

The origin of the statue of the devil at Oxford is not so certain as that the effigy was popular, and gave rise to the saying of “the devil looking over Lincoln.”

SATANIC SUPERSTITIONS.

That the devil has a “cloven foot,” which he cannot hide if it be looked for is a common belief with the vulgar. “The ground of this opinion at first,” says sir Thomas Browne, “might be his frequent appearing in the shape of a goat,” (this accounts also for his horns and tail,) “which answers this description. This was the opinion of the ancient christians, concerning the apparition of panites, fauns, and satyrs; and of this form we read of one that appeared to Anthony in the wilderness.” Mr. Brand collects, respecting this appearance, that Othello says, in the “Moor of Venice,”

“I look down towards his feet; but that’s a fable; If that thou be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee;”

which Dr. Johnson explains: “I look towards his feet, to see, if, according to the common opinion, his feet be cloven.” There is a popular superstition both in England and Scotland relative to _goats_: that they are never to be seen for twenty-four hours together; and that once in that space, they pay a visit to the devil in order to have their beards combed.

Baxter, in his “World of Spirits,” mentions an anecdote from whence Mr. Brand imagines, that “this infernal visitant was in no instance treated with more _sang froid_ on his appearing, or rather, perhaps, his imagined appearance, than by one Mr. White of Dorchester.” That gentleman was assessor to the Westminster Assembly at Lambeth, and “the devil, in a light night, stood by his bed-side: he looked awhile whether he would say or do any thing, and then said, ‘If thou hast nothing else to do, I have;’ and so turned himself to sleep.”

* * * * *

King James I. told his parliament in a speech on a certain occasion, that “the _devil_ is a busy _bishop_.” It has been objected to this saying of “His Most Dread Majesty,” that it would have sounded well enough from a professed enemy to the bench, “but came very improperly from a king who flattered them more, and was more flattered by them, than any prince till his time.”[343]

PRINTERS’ DEVILS.

As I was going the other day into Lincoln’s-inn, (says a writer in the “Grub-street Journal” of October 26, 1732,) under a great gateway, I met several lads loaded with great bundles of newspapers, which they brought from the stamp-office. They were all exceeding black and dirty; from whence I inferred they were “printers’ devils,” carrying from thence the returns of unsold newspapers, after the stamps had been cut off. They stopt under the gateway, and there laid down their loads; when one of them made the following harangue: “Devils, gentlemen, and brethren:--though I think we have no reason to be ashamed on account of the vulgar opinion concerning the origin of our name, yet we ought to acknowledge ourselves obliged to the learned herald, who, upon the death of any person of title, constantly gives an exact account of his ancient family in my London Evening Post. He says, there was one monsieur Devile, or De Ville, who came over with William the Conqueror, in company with De Laune, De Vice, De Val, D’Ashwood, D’Urfie, D’Umpling, &c. One of the sons of a descendant of this monsieur De Ville, was taken in by the famous Caxton in 1471, as an errand boy; was afterwards his apprentice, and in time an eminent printer, from whom our order took their name; but suppose they took it from infernal devils, it was not because they were messengers frequently sent in darkness, and appeared very black, but upon a reputable account, viz., John Fust, or Faustus, of Mentz, in Germany, was the inventor of printing, for which he was called a conjurer, and his art the black art. As he kept a constant succession of boys to run on errands, who were always very black, these they called devils; some of whom being raised to be his apprentices, he was said to have raised many a devil. As to the inferior order among us, called flies, employed in taking newspapers off the press, they are of later extraction, being no older than newspapers themselves. Mr. Bailey thinks, their original name was lies, taken from the papers they so took off, and the alteration occasioned thus. To hasten these boys, the pressmen used to cry flie, lie, which naturally fell into one single word lie. This conjecture is confirmed by a little corruption in the true title of the fLying Post; since, therefore, we are both comprehended under the title of devils, let us discharge our office with diligence; so may we attain, as many of our predecessors have done, to the dignity of printers, and to have an opportunity of using others as much like poor devils, as we have been used by them, or as they and authors are used by booksellers. These are an upstart profession, who have engrossed the business of bookselling, which originally belonged solely to our masters. But let them remember, that if we worship Belial and Beelzebub, the God of flies, all the world agrees, that their God is mammon.”

* * * * *

The preceding is from the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for October, 1732; and it is mentioned, that “at the head of the article is a picture emblematically displaying the art and mystery of printing; in which are represented a compositor, with an ass’s head; two pressmen, one with the head of a hog, the other of a horse, being names which they fix upon one another; a flie taking off the sheets, and a devil hanging them up; a messenger with a greyhound’s face kicking out the “Craftsman;” a figure with two faces, for the master, to show he prints on both sides; but the reader is cautioned against applying it to any particular person, who is, or ever was a printer; for that all the figures were intended to represent characters and not persons.”

* * * * *

It is a proverbial expression, not confined to our country, that “the devil is not so black as he is painted.” The French, in their usual forms of speech, mention him with great honour and respect. Thus, when they would commend any thing, they break out into this pious exclamation, “Diable! que cela est bon!” When they would represent a man honest, sincere, and sociable, they call him “un bon Diable.” Some of our own countrymen will say, a thing is “devilish good;” a lady is “devilish pretty.” In a mixture of surprise and approbation, they say, “the devil’s in this fellow, or he is a comical devil.” Others speak of the apostate angel with abhorrence, and nothing is more common than to say, “such a one is a sad devil.” I remember when I was at St. Germains, a story of a gentleman, who being in waiting at the court of king James II., and the discourse running upon demons and apparitions, the king asked him whether ever he had seen any thing of that sort. “Yes,” replied he, “last night.” His majesty asked him what he had seen. He answered, “the devil.” Being asked in what shape,--“O sir,” said he, with a sigh, “in his usual and natural shape, that of an empty bottle.”[344]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 59·32.

[342] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[343] Ibid.

[344] Ibid.

~September 16.~

FRAUDULENT DEBTOR.

On the 16th of September, 1735, Mr. Yardley died in the Fleet prison, where he had been confined nearly ten years in execution for a debt of a hundred pounds. He was possessed of nearly seven hundred a year, and securities and other effects to the value of five thousand pounds were found in his room.[345]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 59·04.

[345] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~September 17.~

LAMBERT.

There is an account of this saint of the church of England calendar, in vol. i. col. 1295.

REMARKABLE THIEF.

On the 17th of September, 1737, the secret was discovered of some mysterious robberies committed in Gray’s-inn, while the inhabitants had been in the country.

About a month before, there died at a madhouse near Red Lion-square, one Mr. Rudkins, who had chambers up three pair of stairs, at No. 14, in Holborn-court, Gray’s-inn. His sister-in law and executrix, who lived in Staffordshire, wrote to Mr. Cotton, a broker, to take care of the effects in her behalf; and he having read a Mr. Warren’s advertisement of his chambers having been robbed, found several of his writings there; several things of a Mr. Ellis, who had been robbed about two years before of above three hundred pounds, of a Mr. Lawson’s of the Temple, and of captain Haughton’s, whose chambers were broken open some years previously, and two hundred pounds’ reward offered for his writings, which were a part found here. There were also found books to one hundred pounds’ value, belonging to Mr. Osborne the bookseller in Gray’s-inn.

It is remarkable, that when Mr. Rudkins had any thing in view in this way, he would padlock up his own door, and take horse at noonday, giving out to his laundress that he was going into the country. His chambers consisted of five rooms, two of which not even his laundress was ever admitted into, and in these was found the booty, with all his working tools, picklocks, &c. He had formerly been a tradesman in King-street, near Guildhall. It is further remarkable of this private house-breaker, that he always went to Abingdon’s coffee-house, in Holborn, on an execution-day, to see from thence the poor wretches pass by to their dismal end; and at no other time did he frequent that coffee-house.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·95.

~September 18.~

GEORGE I. AND II. LANDED.

The “coming over” of these two kings of the house of Brunswick, is marked in the almanacs on this day, which is kept as a holiday at all the public offices, except the excise, stamps, and customs.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·97.

~September 19.~

UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN.

In September, 1737, a new university founded at Gottingen, by his Britannic majesty, which has since attained to great eminence, was “opened with a very solemn inauguration.” In 1788, the black board, on the walls of its council-house, bore three edicts for the expulsion of three students named Westfield, Planch, and Bauer. These papers were drawn up in Latin by the celebrated professor Heyne, and are printed in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for June, 1789. King George IV., when prince regent in 1814, sent a copy of every important work published in England during the ten preceding years, as a present to the library of the university, agreeable to a promise he had made to that purport.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 57·87.

~September 20.~

HEALTH--_Cholera Morbus_.

This is, of all times of the year, the most productive of epidemical disorders of the bowels, which are erroneously ascribed to fruits, but which, in reality, the autumnal fruits seem best calculated to mollify. If the diarrhea be very violent, or accompanied with incessant vomiting, as in _cholera morbus_, the best practice is, after the intestinal canal has been suffered copiously to evacuate itself, to take small doses of chalk, or of some other substance known to check the disorder, with which chemists are always prepared. But in ordinary cases, it is a safer plan to let the disease spend itself, as there is a great deal of irritation of the intestines, which the flux carries off. We should avoid eating animal food, but take tea, broths, gruel, and other diluents, and the disorder will usually soon subside of itself. After it has so subsided we should guard against its return, by taking great care to keep the bowels regular, by eating light and vegetable food and fruits, or now and then taking a gentle dose of aloes, gr. iiii. The pills which commonly go by the name of Hunt’s pills, if genuine, are very good medicines to regulate the bowels. When low spirits and want of bile indicate the liver to partake much of the disease, two grains of the pil. hydrarg., commonly called blue pill, may be used now and then with advantage.[346]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·45.

[346] Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar.

~September 21.~

THE SEASON.

Swallows and martins are still very numerous, the general migration not having begun. They roost in immense numbers on buildings, round about which martins fly some times in such quantities as almost to darken the air with their plumes. Sparrows, linnets, various finches, and also plovers, are now seen about in flocks, according to an annual habit, prevalent among many kinds of birds, of assembling together in autumn.[347]

* * * * *

The accompanying stanzas applicable to the season, are extracted from an original poem, entitled “The Libertine of the Emerald Isle,” which will, probably, be published early in the next year.

AUTUMN.

_For the Every-Day Book._

The leaves are falling, and the hollow breeze At ev’ning tide sweeps mournfully along, Making sad music, such as minor keys Develope in a melancholy song: The meadows, too, are losing by degrees Their green habiliments--and now among The various works of nature there appears A gen’ral gloom, prophetic of the year’s

Approaching dissolution:--but to me These sombre traits are pregnant with delight, And yield my soul more true felicity Than words can justly picture:--they invite My mind to contemplation--they agree With my heart’s bias, and at once excite Those feelings, both of love and admiration, Which make this world a glorious revelation!

Hence--not unfrequently when all is still, And Cynthia walks serenely through the sky, Silv’ring the groves and ev’ry neighb’ring hill, I sit and ponder on the years gone by: This is the time when reason has her fill Of this world’s good and evil, when the eye Of contemplation takes a boundless range Of spheres that never vacillate or change!

Sweet Autumn! thou’rt surrounded with the charms Of reason, and philosophy, and truth, And ev’ry “sound reflection” that disarms This life of half its terrors:--in our youth We feel no sense of danger, and the qualms Of conscience seldom trouble us forsooth, Because the splendour of its reign destroys Whatever checks our sublunary joys?

But thou art far too rigid and severe To let these errors triumph for a day, Or suffer folly, in her mad career, To sweep our reas’ning faculties away! Thou pointest out the fun’ral of the year, The summer’s wreck and palpable decay, Stamping a “moral lesson” on the mind, To awe, restrain, and meliorate mankind!

But men are callous to thy warning voice, And pass thee by, regardless of thy worth, Making a false and perishable choice Of all the fleeting pleasures of the earth: They love gross riot, turbulence, and noise, The Bacchanalian’s ebriating mirth, And when the autumn of their lives creeps on, Their wit has vanish’d, and their strength is gone!

But had they been observant of thy pow’rs, And ponder’d o’er thy ruin and decay, They might have well applied them to those hours Which nothing, for an instant, can delay; But whilst health, strength, and competence are our’s, And youth is basking in the summer’s ray, Life’s autumn scenes reluctantly are view’d, And folly’s visions joyously pursued!

B. W. R.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·02.

[347] Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar.

~September 22.~

ST. MAURICE.

This saint, to whom and his companions a festival is celebrated by the Romish church on this day, received a similar honour in England. They are said to have been officers in the Theban legion, which refused to sacrifice to the gods on their march into Gaul, and were, therefore, ordered to be decimated by Maximian. Every tenth man was accordingly put to death, and on their continued resistance, a second decimation ordered, and Maurice and his companions encouraged them, and the whole legion consisting of six thousand six hundred men, well armed, being no way intimidated to idolatry by cruelty, were slaughtered by the rest of the army, and relics of their bodies were gathered and preserved, and worked miracles.[348]

BATTLE OF THREEKINGHAM.

_For the Every-Day Book._

The village of Threekingham, in the county of Lincoln, was known by the name of Laundon, previous to this day, A. D. 870, when a battle was fought between the English and Danes, of which Ingulphus, a monk of Crowland abbey, has left the following account.

The Danes entered England in the year 879, and wintered at York; and in the year 880 proceeded to the parts of Lindsey, in Lincolnshire, where they commenced their destructive depredations by laying waste the abbey of Bardney. In the month of September in the latter year, earl Algar, with two of his seneschals, (Wibert, owner of Wiberton, and Leofric, owner of Leverton,) attended by the men of Holland (Lincolnshire), Toly, a monk (formerly a soldier), with two hundred men belonging to Crowland abbey, and three hundred from Deeping, Langtoft, and Boston, Morcar, lord of Bourn, with his powerful family, and Osgot, sheriff of Lincolnshire, with the forces of the county, being five hundred more, mustered in Kesteven, on the day of St. Maurice, and fought with the Danes, over whom they obtained considerable advantage, killing three of their kings and many of their private soldiers, and pursued the rest to their very camp, until night obliged them to separate. In the same night several princes and earls of the Danes, with their followers, who had been out in search of plunder, came to the assistance of their countrymen; by the report of which many of the English were so dismayed that they took to flight. Those, however, who had resolution to face the enemy in the morning, went to prayers, and were marshalled for battle. Among the latter was Toly with his five hundred men in the right wing, with Morcar and his followers to support them; and Osgot the sheriff, with his five hundred men, and with the stout knight, Harding de Riehall, and the men of Stamford. The Danes, after having buried the three kings whom they had lost the day before, at a place there called Laundon, but since, from that circumstance, called _Three-king-ham_, marched out into the field. The battle began, and the English, though much inferior in numbers, kept their ground the greater part of the day with steadiness and resolution, until the Danes feigning a flight, were rashly pursued without attention to order. The Danes then took advantage of the confusion of the English, returned to the charge, and made their opponents pay dearly for their temerity; in fine, the Danes were completely victorious. In this battle, earl Algar, the monk Toly, and many other valiant men, were slain on the part of the English; after which the Danes proceeded to the destruction of the abbeys of Crowland, Thorney, Ramsey and Hamstede (Peterborough) and many other places in the neighbourhood.--Thus far is from Ingulphus the monk.

A fair, said to have arisen from the above circumstance, is annually held at _Three-king-ham_, on a remarkable piece of ground, called _Stow Green Hill_, reported to be the spot whereon the battle was principally contested, and Domesday-book in some degree corroborates the statement; for in the Conqueror’s time, A. D. 1080, when that survey was taken, we find that there was then a fair held here, which yielded forty shillings, accounted for to Gilbert de Gand, lord of Foldingham. This fair, however, is not held now in the month of September, but commences on the 15th of June, and continues till the fourth of July, and was very probably changed in the fifty-second year of the reign of king Henry III., who according to Tanner’s “Notitia Monastica,” granted a charter for a fair at this place to the monastery of Sempringham.

SLEAFORDENSIS.

_September 8, 1826._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 57·70.

[348] Butler.

~September 23.~

OPENING OF THE WINTER THEATRES.

_For the Every-Day Book._

To cultivate pleasant associations, may well be deemed a part and parcel of the philosophy of life. Now that spring, that sweet season redolent of flowers and buds hath passed away, and summer mellowing into autumn, has well nigh fallen into the “sere the yellow leaf,” _we_ in “populous city pent,” gladly revert to those social enjoyments peculiar to a great metropolis, and among which stand conspicuous, the amusements of the acted drama.

The opening of the winter theatres may be reckoned as one of the principal _fasti_ of cockney land, an epoch which distinctly marks the commencement of a winter in London. How changed from the auspicious season, when the bright sun glancing into our gloomy retreats, tantalizes us with visions of the breathing sweets of nature, and when we in our very dreams “babbled of green fields,”--to the period when even the thronged and dirty streets are endurable, as we wend our way perchance through a fog, (a London particular,) towards the crowded and gaily lighted theatre, by contrast made more brilliant.

“My first play” forms an era to most young persons, and is generally cherished among our more agreeable juvenile reminiscences: but the subject has been recently expatiated upon so delightfully and in so genial a spirit by ELIA, as almost to make further comment “a wasteful and ridiculous excess.” I well remember the vast and splendid area of old Drury-lane theatre, where the mysterious green curtain portico, to that curious microcosm the stage, first met my youthful gaze. The performances were, the “Stranger” and “Blue Beard,” both then in the very bloom of their popularity: and whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the moral tendency of the first, all must allow that never piece was more effective in the representation, when aided by the unrivalled talents of Kemble, and Mrs. Siddons, at that time in the zenith of their powers. I confess, that to my unsophisticated boyish feelings, subdued by the cunning of the scene, it seemed quite natural, that the sufferings of bitter remorse and repentance should suffice to ensure the pity and forgiveness of outraged society.--Happy age, when the generous impulses of our nature are not yet blunted by the stern experience of after life!

This brings me to record a remarkable and disastrous event in theatrical annals, and one which in a great measure suggested the present communication. It was my fortune to be present at the _last_ performances ever given on the boards of Old Drury--and which took place on Thursday evening the 23rd of February, 1809--when was acted for the first, and as it proved, the last time, a new opera composed by Bishop, called the “Circassian Bride.” The next night this magnificent theatre was a pile of burning ruins. The awful grandeur of the conflagration defies description, but to enlarge upon a circumstance so comparatively recent would be purely gratuitous; it was, however, an event which might be truly said, “to eclipse the harmless gaiety of nations,”--for the metropolis then presented the unprecedented spectacle of the national drama without a home,--the two sister theatres both prostrate in the dust!

Annexed is a copy of the play-bill, which at this distance of time, may perhaps be valued as an interesting relic, illustrative of dramatic history.

J. H.

* * * * *

NEVER ACTED.

Theatre Royal, Drury-lane.

This present THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1809.

Their Majesties Servants will perform a New Opera, in Three Acts, called the

CIRCASSIAN BRIDE.

_With New Scenery, Dresses, and Decorations._

The OVERTURE and MUSIC entirely new, composed by Mr. BISHOP.

_CIRCASSIANS._

Alexis, Mr. BRAHAM,

Rhindax, Mr. DE CAMP,

Demetrio, Mr. MARSHALL,

Basil, Mr. RAY,

Officers, Mr. GIBBON, Mr. MILLER,

Chief Priest, Mr. MADDOCKS,

Erminia, Miss LYON.

_ENGLISH._

Ben Blunt, Mr. BANNISTER,

Tom Taffrel, Mr. SMITH,

Rachael, Mrs. MOUNTAIN.

_TARTARS._

Usberg, (_the Khan_,) Mr. J. SMITH,

Barak, Mr. MATHEWS, Kerim, Mr. FISHER, Hassan, Mr. COOKE, Slaves, Messrs. WEBB, EVANS, CHATTERLEY, Anna, Mrs. BLAND.

The _DANCE_ by Mesds. GREEN, TWAMLEY, DAVIS, H. and F. DENNET.

_Chorus of Circassians, Tartars, &c._ By Messrs. Danby, Cook, Evans, Caulfield, Bond, Dibble, Jones, Mesds. Stokes, Chatterley, Menage, Maddocks, Wells, Butler. The New Scenes designed by Mr. GREENWOOD, And executed by him, Mr. BANKS, and Assistants. The Dresses and Decorations, by Mr. JOHNSTON, and executed by him, Mr. BANKS and Mr. UNDERWOOD. The Female Dresses designed and executed by Miss REIN. Books of the Songs to be had in the Theatre.

To which will be added the Farce of FORTUNE’S FROLIC.

Robin Roughhead, Mr. MATHEWS, Rattle, Mr. PALMER, Nancy Miss LACY Margery, Mrs. SPARKS, Dolly, Mrs. HARLOWE. Places for the Boxes to be taken of Mr. SPRING, at the Box-Office, Russel-street.

_No money to be returned._

Vivant Rex et Regina! (Lowndes and Hobbs, Printers, Marquis-court, Drury-lane.)

* * * * *

“ELIA.”-Why should J. H. pop on me with his mention of ELIA, just as I was about to write “an article?” Write!--it’s impossible. I have turned to “My First Play”--I cannot get it out my head: the reader must take the consequence of my inability, and of the fault of J. H., and read what I shall never approach to, in writing, were I to “grind my quill these hundred years”----

MY FIRST PLAY

BY ELIA.

At the north end of Cross-court there yet stands a portal, of some architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving at present for an entrance to a printing-office. This old door-way, if you are young, reader, you may not know was the identical pit entrance to Old Drury--Garrick’s Drury--all of it that is left. I never pass it without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring to the evening when I passed through it to see _my first play_. The afternoon had been wet, and the condition of our going (the elder folks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beating heart did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of which I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation! I seem to remember the last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it.

We went with orders, which my godfather F. had sent us. He kept the oil shop (now Davies’s) at the corner of Featherstone-building, in Holborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty in speech, and had pretensions above his rank. He associated in those days with John Palmer, the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy; if John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow somewhat of his manner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by, Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn, that young Brinsley brought his first wife on her elopement with him from a boarding school at Bath--the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over a quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmonious charge.--From either of these connections, it may be inferred that my godfather could command an order for the then Drury-lane theatre at pleasure--and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets, in Brinsley’s easy autograph, I have heard him say was the sole remuneration which he had received for many years’ nightly illumination of the orchestra, and various avenues of that theatre--and he was content that it should be so. The honour of Sheridan’s familiarity--or supposed familiarity--was better to my godfather than money.

F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen; grandiloquent, yet courteous. His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was Ciceronian. He had two Latin words almost constantly in his mouth, (how odd sounds Latin from an oilman’s lips!) which my better knowledge since, has enabled me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been sounded _vice versâ_--but in those young years they impressed me with more awe than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro--in his own peculiar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, or anglicized, into something like _verse verse_. By an imposing manner, and the help of these distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was little) to the highest parochial honours which St. Andrew’s has to bestow.

He is dead, and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for my first orders (little wondrous talismans!--slight keys, and insignificant to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabian paradises!) and moreover, that by his testamentary beneficence I came into possession of the only landed property which I could ever call my own--situate near the road-way village of pleasant Puckeridge, in Hertfordshire. When I journied down to take possession, and planted foot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended upon me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger paces over my allotment of three quarters of an acre, with its commodious mansion in the midst with the feeling of an English freeholder, that all betwixt sky and centre was my own. The estate has passed into more prudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian can restore it.

In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who abolished them!--with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at the door--not that which is left--but between that and an inner door in shelter--O when shall I be such an expectant again;--with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable playhouse accompaniment in those days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical fruiteresses then was, “Chase some oranges, chase some numparels, chase a bill of the play;”--chase _pro_ chuse. But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed--the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to “Troilus and Cressida,” in Rowe’s “Shakspeare”--the tent scene with Diomede--and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a measure the feeling of that evening.--The boxes at that time, full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and the pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed) resembling--a homely fancy--but I judged it to be sugar-candy--yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy!--The orchestra lights at length arose, those “fair Auroras!” Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again--and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time. The curtain drew up--I was not past six years old--and the play was Artaxerxes!

I had dabbled a little in the Universal History--the ancient part of it--and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for I understood not its import--but I heard the word Darius, and I was in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not players. I was in Persepolis for the time; and the burning idol of their devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was awe-struck, and believed those significations to be something more than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such pleasure has since visited me but in dreams.--Harlequin’s Invasion followed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistrates into reverend beldams seemed to me a piece of grave historic justice, and the tailor carrying his own head to be as sober a verity as the legend of St. Denys.

The next play to which I was taken was the “Lady of the Manor,” of which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, called “Lun’s Ghost”--a satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead--but to my apprehension (too sincere for satire) “Lun” was as remote a piece of antiquity as “Lud”--the father of a line of Harlequins--transmitting his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of white patch-work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead.

My third play followed in quick succession. It was the “Way of the World.” I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge; for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of good lady Wishfort affected me like some solemn tragic passion. “Robinson Crusoe” followed; in which Crusoe, man Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic as in the story.--The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have clean passed out of my head. I believe, I no more laughed at them, than at the same age I should have been disposed to laugh at the grotesque Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old round church (my church) of the Templars.

I saw these plays in the season 1781-2, when I was from six to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for at school all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! At the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all--

Was nourished, I could not tell how.--

I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. The same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reference, was gone!--The green curtain was no longer a veil, drawn between two worlds, the unfolding of which was to bring back past ages, to present “a royal ghost,”--but a certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The lights--the orchestra lights--came up a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter’s bell--which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many centuries--of six short twelvemonths--had wrought in me. Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreasonable expectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotions with which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearance to me of Mrs. Siddons in “Isabella.” Comparison and retrospection soon yielded to the present attraction of the scene; and the theatre became to me, upon a new stock, the most delightful of recreations.

* * * * *

After this robbery of “ELIA,” my conscience forces me to declare that I wish every reader would save me from the shame of further temptation to transgress, by ordering “ELIA” into his collection. There is no volume in our language so full of beauty, truth, and feeling, as the volume of “ELIA.” I am convinced that every person who has not seen it, and may take the hint, will thank me for acquainting him with a work which he cannot look into without pleasure, nor lay down without regret. It is a delicious book.

SHERBORNE BELLS.

On this day it is a custom to exercise the largest bell of one of our country churches, in the manner described in the following communication.

TOLLING DAY.

_For the Every-Day Book._

The 23d of September has obtained in Sherborne, Dorset, the name of “tolling-day,” in commemoration of the death of John Lord Digby, baron Digby of Sherborne, and earl of Bristol, in the year MDCXCVIII. and in conformity with the following wish expressed in a codicil annexed to his lordship’s will.

“Item, I give and bequeath out of my said estate to the parish church, the yearly sum of ten pounds, to be paid by my successors, lords of the said manor for the time being, at and upon, or within forty days after, the feast days of St. Michael the archangel, and of the annunciation of our blessed lady St. Mary the virgin, by equal portions yearly and for ever, and to be employed and bestowed by the churchwardens of the said parish for the time being, with the consent of the lord of the said manor for the time being, in keeping in good repair the chancel, and towards the reparations of the rest of the said church, yearly and for ever; provided that my successors, the lord or lords of the said manor for the time being, shall have and enjoy a convenient pew, or seat, in the said chancel for himself and family for ever; and provided that the said churchwardens for the time being, shall cause the largest bell in the tower of the said church, to be tolled six full hours, that is to say, from five to nine of the clock in the forenoon, and from twelve o’clock till two in the afternoon, on that day of the said month whereon it shall be my lot to depart this life, every year and for ever; otherwise this gift of ten pounds per annum shall determine and be void.”

This custom is annually observed, but not to the extent above intended, the tolling of the bell being limited to two hours instead of six. It begins to toll at six o’clock and continues till seven in the morning, when six men, who toll the bell for church service, repair to the mansion of the present earl Digby, with two large stone jars, which are there filled with some of his lordship’s strong beer, and, with a quantity of bread and cheese, taken to the church by the tollers and equally divided amongst them, together with a small remuneration in money paid by the churchwardens as a compensation for their labour. At twelve o’clock the bell is again tolled till one, and in the evening divine service is performed at the church, and a lecture suited to the occasion delivered from the pulpit; for which lecture or sermon the vicar is paid thirty pounds, provided by the will of the above donor.

R. T.

BOW BELLS.

Who has not heard of “Bow Bells?” Who that has heard them does not feel an interest in their sounds, or in the recollection of them? The editor is preparing an article on “Bow Bells,” and for that purpose particularly desires communications. Accounts relative to their present or former state, or any facts or anecdotes respecting them at any time, are earnestly solicited from every reader as soon as possible.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 56·02.

~September 24.~

A GOOD TENANT.

In the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” for September, 1775, Mr. Clayton, a wealthy farmer of Berkshire, is related to have died at the extraordinary age of a hundred and fifteen years, and retained his faculties to the last; he is further remarkable, for having rented one farm ninety years. An occupancy of so great duration, by one individual, is perhaps unequalled in the history of landlord and tenant.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 55·40.

~September 25.~

SEA SIDE SPORTS.

There is an exhilarating effect in the sea-air and coast scenery, which inland views or atmosphere, however fine, fail to communicate.

On the 25th of September, 1825, a gentleman and lady came out of one of the hotels near the Steyne, and after taking a fair start, set off running round the Steyne. They both ran very swiftly, but the young lady bounded forward with the agility of the chamois and the fleetness of the deer, and returned to the spot from whence they started a considerable distance before the gentleman. She appeared much pleased with her victory. There were but few persons on the Steyne at the time, but those who were there, expressed their admiration at the swiftness of this second Atalanta.[349]

BRIGHTON.

In Mr. Hazlitt’s “Notes of a Journey through France and Italy,” he mentions the place from whence he sailed for the continent:--

“Brighton stands facing the sea, on the bare cliffs, with glazed windows to reflect the glaring sun, and black pitchy bricks shining like the scales of fishes. The town is however gay with the influx of London visiters--happy as the conscious abode of its sovereign! Every thing here appears in motion--coming or going. People at a watering-place may be compared to the flies of a summer; or to fashionable dresses, or suits of clothes, walking about the streets. The only idea you gain is, of finery and motion. The road between London and Brighton, presents some very charming scenery; Reigate is a prettier English country-town than is to be found anywhere--out of England! As we entered Brighton in the evening, a Frenchman was playing and singing to a guitar.--The genius of the south had come out to meet us.”

When Mr. Hazlitt arrived at Brighton, it was in the full season. He says, “A lad offered to conduct us to an inn. ‘Did he think there was room?’ He was sure of it. ‘Did he belong to the inn?’ ‘No,’ he was from London. In fact, he was a young gentleman from town, who had been stopping some time at the White-horse hotel, and who wished to employ his spare time (when he was not riding out on a blood-horse) in serving the house, and relieving the perplexities of his fellow-travellers. No one but a Londoner would volunteer his assistance in this way. Amiable land of _Cockayne_, happy in itself, and in making others happy! Blest exuberance of self-satisfaction, that overflows upon others! Delightful impertinence, that is forward to oblige them!”

* * * * *

It is here both in place and season, to quote a passage of remarkably fine thought:--

“There is something in being near the sea, like the confines of eternity. It is a new element, a pure abstraction. The mind loves to hover on that which is endless, and for ever the same. People wonder at a steam-boat, the invention of man, managed by man, that makes its liquid path like an iron railway through the sea--I wonder at the sea itself, that vast Leviathan, rolled round the earth, smiling in its sleep, waked into fury, fathomless, boundless, a huge world of water-drops.--Whence is it, whither goes it, is it of eternity or of nothing? Strange ponderous riddle, that we can neither penetrate nor grasp in our comprehension, ebbing and flowing like human life, and swallowing it up in thy remorseless womb,--what art thou? What is there in common between thy life and ours, who gaze at thee? Blind, deaf and old, thou seest not, hearest not, understandest not; neither do we understand, who behold and listen to thee! Great as thou art, unconscious of thy greatness, unwieldy, enormous, preposterous twin-birth of matter, rest in thy dark, unfathomed cave of mystery, mocking human pride and weakness. Still is it given to the mind of man to wonder at thee, to confess its ignorance, and to stand in awe of thy stupendous might and majesty, and of its own being, that can question thine!”[350]

* * * * *

In Mr. Hazlitt’s “Journey through France and Italy,” there are “thoughts that breathe and words that burn.” His conceptions of beauty and grandeur, are at all times simple and vast. His works are pervaded by the results of profound thinking. His sentences have the power of elevating things that are deemed little remarkable, and of lowering those which successive submissions to over praise, have preposterously magnified. Many of the remarks on works of art, in his “Notes of a Journey through France and Italy,” will be wholly new to persons who never reflected on the subjects of his criticism, and will not be openly assented to by others thinking as _he_ does, who, for the first time, has ventured to publicly dissent from received notions. If any of his opinions be deemed incorrect, the difference can easily be arbitrated. Taking the originals, whether corporeal or imaginary existences, as the standard, our pure sight and feeling may be relied on as unerring judges of the imitations.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 54·27.

[349] Brighton paper.

[350] Mr. Hazlitt’s Journey.

~September 26.~

ST. CYPRIAN. OLD HOLY ROOD.

For these remembrances in the church of England calendar and almanacs, see vol. i. p. 1324.

* * * * *

Communications of local customs are always received and inserted with satisfaction. It is with peculiar pleasure that the editor submits the following, from a gentleman with respect to whom he has nothing to regret, but that he is not permitted to honour the work, by annexing the name of the respectable writer to the letter.

PAISLEY HALLOW-EVE FIRES.

SHEFFIELD SCOTLAND FEAST.

_Paisley, September 21, 1826._

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--Having been a subscriber to your _Every-Day Book_ from its first appearance in this town, up to the present time, I reproach myself with neglect, in not having sent you before now, an account of a rather singular custom prevalent here, and, as it should seem, of ancient date.

The river White Cart, on which Paisley stands, although affected by the tide, and navigable to the town for vessels not exceeding fifty tons’ burden, is often remarkably shallow at low water. This is especially the case between the highest and the lowest of three stone bridges, by which the old town or burgh is connected with the new town. In this shallow part of the stream, parties of boys construct, on _Hallow-eve_,--the night when varied superstitions engross most of old Scotia’s peasantry,--circular raised hearths, if I may so term them, of earth or clay; bordered by a low round wall composed of loose stones, sods, &c. Within these enclosures, the boys kindle on their hearths, bonfires, often of considerable size. From the bridges, the appearance of these bonfires, after nightfall, is singular; and attracts, as spectators, many of the grown-up inhabitants of the place. The number and glare of the fires, their tremulous reflection in the surrounding water, the dark moving figures of the boys that group around them, and the shouts and screams set up by the youthful urchins in testimony of enjoyment, might almost make one fancy that the rites and incantations of magic, or of wizardry, were taking place before one’s very eyes. What is the origin of this custom, or how long it has prevailed, I do not know.

Ere I relinquish my pen, allow me to describe to you another singular custom, which obtains in the largest town of England, north of the Trent.[351] No one is better acquainted than, Mr. Hone, are you, with the existence of the wake or feast, still held annually in some of the towns, and nearly all the parochial villages of the midland and northern counties. In many of the larger towns, the traces of the ancient wake are, indeed, nearly worn out, and this is pretty much the case with that particular town, to which reference has just been made, namely, Sheffield; our great national emporium for cutlery, files, edge-tools, and the better kinds of plated goods. Only in a few ancient and primitive families, do roast beef, plum-pudding, and an extra allowance of Yorkshire stingo, gracing, on _Trinity Sunday_, a large table, begirt with some dozen of happy, and happy-faced town and country cousins, show, that the venerable head of the family, and his antique dame, have not forgotten Sheffield feast-day. But if the observance of Sheffield feast itself be thus partial, and verging towards disuse, amends is made for the circumstance, in the establishment, and pretty vigorous keeping up of sundry local feasts, held on different days, within the town, or in its suburbs. Besides those of the Wicker and little Sheffield, which are suburban, Broad-lane and Scotland-street, in the town itself, have their respective feasts too. At Little Sheffield and in Broad-lane, the zest of the annual festivity is often heightened by ass-races; foot-races, masculine, for a hat; foot-races, feminine, for a chemise; grinning-matches; and, though less frequently, the humours and rattle of a mountebank and his merry andrew. Occasionally too changes, in imitation of those on the church bells, are rung, by striking with a hammer, or a short piece of steel, on six, eight, or ten long bars each suspended by twine from the roof of a workshop, and the entire set chosen so as to resemble pretty nearly, a ring of bells, both in diversity and in sequence of tone.[352]

_Scotland feast_, however, in point of interest, bears away the bell from all the other district revels of Sheffield. It is so called from Scotland-street, already mentioned; a long, hilly, and very populous one, situated in the northern part of the town. On the eve of the feast, which is yearly held on the 29th of May, the anniversary of the restoration of our second Charles, parties of the inhabitants repair into the neighbouring country; whence, chiefly however from Walkley-bank, celebrated as Sheffield schoolboys too well know for birch trees, they bring home, at dead of night, or morning’s earliest dawn, from sixteen to twenty well-sized trees, besides a profusion of branches. The trees they instantly plant in two rows; one on each side of the street, just without the kirbstone of the flagged pavement. With the branches, they decorate the doors and windows of houses, the sign-boards of drinking-shops, and so on. By five or six in the morning Scotland-street, which is not very wide, has the appearance of a grove. And soon, from ropes stretched across it, three, four, or five, superb _garlands_ delight the eyes, and dance over the heads of the feast-folk. These garlands are composed of hoops, wreathed round with foliage and flowers, fluttering with variously coloured ribands, rustling with asidew,[353] and gay with silver tankards, pints, watches, &c. Before the door of the principal alehouse, the largest tree is always planted. The sign of this house is, if memory do not deceive me, the royal oak.[354] But be this as it may, certain it is, that duly ensconced among the branches of the said tree, may always be seen the effigy, in small, of king Charles the Second: to commemorate indeed the happy concealment and remarkable escape of the merry monarch, at Boscobel, should seem to be the object of creating a _sylvan_ scene at “Scotland feast;” while that of holding the feast itself on the anniversary of his restoration is, there can be little doubt, to celebrate with honour the principal event in the life of him, after whose ancient and peculiar kingdom the street itself is named. To the particulars already given, it needs scarcely be added, that dancing, drinking, and other merry-making are, as a Scotsman would say, _rife_,[355] at the annual commemoration thus briefly described.

Thanking you for much instruction, as well as entertainment, already derived from your book, and wishing you success from its publication, I remain, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

GULIELMUS.

_Asidew._

In vol. i. col. 1213, _arsedine_ is noticed as having been in use at Bartholomew fair, and Mr. Archdeacon Nares’s supposition is mentioned, that _arsedine_, _arsadine_, or _orsden_, as it was variously called, was a corruption of _arsenic_, or orpiment. The editor then ventured to hazard a different suggestion, and show that the word might be saxon, and expressive of “pigments obtained from minerals and metals.” Since then, a note in Mr. Sharp’s remarkably interesting “Dissertation on the Country Mysteries,” seems to favour the notion.

Mr. Sharp says, “At the end of Gent’s ‘History of York, 1730,’ is an advertisement of _numerous_ articles, sold by Hammond, a bookseller of that city, and amongst the rest occurs ‘Assidue or horse-gold,’ the very next article to which, is ‘hobby-horse-bells.’--A dealer in Dutch metal, Michael Oppenheim, 27, Mansell-street, Goodman’s-fields, thus described himself in 1816--‘Importer of bronze powder, Dutch metal, and OR-SEDEW,’ and upon inquiry respecting the last article, it proved to be that thin yellow metal, generally known by the name of _tinsel_, much used for ornamenting children’s dolls, hobby-horses, and some toys, as well as manufactured into various showy articles of dress. The word orsedew is evidently a corruption of _oripeau_ _i. e._ leaf (or skin) _gold_, afterwards _brass_. The Spaniards call it oropoel, gold-skin, and the Germans flitter-gold.”[356]

Through Mr. Sharp we have, at length, attained to a knowledge of this substance as the true _arsedine_ of our forefathers, and the _asidew_ of the Sheffield merry-makers at present.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 55·57.

[351] I speak advisedly. As a town, Sheffield, the place here referred to, is larger and more populous than Leeds. In 1821 it contained with its suburbs, but without including either out-hamlets, or the country part of the parish, at least 58,000 inhabitants;--Leeds no more than 48,000.

[352] When the period for which an apprentice is bound (seven years) expires, his “loosing” is held by himself, and shopmates. Then are these steel bells made to jangle all day. At night the loosing is farther celebrated by a supper and booze. The parochial ringers frequently attend festivities with a set of hand-bells, which, in the estimation of their auditors, they make “discourse most eloquent music.”

[353] Asidew. The orthography of this word may be wrong. I never, to my knowledge, saw it written. It is used in Sheffield to express a thin, very thin brass leaf, of a high gold colour.

[354] In my boyish days, one Ludlam kept it. Was it he to whom belonged the dog which gave occasion to this proverbial saying? “As idle as Ludlam’s dog, that lay down to bark?”

[355] Abundant.

[356] Mr. Sharp’s Dissertation, p. 29.

~September 27.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 27th of September, 1772, died at Turnhurst, in Staffordshire, James Brindley, a man celebrated for extraordinary mechanical genius and skilful labours in inland navigation. He was born at Tunsted, in the parish of Wormhill, Derbyshire, in 1716, where he contributed to support his parents’ family till he was nearly seventeen years of age, when he bound himself apprentice to a wheelwright named Bennet, near Macclesfield, in Cheshire. In the early period of his apprenticeship, he performed several parts of the business without instruction, and so satisfied the millers, that he was always consulted in preference to his master, and before the expiration of his servitude, when Mr. Bennet, by his age and infirmities, became unable to work, he carried on the business, and provided a comfortable subsistence for the old man and his family.

About this time Bennet was employed in constructing an engine paper-mill, the first of the kind that had been attempted in these parts; but, as he was likely to fail in the execution of it, Mr. Brindley, without communicating his design, set out on Saturday evening after the business of the day was finished, and having inspected the work, returned home on Monday morning, after a journey of fifty miles, informed his master of its defects, and completed the engine to the entire satisfaction of the proprietors. He afterwards engaged in the mill-wright business on his own account. The fame of his inventions in a little while spread far beyond his own neighbourhood. In 1752, he was employed to erect a curious water-engine at Clifton, in Lancashire, for the purpose of draining coal-mines, which had before been performed at an enormous expense. The water for the use of this engine was conveyed from the river Irwell by a subterraneous channel, nearly six hundred yards long, which passed through a rock; and the wheel was fixed thirty feet below the surface of the ground.

In 1755, he constructed a new silk-mill at Congleton, in Cheshire, according to the plan proposed by the proprietors, after the execution of it by the original undertaker had failed; and in the completion of it he added many new and useful improvements. He introduced one contrivance for winding the silk upon the bobbins equally, and not in wreaths; and another for stopping, in an instant, not only the whole of this extensive system, in all its various movements, but any individual part of it at pleasure. He likewise invented machines for cutting the tooth and pinion wheels of the different engines, in a manner that produced a great saving of time, labour, and expense. He also introduced into the mills, used at the potteries in Staffordshire for grinding flintstones, several valuable additions, which greatly facilitated the operation.

In 1756, he constructed a steam-engine at Newcastle-under-Line, upon a new plan. The boiler was made with brick and stone, instead of iron plates, and the water was heated by fire-places, so constructed as to save the consumption of fuel. He also introduced cylinders of wood instead of those of iron, and substituted wood for iron in the chains which worked at the end of the beam. But from these and similar contrivances for the improvement of this useful engine, his attention was diverted by the great national object of “inland navigation.” In planning and executing canals his mechanical genius found ample scope for exercise, and formed a sort of distinguishing era in the history of our country.

Envy and prejudice raised a variety of obstacles to the accomplishment of his designs and undertakings; and if he had not been liberally and powerfully protected by the duke of Bridgwater, his triumph over the opposition with which he encountered must have been considerably obstructed. The duke possessed an estate at Worsley, about seven miles from Manchester, rich in mines of coal, from which he derived little or no advantage, on account of the expense attending the conveyance by land carriage to a suitable market. A canal from Worsley to Manchester, Mr. Brindley declared to be practicable. His grace obtained an act for that purpose; and Brindley was employed in the conduct and execution of this, the first undertaking of the kind ever attempted in England, with navigable subterraneous tunnels and elevated aqueducts. At the commencement of the business it was determined, that the level of the water should be preserved without the usual obstruction of locks, and to carry the canal over rivers and deep vallies. It was not easy to obtain a sufficient supply of water for completing the navigation, but Brindley, furnished with ample resources, persevered, and conquered all the embarrassments, occasioned by the nature of the undertaking, and by the passions and prejudices of individuals. Having completed the canal as far as Barton, where the river Irwell is navigable for large vessels, he proposed to carry it over that river by an aqueduct thirty-nine feet above the surface of the water. This was considered as a chimerical and extravagant project; and an eminent engineer said, “I have often heard of castles in the air, but never before was shown where any of them were to be erected.” The duke of Bridgwater, confiding in the judgment of Brindley, empowered him to prosecute the work; and in about ten months the aqueduct was completed. This astonishing work commenced in September, 1760, and the first boat sailed over it the 17th of July, 1761. The canal was then extended to Manchester, where Mr. Brindley’s ingenuity in diminishing labour by mechanical contrivances, was exhibited in a machine for landing coals upon the top of a hill.

The duke of Bridgwater extended his views to Liverpool; and obtained, in 1762, an act of parliament for branching his canal to the tide-way in the Mersey. This part is carried over the river Mersey and Bollan, and over many wide and deep vallies. Over the vallies it is conducted without a single lock; and across the valley at Stretford, through which the Mersey runs, a mound of earth, raised for preserving the water, extends for nearly a mile. In the execution of every part of the navigation, Mr. Brindley displayed singular skill and ingenuity; and in order to facilitate his purpose, he produced many valuable machines. His economy and forecast are peculiarly discernible in the stops, or flood-gates, fixed in the canal, where it is above the level of the land. They are so constructed, that if any of the banks should give way and occasion a current, the adjoining gates will rise merely by that motion, and prevent any other part of the water from escaping than that which is near the breach between the two gates.

Encouraged by the success of the duke of Bridgwater’s undertakings, a subscription was entered into by a number of gentlemen and manufacturers in Staffordshire, for constructing a canal through that county. In 1766, this canal, “The Grand Trunk Navigation,” was begun; and it was conducted with spirit and success, under the direction of Brindley, as long as he lived.

After this, Brindley constructed a canal from the Grand Trunk, near Haywood, in Staffordshire, to the river Severn near Bewdley, connecting Bristol with Liverpool and Hull. This canal, about forty-six miles in length, was completed in 1772. His next undertaking was a canal from Birmingham, which should unite with the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal near Wolverhampton. It is twenty six miles in length, and was finished in about three years. To avoid the inconvenience of locks, and for the more effectual supply of the canal with water, he advised a tunnel at Smethwick; his advice was disregarded; and the managers were afterwards under the necessity of erecting two steam engines. He executed the canal from Droitwich to the Severn, for the conveyance of salt and coals; and planned the Coventry navigation, which was for some time under his direction; but a dispute arising, he resigned his office. Some short time before his death, he began the Oxfordshire canal, which, uniting with the Coventry canal, serves as a continuation of the Grand Trunk navigation to Oxford, and thence by the Thames to London.

Mr. Brindley’s last undertaking was the canal from Chesterfield to the river Trent at Stockwith. He surveyed and planned the whole, and executed some miles of the navigation, which was finished five years after his death by his brother-in-law, Mr. Henshall, in 1777. Such was Mr. Brindley’s established reputation, that few works of this kind were undertaken without his advice. They are too numerous to be particularized, but it may be added that he gave the corporation of Liverpool a plan for clearing their docks of mud, which has been practised with success; and proposed a method, which has also succeeded, of building walls against the sea without mortar. The last of his inventions was an improved machine for drawing water out of mines, by a losing and gaining bucket, which he afterwards employed with advantage in raising coals.

When difficulties occurred in the execution of any of Mr. Brindley’s works, he had no recourse to books, or to the labours of other persons. All his resources were in his own inventive mind. He generally retired to bed, and lay there one, two, or three days, till he had devised the expedients which he needed for the accomplishment of his objects; he then got up, and executed his design without any drawing or model, which he never used, except for the satisfaction of his employers. His memory was so tenacious, that he could remember and execute all the parts of the most complex machine, provided he had time, in his previous survey, to settle, in his mind, the several departments, and their relations to each other. In his calculations of the powers of any machine, he performed the requisite operation by a mental process, in a manner which none knew but himself, and which, perhaps, he was not able to communicate to others. After certain intervals of consideration, he noted down the result in figures; and then proceeded to operate upon that result, until at length the complete solution was obtained, which was generally right. His want of literature, indeed, compelled him to cultivate, in an extraordinary degree, the art of memory; and in order to facilitate the revival, in his mind, of those visible objects and their properties, to which his attention was chiefly directed, he secluded himself from the external impressions of other objects, in the solitude of his bed.

Incessant attention to important and interesting objects, precluded Mr. Brindley from any of the ordinary amusements of life, and indeed, prevented his deriving from them any pleasure. He was once prevailed upon by his friends in London to see a play, but he found his ideas so much disturbed, and his mind rendered so unfit for business, as to induce him to declare, that he would not on any account go to another. It is not improbable, however, that by indulging an occasional relaxation, remitting his application, and varying his pursuits, his life might have been prolonged. The multiplicity of his engagements, and the constant attention which he bestowed on them, brought on a hectic fever, which continued, with little or no intermission, for some years, and at last terminated his useful and honourable career, in the 56th year of age. He was buried at New Chapel, in the same county.

Such was the enthusiasm with which this extraordinary man engaged in all schemes of inland navigation, that he seemed to regard all rivers with contempt, when compared with canals. It is said, that in an examination before the house of commons, when he was asked for what purpose he apprehended rivers were created, he replied, after some deliberation, “to feed navigable canals.” Those who knew him well, highly respected him “for the uniform and unshaken integrity of his conduct; for his steady attachment to the interest of the community; for the vast compass of his understanding, which seemed to have a natural affinity with all grand objects; and, likewise, for many noble and beneficial designs, constantly generating in his mind, and which the multiplicity of his engagements, and the shortness of his life, prevented him from bringing to maturity.”[357]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 55·50.

[357] Rees’s Cyclopædia. Biog. Brit.

~September 28.~

MADAME GENEVA LYING IN STATE.

On the 28th of September, 1736, when the “Gin Act,” which was passed to prevent the retailing of spirituous liquors in small quantities was about to be enforced, it was deemed necessary to send a detachment of sixty soldiers from Kensington to protect the house of sir Joseph Jekyl, the master of the rolls in Chancery-lane, from the violence threatened by the populace against that eminent lawyer for his endeavours in procuring the obnoxious statute.

The keepers of the gin-shops testified their feelings by a parade of mock ceremonies for “_Madame Geneva lying-in-state_,” which created a mob about their shops, and the justices thought proper to commit some of the chief mourners to prison. On this occasion, the signs of the punch-houses were put in mourning; and lest others should express the bitterness of their hearts by committing violences, the horse and foot-guards and trained bands were ordered to be properly stationed. Many of the distillers, instead of spending their time in empty lamentations, betook themselves to other branches of industry. Some to the brewing trade, which raised the price of barley and hops; some took taverns in the universities, which nobody could do before the “Gin Act,” without leave of the vice-chancellor; others set up apothecaries’ shops. The only persons who took out fifty pound licenses were one Gordon, Mr. Ashley of the London punch-house, and one more. Gordon, a punch-seller in the Strand, devised a new punch made of strong Madeira wine, and called _Sangre_.[358]

COUNTY CUSTOMS.

It may be hoped that our readers who live in the apple districts will communicate the usages of their neighbourhoods to the _Every-Day Book_. For the present we must thank “an old correspondent.”

GRIGGLING.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Dear Sir,--The more I read of your _Every-Day Book_, the stronger my recollection returns to my boyhood days. There is not a season wherein I felt greater delight than during the gathering in of the orchards’ produce. The cider barrels cleaned and aired from the cellar--the cider-mill ready--the baskets and press, the vats, the horse-hair cloths, and the loft, fitted for the process and completion of making cider--the busy people according to Philips, seek--

The pippin, burnish’d o’er with gold, Of sweetest honey’d taste, the fair permain, Temper’d like comeliest nymph, with white and red.

* * * * *

Let every tree in every garden own, The redstreak as supreme, whose pulpous fruit, With gold irradiate, and vermillion shines. Hail Herefordian plant! that dost disdain All other fields.

The Herefordshire cider is so exquisite, that when the earl of Manchester was ambassador in France, he is said frequently to have passed this beverage on their nobility for a delicious wine.

Leasing in the corn-fields after the sheaves are borne to the garner, is performed by villagers of all ages, that are justly entitled to glean, like ants, the little store against a rainy day. But after the orchard is cleared, (and how delightful a shower--the shaking the Newton instructing apples down,) the village (not chimney-sweepers) climbing boys collect in a possé, and with poles and bags, go into the orchard and commence _griggling_.

The small apples are called _griggles_. These, the farmers leave pretty abundantly on the trees, with an understanding that the urchins will have mercy on the boughs, which, if left entirely bare, would suffer. Suspended like monkeys, the best climbers are the ring-leaders; and less boys pick up and point out where an apple still remains. After the trees are cleared, a loud huzza crowns the exertion; and though a little bickering as to the quality and quantity ensues, they separate with their portion, praising or blaming the owner, proportionate to their success. If he requests it, which is often the case before they depart, the head boy stands before the house, and uncovered, he recites the well-known fable in the “Universal Spelling Book”--“A rude boy _stealing_ apples.”--Then the hostess, or her daughter, brings a large jug of cider and a slice of bread and cheese, or twopence, to the great pleasure of the laughing recipients of such generous bounty.

Down to the present month the custom of _griggling_ is continued with variation in the western hamlets, though innovation, which is the abuse of privilege, has prevented many orchard-owners allowing the boys their _griggling_ perambulations.

With much respect, I am, &c.

P.---- _T.----_

*, *, P.

_September 20, 1826._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 53·37.

[358] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~September 29.~

ST. MICHAEL.

In the former volume, there are particulars of St. Michael, at col. 500, 629, and 1325. To the latter article, there is a print of this archangel, with six others of his order: on the present page he appears with other characteristics.

This print from a large engraving on copper, by one of the Caracci family in 1582, after a picture by Lorenzo Sabbatini of Bologna, represents the holy family, and St. John, and St. Michael standing on the devil, and presenting souls to the infant Jesus from a pair of scales. The artist has adopted this mode to convey a notion of the archangel, in quality of his office, as chief of the guardian angels, and judge of the claims of departed spirits. In vol. i. p. 630, there are notices relative to St. Michael in this capacity.

* * * * *

The church of Notre Dame, at Paris, rebuilt by “devout king Robert,” was conspicuously honoured by a statue of the chief of the angelic hierarchy, _with his scales_. “On the top, and pinnacle before the said church,” says Favine, “is yet to be seene the image of the arch-angell _St. Michael_, the tutelaric angell, and guardian of the most christian monarchie of France, ensculptured after the antique forme, holding a _ballance_ in the one hand, and a crosse in the other; on his head, and toppe of his wings, are fixed and cramponned strong pikes of iron to keepe the birds from pearching thereon.”

Favine proceeds to mention a popular error concerning these “pikes of iron,” to defend the statue from the birds. “The ignorant vulgar conceived that this was a crowne of eares of corne, and thought it to be the idole of the goddesse _Ceres_.” He says this is “a matter wherein they are much deceived; for Isis and Ceres being but one and the same, her temple was at S. Ceour and S. Germain des Prez.”[359]

Louis XI. instituted an order in honour of St. Michael, the arch-angel, on occasion of an alleged apparition of the saint on the bridge at Orleans, when that city was besieged by the English in 1428.

ST. GEORGE.

It has been intimated in vol. i., col. 500, that there are grounds to imagine “that St. George and the dragon are neither more nor less than St. Michael contending with the devil.” The reader who desires further light on this head, will derive it from a dissertation by Dr. Pettingall, expressly on the point. It may here, perhaps, be opportune to introduce the usual representation of St. George and the dragon, by an impression from an original wood-block, obligingly presented to this work by Mr. Horace Rodd.

To-morrow morning we shall have you look, For all your great words, like St. George at Kingston, Running a footback from the furious dragon, That with her angrie tail belabours him For being lazie.

_Woman’s Prize._

So say Beaumont and Fletcher, from whence we learn that the prowess of “St. George for England,” was ludicrously travestied.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 55·27.

[359] Theater of Honour, Lond. 1623, fol.

~September 30.~

THE SEASON.

It is noted under the present day in the “Perennial Calendar,” that at this time the heat of the middle of the days is still sufficient to warm the earth, and cause a large ascent of vapour: that the chilling frosty nights, which are also generally very calm, condense into mists; differing from clouds only in remaining on the surface of the ground.

Now by the cool declining year condensed, Descend the copious exhalations, check’d As up the middle sky unseen they stole, And roll the doubling fogs around the hill. . . . . . . Thence expanding far, The huge dusk gradual swallows up the plain Vanish the woods; the dimseen river seems Sullen and slow to roll the misty wave. Even in the height of noon oppressed, the sun Sheds weak and blunt his wide refracted ray; Whence glaring oft, with many a broadened orb, He frights the nations. Indistinct on earth, Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life Objects appear, and wildered o’er the waste, The shepherd stalks gigantic.

“EXTRAORDINARY NEWS!”

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--The character and manners of a people may be often correctly ascertained by an attentive examination of their familiar customs and sayings. The investigation of these peculiarities, as they tend to enlarge the knowledge of human nature, and illustrate national history, as well as to mark the fluctuation of language, and to explain the usages of antiquity, is, therefore, deserving of high commendation; and, though occasionally, in the course of those inquiries, some whimsical stories are related, and some very homely phrases and authorities cited, they are the occurrences of every day, and no way seem to disqualify the position in which several amusing and popular customs are brought forward to general view. Under this impression, it will not be derogatory to the _Every-Day Book_, to observe that by such communications, it will become an assemblage of anecdotes, fragments, remarks, and vestiges, collected and recollected:--

------------Various,--that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleas’d with novelty, may be indulged.

_Cowper._

Should the following extract, from a volume of Miscellaneous Poems, edited by Elijah Fenton, and printed by Bernard Lintot, without date, but anterior to 1720, in octavo, be deemed by you, from the foregoing observations, deserving of notice, it is at your service.

Old Bennet was an eccentric person, at the early part of the last century, who appears to have excited much noise in London.

_On the Death of_ OLD BENNET, _the News Cryer_.

“One evening, when the sun was just gone down, As I was walking thro’ the noisy town, A sudden silence through each street was spread, As if the soul of London had been fled. Much I inquired the cause, but could not hear, } Till fame, so frightened, that she did not dare } To raise her voice, thus whisper’d in my ear: } Bennet, the prince of hawkers, is no more, Bennet, my Herald on the British shore; Bennet, by whom, I own myself outdone, Tho’ I a hundred mouths, he had but one. He, when the list’ning town he would amuse, Made echo tremble with his ‘_bloody news_.’ No more shall Echo, now his voice return, Echo for ever must in silence mourn.-- Lament, ye heroes, who frequent the wars, The great proclaimer of your dreadful scars. Thus wept the conqueror, who the world o’ercame, Homer was wanting to enlarge his fame Homer, the first of hawkers that is known, Great news from Troy, cried up and down the town. None like him has there been for ages past, Till our stentorian Bennet came at last. Homer and Bennet were in this agreed, Homer was blind, and Bennet could not read.”

“Bloody News!” “Great Victory!” or more frequently “Extraordinary Gazette!” were, till recently, the usual loud bellowings of fellows, with stentorian lungs, accompanied by a loud blast of a long tin-horn, which announced to the delighted populace of London, the martial achievements of the modern Marlborough. These itinerants, for the most part, were the link-men at the entrances to the theatres; and costermongers, or porters, assisting in various menial offices during the day. A copy of the “Gazette,” or newspaper they were crying, was generally affixed under the hatband, in front, and their demand for a newspaper generally one shilling.

Those newscriers are spoken of in the past sense, as the further use of the horn is prohibited by the magistracy, subject to a penalty of ten shillings for a first offence, and twenty shillings on the conviction of repeating so heinous a crime. “Oh, dear!” as Crockery says, I think in these times of “modern improvement,” every thing is changing, and in many instances, much for the worse.

I suspect that you, Mr. Editor, possess a fellow-feeling on the subject, and shall no further trespass on your time, or on the reader’s patience, than by expressing a wish that many alterations were actuated by manly and humane intentions, and that less of over-legislation and selfishness were evinced in these pretended endeavours to promote the good of society.

I am, &c.

J. H. B.

* * * * *

The present month can scarcely be better closed than with some exquisite stanzas from the delightful introduction to the “_Forest Minstrel_ and other Poems, by William and Mary Howitt.” Mr. Howitt speaks of his “lightly caroll’d lays,” as--

------ never, surely, otherwise esteem’d Than a bird’s song, that, fill’d with sweet amaze At the bright opening of the young, green spring, Pours out its simple joy in instant warbling.

For never yet was mine the proud intent To give the olden harp a thrilling sound, Like those great spirits who of late have sent Their wizard tones abroad, and all around This wond’rous world have wander’d; and have spent, In court and camp, on bann’d and holy ground, Their gleaning glances; and, in hall and bower, Have learn’d of mortal life the passions and the power:

Eyeing the masters of this busy earth, In all the changes of ambition’s toil, From the first struggles of their glory’s birth, Till robed in power--till wearied with the spoil Of slaughter’d realms, and dealing woe and dearth To miserable men--and then the foil To this great scene, the vengeance, and the frown With which some mightier hand has pull’d those troublers down:

Eyeing the passages of gentler life, And different persons, of far different scenes; The boy, the beau--the damsel, and the wife-- Life’s lowly loves--the loves of kings and queens; Each thing that binds us, and each thing that weans Us from this state, with pains and pleasures rife; The wooings, winnings, weddings, and disdainings Of changeful men, their fondness and their feignings:

And then have brought us home strange sights and sounds From distant lands, of dark and awful deeds; And fair and dreadful spirits; and gay rounds Of mirth and music; and then mourning weeds; And tale of hapless love that sweetly wounds The gentle heart, and its deep fondness feeds; Lapping it up in dreams of sad delight From its own weary thoughts, in visions wild and bright:--

Oh! never yet to me the power or will To match these mighty sorcerers of the soul Was given; but on the bosom, lone and still, Of nature cast, I early wont to stroll Through wood and wild, o’er forest, rock, and hill, Companionless; without a wish or goal, Save to discover every shape and voice Of living thing that there did fearlessly rejoice.

And every day that boyish fancy grew; And every day those lonely scenes became Dearer and dearer, and with objects new, All sweet and peaceful, fed the young spirit’s flame Then rose each silent woodland to the view, A glorious theatre of joy! then came Each sound a burst of music on the air, That sank into the soul to live for ever there!

Oh, days of glory! when the young soul drank Delicious wonderment through every sense! And every tone and tint of beauty sank Into a heart that ask’d not how, or whence Came the dear influence; from the dreary blank Of nothingness sprang forth to an existence Thrilling and wond’rous; to enjoy--enjoy The new and glorious blessing--was its sole employ.

To roam abroad amidst the mists, and dews, And brightness of the early morning sky, When rose and hawthorn leaves wore tenderest hues: To watch the mother linnet’s stedfast eye, Seated upon her nest; or wondering muse On her eggs’s spots, and bright and delicate dye; To peep into the magpie’s thorny hall, Or wren’s green cone in some hoar mossy wall;

To hear of pealing bells the distant charm, As slow I wended down some lonely dale, Past many a bleating flock, and many a farm And solitary hall; and in the vale To meet of eager hinds a hurrying swarm, With staves and terriers hastening to assail Polecat, or badger, in their secret dens, Or otter lurking in the deep and reedy fens

To pass through villages, and catch the hum Forth bursting from some antiquated school, Endow’d long since by some old knight, whose tomb Stood in the church just by; to mark the dool Of light-hair’d lads that inly rued their doom, Prison’d in that old place, that with the tool, Stick-knife or nail, of many a sly offender, Was carved and figured over, wall, and desk, and window;

To meet in green lanes happy infant bands, Full of health’s luxury, sauntering and singing, A childish, wordless melody; with hands Cowslips, and wind-flowers, and green brook-lime bringing; Or weaving caps of rushes; or with wands Guiding their mimic teams; or gaily swinging On some low sweeping bough, and clinging all One to the other fast, till, laughing, down they fall;

To sit down by some solitary man, Hoary with years, and with a sage’s look, In some wild dell where purest waters ran, And see him draw forth his black-letter book, Wond’ring, and wond’ring more, as he began, On it, and then on many an herb to look, That he had wander’d wearily and wide, To pluck from jutting rocks, and woods, and mountain side;

And then, as he would wash his healing roots In the clear stream, that ever went singing on, Through banks o’erhung with herbs and flowery shoots, Leaning as if they loved its gentle tune, To hear him tell of many a plant that suits Fresh wound, or fever’d frame; and of the moon Shedding o’er weed and wort her healing power, For gifted wights to cull in her ascendant hour;

To lie abroad on nature’s lonely breast, Amidst the music of a summer’s sky, Where tall, dark pines the northern bank invest Of a still lake; and see the long pikes lie Basking upon the shallows; with dark crest, And threat’ning pomp, the swan go sailing by; And many a wild fowl on its breast that shone, Flickering like liquid silver, in the joyous sun:

The duck, deep poring with his downward head, Like a buoy floating on the ocean wave; The Spanish goose, like drops of crystal, shed The water o’er him, his rich plumes to lave; The beautiful widgeon, springing upward, spread His clapping wings; the heron, stalking grave, Into the stream; the coot and water-hen Vanish into the flood, then, far off, rise again;

And when warm summer’s holiday was o’er, And the bright acorns patter’d from the trees When fires were made, and closed was every door, And winds were loud, or else a chilling breeze Came comfortless, driving cold fogs before: On dismal, shivering evenings, such as these, To pass by cottage windows, and to see, Round a bright hearth, sweet faces shining happily;

These were the days of boyhood! Oh! such days Shall never, never more return again-- When the fresh heart, all witless of the ways, The sickening, sordid, selfish ways of men, Danced in creation’s pure and placid blaze, Making an Eden of the loneliest glen! Darkness has follow’d fast, and few have been The rays of sunlight cast upon life’s dreary scene.

For years of lonely thought, in morning-tide Of life, will make a spirit all unfit To brook of men the waywardness and pride; Too proud itself to woo, or to submit; Scorning, as vile, what all adore beside, And deeming only glorious the soul lit With the pure flame of knowledge, and the eye Filled with the gentle love of the bright earth and sky.

Fancy’s spoil’d child will ever surely be A thing of nothing in the worldly throng: Wrapp’d up in dreams that they can never see; Listening to fairy harp, or spirit’s song, Where all to them is stillest vacancy: For ever seeking, as he glides along, Some kindred heart, that feels as he has felt, And can read each thought that with him long has dwelt.

But place him midst creation!--let him stand Where wave and mountain revel in his sight, Then shall his soul triumphantly expand, With gathering power, and majesty, and light! The world beneath him is the temple plann’d For him to worship in; and, pure and bright, Heaven’s vault above, the proud eternal dome Of his Almighty Sire, and his own future home!

With such inspiring fancies, mortal pride Shrinks into nothing; and all mortal things He casts, as weeds cast by the ocean tide, From its embraces; the world’s scorn he flings Back on itself, disdaining to divide, With its low cares, that sensitive spirit that brings Home to his breast all nature’s light and glee, Holding with sunshine, clouds, and gales, unearthly revelry.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 54·17.

Then, for “October Month,” they put A rude illuminated cut-- Reaching ripe grapes from off the vine, Or pressing them, or tunning wine; Or, something to denote that there Was vintage at this time of year.

We have “hopes and fears” for the year at all seasons, as we have for ourselves “in infancy” and throughout life. After the joyousness of summer comes the season of foreboding, for “the year has reached its grand climacteric, and is fast falling ‘into the sere, the yellow leaf.’ Every day a flower drops from out the wreath that binds its brow--not to be renewed. Every hour the sun looks more and more askance upon it, and the winds, those summer flatterers, come to it less fawningly. Every breath shakes down showers of its leafy attire, leaving it gradually barer and barer, for the blasts of winter to blow through it. Every morning and evening takes away from it a portion of that light which gives beauty to its life, and chills it more and more into that torpor which at length constitutes its temporary death. And yet October is beautiful still, no less ‘for what it gives than what it takes away;’ and even for what it gives during the very act of taking away.--The whole year cannot produce a sight fraught with more rich and harmonious beauty than that which the woods and groves present during this month, notwithstanding, or rather in consequence of, the daily decay of their summer attire; and at no other season can any given spot of landscape be seen to much advantage as a mere picture.--An extensive plantation of forest trees presents a variety of colours and of tints that would scarcely be considered as _natural_ in a picture, any more than many of the sunsets of September would. Among those trees which retain their green hues, the fir tribe are the principal; and these, spiring up among the deciduous ones, now differ from them no less in colour than they do in form. The alders, too, and the poplars, limes, and horse-chestnuts, are still green,--the hues of their leaves not undergoing much change as long as they remain on the branches. Most of the other forest trees have put on each its peculiar livery; the planes and sycamores presenting every variety of tinge, from bright yellow to brilliant red; the elms being, for the most part, of a rich sunny umber, varying according to the age of the tree and the circumstances of its soil, &c.; the beeches having deepened into a warm glowing brown, which the young ones will retain all the winter, and till the new spring leaves push the present ones off; the oaks varying from a dull dusky green to a deep russet, according to their ages; and the Spanish chestnuts, with their noble embowering heads, glowing like clouds of gold.--As for the hedge-rows, though they have lost nearly all their flowers, the various fruits that are spread out upon them for the winter food of the birds, make them little less gay than they were in spring and summer. The most conspicuous of these are the red hips of the wild rose; the dark purple bunches of the luxuriant blackberry; the brilliant scarlet and green berries of the nightshade; the wintry-looking fruit of the hawthorn; the blue sloes, covered with their soft tempting-looking bloom; the dull bunches of the woodbine; and the sparkling holly-berries.--We may also still, by seeking for them, find a few flowers scattered about beneath the hedge-rows, and the dry banks that skirt the woods, and even in the woods themselves, peeping up meekly from among the crowds of newly fallen leaves. The prettiest of these is the primrose, which now blows a second time. But two or three of the persicaria tribe are still in flower, and also some of the goosefoots. And even the elegant and fragile heathbell, or harebell, has not yet quite disappeared; while some of the ground flowers that have passed away have left in their place strange evidences of their late presence; in particular, the singular flower (if it can be called one) of the arums, or lords and ladies, has changed into an upright bunch, or long cluster, of red berries, starting up from out the ground on a single stiff stem, and looking almost like the flower of a hyacinth.--The open fields during this month, though they are bereaved of much of their actual beauty and variety, present sights that are as agreeable to the eye, and even more stirring to the imagination, than those which have passed away. The husbandman is now ploughing up the arable land, and putting into it the seeds that are to produce the next year’s crops; and there are not, among rural occupations, two more pleasant to look upon than these: the latter, in particular, is one that, while it gives perfect satisfaction to the eye as a mere picture, awakens and fills the imagination with the prospective views which it opens.--It is not till this month that we usually experience the equinoxial gales, those fatal visitations which may now be looked upon as the immediate heralds of the coming on of winter; as in the spring they were the sure signs of its having passed away. Bitter-sweet is it, now, to lie awake at night, and listen wilfully (as if we would not let them escape us) to the fierce howlings of the winds, each accession of which gives new vividness to the vision of some tall ship, illumined by every flash of lightning--illumined, but not rendered _visible_--for there are no eyes within a hundred leagues to look upon it; and crowded with human beings--(not ‘souls’ only, as the sea-phrase is, for then it were pastime--but _bodies_) every one of which sees, in imagination, its own grave a thousand fathom deep beneath the dark waters that roar around, and feels itself beforehand.”[360]

* * * * *

THE WIND.

The wind has a language, I would I could learn! Sometimes ’tis soothing, and sometimes ’tis stern, --Sometimes it comes like a low sweet song, And all things grow calm, as the sound floats along, And the forest is lulled by the dreamy strain, And slumber sinks down on the wandering main, And its crystal arms are folded in rest, And the tall ship sleeps on its heaving breast.

Sometimes when autumn grows yellow and sere, And the sad clouds weep for the dying year, It comes like a wizard, and mutters its spell, --I would that the magical tones I might tell-- And it beckons the leaves with its viewless hand, And they leap from their branches at its command, And follow its footsteps with wheeling feet, Like fairies that dance in the moonlight sweet.

Sometimes it comes in the wintry night, And I hear the flap of its pinions of might, And I see the flash of its withering eye, As it looks from the thunder-cloud sailing on high, And pauses to gather its fearful breath, And lifts up its voice like the angel of death-- And the billows leap up when the summons they hear And the ship flies away, as if winged with fear, And the uncouth creatures that dwell in the deep, Start up at the sound from their floating sleep, And career through the water, like clouds through the night, To share in the tumult their joy and delight, And when the moon rises, the ship is no more, Its joys and its sorrows are vanish’d and o’er, And the fierce storm that slew it has faded away, Like the dark dream that flies from the light of the day.

_The Improvisatrice._

[360] Mirror of the Months.

~October 1.~

LAWLESS COURT.

This is the season of holding a remarkable court, which we are pleasantly introduced to by the relation of a good old writer.[361]

“Ryding from Ralegh towards Rochford, I happened to haue the good companie of a gentleman of this countrey, who, by the way, shewed me a little hill, which he called the Kings Hill; and told me of a strange customarie court, and of long continuance, there yearely kept, the next Wednesday after Michaelmas day in the night, upon the first cock crowing without any kinde of light, saue such as the heavens will affoard: The steward of the court writes onely with coales, and calleth all such as are bound to appeare, with as low a voice as possiblie he may, giuing no notice when he goeth to execute his office. Howsoever, he that gives not answer is deeply amerced; which servile attendance (saith he) was imposed at the first vpon certaine tenants of divers mannors hereabouts, for conspiring in this place, at such an vnseasonable time, to raise a commotion. The title of the entrie of the court hee had in memory, and writ it downe for me when we came to Rochford.” Fuller speaks of its running “in obscure barbarous rimes,” which he inserts nearly in the words of the legal authorities who give the following account:--

“~Lawless Court.~ On _Kingshill_ at _Rochford_ in _Essex_, on Wednesday morning next, after _Michaelmas_ day, at _Cocks-crowing_, Is held a Court, vulgarly called ‘_The Lawless Court_.’ They whisper and have no Candle, nor any Pen and Ink but a Coal; and he that ows Suit or Service, and appears not, forfeits double his rent every hour he is missing. This Court belongs to the Honor of _Ralegh_, and to the Earl of _Warwick_; and is called ‘_Lawless_,’ because held at an unlawful or lawless hour, or _Quia dicta sine lege_. The Title of it in the Court Rolls, runs thus,--

Kingshi _in_ } ss. =C=_Vria de Domino Rege,_ Rochford. } _Dicta sine Lege._ _Tenta est ibidem Per ejusdem consuetudinem, Ante ortum solis, Luceat nisi polus, Senescallus solus Nil scribit nisi colis, Toties voluerit, Gallus ut cantaverit, Per cujus soli sonitus, Curia est summonita, Clamat clam pro Rege, In Curia sine Lege, Et nisi cito venerint, Citiùs pænituerint, Et nisi clam accedant, Curia non attendat, Qui venerit cum lumine, Errat in regimine: Et dum sunt sine lumine, Capti sunt in crimine: Curia sine cura, Jurati de injuria,_

_Tenta ibidem die Mercurii (ante Diem) proximi post Festum Sancti_ Michaelis Arch-angeli, _Anno regni Regis,” &c._

This Court is mentioned in _Cam. Britan_, though imperfectly; who says this servile attendance was imposed on the Tenants, for conspiring at the like unseasonable time to raise a Commotion.[362]

ORDER OF FOOLS.

We are already acquainted with so many whimsies of our forefathers, that any thing related of their doings ceases to surprise; we might otherwise be astonished by the fact, that Folly had an order of merit, and held its great court every year on the first Sunday after Michaelmas-day.

An inquiring antiquary gives some particulars of this institution, with a translation of the document for its foundation, which is preserved in Von Buggenhagen’s “Account of the Roman and National Antiquities” discovered at Cleves. He relates of it as follows:--

To this document are affixed thirty-six seals, all imprinted on green wax, with the exception of that of the founder, which is on red wax, and in the centre of the rest; having on its right the seal of the count de Meurs, and on its left that of Diedrich van Eyl. The insignium borne by the knights of this order on the left side of their mantles consisted of a fool embroidered in a red and silver vest, with a cap on his head, intersected harlequin-wise with red and yellow divisions, and gold bells attached, with yellow stockings and black shoes; in his right hand was a cup filled with fruits, and in his left a gold key, symbolic of the affection subsisting between the different members.

It is uncertain when this order ceased, although it appears to have been in existence at the commencement of the sixteenth century, when, however, its pristine spirit had become totally extinct. The latest mention that has hitherto been found of it occurs in some verses prefixed by Onofrius Brand to the German translation of his father Sebastian Brand’s celebrated “_Navis Stultifera Mortalium_,” by the learned Dr. Geiler von Kaisersberg, which was published at Strasburg in the year 1520.

Two-fold was the purpose of the noble founders of this order; to relieve the wants and alleviate the miseries of their suffering fellow-creatures; and to banish ennui during the numerous festivals observed in those ages, when the unceasing routine of disports and recreations, which modern refinement has invented in the present, were unknown. During the period of its meeting, which took place annually, and lasted seven days, all distinctions of rank were laid aside, and the most cordial equality reigned throughout. Each had his particular part allotted to him on those occasions, and those who supported their characters in the ablest manner, contributed most to the conviviality and gaiety of the meeting. Indeed we cannot but be strongly prepossessed in its favour, when we recur to the excellent regulations which accompanied its institution, and were admirably calculated to preserve it, at least for a great length of time, from degenerating into absurdity and extravagance.

We must not confound this laudable establishment with the vulgar and absurd practices which, till of late years, existed in many places under the names of feasts of fools and of the ass, &c. These were only national festivals, intended for the occasional diversion, or, as in those days they were termed, rites to promote the pious edification of the lower classes, which, “not unfrequently introduced by a superstition of the lowest and most illiberal species,” soon became objects of depravity and unbridled licentiousness. Of a totally different nature also, and analagous only in quaintness of appellation, were the societies established by men of letters in various parts of Italy, such as the society of the “Insensáte,” at Perugia, of the “Stravaganti,” at Pisa, and the “Eteróclyti,” at Pesaro. Nor can I allow myself to pass over in silence on the present occasion the order or society of Fools, otherwise denominated “Respublica Binepsis,” which was founded towards the middle of the fourteenth century by some Polish noblemen, and took its name from the estate of one Psomka, the principal instigator, near Leublin. Its form was modelled after that of the constitution of Poland; like this, too, it had its king, its council, its chamberlain, its master of the hunt, and various other offices. Whoever made himself ridiculous by any singular and foolish propensity, on him was conferred an appointment befitting it. Thus he, who carried his partiality to the canine species to a ridiculous extreme, was created master of the hunt; whilst another, who constantly boasted of his valorous achievements, was raised to the dignity of field marshal. No one dared to refuse the acceptance of such a vocation, unless he wished to become a still greater object of ridicule and animadversion than before. This order soon experienced so rapid an increase of numbers that there were few at court who were not members of it. At the same time it was expressly forbidden that any lampooner should be introduced amongst them. The avowed object of this institution was to prevent the rising generation from the adoption of bad habits and licentious manners; and ridiculous as was its outward form, is not its design at least entitled to our esteem and veneration?

_Patent of Creation of the Order of Fools._

“We all, who have hereunto affixed our seals, make known unto all men, and declare, that after full and mature consideration, both on our own behalf and on account of the singular goodwill and friendship which we all bear, and will continue to bear towards one another, we have instituted a society of fools, according to the form and manner hereunto subjoined:--

“Be it therefore known, that each member shall wear a fool, either made of silver, or embroidered, on his coat. And such member as shall not daily wear this fool, him shall and may any one of us, as often as he shall see it, punish with a mulct of three old great tournois, (livres tournois, about four-pence halfpenny,) which three tournois shall be appropriated to the relief of the poor in the Lord!

“Further, will we fools yearly meet, and hold a conventicle and court, and assemble ourselves, to wit at Cleves, every year on the Sunday after Michaelmas-day; and no one of us shall depart out of the city, nor mount his horse to quit the place where we may be met together, without previous notice, and his having defrayed that part of the expenses of the court which he is bound to bear. And none of us shall remain away on any pretence or for any other reason whatsoever than this, namely, that he is labouring under very great infirmity; excepting moreover those only who may be in a foreign country, and at six days’ journey from their customary place of residence. If it should happen that any one of the society is at enmity with another, then must the whole society use their utmost endeavours to adjust their differences and reconcile them; and such members and all their abettors shall be excluded from appearing at the court on the Friday morning when it commences its sitting at sun-rise, until it breaks up on the same Friday at sun-set.

“And, we will further, at the royal court yearly elect one of the members to be king of our society, and six to be counsellors; which king with his six counsellors shall regulate and settle all the concerns of the society, and in particular appoint and fix the court of the ensuing year; they shall also procure, and cause to be procured, all things necessary for the said court, of which they shall keep an exact account. These expenses shall be alike both to knights and squires, and a third part more shall fall upon the lords than upon the knights and squires; but the counts shall be subject to a third part more than the lords.

“And early on the Tuesday morning (during the period of the court’s sitting) all of us members shall go to the church of the Holy Virgin at Cleves, to pray for the repose of all those of the society who may have died; and there shall each bring his separate offering.

“And each of us has mutually pledged his good faith, and solemnly engaged to fulfil faithfully, undeviatingly, and inviolably, all things which are above enumerated, &c.

“Done at Cleves, 1381, on the day of St. Cunibert.”

H. W. S.[363]

STAGE ACCIDENT.

On the evening of Friday the 1st of October, 1736, during the performance of an entertainment called _Dr. Faustus_, at Covent-garden theatre, one James Todd who represented the miller’s man, fell from the upper stage, in a flying machine, by the breaking of the wires. He fractured his scull, and died miserably; three others were much hurt, but recovered. Some of the audience swooned, and the whole were in great confusion upon this sad accident.[364]

MOUNTEBANKS AND MR. MERRIMAN.

_For the Every-Day Book._

Little inferior to Mr. Punch, Mr. Merriman has stood eminently high at fairs, figured in market-places, and scarcely a village green in England, that has not felt the force of his irresistible appeals. He does not often approach the over-grown metropolis; his success here is less certain, and the few patrons that remain, love to feast their eyes and risible faculties without sparing a modicum from their pockets: the droll simpleton might crack his jokes without finding the kernel--cash.

A company of mountebanks, however, appeared on a green, north of White Conduit-house, several evenings last week. On Saturday the performance commenced at five o’clock in the afternoon. The performers consisted of the master, a short, middle aged person, with a florid complexion, dressed in decent half mourning. He possessed a sound pair of lungs, fair eloquence, and a good portion of colloquial ability. By the assistance of a little whip he kept in order a large ring, formed of boys, girls, and grown persons of both sexes. His eye, gray as a falcon’s, watched the reception he received, and seemed to communicate with his “_mind’s_ eye,” as to his subscribers. The rosy-faced maid servants, glad of the opportunity of gazing at the exhibitors, were rejoiced by the pretence of holding the “nursery treasures” to see all that could be seen. Here the calculator looked for patronage and encouragement. “Mr. Merriman,” a young man with his face and clothes duly coloured, _à la Grimaldi_, raised laughter by his quaint retorts, by attempts at tumbling to prove he could tumble well, and by drilling with a bugle-horn a dozen volunteer boys in many whimsical exercises, truly marvellous to simpering misses and their companions. The next performer was a short man with sharp features, sunburnt face, and shrill goat-like voice:--he tumbled in a clever, but, I think, dangerous manner. Then Mr. Merriman’s “imitations” followed; not to say any thing of those inimitable imitators, Mathews, Reeve, and Yates, he suited his audience to the very echo of the surrounding skeletons in brick and mortar. The tumbler then reposed by putting a loose coat over his party-coloured habit, and playing a pandean-pipe while “Mr. Merriman” sat on a piece of carpet spread on the ground, and tossed four gilt balls in the air at the same time, to the variations of the music. A drum was beat by a woman about forty, with a tiara on her head, who afterwards left the beating art and mounting the slack-wire, which was supported by three sticks, coned at each end to a triangle; she danced and vaulted _à la Gouffe_. A table was put on the wire, which she balanced, and bore a glass full of liquor on the rim as she twirled it on her finger. This was the acmè of the display. Tickets at one shilling each were now handed round with earnestness and much promise, for a lottery of prizes, consisting of teapots, waiters, printed calico, and two sovereigns thrown on the grass instead of a sheep. These temptations held out to many a Saturday night labourer the hope of increasing his week’s wages. The “conductor” of his company no doubt profited by the experience of which he was possessed. Many tickets were sold; expectation breathed--fancy pictured a teapot--or some token of fortune’s performance. The decision made, the die cast, now the laughing winner walked hurriedly away, hugging his prize, while the losers hid their chagrin, and were quietly dispersed by the “blank” influence, with secret wishes that their money was in their pockets again.

When I reflect upon this kind of amusement for the labouring classes, I see nothing to prevent its occasional appearance. The wit scattered about, though in a blundering way, is often smart.

In spite of decorum, of my better instruction in gentility, and Chesterfield’s axioms, I love to stand and shake my human system, if it be only to remind me of past observation, and to see the children so happy, who ring out music, in every responsive applause of the tricks so plausibly represented to their view. While “Mr. Merriman” does not invade the peace of society, I hope he will be allowed his precarious reign, as he promised “that he would forfeit fifty guineas if he came into the parish again at least for a twelvemonth.”

It is within my remembrance when former mountebanks distributed packets instead of blanks, containing nostrums against toothache, corns, bunions, warts, witchcraft and the ague. Doctor Bolus strutted and fretted his hour upon the stage, and gave as much wit for sixpence as kept the village alehouse in a roar for many weeks. But, I suppose, the mountebank profession, like every other, feels the changes of the times, and retrenchment cries,--

“Ubi vos requiram, cum dies advenerit?”

*, *, P.

_September 29, 1826._

Please to make the following correction, page 1270; for “_he_ shaking,” read “_the_ shaking.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 52·85.

[361] Fuller.

[362] Cowel. Blount.

[363] From Dr. Aikin’s Athenæum.

[364] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~October 2.~

EXTRAORDINARY WALKING.

October 2, 1751, a man, for a wager of twenty guineas, walked from Shoreditch church, to the twenty mile stone near Ware, and back again, in seven hours![365]

EXTRAORDINARY RIDING.

In October, 1754, lord Powerscourt having laid a wager with the duke of Orleans, that he would ride on his own horses from Fountainbleau to Paris, which is forty-two English miles, in two hours, for one thousand louis d’ors, the king’s guards cleared the way, which was lined with crowds of Parisians. He was to mount only three horses, but he performed the task on two, in one hour, thirty-seven minutes, and twenty-two seconds. The horses through whom the wager was won, were both killed by the severity of the feat.[366]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 53·75.

[365] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[366] Ibid.

~October 3.~

EXTRAORDINARY HORSE.

On the 3d of October, 1737, a cart-gelding belonging to Mr. Richard Fendall, of the Grange, Southwark, died by an accidental cut in his knee with a garden-mellon bell-glass; which is taken notice of, because this gelding was forty-four years in his possession. It was bought Michaelmas, 1693, at Uxbridge, was never sick nor lame all the time, and within the fifteen years preceding, drew his owner and another in a chaise, fifty miles in one day.[367]

BIRDS AND MISTS.

It is observed that--“Among the miscellaneous events of October, one of the most striking and curious is the interchange which seems to take place between our country, and the more northern as well as the more southern ones, in regard to the birds. The swallow tribe now all quit us: the swift disappeared wholly, more than a month ago; and now the house swallow, house martin, and bank or sand martin, after congregating for awhile in vast flocks about the banks of rivers and other waters, are seen no more as general frequenters of the air. If one or two are seen during the warm days that sometimes occur for the next two or three weeks, they are to be looked upon as strangers and wanderers; and the sight of them, which has hitherto been so pleasant, becomes altogether different in its effect: it gives one a feeling of desolateness, such as we experience on meeting a poor shivering lascar in our winter streets.--In exchange for this tribe of truly summer visiters, we have now great flocks of the fieldfares and redwings come back to us; and also wood pigeons, snipes, woodcocks, and several of the numerous tribe of water-fowl.

“Now, occasionally, we may observe the singular effects of a mist, coming gradually on, and wrapping in its dusky cloak a whole landscape that was, the moment before, clear and bright as in a spring morning. The vapour rises visibly (from the face of a distant river perhaps) like steam from a boiling caldron; and climbing up into the blue air as it advances, rolls wreath over wreath till it reaches the spot on which you are standing; and then, seeming to hurry past you, its edges, which have hitherto been distinctly defined, become no longer visible, and the whole scene of beauty, which a few moments before surrounded you, is as it were wrapt from your sight like an unreal vision of the air, and you seem (and in fact are) transferred into the bosom of a cloud.”[368]

SWALLOWS.

A provincial paper[369] says, “It is a fact, which has not been satisfactorily accounted for by ornithologists, that the number of swallows which visit this island are not near so numerous as they formerly were; and this is the case, not only in this neighbourhood, but throughout the country. The little that is satisfactorily known concerning the parts to which they emigrate, and the many statements respecting their annual migration, not only serves to show that something remains to be discovered respecting these interesting visiters, but perhaps prevents us from ascertaining the causes of the decrease in their numbers. In the month of September, 1815, great numbers of these birds congregated near Rotherham, previous to their departure for a more genial climate. Their appearance was very extraordinary, and attracted much attention. We extract some account of this vast assemblage of the feathered race, from an elegantly written little work, published on the occasion, by the rev. Thomas Blackley, vicar of Rotherham, containing ‘Observations and Reflections’ on this circumstance:--

“‘Early in the month of September, 1815, that beautiful and social tribe of the feathered race began to assemble in the neighbourhood of Rotherham, at the Willow-ground, near the Glass-house, preparatory to their migration to a a warmer climate; and their numbers were daily augmented, until they became a vast flock which no man could easily number--thousands upon thousands, tens of thousands, and myriads--so great, indeed, that the spectator would almost have concluded that the whole of the swallow race were there collected in one huge host. It was their manner, while there, to rise from the willows in the morning, a little before six o’clock, when their thick columns literally darkened the sky. Their divisions were formed into four, five, and sometimes six grand wings, each of these filing off and taking a different route--one east, another west, another south, and so on; as if not only to be equally dispersed throughout the country, to provide food for their numerous troops; but also to collect with them whatever of their fellows, or straggling parties, might be still left behind. Just before the respective columns arose, a few birds might be observed first in motion at different points, darting through their massy ranks--these appeared like officers giving the word of command. In the evening, about five o’clock, they began to return to their station, and continued coming in, from all quarters, until nearly dark. It was here that you might see them go through their various aerial evolutions, in many a sportive ring and airy gambol--strengthening their pinions in these playful feats for their long etherial journey; while contentment and cheerfulness reigned in every breast, and was expressed in their evening song by a thousand pleasing twitters from their little throats, as they cut the air and frolicked in the last beams of the setting sun, or lightly skimmed the surface of the glassy pool. The notes of those that had already gained the willows sounded like the murmur of a distant waterfall, or the dying roar of the retreating billow on the sea beach.

“‘The verdant enamel of summer had already given place to the warm and mellow tints of autumn, and the leaves were now fast falling from their branches, while the naked tops of many of the trees appeared--the golden sheaves were safely lodged in the barns, and the reapers had, for this year, shouted their harvest home--frosty and misty mornings now succeeded, the certain presages of the approach of winter. These omens were understood by the swallows as the route for their march; accordingly, on the morning of the 7th of October, their mighty army broke up their encampment debouched from their retreat, and, rising, covered the heavens with their legions; thence, directed by an unerring guide, they took their trackless way. On the morning of their going, when they ascended from their temporary abode, they did not, as they had been wont to do, divide into different columns, and take each a different route, but went off in one vast body, bearing to the south. It is said that they would have gone sooner, but for a contrary wind which had some time prevailed; that on the day before they took their departure, the wind got round, and the favourable breeze was immediately embraced by them. On the day of their flight, they left behind them about a hundred of their companions; whether they were slumberers in the camp, and so had missed the going of their troops, or whether they were left as the rear-guard, it is not easy to ascertain; they remained, however, till the next morning, when the greater part of them mounted on their pinions, to follow, as it should seem, the celestial route of their departed legions. After these a few stragglers only remained; these might be too sick or too young to attempt so great an expedition; whether this was the fact or not, they did not remain after the next day. If they did not follow their army, yet the dreary appearance of their depopulated camp and their affection for their kindred, might influence them to attempt it, or to explore a warmer and safer retreat.’”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 50·00.

[367] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[368] Mirror of the Months.

[369] Sheffield Mercury.

~October 4.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 4th of October, 1749,[370] died at Paris, John Baptist Du Halde, a jesuit, who was secretary to father Le Tellier, confessor to Louis XIV. Du Halde is celebrated for having compiled an elaborate history and geography of China from the accounts of the Romish missionaries in that empire; he was likewise editor of the “Lettres edifiantes et curieuses,” from the ninth to the twenty-sixth collection, and the author of several Latin poems and miscellaneous pieces. He was born in the city wherein he died, in 1674, remarkable for piety, mildness, and patient industry.[371]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 54·92.

[370] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[371] A General Biographical Dictionary, (Hunt and Clarke,) vol. ii.

~October 5.~

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 55·12.

~October 6.~

ST. FAITH.

Of this saint in the church of England calendar, there is an account in vol. i. col. 1362.

SOMNAMBULISM.

On Sunday evening, the 6th of October, 1823, a lad named George Davis, sixteen and a half years of age, in the service of Mr. Hewson, butcher, of Bridge-road, Lambeth, at about twenty minutes after nine o’clock, bent forward in his chair, and rested his forehead on his hands. In ten minutes he started up, fetched his whip, put on his one spur, and went thence to the stable; not finding his own saddle in the proper place, he returned to the house, and asked for it. Being asked what he wanted with it, he replied, to go his rounds. He returned to the stable, got on the horse without the saddle, and was proceeding to leave the stable; it was with much difficulty and force that Mr. Hewson junior, assisted by the other lad, could remove him from the horse; his strength was great, and it was with difficulty he was brought in doors. Mr. Hewson senior, coming home at this time, sent for Mr. Benjamin Ridge, an eminent practitioner, in Bridge-road, who stood by him for a quarter of an hour, during which time the lad considered himself stopped at the turnpike gate, and took sixpence out of his pocket to be changed; and holding out his hand for the change, the sixpence was returned to him. He immediately observed, “None of your nonsense--that is the sixpence again, give me my change.” When threepence halfpenny was given to him, he counted it over, and said, “None of your gammon; that is not right, I want a penny more;” making the fourpence halfpenny, which was his proper change. He then said, “give me my _castor_,” (meaning his hat,) which slang terms he had been in the habit of using, and then began to whip and spur to get his horse on; his pulse at this time was one hundred and thirty-six, full and hard; no change of countenance could be observed, nor any spasmodic affection of the muscles, the eyes remaining close the whole of the time. His coat was taken off his arm, his shirt sleeve stripped up, and Mr. Ridge bled him to thirty-two ounces; no alteration had taken place in him during the first part of the time the blood was flowing; at about twenty-four ounces, the pulse began to decrease; and when the full quantity named above had been taken, it was at eighty, with a slight perspiration on the forehead. During the time of bleeding Mr. Hewson related the circumstance of a Mr. Harris, optician in Holborn, whose son some years before walked out on the parapet of the house in his sleep. The boy joined the conversation, and observed he lived at the corner of Brownlow-street. After the arm was tied up, he unlaced one boot, and said he would go to bed. In three minutes from this time he awoke, got up, and asked what was the matter, (having then been one hour in the trance,) not having the slightest recollection of any thing that had passed, and wondered at his arm being tied up, and at the blood, &c. A strong aperient medicine was then administered, he went to bed, slept sound, and the next day appeared perfectly well, excepting debility from the bleeding and operation of the medicine, and had no recollection whatever of what had taken place. None of his family or himself were ever affected in this way before.[372]

REMARKABLE STORM.

The following remarkable letter in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” relates to the present day seventy years ago.

Mr. URBAN,

_Wigton, Oct. 23, 1756_.

On the 6th inst. at night, happened a most violent hurricane; such a one perhaps as has not happened in these parts, in the memory of man. It lasted full 4 hours from about 11 till 3. The damage it has done over the whole county is very deplorable. The corn has suffered prodigiously.--Houses were not only unroofed, but in several places overturned by its fury.--Stacks of hay and corn were entirely swept away.--Trees without number torn up by the roots. Others, snapt off in the middle, and scattered in fragments over the neighbouring fields. Some were twisted almost round; bent, or split to the roots, and left in so shattered a condition as cannot be described.

The change in the herbage was also very surprising; its leaves _withered shrivelled_ up, and _turned black_. The leaves upon the trees, especially on the weather side, fared in the same manner. The _Evergreens_ alone seem to have escaped, and the grass recovered in a day or two.

I agreed, at first, with the general opinion, that this mischief was the effect of _Lightning_; but, when I recollected that, in some places, very little had been taken notice of; in others none at all; and that the effect was _general_, I begun to think of accounting for it from some other cause. I immediately examined the dew or rain which had been left on the grass, windows, &c. in hopes of being enabled, by _its taste_, to form some better judgment of the particles with which the air had been impregnated, and I found it as salt as any sea water I had ever tasted. The several vegetables also were all saltish more or less, and continued so for 5 or 6 days, the saline particles not being then washed off; and when the moisture was exhaled from the windows, the saline chrystal _sparkled_ on the outside, when the sun shined, and appeared very _brilliant_.

This _salt water_, I conceive, has done the principal damage, for I find upon experiment, that common salt dissolved in fresh water affected some fresh vegetables, when sprinkled upon them, in the very _same manner_, except that it did not turn them quite so black,--but particles of a sulphurous, or other quality,[373] may have been mixed with it.

I should be glad to see the opinions of some of your ingenious correspondents on this wonderful phenomenon;--whether they think this salt water was brought from the sea,[374] and in _what manner_.

_Yours_,

A. B.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 54·55.

[372] The Times, October, 1823.

[373] In an adjoining bleach-yard, some cloth which had lain out all night was turned almost yellow.--Other pieces also which were spread out the next morning, contracted the same colour, which was not without great difficulty washed out.

[374] The wind was westerly, and consequently in its passage swept the Irish sea.

~October 7.~

CONJUGAL INDIFFERENCE.

On the 7 of of October, 1736, a man and his wife, at Rushal, in Norfolk, “having some words,” the man went out and hanged himself. The coroner’s inquest found it “self-murder,” and ordered him to be buried in the cross-ways; but his wife sent for a surgeon, and sold the body for half a guinea. The surgeon feeling about the body, the wife said, “He is fit for your purpose, he is as fat as butter.” The deceased was thereupon put into a sack with his legs hanging out, and being thrown upon a cart, conveyed to the surgeon’s.[375]

OLD TIMES AND NEW TIMES.

In a journal of 1826,[376] we have the following pleasant account of a similar publication ninety years ago.

A curious document, for we may well term it so, has come to our hands--a copy of a London newspaper, dated Thursday, March 24, 1736-7. Its title is, “The Old Whig, or the Consistent Protestant.” It seems to have been a weekly paper, and, at the above date, to have been in existence for about two years. How long it lived after, we have not, at present, any means of ascertaining. The paper is similar in size to the French journals of the present day, and consists of four pages and three columns in each. The show of advertisements is very fair. They fill the whole of the back page, and nearly a column of the third. They are all book advertisements. One of these is a comedy called “The Universal Passion,” by the author of “The Man of Taste,” no doubt, at that time, an amply sufficient description of the ingenious playwright. The “Old Whig” was published by “J. Roberts, at the Oxford Arms, in Warwick-lane,” as likewise by “H. Whitridge, bookseller, the corner of Castle-alley, near the Royal-exchange, in Cornhill, price two-pence!” It has a leading article in its way, in the shape of a discourse on the liberty of the press, which it lustily defends, from what, we believe, it was as little exposed to, in 1786-7, as it is in 1826--a censorship. The editor apologises for omitting _the news_ in his last, on account of “Mr. Foster’s reply to Dr. Stebbing!” What would be said of a similar excuse now-a-days?

The following epigram is somewhat hacknied, but there is a pleasure in extracting it from the print, where it probably first appeared:--

“As we were obliged to omit the News in last week’s paper, by inserting Mr. Foster’s answer to the Rev. Dr. Stebbing, we shall in this give the few articles that are any way material.”

“Cries Celia to a reverend dean, What reason can be given, Since marriage is a holy thing, That there is none in Heaven?”

“There are no Women,” he replied; She quick returns the jest; “Women there are, but I’m afraid, They cannot find a priest!”

The miscellaneous part is of nearly the same character as at present, but disposed in rather a less regular form. We have houses on fire, and people burnt in them, exactly as _we_ had last week; but what is wonderful, as it shows the great improvement in these worthy gentlemen in the course of a century, the “Old Whig” adds to its account--“The watch, it seems, though at a small distance, knew nothing of the matter!”

There is a considerable number of deaths, for people died even in those good old times, and one drowning; whether intentional or not we cannot inform our readers, as the “Old Whig” went to press before the inquest was holden before Mr. Coroner and a most respectable jury.

We still tipple a little after dinner, but our fathers were prudent men; they took time by the forelock, and began their convivialities with their _dejeune_. The following is a short notice of the exploits of a few of these true men. It is with a deep feeling of the transitory nature of all sublunary things, that we introduce this notice, by announcing to our readers at a distance, that the merry Boar’s Head is merry no more, and that he who goes thither in the hope of quaffing port, where plump Jack quaffed sack and sugar, will return disappointed. The sign remains, but the _hostel_ is gone.

“On Saturday last, the right hon. the Lord Mayor held a wardmote at St. Mary Abchurch, for the election of a common councilman, in the room of Mr. Deputy Davis. His lordship went sooner than was expected by Mr. Clay’s friends, and arriving at the church, ordered proclamation to be made, when Mr. Edward Yeates was put up by every person present; then the question being asked, whether any other was offered to the ward, and there being no person named, his lordship declared Mr. Yeates duly elected, and ordered him to be sworn in, which was accordingly done; and just at the words ‘So help you God,’ Mr. Clay’s friends (who were numerous, and had been at breakfast at the Boar’s Head Tavern, in Eastcheap) came into the church, but it was too late, for the election was over. This has created a great deal of mirth in the ward, which is likely to continue for some time. The Boar’s Head is said to be the tavern so often mentioned by Shakspeare, in his play of _Henry the Fourth_, which occasioned a gentleman, who heard the circumstances of the election, to repeat the following lines from that play:--

“‘_Falst._ Now Hall, what a time of day is it, lad?’

“‘_P. Hen._----What a devil has thou to do with the time of the day? unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons,’” &c.

The above account gives a specimen of the sobriety of our fathers; another of their virtues is exemplified in the following:--

“By a letter from Penzance, in Cornwall, we have the following account, viz.:--‘That on the 12th instant at night, was lost near Portlevan (and all the men drowned, _as is supposed_), the queen Caroline, of Topsham, Thomas Wills, master, from Oporto, there being some pieces of letters found on the sands, directed for Edward Mann, of Exon, one for James La Roche, Esq. of Bristol, and another for Robert Smyth, Esq. and Company, Bristol. Some casks of wine came on shore, which were immediately secured by the country people; but on a composition with the collector, to pay them eight guineas for each pipe they brought on shore, they delivered to him twenty-five pipes; and he paid so many times eight guineas, else they would have staved them, or carried them off.’”

The order maintained in England at that time was nothing compared to the strictness of discipline observed on the continent.

“They write from Rome, that count Trevelii, a Neapolitan, had been beheaded there, for being the author of some satirical writings against the Pope: that Father Jacobini, who was sentenced to be beheaded on the same account, had obtained the _favour_ of being sent to the gallies, through the intercession of cardinal Guadagni, the pope’s nephew, who was most maltreated by the priest and the count.”

These were times, as Dame Quickly would say, when honourable men were not to be insulted with impunity.

We sometimes hear of a terrible species of _mammalia_, called West India Planters, and there is an individual specimen named Hogan, or something like it, whose wonderful fierceness has been sounded in our ears for some ten or twelve years. But what will the abolitionists say to the extract of a letter from Antigua? Compared with these dreadful doings, Mr. Hogan’s delinquencies were mere fleabites.

“Extract of a letter from Antigua, January 15, 1736-7:--‘We are in a great deal of trouble in this island, the burning of negroes, hanging them on gibbets alive, racking them on the wheel, &c. takes up almost all our time; that from the 20th of October to this day, there has been destroyed sixty-five sensible negro men, most of them tradesmen, as carpenters, masons, and coopers. I am almost dead with watching and warding, as are many more. They were going to destroy all the white inhabitants on the island. Court, the king of the negroes, who was to head the insurrection; Tomboy, their general, and Hercules their lieutenant-general, were all racked upon the wheel, and died with amazing obstinacy. Mr. Archibald Hamilton’s Harry, after he was condemned, stuck himself with a knife in eighteen places, four whereof were mortal, which killed him. Colonel Martin’s Jemmy, who was hung up alive from noon to eleven at night, was then taken down to give information. Colonel Morgan’s Ned, who, after he had been hung up seven days and seven nights, that his hands grew too small for his hand-cuffs, he got them out and raised himself up, and fell down from a gibbet fifteen feet high, without any harm; he was revived with cordials and broth, in hopes to bring him to a confession, but he would not confess, and was hung up again, and in a day and night after expired. Mr. Yeoman’s Quashy Coomah jumped out of the fire half burnt, but was thrown in again. And Mr. Lyon’s Tim jumped out of the fire, and promised to declare all, but it took no effect. In short, our island is in a poor, miserable condition, that I wish I could get any sort of employ in England.’”

The following notice is of a more pleasing character:--

“In a few days, a fine monument to the memory of John Gay, Esq., author of the _Beggar’s Opera_, and several other admired pieces, will be erected in Westminster-abbey, at the expense of his grace the duke of Queensberry and Dover, with an elegant inscription thereon, composed by the deceased’s intimate and affectionate friend, Mr. Alexander Pope.”

There are two more observations which we have to make; 1st. “the Old Whig,” as was meet, was a strong Orangeman; and 2d. the parliament was sitting when the number before us was published, and yet it does not contain one line of debate!

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 53·77.

[375] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[376] New Times, September 7.

~October 8.~

ANCIENT MANNERS.

Elias Ashmole, the antiquary, enters thus in the diary of his life:--“1657, October 8. The cause between me and my wife was heard, when Mr. Serjeant Maynard observed to the court, that there were 800 sheets of depositions on my wife’s part, and not one word proved against me of using her ill, nor ever giving her a bad or provoking word.” The decision was against the lady; the court, refusing her alimony, delivered her to her husband; “whereupon,” says Ashmole, “I carried her to Mr. Lilly’s, and there took lodgings for us both.” He and Lilly dabbled in astrology; and he tells no more of his spouse till he enters “1668, April 1. 2 Hor. _ante merid._ the lady Mainwaring my wife _died_.” Subsequently he writes--“November 3. I married Mrs. Elizabeth Dugdale, daughter to William Dugdale, Esq. Norroy, king of arms at Lincoln’s-inn chapel. Dr. William Floyd married us, and her father gave her. The wedding was finished at 10 _hor. post merid_.”

Ashmole’s diary minutely records particulars of all sorts:--“September 5, I took pills; 6, I took a sweat; 7, I took leeches; all wrought very well.--December 19, Dr. Chamberlain proposed to me to bring Dr. Lister to my wife, that he might undertake her. 22. They both came to my house, and Dr. Lister _did_ undertake her.” Though Dr. Lister was her undertaker on that occasion, yet Ashmole records--“1687, April 16, my wife took Mr. Bigg’s vomit, which wrought very well.--19. She took _pulvis sanctis_; in the afternoon she took cold.” Death took Ashmole in 1695. He was superstitious and punctilious, and was perhaps a better antiquary than a friend; he seems to have possessed himself of Tradescant’s museum at South Lambeth in a manner which rather showed his love of antiquities than poor old Tradescant.

It is to be regretted that Ashmole’s life, “drawn up by himself by way of diary,” was not printed with the Life of Lilly in the “Autobiography.” Lilly’s Life is published in that pleasant work by itself. “Tom Davies” deemed them fit companions.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 53·80.

~October 9.~

ST. DENYS.

This name in the church of England calendar is properly noticed in vol. i. col. 1370.

* * * * *

On the celebration of this saint’s festival in catholic countries he is represented walking with his head in his hands, as we are assured he did, after his martyrdom. A late traveller in France relates, that on the 9th of October, the day of St. Denis, the patron saint of France, a procession was made to the village of St. Denis, about a league from Lyons. This was commonly a very disorderly and tumultuous assembly, and was the occasion some years ago of a scene of terrible confusion and slaughter. The porter who kept the gate of the city which leads to this village, in order to exact a contribution from the people as they returned, shut the gate at an earlier hour than usual. The people, incensed at the extortion, assembled in a crowd round the gate to force it, and in the conflict numbers were stifled, squeezed to death, or thrown into the Rhone, on the side of which the gate stood. Two hundred persons were computed to have lost their lives on this occasion. The porter paid his avarice with his life: he was condemned and executed as the author of the tumult, and of the consequences by which it was attended.[377]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 52·62.

[377] Miss Plumptre.

~October 10.~

1826. Oxford and Cambridge Terms begin.

CHRONOLOGY.

On Sunday, October 10, 1742, during the time of worship, the roof of the church of Fearn, in Ross-shire, Scotland, fell suddenly in, and sixty people were killed, besides the wounded. The gentry whose seats were in the niches, and the preacher by falling under the sounding-board were preserved.[378]

PACK MONDAY FAIR, AT SHERBORNE, DORSETSHIRE

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_Sherborne, September, 1826._

Sir,--Having promised to furnish an account of our fair, I now take the liberty of handing it to you for insertion in your very entertaining work.

This fair is annually held on the first Monday after the 10th of October, and is a mart for the sale of horses, cows, fat and lean oxen, sheep, lambs, and pigs; cloth, earthenware, onions, wall and hazle nuts, apples, fruit trees, and the usual nick nacks for children, toys, gingerbread, sweetmeats, sugar plums, &c. &c. with drapery, hats, bonnets, caps, ribands, &c. for the country belles, of whom, when the weather is favourable, a great number is drawn together from the neighbouring villages.

Tradition relates that this fair originated at the termination of the building of the church, when the people who had been employed about it packed up their tools, and held a fair or wake, in the churchyard, blowing cows’ horns in their rejoicing, which at that time was perhaps the most common music in use.[379] The date at which the church was built is uncertain, but it may be conjectured in the sixth century, for in the year 704, king John fixed an episcopal see at, and Aldhelm was consecrated the first bishop of, Sherborne, in 705, and enjoyed the bishopric four years. Aldhelm died in 709, is said to be the first who introduced poetry into England, to have obtained a proficiency in music, and the first Englishman who ever wrote in Latin.

To the present time Pack Monday fair, is annually announced three or four weeks previous by all the little urchins who can procure and blow a cow’s horn, parading the streets in the evenings, and sending forth the different tones of their horny bugles, sometimes beating an old saucepan for a drum, to render the sweet sound more delicious, and not unfrequently a whistle-pipe or a fife is added to the band. The clock’s striking twelve on the Sunday night previous, is the summons for ushering in the fair, when the boys assemble with their horns, and parade the town with a noisy shout, and prepare to forage for fuel to light a bonfire, generally of straw, obtained from some of the neighbouring farmyards, which are sure to be plundered, without respect to the owners, if they have not been fortunate enough to secure the material in some safe part of their premises. In this way the youths enjoy themselves in boisterous triumph, to the annoyance of the sleeping part of the inhabitants, many of whom deplore, whilst others, who entertain respect for old customs, delight in the deafening mirth. At four o’clock the great bell is rang for a quarter of an hour. From this time, the bustle commences by the preparations for the coming scene: stalls erecting, windows cleaning and decorating, shepherds and drovers going forth for their flocks and herds, which are depastured for the night in the neighbouring fields, and every individual seems on the alert. The business in the sheep and cattle fairs (which are held in different fields, nearly in the centre of the town, and well attended by the gentlemen farmers, of Dorset, Somerset, and Devon) takes precedence, and is generally concluded by twelve o’clock, when what is called the in-fair begins to wear the appearance of business-like activity, and from this time till three or four o’clock more business is transacted in the shop, counting-house, parlour, hall, and kitchen, than at any other time of the day, it being a custom of the tradespeople to have their yearly accounts settled about this time, and scarcely a draper, grocer, hatter, ironmonger, bookseller, or other respectable tradesman, but is provided with an ample store of beef and home-brewed October, for the welcome of their numerous customers, few of whom depart without taking _quantum suff._ of the old English fare placed before them.

Now, (according to an old saying,) is the _town alive_. John takes Joan to see the shows,--there he finds the giant--here the learned pig--the giantess and dwarf--the menagerie of wild beasts--the conjuror--and Mr. Merry Andrew cracking his jokes with his _quondam_ master. Here it is--“Walk up, walk up, ladies and gentlemen, we are now going to begin, be in time, the price is only twopence.” Here is Mr. Warr’s merry round-about, with “a horse or a coach for a halfpenny.”--Here is Rebecca Swain[380] with her black and red cock, and lucky-bag, who bawls out, “Come, my little lucky rogues, and try your fortune for a halfpenny, all prizes and no blanks, a faint heart never wins a fair lady.”--Here is pricking in the garter.--Raffling for gingerbread, with the cry of “one in; who makes two, the more the merrier.”--Here is the Sheffield hardwareman, sporting a worn-out wig and huge pair of spectacles, offering, in lots, a box of razors, knives, scissors, &c., each lot of which he modestly says, “is worth seven shillings, but he’ll not be too hard on the gaping crowd, he’ll not take seven, nor six, nor five, nor four, nor three, nor two, but one shilling for the lot,--going at one shilling--sold again and the money paid.”--Here are two earthenware-men bawling their shilling’s worth one against the other, and quaffing beer to each other’s luck from that necessary and convenient chamber utensil that has modestly usurped the name of the great river _Po_. Here is _poor Will_, with a basket of gingerbread, crying “toss or buy.” There is a smirking little lad pinning two girls together by their gowns, whilst his companion cracks a Waterloo bang-up in their faces. Here stands John with his mouth wide open, and Joan with her sloe-black ogles stretched to their extremity at a fine painted shawl, which _Cheap John_ is offering for next to nothing; and here is a hundred other contrivances to draw the “_browns_” from the pockets of the unwary, and tickle the fancies of the curious; and sometimes the rogue of a pickpocket extracting farmer Anybody’s watch or money from his pockets.

This is Pack Monday fair, till evening throws on her dark veil, when the visiters in taking their farewell, stroll through the rows of gingerbread stalls, where the spruce Mrs. or Miss Sugarplum pops the cover of her nut-cannister forth, with “buy some nice nuts, do taste, sir, (or ma’me,) and treat your companion with a paper of nuts.” By this time the country folks are for jogging home, and vehicles and horses of every description on the move, and the bustle nearly over, with the exception of what is to be met with at the inns, where the lads and lasses so disposed, on the light fantastic toe, assisted by the merry scraping of the fiddler, finish the fun, frolic, and pastime of Pack Monday Fair.

I am, &c.

R. T.

* * * * *

SONNET.

_For the Every-Day Book._

Me, men’s gay haunts delight not, nor the glow Of lights that glitter in the crowded room; But nature’s paths where silver waters flow, Making sweet music as along they go, And shadowy groves where birds their light wings plume, Or the brown heath where waves the yellow broom, Or by the stream where bending willows grow, And silence reigns, congenial with my gloom.

For there no hollow hearts, no envious eyes, No flatt’ring tongues, no treacherous hands are found, No jealous feuds, no gold-born enmities, Nor cold deceits with which men’s walks abound, But quietness and health, which are more meet, Than glaring halls where riot holds her seat.

S. R. J.

--------- The stream is pure in solitude, But passing on amid the haunts of men It finds pollution there, and rolls from thence A tainted tide.

_Southey._

My memory does not help me to a dozen passages from the whole range of authors, in verse and prose, put together; it only assists me to ideas of what I have read, and to recollect where they are expressed, but not to their words. As the “Minor Poems” are not at hand, I can only hope I have quoted the preceding lines accurately. Their import impressed me in my boyhood, and one fine summer’s afternoon, a year or two ago, I involuntarily repeated them while musing beside that part of the “New River” represented in the engraving. I had strolled to “the Compasses,” when “the garden,” as the landlord calls it, was free from the nuisance of “company;” and thither I afterwards deluded an artist, who continues to “use the house,” and supplies me with the drawing of this sequestered nook.

This “gentle river” meanders through countless spots of surprising beauty and variety within ten miles of town. When I was a boy I thought “Sadler’s Well’s arch,” opposite the “Sir Hugh Myddelton,” (a house immortalized by Hogarth,) the prime part of the river; for there, by the aid of a penny line, and a ha’porth of gentles and blood-worms, “mixed,” bought of old Turpin, who kept the little fishing-tackle shop, the last house by the river’s side, at the end next St. John’s-street-road, I essayed to gudgeon gudgeons. But the “prime” gudgeon-fishing, then, was at “the Coffin,” through which the stream flows after burying itself at the Thatched-house, under Islington road, to Colebrooke-row, within half a stone’s throw of a cottage, endeared to me, in later years, by its being the abode of “as much virtue as can _live_.” Past the Thatched-house, towards Canonbury, there was the “Horse-shoe,” now no more, and the enchanting rear--since despoiled--of the gardens to the retreats of Canonbury-place; and all along the river to the pleasant village of Hornsey, there were delightful retirements on its banks, so “far from the busy haunts of men,” that only a few solitary wanderers seemed to know them. Since then, I have gone “over the hills and far away,” to see it sweetly flowing at Enfield Chase, near many a “cottage of content,” as I have conceived the lowly dwellings to be, which there skirt it, with their little gardens, not too trim, whence the inmates cross the neat iron bridges of the “New River Company,” which, thinking of “auld lang syne,” I could almost wish were of wood. Further on, the river gracefully recedes into the pleasant grounds of the late Mr. Gough the antiquary, who, if he chiefly wrote on the manners and remains of old times, had an especial love and kind feeling for the amiable and picturesque of our own. Pursuing the river thence to Theobalds, it presents to the “contemplative man’s recreation,” temptations that old Walton himself might have coveted to fall in his way: and why may we not “suppose that the vicinity of the New River, to the place of his habitation, might sometimes tempt him out, whose loss he so pathetically mentions, to spend an afternoon there.” He tells “the honest angler,” that the writing of his book was the “recreation of a recreation,” and familiarly says, “the whole discourse is, or rather was, a picture of my own disposition, especially in such days and times as I have laid aside business, and gone a fishing with honest Nat. and R. Roe; but they are gone, and with them most of my pleasant hours,--even as a shadow that passeth away and returns not.”

* * * * *

I dare not say that I am, and yet I cannot say that I never was, an angler; for I well remember where, though I cannot tell when, within a year, I was enticed to “go a fishing,” as the saying is, which I have sometimes imagined was derived from Walton’s motto on the title of his book:--“Simon Peter said, I _go a fishing_: and they said, we also will go with thee.--_John_ xxi. 3.” This passage is not in all the editions of the “Complete Angler,” but it was engraven on the title-page of the first edition, printed in 1653. Allow me to refer to one of “captain Wharton’s almanacs,” as old Lilly calls them in his “Life and Times,” and point out what was, perhaps, the earliest _advertisement_ of Walton’s work: it is on the back of the dedication leaf to “HEMEROSCOPEION: Anni Æræ Christianæ 1654.” The almanac was published of course in the preceding year, which was the year wherein Walton’s work was printed.

~Advertisement of Walton’s Angler, 1653.~

“There is published a Booke of Eighteen-pence price, called _The Compleat Angler_, Or, _The Contemplative man’s Recreation_: being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing. Not unworthy the perusall. Sold by _Richard Marriot_ in S. _Dunstan_’s Church-yard _Fleetstreet_.”

This advertisement I deem a bibliomaniacal curiosity. Only think of the first edition of Walton as a “booke of eighteen-pence price!” and imagine the good old man on the day of publication, walking from his house “on the north side of Fleet-street, two doors west of the end of Chancery-lane,” to his publisher and neighbour just by, “Richard Marriot, in S. Dunstan’s Churchyard,” for the purpose of inquiring “how” the book “went off.” There is, or lately was, a large fish in effigy, at a fishing-tackle-maker’s in Fleet-street, near Bell-yard, which, whenever I saw it, after I first read Walton’s work, many years ago, reminded me of him, and his pleasant book, and its delightful ditties, and brought him before me, sitting on “a primrose bank” turning his “present thoughts into verse”

THE ANGLER’S WISH.

I in these flowery meads would be: These crystal streams should solace me; To whose harmonious bubbling noise I with my angle would rejoice: Sit here, and see the turtle-dove Court his chaste mate to acts of love:

Or, on that bank, feel the west wind Breathe health and plenty: please my mind, To see sweet dew-drops kiss these flowers, And then washed off by April showers; Here, hear my _Kenna_ sing a song; There, see a blackbird feed her young, Or a leverock build her nest: Here, give my weary spirits rest, And raise my low-pitch’d thoughts above Earth, or what poor mortals love: Thus, free from law-suits and the noise Of princes’ courts, I would rejoice:

Or, with my Bryan, and a book, Loiter long days near Shawford-brook; There sit by him, and eat my meat, There see the sun both rise and set; There bid good morning to next day; There meditate my time away; And angle on; and beg to have A quiet passage to a welcome grave.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 52·05.

[378] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[379] _Hutchins_, in his “_History of Dorset_,” says, this “Fair is held in the churchyard,[381] on the first Monday after the feast of St. Michael, (O. S.) and is a great holyday for the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood. It is ushered in by the ringing of the great bell, at a very early hour in the morning, and by the boys and young men perambulating the street with cows’ horns, to the no small annoyance of their less wakeful neighbours. It has been an immemorial custom in Sherborne, for the boys to blow horns in the evenings in the streets, for some weeks before the fair.”

[380] A tall and portly dame, six feet full, with a particular screw of the mouth, and whom the writer recollects when he was a mere child, thirty years ago; none who have seen and heard her once, but will recollect her as long as they live.

[381] The fair has been removed from the churchyard about six or seven years, and is now held on a spacious parade, in a street not far from the church.

~October 11.~

This is “Old Michaelmas Day.”

“DUNCAN’S VICTORY.”

On the 11th of October, 1797, admiral Duncan obtained a splendid victory over the Dutch fleet off Camperdown, near the isle of Texel, on the coast of Holland. For this memorable achievement he was created a viscount, with a pension of two thousand pounds per annum. His lordship died on the 4th of August, 1804; he was born at Dundee, in Scotland, on the 1st of July, 1731. After the battle of Camperdown was decided, he called his crew together in the presence of the captured Dutch admiral, who was greatly affected by the scene, and Duncan kneeling on the deck, with every man under his command, “solemnly and pathetically offered up praise and thanksgiving to the God of battles;--strongly proving the truth of the assertion, that piety and courage should be inseparably allied, and that the latter without the former loses its principal virtue.”[382]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 51·82.

[382] Butler’s Chronological Exercises.

~October 12.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 12th of October, 1748, was born at St. John’s near Worcester, Mr. William Butler, the author of “Chronological, Biographical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Exercises,” an excellent work, for young persons especially, a useful compendium in every library, and one to which the editor of the _Every-Day Book_ has been indebted as a ready guide to many interesting and important events.

In the seventh edition of Mr. Butler’s work just mentioned, we are informed by his son, Mr. John Olding Butler, that his father was educated in the city of Worcester. Having acquired considerable knowledge, and especially an excellent style of penmanship, he in 1765 repaired to the metropolis, and commenced his career as a teacher of writing and geography. In these branches of education he attained the highest repute on account of the improvements which were introduced by him in his mode of instruction. His copies were derived from the sources of geography, history, and biographical memoirs. A yet more extensive and permanent benefit was conferred upon young persons by the many useful and ingenious works which he published, a list of which is subjoined. They contain a mass of information, both instructive and entertaining, rarely collected in one form, and are admirably adapted to promote the great design of their author--the moral, intellectual, and religious improvement of the rising generation; to this he consecrated all his faculties, the stores of his memory, and the treasures of his knowledge.

As a practical teacher Mr. Butler had few superiors, and his success in life was commensurate with his merit: he was the most popular instructor in his line.

A strict probity, an inviolable regard to truth, an honourable independence of mind, and a diffusive benevolence, adorned his moral character; and to these eminent virtues must be added, that of a rigid economy and improvement of time, for which he was most remarkable. How much he endeavoured to inculcate that which he deemed the foundation of every virtue, the principle of religion, may be seen in his “Chronological, &c., Exercises:” to impress this principle on the youthful heart and mind was considered by him as the highest duty. Mr. Butler’s professional labours were commenced at the early age of seventeen, and were continued with indefatigable ardour to the last year of his life, a period of fifty-seven years. In estimating the value of such a man, we should combine his moral principle with his literary employments; these were formed by him into duties, which he most conscientiously discharged: and he will be long remembered as one who communicated to a large and respectable circle of pupils solid information, examples of virtue, and the means of happiness; and who, in an age fruitful of knowledge, by his writings instructed, and will long continue to instruct the rising generation, and benefit mankind. His virtues will live and have a force beyond the grave.

Mr. Butler died at Hackney, August 1, 1822, after a painful illness, borne with exemplary patience and resignation. He was one of the oldest inhabitants of that parish, and was interred there, by his own desire, in the burying-ground attached to the meeting-house of his friend, the late Rev. Samuel Palmer.

* * * * *

_A list of Mr. Butler’s books for the use of young persons._

1. CHRONOLOGICAL EXERCISES, already mentioned. Price 6_s._ bound.

2. An engraved INTRODUCTION to ARITHMETIC, designed to facilitate young beginners, and to diminish the labour of the tutor. 4_s._ 6_d._ bound.

3. ARITHMETICAL QUESTIONS, on a new plan; intended to answer the double purpose of arithmetical instruction and miscellaneous information. 6_s._ bound.

4. GEOGRAPHICAL and BIOGRAPHICAL EXERCISES, on a new plan. 4_s._

5. EXERCISES on the GLOBES, interspersed with historical, biographical, chronological, mythological, and miscellaneous information, on a new plan. The ninth edition. 6_s._ bound.

6. A numerous collection of ARITHMETICAL TABLES. 8_d._

7. GEOGRAPHICAL EXERCISES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT; with maps, and a brief account of the principal religious sects. 5_s._ 6_d._ bound.

8. MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS, relating principally to English history and biography. Second edition, enlarged. 4_s._

Mr. BOURN, son-in-law of Mr. Butler, and his associate in his profession upwards of thirty years, purchased the copyright of the greater part of Mr. Butler’s works. They have passed through a number of editions, and if the _Every-Day Book_ extend a knowledge of their value, it will be to the certain benefit of those for whose use they were designed. The envious and suspicious may deny that there is such a quality as “disinterestedness in human actions,” yet the editor has neither friendship nor intimacy with any one whom this notice may appear to favour. He only knows Mr. Butler’s books, and therefore recommends them as excellent aids to parents and teachers.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 50·10.

~October 13.~

TRANSLATION K. EDWARD. CONF.

This notice of the day in the church of England calendar and almanacs, denotes it as the festival of the translation of king Edward the Confessor.[383]

* * * * *

Edward the Confessor died on the 5th of January, 1066, and was buried in the abbey church of St. Peter, Westminster. “His queen, Edgitha, survived the saint many years;” she was buried beside him, and her coffin was covered with plates of silver and gold. According to his biographers, in 1102, the body of St. Edward was found entire, the limbs flexible, and the clothes fresh. The bishop of Rochester “out of a devout affection, endeavoured to pluck onely one hayre from his head, but it stuck so firmly that he was defeated of his desire.” This was at the saint’s first translation. Upon miracles “duly proved, the saint was canonized by Alexander III., in 1161.” It appears that “there are commemorated severall translations of his sacred body.” In 1163, “it was again translated by S. Thomas à Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, in the presence of king Henry II. This translation seems to have been made on the 13th of October; for on that day “he is commemorated in our martyrologe, whereas in the Roman he is celebrated on the 5th of January.” It further appears that, “about a hundred years after, in the presence of king Henry III., it was again translated, and reposed in a golden shrine, prepared for it by the same king.[384]

* * * * *

The see of Rome is indebted to Edward the Confessor for a grant to the pope of what was then called Rome-scot, but is now better known by the name of “Peterpenny.” The recollection of this tribute is maintained by the common saying “no penny, no paternoster;” of which there is mention in the following poem from the “Hesperides:”--

Fresh strewings allow To my sepulcher now, To make my lodging the sweeter; A staffe or a wand Put then in my hand, With a penny to pay S. Peter.

Who has not a crosse, Must sit with the losse, And no whit further must venture; Since the porter he Will paid have his fee, Or els not one there must enter.

Who at a dead lift, Can’t send for a gift, A pig to the priest for a roster Shall heare his clarke say, By yea and by nay, No penny no pater noster.

_Herrick._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 50·62.

[383] See vol. 1. 1376.

[384] Butler. Cresys.

~October 14.~

A LUCKY DAY.

“SOME MEMORABLE REMARQUES _upon the_ FOURTEENTH OF OCTOBER, being the Auspicious Birth-Day of His Present Majesty The Most Serene King JAMES II. Luc. xix. 42 _In Hoc Die Tuo_. In This THY DAY. London, Printed by _A. R._ And are to be sold by _Randal Taylor_, near _Stationers_-Hall 1687.” Folio.

In this curious tract, the author purports to set forth “how lucky the _Fourteenth of October_ hath been to the princes of England,” and because he discovers “out of _Wharton’s Gesta Britannorum_, and the collections of others, that his late royal highness, our magnanimous magnificent sovereign, (James II.,) was also born upon that _augural_ day,” he observes--“It made more than ordinary impression upon me, so that I never saw him, but, I thought, in his very face there were extraordinary instances and tokens of regality.”

There were some, it seems, who, after “his late royal highness” the dukes “recess into Holland,” “exceedingly tryumphed, wishing he might never return; nay, that he durst not, nor would be permitted so to do; using, moreover, opprobrious terms.” These persons, he tells us, he “prophetically characteris’d” in his “_Introductio ad Latinam Blasoniam_;” hence, he says, “Indignation made me print my ensuing sentiments,” which “found good acceptance among the better and more loyal sort;” and hence, he further says, “things by me forethought, and publickly hinted, being come to pass, my _Day Fatality_ began to be remembred; and one whom I wish very well, desiring I would give him leave to reprint _that_, and two other of my small pieces together, I assented to his request.” These form the present treatise, from whence we gather that the _Fourteenth of October_

------------- “gave the Norman duke That vict’ry whence he England’s scepter took,”

and was remarkable for the safe landing of Edward III., after being endangered by a tempest at sea on his returning victorious from France. Wherefore, says our author, in Latin first, and then in these English lines--

“Great duke rejoice in this your day of birth, And may such _omens_ still increase your mirth.”

Afterwards he relates, from Matthew Paris, that when “Lewis king of France had set footing here, and took some eminent places, he besieged Calais from 22 of July, to the _Fourteenth of October_ following, about which time the siege was raised, and England thereby relieved.” Likewise “a memorable peace, (foretold by Nostradamus) much conducing to the saving of christian blood, was made upon the _Fourteenth of October, 1557_, between pope Paul the IV., Henry the II. of France, and Philip the II. of Spain.” Whereon, exclaims our exultant author, “A _lucky day_ this, not only to the princes of England, but auspicious to the welfare of Europe.” He concludes by declaring “that it may be so to his royal highness, as well as it was to the most great queen his mother, are the hearty prayers of BLEW-MANTLE.”

From the conclusion of the last sentence, and the previous reference to his “Blasoniam,” we find this writer to have been John Gibbon, the author of “An Easie Introduction to Latine Blason, being both Latine and English”--an octavo volume, now only remembered by the few collectors of every thing written on “coat-armour.”

* * * * *

Gibbon speaks of one of his pamphlets “whose title _should_ have been _Dux Bonis Omnibus Appellens_, or _The Swans’ Welcome_;” or rather, as he afterwards set it out at large, “Some Remarks upon the Note-worthy Passage, mentioned in the TRUE DOMESTICK INTELLIGENCE dated _October the Fourteenth 1679_, concerning a company of SWANS more than ordinary gathered together at his royal highness’s landing.” Instead, however, of its having such a title, he tells us “there was _a strange mistake_, not only in that, but in other material circumstances; so that many suppose, the printer could never have done it himself, but borrowed the assistance of the evil spirit to render it ridiculous, and not only so, but the very _Duke_ himself and the _Loyal Artillery_!”, wherefore “the printer smothered the far greatest number of them,” yet, as he adds it to the tract on the _Fourteenth of October_, we have the advantage to be told “what authors say of the candid Swan,” that all esteem him for a “bird royal,” that “oftentimes in coats and crests we meet him either crown’d or coronally collar’d,” that “he is a bird of great beauty and strength also,” that “shipmen take it for good luck if in peril of shipwreck they meet swans,” that “he uses not his strength to prey or tyrannize over any other fowl, but only to be revenged of such as offer him wrong,” and so forth. _Ergo_--according to “Blew-mantle,” we should believe that, “the most serene king James II.” was greeted by these honourable birds, “in _allegory_ assembled,” to signify his kindred virtues. If Gibbon lived from 1687, where he published his “Remarques, on the _Fourteenth of October_” as the auspicious birth-day of James II. until the landing of William III. in the following year--did he follow the swan-like monarch to the court of France, or remain “Blew-mantle” in the Herald’s college, to do honour to the court of “the deliverer?”

Gibbon, in his “Remarques,” on the “auspicious” _Fourteenth of October_, prints the following epistle, to himself, which may be regarded as a curiosity on account of the superstition of its writer.

A letter from Sir _Winston Churchil_, Knight; Father to the Right Honourable, _John_ Lord Churchil.

I Thank you for your kind Present, the Observation of the _Fatality of Days_. I have made great Experience of the Truth of it; and have set down _Fryday_, as my own Lucky Day; the Day on which I was Born, Christen’d, Married, and, I believe, will be the Day of my Death: The Day whereon I have had sundry Deliverances, (too long to relate) from Perils by Sea and Land, Perils by False Brethren, Perils of Law Suits, &c. I was Knighted (by chance, unexpected by my self) on the same Day; and have several good Accidents happened to me, on that Day: And am so superstitious in the Belief of its good Omen, That I chuse to begin any Considerable Action (that concerns me) on the same Day. I hope HE, whom it most concerns, will live to own your Respect, and Good Wishes, expressed in That Essay of yours: Which discovering a more than common Affection to the DUKE, and being as valuable for the Singularity of the _Subject_, as the Ingenuity of your _Fancy_, I sent into _Flanders_, as soon as I had it; That They on the Other Side the Water may see, ’Tis not all sowre Wine, that runs from our _English_ Press.

* * * * *

“The Right Honourable, John Lord Churchil,” mentioned at the head of this ominous letter, became celebrated as “the great duke of Marlborough.” Sir Winston Churchill was the author of “Divi Britannici, a history of the lives of the English kings” in folio; but his name is chiefly remembered in connection with his son’s, and from his having also been father to Arabella Churchill, who became mistress to the most serene king of Blew-Mantle Gibbon, and from that connection was mother of the duke of Berwick, who turned his arms against the country of her birth.

Sir Winston was a cavalier, knighted at the restoration of Charles II., for exertions in the royal cause, by which his estates became forfeited. He recovered them under Charles, obtained a seat in the house of commons, became a fellow of the royal society, had a seat at the board of green cloth, and died in 1688. He was born in 1620, at Wootton Glanville, in Dorsetshire.[385] His letter on “Fryday” is quite as important as his “Divi Britannici.”

TAKING HONEY WITHOUT KILLING THE BEES.

On the 14th day of October, 1766, Mr. Wildman, of Plymouth, who had made himself famous throughout the west of England for his command over bees, was sent for to wait on lord Spencer, at his seat at Wimbledon, in Surrey; and he attended accordingly. Several of the nobility and persons of fashion were assembled, and the countess had provided three stocks of bees. The first of his performances was with one hive of bees hanging on his hat, which he carried in his hand, and the hive they came out of in the other hand; this was to show that he could take honey and wax without destroying the bees. Then he returned into the room, and came out again with them hanging on his chin, with a very venerable beard. After showing them to the company, he took them out upon the grass walk facing the windows, where a table and table cloth being provided, he set the hive upon the table, and made the bees hive therein. Then he made them come out again, and swarm in the air, the ladies and nobility standing amongst them, and no person stung by them. He made them go on the table and took them up by handfuls, and tossed them up and down like so many peas; he then made them go into their hive at the word of command. At five o’clock in the afternoon he exhibited again with the three swarms of bees, one on his head, one on his breast, and the other on his arm, and waited on lord Spencer in his room, who had been too much indisposed to see the former experiments; the hives which the bees had been taken from, were carried by one of the servants. After this exhibition he withdrew, but returned once more to the room with the bees all over his head, face, and eyes, and was led blind before his lordship’s window. One of his lordship’s horses being brought out in his body clothes, Mr. Wildman mounted the horse, with the bees all over his head and face, (except his eyes;) they likewise covered his breast and left arm; he held a whip in his right hand, and a groom led the horse backwards and forwards before his lordship’s window for some time. Mr. Wildman afterwards took the reins in his hand, and rode round the house; he then dismounted, and made the bees march upon a table, and at his word of command retire to their hive. The performance surprised and gratified the earl and countess and all the spectators who had assembled to witness this great bee-master’s extraordinary exhibition.[386]

* * * * *

Can the honey be taken without destroying the bees? There are accounts to this effect in several books, but some of the methods described are known to have failed. The editor is desirous of ascertaining, whether there is a convenient mode of preserving the bees from the cruel death to which they are generally doomed, after they have been despoiled of their sweets.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 50·85.

[385] General Biographical Dictionary, (Hunt and Clarke,) vol. i.

[386] Annual Register, 1766.

~October 15.~

EXHUMATION.

It appears from a printed half sheet, of which the following is a copy, that the will of a person who had been resident at Stevenage, was proved on this day in the year 1724, whereby he desired his remains to be kept unburied. It is a curious document, and further information respecting the individual whose caprice was thus indulged will be acceptable.

(COPY)

THE ECCENTRIC WILL

OF THE LATE

HENRY TRIGG, OF STEVENAGE,

Where his Remains are still upon the Rafters of the West End of the Hovel, and may be viewed by any Traveller who may think it worthy of Notice.

_The same is recorded in History, and may be depended on as a Fact._

~In the Name of God, Amen.~

I, HENRY TRIGG, of Stevenage, in the County of Hertford, Grocer, being very infirm and weak in body, but of perfect sound mind and memory, praised be God for it, calling unto mind the mortality of my body, do now make and ordain this my last WILL and TESTAMENT, in writing hereafter following, that is to say:--Principally I recommend my Soul into the merciful hands of Almighty God that first gave me it, assuredly believing and only expecting free pardon and forgiveness of all my sins, and eternal life in and through the only merits, death, and passion of Jesus Christ my Saviour; and as to my body, I commit it to the West End of my Hovel, to be decently laid there upon a floor erected by my Executor, upon the purlins, upon the same purpose, nothing doubting but at the general Resurrection I shall receive the same again by the mighty power of God, and as for and concerning such wordly substance as it hath pleased God to bless me with in this life, I do devise and dispose of the same in manner and form following.

_Imprimis._--I give and devise unto my loving brother THOMAS TRIGG, of _Letchworth_, in the County of _Hertford_, Clerk, and to his Heirs and Assigns for ever, all those my Freehold Lands lying dispersedly in the several Common Fields and parish of _Stevenage_ aforesaid, and also all my Copyhold Lands, upon condition that he shall lay my body upon the place before-mentioned: and also all that Messuage, Cottage, or Tenement, at _Redcoat’s Green_, in the parish of _Much Wymondly_, together with those Nine Acres of Land, (more or less) purchased of William Hale and Thomas Hale, junr. and also my Cottage, Orchard, and Barn, with Four Acres of Land (more or less) belonging, lying, and being in the parish of _Little Wymondly_, now in the possession of SAMUEL KITCHENER, labourer; and also all my Cottages, Messuages, or Tenements, situate and being in _Stevenage_, aforesaid; or, upon condition that he shall pay my brother GEORGE TRIGG the sum of Ten Pounds per annum for his life; but if my brother should neglect or refuse to lay my body where I desire it should be laid, then upon that condition, I Will and bequeath all that which I have already bequeathed to my brother THOMAS TRIGG, unto my brother GEORGE TRIGG, and to his Heirs for ever: and if my brother GEORGE TRIGG, should refuse to lay my body under my Hovel, then what I have bequeathed unto him as all my Lands and Tenements, I lastly bequeath them unto my Nephew WILLIAM TRIGG, and his Heirs for ever, upon his seeing that my body is decently laid up there as aforesaid.

_Item._--I give and bequeath unto my Nephew WILLIAM TRIGG, the sum of Five Pounds at the age of Thirty Years: to his Sister SARAH the sum of Twenty Pounds; to his Sister ROSE the sum of Twenty Pounds; and lastly to his Sister ANN the sum of Twenty Pounds, all at the age of Thirty Years: to JOHN SPENCER, of London, Butcher, the sum of One Guinea; and to SOLOMON SPENCER, of Stevenage, the sum of One Guinea, three years next after my decease; to my cousin HENRY KIMPTON, One Guinea, one year next after my decease; and another Guinea, two years after my decease; to WILLIAM WABY, Five Shillings; and to JOSEPH PRIEST, Two Shillings and Sixpence, two years after my decease; to my tenant ROBERT WRIGHT the sum of Five Shillings, two years next after my decease; and to RALPH LOWD and JOHN REEVES, One Shilling each, two years next after my decease.

_Item._---- All the rest of my Goods, and Chattels, and personal Estate, and ready Money, I do hereby give and devise unto my Brother THOMAS TRIGG, paying my Debts and laying my Body where I would have it laid, whom I likewise make and ordain my full and sole Executor of this my last Will and Testament, or else to them before mentioned; ratifying and confirming this and no other to be my last Will and Testament. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my Hand and Seal, this twenty-eighth day of September, in the year of our Lord, one Thousand seven Hundred and twenty four.

HENRY TRIGG.

_Read, Signed, Sealed, and declared by the said_ HENRY TRIGG, _the Testator, to be his last Will and Testament, in the presence of us, who have subscribed our Names as Witnesses hereto, in the Presence of the said Testator_.

JOHN HAWKINS, Senr.

JOHN HAWKINS, Junr.

The mark [X] of WILLIAM SEXTON.

Proved in the Archdeaconry of Huntingdon, the 15th of October, 1724, by the Executor THOMAS TRIGG.

* * * * *

In October, 1743, a cobbler, at Bristol, died of a bite in the finger inflicted by a cat, which was sent to his house by an old woman in revenge for his calling her “Witch,” against which dipping in salt water proved ineffectual. “This, they say, was well attested;” and well it might be; for doubtless the cat was mad, and the woman, bewitched by the unhappy cobbler of Bristol, had no more to do with the bite, than “the old woman of Ratcliff-highway.”

* * * * *

The 15th day of October was dedicated by “the Merchants to Mercury,” and is so noted in the calendar of Julius Cæsar. This name is derived _a mercibus_, because he was the god of merchandize; and, in that quality, he is sometimes represented as a young man without a beard, holding on his wrists a cock as an emblem of vigilance, and in his hand a purse as its reward. A beautiful head of this deity on hiacynth, in the possession of lord Clanbrassill, when it was charmingly etched by Worlidge, is pictured in the present engraving. It suggests itself as one of the most elegant forms for a seal that can be presented to the eye.

* * * * *

Gather your rose-buds while you may, Old Time is still a-flying; And that same flower that blooms to-day, To-morrow may be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun, The higher he is getting, The further still his course is run, And nearer he’s to setting.

An elevated stand he takes, And to the fiddle’s squeak, he makes A loud and entertaining lecture On every wonder-working picture:-- The children cry “hark!--look at that!” And folks put money in the hat; Or buy his papers that explain The stories they would hear again.

This engraving is taken from one by Chodowiecki, of Berlin, to show the German showman, on his stage of boards and tressils, as he shows his pictures. These are usually prints stretched out, side by side, on an upright frame, or sometimes oil paintings representing characters or situations of interest. For instance, in the present exhibition there is the mode of keeping the festival of the new year, a grand ball, a feast, a wedding, a “high sight” of the court, and, in all, thirteen subjects, sufficiently beyond the intimacy of the populace to excite their curiosity. The showman commonly details so much concerning every thing in his grand exhibition, and so elevates each, as to interest his auditors to the height of desiring further particulars. The stories are printed separately in the shape of ballads or garlands, and “embellished with cuts;” by the sale of these to his auditors he obtains the reward of his oratory.

The qualifications for a German showman are a manly person, sonorous voice, fluent delivery, and imposing manner. In dress he is like a sergeant-major, and in address like a person accustomed to command. He is accompanied in his speeches by a fiddler of vivacity or trick, to keep the people “in merry pin.” This associate is generally an old humourist, with a false nose of strange form and large dimensions, or a huge pair of spectacles. Their united exertions are sure to gratify audiences more disposed to be pleased than to criticise. With them, the show is an affair of like or dislike to the eye, and beyond that the judgment is seldom appealed to on the spot. If the outlines of the showman’s stories are bold, and well expressed, they are sure to amuse; his printed narratives are in good demand; both exhibitors and auditors part satisfied with each other; and they frequently meet again. This is the lowest order of the continental street comedy. In England we have not any thing like it, nor are we likely to have; for, though strange sights almost cease to attract, yet the manager and musician to a rational exhibition of this sort, in the open air, clearly come within the purview of recent acts of parliament, and would be consigned to the tread-mill. What recreation, however, can be more harmless if the subjects are harmless. “Death and the Lady,” the “Bloody Gardener’s Cruelty,” and the numerous tribe of stories to which these garlands belong, continue to be pinned on lines against a few walls of the metropolis, but they cease to attract. The “common people,” as they are called, require a new species of street entertainment and a new literature: both might be easily supplied with infinite advantage to the public morals.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 50·72.

~October 16.~

THE SEASON.

An appearance at this time of the year, already noticed, appears to have surprised our countrymen in Lancashire. Though there is no doubt that the authorities who communicate the intelligence believe it very remarkable, yet it is doubtful whether the occurrence may not be more frequent in that part of England than they have had the opportunity of remarking. Their account is to the following purport:--

On Sunday, October 1, 1826, a phenomenon of rare occurrence in the neighbourhood of Liverpool was observed in that vicinage, and for many miles distant, especially at Wigan. The fields and roads were covered with a light filmy substance, which by many persons was mistaken for cotton; although they might have been convinced of their error, as staple cotton does not exceed a few inches in length, while the filaments seen in such incredible quantities extended as many yards. In walking in the fields the shoes were completely covered with it, and its floating fibres came in contact with the face in all directions. Every tree, lamppost, or other projecting body had arrested a portion of it. It profusely descended at Wigan like a sleet, and in such quantities as to affect the appearance of the atmosphere. On examination it was found to contain small flies, some of which were so diminutive as to require a magnifying glass to render them perceptible. The substance so abundant in quantity was the _gossamer_ of the garden, or field spider, often met with in the country in fine weather, and of which, according to Buffon, it would take 663,552 spiders to produce a single pound.[387]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·45.

[387] Liverpool Mercury. See The Times, October 9.

~October 17.~

A LYING-IN CUSTOM.

A lady who is pleased to grace these columns by her pen, transmits a very minute description of a very “comfortable thing” at this time of the year, which may well be extended from a particular usage at an interesting period, to a general one.

SUGARED TOAST.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_Westbury, September 10, 1826._

Sir,--I suspect that although you solicit the aid of correspondents in furnishing your excellent miscellany with accounts of local customs, you scarcely expect to receive one which appertains to that important time, when mothers increase their care, and fathers receive the additional “tender juveniles” with joy or sorrow, “as it may happen!” If you should give publicity to the following strange “feast,” (more honoured in the breach than in the observance,) I shall feel gratified, as it may not only lead to an elucidation of its meaning and origin, but will tend to convince your readers, that you will not despise their efforts at contribution, however humble. I am not a native of this part of the country, or, as the good people say here, I am not “one o’ Westbury,” for I have resided till lately in and near London, where the manners customs, and habits, are a hundred years in advance of those of the western part of the kingdom; hence, many of the usages that obtain around us, which now excite my surprise, would have passed as a thing of course, had I been always among them.

On the “confinement” of a lady,--but I must, before I proceed, define a _lady_ “of these parts,” by the unerring test of her husband’s qualifications: if he can maintain his own, and her station in their little world, he is then “well to do,”--“a rich fellow enough, go to--a fellow that hath had losses, and which is more, a householder; one who hath two gowns to his back, and every thing handsome about him;”--one who recreates in his own gig; keeps a “main” of company; patronises the tiny theatre; grows his own pines, and tries to coax his forced plants into the belief that the three dozen mould candles which he orders to be lighted in his hot-house every evening, are “shedding delicious _light_,” left by the “garish god of day,” for their especial benefit, during his nocturnal rambles![388] The wife of such a man, sir, I designate a lady and when such a lady’s _accouchement_ takes place, her “dear five hundred friends” are admitted to see her the next day. In London, the scale of friendship is graduated woefully lower; for visiters there, bear the pangs of absence from the interesting recluse a _whole fortnight_.

You are, doubtless, anxious to come to the “pith and marrow” of this communication, and I will tantalize you no longer. In “_these_” parts of the country, it is the custom, when a lady shall have been “as well as can be expected,” for thirteen or fourteen days, for the husband to enjoy what is called “the gentleman’s party,” viz: all his friends, bachelor and Benedict, are invited to eat “sugared toast,” which, (as the cookery-books always say,) “is thus prepared”--Rounds of bread are “_baked_,” (videlicit _toasted_,) each stratum spread thick with moist sugar, and piled up in a portly punch bowl, ready for action: “strong beer,” (_anglice_, home-brewed ale,) is in the mean time heated, and poured boiling hot over the mound of bread; which is taken immediately to the expectant guests, who quickly come to the conclusion of the gothic “mess.” How they contrive to emancipate the toast from the scalding liquid, I never could, by any effort of ingenuity and research, decide to my own satisfaction. A goodly slice you know, sir, it would be entirely impracticable to achieve; for in half a minute from the time of the admission of the “hot beer,” the toast must be “all of a swam,” (as we elegantly say here,) and, resembling the contents of the witch’s cauldron, “thick and slab.” Whether a soup ladle and soup plates are in requisition on the occasion, I am equally unable to ascertain; but on the _final_ dismissal of this gentlemanly food, (for I by no means would insinuate that the congregation is limited to one act of devotion,) they magnanimously remunerate the “nurse,” by each putting money into the empty bowl, which is then conveyed to the priestess of their ignoble orgies! Of all the “mean and impotent conclusions” of a feast, defend me from _that_, which pays its “pic nic” pittance to an old crone, who is hired to attend the behests of the “lady,” but who by some strange mutation becomes the directress of the “gentleman’s” revels, and the recipient of the payment from his guests, for “_sugar’d toast_!”

Should this “custom,” be thought worthy of being admitted into the _Every-Day Book_, you will “tell” of something more than Herrick “dreamt of in his philosophy;” and the following couplet might “blush to find its fame” among his descriptive lines that adorn your title-page; after

“Bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes,”

might come--

“I tell of times when husbands rule the roast, And riot in the joys of ‘sugar’d toast;’ I tell of groves, &c.”

I am, Sir,

Yours very respectfully,

I. J. T.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 50·60.

[388] A fact!

~October 18.~

DEATH OF THE LOTTERY.

If any thing can be believed that is said by the lottery people respecting the lottery, before the appearance of the next sheet of the _Every-Day Book_ the lottery will be at an end for ever.

Particulars respecting the last moments of this “unfortunate malefactor,” will be very acceptable if transmitted immediately; and in order to an account of lotteries in the ensuing sheet, information and anecdotes respecting them are most earnestly desired.

FORGED NOTES IN SHOP WINDOWS.

A newspaper of this day in the year 1818, contains a paragraph which marks the discontent that prevailed in London, in consequence of a regulation adopted by the Bank of England at that time.

“The new mode adopted by the Bank, of stamping the forged notes presented to them for payment, and returning them to the parties who may have received them, has at least the good effect of operating as a caution to others, not to receive notes without the greatest caution. It has, however, another effect often productive of public inconvenience; for such are the doubts now entertained as to the goodness of every note tendered in payment, that many will not give change at all; and the disposition to adhere to this practice seems every day to be getting more general. In almost every street in town, forged notes are seen posted on tradesmen’s windows, and not unfrequently this exhibition is accompanied with the words ‘Tradesmen! beware of changing notes.’ The operation of stamping the forged notes, was at first performed by the hand, but now so arduous has this labour become, that a machine is erected for the purpose, and it would seem from the never-ceasing quantity of such paper in circulation, that it will be necessary to erect a steam-engine, so that hundreds may undergo the operation at once.”[389]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 51·32.

[389] Observer.

~October 19.~

GARRICK.

“Garrick was, and Kemble is no more.”

On this day in the year 1741, the “British Roscius,” as he is emphatically termed, made his first appearance as “a gentleman who never appeared on any stage.” A remarkable event, precursing the revival of the drama, by Garrick, and its perfection by Kemble, deserves notice as a memorial of what “has been:” particularly as we have arrived at a period when, in consequence of managers having been outmanaged, and the public tricked out of its senses, the drama seems to have fallen to rise no more.

* * * * *

_Leadenhall-street, October, 1826._

Sir,--The following is a copy of the play-bill that announced the first appearance of Mr. Garrick.

I am, Sir, yours truly,

H. B.

_October 19, 1741._

GOODMAN’S FIELDS.

At the late Theatre in Goodman’s Fields, this day will be performed a Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Music, divided into two parts.

Tickets at Three, Two, and One Shilling.

Places for the boxes to be taken at the Fleece Tavern, near the Theatre.

N. B. Between the two parts of the Concert will be presented an Historical Play, called the Life and Death of

KING RICHARD THE THIRD, containing the distresses of King Henry VI.

The artful acquisition of the Crown by KING RICHARD,

The murder of the young King Edward V. and his brother, in the Tower.

The landing of the Earl of Richmond,

And the death of King Richard in the memorable battle of Bosworth Field, being the last that was fought between the Houses of York and Lancaster.

With many other true historical passages.

The part of KING RICHARD _by a Gentleman_.

(_Who never appeared on any stage._)

King Henry, by Mr. Giffard; Richmond, Mr. Marshall; Prince Edward, by Miss Hippisley; Duke of York, Miss Naylor; Duke of Buckingham, Mr. Peterson; Duke of Norfolk, Mr. Blades; Lord Stanley, Mr. Pagett; Oxford, Mr. Vaughan; Tressel, Mr. W. Giffard; Catesby, Mr. Marr; Ratcliff, Mr. Crofts; Blunt, Mr. Naylor; Tyrrell, Mr. Puttenham; Lord Mayor, Mr. Dunstall; The Queen, Mrs. Steel; Duchess of York, Mrs. Yates;

And the part of Lady ANNE,

By Mrs. GIFFARD.

With Entertainments of Dancing

By Mons. Fromet, Madam Duvall, and the two Masters and Miss Granier.

To which will be added a _Ballad Opera_ of one act, called

THE VIRGIN UNMASK’D.

The part of Lucy by Miss HIPPISLEY.

Both of which will be performed gratis by persons for their diversion.

The Concert will begin exactly at six o’clock.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 51·10.

~October 20.~

WRESTLING.

A writer in a journal of this month, 1826,[390] gives the following account of several wrestling matches between men of Devonshire and Cornwall, on the 19th 20th and 21st of September preceding, at the Eagle-tavern-green, City-road. He says, “the difference in the style of wrestling of these two neighbouring shires, is as remarkable as that of the lineaments of their inhabitants. The florid chubby-faced Devon-man is all life and activity in the ring, holding himself erect, and offering every advantage to his opponent. The sallow sharp-featured Cornwall-man is all caution and resistance, bending himself in such a way, that his legs are inaccessible to his opponent, and waiting for the critical instant, when he can spring in upon his impatient adversary.”

The account of the matches at the Eagle-tavern then proceeds in the following manner:--

The contest between Abraham Cann and Warren, not only displayed this difference of style, but was attended with a degree of suspense between skill and strength, that rendered it extremely interesting.--The former, who is the son of a Devonshire farmer, has been backed against any man in England for 500_l._ His figure is of the finest athletic proportions, and his arm realizes the muscularity of ancient specimens: his force in it is surprising; his hold is like that of a vice, and with ease he can pinion the arms of the strongest adversary, if he once grips them, and keep them as close together, or as far asunder, as he chooses. He stands with his legs apart, his body quite upright, looking down good humouredly on his crouching opponent.--In this instance, his opponent Warren, a miner, was a man of superior size, and of amazing strength, not so well distributed however, throughout his frame; his arms and body being too lengthy in proportion to their bulk. His visage was harsh beyond measure, and he did not disdain to use a little craft with eye and hand, in order to distract his adversary’s attention. But he had to deal with a man as collected as ever entered the ring. Cann put in his hand as quietly as if he were going to seize a shy horse, and at length caught a slight hold between finger and thumb of Warren’s sleeve. At this, Warren flung away with the impetuosity of a surprised horse. But it was in vain; there was no escape from Cann’s pinch, so the miner seized his adversary in his turn, and at length both of them grappled each other by the arm and breast of the jacket. In a trice Cann tripped his opponent with the toe in a most scientific but ineffectual manner, throwing him clean to the ground, but not on his back, as required. The second heat began similarly, Warren stooped more, so as to keep his legs out of Cann’s reach, who punished him for it by several kicks below the knee, which must have told severely if his shoes had been on, according to his county’s fashion. They shook each other rudely--strained knee to knee--forced each other’s shoulders down, so as to overbalance the body--but all ineffectually.--They seemed to be quite secure from each other’s efforts, as long as they but held by the arm and breast-collar, as ordinary wrestlers do. A new grip was to be effected. Cann liberated one arm of his adversary to seize him by the cape behind: at that instant Warren, profiting by his inclined posture, and his long arms, threw himself round the body of the Devon champion, and fairly lifted him a foot from the ground, clutching him in his arms with the grasp of a second Anteæus.--The Cornish men shouted aloud, “Well done, Warren!” to their hero, whose naturally pale visage glowed with the hope of success. He seemed to have his opponent at his will, and to be fit to fling him, as Hercules flung Lycas, any how he pleased. Devonshire then trembled for its champion, and was mute. Indeed it was a moment of heart-quaking suspense.--But Cann was not daunted; his countenance expressed anxiety, but not discomfiture. He was off terra-firma, clasped in the embrace of a powerful man, who waited but a single struggle of his, to pitch him more effectually from him to the ground.--Without straining to disengage himself, Cann with unimaginable dexterity glued his back firmly to his opponent’s chest, lacing his feet round the other’s knee-joints, and throwing one arm backward over Warren’s shoulder, so as to keep his own enormous shoulders pressed upon the breast of his uplifter. In this position they stood at least twenty seconds, each labouring in one continuous strain, to bend the other, one backwards, the other forwards.--Such a struggle could not last. Warren, with the weight of the other upon his stomach and chest, and an inconceivable stress upon his spine, felt his balance almost gone, as the energetic movements of his countenance indicated.--His feet too were motionless by the coil of his adversary’s legs round his; so to save himself from falling backwards, he stiffened his whole body from the ankles upwards, and these last being the only liberated joints, he inclined forwards from them, so as to project both bodies, and prostrate them in one column to the ground together.--It was like the slow and poising fall of an undermined tower.--You had time to contemplate the injury which Cann the undermost would sustain if they fell in that solid, unbending posture to the earth. But Cann ceased bearing upon the spine as soon as he found his supporter going in an adverse direction. With a presence of mind unrateable, he relaxed his strain upon one of his adversary’s stretched legs, forcing the other outwards with all the might of his foot, and pressing his elbow upon the opposite shoulder. This was sufficient to whisk his man undermost the instant he unstiffened his knee--which Warren did not do until more than half way to the ground, when from the acquired rapidity of the falling bodies nothing was discernible.--At the end of the fall, Warren was seen sprawling on his back, and Cann whom he had liberated to save himself, had been thrown a few yards off on all-fours. Of course the victory should have been adjudged to this last. When the partial referree was appealed to, he decided, that it was not a fair fall, as only one shoulder had bulged the ground, though there was evidence on the back of Warren that both had touched it pretty rudely.--After much debating a new referree was appointed, and the old one expelled; when the candidates again entered the lists. The crowning beauty of the whole was, that the second fall was precisely a counterpart of the other. Warren made the same move, only lifting his antagonist higher, with a view to throw the upper part of his frame out of play. Cann turned himself exactly in the same manner using much greater effort than before, and apparently more put to it, by his opponent’s great strength. His share, however, in upsetting his supporter was greater this time, as he relaxed one leg much sooner, and adhered closer to the chest during the fall; for at the close he was seen uppermost, still coiled round his supine adversary, who admitted the fall, starting up, and offering his hand to the victor. He is a good wrestler too--so good, that we much question the authority of “The Times,” for saying that he is not one of the _crack_ wrestlers of Cornwall.--From his amazing strength, with common skill he should be a first-rate man at this play, but his skill is much greater than his countrymen seemed inclined to admit.--Certain it is, they destined him the first prize, and had Cann not come up to save the honour of his county, for that was his only inducement, the four prizes, by judiciously matching the candidates, would no doubt have been given to natives of Cornwall.

BLACKFORD, THE BACKSWORD PLAYER.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--Your correspondent C. T. p. 1207, having given a description of “Purton Fair,” my grandmother and father born there, the birth-place of Anne Boleyn, I feel interested in the spot of my progenitors. C. T., speaking of old “Corey Dyne,” the gipsy, says a man named _Blackford_ was the most noted Backsword-player of his day. He bore off the prizes then played for in London, Bath, Bristol, and Gloucester. When very young, at Lyneham grammar-school, I recollect this frontispiece despoiler broke fourteen heads, one after another; in the fifteenth bout, however, he pretty nearly found his match in the person of Isaac Bushel, a blacksmith of this place, who could bite a nail asunder, eat a shoulder of mutton with appendages, or fight friend or foe for love or money. It was a saying, “Bushel could take enough to kill a dozen men;” nor was his head unlike his name: he was the village Wat Tyler.

When the Somerset youths played with the Wiltshire on a stage on Calne-green, two years since, one of Blackford’s descendants gave a feeling proof of head-breaking with other heads of this blood-letting art, in which stratagem is used to conceal the crimson gush chiefly by sucking. Like fencing, attitude and agility are the great assistants to ensure success in backsword-playing; the basket is also of great service to the receiving of blows, and protecting the muscles of the wrist. The greatest exploits remembered at Purton by the present memorialist, arose out of the “Coronation of George the Third.” All the festivities of the seasons were concentrated, and May games and Christmas customs, without regard to usage, in full exercise. The belfry was filled day after day; any one that could pull a rope might ring, which is no easy task; the bells are deep, and two or three men usually raise the tenor. Some of the Blackfords lie in Purton churchyard.

_October 5._

*, *, P.

* * * * *

The autumnal dress of a man in the fourteenth century is introduced, from the transcript of an illumination, in a manuscript which supplied the Spring and Summer dress of that age, before presented.

And here as suitable to the season may be subjoined some lines by a correspondent.

AUTUMNAL FEELINGS.

_For the Every-Day Book._

The flowers are gone, the trees are bare, There is a chillness in the air, A damp that in the spirit sinks, Till the shudd’ring heart within me shrinks: Cold and slow the clouds roll past, And wat’ry drops come with the blast That moans, amid the poplars tall, A dirge for the summer’s funeral.

Every bird to his home has gone, Save one that loves to sing alone The robin;--in yon ruin’d tree He warbles sweetly, mournfully His shrill note comes upon the wind, Like a sound of an unearthly kind; He mourns the loss of his sunny bowers, And the silent haunts of happy hours.

There he sits like a desolate thing, With a dabbled breast and a dripping wing, He has seen his latent joys decline, Yet his heart is lighter far than mine; His task is o’er--his duty done, His strong-wing’d race on the wind have gone, He has nothing left to brood upon; He has still the hope of a friendly crumb When the wintry snow over earth shall come, And a shelter from the biting wind, And the welcome looks of faces kind.

I wander here amid the blast, And a dreary look I backward cast; The best of my years I feel are fled, And I look to the coming time with dread My heart in a desert land has been, Where the flower of hope alone was green; And little in life’s decline have I To expect from kindred’s sympathy. Like the leaves now whirl’d from yonder spray, The dreams I have cherish’d day by day, On the wings of sorrow pass away.

Yet I despair not--time will bring To the plumeless bird a new bright wing, A warmer breeze to the now chill’d flower, And to those who mourn a lighter hour; A gay green leaf to the faded tree, And happier days, I trust, to me. ‘Twas best that the weeds of sorrow sprung With my heart’s few flowers, while yet ’twas young, They can the sooner be destroy’d, And happiness fill their dreary void.

S. R. J.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 50·77.

[390] The London Magazine.

~October 21.~

BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR.

In a dreadful engagement off Cape Trafalgar, on the 21st of October, 1805, between the English fleet, consisting of twenty-seven sail of the line and four frigates, and the combined fleets of France and Spain, consisting of thirty-three sail and seven frigates, which lasted four hours, twenty sail of the enemy were sunk or destroyed, and the French commander-in-chief, (admiral Villeneuve,) with two Spanish admirals, were made prisoners. The gallant Nelson was wounded about the middle of the action, and died nearly at its close.--“Thus terminated the brilliant career of our peerless NAVAL HERO, who was, beyond dispute, preeminent in courage, in a department of the British service where all our countrymen are proverbially courageous: who, to unrivalled courage, united skill equally conspicuous and extraordinary; who, in consequence of these rare endowments, never led on our fleets to battle that he did not conquer; and whose name was a tower of strength to England, and a terror to her foes.”[391]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 50·62.

[391] Butler’s Chronological Exercises.

~October 22.~

CHILD PLAYED FOR.

In October, 1735, a child of James and Elizabeth Leesh, of Chester-le-street, in the county of Durham, was _played for at cards_, at the sign of the Salmon, one game, four shillings against the child, by Henry and John Trotter, Robert Thomson, and Thomas Ellison, which was won by the latter, and delivered to them accordingly.[392]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 49·97.

ROMAN REMAINS AT PANCRAS.

A former notice of some antiquities in this vicinity, seems to have occasioned the subjoined article on similar remains. Its initials will be recognised as those of a correspondent, whose communications have been acceptable, and read with interest.

ROMAN REMAINS AT PANCRAS.

SIR,--In the ninetieth number of your _Every-Day Book_, (the present volume, col. 1197-1204,) a very interesting article appeared on the subject of the Roman remains near Pentonville, and thinking you may be inclined to acquaint your readers with “Cæsar’s Camp” at St. Pancras, situate near the old church, which are likely in the course of a short time to be entirely destroyed by the rage for improvement in that neighbourhood, I forward you the following particulars.

The only part at present visible is the prætorium of Cæsar, which may be seen in the drawing that accompanies this, but the ditch is now nearly filled up. I visited the spot about a week ago, and can therefore vouch for its existence up to that time, but every thing around it begins to bear a very different aspect to what it did about two years back, when my attention was particularly called to the spot from having read Dr. Stukeley’s remarks on the subject. At that time I was able to trace several other vestiges, which are entirely destroyed by the ground having been since dug up for the purpose of making bricks.

The following extracts are taken from the second volume of Dr. Stukeley’s “Itinerary.” The plan of the camp is taken from the same work. I shall feel pleasure if you will call attention to it, as you have already to the Roman remains at Pentonville.

I am, Sir, yours respectfully,

S. G.

_October 9, 1826._

DR. STUKELEY’S ACCOUNT OF CÆSAR’S CAMP.

_October, 1758._

Cæsar’s camp was situate where Pancras church is--his prætorium is still very plain--over against the church, in the footpath on the west side of the brook; the vallum and the ditch visible; its breadth from east to west forty paces, its length from north to south sixty paces. When I came attentively to consider the situation of it, and the circumjacent ground, I easily discerned the traces of his whole camp. A great many ditches or divisions of the pastures retain footsteps of the plan of the camp, agreeable to their usual form, as in the plate engraved; and whenever I take a walk thither, I enjoy a visionary scene of the whole camp of Cæsar as described in the plate before us; a scene just as if beheld, and Cæsar present.

His army consisted of forty thousand men. Four legions with his horse. The camp is in length five hundred paces--the thirty paces beyond, for the way between the tents and vallum, (where a vallum is made,) amounts to five hundred and sixty; so that the proportion of length to breadth is as three to two.

This space of ground was sufficient for Cæsar’s army according to Roman discipline, for if he had forty thousand men, a third part of them were upon guard.

The front of the camp is bounded by a spring with a little current of water running from the west, across the Brill, into the Fleet brook. This Brill was the occasion of the road directly from the city, originally going alongside the brook by Bagnigge; the way to Highgate being at first by Copenhagen-house, which is straight road thither from Gray’s-inn-lane.

This camp has the brook running quite through the middle of it: it arises from seven springs on the south side of the hill between Hampstead and Highgate by Caen wood, where it forms several large ponds, passes by here by the name of Fleet, washes the west side of the city of London, and gives name to Fleet-street. This brook was formerly called the river of wells, from the many springs above, which our ancestors called wells; and it may be thought to have been more considerable in former times than at present, for now the major part of its water is carried off in pipes to furnish Kentish-town, Pancras, and Tottenham-court; but even now in great rains the valley is covered over with water. Go a quarter of a mile higher towards Kentish-town and you may have a just notion of its appearance at that place, only with this difference, that it is there broader and deeper from the current of so many years. It must further be considered that the channel of this brook through so many centuries, and by its being made the public north road from London to Highgate, is very much lowered and widened since Cæsar’s time. It was then no sort of embarrassment to the camp, but an admirable convenience for watering, being contained in narrow banks not deep. The breadth and length are made by long tract of time. The ancient road by Copenhagen wanting repair, induced passengers to make this gravelly valley become much larger than in Cæsar’s time. The old division runs along that road between Finsbury and Holborn division, going in a straight line from Gray’s-inn-lane to Highgate: its antiquity is shown in its name--Madan-lane.

The recovery of this noble antiquity will give pleasure to a British antiquary, especially an inhabitant of London, whereof it is a singular glory. It renders the walk over the beautiful fields to the Brill doubly agreeable, when at half a mile distance we can tread in the very steps of the Roman camp master, and of the greatest of the Roman generals.

We need not wonder that the traces of this camp so near the metropolis are so nearly worn out; we may rather wonder that so much is left, when a proper sagacity in these matters may discern them, and be assured that somewhat more than three or four sorry houses are commemorated under the name of the Brill, (_now called Brill-place-Terrace_;) nor is it unworthy of remark, as an evident confirmation of our system, that all the ditches and fences now upon the ground, have a manifest respect to the principal members of the original plan of the camp.

In this camp Cæsar made the two British kings friends--Casvelham and his nephew Mandubrace.

I judge I have performed my promise in giving an account of this greatest curiosity, so illustrious a monument of the greatest of the Roman generals, which has withstood the waste of time for more than eighteen centuries, and passed unnoticed but half a mile off the metropolis. I shall only add this observation, that when I came to survey this plot of ground to make a map of it by pacing, I found every where even and great numbers, and what I have often formerly observed in Roman works; whence we may safely affirm the Roman camp master laid out his works by pacing.[393]

* * * * *

With the hope that the preceding article may draw attention to the subject, the editor defers remark till he has been favoured with communications from other hands.

THE ANTIQUARY.

The following lines were written by an old and particular friend of the erudite individual who received them:--

TO RICHARD GOUGH, ESQ.

_O tu severi Religio loci!_

Hail, genius of this littered study! Or tell what name you most delight in For sure where all the ink is muddy, And no clean margin left to write in, No common deity resides. We see, we feel thy power divine, In every tattered folio’s dust, Each mangled manuscript is thine, And thine the antique helmet’s rust. Nor less observed thy power presides Where plundered brasses crowd the floor, Or dog’s-eared drawings burst their binding Hid by Confusion’s puzzling door Beyond the reach of mortal finding. Than if beneath a costly roof Each moulding edged by golden fillet, The Russian binding, insect proof, Blushed at the foppery of ------ Give me, when tired by dust and sun, If rightly I thy name invoke, The bustle of the town to shun, And breathe unvext by city smoke. But, ah! if from these cobwebbed walls, And from this moth-embroidered cushion, Too fretful Fortune rudely calls, Resolved the cares of life to push on-- Give me at least to pass my age At ease in some book-tapestried cell, Where I may turn the pictured page, Nor start at visitants’ loud bell.[394]

[392] Sykes’s Local Records, p. 79.

[393] Dr. Stukeley’s Itinerary.

[394] Dr. Porster’s Perennial Calendar.

~October 23.~

ST. SURIN.

St. Surin, or St. Severin, which is his proper name, is a saint held in great veneration at Bordeaux; he is considered as one of the great patrons of the town. It was his native place, but he deserted it for a time to go and preach the gospel at Cologne. When he returned, St. Amand, then bishop of Bordeaux, went out with a solemn procession of the clergy to meet him, and, as he had been warned to do in a vision, resigned his bishopric to him, which St. Surin continued to enjoy as long as he lived. St. Amand continued at Bordeaux as a private person; but surviving St. Surin, he was at his death restored to the station from which he had descended with so much gentleness and resignation. It is among the traditions of the church of St. Surin at Bordeaux, that the cemetery belonging to it was “consecrated by Jesus Christ himself, accompanied by seven bishops, who were afterwards canonized, and were the founders of the principal churches in Aquitaine.”[395]

* * * * *

On an oval marble in Egham church, Surrey, are the following lines written by David Garrick, to the memory of the Reverend Mr. Thomas Beighton who was vicar of that church forty-five years, and died on the 23d of October, 1771, aged 73.

EPITAPH.

Near half an age, with every good man’s praise, Among his flock the shepherd passed his days; The friend, the comfort, of the sick and poor, Want never knock’d unheeded at his door. Oft when his duty call’d, disease and pain Strove to confine him, but they strove in vain. All mourn his death: his virtues long they try’d: They knew not how they lov’d him till he died. Peculiar blessings did his life attend: He had no foe, and _Camden_ was his friend.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 48·00.

[395] Miss Plumptre.

~October 24.~

AN OCTOBER SUNDAY MORNING IN COCKNEYSHIRE.

_For the Every-Day Book._

“Vat’s the _time_, Villiam?”

“_Kevarter arter_ seven.”

The “Mirror of the Months” seems to reflect every object to the reader’s eye; but not having read more of that work than by extract, in the _Every-Day Book_, I think an addendum, _par hazard_, may not be without truth and interest.

Rise early,--be abroad,--and after you have inspired sufficient fog to keep you coughing all day, you will see Jewboys and girls with their fathers and mothers veering forth from the purlieus of Houndsditch with sweetmeats, “ten a penny!” which information is sung, or said, ten thousand times before sunset. Now Irishmen, (except there be a fight in Copenhagen fields,) and women, are hurrying to and from mass, and the poorest creatures sit near the chapels, with all their own infants, and those of others, to excite pity, and call down the morning smile of charity.--Now newsboys come along the Strand with damp sheets of intelligence folded under their arms in a greasy, dirty piece of thick (once) brown paper, or a suitable envelope of leather. Now water-cress women, or rather girls, with chubby babies hanging on one arm, and a flat basket suspended from the shoulder by a strap, stand at their station-post, near the pump, at a corner of the street.[396] Now mechanics in aprons, with unshorn, unwashed faces, take their birds, dogs, and pipes, towards the fields, which, with difficulty, they find. Now the foot and horse-guards are preparing for parade in the parks--coaches are being loaded by passengers, dressed for “a few miles out of town”--the doors of liquor-shops are in motion--prayers at St. Paul’s and Westminster are responded by choristers,--crowds of the lower orders create discord by the interference of the officious street-keeper--and the “Angel” and “Elephant and Castle” are surrounded by jaunty company, arriving and departing with horses reeking before the short- and long-stage coaches.--Now the pious missionary drops religious tracts in the local stands of hackney coachmen, and paths leading to the metropolis.--Now nuts and walnuts slip-shelled are heaped in a basket with some dozens of the finest cracked, placed at the top, as specimens of the whole:--bullace, bilberries, sliced cocoa-nuts, apples, pears, damsons, blackberries, and oranges are glossed and piled for sale so imposingly, that no eye can escape them.--Now fruiterers’ and druggists’ windows, like six days’ mourning, are half shuttered.--Now the basket and bell pass your house with muffins and crumpets.[397]--Placards are hung from newsvenders’, at whose taking appearances, gossips stand to learn the fate of empires, during the lapse of hebdomadal warfare.--Now beggars carry the broom, and the great thoroughfares are in motion, and geese and game are sent to the rich, and the poor cheapen at the daring butcher’s shop, for a scrag of mutton to keep company in the pot with the carrots and turnips.--Now the Israelites’ little sheds are clothed with apparel, near which “a Jew’s eye” is watching to catch the wants of the necessitous that purchase at second-hand.--Now eels are sold in sand at the bridges, and steam-boats loiter about wharfs and stairs to take up stray people for Richmond and the Eel-pie house.--The pedestrian advocate now unbags his sticks and spreads them in array against a quiet, but public wall.--Chesnuts are just coming in, and biscuits and cordials are handed amongst the coldstreams relieving guard at Old Palace Yard, where the bands play favourite pieces enclosed by ranks and files of military men, and crowds of all classes and orders.--Now the bells are chiming for church,--dissenters and methodists are hastening to worship--baker’s counters are being covered with laden dishes and platters--quakers are silently seated in their meetings,--and a few sailors are surveying the stupendous dome of St. Paul’s, under which the cathedral service is performing on the inside of closed iron gates.--Now the beadle searches public-houses with the blinds let down.--Now winter patterns, great coats, tippets, muffs, cloaks and pelisses are worn, and many a thinly-clad carmelite shivers along the streets. With many variations, the “_Sunday Morning_” passes away; and then artizans are returning from their rustication, and servants are waiting with cloths on their arms for the treasures of the oven--people are seeking home from divine worship with appetites and purple noses--‘beer’ is echoed in every circle,--and _post meridian_ assumes new features, as gravities and gaieties, in proportion to the weather, influence the cosmopolitan thermometer.

*, *, P.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 48·47.

[396] This is the only month in the year in which water-cresses are without spawn.

[397] In Bath, before _Sally Lunns_ were so fashionable, (their _origin_ I shall shortly acquaint you with) _muffins_ were cried with a song, beginning--

“Don’t you know the muffin man? Don’t you know his name? And don’t you know the muffin-man That lives in Bridewell-lane? &c.”

I reply, yes, I did know him, and a facetious little short fellow he was, with a face as pocked as his crumpets; but his civility gained him friends and competence,--virtue’s just reward.

~October 25.~

CRISPIN.

On this, the festival day of St. Crispin, enough has been already said[398] to show that it is the great holyday of the numerous brotherhood of cordwainers. The latter name they derive from their working in Spanish leather manufactured at Cordovan; their cordovan-ing has softened down into cordwaining.

SHOES AND BUCKLES.

The business of a shoemaker is of great antiquity. The instrument for cleaning hides, the shoemaker’s bristles added to the yarn, and his knife, were as early as the twelfth century. He was accustomed to hawk his goods, and it is conjectured that there was a separate trade for annexing the soles.[399] The Romans in classical times, wore cork soles in their shoes to secure the feet from water, especially in winter; and as high heels were not then introduced, the Roman ladies who wished to appear taller than they had been formed by nature, put plenty of cork under them.[400] The streets of Rome in the time of Domitian were blocked up by cobblers’ stalls, which he therefore caused to be removed. In the middle ages shoes were cleaned by washing with a sponge; and oil, soap, and grease, were the substitutes for blacking. Buckles were worn in shoes in the fourteenth century. In an Irish abbey a human skeleton was found with marks of buckles on the shoes. In England they became fashionable many years before the reign of queen Mary; the labouring people wore them of copper; other persons had them of silver, or copper-gilt; not long after shoe-roses came in.[401] Buckles revived before the revolution of 1689, remained fashionable till after the French revolution in 1789; and finally became extinct before the close of the eighteenth century.

* * * * *

In Robert Hegg’s “Legend of St. Cuthbert,” reprinted at the end of Mr. Dixon’s “Historical and Descriptive View of the city of Durham and its Environs,” we are told of St. Goodrick, that “in his younger age he was a pedlar, and carried his moveable shop from fair to fair upon his back,” and used to visit Lindisfarne, “much delighting to heare the monkes tell wonders of St. Cuthbert; which soe enflamed his devotion, that he undertooke a pilgrimage to the holy sepulchre; and by the advice of St. Cuthbert in a dreame, repayred againe to the holy land, and washing his feete in Jordan, there left his _shoes_, with a vow to goe barefoot all his life after.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 47·87.

[398] See vol. i. col. 1395.

[399] Fosbroke’s Ency. of Antiquities.

[400] Beckmann.

[401] Fosbroke.

~October 26.~

ROYAL DEBTS.

On this subject a curious notice is extracted from “the Postman, October 26-28, 1708”--viz.

_Advertisement._

The Creditors of King Charles, K. James, and K. William, having found out and discovered sufficient Funds for securing a perpetual Interest for 4 Millions, without burdening the people, clogging the Trade or impairing the Revenue; and all their debts not amounting to near that Sum; the more to strengthen their interest, and to find the greater favour with the Parliament, have agreed that the Army and Transports Debentures and other Parliament Debts may if they please, joyn with them, and it is not expected that any great Debts shall pay any Charge for carrying on this Act, until it be happily accomplished, and no more will be expected afterwards than what shall be readily agreed to before hand, neither shall any be hindered from taking any other measures, if there should be but a suspicion of miscarriage, which is impossible if they Unite their Interest. They continue to meet by the Parliament Stairs in Old Palace-yard, there is a Note on the Door, where daily attendance is given from 10 in the Morning till 7 at Night; if any are not apprehensive of the certainty of the Success, they may come and have full satisfaction, that they may have their Money if they will.

NELSON

The notice of the battle wherein this illustrious admiral received his death-wound, (on the 21st,) might have been properly accompanied by the following quotation from a work which should be put into the chest of every boy on his going to sea. It is so delightfully written, as to rivet the attention of every reader whether mariner or landsman.

“The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity: men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us; and it seemed as if we had never, till then, known how deeply we loved and reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero--the greatest of our own, and of all former times--was scarcely taken into the account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he performed his part, that the maritime war, after the battle of Trafalgar, was considered at an end: the fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated, but destroyed: new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our shores could again be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him: the general sorrow was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that funeral ceremonies, public monuments, and posthumous rewards, were all which they could now bestow upon him, whom the king, the legislature, and the nation, would alike have delighted to honour; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose presence in every village through which he might have passed would have awakened the church bells, have given schoolboys a holiday, have drawn children from their sports to gaze upon him, and ‘old men from the chimney corner’ to look upon Nelson, ere they died. The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were without joy; for such already was the glory of the British navy, through Nelson’s surpassing genius, that it scarcely seemed to receive any addition from the most signal victory that ever was achieved upon the seas: and the destruction of this mighty fleet, by which all the maritime schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly appeared to add to our security or strength; for while Nelson was living, to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves as secure as now, when they were no longer in existence.--There was reason to suppose, from the appearances upon opening the body, that, in the course of nature, he might have attained, like his father, to a good old age. Yet he cannot be said to have fallen prematurely whose work was done; nor ought he to be lamented, who died so full of honours, and at the height of human fame. The most triumphant death is that of the martyr; the most awful, that of the martyred patriot; the most splendid, that of the hero in the hour of victory: and if the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson’s translation, he could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze of glory.”[402]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 48·25.

[402] Southey’s Life of Nelson.

~October 27.~

FLEET MARKET.

On the 27th of October, 1736, Mr. Robinson a carpenter, and Mr. Medway a bricklayer, contracted to build Fleet-market, by the following midsummer, for 3970_l._[403]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 47·50.

[403] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~October 28.~

(St. Simon and St. Jude.)

“WARDENS!”

A correspondent says, that about, or before this time, it is the custom at Bedford, now abouts, for boys to cry baked pears in the town with the following stanza--

“Who knows what I have got? In a pot hot? Baked _Wardens_--all hot! Who knows what I have got?”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 46·30.

~October 29.~

OCTOBER IN LONDON.

On looking into the “Mirror of the Months,” we find “a lively portraiture” of the season.--“October is to London what April is to the country; it is the spring of the London summer, when the hopes of the shopkeeper begin to bud forth, and he lays aside the insupportable labour of having nothing to do, for the delightful leisure of preparing to be in a perpetual bustle. During the last month or two he has been strenuously endeavouring to persuade himself that the Steyne at Brighton is as healthy as Bond-street; the _pavé_ of Pall Mall no more picturesque than the Pantiles of Tunbridge Wells; and winning a prize at one-card-loo at Margate, as piquant a process as serving a customer to the same amount of profit. But now that the time is returned when ‘business’ must again be attended to, he discards with contempt all such mischievous heresies, and reembraces the only orthodox faith of a London shopkeeper--that London and his shop are the true ‘beauteous and sublime’ of human life. In fact, ‘now is the winter of his discontent’ (that is to say, what other people call summer) ‘made glorious summer’ by the near approach of winter; and all the wit he is master of is put in requisition, to devise the means of proving that every thing he has offered to ‘his friends the public,’ up to this particular period, has become worse than obsolete. Accordingly, now are those poets of the shopkeepers, the inventors of patterns, ‘perplexed in the extreme; since, unless they can produce a something which shall necessarily supersede all their previous productions, their occupation’s gone.--It is the same with all other caterers for the public taste; even the literary ones. Mr. Elliston, [or his fortunate successor, if one there be,] ‘ever anxious to contribute to the amusement of his liberal patrons, the public,’ is already busied in sowing the seeds of a new tragedy, two operatic romances, three grand romantic melo-dramas, and half a dozen farces, in the fertile soil of those poets whom he employs in each of these departments respectively; while each of the London publishers is projecting a new ‘periodical,’ to appear on the first of January next; that which he started on the first of last January having, of course, died of old age ere this!”

BEGINNING OF “FIRES.”

In October, fires have fairly gained possession of their places, and even greet us on coming down to breakfast in the morning. Of all the discomforts of that most comfortless period of the London year which is neither winter nor summer, the most unequivocal is that of its being too cold to be without a fire, and not cold enough to have one. A set of polished fire-irons, standing sentry beside a pile of dead coals imprisoned behind a row of glittering bars, instead of mending the matter, makes it worse; inasmuch as it is better to look into an empty coffin, than to see the dead face of a friend in it. At the season in question, especially in the evening, one feels in a perpetual perplexity, whether to go out or stay at home; sit down or walk about; read, write, cast accounts, or call for the candle and go to bed. But let the fire be lighted, and all uncertainty is at an end, and we (or even one) may do any or all of these with equal satisfaction. In short, light but the fire, and you bring the winter in at once; and what are twenty summers, with all their sunshine (when they are gone,) to one winter, with its indoor sunshine of a sea-coal fire?[404]

* * * * *

Mr. Leigh Hunt, who on the affairs of “The Months” is our first authority, pleasantly inquires--“With our fire before us, and our books on each side, what shall we do? Shall we take out a life of somebody, or a Theocritus, or Dante, or Ariosto, or Montaigne, or Marcus Aurelius, or Horace, or Shakspeare who includes them all? Or shall we read an engraving from Poussin or Raphael? Or shall we sit with tilted chairs, planting our wrists upon our knees, and toasting the up-turned palms of our hands, while we discourse of manners and of man’s heart and hopes, with at least a sincerity, a good intention, and good nature, that shall warrant what we say with the sincere, the good-intentioned, and the good-natured?”--He then agreeably brings us to the _mantlepiece_. “Ah--take care. You see what that old looking saucer is, with a handle to it? It is a venerable piece of earthenware, which may have been worth, to an Athenian, about twopence; but to an author, is worth a great deal more than ever he could--deny for it. And yet he would deny it too. It will fetch his imagination more than ever it fetched potter or penny-maker. Its little shallow circle overflows for him with the milk and honey of a thousand pleasant associations. This is one of the uses of having mantlepieces. You may often see on no very rich mantlepiece a representative body of all the elements, physical and intellectual,--a shell for the sea, a stuffed bird or some feathers for the air, a curious piece of mineral for the earth, a glass of water with some flowers in it for the visible process of creation,--a cast from sculpture for the mind of man;--and underneath all, is the bright and ever-springing fire, running up through them heavenwards, like hope through materiality.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 46·02.

[404] Mirror of the Months.

~October 30.~

YEOMEN OF THE GUARD.

On this day in the year 1485, when king Henry VII. was crowned at Westminster, he instituted the body of royal attendants, called yeomen of the guard, who in later times acquired the appellation of “beef-eaters.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 47·17.

~October 31.~

HALLOW EVE.

The superstitious observances of this night, described in the former volume, are fast disappearing. In some places where young people were accustomed to meet for purposes of divination, and frequently frighten each other into fits, as of ancient custom, they have little regard to the old usages. The meetings on Hallow-eve are becoming pleasant merry-makings; the dance prevails till supper-time, when they take a cheerful glass and drink to their next happy meeting.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 47·62.

And, when November came, there fell Another limning in, to tell The month’s employment; which we see Providance was, for time to be. Now was the last loud squeaking roar Of many a mighty forest boar, Whose head, when came the Christmas days, Was crown’d with rosemary and bays, And so brought in, with shoutings long, And minstrelsy, and choral song.

*

We can now perceive the departure of “that delightful annual guest, the summer, under the agreeable _alias_ of autumn, in whose presence we have lately been luxuriating. We might, perhaps, by a little gentle violence, prevail upon her to stay with us for a brief space longer; or might at least prevail upon ourselves to believe that she is not quite gone. But we shall do better by speeding her on her way to other climes, and welcoming ‘the coming guest,’ gray-haired winter:”--nor can we do better at this moment than take “note of preparation,” for a grateful adieu to the year and welcome to the comer.

On ushering in the winter we recur to the “Mirror of the Months,” from whence we have derived so many delightful reflections, and take a few “looks” in it, for, perhaps, the last time. At this season last year it presented to us the evergreens, and now, with a “now,” we select other appearances.

* * * * *

Now--as the branches become bare, another sight presents itself, which, trifling as it is, fixes the attention of all who see it. I mean the _birds’ nests_ that are seen here and there in the now transparent hedges, bushes, and copses. It is not difficult to conceive why this sight should make the heart of the schoolboy leap with an imaginative joy, as it brings before his eyes visions of five blue eggs lying sweetly beside each other, on a bed of moss and feathers; or as many gaping bills lifting themselves from out what seems one callow body. But we are, unhappily, not all schoolboys; and it is to be hoped not many of us ever _have been_ bird-nesting ones. And yet we all look upon this sight with a momentary interest, that few other so indifferent objects are capable of exciting. The wise may condescend to explain this interest, if they please, or if they can. But if they do, it will be for their own satisfaction, not ours, who are content to be pleased, without insisting on penetrating into the cause of our pleasure.

* * * * *

Now, the _felling of wood_ for the winter store commences; and, in a mild still day, the measured strokes of the wood-man’s axe, heard far away in the thick forest, bring with their sound an associated feeling, similar to that produced by a wreath of smoke rising from out the same scene: they tell us a tale of

“Uncertain dwellers in the pathless wood.”

* * * * *

THE WOODMAN.

Far removed from noise and smoke, Hark! I hear the woodman’s stroke, Who dreams not as he fells the oak, What mischief dire he brews;

How art may shape his falling trees, In aid of luxury and ease:-- He weighs not matters such as these, But sings, and hacks, and hews.

Perhaps, now fell’d by this bold man, That tree may form the spruce sedan; Or wheelbarrow, where oyster Nan Oft runs her vulgar rig;

The stage, where boxers crowd in flocks; Or else a quack’s; perhaps, the stocks; Or posts for signs; or barber’s blocks, Where smiles the parson’s wig.

Thou mak’st, bold peasant, oh what grief! The gibbet on which hangs the thief, The seat where sits the grave lord chief, The throne, the cobler’s stall.

Thou pamper’st life in ev’ry stage, Mak’st folly’s whims, pride’s equipage; For children, toys; crutches, for age; And coffins for us all.

_C. Dibdin._

* * * * *

The “_busy flail_” too, which is now in full employment, fills the air about the homestead with a pleasant sound, and invites the passer-by to look in at the great open doors of the barn, and see the wheatstack reaching to the roof on either hand; the little pyramid of bright grain behind the threshers; the scattered ears between them, leaping and rustling beneath their fast-falling strokes; and the flail itself flying harmless round the labourers’ heads, though seeming to threaten danger at every turn; while, outside, the flock of “barn-door” poultry ply their ceaseless search for food, among the knee-deep straw; and the cattle, all their summer frolics forgotten, stand ruminating beside the half-empty hay-rack, or lean with inquiring faces over the gate that looks down into the village, or away towards the distant pastures.

* * * * *

Of the _birds_ that have hitherto made merry even at the approach of winter, now all are silent; all, save that one who now earns his title of “the household bird,” by haunting the thresholds and window-cills, and casting sidelong glances in-doors, as if to reconnoitre the positions of all within, before the pinching frosts force him to lay aside his fears, and flit in and out, silently, like a winged spirit. All are now silent except him; but _he_, as he sits on the pointed palings beside the door-way, or on the topmost twig of the little black thorn that has been left growing in the otherwise closely-clipt hedge, pipes plaintive ditties with a low _inward_ voice--like that of a love-tainted maiden, as she sits apart from her companions, and sings soft melodies to herself, almost without knowing it.

* * * * *

Some of the other small _birds_ that winter with us, but have hitherto kept aloof from our dwellings, now approach them, and mope about among the house-sparrows, on the bare branches, wondering what has become of all the leaves, and not knowing one tree from another. Of these the chief are, the hedge-sparrow, the blue titmouse, and the linnet. These also, together with the goldfinch, thrush, blackbird, &c. may still be seen rifling the hip and haw grown hedges of their scanty fruit. Almost all, however, even of those singing-birds that do not migrate, except the redbreast, wren, hedge-sparrow, and titmouse, disappear shortly after the commencement of this month, and go no one knows whither. But the pert house-sparrow keeps possession of the garden and courtyard all the winter; and the different species of wagtails may be seen busily haunting the clear cold spring-heads, and wading into the unfrozen water in search of their delicate food, consisting of insects in the _aurelia_ state.

* * * * *

Now, the _farmer_ finishes all his out-of-door work before the frosts set in, and lays by his implements till the awakening of spring calls him to his hand-labour again.

Now, the _sheep_, all their other more natural food failing, begin to be penned on patches of the turnip-field, where they first devour the green tops joyfully, and then gradually hollow out the juicy root, holding it firm with their feet, till nothing is left but the dry brown husk.

Now, the _herds_ stand all day long hanging their disconsolate heads beside the leafless hedges, and waiting as anxiously, but as patiently too, to be called home to the hay-fed stall, as they do in summer to be driven afield.

* * * * *

Now, cold _rains_ come deluging down, till the drenched ground, the dripping trees, the pouring eaves, and the torn ragged-skirted clouds, seemingly dragged downward slantwise by the threads of dusky rain that descend from them, are all mingled together in one blind confusion; while the few cattle that are left in the open pastures, forgetful of their till now interminable business of feeding, turn their backs upon the besieging storm, and hanging down their heads till their noses almost touch the ground, stand out in the middle of the fields motionless, like dead images.

Now, too, a single rain-storm, like the above, breaks up all the paths and ways at once, and makes home no longer “home” to those who are not obliged to leave it; while, _en revance_, it becomes doubly endeared to those who are.

* * * * *

_London_ is so perfect an antithesis to the country in all things, that whatever is good for the one is bad for the other. Accordingly, as the country half forgets itself this month, so London just begins to know itself again.--Its streets revive from their late suspended animation, and are alive with anxious faces and musical with the mingled sounds of many wheels.

Now, the shops begin to shine out with their new winter wares; though as yet the chief profits of their owners depend on disposing of the “summer stock,” at fifty per cent. under prime cost.

Now, the theatres, admonished by their no longer empty benches, try which shall be the first to break through that hollow truce on the strength of which they have hitherto been acting only on alternate nights.

Now, during the first week, the citizens see visions and dream dreams, the burthens of which are barons of beef; and the first eight days are passed in a state of pleasing perplexity, touching their chance of a ticket for the lord mayor’s dinner on the ninth.

Now, all the little boys give thanks in their secret hearts to Guy Faux, for having attempted to burn “the parliament” with “gunpowder, treason, and plot,” since the said attempt gives them occasion to burn every thing they can lay their hands on,--their own fingers included: a bonfire being, in the eyes of an English schoolboy, the true “beauteous and sublime of human life.”

ODE TO WINTER.

_By a Gentleman of Cambridge._

From mountains of eternal snow, And Zembla’s dreary plains; Where the bleak winds for ever blow And frost for ever reigns,

Lo! Winter comes, in fogs array’d, With ice, and spangled dews; To dews, and fogs, and storms be paid The tribute of the Muse.

Each flowery carpet Nature spread Is vanish’d from the eye; Where’er unhappy lovers tread, No Philomel is nigh.

(For well I ween her plaintive note, Can soothing ease impart; The little warblings of her throat Relieve the wounded heart.)

No blushing rose unfolds its bloom, No tender lilies blow, To scent the air with rich perfume, Or grace Lucinda’s brow.

Th’ indulgent Father who protects The wretched and the poor; With the same gracious care directs The sparrow to our door.

Dark, scowling tempests rend the skies, And clouds obscure the day; His genial warmth the sun denies, And sheds a fainter ray.

Yet blame we not the troubled air, Or seek defects to find; For Power Omnipotent is there, And ‘walks upon the wind.’

Hail! every pair whom love unites In wedlock’s pleasing ties; That endless source of pure delights, That blessing to the wise!

Though yon pale orb no warmth bestows, And storms united meet. The flame of love and friendship glows With unextinguish’d heat.

~November 1.~

All Saints.[405]

INSCRIPTIONS IN CHURCHES.

A remarkable colloquy between queen Elizabeth and dean Nowell at St. Paul’s cathedral on the 1st of November, 1561, is said to have originated the usage of inscribing texts of scripture in English on the inner side of the church-walls as we still see them in many parishes.

Her majesty having attended worship “went straight to the vestry, and applying herself to the dean, thus she spoke to him.”

_Q._ Mr. Dean, how came it to pass that a new service-book was placed on my cushion?

To which the dean answered:

_D._ May it please your majesty, I caused it to be placed there.

Then said the queen:

_Q._ Wherefore did you so?

_D._ To present your majesty with a new-year’s gift.

_Q._ You could never present me with a worse.

_D._ Why so, madam?

_Q._ You know I have an aversion to idolatry and pictures of this kind.

_D._ Wherein is the idolatry, may it please your majesty?

_Q._ In the cuts resembling angels and saints; nay, grosser absurdities, pictures resembling the blessed Trinity.

_D._ I meant no harm: nor did I think it would offend your majesty when I intended it for a new-year’s gift.

_Q._ You must needs be ignorant then. Have you forgot our proclamation against images, pictures, and Romish relics in churches? Was it not read in your deanery?

_D._ It was read. But be your majesty assured, I meant no harm, when I caused the cuts to be bound with the service-book.

_Q._ You must needs be very ignorant, to do this after our prohibition of them.

_D._ It being my ignorance, your majesty may the better pardon me.

_Q._ I am sorry for it: yet glad to hear it was your ignorance, rather than your opinion.

_D._ Be your majesty assured it was my ignorance.

_Q._ If so, Mr. Dean, God grant you his Spirit, and more wisdom for the future.

_D._ Amen, I pray God.

_Q._ I pray, Mr. Dean, how came you by these pictures?--Who engraved them?

_D._ I know not who engraved them,--I bought them.

_Q._ From whom bought you them?

_D._ From a German.

_Q._ It is well it was from a stranger. Had it been any of our subjects, we should have questioned the matter. Pray let no more of these mistakes, or of this kind, be committed within the churches of our realm for the future.

_D._ There shall not.

* * * * *

Mr. Nichols, after inserting the preceding dialogue, in “Queen Elizabeth’s Progresses,” remarks--

“This matter occasioned all the clergy in and about London, and the churchwardens of each parish, to search their churches and chapels: and caused them to wash out of the walls all paintings that seemed to be Romish and idolatrous; and in lieu thereof suitable texts, taken out of the holy scriptures, to be written.”

Similar inscriptions had been previously adopted: the effect of the queen’s disapprobation of pictured representations was to increase the number of painted texts.

* * * * *

Mr. J. T. Smith observes, that of these sacred sentences there were several within memory in the old church of Paddington, now pulled down; and also in the little old one of Clapham.

In an inside view of Ambleside church, painted by George Arnald, Esq. A. R. A. he has recorded several, which are particularly appropriate to their stations; for instance, that over the door admonishes the comers in; that above the pulpit exhorts the preacher to spare not his congregation; and another within sight of the singers, encourages them to offer praises to the Lord on high. These inscriptions have sometimes one line written in black, and the next in red; in other instances the first letter of each line is of a bright blue, green, or red. They are frequently surrounded by painted imitations of frames or scrolls, held up by boys painted in ruddle. It was the custom in earlier times to write them in French, with the first letter of the line considerably larger than the rest, and likewise of a bright colour curiously ornamented. Several of these were discovered in 1801, on the ceiling of a closet on the south side of the Painted Chamber, Westminster, now blocked up.

Others of a subsequent date, of the reign of Edward III. in Latin, were visible during the recent alterations of the house of commons, beautifully written in the finest jet black, with the first letters also of bright and different colours.

Hogarth, in his print of the sleeping congregation, has satirized this kind of church embellishments, by putting a tobacco pipe in the mouth of the angel who holds up the scroll; and illustrates the usual ignorance of country art, by giving three joints to one of his legs. The custom of putting up sacred sentences is still continued in many churches, but they are generally written in letters of gold upon black grounds, within the pannels of the fronts of the galleries.[406]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 48·00.

[405] See vol. 1. col. 1421.

[406] Mr. J. T. Smith’s Ancient Topography of London, 4to p. 11.

~November 2.~

All Souls.[407]

Naogeorgus in his satire, the “Popish Kingdome,” has a “description which” Dr Forster says “is grossly exaggerated, like many other accounts of catholics written by protestants.” If the remark be fair, it is fair also to observe that many accounts of protestants written by catholics are equally gross in their exaggerations. It would be wiser, because it would be honest, were each to relate truth of the other, and become mutually charitable, and live like christians. How far Naogeorgus misrepresented the usages of the Romish churchmen in his time, it would not be easy to prove; nor ought his lines which follow in English, by Barnaby Googe, to be regarded here, otherwise than as homely memorials of past days.

_All Soulne Day._

For souls departed from this life, they also carefull bee; The shauen sort in numbers great, thou shalt assembled see, Where as their seruice with such speede they mumble out of hande, That none, though well they marke, a worde thereof can vnderstande. But soberly they sing, while as the people offring bee, For to releaue their parents soules that lie in miseree. For they beleeue the shauen sort, with dolefull harmonie, To draw the damned soules from hell, and bring them to the skie; Where they but onely here regarde, their belly and their gaine, And neuer troubled are with care of any soule in paine. Their seruice thus in ordering, and payde for masse and all, They to the tauerne streightways go, or to the parsons hall, Where all the day they drinke and play, and pots about do walk, &c.

OLD HOB.

T. A. communicates that there is a custom very common in Cheshire called _Old Hob_: it consists of a man carrying a dead horse’s head, covered with a sheet, to frighten people. This frolic is usual between All Soul’s day and Christmas.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 47·37.

[407] See vol. i. col. 1423.

~November 3.~

THE BECKFORD FAMILY.

On the 3d of November, 1735, Peter Beckford, Esq. died in Jamaica, worth three hundred thousand pounds.[408] His direct male ancestor, served in a humble capacity in the armament under Penn and Venables, which captured that important island. Mr. Peter Beckford was father of the celebrated alderman Beckford, whose fortune enabled him to purchase the landed estate of the Meroyns in Wiltshire, which, till lately, formed a distinguished part of the possessions of the present Mr. Beckford.

* * * * *

A correspondent communicates a pleasant account of a wake in Wiltshire, during the present month.

CLACK FALL FAIR.

“See, neighbours, what Joe Ody’s doing.”

The township of Clack stands on an eminence which gives a view of twenty miles round a part of the most beautiful county of Wilts.[409] Clack is attached to Bradenstoke-priory, remarkable for its forest, and the reception of the monks of St. Augustine. Many vestiges remain of the splendour of this abbey, which is now a large farm, and stone coffins have been found here. A carpenter in this neighbourhood recently digging a hole for the post to a gate, struck his spade against a substance which proved to be gold, and weighed two ounces: it was the image of a monk in the posture of prayer, with a a book open before him. A subterraneous passage once led from this place to Malmsbury-abbey, a distance of seven miles. At this ruin, when a boy, I was shown the stone upon which the blood is said to have been spilt by a school-master, who, in a passion, killed his pupil with a penknife.

Clack spring and fall Fairs were well attended formerly. They were held for horses, pigs, cows, oxen, sheep, and shows; but especially for the “hiring servants.” Hamlet’s words,--“Oh, what a _fall_ing off is here!” may not inappropriately be applied. Old Michaelmas-day is the time the fall fair is kept, but, really, every thing which constitutes a fair, seemed this year to be absent. A few farmers strolled up and down the main street in their boots, and took refuge in the hospitable houses; a few rustics waited about the “Mop” or “Statue” in their clean frocks twisted round their waists with their best clothes on; a few sellers of cattle looked round for customers, with the _pike_ tickets in their hats; and a few maid servants placed themselves in a corner to be hired: here, there was no want of _Clack_, for many were raised in stature by their pattens and rather towering bonnets; and a few agriculturists’ daughters and dames, in whom neither scarcity of money nor apparel were visible, came prancing into the courts of their friends and alighting at the uppingstocks, and dashed in among the company with true spirit and _bon hommie_.

Clack fair was worth gazing at a few years ago. When Joe Ody,[410] the _stultum ingenium_, obtained leave to _show_ forth in the Blindhouse by conjuring rings off women’s fingers, and finding them in men’s pockets, eating fire and drawing yards of ribands out of his mouth, giving shuffling tricks with cards, to ascertain how much money was in the ploughman’s yellow purse, cutting off cock’s heads, pricking in the garter for love tokens, giving a chance at the “black cock or the white cock,” and lastly, raising the devil, who carries off the cheating parish baker upon his back. These, indeed, were fine opportunities for old women to talk about, when leaning over the hatch of the front door, to gossip with their ready neighbours in the same position opposite, while their goodmen of the house, sat in the porch chuckling with “pipe in one hand and jug in the other.” Then the “learned dog” told person’s names by _letters_; and here I discovered the secret of this canine sapiency, the master twitched his thumb and finger for the letter at which the dog stopped. I posed, master and dog, however, by giving my christian name “Jehoiada.” A word no fair scholar could readily spell; this shook the faith of many gaping disciples. The “poney” too was greatly admired for telling which lassie loved her morning bed, which would be first married, and which youth excelled in kissing a girl in a sly corner. The being “ground _young_ again,” no less enlivened the spirits of maiden aunts, and the seven tall single sisters; then the pelican put its beak on the child’s head for a night cap, and the monkeys and bears looked, grimaced and danced, to the three dogs in red jackets, with short pipes in their mouths; and the “climbing cat” ascended the “maypole,” and returned into its master’s box at a word. This year’s attractions chiefly were three booths for gingerbread and hard ware--a raree show! a blind fidler--the E. O. table--the birds, rats, and kittens in one cage--and a song sung here and there, called the “Bulleyed Farmers,” attributed to Bowles of Bremhill, but who disclaimed like Coleridge, the authorship of a satiric production.

Thus, fairs, amusements and the works of mortals, pass away--one age dies, another comes in its stead--but who will secure the sports of ancestry inviolate? who search into the workings of the illiterate, and hand them down to posterity, without the uncertain communication of oral tradition, which often obscures the light intended to be conveyed for information.--Thanks be to the art of printing, to the cultivation of reading, and the desire which accompanies both.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 44·40.

[408] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[409] There is a very old stanza known here, which though it gives no favourable mention of Clack, couples many surrounding places well known--

“White Cliff--Pepper Cliff--Cliff and Cliff Ancey, Lyneham and lo--e Clack, C--se Malford[411] and Dauncey.”

[410] A native of this part, and at the top of _Merry-Andrewism_.

[411] Christian Malford, no doubt, was a _bad_ ford for the monks that came down the Avon to the surrounding abbeys.

~November 4.~

KING WILLIAM LANDED.

On the day appointed for the commemoration of the landing of king William III. (who in fact landed on the 5th[412]) it may be worth notice, that its centenary in 1788 is thus mentioned in the “Public Advertiser” of that year--“This day is appointed to commemorate an event, which, if deserving commemoration, ought _never_ to be forgotten, and yet it is probable it will produce as much good moral or political effect as the events which distinguish Christmas, Good Friday, or Easter, from other days of the year. However, we are not disposed to quarrel with the scheme, the events of a day are few, the remembrance cannot be long. In the City, in Westminster, and in many of the principal towns in England, societies have been formed, cards of invitation sent, sold and bought, and grand dinners are prepared, and have this day been devoured with keen revolution appetites. Not to exclude the females, in some places balls are given; and that the religious may not wholly be disappointed, revolution sermons were this morning preached in several chapels and meeting-houses. Scotland is not behind hand in zeal upon this occasion, although a little so in point of time. To-morrow is their day of commemoration. Over all the kingdom a day of thanksgiving is appointed.”

KING WILLIAM’S PEERS.

_For the Every-Day Book._

The essential services of king William III. to the cause of civil and religious liberty, his perseverance and prowess as a warrior, his shrewdness and dexterity as a statesman, adapting the most conciliatory means to the most patriotic ends, have been repeatedly dilated on, and generally acknowledged. Here, is merely purposed to be traced how he exercised one of the most exclusive, important, and durable prerogatives of an English monarch, by a brief recapitulation of such of his additions and promotions in the hereditory branch of our legislature as still are in existence.

The ancestor of the duke of Portland was count Bentinck, a Dutchman, of a family still of note in Holland; he had been page of honour to king William, when he was only prince of Orange. He made him groom of the stole, privy purse, a lieutenant-general in the British army, colonel of a regiment of Dutch horse in the British pay, one of the privy-council, master of the horse, baron of Cirencester, viscount Woodstock, and earl of Portland, and afterwards ambassador extraordinary to the court of France. His son was made duke of Portland, and governor of Jamaica, by George I.

William Henry Nassau, commonly called seigneur, or lord of Zuletstein in Holland, was another follower of the fortunes of king William; he was related to his majesty, his father having been a natural son of the king’s grandfather. He was in the year 1695 created baron of Enfield, viscount Tunbridge, and earl of Rochfort.

Arnold Joost Van Keppel, another of Williams’s followers, was the second son of Bernard Van Pallant, lord of the manor of Keppel in Holland, a particular favourite of his majesty, who, soon after his accession to the throne, created him baron of Ashford, viscount Bury, and earl of Albemarle.

Earl Cowper is indebted for his barony of Wingham to queen Anne, and for his further titles of viscount Fordwich, and earl Cowper, to George I.; but he derives no inconsiderable portion of his wealth from his ancestress in the female line, lady Henrietta, daughter and heiress of the earl of Grantham, descended from monsieur d’Auverquerque, who was by that prince raised to the dignity of an English earl, by the title of Grantham, being representative of an illegitimate son of the celebrated shadthalder, prince Maurice.

The heroic marshal Schomberg, who fell in the memorable battle of the Boyne when upwards of eighty years of age, had previously been created by king William, a duke both in England and Ireland. His titles are extinct, but his heir general is the present duke of Leeds, who is at the same time heir male to the celebrated earl of Danby, who cuts so conspicuous a figure in the annals of Charles II., and was by William III. advanced to a dukedom.

The dukedom of Bolton was conferred by William on the marquis of Winchester, whose ancestors had for a century stood enrolled as premier marquisses of England.

Long before they were advanced by William III. to dukedoms, the houses of Russell and Cavendish had been noted as two of the most historical families in the English peerage. Their earldoms were respective creations of Edward VI. and James I. The individual of each house first ennobled, died possessed of the bulk of the extensive landed possessions, and strong parliamentary influence with which his representative is at the present moment invested.

The character and military achievements of John Churchill stand so preeminent in the history of Europe, that it need here only be remarked that from a baron, king William conferred on him the earldom of Marlborough, again advanced by queen Anne to a dukedom, carried on by act of parliament, after his victory of Blenheim, to the issue male of his daughters, and now vested in the noble family of Spencer, earl of Sunderland.

Lord Lumley, advanced to the earldom of Scarborough, was one of the memorable seven who signed the original letter of invitation to the prince of Orange.

Lord Coventry, descended from a lord keeper of the great seal to Charles I., was promoted by William III. to an earldom.

Sir Edward Villiers, a courtier, of the same family as the celebrated duke of Buckingham, received the earldom of Jersey.

The families of Cholmondeley, Fermor, and Ashburnham, were each raised by William III. to the dignity of English barons. They were each of considerable antiquity and extensive possessions. Each was, moreover, peculiarly distinguished for devoted attachment to the cause of Charles I., even when it stood in the extremest jeopardy.

These baronies are now vested respectively in the marquis of Cholmondeley, and the earls of Pomfret and Ashburnham.

The possessions, the influence, the connections of the male representative of the able, the restless, the unfortunate sir Harry Vane, were still of weightier calibre. He received from king William the barony of Barnard, now vested in the earl of Darlington.

P.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 43·27.

[412] See vol. i. col. 1428.

~November 5.~

POWDER PLOT.

To keep alive the remembrance of this conspiracy, and in contemplation of its anniversary in 1826, a printed quarter sheet was published, “price one penny coloured, and one halfpenny plain.” It consists of a rude wood-cut of “a Guy,” carried about by boys, and the subjoined title with the accompanying verses.

* * * * *

QUICK’S NEW SPEECH FOR THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER,

_On the Downfall of Guy Fawkes_.

Good gentlefolks, pray, Remember this day, To which your kind notice we bring Here’s the figure of sly Old villainous Guy, Who wanted to murder the king: With powder a store, He bitterly swore, As he skulk’d in the vault to prepare, How the parliament too, By him and his crew, Should all be blown up in the air. So please to remember the fifth of November, Gunpowder treason and plot; We know no reason why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot.

But James all so wise, Did the papists surprise, Who plotted the cruelty great; He guessed their intent, And Suffolk was sent, Who sav’d both the kingdom and state. With a lantern was found, Guy Fawkes under ground, And quick was the traitor bound fast: They said he should die, So hung him up high, And burnt him to ashes at last. So please to remember, &c.

So we once a year, Go round without fear, To keep in remembrance the day: With assistance from you, To bring to your view, Guy Fawkes again blazing away: While with crackers and fire, In fullest desire, In his chair he thus merrily burns, So jolly we’ll be, And shout--may you see, Of this day many happy returns. So please to remember, &c.

Then hollo boys! hollo boys! shout and huzza, Hollo boys! hollo boys! keep up the day, Hollo boys! hollo boys! let the bells ring, Down with the pope, and God save the king. Huzza! Huzza! Huzza!

* * * * *

There was a publication in 1825, of similar character to the preceding. “Guy” was the subject of the cut, and the topic of the verses was a prayer for--

---------“a halfpenny to buy a faggot, And another to buy a match, And another to buy some touch paper, That the powder soon may catch.”

It contained the general averment--

“We know no reason, Why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot.”

* * * * *

Though it is not requisite to relate more particulars of the “gunpowder treason” than have been already mentioned,[413] yet a friendly finger points to a passage in an old writer, concerning one of the conspirators, which is at least amusing:--“Some days before the fatal stroke should be given, Master Keys, being at Tichmersh, in Northamptonshire, at the house of Mr. Gilbert Pickering, his brother-in-law, (but of a different religion, as a true protestant,) suddenly whipped out his sword, and in merriment made many offers therewith at the heads, necks, and sides of many gentlemen and gentlewomen then in his company. This, then, was taken as a mere frolic, and for the present passed accordingly; but afterwards, when the treason was discovered, such as remembered his gestures, thought thereby he did act what he intended to do, (if the plot had took effect,) hack and hew, kill and slay, all eminent persons of a different religion to themselves.”[414]

* * * * *

A modern writer observes:--“It is not, perhaps, generally known, that we have a form of prayer for prisoners, which is printed in the ‘Irish Common Prayer-book,’ though not in ours. Mrs. Berkeley, in whose _Preface of Prefaces_ to her son’s poems I first saw this mentioned, regrets the omission, observing, that the very fine prayer for those under sentence of death might, being read by the children of the poor, at least keep them from the gallows. The remark is just. If there be not room in our prayer-book, we have some services there which might better be dispensed with. It was not very decent in the late abolition of holydays, to let the two Charleses hold their place, when the Virgin Mary and the saints were deprived of the red letter privileges. If we are to have any state service, it ought to be for the expulsion of the Stuarts. There is no other part of their history which England ought to remember with sorrow and shame. Guy Faux also might now be dismissed, though the _Eye of Providence_ would be a real loss. The Roman catholics know the effect of such prints as these, and there can be no good reason for not imitating them in this instance. I would have no prayer-book published without that eye of Providence in it.”[415]

PURTON BONFIRE.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Dear Sir,--At almost every village in England, the _fifth of November_ is regarded in a very especial manner. Some pay greater attention to it than others, but I believe it is invariably noticed by all.

I have been present at Old Purton bonfire, and perhaps the following short notice of it may not be uninteresting.

I before stated (col. 1207) that the green, or close, at Purton, is the spot allotted for amusements in general. This is also the place for the ceremonies on this highly important day, which I am about to describe.

Several weeks before, the boys of the village go to every house begging faggots; and if they are refused they all answer together--

If you don’t give us one We’ll take two, The better for us, sir, And worse for you.

They were once refused by a farmer, (who was very much disliked by the poor for his severity and unkindness,) and accordingly they determined to make him repent. He kept a sharp look out over his faggot pile, but forgot that something else might be stolen. The boys got into his backyard and extracted a new pump, which had not been properly fixed, and bore it off in triumph to the green, where it was burnt amidst the loud acclamations of the young rogues generally.

All the wood, &c. which has been previously collected, is brought into the middle of the close where the effigy of poor Guy is burnt. A figure is made (similar to one of those carried about London streets,) intending to represent the conspirator, and placed at the top of a high pole, with the fuel all around. Previous to lighting it, poor Guy is shot at by all who have the happiness to possess guns for the purpose, and pelted with squibs, crackers, &c. This fun continues about an hour, and then the pile is lighted, the place echoes with huzzas, guns keep up perpetual reports, fireworks are flying in all directions, and the village bells merrily ring. The fire is kept up a considerable time, and it is a usual custom for a large piece of “real Wiltshire bacon” to be dressed by it, which is taken to the public-house, together with potatoes roasted in the ashes of the bonfire, and a jovial repast is made. As the fire decreases, successive quantities of potatoes are dressed in the embers by the rustics, who seem to regard them as the great delicacies of the night.

There is no restraint put on the loyal zeal of these good folks, and the fire is maintained to a late hour. I remember, on one occasion, hearing the guns firing as I lay in bed between two and three o’clock in the morning. The public-house is kept open nearly all night. Ale flows plentifully, and it is not spared by the revellers. They have a noisy chorus, which is intended as a toast to his majesty; it runs thus:--

My brave lads remember The fifth of November, Gunpowder treason and plot, We will drink, smoke, and sing, boys, And our bells they shall ring, boys, And here’s health to our king, boys, For he shall not be forgot.

Their merriment continues till morning, when they generally retire to rest very much inebriated, or, as they term it, “merry,” or “top heavy.”

I hope to have the pleasure of reading other communications in your interesting work on this good old English custom; and beg to remain,

Dear Sir, &c.

C. T.

_October 20, 1826._

* * * * *

If the collections formerly published as “State Poems” were to receive additions, the following from a journal of 1796, might be included as frolicsome and curious.

SONG ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER.

Some twelvemonths ago, A hundred or so, The pope went to visit the devil, And if you’ll attend, You’ll find, to a friend, Old Nick can behave very civil.

How do’st do, quoth the seer, What a plague brought you here; I suppose ’twas some whimsical maggot-- Come draw tow’rds the fire, I pr’thee sit nigher; Here, sirrah, lay on t’other faggot.

You’re welcome to hell, I hope friends are well, At Paris, Madrid, and at Rome; But, since you elope, I suppose, honest pope, The conclave will hang out the broom.

All jesting aside, His Holiness cried, Give the pope and the devil their dues; Believe me, old dad, I’ll make thy heart glad For faith I have brought thee rare news.

There’s a plot to beguile An obstinate isle, Great Britain, that heretic nation, Who so slyly behav’d In hopes to be sav’d By the help of a curs’d reformation.

We shall never have done If we burn one by one, Nor destroy the whole heretic race; For when one is dead, Like the fam’d hydra’s head, Another springs up in his place.

Believe me, Old Nick, We’ll show them a trick, A trick that shall serve for the nonce, For this day before dinner, Or else I’m a sinner, We’ll kill all their leaders at once.

When the parliament sits And all try their wits In consulting of old mealy papers, We’ll give them a greeting Shall break up their meeting And set them all cutting their capers.

There’s powder enough And combustible stuff In thirty and odd trusty barrels; We’ll send them together The Lord can tell whither, And decide at one blow all their quarrels.

When the king and his son And the parliament’s gone, And the people are left in the lurch, Things will take their old station In yon cursed nation And I’ll be the head of the church.

These words were scarce said, When in popt the head Of an old jesuistical wight Who cried you’re mistaken They’ve all sav’d their bacon, And Jemmy still stinks of the fright.

Then Satan was struck, And cried ’tis ill luck, But you for your news shall be thanked, So he call’d at the door Six devils or more And toss’d the poor priest in a blanket.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 42·32.

[413] In vol. i. col. 1433.

[414] Fuller’s Church History.

[415] Dr. Aikin’s Athenæum.

~November 6.~

Michaelmas Term begins.

LEONARD.

St. Leonard is retained in the church of England calendar and almanacs, from his ancient popularity in Romish times. He is the titular saint of many of our great churches, and was particularly invoked in behalf of prisoners.

A list of holydays published at Worcester, in 1240, ordains St. Leonard’s festival to be kept a half-holyday, enjoins the hearing of mass, and prohibits all labour except that of the plough.

St. Leonard was a French nobleman in the court of Clovis I., where he was converted by St. Remigius, or Remy; became a monk, built an oratory for himself in a forest at Nobilac, near Limoges, lived on herbs and fruits, and formed a community, which after his death was a flourishing monastery under the name of St. Leonard le Noblat. He was remarkable for charity towards captives and prisoners, and died about 559, with the reputation of having worked miracles in their behalf.[416]

The legend of St. Leonard relates that there was no water within a mile of his monastery, “wherfore he did do make a pyt all drye, the which he fylled with water by his prayers--and he shone there by so grete myracles, that who that was in prison, and called his name in ayde, anone his bondes and fetters were broken, and went awaye without ony gaynsayenge frely, and came presentyng to hym theyr chaynes or yrens.”

It is particularly related that one of St. Leonard’s converts “was taken of a tyraunt,” which tyrant, considering by whom his prisoner was protected, determined so to secure him against Leonard, as to “make hym paye for his raunsom a thousand shyllynges.” Therefore, said the tyrant, “I shall go make a ryght grete and depe pyt vnder the erth in my toure, and I shall cast hym therin bounden with many bondes; and I shal do make a chest of tree vpon the mouth of the pyt, and shall make my knyghtes to lye therin all armed; and how be it that yf Leonarde breke the yrons, yet shall he not entre into it vnder the erth.” Having done as he said, the prisoner called on St. Leonard, who at night “came and turned the chest wherein the knyghtes laye armed, and closed them therein, lyke as deed men ben in a tombe, and after entred into the pyt with grete lyght,” and he spoke to the prisoner, from whom the chains fell off, and he “toke hym in his armes and bare hym out of the toure--and sette hym at home in his hous.” And other great marvels are told of St. Leonard as true as this.[417]

* * * * *

The miracles wrought by St. Leonard in releasing prisoners continued after his death, but at this time the saint has ceased from interposing in their behalf even on his festival; which, being the first day of Michaelmas term, and therefore the day whereon writs issued since the Trinity term are made returnable, would be a convenient season for the saint’s interposition.

This day the long vacation o’er, And lawyers go to work once more; With their materials all provided, That they may have the cause decided. The plaintiff he brings in his bill, He’ll have his cause, cost what it will; Till afterwards comes the defendant, And is resolved to make an end on’t. And having got all things in fitness, Supplied with money and with witness; And makes a noble bold defence, Backed with material evidence. The proverb is, one cause is good Until the other’s understood. They thunder out to little purpose, With certiorari, habeas corpus, Their replicandos, writs of error, To fill the people’s hearts with terror; And if the lawyer do approve it, To chancery they must remove it: And then the two that were so warm, Must leave it to another term; Till they go home and work for more, To spend as they have done before.

_Poor Robin._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 43·40.

[416] Alban Butler.

[417] Golden Legend.

~November 7.~

ORIGIN OF THE LONDON GAZETTE.

On the 7th day of November, 1665, the first “Gazette” in England was published at Oxford; the court being there at that time, on account of the plague. On the removal of the court to London, the title was changed to the “London Gazette.” The “Oxford Gazette” was published on Tuesdays, the London on Saturdays: and these have continued, to be the days of publication ever since.

The word gazette originally meant a newspaper, or printed account of the transactions of all the countries in the known world, in a loose sheet or half sheet; but the term is with us confined to that paper of news now published by authority. It derived its name from gazetta, a kind of small coin formerly current at Venice, which was the usual price of the first newspaper printed there.[418]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 42·92.

[418] Butler’s Chronological Exercises.

~November 8.~

LORD MAYOR OF LONDON.

On this day the chief magistrate elect of the metropolis is sworn into office at Guildhall, and to-morrow is the grand festival of the corporation.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 44·27.

~November 9.~

LORD MAYOR’S DAY.

This “great day in the calendar” of the city, is the subject of the following whimsical adaptation.

Now countless turbots and unnumbered soles Fill the wide kitchens of each livery hall: From pot to spit, to kettle, stew, and pan, The busy hum of greasy scullions sounds, That the fixed beadles do almost perceive The secret dainties of each other’s watch: Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames Each table sees the other’s bill of fare: Cook threatens cook in high and saucy vaunt Of rare and newmade dishes; confectioners, Both pastrycooks and fruiterers in league, With candied art their rivets closing up, Give pleasing notice of a rich dessert.

* * * * *

In the subjoined humorous account of a former civic procession and festival, there are some features which do not belong to the present celebrations.

LORD MAYOR’S DAY, 1773.

To describe the adventures and incidents of this important day in the city annals, it is very necessary to revert to the preceding evening. It is not now as it was formerly--

“That _sober_ citizens get _drunk_ by nine.”

Had Pope lived in the auspicious reign of George III., he would have indulged us at least two hours, and found a rhyme for _eleven_.

On the evening of the 8th of November, the stands of several livery companies clogged the passage of Cheapside and the adjacent streets. The night was passed in erecting the temporary sheds, sacred to city mirth, ruby gills, and round paunches. The earliest dawn of the morning witnessed the industry of the scavengers; and the broom-maker was, for once, the first patriot in the city.

This service done, repair we to Guildhall.

At five in the morning the spits groaned beneath the ponderous sirloins. These, numerous as large, proved that the “roast beef of Old England” is still thouht an ornament to our tables. The chandeliers in the hall were twelve in number, each provided with forty-eight wax candles; exclusive of which there were three large glass lamps, two globular lamps under the giants, and wax candles in girandoles. Hustings were raised at each end of the hall for the accommodation of the superior company, and tables laid through the centre for persons of lower rank. One advantage arose from the elevation at the west end of the hall, for the inscription under Beckford’s statue was thereby rendered perfectly legible. Tables were spread in the court of king’s-bench, which was provided with one chandelier of forty-eight candles. All the seats were either matted, hung with tapestry, or covered with crimson cloth, and the whole made a very noble appearance.

By eleven o’clock the windows from Blackfriars-bridge, to the north end of King street, began to exhibit such a number of angelic faces, as would tempt a man to wish for the honour of chief magistracy, if it were only to be looked at by so many fine eyes. There was scarce a house that could not boast a Venus for its tenant. At fifteen minutes past ten the common serjeant entered Guildhall, and in a few minutes the new lord-mayor, preceded by four footmen in elegant liveries of brown and gold, was brought into the hall in a superb sedan chair. Next came alderman Plomer, and then the recorder, who was so much afflicted with the gout, that it required the full exertion of his servant’s strength to support him. Mr. Alderman Thomas arrived soon after, then the two sheriffs, and lastly Mr. Crosby. There being no other alderman, Mr. Peckham could not be sworn into his office. At twenty minutes past eleven the lord mayor left the hall, being preceded by the city sword and mace, and followed by the alderman and sheriffs. The breakfast in the council chamber, at Guildhall, consisted of six sirloins of beef, twelve tureens of soup, mulled wines, pastry, &c. The late lord-mayor waited at the end of King-street to join the procession. As soon as his carriage moved, the mob began to groan and hiss, on which he burst into so immoderate a fit of laughter, evidently unforced, that the mob joined in one laughing chorus, and seemed to wonder what they had hissed at.

The procession by water was as usual, but rather tedious, as the tide was contrary. The ceremonies at Westminster-hall being gone through in the customary manner, the company returned by water to Blackfriars-bridge, where the lord-mayor landed at about three o’clock, and proceeded in solemn state to Guildhall, where the tables groaned beneath the weight of solids and dainties of every kind in season: the dishes of pastry, &c. were elegantly adorned with flowers of various sorts interspersed with bay-leaves; and many an honest freeman got a nose-gay at the city expense. A superb piece of confectionary was placed on the lord-mayor’s table, and the whole entertainment was splendid and magnificent. During the absence of the lord-mayor, such of the city companies as have not barges paraded the streets in the accustomed manner; and the man in armour exhibited to the delight of the little masters and misses, and the astonishment of many a gaping rustic. The lord-mayor appeared to be in good health and spirits, and to enjoy the applausive shouts of his fellow-citizens, probably from a consciousness of having deserved them. Mr. Gates, the city marshal, was as fine as powder and ribbons and gold could make him; his horse, too, was almost as fine, and nearly as stately as the rider. Mr. Wilkes came through the city in a chair, carried on men’s shoulders, just before the procession, in order to keep it up, and be saluted with repeated shouts. The lord-mayor’s coach was elegant, and his horses (long-tailed blacks) the finest that have been seen for many years. There were a great number of constables round Mr. Alderman Townsend’s coach; and a complaint has since been made, that he was grossly insulted. The night concluded as usual, and many went home at morning with dirty clothes and bloody faces.[419]

* * * * *

Some recent processions on lord-mayor’s day are sufficiently described by these lines:--

Scarce the shrill trumpet or the echoing horn With zeal impatient chides the tardy morn, When _Thames_, meandering as thy channel strays, Its ambient wave _Augusta’s_ Lord surveys: No prouder triumph, when with eastern pride The burnished galley burst upon the tide, Thy banks of Cydnus say--tho’ Egypt’s queen With soft allurements graced the glowing scene, Though silken streamers waved and all was mute, Save the soft trillings of the mellow lute; Though spicy torches chased the lingering gloom, And zephyrs blew in every gale perfume.

But soon, as pleased they win their wat’ry way, And dash from bending oars the scattered spray, The dome wide-spreading greets th’ exploring eyes, Where erst proud _Rufus_ bade his courts arise. Here borne, our civic chief the brazen store, With pointing fingers numbers o’er and o’er; Then pleased around him greets his jocund train, And seeks in proud array his new domain. Returning now, the ponderous _coach of state_ Rolls o’er the road that groans beneath its weight; And as slow paced, amid the shouting throng, Its massive frame majestic moves along, The prancing steeds with gilded trappings gay, Proud of the load, their sceptred lord convey.

Behind, their posts, a troop attendant gain, Press the gay throng, and join the smiling train; While _martial bands_ with nodding plumes appear, And waving streamers close the gay career.

Here too a _Chief_ the opening ranks display, Whose radient _armour_ shoots a beamy ray; So Britain erst beheld her troops advance, And prostrate myriads crouch beneath her lance: But though no more when threatening dangers nigh, The _glittering cuisses_ clasp the warrior’s thigh; Aloft no more the nodding _plumage_ bows, Or polished _helm_ bedecks his manly brows; A patriot band still generous Britain boasts, To guard her altars and protect her coasts; From rude attacks her sacred name to shield, And now, as ever, teach her foe to yield.

* * * * *

Mr. Alderman Wood on the first day of his second mayoralty, in 1816, deviated from the usual procession by water, from Westminster-hall to London, and returned attended by the corporation, in their carriages, through Parliament-street, by the way of Charing-cross, along the Strand, Fleet-street, and so up Ludgate-hill, and through St. Paul’s churchyard, to Guildhall: whereon lord Sidmouth, as high steward of the city and liberties of Westminster, officially protested against the lord-mayor’s deviation, “in order, that the same course may not be drawn into precedent, and adopted on any future occasion.”

* * * * *

During Mr. Alderman Wood’s first mayoralty he committed to the house of correction, a working sugar-baker, for having left his employment in consequence of a dispute respecting wages.--The prisoner during his confinement not having received personal correction, according to the statute, in consequence of no order to that effect being specified in the warrant of committal, he actually brought an action against the lord-mayor in the court of common pleas, for nonconformity to the law. It was proved that he had not been whipped, and therefore the jury were obliged to give a _farthing_ damages; but the point of law was reserved.[420]

* * * * *

On the 6th of September, 1776, the then lord-mayor of London, was robbed near Turnham-green in his chaise and four, in sight of all his retinue, by a single highwayman, who swore he would shoot the first man that made resistance, or offered violence.[421]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 44·72.

[419] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[420] Ibid.

[421] Ibid.

~November 10.~

A FATHER’S WISHES.

Richard Corbet, bishop of Norwich, wrote the following excellent lines

TO HIS SON, VINCENT CORBET,

_On his Birth-day, November 10, 1630, being then three years old_.

What I shall leave thee none can tell, But all shall say I wish thee well I wish thee, Vin, before all wealth Both bodily and ghostly health: Nor too much wealth, nor wit, come to thee, So much of either may undo thee. I wish thee learning, not for show, Enough for to instruct, and know; Not such as gentlemen require, To prate at table, or at fire. I wish thee all thy mother’s graces, Thy fathers fortunes, and his places. I wish thee friends, and one at court, Not to build on, but support; To keep thee, not in doing many Oppressions, but from suffering any. I wish thee peace in all thy ways, Nor lazy nor contentious days; And when thy soul and body part, As innocent as now thou art.[422]

* * * * *

Bishop Corbet, a native of Ewell in Surrey, was educated at Westminster school, and Christchurch, Oxford; took the degree of M. A. in 1605, entered into holy orders, became doctor of divinity, obtained a prebend in the cathedral of Sarum, and other church preferment, and being a man of ready wit, was favoured by king James I., who made him one of his chaplains. In 1618, he took a journey to France, of which he wrote an amusing narrative. In 1627, his majesty gave him the deanery of Christchurch; in 1629, he was raised to the bishopric of Oxford, and in 1632, translated to that of Norwich. He died in 1635. The poems of bishop Corbet are lively and amusing compositions, such as might have been expected from a man of learning and genius, possessed of a superabundance of constitutional hilarity. The latter quality appears to have drawn him into some excesses, not altogether consistent with the gravity of his profession. After he was a doctor of divinity, being at a tavern in Abingdon, a ballad-singer came into the house, complaining that he could not dispose of his stock; the doctor, in a frolic, took off his gown, and assuming the ballad-singer’s leather jacket, went out into the street, and drew around him a crowd of admiring purchasers. Perhaps he thought he could divest himself of his sacerdotal character with his habit; for it seems he shut himself up in his well-stored cellar, with his chaplain, Dr. Lushington, and taking off his gown, exclaimed: “There goes the doctor;” then throwing down his episcopal hood, “there goes the bishop”--after which the night was devoted to Bacchus. Riding out one day with a Dr. Stubbins, who was extremely fat, the coach was overturned, and both fell into a ditch. The bishop, in giving an account of the accident, observed, that Dr. Stubbins was up to the elbows in mud, and he was up to the elbows in Stubbins. Bishop Corbet was not distinguished as a divine; his sentiments however were liberal, and he inclined to the Arminian party, which then began to prevail in the church of England.[423]

In the bishop’s lines “to his son on his birth-day,” there is something of the feeling in the wise man’s supplication, “Give me neither poverty nor riches.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 43·72.

[422] Bp. Corbet’s Poems, by Gilchrist.

[423] General Biographical Dictionary, 1826, vol. i.

~November 11.~

ST. MARTIN.

The customs of this festival, which is retained in the church of England calendar and almanacs, are related under the day in last year’s volume.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 44·40.

~November 12.~

ADMIRAL VERNON’S BIRTH-DAY.

To the mention of the pageant “at Chancery-lane end,” in honour of admiral Vernon on this day, in the year 1740,[424] may be added some ingenious verses commemorative of Vernon’s exploits. They were written in the same year by John Price, a land-waiter in the port of Poole, and are preserved in Mr. Raw’s “Suffolk Garland,” with the following introduction:--

ADMIRAL VERNON’S ANSWER TO ADMIRAL HOSIER’S GHOST.

In Dr. Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient Poetry,” vol. ii. p. 376. is an admirable ballad, intituled “Hosier’s Ghost,” being an address to admiral Vernon, in Porto-Bello harbour, by Mr. Glover, the author of Leonidas. The case of Hosier was briefly this:--

In April, 1726, he was sent with a strong fleet to the Spanish West Indies, to block up the galleons in the ports of that country; but being restricted by his orders from obeying the dictates of his courage, he lay inactive on that station, until he became the jest of the Spaniards. He afterwards removed to Carthagena, and continued cruizing in those seas, till far the greater part of his crews perished by the diseases of that unhealthy climate. This brave man, seeing his officers and men thus daily swept away, his ships exposed to inevitable destruction, and himself made the sport of the enemy, is said to have died of a broken heart. The ballad concludes--

“O’er these waves, for ever mourning, Shall we roam, depriv’d of rest, If to Britain’s shores returning, You neglect my just request:

After this proud foe subduing, When your patriot friends you see, Think on vengeance for my ruin, And for England--sham’d in me.”

In 1739, vice-admiral Vernon was appointed commander-in-chief of a squadron then fitting out for destroying the settlements of the Spaniards in the West Indies; and, weighing anchor from Spithead on the 23d of July, arrived in sight of Porto-Bello, with six ships only, under his command, on the 20th of November following. The next day he commenced the attack of that town; when, after a most furious engagement on both sides, it was taken on the 22d, together with a considerable number of cannon, mortars, and ammunition, and also two Spanish ships of war. He then blew up the fortifications, and evacuated the place for want of land forces sufficient to retain it; but first distributed ten thousand dollars, which had been sent to Porto-Bello for paying the Spanish troops, among the forces for their bravery.

The two houses of parliament joined in an address of congratulation upon this success of his majesty’s arms; and the nation, in general, was wonderfully elated by an exploit, which was certainly magnified much above its intrinsic merit.

Hosier! with indignant sorrow, I have heard thy mournful tale And, if heav’n permit, to-morrow Hence our warlike fleet shall sail. O’er those hostile waves, wide roaming, We will urge our bold design, With the blood of thousands foaming, For our country’s wrongs and thine.

On that day, when each brave fellow, Who now triumphs here with me, Storm’d and plunder’d Porto-Bello, All my thoughts were full of thee. Thy disast’rous fate alarm’d me; Fierce thy image glar’d on high, And with gen’rous ardour warm’d me, To revenge thy fall, or die.

From their lofty ships descending, Thro’ the flood, in firm array, To the destin’d city bending, My lov’d sailors work’d their way. Strait the foe, with horror trembling, Quits in haste his batter’d walls; And in accents, undissembling, As he flies, for mercy calls.

Carthagena, tow’ring wonder! At the daring deed dismay’d, Shall ere long by Britain’s thunder, Smoking in the dust be laid. Thou, and these pale spectres sweeping, Restless, o’er this watry round, Whose wan cheeks are stain’d with weeping, Pleas’d shall listen to the sound.

Still rememb’ring thy sad story, To thy injur’d ghost I swear, By my hopes of future glory, War shall be my constant care: And I ne’er will cease pursuing Spain’s proud sons from sea to sea, With just vengeance for thy ruin, And for England sham’d in thee.

* * * * *

As we are to-day on a naval topic, it seems fitting to introduce a popular usage among sailors, in the words of captain Edward Hall, R. N., who communicated the particulars to Dr. Forster, on the 30th of October, 1823.

CROSSING THE LINE.

The following is an account of the custom of shaving at the tub by Neptune, as practised on board vessels crossing the Equator, Tropics, and Europa Point. The origin of it is supposed to be very ancient, and it is commonly followed on board foreign, as well as British ships. Europa Point at Gibraltar being one of the places, it may have arisen at the time when that was considered the western boundary of Terra Firma.

On the departure of a vessel from England by either of the aforesaid routes, much ingenuity is exerted by the old seamen and their confederates to discover the uninitiated, and it is seldom that any escape detection. A few days previous to arriving at the scene of action, much mystery and reserve is observed among the ship’s company: they are then secretly collecting stale soapsuds, water, &c., arranging the dramatis personæ, and preparing material. At this time, also, the novices, who are aware of what is going forward, send their forfeits to the captain of the forecastle, who acts as Neptune’s deputy; the forfeit is either a bottle of rum, or a dollar: and I never knew it refused, except from a cook’s mate who had acted negligently, and from a steward’s mate who was inclined to trick the people when serving provisions.

On board of a man-of-war it is generally performed on a grand scale. I have witnessed it several times, but the best executed was on board a ship of the line of which I was lieutenant, bound to the West Indies. On crossing the Tropic, a voice, as if at a distance, and from the surface of the water, cried “Ho, the ship ahoy! I shall come on board:” this was from a person slung over the bows, near the water, speaking through his hands. Presently two men of large stature came over the bows; they had hideous masks on: one personated Neptune--he was naked to his middle, crowned with the head of a huge wet swab, the ends of which reached to his loins to represent flowing locks; a piece of tarpaulin, vandyked, encircled the head of the swab and his brows as a diadem; his right hand wielded a boarding-pike manufactured into a trident, and his body was marked with red ochre to represent fish scales: the other personated Amphitrite, having locks also formed of swabs, a petticoat of the same material, with a girdle of red bunten; and in her hands a comb and looking-glass. They were followed by about twenty fellows, also naked to their middle, with red ochre scales as Tritons. They were received on the forecastle with much respect by the old sailors, who had provided the carriage of an eighteen-pounder as a car, which their majesties ascended, and were drawn aft along the gangway to the quarter-deck by the Tritons; when Neptune, addressing the captain, said he was happy to see him again that way, that he believed there were some Johnny Raws on board that had not paid their dues, and who he intended to initiate into the salt water mysteries. The captain answered, he was happy to see him, but requested he would make no more confusion than was necessary. They then descended on the main deck, and were joined by all the old hands, and about twenty barbers, who submitted their razors, brushes and suds to inspection; the first were made from old iron hoops jagged, the second from tar brushes, and the shaving suds from tar, grease, and something from the pigsty; they had also boxes of tropical pills procured from the sheep pen. Large tubs full of stale suds, with a movable board across each, were ranged around the pumps and engine, and plenty of buckets filled with water. Thus prepared, they divided themselves into gangs of a dozen each, dashed off in different directions, and soon returned with their subjects. The proceedings with each unlucky wight were as follows:--Being seated on a board across a tub of water, his eyes were quickly bandaged, his face lathered with the delightful composition; then a couple of scrapes on each side of the chin, followed by a question asked, or some pretended compassionate inquiry made, to get his mouth open, into which the barber either dashed the shaving-brush, or a pill, which was the signal for slipping the board from under the poor devil, who was then left to flounder his way out of the tub, and perhaps half drowned in attempting to recover his feet, by buckets of water being dashed over him from all quarters; being thus thoroughly drenched and initiated, I have often observed spirited fellows join their former persecutors in the remainder of their work. After an hour or two spent in this rough fun, which all seem to enjoy, Neptune disappears somewhere in the hold to unrobe, the decks are washed and dried, and those that have undergone the shaving business, oil or grease their chins and whiskers to get rid of the tar. This custom does not accord with the usual discipline of a man-of-war; but, as the old seamen look on it as their privilege, and it is only about an hour’s relaxation, I have never heard of any captain refusing them his permission.

E. H.[425]

* * * * *

A SEA-PIECE--IN THREE SONNETS

_Scene_--_Bridlington Quay._

At night-fall, walking on the cliff-crowned shore, When sea and sky were in each other lost, Dark ships were scudding through the wild uproar, Whose wrecks ere morn must strew the dreary coast; I mark’d one well-moor’d vessel tempest-tost; Sails reef’d, helm lash’d, a dreadful siege she bore, Her decks by billow after billow cross’d, While every moment she might be no more, Yet firmly anchor’d on the nether sand, Like a chain’d lion ramping at his foes, Forward and rearward still she plunged and rose, ’Till broke her cable;--then she fled to land, With all the waves in chase; throes following throes; She ’scaped,--she struck,--she struck upon the sand.

The morn was beautiful, the storm gone by; Three days had pass’d; I saw the peaceful main, One molten mirror, one illumined plane, Clear as the blue, sublime, o’er-arching sky. On shore that lonely vessel caught mine eye; Her bow was sea-ward, all equipt her train, Yet to the sun she spread her wings in vain, Like a maim’d eagle, impotent to fly, There fix’d as if for ever to abide: Far down the beach had roll’d the low neap-tide, Whose mingling murmur faintly lull’d the ear, “Is this,” methought, “is this the doom of pride, Check’d in the outset of thy proud career, Ingloriously to rot by piecemeal here?”

Spring-tides return’d, and fortune smiled; the bay Received the rushing ocean to its breast; While waves on waves innumerable press, Seem’d, with the prancing of their proud array, Sea-horses, flash’d with foam, and sporting spray: Their power and thunder broke that vessel’s rest; Slowly, with new-expanding life possest, To her own element she glid away; There, buoyant, bounding like the polar whale, That takes his pastime, every joyful sail Was to the freedom of the world unfurl’d, While right and left the parting surges curl’d. --Go, gallant bark, with such a tide and gale, I’ll pledge thee to a voyage round the world!

_Montgomery._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 43·85.

[424] In vol. i. col. 1473.

[425] Perennial Calendar.

~November 13.~

Brit.[426]

THE “BRIDEWELL BOYS,” AND BARTHOLOMEW AND SOUTHWARK FAIRS.

On the 13th of November, 1755, at a court of the governors of Bridewell hospital, a memorable report was made from the committee, who inquired into the behaviour of the boys at Bartholomew and Southwark fairs, when some of them were severely corrected and continued, and others, after their punishment, were ordered to be stripped of the hospital clothing and discharged.[427]

The “bridewell-boys” were, within recollection, a body of youths distinguished by a particular dress, and turbulence of manners. They infested the streets to the terror of the peaceable, and being allowed the privilege of going to fires, did more mischief by their audacity and perverseness, than they did good by working the Bridewell engine. These disorders occasioned them to be deprived of their distinguishing costume, and put under proper arts’-masters, with ability to teach them useful trades, and authority to controul and regulate their conduct. The bridewell boys at this time are never heard of in any commotion, and may now, therefore, be regarded as peaceable and industrious lads.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 42·85.

[426] See vol. i. col. 1473.

[427] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~November 14.~

A TRIFLING MISTAKE.

The “Carbonari,” a political association in the Italian states, occasioned considerable disturbance to the continental governments, who interfered to suppress an order of persons that kept them in continual alarm: “His Holiness” especially desired their suppression.

An article from Rome, dated the 14th of November, 1820, says “Bishop Benvenuti, vice-legate at Macerata, having received orders from the holy father to have all the Carbonari in that city arrested and sent to Rome, under a good escort, proceeded forthwith to execute the order. In consequence he had all the colliers by trade (_Charbonniers de profession_) which he could find within his reach--men, women, and children, arrested, and sent manacled to Rome, where they were closely imprisoned. The tribunal having at length proceeded to examine them, and being convinced that these Carbonari had been colliers ever since they were born, acquitted them, and sent them to their homes. Bishop Benvenuti was deprived of his employment.”[428]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 43·25.

[428] New Times.

~November 15.~

Machutus.[429]

HUNGERFORD REVEL, WILTS.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_October 20, 1826._

Dear Sir,--In your last week’s number of the _Every-Day Book_, your correspondent *, *, P. gives a short account of Blackford, the backsword-player, and also mentions one of his descendants who signalized himself at the “Hungerford revel” about two years since. In the year 1820, I visited the latter revel; perhaps a description may be acceptable to you, and amusing to your readers.

I think it may be generally allowed that Wiltshire, and the western counties, keep up their primitive customs more than any counties. This is greatly to the credit of the inhabitants; for these usages tend to promote cheerful intercourse and friendly feeling among the residents in the different villages, who on such occasions assemble together. In Wiltshire I have remarked various customs, particularly at Christmas, which I have never seen or heard of in any other place. If these customs were witnessed by a stranger, I am sure he must fancy the good old days of yore, where every season brought its particular custom, which was always strictly adhered to.

Wiltshire consists of beautiful and extensive downs, and rich meadow and pasture lands, which support some of the finest dairies and farms that can be met with in the kingdom. The natives are a very strong and hardy set of men, and are particularly fond of robust sports; their chief and favourite amusement is backswording, or singlestick, for which they are as greatly celebrated as the inhabitants of the adjoining counties, Somersetshire and Gloucestershire.

At this game there are several rules observed. They play with a large round stick, which must be three feet long, with a basket prefixed to one end as a guard for the hand. The combatants throw off their hats and upper garments, with the exception of the shirt, and have the left hand tied to the side, so that they cannot defend themselves with that hand. They brandish the stick over the head, guarding off the adversary’s blows, and striking him whenever an opportunity occurs. Great skill is often used in the defence. I have seen two men play for upwards of half an hour without once hitting each other. The blood must flow an inch from some part of the head, before either party is declared victor.

Blackford, the backsword player, was a butcher residing at Swindon; he died a few years ago. His “successor” is a blacksmith at Lyddington, named Morris Pope, who is considered the best player of the day, and generally carries off the prizes at the Hungerford revel, which he always attends. This revel is attended by all the best players in Wiltshire and Somersetshire, between whom the contest lies. To commence the fray, twenty very excellent players are selected from each county; the contest lasts a considerable time, and is always severe, but the Wiltshire men are generally conquerors. Their principal characteristics are skill, strength, and courage--this is generally allowed by all who are acquainted with them.

But Hungerford revel is not a scene of contention alone, it consists of all kinds of rustic sports, which afford capital fun to the spectators. They may be laid out thus--

1st. _Girls running for “smocks,”_ &c., which is a well-known amusement at country fairs.

2d. _Climbing the greasy pole_ for a piece of bacon which is placed on the top. This affords very great amusement, as it is a difficult thing to be accomplished. The climber, perhaps, may get near the top of the pole, and has it in his power to hold himself up by both hands, but the moment he raises one hand to unhook the prize, he is almost sure to slide down again with great rapidity, bearing all below him who are so foolish as to climb after him.

3d. _Old women drinking hot tea for snuff._ Whoever can drink it the quickest and hottest gains the prize.

4th. _Grinning through horse-collars._ Several Hodges stand in a row, each holding a collar; whoever can make the ugliest face through it gains the prize. This feat is also performed by old women, and certainly the latter are the most amusing.

5th. _Racing between twenty and thirty old women for a pound of tea._ This occasions much merriment, and it is sometimes astonishing to see with what agility the old dames run in order to obtain their favourite.

6th. _Hunting a pig with a soaped tail._ This amusement creates much mirth, and in my opinion is the most laughable.--Grunter with his tail well soaped is set off at the foot of a hill, and is quickly pursued; but the person who can lay any claim to him must first catch him by the tail, and fairly detain him with one hand. This is an almost impossible feat, for the pig finding himself pulled back, tries to run forward, and the tail slips from the grasp of the holder. It is pretty well known that such is the obstinate nature of a pig, that on being pulled one way he will strive all he can to go a contrary. In illustration of this circumstance, though known perhaps to some of your readers, I may mention a curious wager a few years ago between a pork butcher and a waterman. The butcher betted the waterman that he would make a pig run over one of the bridges, (I forget which,) quicker than the waterman would row across the river. The auditors thought it impossible; the bet was eagerly accepted, and the next day was appointed for the performance. When the signal for starting was given, the waterman began to row with all his might and main, and the butcher catching hold of the tail of the pig endeavoured to pull him back, upon which the pig pulled forward, and with great rapidity ran over the bridge, pulling the butcher after him, who arrived on the opposite side before his opponent.

7th. _Jumping in sacks for a cheese._ An excellent caricature of jumping in sacks, published by Hunt, in Tavistock-street, conveys a true idea of the manner in which this amusement is carried on: it is truly laughable. Ten or eleven candidates are chosen; they are tied in sacks up to their necks, and have to jump about five hundred yards. Sometimes one will out-jump himself and fall; this accident generally occasions the fall of three or four others, but some one, being more expert, gets on first, and claims the prize.

About ten years ago, before Cannon the prize-fighter was publicly known, as a native of Wiltshire he naturally visited the Hungerford revel. There was a man there celebrated over the county for boxing; it was said that with a blow from his fist he could break the jaw-bone of an ox; upon the whole he was a desperate fellow, and no one dared challenge him to _fight_. Cannon, however, challenged him to _jump_ in sacks. It was agreed that they should jump three times the distance of about five hundred yards. The first time Cannon fell, and accordingly his opponent won; the second time, Cannon’s opponent fell, and the third time they kept a pretty even pace for about four hundred yards, when they bounced against each other and both fell, so that there was a dispute who had won. Cannon’s opponent was for dividing the cheese, but he would not submit to that, and proposed jumping again; the man would not, but got out of the sack, and during the time that Cannon was consulting some friends on the course to be pursued, ran off with the cheese. Cannon, however, pursued, and after a considerable time succeeded in finding him. He then challenged him to fight: the battle lasted two hours, and Cannon was victor. This circumstance introduced him to the sporting world.

You must allow me, dear sir, to assure you, that it is not my wish to make your interesting work a “sporting calendar,” by naming “sporting characters.” I tell you this lest you should not incline to read further, especially when you see.

8th. _Donkey Racing._ I will certainly defy any one to witness these races, without being almost convulsed with laughter. Each candidate rides his neighbour’s donkey, and he who arrives first at the appointed place claims the prize, which is generally a smock-frock, a waistcoat, a hat, &c. &c.

9th. _Duck Hunting._ This sport generally concludes the whole: it is a very laughable, but certainly a very cruel amusement. They tie a poor unfortunate owl in an upright position, to the back of a still more unfortunate duck, and then turn them loose. The owl presuming that his inconvenient captivity is the work of the duck, very unceremoniously commences an attack on the head of the latter, who naturally takes to its own means of defence, the water: the duck dives with the owl on his back; as soon as he rises, the astonished owl opens wide his eyes, turns about his head in a very solemn manner, and suddenly recommences his attack on the oppressed duck, who dives as before. The poor animals generally destroy each other, unless some humane person rescues them.

Like all other Wiltshire amusements, the Hungerford revel always closes with good humour and conviviality; the ale flowing plentifully, and the song echoing loud and gaily from the rustic revellers. Although the revel is meant to last only one day, the very numerous attendants keep up the minor sports sometimes to the fourth day, when all depart, and Hungerford is once more a scene of tranquility.

The revel takes place about this time of the year, but I really cannot call to my recollection the precise day. Hoping, however, that this is of no material consequence, I beg to remain,

Dear Sir, &c.

C. T.

EARL OF WARWICK, THE KING MAKER.

This nobleman, who at one time is said to have entertained thirty thousand people at the boards of his different manors and estates in England, and who, when he travelled or lodged in any town, was accompanied by four or five hundred retainers, wrote on All Souls’ day the following remarkable letter for the loan of a small sum. It is divested of its ancient spelling.

“_To our right trusty and well-beloved Friend, Sir_ THOMAS TODDENHAM.

“Right trusty and well beloved friend, we greet you well, heartily desiring to hear of your welfare; and if it please you to hear of our welfare, we were in good health at the making of this letter, entreating you heartily, that ye will consider our message, which our chaplain Master Robert Hopton shall inform you of; for we have great business daily and have had here before this time, wherefore we entreat you to consider the purchase, that we have made with one John Swyffham (Southcote) an esquire of Lincolnshire, of 88_l._ by the year, whereupon we must pay the last payment, the Monday next after St. Martin’s day, which sum is 458_l._ Wherefore we entreat you with all our heart, that ye will lend us ten, or twenty pounds, or what the said Master Robert wants of his payment, as we may do for you in time for to come, and we will send it you again afore new year’s day, as we are a true knight. For there is none in your country, that we might write to for trust, so well as unto you, for as we be informed, ye be our well willer, and so we entreat you, that ye consider our intent of this money, as ye will that we do for you in time to come.... Written at London, on All Soul’s Day, within our lodging in the Grey Friars, within Newgate.

“RIC. ERLE WARWYKE.”

This letter is not dated, as to the year, but is known from circumstances to have been written before 1455. Sir Thomas Toddingham was a wealthy knight of Norfolk, who had an unfortunate marriage with one of the Wodehouses. The epistle shows the importance of ten, or twenty pounds, when rents were chiefly received in kind, and the difference between one degree of wealth and another, was exemplified by the number of a baron’s retainers. “Now,” says Burke, “we have a ton of ancient pomp in a vial of modern luxury.”[430]

“DEATH OF THE LOTTERY.”

Introductory to particulars respecting _Lotteries_, two engravings are inserted, representing exhibitions that appeared in the streets of the metropolis, with the intent to excite adventure in “the last state lottery that will ever be drawn in England.”

A BALLAD, 1826.

A lazy sot grew sober By looking at his troubles, For he found out how He work’d his woe, By playing with Lott’ry bubbles.

And just before October, The _grand_ contractors, zealous To _share_ their _last_ ills, With puffs and bills, Drove all the quack-doctors jealous.

Their _bill_-and-_cue_-carts slowly Paced Holborn and Long Acre, Like a funeral Not mourn’d at all, The bury’ng an undertaker.

Clerks smiled, and whisper’d lowly: “This is the time or never There _must_ be a rise-- Buy, and be wise, Or your chance is gone for ever.”

Yet, of the shares and tickets, Spite of all arts to sell ’em, There were more unsold Than dare be told; Although, if I knew, I’d tell ’em.

And so, worn out with rickets, The _last_ “Last Lott’ry” expired; And then there were cries-- “We’ve gained a _prize_ By the _loss_ we’ve so long desired:

“The lott’ry drew the humble Often aside from his labour, To build in the air, And, dwelling there, He beggar’d himself and neighbour.

“If the scheme-makers tumble Down to their proper station, They must starve, or work, Turn thief, or Turk, Or hang, for the good o’ th’ nation.”

*

What’s the odds?--while I am floundering here the gold fish will be gone; and as I always was a dab at hooking the right Numbers, I must cast for a Share of the SIX £30,000 on the 18^{th} JULY, for it is but “giving a Sprat to catch a Herring” as a body may say, and it is the last chance we shall have in England.

~Memorandum.~

The above engraving is copied from one of the same size to a lottery bill of 1826: its inscription is verbatim the same as that below the original. In after days, this may be looked on with interest, as a specimen of the means to which the lottery schemers were reduced, in order to attract attention to “the last.”

COLLECTIONS RESPECTING LOTTERIES

1569.--THE FIRST LOTTERY.

Dr. Rawlinson, a distinguished antiquary, produced to the Antiquarian society, in 1748, “A Proposal for a very rich Lottery, general without any Blankes, contayning a great N^{o} of good prices, as well of redy money as of Plate and certain sorts of Merchandizes, having been valued and prised by the Commandment of the Queenes most excellent Majesties order, to the entent that such Commodities as may chance to arise thereof, after the charges borne, may be converted towards the reparations of the Havens and Strength of the realme, and towards such other public good workes. The N^{o} of lotts shall be foure hundred thousand, and no more; and every lott shall be the summe of tenne shillings sterling only, and no more. To be filled by the feast of St. Bartholomew. The shew of Prises ar to be seen in Cheapside, at the sign of the Queenes armes, the house of Mr. Dericke, Goldsmith, Servant to the Queen. Some other Orders about it in 1567-8. Printed by Hen. Bynneman.”

This is the earliest lottery of which we have any account. According to Stow, it was begun to be drawn at the west door of St. Paul’s cathedral, on the 11th of January, 1569, (11th of Elizabeth,) and continued incessantly drawing, _day and night_, till the 6th of May following.[431] It was at first intended to have been drawn “at the house of Mr. Dericke,” who was the queen’s jeweller.[432] “Whether,” says Maitland, “this lottery was on account of the public, or the selfish views of private persons, my author[433] does not mention; but ’tis evident, by the time it took up in drawing, it must have been of great concern. This I have remarked as being the first of the kind I read in England.” Maitland does not seem to have been acquainted with Dr. Rawlinson’s communication of the printed “Proposal” for it to the society of Antiquaries, which, as it states that the “commodities,” or profits, arising therefrom were to be appropriated to the “reparations of the havens and strength of the realme,” obviates all doubt as to its being “on account of the public.”

* * * * *

In 1586, 28th of the reign of Elizabeth, “A Lotterie, for marvellous rich and beautifull armor, was begunne to be drawn at London, in S. Paules churchyard, at the great west gate, (an house of timber and boord being there erected for that purpose,) on St. Peter’s day in the morning, which lotterie continued in drawing day and night for the space of two or three daies.”[434] Of this lottery it is said, in lord Burghley’s Diary, at the end of Murden’s State papers, “June, 1586, the lottery of armour under the charge of John Calthorp determined.”[435] This is the second English lottery of which mention has been made.

* * * * *

In 1619, 16th of James I., it appears, from the following entry in the register of charitable gifts to the corporation of Reading, that a lottery was held in that town. “Whereas at a Lottery held within the Borough of Reading, in the Year of our Ld. God 1619, Gabriel Barber Gent. Agent in the sd. Lottery for the Councell & Company of Virginia of his own good Will & Charity towarde poor Tradesmen ffreemen & Inhabitants of the sd. Borough of Reading, & for the better enabling such poor Tradesmen to support & bear their Charges in their several Places & Callings in the sd. Corporation from time to time for ever freely gave & delivered to the Mayor & Burgesses of this Corporation the Sum of forty Pounds of lawfull Money of England Upon Special Trust & Confidence, that the sd. Mayor & Burgesses & their Successors shall from time to time for ever dispose & lend these 40_l._ to & amongst Six poor Tradesmen after the rate of 06_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ to each Man for the Term of five Years gratis And after those five Years ended to dispose & lend the sd. 40_l._ by Such Soms to Six other poor Tradesmen for other five Years & so from five years to five years Successively upon good Security for ever Neverthelesse provided & upon Condition that none of those to whom the sd. Summs of mony shall be lent during that Term of five years shall keep either Inn or Tavern or dwell forth of the sd. Borough, but there during that time and terme, shall as other Inhabitants of the sd. Borough reside & dwell.

“Memorand. that the sd. Sum of 40_l._ came not into the hands & charge of the Mayor & Burgesses until April 1626.”

This extract was communicated to the “Gentleman’s Magazine” in 1778, by a correspondent, who, referring to this gift of “Gabriel Barber, gent., agent in the said lottery,” says, “If it be asked what is become of it now? _gone_, it is supposed, _where the chickens went before_ during the pious protectorship of Cromwell.”

* * * * *

In 1630, 6th Charles I., there was a project “for the conveying of certain springs of water into London and Westminster, from within a mile and a half of Hodsdon, in Hertfordshire, by the undertakers, Sir Edward Stradling and John Lyde.” The author of this project was one Michael Parker. “For defraying the expences whereof, king Charles grants them a special license to erect and publish a lottery or lotteries; _according_” says the record, “_to the course of other lotteries_ heretofore used or practised.” This is the first mention of lotteries either in the _Fœdera_ or Statute-book. “And, for the sole privilege of bringing the said waters in aqueducts to London, they were to pay four thousand pounds per annum into the king’s exchequer: and, the better to enable them to make the said large annual payment, the king grants them leave to bring their aqueducts through any of his parks, chases, lands, &c., and to dig up the same gratis.”[436]

* * * * *

In 1653, during the commonwealth, there was a lottery at Grocers’ Hall, which appears to have escaped the observation of the inquirers concerning this species of adventure. It is noticed in an old weekly newspaper, called “Perfect Account of the Daily Intelligence 16-23 November 1653,” by the following

~Advertisement.~

_At the Committee for Claims for Lands in Ireland_,

Ordered, That a Lottery be at Grocers-Hall London, on Thursday 15 Decem. 1653, both for Provinces and Counties, to begin at 8 of the clock in the forenoon of the same day; and all persons concerned therein are to take notice thereof.

_W. Tibbs._

Under Charles II., the crown, with a view to reward its adherents who resided within the bills of mortality, and had served it with fidelity during the interregnum, granted “Plate Lotteries;” by which is to be understood a gift of plate from the crown, to be disposed of in that manner as prizes, with permission to sell tickets. According to the Gazette, in April 1669, Charles II., the duke of York, (afterwards James II.,) and many of the nobility were present “at the grand plate lottery, which, by his majesty’s command, was then opened at the sign of the Mermaid over against the mews.” This was the origin of endless schemes, under the titles of “Royal Oak,” “Twelve-penny Lotteries,” &c., which will be adverted to presently. They may be further understood by an intimation, published soon after the drawing sanctioned by the royal visitors, in these words, “This is to give notice, that any persons who are desirous to farm any of the counties within the kingdom of England or dominion of Wales, in order to the setting up of a plate lottery, or any other lottery whatsoever, may repair to the lottery office, at Mr. Philips’s house, in Mermaid-court over against the mews; where they may contract with the trustees commissioned by his majesty’s letters patent for the management of the said patent, on the behalf of the truly loyal, indigent officers.”[437] In those times, the crown exceeded its prerogative by issuing these patents, and the law was not put in motion to question them.

_Book Lotteries._

During the reign of Charles II. lotteries were drawn at the theatres. At Vere-street theatre, which stood in Bear-yard, to which there is an entrance through a passage at the south-west corner of Lincolns’-inn-fields, another from Vere-street, and a third from Clare-market, Killigrew’s company performed during the seasons of 1661 and 1662, and part of 1663, when they removed to the new built theatre in Drury-lane; and the Vere-street theatre was probably unoccupied until Mr. Ogilby, the author of the now useless, though then useful “Itinerarium Angliæ, or Book of Roads,” adopted it, as standing in a popular neighbourhood, for the temporary purpose of drawing a lottery of books, which took place in 1668.

Books were often the species of property held out as a lure to adventurers, by way of lottery, for the benefit of the suffering loyalists. Among these, Blome’s Recreations, and Gwillim’s Heraldry, first edition, may be mentioned. In the Gazette of May 18, 1668, is the following advertisement: “Mr. Ogilby’s lottery of books opens on Monday the 25th instant, at the old Theatre between Lincoln’s-inn-fields and Vere-street; where all persons concerned may repair on Monday, May 18, and see the volumes, and put in their money.” On May 25th is announced, “Mr. Ogilby’s lottery of books (adventurers coming in so fast that they cannot in so short time be methodically registered) opens not till Tuesday the 2d of June; then not failing to draw; at the old Theatre between Lincoln’s-inn-fields and Vere-street.”

A correspondent, under the signature of “A Bibliographer,” communicates to the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” from whence the notice respecting these book lotteries is extracted, one of Ogilby’s Proposals as a curiosity, in which light it is certainly to be regarded, and therefore it has a place here, as follows:--

A SECOND PROPOSAL, by the author, for the better and more speedy vendition of several volumes, (his own works,) by the way of a standing _Lottery_, licensed by his royal highness the duke of York, and assistants of the corporation of the royal fishing.

WHEREAS _John Ogilby_, esq., erected a standing lottery of books, and completely furnished the same with very large, fair, and special volumes, all of his own designment and composure, at vast expense, labour, and study of twenty years; the like impressions never before exhibited in the English tongue. Which, according to the appointed time, on the 10th of May, 1665, opened; and to the general satisfaction of the adventurers, with no less hopes of a clear despatch and fair advantage to the author, was several days in drawing: when its proceedings were stopt by the then growing sickness, and lay discontinued under the arrest of that common calamity, till the next year’s more violent and sudden visitation, the late dreadful and surprising conflagration, swallowed the remainder, being two parts of three, to the value of three thousand pounds and upward, in that unimaginable deluge. Therefore, to repair in some manner his so much commiserated losses, by the advice of many his patrons, friends, and especially by the incitations of his former adventurers, he resolves, and hath already prepared, not only to reprint all his own former editions, but others that are new, of equal value, and like estimation by their embellishments, and never yet published; with some remains of the first impressions, relics preserved in several hands from the fire; to set up a second standing lottery, where such the discrimination of fortune shall be, that few or none shall return with a dissatisfying chance. The whole draught being of greater advantage by much (to the adventurers) than the former. And accordingly, after publication, the author opened his office, where they might put in their first encouragements, (_viz._) twenty shillings, and twenty more at the reception of their fortune, and also see those several magnificent volumes, which their varied fortune (none being bad) should present them.

[438]But, the author now finding more difficulty than he expected, since many of his promisers (who also received great store of tickets to dispose of, towards promotion of his business) though seeming well resolved and very willing, yet straining courtesy not to go foremost in paying their monies, linger out, driving it off till near the time appointed for drawing; which dilatoriness: (since despatch is the soul and life to his proposal, his only advantage a speedy vendition:) and also observing how that a money dearth, a silver famine, slackens and cools the courage of adventurers; through which hazy humours magnifying medium shillings loome like crowns, and each forty shillings a ten pound heap. Therefore, according to the present humour now reigning, he intends to adequate his design; and this seeming too large-roomed, standing lottery, new modelled into many less and more likely to be taken tenements, which shall not open only a larger prospect of pleasing hopes, but more real advantage to the adventurer. Which are now to be disposed of thus: the whole mass of books or volumes, being the same without addition or diminution, amounting according to their known value (being the prices they have been usually disposed at) to thirteen thousand seven hundred pounds; so that the adventurers will have the above said volumes (if all are drawn) for less than two thirds of what they would yield in process of time, book by book. He now resolves to attemper, or mingle each prize with four allaying blanks; so bringing down, by this means, the market from double pounds to single crowns.

THE PROPOSITIONS.--First, whosoever will be pleased to put in five shillings shall draw a lot, his fortune to receive the greatest or meanest prize, or throw away his intended spending money on a blank. Secondly, whoever will adventure deeper, putting in twenty-five shillings, shall receive, if such his bad fortune be that he draws all blanks, a prize presented to him by the author of more value than his money (if offered to be sold) though proffered ware, &c. Thirdly, who thinks fit to put in for eight lots forty shillings shall receive nine, and the advantage of their free choice (if all blanks) of either of the works complete, _viz._ Homer’s Iliads and Odysses, or Æsop the first and second volumes, the China book, or Virgil. Of which,

The first and greatest Prize contains 1 Lot, Number 1.

An imperial Bible with Chorographical and an hundred historical sculps, valued at 25_l._ Virgil translated, with sculps and annotations, val. 5_l._ Homer’s Iliads, adorned with sculps, val. 5_l._ Homer’s Odysses, adorned with sculps, val. 4_l._ Æsop’s Fables paraphrased and sculped, in folio, val. 3_l._

A second Collection of Æsopick Fables, adorned with sculps, never * * * * * * * * * * * [_Imperfect._] * * *

His Majestie’s Entertainment passing through the city of London, and Coronation.

These are one of each, of all the books contained in the Lottery, the whole value 51_l._

The Second Prize contains 1 Lot, Num. 2.

One imperial Bible with all the sculps, val. 25_l._ Homer complete, in English, val. 9_l._ Virgil, val. 5_l._ Æsop complete, val. 6_l._ The Description of China, val. 4_l._

In all 49 Pound.

The Third Prize contains 1 Lot, Num. 3.

One royal Bible with all the sculps 10_l._ Homer’s Works in English, val. 9_l._ Virgil translated, with sculps and annotations, val. 5_l._ The first and second vol. of Æsop, val. 6_l._ The Description of China, val. 4_l._ Entertainment, val. 2_l._

In all 36 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 4.

One imperial Bible with all the sculps, val. 25_l._ Æsop’s Fables the first and second vol. val. 6_l._

In all 31 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 5.

One imperial Bible with all the sculps, val. 25_l._ Virgil translated, with sculps, val. 5_l._

In all 30 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 6.

One imperial Bible with all the sculps, val. 25_l._ And a Description of China, val. 4_l._

In all 29 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 7.

One imperial Bible with all the sculps, and a new Æsop, val. 28_l._

1 Lot, Num. 8.

One imperial Bible with all the sculps, val. 25_l._

1 Lot, Num. 9.

A royal Bible with all the sculps, val. 10_l._ A Description of China, val. 4_l._ And a Homer complete, val. 9_l._

In all 23 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 10.

A royal Bible with all the sculps, val. 10_l._ A Virgil complete, val. 5_l._ Æsop’s Fables the first and second vols. val. 6_l._

In all 21 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 11.

One royal Bible with all the sculps, val. 10_l._ And a Homer’s Works complete, val. 9_l._

In all 19 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 12.

One royal Bible with all the sculps, val. 10_l._ And both the Æsops, val. 6_l._

In all 16 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 13.

One royal Bible with all the sculps, val. 10_l._ A Virgil complete in English, val. 5_l._

In all 15 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 14.

One royal Bible with all the sculps, val. 10_l._ A Description of China, val. 4_l._

In all 14 Pound.

* * * * [_Imperfect._] * * *

1 Lot, Num. 16.

One royal Bible with all the sculps, val. 10_l._ The second volume of Æsop, val. 3_l._

In all 13 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 17.

One royal Bible with all the sculps, val. 10_l._ And an Entertainment, val. 2_l._

In all 12 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 18.

One royal Bible with all the sculps, val. 10_l._

1 Lot, Num. 19.

One royal Bible with Chorographical sculps, val. 5_l._ One Virgil complete, val. 5_l._

In all 10 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 20.

One royal Bible with Chorographical sculps, val. 5_l._ And a Homer’s Iliads, val. 5_l._

In all 10 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 21.

One royal Bible with Chorographical sculps, val. 5_l._ And a Homer’s Odysses, val. 4_l._

In all 9 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 22.

One royal Bible with Chorographical sculps, val. 5_l._ And a Description of China, val. 4_l._

In all 9 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 23.

One royal Bible with Chorographical sculps, val. 5_l._ And Æsop complete, val. 6_l._

In all 11 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 24.

A royal Bible with Chorographical sculps, val. 5_l._ And Æsop the first volume, val. 3_l._

In all 8 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 25.

A royal Bible with Chorographical sculps, val. 5_l._ And Æsop the second volume, val. 3_l._

In all 8 Pound.

1 Lot, Num. 26.

A royal Bible, ruled, with Chorographical sculps, val. 6_l._

1 Lot, Num. 27.

A royal Bible with Chorographical sculps, ruled, val. 6_l._

1 Lot, Num. 28.

One royal Bible with Chorographical sculps, val. 5_l._

10 Lot, Num. 29.

Each a Homer complete, val. 9_l._

10 Lot, Num. 30.

Each a double Æsop complete, val. 6_l._

520 Lot, Num. 31.

Each a Homer’s Iliads, val. 5_l._

520 Lot, Num. 32.

Each a Homer’s Odysses, val. 4_l._

570 Lot, Num. 33.

Each a Virgil complete, val. 5_l._

570 Lot, Num. 34.

Each a China Book, val. 4_l._

570 Lot, Num. 35.

Each the first volume of Æsop, val. 3_l._

570 Lot, Num. 36.

Each the second volume of Æsop, val. 3_l._

The whole number of the lots three thousand, three hundred, and sixty-eight. The number of the blanks as above ordered; so that the total received is but four thousand, one hundred, and ten pounds.

The office where their monies are to be paid in, and they receive their tickets, and where the several volumes or prizes may be daily seen, (by which visual speculation understanding their real worth better than by the ear or a printed paper,) is kept at the Black Boy, over against St. Dunstan’s church, Fleet-street. The adventurers may also repair, for their better convenience, to pay in their monies, to Mr. Peter Cleyton, over against the Dutch church, in Austin-friars, and to Mr. Baker, near Broad-street, entering the South-door of the Exchange, and to Mr. Roycroft, in Bartholomew-close.

The certain day of drawing, the author promiseth (though but half full) to be the twenty-third of May next. Therefore all persons that are willing to adventure, are desired to bring or send in their monies with their names, or what other inscription or motto they will, by which to know their own, by the ninth of May next, it being Whitson-eve, that the author may have time to put up the lots and inscriptions into their respective boxes.

* * * * *

D. H., one of Mr. Urban’s contributors, mentions that he had seen an undated “Address to the Learned: or, an advantageous lottery for Books in quires; wherein each adventurer of a guinea is sure of a prize of two pound value; and it is but four to one that he has a prize of three, six, eight, twelve, or fifty pounds, as appears by the following proposals:” one thousand five hundred lots, at 1_l._ 1_s._ each, to be drawn with the lots out of two glasses, superintended by John Lilly and Edward Darrel, esqrs., Mr. Deputy Collins, and Mr. William Proctor, stationer, two lots of 50_l._, ten of 12_l._, twenty of 8_l._, sixty-eight of 6_l._, two hundred of 3_l._, one thousand two hundred of 3_l._ The undertakers were: Thomas Leigh, and D. Midwinter, at the Rose and Crown, in St. Paul’s Church-yard; Mr. Aylmer, at the Three Pigeons, and Mr. Richard Parker, under the Piazza of the Royal Exchange; Mr. Nicholson, in Little Britain; Mr. Took, at the Middle Temple gate, Fleet-street; Mr. Brown, at the Black Swan, without Temple-bar; Mr. Sare, at Gray’s-inn gate; Mr. Lownds, at the Savoy gate; Mr. Castle, near Scotland-yard gate; and Mr. Gillyflower, in Westminster-hall, booksellers.

* * * * *

Letters patent in behalf of the loyalists were from time to time renewed, and, from the Gazette of October 11, 1675, it appears by those dated June 19, and December 17, 1674, there were granted for thirteen years to come, “all lotteries whatsoever, invented or to be invented, to several truly loyal and indigent officers, in consideration of their many faithful services and sufferings, with prohibition to all others to use or set up the said lotteries,” unless deputations were obtained from those officers.

A PENNY LOTTERY.

The most popular of all the schemes was that drawn at the Dorset-garden theatre, near Salisbury-square, Fleet-street, with the capital prize of a thousand pound for a penny. The drawing began October 19, 1698; and, in the _Protestant Mercury_ of the following day, “its fairness (was said) to give universal content to all that were concerned.” In the next paper is found an inconsistent and frivolous story, as to the possessor of the prize: “Some time since, a boy near Branford, going to school one morning, met an old woman, who asked his charity; the boy replied, he had nothing to give her but a piece of bread and butter, which she accepted. Some time after, she met the boy again, and told him she had good luck after his bread and butter, and therefore would give him a penny, which, after some years’ keeping, would produce many pounds: he accordingly kept it a great while; and at last, with some friend’s advice, put it into the penny lottery, and we are informed that on Tuesday last the said lot came up with 1000_l._ prize.” However absurd this relation appears, it must be recollected those to whom it was principally addressed had given proof of having sufficient credulity for such a tale, in believing that two hundred and forty thousand shares could be disposed of and appropriated to a single number, independent of other prizes. The scheme of the “Penny Lottery” was assailed in a tract, intituled “The Wheel of Fortune, or Nothing for a Penny; being remarks on the drawing of the Penny Lottery at the Theatre Royal, in Dorset-Garden,” 1698, 4to. Afterwards at this theatre there was a short exhibition of prize-fighters; and the building was totally deserted in 1703.

In 1698-9, schemes were started, called “The Lucky Adventure; or, Fortunate Chance, being 2000_l._ for a groat, or 3000_l._ for a shilling:” and “Fortunatus, or another adventure of 1000_l._ for a penny:” but purchasers were more wary, and the money returned in both cases.--The patentees also advertised against the “Marble-board, alias the Woollich-board lotteries; the Figure-board, alias the Whimsey-board, and the Wyreboard lotteries.”[439]

* * * * *

These patents of the Restoration seem to have occasioned considerable strife between the parties who worked under them. The following verses from “The Post Boy, January 3, 1698,” afford some insight to their estimation among sensible people:--

A DIALOGUE _betwixt the_ NEW LOTTERIES _and the_ ROYAL OAK.

_New Lott._ To you, the mother of our schools, Where knaves by licence manage fools, Finding fit juncture and occasion, To pick the pockets of the nation; We come to know how we must treat ’em, And to their heart’s content may cheat ’em. _Oak._ It cheers my aged heart to see So numerous a progeny; I find by you, that ’tis heaven’s will That knavery should flourish still. You have docility and wit, And fools were never wanting yet. Observe the crafty auctioneer, His art to sell waste paper dear; When he for salmon baits his hooks, That cormorant of offal books, Who bites, as sure as maggots breed, Or carrion crows on horse-flesh feed; Fair specious titles him deceive, To sweep what Sl---- and T----n leave. If greedy gulls you wou’d ensnare, Make ’em proposals wondrous fair; Tell him strange golden show’rs shall fall, And promise mountains to ’em all. _New Lott._ That craft we’ve already taught, And by that trick have millions caught; Books, bawbles, toys, all sorts of stuff, Have gone off this way well enough. Nay, music, too, invades our art, And to some tune wou’d play her part. I’ll show you now what we are doing, For we have divers wheels agoing. We now have found out richer lands Than Asia’s hills, or Afric’s sands, And to vast treasures must give birth, Deep hid in bowels of the earth; In fertile Wales, and God knows where, Rich mines of gold and silver are, From whence we drain prodigious store Of silver coin’d, tho’ none in ore, Which down our throats rich coxcombs pour, In hopes to make us vomit more. _Oak._ This project surely must be good, Because not eas’ly understood: Besides, it gives a mighty scope To the fool’s argument--vain hope. No eagle’s eye the cheat can see, Thro’ hope thus back’d by mystery. _New Lott._ We have, besides, a thousand more, For great and small, for rich and poor, From him that can his thousands spare, Down to the penny customer. _Oak._ The silly mob in crowds will run, To be at easy rates undone. A gimcrack-show draws in the rout, Thousands their all by pence lay out. _New Lott._ We, by experience, find it true, But we have methods wholly new, Strange late-invented ways to thrive, To make men pay for what they give, To get the rents into our hands Of their hereditary lands, And out of what does thence arise, To make ’em buy annuities. We’ve mathematic combination, To cheat folks by plain demonstration, Which shall be fairly manag’d too, The undertaker knows not how. Besides ---- _Oak._ Pray, hold a little, here’s enough, To beggar Europe of this stuff. Go on, and prosper, and be great, I am to you a puny cheat.[440]

* * * * *

The “Royal-Oak Lottery,” as the rival if not the parent of the various other demoralizing schemes, obtained the largest share of public odium. The evils it had created are popularly set forth in a remarkable tract, entitled “The Arraignment, Trial, and Condemnation of _Squire Lottery_, alias _Royal-Oak Lottery_, London, 1699,” 8vo. The charges against the offender are arrayed under the forms imported by the title-page. The following extracts are in some respects curious, as exemplifying the manners of the times:--

_Die Lunæ vicesimo die Martii 1698/9. Anno Regni, &c._

At the Time and Place appointed, came on the Trial of _Squire Lottery_, alias _Royal-Oak Lottery_, for abundance of intolerable Tricks, Cheats, and high Misdemeanours, upon an Indictment lately found against him, in order to a National Delivery.

About ten of the Clock, the day and year abovesaid, the Managers came into the Court, where, in the presence of a vast confluence of People of all Ranks, the Prisoner was ordered to the Bar.

Proclamation being made, and a Jury of good Cits which were to try the Prisoner being sworn, the Indictment against _Squire Lottery_ alias _Royal-Oak Lottery_, was read.

_The Jurors’ Names._

Mr. _Positive_, a Draper in _Covent Garden_. Mr. _Squander_, an Oilman in _Fleet-street_. Mr. _Pert_, a Tobacconist, _ditto_. Mr. _Captious_, a Milliner in _Paternoster-Row_. Mr. _Feeble_, a Coffeeman near the _Change_. Mr. _Altrick_, a Merchant in _Gracechurch-street_. Mr. _Haughty_, a Vintner by _Grays-Inn, Holborn_. Mr. _Jealous_, a Cutler at _Charing-Cross_. Mr. _Peevish_, a Bookseller in _St. Paul’s Church-yard_. Mr. _Spilbook_, near _Fleet-bridge_. Mr. _Noysie_, a Silkman upon _Ludgate-hill_. Mr. _Finical_, a Barber in Cheapside.

_Cl. of Ma. Squire Lottery_, alias _Royal-Oak Lottery_, you stand Indicted by the Name of _Squire Lottery_, alias _Royal-Oak Lottery_, for that you the said _Squire Lottery_, not having the Fear of God in your Heart; nor weighing the Regard and Duty you owe, and of right ought to pay to the Interest, Safety, and Satisfaction of your Fellow-Subjects; have from time to time, and at several times, and in several places, contrary to the known Laws of this Kingdom, under the shadow and coverture of a Royal Oak, propagated, continued, and carried on a most unequal, intricate, and insinuating Game, to the utter ruin and destruction of many thousand Families: And that you the said _Squire Lottery_, alias _Royal-Oak Lottery_, as a common Enemy to all young People, and an inveterate Hater of all good Conversation and Diversion, have, for many years last past, and do still continue, by certain cunning Tricks and Stratagems, insidiously, falsely, and impiously, to trepan, deceive, cheat, decoy, and entice divers Ladies, Gentlemen, Citizens, Apprentices, and others, to play away their Money at manifest Odds and Disadvantage. And that you the said _Squire Lottery_, alias _Royal-Oak Lottery_, the more secretly and effectually to carry on and propagate your base, malicious, and covetous Designs and Practices, did, and do still encourage several lewd and disorderly Persons, to meet, propose, treat, consult, consent, and agree upon several unjust and illegal Methods, how to ensnare and entangle People into your delusive Game; by which means you have, for many years last past, utterly, intirely, and irrecoverably, contrary to all manner of Justice, Humanity, or good Nature, despoiled, depraved, and defrauded, an incredible number of Persons of every Rank, Age, Sex, and Condition, of all their Lands, Goods, and Effects; and from the Ruins of multitudes built fine Houses, and purchased large Estates, to the great scandal and reflection on the Wisdom of the Nation, for suffering such an intolerable Impostor to pass so long unpunished. What say’st thou, _Squire Lottery_, art thou guilty of the aforesaid Crimes, Cheats, Tricks, and Misdemeanours thou standest Indicted of, or not Guilty?

_Lottery._ Not Guilty. But, before I proceed to make my Defence, I beg I may be permitted the assistance of three or four learned Sharpers to plead for me, in case any Matter of Law arise.

This being assented to, the Managers of the Prosecution made their speeches in support of the Charge, and called Captain _Pasthope_.

_1st Man._ Sir, Do you know Squire _Lottery_, the Prisoner at the Bar?

_Pasthope._ Yes, I have known him intimately for near forty years; ever since the Restoration of King _Charles_.

_1st Man._ Pray will you give the Bench and Jury an Account what you know of him; how he came into _England_, and how he has behaved himself ever since.

_Pasthope._ In order to make my Evidence more plain, I hope it will not be judg’d much out of form, to premise two or three things.

_1st Man_. Mr. _Pasthope_, Take your own method to explain yourself; we must not abridge or direct you in any respect.

_Pasthope._ In the years 60 and 61, among a great many poor Cavaliers, ’twas my hard fate to be driven to Court for a Subsistence, where I continued in a neglected state, painfully waiting the moving of the Waters for several months; when at last a Rumour was spread, that a certain Stranger was landed in _England_, that in all probability, if we could get him the Sanction of a Patent, would be a good Friend to us all.

_Man._ You seem to intimate as if he was a Stranger; pray, do you know what Countryman he was?

_Pasthope._ The report of his Country was very different; some would have him a _Walloon_, some a _Dutchman_, some a _Venetian_, and others a _Frenchman_; indeed by his Policy, cunning Design, Forethought, &c. I am very well satisfied he could be no _Englishman_.

_Man._ What kind of Credentials did he bring with him to recommend him with so much advantage?

_Pasthope._ Why, he cunningly took upon him the Character of a _Royal-Oak Lottery_, and pretended a mighty Friendship to antiquated Loyalists: but for all that, there were those at Court that knew he had been banish’d out of several Countries for disorderly Practices, till at last he pitch’d upon poor easy credulous _England_ for his Refuge.

_Man._ You say then, he was a Foreigner, that he came in with the Restoration, usurp’d the Title of a _Royal Oak_, was establish’d in Friendship to the Cavaliers, and that for disorderly Practices he had been banish’d out of several Countries; till at last he was forc’d to fix upon _England_ as the fittest _Asylum_. But pray, Sir, how came you so intimately acquainted with him at first?

_Pasthope._ I was about to tell you. In order to manage his Affairs, it was thought requisite he should be provided with several Coadjutors, which were to be dignify’d with the Character of _Patentees_; amongst which number, by the help of a friendly Courtier, I was admitted for one.

_Man._ Oh! then I find you was a Patentee. Pray, how long did you continue in your Patentee’s Post? and what were the Reasons that urg’d you to quit it at last?

_Pasthope._ I kept my Patentee’s Station nine years, in which time I had clear’d 4000_l._, and then, upon some Uneasiness and Dislike, I sold it for 700_l._

_Man._ Pray, Captain, tell the Court more fully what was the Reason that prevail’d with you to relinquish such a profitable place.

_Pasthope._ I had two very strong Reasons for quitting my Post; _viz._ Remorse of Conscience, and Apprehension of consequent Danger. To tell you the truth, I saw so many bad Practices encourag’d and supported, and so many persons of both Sexes ruin’d; I saw so much Villany perfected and projected, and so many other intolerable Mischiefs within the compass of every day’s Proceeding, that partly through the stings of my Mind and the apprehensions I was under of the Mob, with a great deal of Reluctancy I quitted my Post.

_Man._ Captain, I find you’re nicely qualify’d for an Evidence, pray, therefore, give the Court an Account what Methods the Prisoner us’d to take to advance his business.

_Pasthope._ The way in my time, and I suppose ’tis the same still, was to send out Sharpers and Setters into all parts of the Town, and to give ’em direction to magnify the Advantage, Equality, and Justice of his Game, in order to decoy Women and Fools to come and play away their Money.

_Man._ Well, but sure he had no Women or Fools of Quality, Rank, or Reputation, that came to him? According to the common Report that passes upon him, there’s none but the very Scoundrels and Rabble, the very Dregs and Refuse of Fools, will think him worth their Conversation.

_Pasthope._ Truly, he had ’em of all sorts, as well Lord-fools and Lady-fools, Knight-fools and Esquire-fools, or any other sort of Fools: and, indeed, he made no difference between ’em neither; a Cobler-fool had as much respect as a Lord-fool, in proportion to the money he had in his Pocket; and _pro hac vice_ had as extensive a Qualification to command, domineer, and hector, as the best Fool of ’em all.

_Man._ Did you never observe any of these Fools to get any money of him? I can’t imagine what it could be that could influence ’em to embark with him, if there was nothing to be got.

_Pasthope._ There was never any body that ever got any thing of him in the main: now and then one by chance might carry off a small matter; and so ’twas necessary they should, for otherwise his Constitution must dissolve in course.

_Man._ ’Tis a great mystery to me, that so many People should pursue a Game where every body’s a Loser at last; but pray, Captain, then, what are the odds the Prisoner is reputed to have against those that play with him?

_Pasthope._ No body can tell you their Advantage; ’tis a cunning intricate _Contexture_, and truly I very much question whether the original Projector himself had a perfect Idea of the Odds: at a full Table and deep Play, I have seen him clear 600_l._ in less than an hour.

_Man._ What are the Odds he owns himself?

_Pasthope._ Only 32 Figures against 27, which indeed is Odds enough to insure all the money at length. But this, it seems, was an Advantage that was allow’d him, that he might be able to keep a good House, relieve the Poor, and pay an annual Pension to the Crown or the Courtiers.

_Man._ You say, by his original Agreement he’s to keep a good House: pray after all, what sort of House is it he does keep?

_Past._ Why, he dines at the Tavern, where any body that has 40 or 50_l._ to play away with him the Afternoon, may be admitted into his Company.

_Man._ What, does he entertain none but those that have 40 or 50_l._ to lose?

_Past._ He never converses with any Person that has no money: if they have no money, their Company’s burdensom and ungrateful, and the Waiters have Directions to keep ’em out.

_Man._ Does he do this to the very Persons he has ruin’d, and won all they have? That, methinks, is a pitch of Barbarity beyond the common degree: I hardly ever read or heard of any thing so exaltedly cruel and brutish, in all the Accounts of my Life.

_Past._ I have seen abundance of Examples of this nature, one, in particular, which I shall never forget; a poor Lady, that had lost 350_l._ _per annum_ to him, beside two or three thousand pounds in ready money, basely and inhumanly hal’d out of doors, but for asking for a glass of Sack.

_Man._ You were mentioning his Charity to the Poor too; is there any thing of reality in that?

_Past._ For my part, I never heard of one good Act he has done in the whole course of his Life: secret Charity is the most meritorious, ’tis true; and perhaps it may be that way he may communicate his, for indeed I never heard of any he did in publick.

_Man._ You were mentioning too an annual Pension to the Crown; what is it he pays to the Crown?

_Past._ Indeed I cannot be positive in that: to the best of my remembrance ’tis four thousand pounds _per annum_: in compensation for which, beside the general liberty he has to cheat and abuse the World, he has the sole Privilege of Licensing all other Cheats and Impostors, commonly known by the Name of Lotteries.

_2d Man._ You were speaking something, Captain _Pasthope_, just now, as if the Prisoner was intrusted with these Advantages for the benefit of some poor Cavaliers, which were to be the Patentees, as you call ’em. Pray tell the Jury what kind of Cavaliers these Patentees were.

_Past._ That was all but a Blind, a pure Trick to deceive the World: the Patentees, in the main, were either Sharpers or broken Tradesman, or some such sort or Vermin, that had cunningly twisted themselves into the business under the shadow of Cavaliers.

_Man._ Pray, what Opinion had the World of the Prisoner when he first came to be known in _England_?

_Pasthope._ The same that it has of him now: all wise men look’d upon him as a Cheat, and a dangerous Spark to be let loose in publick among our English Youth: and indeed I have heard a great many sober men pass very sharp Censures upon the Wisdom of the Court for intrusting him with a Royal Authority.

_Man._ What kind of Censures were they that they past? do you remember any of them particularly?

_Past._ Yes, I remember several things that I am almost ashamed to mention. I have heard ’em often reflecting what an intolerable Shame and Scandal it was, that a whole Kingdom should be sacrificed to the Interest of two or three Courtiers, and three or four scurvy mercenary Patentees; that so many thousand Families should be ruin’d, and no notice taken of it; that so many Wives should be seduc’d to rob and betray their Husbands, so many Children and Servants their Parents and Masters, and so many horrid Mischiefs transacted daily under the shadow of this pretended _Royal-Oak Lottery_, and no manner of means used to suppress it.

_2d Man._ But, Captain, did you never hear of any Person that got money of the Prisoner in the main?

_Past._ Not one. I defy him to produce one single person that’s a Gainer, against a hundred thousand he has ruin’d. I’m confident I have a Catalogue by me of several thousands that have been utterly undone by him, within the compass of my own Experience.

_Man._ What does the Town in general say of him?

_Past._ The town, here-a-late, is grown so inveterate and incens’d against him, that I am very well assur’d that if he had not been call’d to account in the very nick, the Mob would have speedily taken him into their correction.

_Man._ Well, Sir, you hear what the Witness has said against you; will you ask him any Questions?

_Lottery._ Only one; and leave the rest till I come to make my general Defence. Sir, I desire to know whether you was not one that was turn’d out upon the last Renewal of the Patent?

_Past._ No, Sir, I was not. You might have remember’d that I told you I saw so much of your Falshood and Tricks, and so many innocent People daily sacrific’d, to support a Society of lewd, debauch’d, impertinent, and withal imperious Cannibals, that I thought it my best way to quit your Fraternity, and pack off with that little I had got, and leave you to manage your mathematical Balls, &c. by your self.

_Man._ I suppose, Sir, you will ask him no more Questions, and so we’ll call another Witness.

_Lottery._ No, Sir, I have done with him.

_Man._ Call Squire _Frivolous_, the Counsellor: Sir, do you know _Squire Lottery_, the Prisoner?

_Frivolous._ I have been acquainted with him several years, to my great Cost and Damage. The first time I had the misfortune to know him, was at an Act at _Oxford_ about twenty years ago; where among abundance of other young Fools that he entic’d to sell their Books for Money to play with him, &c. I was one.

_Man._ What, I hope, he was not so barbarous as to decoy the poor young Gentlemen out of their Books?

_Frivolous._ Yes, out of every thing they had, and out of the College to boot: For my own part I have reason to curse him, I’m sure; He flatter’d me up with so many Shams and false Pretences, and deluded me with so many chimerical Notions and cunning Assurances, and urg’d me so long from one deceitful Project to another, till at last he had trickt me out of all I had in the world, and then turn’d me over to the scorn and laughter of my Friends and Acquaintance.

_Man._ Can you give the Bench any particular Names of Persons he has ruin’d?

_Frivolous._ I have a Collection of Names in my Pocket, which I’m sure he can’t object against, that have lost fourteen or fifteen thousand Pound _per Annum_, within my own Knowledg and Acquaintance.

_Man._ That’s a round Sum: But, pray, Mr. _Frivolous_, for the satisfaction of the Jury, mention a few of their Names.

_Frivolous._ I suppose, _Squire Lottery_, you must remember the Kentish Squire in the Blue Coat, that you won the six hundred Pound _per Annum_ of, in less than five months. You remember the Lord’ Steward that lost an Estate of his own of three hundred Pound _per Annum_, and run four thousand Pound in Arrears to his Lord beside. You remember, I suppose, the West-India Widow, that lost the Cargo of two Ships, valued at fifteen hundred Pound, in less than a month. I know you can’t forget the honest Lady at _St. James’s_, that sold all her Goods, Plate, and China, for about seven hundred Pound, and paid it all away to you, as near as I remember, in three mornings. I know you can’t forget the three Merchants’ Daughters that play’d away their whole Fortunes, _viz._ fifteen hundred Pounds apiece in less than two months. You remember the Silkman from _Ludgate-hill_; the young Draper in _Cornhil_; the Country Parson; the Doctor of Physick’s Daughter; the Lady’s Woman; the Merchant’s Apprentice; the Marine Captain; the Ensign of the Guards; the Coffeeman’s Neece; the old Justice’s Nephew; and abundance of others, which I have in my Catalogue, that you have cheated out of large Sums, and utterly ruin’d.

_Lottery._ I desire that he may be ask’d, what it was that influenc’d him at first to make such a Catalogue?

_Man._ He desires to know upon what account it was that you made this Collection of Names?

_Frivolous._ I had once a design to have him call’d to an Account, and forc’d to a Restitution; in which case I thought the Names of these Persons might be of some use to me.

_Man._ What Method did you propose to your self to bring him to a Restitution?

_Frivolous._ I had a Notion, that if I drew up the Case, and got it recommended to the Honourable House of Commons, they would have thought the Prisoner worth their correction: But this he got intelligence of, and employ’d one of his Agents to make up the matter with me.

_Man._ What, I suppose you mean he brib’d you with a Sum of Money to decline the Prosecution?

_Frivolous._ Truly you have hit of the very thing; he knew that I was poor, and he was guilty, and so compounded with me for a few Guineas to let the thing fall: And indeed, if I am not misinform’d, his Art of Bribing, &c. has guarded him so long from the Punishments which the Laws of the Land, and common Justice, have provided for such notorious Offenders.

Other witnesses having been called, the arraigned defended himself as follows:--

_Lottery._ Sir, I intend to spend as little of your time as I can: I perceive, that, let me say what I will, you are prepar’d to over-rule it, and so I’ll only say a few words, and call three or four Witnesses to prove my reputation, and then leave the good Men and true of the Jury, upon whose Verdict I must stand or fall, to use me as they shall best judg the nature of my Case deserves.

I know, Gentlemen, the tide of Prejudice runs very fierce against me; so that let me say what I will, I’m satisfy’d it will be all to very little purpose; an ill Name to a Person in my condition is certain Death, which indeed makes me a little more indifferent in making my defence.

But, Gentlemen, look upon me, I am the very Image of some of you, a married Protestant; upon which account I’m confident I may rely upon a little of your Justice, if not your Favour.

The Crimes I am charged with are indeed very great, and, what’s worse, there’s some of ’em I can never expect to evince. But then, Gentlemen, I hope you’l consider, that whatever I did, was purely in the prosecution of my occupation; and you know withal what Authority I had for it; so that if by chance, in this long tract of time, every thing should not be so nicely conformable as you expect, I hope you’l take care to lay the Saddle upon the right Horse.

You all know that Covetousness and Cheating are the inseparable Companions of a Gamester; divide him from them, and he’s the most insignificant Creature in Nature. And, Gentlemen, I appeal to your selves, if a little useful lying and falshood be not (in some cases) not only tolerable, but commendable. I dare say you will agree with me in this, that if all the Knaves and Cheats of the Nation were call’d to the Bar and executed, there would only be a few Fools left to defend the Commonwealth.

But, Gentlemen, as I told you before, I won’t spend your time, and therefore I’ll call my Witnesses. Call Captain _Quondam_.

_Cryer._ Call Capt. _Quondam_.

_Lottery._ Sir, I desire you would give the Court an account what you know of me, as to Life and Conversation.

_Quondam._ I have known the Prisoner for several years, and have been often in his company upon particular occasions and never saw any thing that was rude or unhandsome by him.

_Man._ Pray, noble Captain, what Countryman are you?

_Quondam._ Sir, I am a West-Countryman.

_Man._ An English West-Country, or a _West-India_ Man? or what?

_Quondam._ I am a West-Countryman of his Majesty’s own Dominions, of the Kingdom of _Ireland_, in the County of _Cork_, and Parish of _Durrus_ in the Barony of _West-Carbury_, near the great Bogg of _Longuar_, Gent.

_Man._ You’re a West-Countryman with a Witness. And, pray, how long have you been in _England_?

_Quondam._ Ever since the last year of my Soveraign Lord King _James_.

_Man._ And, pray, how long have you been a Captain?

_Quondam._ I was born so; my Father, my Grandfather, great Grandfather, and most of my Kin, were all Captains before me.

_Man._ You say you have been often in the Prisoner’s Company; pray where have you been in his Company, and upon what account?

_Quondam._ I have been in his Company at _Epsom_, _Tunbridge_, _Lambeth_, _Islington_, and at several other places both in Town and Country.

_Man._ Well, but you ha’n’t told what was the occasion that brought you so oft into his Company.

_Quondam._ He desired me to go along with him to help him to divert and entertain his Guests, especially the Ladies that us’d to visit him.

_Man._ I suppose you’re one of his Dependents: had you never no salary from him?

_Quondam._ I have had several Favours from him, and I must own I love him very well; and, by my Shoul, I believe he’s a very honest Man, and a good Christian.

_Man._ Who’s your next evidence?

_Lottery._ I desire Mr. _Scamper_ may be call’d.

_Cry._ Call Mr. _Scamper_.

_Lottery._ Pray, Mr. _Scamper_, give the Court an Account what you know of me, as to my manner of living and behaviour in the World.

_Scamper._ You know, _Squire Lottery_, your Acquaintance and mine is but of a late Date; I never saw you till last _May_ at _Lambeth Wells_, and then ’twas but by accident too.

After other witnesses called in his behalf, whose testimony, however, tended to inculpate Squire “Royal Oak,” the evidence was summed up.

“Then the jury withdrew to consider of their verdict, and afterwards they returned into the court, and the prisoner was brought again to the bar and found guilty, according to the indictment, and afterwards received sentence, together with Mr. _Auction_ and Dr. _Land-Bank_, who were both tryed, convicted, and condemned; and their trials will be published with all possible speed. FINIS.”

There is no reason to doubt, that the representations in the preceding satire are substantially correct. Private and fallacious lotteries were at this time become so general, not only in London, but in most other great cities and towns of England, whereby the lower people and the servants and children of good families were defrauded, that an act of parliament was therefore passed 10 and 11 William III. c. 17, for suppressing such lotteries; “even although they might be set up under colour of patents or grants under the great seal. Which said grants or patents,” says the preamble “are against the common good, welfare, and peace of the kingdom, and are void and against law.” A penalty therefore of five hundred pounds was laid on the proprietors of any such lotteries, and of twenty pounds on every adventurer in them. Notwithstanding this, the like disposition to fraud and gaining prevailed again, till fresh laws were enacted for their suppression.[441]

* * * * *

It is observed, that if the lottery office keepers of the present century could be credited, their adventurers enjoyed greater gaming privileges than the world ever produced; and yet it is an indubitable fact, that in the early state lotteries the advantages offered were eminently superior to those of recent times.

The Post Boy of December 27 says, “We are informed that the parliamentary lottery will be fixed in this manner:--150,000 tickets will be delivered out at 10_l._ each ticket, making in all the sum of 1,500,000_l._ sterling; the principal whereof is to be sunk, the parliament allowing nine per cent. interest for the whole during the term of thirty-two years, which interest is to be divided as follows: 3750 tickets will be prizes from 1000_l._ to 5_l._ per annum during the said thirty-two years; all the other tickets will be blanks, so that there will be thirty-nine of these to one prize, but then each blank ticket will be entitled to fourteen shillings a year for the term of thirty-two years, which is better than an annuity for life at ten per cent. over and above the chance of getting a prize.” Such was the eagerness of the public in subscribing to the above profitable scheme, that Mercers-hall was literally crowded, and the clerks were found incompetent to receive the influx of names. 600,000_l._ was subscribed January 21; and on the 28th of February the sum of 1,500,000_l._ was completed.

* * * * *

The rage for lotteries reigned uncontrolled; and the newspapers of the day teemed with proposals issued by every ravenous adventurer who could collect a few valuable articles; and from those, shopkeepers took the hint, and goods of every description were converted into prizes, even neckcloths, snuff-boxes, toothpick-cases, linen, muslin, and plate. The prices of tickets were generally sixpence, a shilling, half a crown, &c. At the latter end of the year just mentioned, the magistrates, being alarmed, declared their intention of putting the act of William and Mary in force, which levied a penalty of 500_l._ on the proprietor, and 20_l._ on each purchaser.

Matthew West, a goldsmith, of Clare-street, Clare-market, appears to have been the man who first divided lottery tickets into shares. He advertised, in 1712, that he had sold 100 tickets in the million and an half lottery in twentieths, and purposed pursuing his plan, which was well received.

The lottery for 1714 contained 50,000 tickets at 10_l._ each, with 6982 prizes and 43,018 blanks; two of the former were 10,000_l._, with one of 5, another of 4000_l._, a third of 3000_l._, and a fourth of 2000_l._, five of 1000_l._, ten of 500_l._, twenty of 200_l._, fifty of 100_l._, four hundred of 50_l._, and six thousand, four hundred, and ninety-one of 20_l._

Besides the drawing for prizes and blanks, there was another for the course of payment, and each 1000 tickets was called a course. The payments to the receivers were on the 10th of November and 10th of December, 1713. When the tickets were drawn, they were exchanged for standing orders, and thus rendered assignable by endorsement; all the blanks were repaid the 10_l._ per ticket at one payment, in the order their course of payment happened to fall, and they bore an interest of four per cent. from Michaelmas 1713. The prizes were payable in the same manner: the first drawn ticket had 500_l._; the last 1000_l._ besides the general chance; 35,000_l._ per annum was payable weekly from the Exchequer to the paymaster for the discharge of the principal and interest, and the whole funds of the civil list were chargeable for thirty-two years for 35,000_l._ per annum.[442]

* * * * *

One of the schemes which preceded the bubbles of 1720 was an insurance-office for lottery tickets, opened at Mercers-hall; and 120,000_l._ was actually subscribed on the following terms: for every ninety-six tickets insured, the proprietors agreed to allow to the company (after the tickets were drawn) 16_s._ per ticket, and five per cent. on such prizes as occurred to the ninety-six tickets, the company returning the tickets, and in case the prizes did not amount to 288_l._ valuing the prizes at par; the company to make up the money 3_l._ for every ticket. For every forty-eight tickets the proprietors agreed to allow 19_s._ per ticket, and five per cent. on the prizes as above; the company making up the tickets 144_l._ or 3_l._ per ticket, and so on down to twelve tickets. The proprietors of the tickets to advance no money for this security; but, when drawn, to allow as above; the tickets to be deposited with the company, and placed by them under seal in the bank of England; if not called for in ninety days after the drawing, to be forfeited.[443]

* * * * *

In 1712, gambling prevailed in smaller private and unlawful lotteries, under the denomination of sales of gloves, fans, cards, plate, &c.; also offices were opened for insurances on marriages, births, christenings, services, &c. and daily advertisements thereof were published in the newspapers. By an act of the tenth of queen Anne, keepers of these lotteries and offices were subjected to a penalty of 500_l._ In 1716, the spirit of adventure was excited by the sale of chances and parts of chances of tickets, which occasioned parliament again to interfere: all such practices, and all undertakings resembling lotteries, or founded on the state lottery, were declared illegal, and prohibited under a penalty of 100_l._ beyond the penalties previously enacted against private lotteries.[444]

LUCKY NUMBERS.

The attention of “the Spectator” was directed to the lottery mania prevailing at this period. One of its writers observing, on the predilection for particular numbers, ranks it among the pastimes and extravagancies of human reason, which is of so busy a nature, that it will exert itself on the meanest trifles, and work even when it wants materials. He instances, that when a man has a mind to adventure his money in a lottery, every figure of it appears equally alluring, and as likely to succeed as any of its fellows. They all of them have the same pretensions to goodluck, stand upon the same foot of competition; and no manner of reason can be given, why a man should prefer one to the other, before the lottery is drawn. In this case therefore, caprice very often acts in the place of reason, and forms to itself some groundless imaginary motive, where real and substantial ones are wanting. I know a well-meaning man that is very well pleased to risk his good fortune upon the number 1711, because it is the year of our Lord. I am acquainted with a tacker that would give a good deal for the number 134. On the contrary, I have been told of a certain zealous dissenter, who being a great enemy to popery, and believing that bad men are the most fortunate in this world, will lay two to one on the number 666 against any other number; because, says he, it is the number of the beast. Several would prefer the number 12000 before any other, as it is the number of the pounds in the great prize. In short, some are pleased to find their own age in their number; some that they have got a number which makes a pretty appearance in the cyphers; and others, because it is the same number that succeeded in the last lottery. Each of these, upon no other grounds, thinks he stands fairest for the great lot, and that he is possessed of what may not be improperly called the _golden number_.

I remember among the advertisements in the “Post Boy” of September the 27th, I was surprised to see the following one:

_This is to give notice, that ten shillings over and above the market-price will be given for the ticket in the 1500000l. Lottery_, N^{o} 132, _by Nath. Cliff, at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside_.

This advertisement has given great matter of speculation to coffee-house theorists. Mr. Cliff’s principles and conversation have been canvassed upon this occasion, and various conjectures made, why he should thus set his heart upon N^{o} 132. I have examined all the powers in those numbers, broken them into fractions, extracted the square and cube root, divided and multiplied them all ways, but could not arrive at the secret till about three days’ ago, when I received the following letter from an unknown hand, by which I find that Mr. Nathaniel Cliff is only the agent, and not the principal, in this advertisement.

“Mr. Spectator,

“I am the person that lately advertised I would give ten shillings more than the current price for the ticket N^{o} 132 in the lottery now drawing; which is a secret I have communicated to some friends, who rally me incessantly upon that account. You must know I have but one ticket, for which reason, and a certain dream I have lately had more than once, I was resolved it should be the number I most approved. I am so positive I have pitched upon the great lot, that I could almost lay all I am worth of it. My visions are so frequent and strong upon this occasion, that I have not only possessed the lot, but disposed of the money which in all probability it will sell for. This morning, in particular, I set up an equipage which I look upon to be the gayest in the town; the liveries are very rich, but not gaudy. I should be very glad to see a speculation or two upon lottery subjects, in which you would oblige all people concerned, and in particular

“Your most humble servant,

“George Gosling.”

“P.S. Dear Spec, if I get the 12000_l._ I’ll make thee a handsome present.”

After having wished my correspondent good luck, and thanked him for his intended kindness, I shall for this time dismiss the subject of the lottery, and only observe, that the greatest part of mankind are in some degree guilty of my friend Gosling’s extravagance. We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are. We outrun our present income, as not doubting to disburse ourselves out of the profits of some future place, project, or reversion that we have in view. It is through this temper of mind, which is so common among us, that we see tradesmen break, who have met with no misfortunes in their business; and men of estates reduced to poverty, who have never suffered from losses or repairs, tenants, taxes, or law-suits. In short, it is this foolish sanguine temper, this depending upon contingent futurities, that occasions romantic generosity, chimerical grandeur, senseless ostentation, and generally ends in beggary and ruin. The man who will live above his present circumstances is in great danger of living in a little time much beneath them, or, as the _Italian_ proverb runs, the man who lives by hope will die by hunger.

It should be an indispensable rule in life, to contract our desires to our present condition, and whatever may be our expectations, to live within the compass of what we actually possess. It will be time enough to enjoy an estate when it comes into our hands; but if we anticipate our good fortune, we shall lose the pleasure of it when it arrives, and may possibly never possess what we have so foolishly counted upon.[445]

This engraving is slipped on here for the sake of readers who are fond of _cuts_, rather than as an illustration of any thing immediately preceding. An explanation of it will occur in the ensuing sheet, with several amusing prints relating to the present subject.

In “_The Examiner_”[446] there is an article on Lotteries by Mr. George Smeeton, of Bermondsey: wherein he says, “I am glad to see that Mr. Hone has taken up the subject in his _Every-Day Book_, by giving us a view of the drawing of the lottery, 1751; and this month (October) I hope he will treat us with a continuation of it. The print by N. Parr, in six compartments, entitled _Les Divertissements de la Loterie_, is worthy of his attention: it is a lively and true picture of the folly, infatuation, and roguery of the times. If he has not the print (which is rather scarce) I can furnish him with it out of my portfolio.” Mr. Smeeton has obligingly communicated the loan of his engraving, from whence the representation on this page has been selected. The original print, designed by J. Marchant, drawn by H. Gravelot, and engraved by Parr, was “published by E. Ryland, in Ave Mary-lane,” in the year 17-- hundred odd; the scissars having snipped away from this copy of the engraving the two figures which particularized the year, it cannot be specified, though from the costume it appears to have been in the reign of George II.

Parr’s print is in six compartments: the four corner ones represent, 1. “Good Luck--£1000 prize;” a scene of rejoicing at the news. 2. “Bad Luck--what, all blanks?” a scene of social disturbance. 3. “Oh--let Fortune be kind;” the desires of a female party in conference with an old woman, who divines by coffee-grounds. 4. “Dear Doctor! consult the stars;” another female party waiting on a fortune-teller for a cast of his office. The middle compartment at the bottom has a view of “Exchange-alley,” with its frequenters, in high business. The middle compartment, above it, is the drawing of the lottery in the view now placed before the reader, wherein it may be perceived that the female visitants are pewed off on one side and the men on the other; and that the pickpockets dextrously exercise their vocation among the promiscuous crowd at the moment when the drawing of a thousand pound prize excites a strong interest, and a female attracts attention by proclaiming herself the holder of the lucky “No. 765.”

To this eager display of the ticket by the fortunate lady, a representation of a scene at the drawing of “the very last lottery that will ever be drawn in England” might be a collateral illustration.

THE UNFORTUNATE LADY.

On the 2d of November, 1826, a lady named Free, who had come up from the country to try her fortune in the lottery, complained to the Lord Mayor, at the Mansion-house, that she had been deprived of her property, the sixteenth share of a 30,000_l._ prize, by the misconduct of those engaged in conducting the drawing. She stated, that she chose the ticket No. 17,092.

The _Lord Mayor_.--You had some particular reason, then, for selecting that number?

The _Complainant_ replied, it was true, she had; she wished to have a ticket with the number of the year in which she was born, and finding that she could not get that precise number, she took one of 17,000, instead of 1700, as the most fortunate approach. So indeed it turned out to be; for she was sitting in the hall where the lottery was drawn, and heard her number distinctly cried out as one of the 30,000_l._ prizes, and with her own eyes she distinctly saw the officer stamp it. Nevertheless, another ticket had been returned as the prize.

The _Lord Mayor_ doubted, from the manner in which the tickets were well known to be drawn, whether the complainant’s anxiety had not made her mistake a similar number for her own.

The _Complainant_.--“Oh no, my lord; it is impossible that I can be mistaken, though other people say I am. I shall not give up my claim, on the word of lottery-office clerks. If there’s any mistake, it is on their part; I trust to my own _senses_.”

The _Lord Mayor_ observed, that there was scarcely any trusting even to the “senses” on such occasions; and asked her, whether she did not almost feel the money in her pockets at the very time she fancied she heard her number announced?

The _Complainant_ assured his lordship, that she heard the announcement as calmly as could be expected, and that she by no means fainted away. She certainly made sure of having the property; she sat in the hall, and went out when the other expectants came away.

Mr. Cope, the marshal, who stated that he was in attendance officially at the drawing, to keep the peace, declared that he heard all the fortunate numbers announced, and he was sorry to be compelled to state his conviction that this belonging to the lady was not one of them.

The _Lord Mayor_ said, he was afraid the complainant had deceived herself. He dismissed the application, recommending her to go to the stamp-office, and apply to the commissioners, who would do any thing except pay the money to satisfy her.[447]

In allusion to the lady’s name, and his decision on her case, his lordship is said to have observed on her departure, “not Free and _Easy_.”

* * * * *

Reverting to a former period, for the sake of including some remarkable notices of lotteries adduced by Mr. Smeeton, we find him saying, on the authority of the “London Gazette,” May 17, 1688, that, besides the lottery at the Vere-street theatre, “Ogilby, the better to carry on his _Britannia_, had a lottery of books at _Garraway’s Coffee-house_, in ‘Change-alley.”

Mr. Smeeton has the following three paragraphs:--

Lotteries of various kinds seem to have been very general about this period; indeed so much so, that government, issued a notice in the _London Gazette_, Sept. 27, 1683, to prevent the drawing of any lotteries (and especially a newly-invented lottery, under the name of the riffling, or raffling lottery) except those under his majesty’s letters patent for thirteen years, granted to persons for their sufferings, and have their seal of office with this inscription--‘_Meliora Designavi_.’

In 1683, prince Rupert dying rather poor, a plan was devised to “raise the wind” by disposing of all his jewels; but as the public were not satisfied with the mode of drawing the lotteries, on account of the many cheats practised on them, they would not listen to any proposals, until the _king himself_ guaranteed to see that all was fair, and also, that Mr. Francis Child, the goldsmith, at Temple-bar, London, would be answerable for their several adventures; as appears by the _London Gazette_, Oct. 1, 1683:--“These are to give notice, that the jewels of his late royal highness prince Rupert have been particularly valued and appraised by Mr. Isaac Legouch, Mr. Christopher Rosse, and Mr. Richard Beauvoir, jewellers, the whole amounting to twenty thousand pounds, and will be sold by way of lottery, each lot to be five pounds. The biggest prize will be a great pearl necklace, valued at 8,000_l._, and none less than 100_l._ A printed particular of the said appraisement, with their divisions into lots, will be delivered gratis, by Mr. Francis Child, at Temple-bar, London, into whose hands such as are willing to be adventurers are desired to pay their money, on or before the first day of November next. As soon as the whole sum is paid in, a short day will be appointed (which, it is hoped, will be before Christmas) and notified in the _Gazette_, for the drawing thereof, which will be done in his majesty’s presence, who is pleased to declare, that _he himself will see all the prizes put in amongst the blanks_, and that the whole will be managed with equity and fairness, nothing being intended but the sale of the said jewels at a moderate value. And it is further notified, for the satisfaction of all as shall be adventurers, that the said Mr. Child shall and will stand obliged to each of them for their several adventures. And that each adventurer shall receive their money back if the said lottery be not drawn and finished before the first day of February next.”--Mr. Child was the first regular banker: he began business soon after the Restoration, and received the honour of knighthood. He lived in Fleet-street, where the shop still continues in a state of the highest respectability. A subsequent notice says, “that the king will probably, tomorrow, in the Banquetting-house, see all the blanks told over, that they may not exceed their number; and that the papers on which the prizes are to be written shall be rolled up in his presence; and that a child, appointed either by his majesty or the adventurers, shall draw the prizes.”--What would be said now, if his present majesty were to be employed in sorting, folding, and counting the blanks and prizes in the present lottery?

About 1709, there was the _Greenwich Hospital Adventure_, sanctioned by an act of parliament, which the managers describe as “liable to none of the objections made against other lotteries, _as to the fairness_ of the drawing, it not being possible there should be any deceit in it, _as it has been suspected in others_.”--Likewise there was Mr. Sydenham’s _Land Lottery_, who declared it was “found very difficult and troublesome for the adventurers for to search and find out what prizes they have come up in their number-tickets, _from the badness of the print_, the _many errors in them_, and the _great quantity of prizes_.”--The _Twelve-penny_, or _Nonsuch_, and the _Fortunatus_ lotteries, also flourished at the commencement of the eighteenth century.[448]

LOTTERY OF DEER.

In May, 1715, the proprietors of Sion gardens advertised the following singular method of selling deer from their park. They appointed the afternoons of Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, for killing those animals; when the public were admitted at one shilling each to see the operation, or they might purchase tickets from four to ten shillings, which entitled them, it is supposed, by way of _lottery_, to different parts of the beast,--as they say the quantity killed was to be divided into sixteen lots, and the first choice to be governed by the numbers on the tickets: a ten shilling ticket was entitled to a fillet; eight, a shoulder; seven, a loin, &c. If the full price of the deer was not received on a given day, the keeper held the money till that sum was obtained. They offered to sell whole deer, and to purchase as many as might be offered.[449]

HARBURGH LOTTERY.

In 1723, the resentment of the house of commons was directed against the scheme of a lottery to be drawn at Harburgh, a town of Hanover on the Elbe, opposite Hamburgh, in the king’s German dominions. A committee inquired into this and other lotteries at that time on foot in London. The scheme pretended to raise a subscription for maintaining a trade between Great Britain and the king’s territories on the Elbe. It was a mysterious scene of iniquity, which the committee, with all their penetration, could not fully discover; but they reported, that it was an infamous, fraudulent undertaking, whereby many unwary persons had been drawn in, to their great loss: that the manner of carrying it on had been a manifest violation of the laws of the kingdom: that the managers and agents of this lottery had, without any authority, made use of his majesty’s royal name to countenance the infamous project, and induce his majesty’s subjects to engage or be concerned therein. A bill was brought in to suppress this lottery, and to oblige its managers to make restitution of the money they had received from the contributors. At the same time the house resolved, That John lord viscount Barrington had been notoriously guilty of promoting, abetting, and carrying on the fraudulent undertaking; for which offence he should be expelled the house.[450]

BANK CLERKS’ FINESSE.

On the 31st of August, 1731, a scene was presented which strongly marks the infatuation and ignorance of lottery adventurers. The tickets for the State Lottery were delivered out to the subscribers at the Bank of England; when the crowd becoming so great as to obstruct the clerks, they told them, “We deliver blanks to-day, but to-morrow we shall deliver prizes;” upon which many, who were by no means for blanks, retired, and by this bold stratagem the clerks obtained room to proceed in their business. In this lottery “her majesty presented his royal highness the duke with ten tickets.”[451]

LOVE, DEATH, AND THE LOTTERY.

Early in the reign of George II., the footman of a lady of quality, under the absurd infatuation of a dream, disposed of the savings of the last twenty years of his life in two lottery tickets, which proving blanks, after a few melancholy days, he put an end to his life. In his box was found the following plan of the manner in which he should spend the five thousand pound prize, which his mistress preserved as a curiosity:--

“As soon as I have received the money, I will marry Grace Towers; but, as she has been cross and coy, I will use her as a servant. Every morning she shall get me a mug of strong beer, with a toast, nutmeg, and sugar in it; then I will sleep till ten, after which I will have a large sack posset. My dinner shall be on table by one, and never without a good pudding. I will have a stock of wine and brandy laid in. About five in the afternoon I will have tarts and jellies, and a gallon bowl of punch; at ten, a hot supper of two dishes. If I am in a good-humour, and Grace _behaves herself_, she shall sit down with me. To bed about twelve.”[452]

FIELDING’S FARCE.

In 1731, Henry Fielding wrote a farce for Drury-lane Theatre, called “The Lottery,” to which, in 1732, he added a new scene. This pleasant representation of characters usually influenced to speculate in such schemes, was acted with considerable success, especially about the time when the lottery was drawn at Guildhall, and may well be conceived as calculated to abate the popular furor. It opens with a lottery-office keeper--

_Mr._ Stocks, _alone_.

AIR.

A Lottery is a Taxation, Upon all the Fools in Creation; And, Heaven be prais’d, It is easily rais’d, Credulity’s always in Fashion: For Folly’s a Fund Will never lose Ground, While Fools are so rife in the Nation.

[_Knocking without._

_Enter_ 1 Buyer.

_1 Buy._ Is not this a House where People buy _Lottery Tickets_?

_Stoc._ Yes, Sir--I believe I can furnish you with as good Tickets as any one.

_1 Buy._ I suppose, Sir, ’tis all one to you what Number a Man fixes on.

_Stoc._ Any of my Numbers.

_1 Buy._ Because I would be glad to have it, Sir, the Number of my own Years, or my Wife’s; or, if I cou’d not have either of those, I wou’d be glad to have it the Number of my Mother’s.

_Stoc._ Ay, or suppose, now, it was the Number of your Grandmother’s?

_1 Buy._ No, no! She has no Luck in Lotteries: She had a whole Ticket once, and got but fifty Pounds by it.

_Stoc._ A very unfortunate Person, truly. Sir, my Clerk will furnish you, if you’ll walk that way up to the office. Ha, ha, ha!--There’s one 10,000_l._ got!--What an abundance of imaginary rich men will one month reduce to their former Poverty. [_Knocking without._] Come in.

_Enter_ 2 Buyer.

_2 Buy._ Does not your Worship let Horses, Sir?

_Stoc._ Ay, Friend.

_2 Buy._ I have got a little Money by driving a Hackney-Coach, and I intend to ride it out in the Lottery.

_Stoc._ You are in the right, it is the way to drive your own Coach.

_2 Buy._ I don’t know, Sir, that--but I am willing to be in _Fortune’s_ way, as the saying is.

_Stoc._ You are a wise Man, and it is not impossible but you may be a rich one--’tis not above--no matter, how many to one, but that you are this Night worth 10,000_l._

_2 Buy._ An belike you, Sir, I wou’d willingly ride upon the Number of my Coach.

_Stoc._ Mr. _Trick_, let that Gentleman the Number of his Coach--[_Aside._] No matter whether we have it, or no.--As the Gentleman is riding to a Castle in the Air, an airy Horse is the properest to carry him. [_Knocking hard without._] Heyday! this is some Person of Quality, by the Impudence of the Footman.

_Enter_ Lady.

_Lady._ Your Servant, Mr. _Stocks_.

_Stoc._ I am your Ladyship’s most obedient Servant.

_Lady._ I am come to buy some Tickets, and hire some Horses, Mr. _Stocks_--I intend to have twenty Tickets, and ten Horses every Day.

_Stoc._ By which, if your Ladyship has any Luck, you may very easily get 30 or 40,000_l._

_Lady._ Please to look at those Jewels, Sir--they cost my Lord upwards of 6000_l._--I intend to lay out what you will lend upon ’em.

[_Knocking without._

_Stoc._ If your Ladyship pleases to walk up into the Dining-Room, I’ll wait on you in a Moment.

[_Chloe, a lady, holding an undrawn Lottery Ticket, which, from what a fortune-teller told her, what she saw in a coffee dish, and what she dreamt every night, she is confident would come up a prize of ten thousand pounds, desires to consult Mr. Stocks as to how she should lay out the money._]

_Enter_ Stocks.

_Stoc._ I had the Honour of receiving your Commands, Madam.

_Chloe._ Sir, your humble Servant--Your Name is Mr. _Stocks_, I suppose.

_Stoc._ So I am call’d in the Alley, Madam; a Name, tho’ I say it, which wou’d be as well receiv’d at the Bottom of a Piece of Paper, as any He’s in the Kingdom. But if I mistake not, Madam, you wou’d be instructed how to dispose of 10,000_l._

_Chloe._ I wou’d so, Sir.

_Stoc._ Why, Madam, you know, at present, Publick Interest is very low, and private Securities very difficult to get--and I am sorry to say, I am afraid there are some in the Alley who are not the honestest Men in the Kingdom. In short, there is one way to dispose of Money with Safety and Advantage, and that is--to put it into the _Charitable Corporation_.

_Chloe._ The _Charitable Corporation_! pray what is that?

_Stoc._ That is, Madam, a method, invented by some very wise Men, by which the Rich may be charitable to the Poor, and be Money in Pocket by it.

THE CHARITABLE CORPORATION.

This company, erected in 1707, professed to lend money at legal interest to the poor upon small pledges; and to persons of better rank upon security of goods impawned. Their capital, at first limited to £30,000, was by licenses from the crown increased to £600,000, though their charter was never confirmed by act of parliament. In 1731, George Robinson, esquire, member for Marlow, the cashier, and John Thompson, warehouse-keeper of the corporation, disappeared in one day. The alarmed proprietors held several general courts, and appointed a committee to inspect their affairs, who reported, that for a capital of above £500,000 no equivalent was found; inasmuch as their effects did not amount to the value of £30,000, the remainder having been embezzled. The proprietors, in a petition to the house of commons, represented that, by a notorious breach of trust, the corporation had been defrauded of the greatest part of their capital; and that many of the petitioners were reduced to the utmost misery and distress: they therefore prayed parliament to inquire into the state of the corporation, and the conduct of their managers, and extend relief to the petitioners. On this petition a secret committee was appointed, who soon discovered a most iniquitous scene of fraud, perpetrated by Robinson and Thompson, in concert with some of the directors, for embezzling the capital, and cheating the proprietors. Many persons of rank and quality were concerned in this infamous conspiracy. Sir Robert Sutton and sir Archibald Grant were expelled the house of commons, as having had a considerable share in those fraudulent practices, and a bill was brought in to restrain them and other delinquents from leaving the kingdom, or alienating their effects.[453] In 1733, parliament granted a lottery in behalf of the sufferers. On the 1st of August in that year, books were opened at the bank to receive, from those who had given in their names, the first payment of one pound per ticket in the “Lottery for the relief of the Charitable Corporation;”[454] and in 1734 “it was distributed among them, amounting to nine shillings and ninepence in the pound on their loss.”[455]

* * * * *

The “London Journal” of October 30, 1731, observing on the general disposition to adventure says:--

The _natural life_ of man is _labour or business_; riches is an _unnatural_ state; and therefore generally a _state of misery_. Life, which is a drug in the hands of _idle men_, never hangs heavily on the hands of merchants and tradesmen, who judiciously divide their time between the city and country.

This is so true, that a wise man would never leave his children so much money as to put them _beyond industry_; for that is too often putting them _beyond happiness_. The _heaping up riches_ for posterity is, generally speaking, _heaping up destruction_; and entailing of _large estates_, entailing _vice and misery_.

These thoughts were occasioned by the present _state lottery_; which plainly discovers that the people would run into the excesses of the _South Sea_ year, had they the same opportunities. The spring and source of this _unreasonable passion_, is the _luxury of the age_. _Tradesmen_ commence gentlemen and _men of pleasure_, when they should be _men of business_; and _begin_ where they should _end_. This sets them a madding after _lotteries_; business is neglected, and poverty, vice, and misery spread among the people. It is hoped that the _Parliament_ will never come into another _lottery_. All other gaming should be also discouraged. Who but laments that unfortunate young lady at the _Bath_, who was ruined by gaming, and rather than submit to a _mean dependance_, thought it best to resign her life?[456]

The tone of dissuasion from lotteries and gambling in the year 1731, prevails through the writings of the different persons who opposed such schemes and practices. The story of the “unfortunate young lady at the Bath, who was ruined by gaming,” referred to in the last paragraph, and already related in this work, is exceedingly affecting.

WESTMINSTER BRIDGE LOTTERY.

In the 9th year of George II. parliament passed an act for building this bridge by a lottery, and the following scheme was issued to the public:--

LOTTERY 1736, _for raising 100000l. for building a Bridge at_ Westminster, _consisting of 125000 Tickets, at 5l. each_.

Prizes 1 -- of -- 20000_l._ -- is -- 20000_l._ 2 -------- 10000 -------- 20000 3 -------- 5000 -------- 15000 10 -------- 3000 -------- 30000 40 -------- 1000 -------- 40000 60 -------- 500 -------- 30000 100 -------- 200 -------- 20000 200 -------- 100 -------- 20000 400 -------- 50 -------- 20000 1000 -------- 20 -------- 20000 28800 -------- 10 -------- 288000 ----- ------ 30616 Prizes, amounting to -- -- 523000 94384 Blanks. First Drawn -- -- -- -- 1000 Last Drawn -- -- -- -- 1000 ------ ------ 125000 525000 ------ ------

The Prizes to be paid at the Bank in 40 Days after Drawing, without Deduction. _N.B._ _There is little more than Three_ Blanks _to a_ Prize.[457]

Parliament granted successive lotteries for the building and completion of Westminster-bridge.

AN ORGAN LOTTERY.

In 1737, Horace Walpole (Lord Orford) says, “I am now in pursuit of getting the finest piece of music that ever was heard; it is a thing that will play eight tunes. Handel and all the great musicians say, that it is beyond any thing they can do; and this may be performed by the most ignorant person; and when you are weary of those eight tunes, you may have them changed for any other that you like. This I think much better than going to an Italian opera, or an assembly. This performance has been lately put into a _Lottery_, and all the royal family chose to have a great many tickets, rather than to buy it, the price being I think 1000_l._, infinitely a less sum than some bishopricks have been sold for. And a gentleman won it, who I am in hopes will sell it, and if he will, I will buy it, for I cannot live to have another made, and I will carry it into the country with me.”

* * * * *

In the State Lottery of 1739, tickets, chances, and shares were “bought and sold by Richard Shergold, printer to the honourable the commissioners of the Lottery, at his office at the Union Coffee-house over and against the Royal Exchange, Cornhill.” He advertised, that he kept numerical books during the drawing, and a book wherein buyers might register their numbers at sixpence each; that 15 _per cent. was to be deducted_ out of the prizes, which were to be paid at the bank in fifty days after the drawing was finished; and that “schemes in French and English” were given gratis.[458]

The per centage to be deducted from the prizes in this lottery occasioned the following

EPIGRAM.

This lottery can never thrive, Was broker heard to say, For who but fools will ever give _Fifteen per cent_ to play.

A sage, with his accustomed grin, Replies, I’ll stake my doom, That if but half the fools come in The wise will find no room.[459]

LOTTERY AT STATIONERS’ HALL.

On the 23d of November, 1741, “the drawing of the Bridge Lottery began at _Stationers’ Hall_.--_The Craftsman_ of the 28th says, that every 100,000_l._ laid out in a lottery puts a stop to the circulation of at least 300,000_l._, and occasions almost a total suppression of trade.”[460]

* * * * *

In June, 1743, “the price of lottery tickets having risen from 10_l._ to 11_l._ 10_s._ some persons, who probably wanted to purchase, published a hint to the _unwary_ adventurers, that they gamed at 50 _per cent._ loss; paying, at that price, 2_s._ 6_d._ to play for 5_s._; the money played for being only three pound, besides discount and deductions.”[461]

TICKET STUCK IN THE WHEEL.

On the 5th of January, 1774, at the conclusion of drawing the State Lottery at Guildhall, No. 11,053, as the last drawn ticket, was declared to be entitled to the 1000_l._, and was so printed in the paper of benefits by order of the commissioners. It was besides a prize of 100_l._ But after the wheels were carried back to Whitehall and there opened, the ticket No. 72,248 was found _sticking in a crevice_ of the wheel. And, being the next drawn ticket after all the prizes were drawn, was advertised by the commissioners’ order as entitled to the 1000_l._, as the _last drawn_ ticket: “which affair made a great deal of noise.”[462]

A PEER’S SUBSTITUTE FOR LOTTERIES.

On the bill, for a lottery to succeed the preceding, being brought into the house of lords, a peer said, that such measures always were censured by those that saw their nature and their tendency. “They have been considered as legal cheats, by which the ignorant and the rash are defrauded, and the subtle and avaricious often enriched. They have been allowed to divert the people from trade, and to alienate them from useful industry. A man who is uneasy in his circumstances, and idle in his disposition, collects the remains of his fortune, and buys tickets in a lottery, retires from business, indulges himself in laziness, and waits, in some obscure place, the event of his adventure. Another, instead of employing his stock in a shop or a warehouse, rents a garret in a private street, and make it his business, by false intelligence, and chimerical alarms, to raise and sink the price of tickets alternately, and takes advantage of the lies which he has himself invented. If I, my lords, might presume to recommend to our ministers the most probable method of raising a large sum for the payment of the troops of the electorate, I should, instead of the tax and lottery now proposed, advise them to establish a certain number of licensed wheel-barrows, on which the laudable trade of thimble and button might be carried on for the support of the war, and shoe-boys might contribute to the defence of the house of _Austria_, by raffling for apples.”

CHANCES OF TICKETS.

The State Lottery of 1751 seems to have encountered considerable opposition. There is a discouraging notice in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” on the 4th of July in that year, that “those inclined to become adventurers in the present lottery were cautioned in the papers to wait some time before they purchased tickets, whereby the jobbers would be disappointed of their market, and obliged to sell at a lower price. At the present rate of tickets the adventurer plays at 35 per cent. loss.”

In the next month, August, the “London Magazine” exhibited the following computation.

IN THE LOTTERY 1751, IT IS

69998 to 2 or 34999 to 1 against a £10000 prize. 69994 to 6 or 11665 to 1 against a 5000 or upwards. 69989 to 11 or 6363 to 1 against a 3000 69981 to 19 or 3683 to 1 against a 2000 69961 to 39 or 1794 to 1 against a 1000 69920 to 80 or 874 to 1 against a 500 69720 to 280 or 249 to 1 against a 100 69300 to 700 or 99 to 1 against a 50 60000 to 10000 or 6 to 1 against a 20 or any prize.

The writer says, I would beg the favour of all gentlemen, tradesmen, and others, to take the pains to explain to such as any way depend upon their judgment, that one must buy no less than seven tickets to have an even chance for any prize at all; that with only one ticket, it is six to one, and with half a ticket, twelve to one against any prize; and ninety-nine or a hundred to one that the prize, if it comes, will not be above fifty pounds; and no less than thirty-five thousand to one that the owner of a single ticket will not obtain one of the greatest prizes. No lottery is proper for persons of very small fortunes, to whom the loss of five or six pounds is of great consequence, besides the disturbance of their minds; much less is it advisable or desirable for either poor or rich to contribute to the exorbitant tax of more than two hundred thousand pounds, which the first engrossers of lottery tickets, and the brokers and dealers strive to raise, out of the pockets of the poor chiefly, and the silly rich partly, by artfully enhancing the price of tickets above the original cost.

The prices of tickets in this lottery was ten pounds. On their rise a Mr. Holland publicly offered to lay four hundred guineas, that four hundred tickets, when drawn, did not amount to nine pounds fifteen shillings on an average, prizes and blanks; his advertisement was never answered.

These animadversions on the scheme, and the resistance offered to the endeavours of the brokers and dealers to effect a rise in the price of tickets, appear, from the following lines published in October, to have been to a certain degree successful--

A NEW SONG

_From ‘Change-alley, occasioned by a stagnation of the sale of Lottery Tickets._

While guineas were plenty, we thought we might rise, Nor dreamt of a magpye to pick out our eyes; ’Twas twelve would have satisfy’d all our desire, Tho’ perhaps without pain we might see them mount higher. Derry down, down, down derry, &c.

How sweet were the pickings we formerly gain’d, From whence our fine daughters their fortunes obtain’d! In our coaches can roll, at the public can smile, Whose follies reward all our labour and toil. Derry down, &c.

Then let them spin out their fine scheme as they will, No horseshoe nor magpye shall baffle our skill; In triumph we’ll ride, and, in spite of the rout, Our point we’ll obtain without wheeling about. Derry down, &c.

Tho’ sturdy these beggars, yet weak are their brains; Who offer to check us, must smart for their pains; In concert united, we’ll laugh at the tribe, Who play off their engines to damp all our pride. Derry down, &c.

Let Holland no longer appear with his brags, His four hundred guineas keep safe in his bags, Nor think we’re such fools to risque any thing down, By way of a wager to humour the town. Derry down, &c.[463]

* * * * *

On the 11th of the next month, November, the drawing of the State Lottery began, when, notwithstanding the united efforts of several societies and public-spirited gentlemen to check the exorbitancy of the ticket-mongers, the price rose to sixteen guineas just before drawing. All means were tried to cure this infatuation by writing and advertising; particularly on the first day of drawing, it was publicly averred, that near eight thousand tickets were in the South Sea House, and upwards of thirty thousand pawned at bankers, &c. that nine out of ten of the ticket-holders were not able to go into the wheel; and that not one of them durst stand the drawing above six days. It was also demonstrated in the clearest manner, that to have an even chance for any prize a person must have seven tickets; that with only one ticket it was six to one; and ninety-nine to one that the prize, if it came, would not be above fifty pounds, and no less than thirty-five thousand to one that the owner of a single ticket would not obtain one of the greatest prizes.--Yet, notwithstanding these and other precautions, people still suffered themselves to be deluded, and the monied men arrogantly triumphed.[464]

A LOTTERY JOB IN IRELAND.

In August, 1752, a lottery was set on foot at Dublin, under the pretext of raising 13,700_l._ for rebuilding Essex-bridge, and other public and charitable uses. There were to be 100,000 tickets, at a guinea each. The lords justices of Ireland issued an order to suppress this lottery. The measure occasioned a great uproar in Dublin; for it appears, that the tickets bore a premium, and that though the original subscribers were to have their money returned, the buyers at the advanced price would lose the advance. Every purchaser of a single ticket in this illegal lottery incurred a penalty of 50_l._ for each offence, and the seller 500_l._, one third of which went to the informer, a third to the king, and the other third to the poor of the parish; besides which, the offenders were subject to a year’s close imprisonment in the county gaol.[465]

LEHEUP’S FRAUD.

To prevent the monopoly of tickets in the State Lottery, it had been enacted, that persons charged with the delivery of tickets should not sell more than twenty to one person. This provision was evaded by pretended lists, which defeated the object of parliament and injured public credit, insomuch that, in 1754, more tickets were subscribed for than the holders of the lists had cash to purchase, and there was a deficiency in the first payment. The mischief and notoriety of these practices occasioned the house of commons to prosecute an inquiry into the circumstances, which, though opposed by a scandalous cabal, who endeavoured to screen the delinquents, ended in a report by the committee, that Peter Leheup, esq. had privately disposed of a great number of tickets before the office was opened to which the public were directed by an advertisement to apply; that he also delivered great numbers to particular persons, upon lists of names which he knew to be fictitious; and that, in particular, Sampson Gideon became proprietor of more than six thousand, which he sold at a premium. Upon report of these and other illegal acts, the house resolved that Leheup was guilty of a violation of the act, and a breach of trust, and presented an address to his majesty, praying that he would direct the attorney-general to prosecute him in the most effectual manner for his offences.

An information was accordingly filed, and, on a trial at bar in the court of king’s bench, Leheup, as one of the receivers of the last lottery of 300,000_l._, was found guilty: 1. Of receiving subscriptions before the day and hour advertised; 2. Of permitting the subscribers to use different names to cover an excess of twenty tickets; and 3. Of disposing of the tickets which had been bespoke and not claimed, or were double charged, instead of returning them to the managers. In Trinity term, Leheup was brought up for judgment, and fined 1000_l._, which he paid in court. As he had amassed forty times that sum by his frauds, the lenity of the sentence was the subject of severe remark.[466]

LOTTERY INSANITY.

November 5, 1757, Mr. Keys, late clerk to Cotton and Co., who had absented himself ever since the 7th of October, the day the 10,000_l._ was drawn in the lottery, (supposed to be his property,) was found in the streets raving mad, having been robbed of his pocket-book and ticket.[467]

* * * * *

The subjoined verses appeared in 1761:[468]--

_A few Thoughts on Lotteries._

A Lottery, like a magic spell, All ranks of men bewitches, Whose beating bosoms vainly swell With hopes of sudden riches:

With hope to gain TEN THOUSAND POUND How many post to ruin, And for an empty, airy sound Contrive their own undoing!

Those on whom wealth her stores had shed, May firmly bear their crosses; But they who earn their daily bread, Oft sink beneath their losses.

’Tis strange, so many fools we find, By tickets thus deluded, And, by a trifling turn of mind, From life’s blest bliss excluded.

For life’s best blessing, calm content, Attends no more his slumbers, Who dreams of profit, cent. per cent. And sets his heart on numbers.

Thro’ all life’s various stages, care Our peace will oft disquiet; Like a free-gift it comes, we ne’er Need be in haste to buy it.

He who, intent on shadowy schemes, By them is deeply bubbled, Deserves to wake from golden dreams, With disappointment doubled.

Unmoved by Fortune’s fickle wheel, The wise man chance despises; And Prudence courts with fervent zeal-- She gives the highest prizes.

LARGE DIVISION OF TICKETS.

In some of the old lotteries tickets were divided into a much greater number of shares than of late years. There is an example of this in the following

_Advertisement, November, 1766._

DAME FORTUNE presents her respects to the public, and assures them that she has fixed her residence for the present at CORBETT’S, State Lottery-office, opposite St. Dunstan’s-church, Fleet-street; and, to enable many families to partake of her favours, she has ordered not only the tickets to be sold at the lowest prices, but also that they be _divided into shares at the following low rates_, viz:--

£ _s._ _d._ A sixty-fourth 0 4 0 Thirty-second 0 7 6 Sixteenth 0 15 0 An eighth 1 10 0 A Fourth 3 0 0 A half 6 0 0

By which may be gained from upwards of one hundred and fifty to upwards of five thousand guineas, at her said office No. 30.

A NUMBER TWICE SOLD.

The lottery of 1766 was unfortunate to a lottery-office keeper. The ticket No. 20,99 was purchased in the alley for Pagen Hale, esq. of Hertfordshire; and the same number was also divided into shares at a lottery-office near Charing-cross, and some of the shares actually sold. The number purchased in the alley was the real number, but that divided by the office-keeper was done by mistake, for which he paid a proportionable sum.

* * * * *

During the lottery of 1767, the stockbrokers fell among thieves. Mr. Hugnes, a stock-broker, had his pocket picked in Jonathan’s coffee-house of fifty lottery tickets, the value of which (at the price then sold) was 800_l._ The same evening three other brokers had their pockets picked of their purses, one containing sixty-two guineas, another seven, and the third five. One of the pick-pockets was afterwards apprehended, on whom thirty-five of the tickets were found, and recovered; the other fifteen he said were carried to Holland by his accomplices.

* * * * *

The preceding anecdotes are in the newspapers of the time, together with the following, which strongly marks the perversion of a weak mind. “A gentlewoman in Holborn, whose husband had presented her with a ticket, put up prayers in the church, the day before drawing, in the following manner: _The prayers of the congregation are desired for the success of a person engaged in a new undertaking_.”

A FRAUDULENT INSURER.

In January, 1768, an insurer of tickets was summoned before a magistrate, for refusing to pay thirty guineas to an adventurer, upon the coming up of a certain number a blank, for which he had paid a premium of three guineas. The insurer was ordered immediately to pay thirty guineas, which he was obliged to comply with to prevent worse consequences.[469] In other words, the magistrate was too weak to exert the power he was armed with, by law, against both the insurer and the insured.

LOVE TICKETS.

Mr. Charles Holland, the actor, who died on the 7th of December, 1769, received many letters of passionate admiration from a lady who fell in love with him from his appearance on the stage; and she accompanied one of her declarations of attachment by four lottery tickets as a present.[470]

GOOD AND ILL LUCK.

In the lottery of 1770, the holder of the ticket entitled to the capital prize or 20,000_l._ was captain Towry of Isleworth. A very remarkable circumstance put it in his possession: Mr. Barnes, a grocer in Cheapside, purchased four following numbers, one of which this was; but thinking the chance not so great in so many following ones, he carried this very ticket back to the office, and changed it for another.

A LITTLE GO.

October 14, 1770, a case was determined at the general quarter session of the peace for the county of Wilts, held at Marlborough. A quack doctor had been convicted before Thomas Johnson, esq. of Bradford, in the penalty of 200_l._ for disposing of plate, &c. by means of a device or lottery; and by a second information convicted of the same offence before Joseph Mortimer, esq. of Trowbridge. To both these convictions he appealed to the justices at the general quarter session of the peace, when, after a trial of near ten hours, the bench unanimously confirmed the conviction on both informations, by which the appellant was subjected to the penalties of 200_l._ on each, and costs.[471]

INSURANCE CAUSE.

On the 1st of March, 1773, a cause of great public concern came on to be tried before lord Mansfield, at Guildhall, wherein the lord mayor was plaintiff, and Messrs. Barnes and Golightly were defendants, in order to determine the legality of insuring lottery tickets; but on account of an error in the declaration the plaintiff was nonsuited.

On the 17th of the same month, “Mr. Sheriff Lewes presented a petition from the city of London, against the frequent toleration of lotteries in the time of peace; but the petition was ordered to lie upon the table.--No government can long subsist, that is reduced to the necessity of supporting itself by fraudulent gaming.”[472]

TRICKS OF AN INSURER.

June 26, 1775, a cause came on in the court of common pleas, Guildhall, between a gentleman, plaintiff, and a lottery-office keeper of this city, defendant; the cause of this action was as follows: the gentleman, passing by the lottery-office, observed a woman and boy crying, on which he asked the reason of their tears; they informed him, that they had insured a number in the lottery on the over night, and, upon inquiry at another office, found it to have been drawn five days before, and therefore wanted their money returned; the gentleman, taking their part, was assaulted and beat by the office-keeper, for which the jury gave a verdict in favour of the gentleman with five pounds damages.[473]

PROCEEDINGS RESPECTING A BLUE-COAT BOY.

In 1775, some of the boys of Christ’s Hospital, appointed to draw numbers and chances from the wheel, were tampered with, for the purpose of inducing them to commit a fraud. These attempts were successful in one instance, and led to certain regulations, which will presently be stated.

On the 1st of June, a man was carried before the lord mayor for attempting to bribe the two blue-coat boys who drew the Museum Lottery at Guildhall to conceal a ticket, and to bring it to him, promising that he would next day return it to them. His intention was to insure it in all the offices, with a view to defraud the office-keepers. The boys were honest, gave notice of the intended fraud, and pointed out the delinquent, who, however, was discharged, as there existed no law to punish the offence.

On the 5th of December, one of the blue-coat boys who drew the numbers in the State Lottery at Guildhall was examined before sir Charles Asgill, relative to a number that had been drawn out the Friday before, on which an insurance had been made in almost every office in London. The boy confessed, that he was prevailed upon to conceal the ticket No. 21,481, by a man who gave him money for so doing; that the man copied the number; and that the next day he followed the man’s instructions, and put his hand into the wheel as usual, with the ticket in it, and then pretended to draw it out. The instigator of the offence had actually received 400_l._ of the insurance-office keepers; had all of them paid him, the whole sum would have amounted to 3000_l._ but some of them suspected a fraud had been committed, and caused the inquiry, which obtained the boy’s confession.

On the following day, the person who insured the ticket was examined. He was clerk to a hop-factor in Goodman’s-fields, but not being the person who seduced the boy to secrete the ticket, and no evidence appearing to prove his connection with the person who did, the prisoner was discharged, though it was ascertained that he had insured the number already mentioned ninety-one times in one day.[474]

In consequence of the circumstances discovered by this examination, the lords of the treasury inquired further, and deliberated on the means of preventing similar practices; the result of their conferences was the following “Orders,” which are extracted from the original minutes of the proceedings, and are now for the first time published.

COPY, No. I.

ORDER _of December 12, 1775_.

A DISCOVERY having been made, that WILLIAM TRAMPLET, one of the boys employed in drawing the lottery, had, at the instigation of one CHARLES LOWNDES, (since absconded,) at different times, in former rolls _taken out of the number wheel_ THREE _numbered tickets, which were at_ THREE _several times returned by him into the said wheel, and drawn without his parting with them_, so as to give them the appearance of being fairly drawn, _to answer the purpose of defrauding by insurance_:

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED, for preventing the like wicked practices in future, that every boy before he is suffered to put his hand into either wheel, be brought by the proclaimer to the managers on duty, for them to see that _the bosoms and sleeves of his coat be closely buttoned_, _his pockets sewed up_, _and his hands examined_; and that during the time of his being on duty, _he shall keep his left hand in his girdle behind him, and his right hand open, with his fingers extended_; and the proclaimer is not to suffer him at any time to leave the wheel without being first examined by the manager nearest him.

The observance of the foregoing order is recommended by the managers on this roll to those on the succeeding rolls, till the matter shall be more fully discussed at a general meeting.

COPY, No. II.

ORDER _at_ GENERAL MEETING.

A PLAN OF RULES AND REGULATIONS to be observed, in order _to prevent the boys committing frauds_, &c., in the drawing of the lottery, agreeable to _directions_ received by Mr. JOHNSON, on Tuesday the 16th of January, 1776, from the LORDS OF THE TREASURY.

THAT ten managers be always on the roll at Guildhall, two of whom are to be conveniently placed opposite the two boys at the wheels, in order to observe that they strictly conform themselves to the rules and orders directed by the committee at Guildhall, on Tuesday, December 12, 1775.

_THAT it be requested of the TREASURER OF CHRIST’S HOSPITAL not to make known who are the twelve boys nominated for drawing the lottery till the morning the drawing begins; which said boys are all to attend every day, and the two who are to go on duty at the wheels are to be taken promiscuously from amongst the whole number_ by either of the secretaries, _without observing any regular course or order; so that no boy shall know when it will be his turn to go to either wheel_.

THIS METHOD, though attended with considerable additional expense, by the extra attendance of two managers and six boys, will, it is presumed, effectually prevent any attempt being made to corrupt or bribe any of the boys to commit the fraud practised in the last lottery.

* * * * *

It is imagined, that to future inquirers concerning lotteries, with a view to its history, the publication of the preceding documents may be acceptable. So long a time has elapsed since the fraud they relate to was perpetrated, that any motive which existed for keeping them private has ceased. The blue-coat boy who secretly abstracted the tickets from the wheel, and afterwards appeared to draw them fairly and openly, will be regarded as having been pitiably exposed to seductions, which might have been prevented if these regulations had been adopted on the complaint of the lad who was tampered with in June. Perhaps it was prudent, though not “quite correct,” to conceal that _three_ tickets had been improperly taken from the wheel: until now, it has not been publicly made known that there was more than _one_; and though, if the point had been tried, that _one_ might have been sufficient to have vitiated the legality of the drawing of the lottery of 1775 altogether, it was not enough, in a popular view, to raise a hue-and-cry among the unfortunate holders against the disturbance of their chances. The concealment of _three_ might have congregated the unsuccessful adventurers of the three kingdoms into an uproar, “one and indivisible,” which, with the law on their side, would have exceedingly puzzled the then lords of the treasury to subdue, without ordering the lottery to have been drawn over again, and raising a fresh clamour among the holders of tickets that had been declared prizes.

LOTTERY SUICIDE.

On the 10th of January, 1777, “a young man, clerk to a merchant in the city, was found in the river below bridge drowned: he had been dabbling in the lottery with his master’s money, and chose this way of settling his accounts.”[475]

A BLANK MADE A PRIZE.

In January, 1777, Joseph Arones and Samuel Noah, two jews, were examined at Guildhall before the lord mayor, charged with counterfeiting the lottery ticket No. 25,590, a prize of 2000_l._, with intent to defraud Mr. Keyser, an office-keeper, knowing the same to have been false and counterfeit. Mr. Keyser had examined the ticket carefully, and had taken it into the Stock-exchange to sell, when Mr. Shewell came into the same box, and desired to look at the ticket, having, as he recollected, purchased one of the same number a day or two before. This fortunate discovery laid open the fraud, and the two jews were committed to take their trial for their ingenuity. It was so artfully altered from 23,590, that not the least erasure could be discerned. Arones was but just come to England, and Noah was thought to be a man of property.

In February following, Arones and Noah were tried at the Old Bailey for the forgery and fraud. Their defence was, that the prisoner Arones found it, and persons were brought to swear it; on which they were acquitted. The figure altered was so totally obliterated by a certain liquid, that not the least trace of it could be perceived.

At the same sessions, Daniel Denny was tried for forging, counterfeiting, and altering a lottery ticket, with intent to defraud; and, being found guilty, was condemned.[476]

INSURING.

In July, 1778, came on to be tried at Guildhall, before lord Mansfield, a cause, wherein a merchant was plaintiff and a lottery-office keeper defendant. The action was brought for suffering a young man, the plaintiff’s apprentice, to insure with the defendant during the drawing of the last lottery, contrary to the statute; whereby the youth lost a considerable sum, the property of the merchant. The jury without going out of court gave a verdict for the plaintiff, thereby subjecting the defendant to pay 500_l._ penalty, and to three months’ imprisonment.[477]

During the same year, parliament having discussed the evil of insuring, and the mischievous subdivision of the shares of tickets, passed an act “for the regulation of Lottery offices,” in which the principal clauses were as follows--

“To oblige every lottery-office keeper to take out a licence, at the expense of 50_l._, and give security not to infringe any part of the act.

“That no person shall dispose of any part of a ticket in any smaller share or proportion than a sixteenth, on 50_l._ penalty.

“That any person selling goods, wares, or other merchandise, or who shall offer any sum or sums of money, upon any chance or event whatsoever, relating to the drawing of any ticket, shall be liable to a penalty of 20_l._

“To enable the commissioners of his majesty’s treasury to establish an office;--all shares to be stamped at that office;--the original tickets from which such shares are to be taken, to be kept at that office till a certain time after drawing;--books of entry to be regularly kept;--persons carrying shares to be stamped to pay a small sum specified in the act;--penalties for persons selling shares not stamped; and a clause for punishing persons who shall forge the stamp of any ticket.”

In 1779, the drawing of the lottery and the conduct of lottery-office keepers was further regulated by act of parliament.[478]

EVASIONS OF THE INSURERS.

The provisions of parliament against the ruinous practice of insurance were evaded by the dexterity of the lottery-office keepers. In 1781, the following proposals were issued by the cunning, and greedily accepted by the credulous.

I.

_November 7, 1781_

MODE OF INSURANCE,

Which continues the whole time of drawing the lottery, at CARRICK’S STATE LOTTERY OFFICE, King’s Arms, 72, Threadneedle-street. _At one guinea each_ NUMBERS _are taken_, to return three twenty pound prizes, value sixty pounds, for every given number that shall be drawn any prize whatever above twenty pounds during the whole drawing.

⁂ _Numbers at half a guinea to receive half the above._

II.

J. Cook respectfully solicits the public will favour the following _incomparably advantageous plan_ with attention, by which _upwards of thirty-two thousand chances for obtaining a prize (out of the forty-eight thousand tickets) are given in one policy_.

POLICIES OF FIVE GUINEAS _with three numbers_, with the first number will gain

20000 if a prize of £20000 10000 £10000 5000 £ 5000

_with the second number_ will gain

6000 guineas if 20000 3000 10000 1500 5000

_with the third number_ will gain

3000 guineas if 20000 1500 10000 1200 5000

* * * * *

In the lottery act of 1782 there was a clause designed to prevent the insurance of tickets by any method. The lottery-office keepers persisted in their devices, and the magistrates enforced the law.

About the beginning of January 1785 several lottery-office keepers were convicted, before the lord mayor and aldermen, in penalties of fifty pounds each for insuring numbers contrary to law; and in Trinity term the following cause was tried at Westminster, before lord Loughborough.

A lottery-office keeper near Charing-cross was plaintiff, and the sheriff of Middlesex defendant. The action was to recover one thousand five hundred and sixty-six pounds, levied by the sheriff, about a year past, on the plaintiff’s goods, by virtue of three writs of _fieri facias_, issued from the court of King’s-bench. It seems that the above plaintiff was convicted in three penalties of five hundred pounds each, for insuring lottery tickets; but previous to the trial’s coming on, for some indulgence, he had, by himself or agents, consented not to bring any writ of error, and an order of _nisi prius_ was drawn up, and served upon his attorney; notwithstanding which, three writs of error were sued out. The court of King’s-bench being then moved, made an order that the executions should be levied according to the original rule of court: the sheriff made the levy, and the money being paid and impounded in his hands, the above action was brought to get the same returned. The novelty of the action caused much laughter among the counsel, and, after a few minutes’ hearing, his lordship ordered the plaintiff to be nonsuited.[479]

LOTTERY WOOD CUTS.

It is to be remarked, that at this period engravings on their printed addresses do not seem to have been resorted to by the lottery-schemers as they have been since, for the purpose of stimulating attention to their plans. No subject of the kind therefore can be given, to illustrate their proceedings at the time now under review; but on arriving, as we shall presently, at days nearer our own, they crowd upon us, and _several_ will be given in the next sheet as specimens of their ingenuity and taste.

CHARLES PRICE, _alias_ PATCH, &c.

This man was a lottery-office keeper. His notoriety and his fate render him one of the most remarkable characters of the age wherein he lived; it is therefore proposed to give a brief outline of his life.

His father, Charles Price, was “by trade a tailor.” He came from South Wales, about the year 1702, and worked at several places in London, till in 1710 he got into Monmouth-street, as journeyman to a salesman there. By strict application he was, in a few years, enabled to set up as a master, and kept a saleshop the corner of Earl-street and West-street, Seven Dials. Some time previous to this he had married a woman who bore a very good character. He was very clever in his business, but illiterate; yet exceedingly artful, and the flower of Monmouth-street for oratory in the sale of his goods: at the same time, he was sincere in his friendships, despised downright knavery, and had a regard to reputation. His eldest son, Thomas, was bred to his father’s business. One Creed, a salesman in Rosemary-lane, used to send him with a cart loaded with goods round the country; and Creed dying, Thomas decamped with the produce of one journey, about 200_l._ For this, and for similar acts of knavery in his brother Charles, he left them only a shilling each, and bequeathed the rest of his property to his daughter. Thomas died young.

Charles, the hero of our history, when about six years of age, was sent to school, where he acquired the rudiments of the French language, and was so neglected in his own, that he was complete in neither. At about twelve years’ old he was taken home to assist his father, where he soon gave proofs of address similar to the following.

A sailor who had staggered to Monmouth-street to buy some clothes, was caught by Charles at the corner, and introduced by him into a room, where, in a summer’s noon, it was hardly possible to distinguish blue from black, or green from blue. The honest tar was shown a coat and waistcoat, the real value of which was about two guineas. Though they were considerably too little, Charles squeezed him up, and persuaded him they fitted exactly. The price being demanded, Charles declared upon his honour the lowest farthing he could take was five guineas. The sailor put his hand in his pocket, and laid down the money. Charles stepped down to his father’s journeyman, under pretence of getting something to put the clothes in, and told him the customer he met with, and that he might as well have had six guineas as five. “Do you,” said he, “follow me up stairs, inquire what I have done, pretend to be very angry, swear they cost you six guineas, give me two or three kicks or cuffs, and I dare swear we shall get more money out of him, and then, as my father is not at home, you shall go halves in all we get above the five guineas.” The scheme was readily acquiesced in by the journeyman. Charles slipped up stairs; the journeyman followed, inquiry, blame, and sham blows ensued; the journeyman declared the clothes cost him six guineas out of his pocket, and was going to beat Charles again, when the sailor cried, “Avast, master, don’t beat the boy, if he has made a mistake in a guinea, why here it is;” and laying it down, departed well pleased with his bargain, and that he had saved the lad a drubbing by the insignificant trifle of an additional guinea. Charles gave his father two guineas, the journeyman half a one, and kept three guineas and a half to himself.

The father soon experienced the effects of his son’s knavery, and put him apprentice to a hatter and hosier in St. James’s-street, with a considerable premium, hoping that his conduct would be quite different from what it had been at home; but his master had almost as much reason to complain of him as his father. Among his other frauds was the following: he robbed his father of an elegant suit of clothes, in which he dressed himself and went to his master, of whom he purchased about ten pounds’ worth of silk stockings, leaving his address, Benjamin Bolingbroke, esq., Hanover-square, and ordering them to be sent in an hour’s time, when he would pay the person who brought them. Incredible as it may appear, his master did not know him; to complete the cheat, he came back in half an hour, in his usual dress, and was ordered to take the goods home, which he actually pretended to do, and thus robbed his master. Having been detected in his villainies, he ran away; and his father, in detestation of his principles, disinherited him, soon afterwards died, and was buried at Lambeth. It may be remarked, that he was the first corpse carried over Westminster-bridge, which was on the first day it was free for carriages, when multitudes flocked to see the opening of the new structure.

Before his father’s death, Charles Price became a gentleman’s servant, and in that capacity lived some years, till he got into the service of sir Francis Blake Delaval, went with him the tour of Europe, returned to England, and through sir Francis, who was the companion of the celebrated Samuel Foote, became comedian. He acted a principal part in the scheme by which sir Francis obtained his lady, with a very large fortune. She went to consult a conjuror, and Foote performed the character to the satisfaction of his friend. Price afterwards contrived to conjure Foote out of 500_l._ in a sham scheme in a brewery, wherein that gentleman and Price were concerned. Price was made a bankrupt, and afterwards set up in a distillery, defrauded the revenue, was sent to the King’s-bench, released by an insolvent act, again turned brewer, and defrauded a gentleman out of 6000_l._ through one of his disguises. He then became a lottery-office keeper and stockbroker, gambled in the alley, was ruined, again set up lottery-office keeper, courted a Mrs. Pounteney, and ran away with her niece, who was the daughter of justice Wood, in the Borough. He practised innumerable frauds, became an adept in swindling, and had the effrontery to avow his depredations, and laugh at those he injured.

Price was intimate with a Mr. R----s, a grocer retired from business, with whom he had for a long time passed as a stockbroker. Price, who then lived at Knightsbridge, frequently used to request the favour of Mr. R. to take a bank-note or two into the city, and get them changed into small ones. In this he had a two-fold plot. He informed his friend that he was intimately acquainted with a very old gentleman, exceedingly rich, who had been an eminent broker in the alley, but had long retired; that his monies in the funds were immense; that the only relation he had in the world was one sister, to whom he intended to bequeath the best part of his property; and that his sister was near fifty years of age, had never been married, and determined never to marry; and that it was impossible the old gentleman could live long, as he was very old, very infirm, and almost incapable of going out of doors. This old gentleman, Price said, had often asked him to become his executor; and besought him to recommend another person, in whose fidelity, character, and integrity, he could repose an entire confidence, and that he would make it well worth their while, if they would undertake so friendly and solemn an office.--“Now,” said Price to Mr. R., “here is an opportunity for us to make a considerable sum in a short time, and, in all probability, a very capital fortune in a few years; for the sister being determined not to marry, and having no relations in the world, there is no doubt but she will leave us the whole of the estate; and, after his decease, she will become totally dependent upon us.--I shall see the old gentleman, Mr. Bond, to-day, and if you will join in the trust, the will shall be immediately made.”

To this proposal Mr. R. consented. In the evening Price returned to Knightsbridge. He told Mr. R. that he had visited Mr. Bond, who expressed great happiness and easiness of mind on such a recommendation, and desired to see Mr. R. the next day. Price appointed to meet him at twelve o’clock at Mr. Bond’s. At the appointed hour, Mr. R. knocked at the door. He was shown up stairs by the aforementioned sister-lady, and introduced to Mr. Bond, seated in a great chair, his legs in another, and covered with a night-cap. The poor, infirm, weak, debilitated, old gentleman regretted the absence of his ever-dear friend Mr. Price, the most worthy man in the world, and rang a peal on his friendship, honour, honesty, integrity, &c., &c., accompanied with emaciated coughs--was obliged to go to the city coffee-house--a punctual man--never failed an appointment--it was the soul of business--and then he told Mr. R. that his dear friend desired to meet Mr. R. there exactly at one o’clock--he approved highly of Mr. Price’s recommendation, and was now happy in his mind--it wanted but a quarter to one, he believed, and he hoped Mr. R. would not fail, as his dear friend was very exact indeed. The usual compliments passed; the sister conducted Mr. R. to the door, who posted away to the city coffee-house, and left old Mr. Bond, the rich brother, who was in reality no other than Mr. Price, and the brother’s maiden sister, who was a Mrs. Pounteney, to laugh at Mr. R.’s credulity. Mr. R. had not been five minutes in the coffee-house before he was joined by his friend Price, to whom Mr. R. recapitulated what passed, and as soon as Price had despatched some pretended business, he proposed calling on Mr. Bond. This was readily acquiesced in by Mr. R. and away they drove to Leather-lane. When they came there, they were informed by the lady, that her brother was just gone out in a coach, on an airing, to Highgate. In short, Price carried on the scheme completely for several days, during which time Mr. R. had twice or thrice seen the old gentleman. The will was made, and, on the strength of the joint executorship and expectancy, Mr. R. was swindled out of very near a thousand pounds in cash, and bonds to the amount of two hundred pounds.

Another anecdote, though it does not exhibit him in his Proteus-like character, exemplifies his cunning and selfishness. He had formed a connection with Mr. W----, a brewer, a man of character. Price, who was then in the brewery, proposed a project, which was assented to, for purchasing hops to the amount of two thousand pounds, and he actually went into the country, contracted for hops to that amount with hop-growers in Kent, and then applied to Mr. W. for the two thousand pounds, alledging that there would be a sudden rise of hops, and they could not be delivered too soon; and that Mr. W. should have his share of the profit. From some undisclosed motive, Mr. W. refused to advance the money. An unexpected rise, however, did soon after take place, Price went into Kent to demand delivery, the growers were shy in delivering, especially as they found they had made a bad bargain, and he gained two hundred pounds for releasing them.

Price was servile to extreme meanness, where his servility could be recompensed by a shilling. He was master of consummate effrontery, when principle called upon him for that shilling, if it was unsupported by law. He never paid but with an eye to further plunder; and then he abounded in that species of flattery distinguished under the word _palaver_. He possessed an extensive knowledge of men and manners, and to superficial observers appeared a very sensible person. He knew something of most of the living languages; had travelled all over France and Holland, and been at most of the German courts. He was at Copenhagen during the crisis in the fate of the unhappy Matilda queen of Denmark, sister to George III.; and he wrote a pamphlet in her behalf, tending to prove that the true motive for the degrading attack on her character, was to effect a revolution in favour of the queen dowager’s son. It proved him to have an eye directed to the cabals of the court, and an understanding capable of developing its intrigues.

Price’s character about the ’Change in London was well-known--he was a keen, intriguing speculator, well versed in the mystery of the bulls and bears: his head enabled him to make the most accurate calculations, but his heart would not permit him to enjoy the fruit of even his honest labours; for he never would comply with the demands of a fortunate customer, unless terrified into it,--and to terrify him required no small portion of ingenuity and resolution. His dishonesty was the spring of all his misfortunes; it made him shift from place to place to avoid the abuse of the vulgar, and the clamorous calls of the few fortunate adventurers in the lottery. His last office was the corner of King-street, Covent-garden, from whence he was driven, by a run of ill-luck, into a private decampment.

From that period, Price lived in obscurity. Though a perfect sycophant abroad, at home he was an absolute tyrant; nor could a prudent, virtuous woman, endowed with every qualification to render the marriage state happy, soften his brutal disposition, when the ample fortune he obtained with her had been squandered. Having a family of eight children to support, he turned his thoughts to fatal devices, and commenced to forge on the bank of England. His first attack on the bank was about the year 1780, when one of his notes had been taken there, so complete in the engraving, the signature, the water-marks, and all its parts, that it passed through various hands unsuspected, and was not discovered till it came to a certain department, through which no forgery whatever can pass undiscovered. The appearance of this note occasioned a considerable alarm among the directors; and forgery upon forgery flowed in, about the lottery and Christmas times, without the least probability of discovering the first negociators. Various consultations were held, innumerable plans were laid for detection, and they were traced in every quarter to have proceeded from one man, always disguised, and always inaccessible.

Had Price permitted a partner in his proceedings--had he employed an engraver--had he procured paper to be made for him, with water-marks upon it, he must soon have been discovered--but he “was himself _alone_.” He engraved his own plates, made his own paper with the water-marks, and, as much as possible, he was his own negociator. He thereby confined a secret to himself, which he deemed not safe in the breast of another; even Mrs. Price had not the least knowledge or suspicion of his proceedings. Having practised engraving till he had made himself sufficient master of it, he then made his own ink to prove his own works. He next purchased implements, and manufactured the water-mark, and began to counterfeit hand-writings. Private attempts to discover him proved thoroughly abortive, and the bank came to the resolution of describing the offender by the following public advertisement, which was continued in all the newspapers for a considerable time to no purpose. It is a very curious document, from the minuteness with which his disguise is particularized.

_Public-office, Bow-street, Dec. 5, 1780._

A FORGERY.

Whereas a person, answering the following description, stands charged with forging two notes, purporting to be bank-notes, one for forty pounds and the other for twenty pounds, whoever will apprehend him, or give such immediate notice at this office as may be the means of apprehending him, shall receive one hundred pounds’ reward on his commitment.

Or, if any person concerned in the above forgery, (except the person here-under described,) will surrender and discover his or her accomplices, he or she will be admitted an evidence for the crown, and, on conviction of any one offender therein, receive two hundred pounds’ reward.

And if any engraver, paper-maker, mould-maker or printer, can give information of the engraving any plate, making any mould or paper, or printing any note resembling bank-notes, shall receive two hundred pounds’ reward, on conviction of any of the offenders in the above forgery.

He appears about fifty years of age, about five feet six inches high, stout made, very sallow complexion, dark eyes and eye-brows, speaks in general very deliberately, with a foreign accent; has worn a black patch over his left eye, tied with a string round his head, sometimes wears a white wig, his hat flapped before, and nearly so at the sides, a brown camblet great coat, buttons of the same, with a large cape, which he always wears so as to cover the lower part of his face; appears to have very thick legs, which hang over his shoes, as if swelled, his shoes are very broad at the toes, and little narrow old-fashioned silver buckles, black stocking breeches, walks with a short crutch stick with an ivory head, stoops, or affects to stoop very much, and walks slow as if infirm; he has lately hired many hackney-coaches in different parts of the town, and been frequently set down in or near Portland-place, in which neighbourhood it is supposed he lodges.

He is connected with a woman who answers the following description:--She is rather tall, and genteel, thin face and person, about thirty years of age, light hair, rather a yellow cast on her face, and pitted with the small pox, a down-cast look, speaks very slow, sometimes wears a coloured linen jacket and petticoat, and sometimes a white one, a small black bonnet, and a black cloak, and assumes the character of a lady’s maid.

N. B. It is said, that about fifteen months since he lodged at Mrs. Parker’s, No. 40, in Great Titchfield-street, (who is since dead,) at which time he went by the name of Wigmore.

This advertisement drove Price to extremities:--it forced him to refrain from the circulation of his forgeries, and for some months put a total stop to them. It was posted on the walls, and printed as hand-bills, and delivered from house to house throughout the whole of the quarter where he was most suspected to reside; at the very house which he daily resorted to, and where all his implements were fixed; in the neighbourhood of Marybone, Portland-place, Oxford-street, and Tottenham-court-road. One of them was thrown down an area to the only person in whom he placed any confidence, a female whom the reader will be better acquainted with. By these means Price was informed of his immediate danger, and took his measures accordingly. Eagerness to secure banished the foresight and caution which are necessary in the pursuit of artful villany. The animal whose sagacity is a proverb, can never be secured in haste; he must be entrapped by superior patience and caution.

Though Price had no partner in any branch of the forgery of a bank-note, yet he had a confidante in his wife’s aunt, by the mother’s side, whom he had known previous to his marriage. Her name was Pounteney; and, unknown to Mrs. Price, he was daily with her. He divided his dinner-times equally between the two, and Mrs. Price had for ten years’ past, through the impositions of her husband, considered her aunt either as dead, or residing abroad. His wife had too little art, or understanding in the ways of the world, to be what is commonly called cunning. In short, her character was that of perfect simplicity. Price therefore thought her not fit to be trusted. Her aunt, on the contrary, was wily, crafty and capable of executing any plan Price would chalk out for her. She was a woman after his own heart; and having made choice of this woman as an assistant, and his apparatus being ready, he began his operations. He lived then at Paddington with his wife, whom he went to nightly; and at lodgings, near Portland-place, he daily visited her aunt, where the implements for his undertakings were concealed. His next and chief object was a negociator, and he procured one in the following manner.

Previous to the drawing of the lottery for the year 1780, Price put an advertisement into the “Daily Advertiser” for a servant who had been used to live with a single gentleman, and the direction was to “C. C. Marlborough-street coffee-house, Broad-street, Carnaby-market.” An honest young man, who at that time lived with a musical instrument-maker in the Strand, read this advertisement, and sent a letter to the specified address. At the end of a week, one evening, about dusk, a coachman inquired for the person who had answered the advertisement, saying there was a gentleman over the way, in a coach, wanted to speak with him. The young man went to the coach, was desired to step in, and there saw an apparently aged foreigner, gouty, wrapped up with five or six yards of flannel about his legs, a camblet surtout buttoned up over his chin, close to his mouth, a large _patch_ over his left eye, and every part of his face concealed except his nose, right eye, and a small part of that cheek. This person was Price, who caused the young man to sit at his left side, on which eye the patch was; so that Price could take an askance look at him with his right eye, and discover only a small portion of his own face. Thus disguised, he seemed between sixty and seventy years of age, and afterwards, when the man saw him standing, he appeared nearly six feet high, owing to boots or shoes with heels little less than four inches high. To aid the deception, he was so buttoned up and straightened as to appear perfectly lank. Price’s real height was about five feet six inches; he was a compact, neat made man, rather square shouldered, and somewhat inclined to corpulency; his legs were firm and well set. His features assisted his design to look considerably older than he really was; his nose was aquiline, his eyes were small and grey, his mouth stood very much inwards, his lips were very thin, his chin was pointed and prominent, he had a pale complexion, and loss of teeth favoured his disguise of speech. His natural form was exceedingly upright; he was active and quick in his walk, and was what is usually described “a dapper made man.” To the young man, whose christian name was Samuel, Price affected great age, with a faint hectic cough, and so much bodily infirmity as almost to disable him from getting out of the coach. Price told him he was not wanted by himself, but as under servant to a young nobleman of fortune, under age, and then in Bedfordshire, to whom he was, and had been some years, guardian. He inquired into the particulars of Samuel’s life, and thinking him honest and ingenuous, and therefore unsuspicious, and suitable to his purpose, he talked to him about wages. Samuel inquired whether he was to be in livery or not: Price replied, that he could not really tell, for the young nobleman was a very whimsical character, but that was a circumstance which might be settled hereafter. To carry on the farce, he desired Samuel to call his master to the coach to give him a character, and his master came and gave him such an one as Price pretended to approve; he then hired Samuel at eighteen shillings per week, and gave him a direction to himself, as Mr. _Brank_, at No. 39, Titchfield-street, Oxford-street.

Pursuant to appointment, on the second or third evening afterwards, Samuel went to Titchfield-street, and there entered on the service of the minor nobleman, by waiting on Mr. _Brank_. Price resumed his discourse respecting his ward, the eccentricity and prodigality of his manners, and his own hard task in endeavouring to prevent him from squandering his money, especially in those deceitful allurances called lottery tickets. He said, although he was his guardian, he was still obliged to comply with some of those whims, in opposition to his own advice and remonstrance. Old Mr. _Brank_ talked of the happy prospects for Samuel by serving such a master, and Samuel talked of his wages and clothes, and whether he was to be in livery or not. It was concluded, that for the present he should procure a drab coat, turned up with red, till the nobleman’s pleasure was known, or he came to town: he was ordered to get the clothes at his own charge, and make out his bill; which he did, but was never repaid. This circumstance corresponded with Price’s usual conduct: he never was known to part with a shilling from one hand, till he had more than double its value in the other. It should be observed, that Samuel was so placed on the left side of the pretended Mr. Brank, on which side the patch was, that during the whole of the conversation he could never see the right side of Price’s face.

Before Samuel took leave of the old gentleman, he was ordered to come again in the evening of the first day of the drawing of the lottery. Price pretended, that he seldom went to the nobleman’s town house of an evening, and therefore, to avoid giving him unnecessary trouble, he was to attend in Titchfield-street. On that evening he pulled out a variety of papers, letters, &c., and told Samuel he had received orders from the thoughtless young nobleman to purchase lottery tickets, as a venture against his coming to town, and for that purpose he meant to employ Samuel. He produced some seeming bank-notes, and gave Samuel two, one of twenty pounds, the other of forty pounds. He directed him to take their numbers and dates on a piece of paper, for fear of losing them, and to go to a lottery office in the Hay-market, and with the one of twenty pounds to purchase “an eight guinea chance:” from thence he was to go to the corner of Bridge-street, Westminster, to buy another out of the forty pound note, and wait at the door of the Parliament-street coffee-house till he came to him. With these notes Samuel bought each of the chances, and was on his way to the Parliament-street coffee-house when, from the opposite side of the way, he was hailed by Mr. Brank, who complimented him on his speed, and said he had been so quick, that he, Brank, had not had time to get to the coffee-house. He was then interrogated, if he had made the purchases, and, replying in the affirmative, was again commended for his diligence: Brank also inquired, if any mistake had happened; and all this with a deal of coughing, imbecility of speech, and feigned accent.

When Samuel received the notes, he received as many canvass bags as he was ordered to buy shares, and to put each distinct share, and the balance of each note, into a separate bag, for fear, as Brank said, the chance of one office might be confused with the chance of another, and Samuel be thereby puzzled to know where he had bought the different chances; and by such confusion, or forgetfulness, it might not be recollected where to apply in case of a fortunate number.

Mr. Brank having secured the chances and balances, ordered Samuel to go to Goodluck’s at Charing-cross, from thence to King-street, Covent-garden, and York-street, Covent-garden, and purchase some other small shares and chances, and then meet him at the city coffee-house, Cheapside. To these places the young man went, and having bought his numbers and changed his notes, as he was going along York-street, his master called to him from a coach, pretended he was fortunate in thus seeing him, made Samuel step in, got the produce of the forgery, and away they drove to the city.

In their way thither, Brank applauded his servant’s despatch; gave him more notes, to the amount of four hundred pounds, with instructions to purchase shares and chances, at offices about the Exchange; and directed him, as before, to put the chances and money received at each office in a separate bag. For this purpose Samuel was set down from the coach in Cheapside, and having executed his commissions returned, agreeable to his orders, to the city coffee-house, where he waited a few minutes and then Mr. Brank came hobbling up to him, and took him into a coach, that was waiting hard by. Brank resumed complaints of his health and infirmities, and observed, that the fatigues of business had kept him longer than he expected; but he warned Samuel to be always exceedingly punctual. His reason for urging punctuality was the dread of a discovery, and to prevent consultations, by which he might be detected. On their way to Long-acre, where the coachman was ordered to drive, Brank amused his servant with flattering promises for his attention and fidelity; and at parting put a guinea into his hand, and gave him orders to be in waiting, for a few days, at his old master’s in the Strand.

It afterwards appeared, that whenever Samuel went to an office a woman, unobserved by him, always walked in at the same time, and looked about her as if accompanying some one else in the shop; and as soon as Samuel had done his business she also walked away. This woman was Mrs. Pounteney, the aunt of Price’s wife, described in the advertisement and hand-bill issued by the bank. She constantly accompanied Price in a coach whenever he went out, watched Samuel at every office, as soon as he had safely got out stepped across the way to Price, who was in the coach, informed him of the success, and then Samuel was hailed, and Price secured the property while she kept out of sight; nor did Samuel ever see her during his servitude. During his residence at Titchfield-street, which was but a week, Price always appeared and went out as Brank, accompanied by Mrs. Pounteney. In case of any accidental discovery, she was ready to receive the disguise, so that Brank might be instantly shifted to Price, and Price to Brank, and Samuel thereby be rendered incapable of identifying the man that had employed him.

On the Sunday morning after Price’s last adventure, a coachman inquired for Samuel at his old master’s, by whom the coachman was informed, that though Sam worked he did not lodge there, and that he should not see him till the next morning. The coachman held a parcel in his hand, which he said was for Samuel, and which the master desired him to leave, and he should have it the next day; the coachman replied, he was ordered not to leave it, but to take it back in case he could not see the man, and accordingly went across the way with it; there the master saw the elderly gentleman, with whom he had conversed on Samuel’s character a few days before, to whom the coachman delivered the parcel. Samuel’s master saw this old gentleman get into a coach; but in a minute the coachman returned and left the parcel, which contained notes to the amount of three hundred pounds, with a letter directing Samuel to buy, on the next morning, a sixteenth, an eight guinea chance, and a whole ticket, to repeat his purchases as before, till the whole were changed, and to meet his master, Mr. Brank, at Mill’s coffee-house, Gerrard-street, Soho, at twelve o’clock the next day. Samuel duly executed these orders, but, on inquiry at the coffee-house, he found no such person as Mr. Brank had been there; in a few minutes, however, as he was standing at the coffee-house door, a coachman summoned him to Mr. Brank, who was waiting in a coach at the corner of Macclesfield-street. He desired Samuel to come in, and made him sit on the left hand, as before described, and having received the tickets, shares, and balances, ordered him to bid the coachman drive towards Hampstead. On the way, he gave Samuel three sixteenths as a reward for his diligence, and talked much of his ward, who, he said, would be in town in a day or two, when he would speak highly of Samuel’s industry. He discoursed on these subjects till they reached Mother Black-cap’s at Kentish-town, and then Samuel received orders to bid the coachman turn round; and, on their way back, Samuel had notes for five hundred pounds given to him, with directions to lay them out in the same manner about the ’Change, and meet his master at the same place in the evening, where he said he should dine; but, for reasons easily imagined, Samuel was ordered not to make his purchases at the offices he had been to before.

Samuel, having performed this task also, went to the coffee-house, where a porter accosted him, and conducted him to his master in a coach as usual. He was now blamed for his delay, and an appearance of anger assumed, with a declaration, that he would not do if not punctual, for that the nobleman was very particular in time, even to a minute. Samuel apologized, and Brank received the cash and shares, and ordered him to go to the New Inn Westminster-bridge and hire a post-chaise to carry them to Greenwich to meet the nobleman’s steward, who was also his banker, to whom he was going for money to purchase more tickets; observing, at the same time, on the imprudence and prodigality of his ward.

At Greenwich, Samuel was desired to go to the Ship and order a dinner, while Brank was engaged, as he pretended, in negociating his business; he instructed him not to wait longer than three o’clock, but go to dinner at that time, if he, Brank, did not return. It was not till half past four that Brank came hobbling, coughing, and seemingly quite out of breath with fatigue. They then drank tea together, and afterwards returned in the chaise to Lombard-street, where it was discharged. There Sam received more notes to the amount of 350_l._, which he got rid of in the usual way; and at the city coffee-house was again fortunate enough to meet his master before he got to the door. Brank ordered him to attend the next evening at his lodgings, which he accordingly did, and afterwards at three or four other times, in the course of which attendance he negociated 500_l._ more of the forged notes.

We now arrive at the close of Samuel’s services. In negociating the last sum he had received, he went to Brooksbank’s and Ruddle’s, where he was interrogated as to whom he lived with; Samuel said he was servant to a very rich nobleman’s guardian, that he was at board-wages, and gave his address to his old master, the musical instrument-maker. Having delivered Brank the cash, &c. in the usual way, he was told, that perhaps he might not be wanted again for a week, and that he might wait till sent for. Before the expiration of that time, however, Samuel was apprehended, and taken to Bow-street, where he was examined by the magistrates and gentlemen from the bank; and telling his artless tale, which was not believed, he was committed to Tothillfields-bridewell, on suspicion of forgery.

The surprise of the poor lad on his apprehension, his horror on being confined in a prison, and his dread of being executed as a forger of counterfeit bank-notes, were only equalled by the astonishment of the directors of the bank and the magistrates, at the sagacity of the manufacturer, who had hitherto evaded every possibility of detection. Nor did they appear at all persuaded of Sam’s innocence, though his story was, in part, confirmed by his former master, the musical instrument-maker. The forged note he had passed at Brooksbank’s and Ruddle’s, where he had been interrogated, was the means of his apprehension. In a day or two it was paid into the bank, traced back to Brooksbank’s and Ruddle’s office, and, immediate application being made to Bow-street, the lad was taken into custody.

Samuel’s examinations were frequent and long, and in the end the following scheme was laid to secure the fabricator. Samuel having been ordered by Brank to stay till he was sent for, an inferior officer of Bow-street was stationed at the musical instrument-maker’s in the Strand, where Samuel worked, in case Brank should call in the mean time. After the lapse of a few days, Price sent Samuel a message to meet him the next day at Mill’s coffee-house, exactly at eleven o’clock. This was communicated to Mr. Bond, a clerk at Bow-street office, who ordered Samuel to comply, but not to go till five minutes past the time. The above inferior officer attended at a distance, disguised as a porter, with a knot on his shoulder, and Bond, dressed as a “lady,” followed at a small distance. When Samuel arrived at the coffee-house he found that a real porter had that instant been there and inquired for him, and could have been hardly got out of the door. This information Samuel directly communicated to the “lady,” (Bond of Bow-street,) and Samuel was sent back to wait; but Brank, in a hackney-coach hard by, had discovered the momentary conversation between Samuel and the disguised officers, and took immediate flight. An instant rush was made at Titchfield-street, but in vain; Blank had not been there since Samuel and he had left it together, and the police were entirely at fault. The advertisements were again issued, and hand-bills were showered around to no purpose. Poor Samuel, however, having tolerably established his innocence, was, after suffering eleven months’ imprisonment, discharged with a present of twenty pounds.

In the ensuing lottery, Price played the same artful game with notes of higher value; those of 20_l._ and 40_l._ were grown too suspicious, another lad had been taken into custody, another _rush_ made, and _Price_ was missed again by a moment.

Price’s next scheme was an advertisement for a person in the linen drapery business; and with notes of from 50_l._ to 100_l._ two young men, his agents, purchased linen drapery at different shops. They were detected by having passed an 100_l._ note to Mr. Wollerton, a linen-draper in Oxford-street, who recovered the whole of his property through Bond the officer, by whom it was seized at No. 3, on the Terrace, in Tottenham-court-road.

To follow Price through all his proceedings would be impossible: in November 1782, Mr. Spilsbury of Soho-square, the proprietor of some medicinal “drops,” received a card bearing the name of Wilmott, which had been left by a person who had called at his house in his absence. The next evening the following note was delivered at Mr. Spilsbury’s.

“Mr. Wilmott’s complits to Mr. Spilsbur. wishes to converse with him 10 minutes. having an Order for His drops, at half past five o’clock this evening.

“No. 17, _Gresse-street, Rathbone-place_.”

At the time mentioned in the note Mr. Spilsbury went to Gresse-street, where he was shown into a parlour by a foot-boy, and waited until Mr. Wilmott made his appearance. He appeared to be a very infirm old man, in a great coat and a slouched hat, with a piece of red flannel round the lower part of his face, a large bush-wig on, and his legs wrapped over with flannel; he wore green spectacles, and a green silk shade hanging from his hat, but no patch on his eye: this was Price. He and Mr. Spilsbury had frequently met at Percy-street coffee-house, Rathbone-place, and often conversed together; but on this occasion Mr. Spilsbury had no idea or recollection of his old acquaintance. As soon as Price entered the parlour, he observed on his own dress; and said he had exceedingly suffered from the drawing of a tooth by an unskilful dentist, and wore the flannel on his face in order to avoid catching cold. He then familiarly conversed with Mr. Spilsbury, extolled the merits of his “drops,” recounted great cures which he knew they had performed, styled himself a dealer in diamonds, and dismissed Mr. Spilsbury with the promise of an order in a few days. It was evidently postponed to strengthen Mr. Spilsbury’s opinion of him, but at last it arrived in the following note:--

“Mr. Wilmott’s compliments to Mr. Spilsbur, desires he will put up twelve bottles of drops at 3_s._ 6_d._ against Friday three o’clock. the boy will call and pay for them. also, Mr. Spilsbur will send a copy or form of an Advertisement--and attestation, leaving a blank for the names. the case was--the man was violently broke out in legs, body and face, and he actually had no other physic than two of the bottles. and it is really astonishing how much He is recovered.--when Mr. Wilmott comes to town to-morrow week He will send the voucher authenticated by 6 people of consequence.

“_Gresse-street_, No. 17.”

The boy did not call on the Friday mentioned; but on the Friday week he brought a letter, in which Mr. Wilmott desired Mr. Spilsbury to send two guineas’ worth of the drops, and change for a 10_l._ bank-note, and to be particular in sending guineas of good weight. The bank-note appeared to be a new one, change was got in the neighbourhood, and the drops sent; and the next note Mr. Spilsbury received was from Sir Sampson Wright, desiring his attendance at Bow-street, where, to his astonishment, he was informed of the forgery. He related the preceding particulars to the magistrate, and produced the two letters. The officers paid an immediate visit to Gresse-street, but old Mr. Wilmott had previously departed.

Not long after this, Mr. Spilsbury met his acquaintance, Mr. Price, at the Percy-street coffee-house; and there, drinking his chocolate, and talking over the occurrences of the day, Mr. Spilsbury told the foregoing story to his coffee-house acquaintance, while Price every now and then called out “Lack a day! Good God! who could conceive such knavery could exist! What, and did the bank refuse payment, sir?” “O yes,” said Mr. Spilsbury, with some degree of acrimony; “though it is on the faith of the bank of England that I and a great many others have taken them, and they are so inimitably executed, that the nicest judges cannot detect them.” “Good God!” said Price, “he must have been an ingenious villain!--What a complete old scoundrel!”

It is related, that when the celebrated artist William Wynn Ryland was to be executed for forging an East-india bond, Price intreated the use of a dining-room window in Oxford-street, at the house of a gentleman whom he had defrauded in the same manner he had done Mr. Spilsbury; and Price was present when Ryland passed to Tyburn, and on that occasion pointed to Ryland, saying “There goes one of the most ingenious men in the world, but as wicked as he is ingenious--he is the identical man who has done all the mischief in the character of _Patch_: he deserves his fate, and he would confess the fact, if he was not in hopes of a respite; which he would have obtained, perhaps, had not the directors been certain that it was charity to the public to let him suffer.”

Mention has already been made of the fraud practised by Price on Mr. R. of Knightsbridge. One in a family was not enough for him, and Mr. R’s brother, who lived in Oxford-street, experienced the effect of Price’s ingenuity in crime. Price had been often there, and bought a variety of things, and was perfectly well known in his real person, and by his proper name. One day, however, a hackney-coach carried him thither disguised as an old man, and in that character he made some purchases. In a day or two he repeated his visit, and on a third day, when he knew Mr. R. was from home, he went again with his face so coloured that he seemed in a deep jaundice. The shopman, to whom he was full of complaints, told him that he had a receipt for that disorder, which had cured his father of it, and offered him the prescription. Price accepted it, and promised that if it succeeded he would liberally reward him. In a few days, he again appeared before the shopman perfectly freed from the complaint, and acknowledging his great obligations to him, said he had but a short time to live in the world, and having very few relations to leave any thing to, he begged his acceptance of a 50_l._ bank-note, at the same time, he said, he wanted cash for another. Mr. R. not being in the way, the grateful shopman stepped out, and got change for it. The next day Price having watched Mr. R’s going out, prevailed on the lad to take five other 50_l._ notes to his master’s banker, and there get them changed for smaller ones. Price’s notes soon got to the bank, and of course were stopped. They were traced to Mr. R’s. His lad was interrogated, and as Mr. R. positively refused to pay the 250_l._ to his bankers, they brought an action against him, which was tried in the court of common pleas, before Lord Loughborough, and the bankers obtained a verdict. The most extraordinary circumstances pending the suit were, that Mr. R. communicated the story to Price, who offered him all the assistance in his power, and became a principal agent in the defence. He was, of all others, the most active in procuring witnesses for Mr. R., and actually attended the trial, without the least suspicion, on the part of any individual concerned, that he was the perpetrator of the mischief.

It is an extraordinary and almost incredible fact, that during a period of six years, five of which had elapsed after the remarkable advertisement issued at the instance of the bank in December 1780, Price committed depredations of this nature on the public with impunity. The deceptions by which he circulated his forged notes through so long a period, were as varied as the nature of each new circumstance required. At last he turned another species of forgery, equally artful, and, for a time, equally successful. He went to the coffee-houses near the Royal Exchange in a new disguise, and there was accustomed to get a boy to take a sum of 10_l._ to the bank, with directions to receive from the teller the customary ticket to the cashier who pays; but the lad had his especial orders not to go to the cashier for the money, as the teller is accustomed to direct, but as soon as the boy was out of the teller’s sight he was to turn another way, and bring the ticket to Price at the coffee-house. There Price used to alter the teller’s tickets from 10_l._ to 100_l._ by adding an 0, or by placing a 1 before any other sum where the addition was easy, so as to make 50 into 150, &c., and then send the tickets by other hands to the cashiers, who paid the increased sums unsuspectedly.

This scheme was his last. One of the notes he had received at the bank, on a forged ticket, he had passed at Mr. Aldous’s, a pawn-broker in Berwick-street, where he was known by the name of Powel, and went two or three times a week to pledge things of value. An officer was placed at Mr. Aldous’s till his next call, which was the next day but one, when he was secured and carried to Bow-street. His behaviour there was exceedingly insolent. Mr. Bond, who, when Price kept a lottery-office in King-street, Covent-garden, was clerk at Bow-street, had visited him on account of some money due to Sir John Fielding’s maid servant, gained by insuring with Price, which he had refused to pay her; but when informed by Mr. Bond who her master was, he waited on Sir John, and satisfied her claim. He now taxed Mr. Bond, who had been made a magistrate, with prejudice against him on account of the insurance affair, and complained that he should not have justice done him. He also urged against Mr. Abraham Newland, esq., principal cashier of the bank, that he could expect nothing from him but every possible injury, on account of some former antipathy that gentleman had conceived towards him; and he imputed desire of revenge to every individual whose duty it was to render him amenable to justice.

When under examination, the chief magistrate, Sir Sampson Wright, suddenly called out “Sam;” the young man immediately answered, and at the same moment appeared before his old master, who started as at a ghost; but, recollecting himself, made a polite bow to his former servant, with a view either to awaken his sympathy, or to hint at what he might expect if he disclaimed him. Samuel, however, could only swear to his voice, for he had not the least idea of his person or features. Price was committed to Tothillfields-bridewell, where he turned his thoughts to the destruction of the implements. Well knowing that nothing could be extracted from Mrs. Price, or any of his family, to affect him, he had declared, when under examination, that he lived with them at a cheesemonger’s in the neighbourhood of Tottenham-court-road; and he was equally secure that nothing could be found there to afford the least suspicion of his being the forger described under the character of _Patch_. His next step was to obtain an interview with Mrs. Price and his eldest son, a youth about fifteen years of age. To his wife’s great surprise, he communicated to her the secret of his lodgings, and the circumstances respecting her aunt. He wrote a letter to Mrs. Pounteney, informing her of his situation, and desiring her instantly to destroy every atom of the apparatus, clothes, &c.; he tore up the inner sole of his son’s shoe, and putting the letter under, it passed safe.

When Mrs. Pounteney received the letter, she burnt every article of clothes in which Price had disguised himself, and sent for a carpenter, to whom he had never been visible, to take down the wood frame, presses, and other instruments with which Price had made his paper, and printed off his notes. While the maid was gone for the carpenter, her mistress put the copper-plates into the fire, and, rendering them pliable, reduced them to small pieces. These, with a large bundle of small wires, used in the manufacture of the paper and water-marks, she desired Price’s son to take to the adjacent fields, and there distribute them beneath the dust heaps; and the pieces lay there till, by a stratagem, they were discovered and brought to Bow-street. The carpenter took down the apparatus, and being paid and despatched, every thing was brought down and reduced to ashes.

Throughout Price’s examinations, his assurance was the most remarkable feature in his conduct; but the audacity by which he sought to baffle his accusers was so reckless, as to disclose a circumstance which largely added to the grounds for believing him to be the criminal who had so long eluded justice. From the extreme art he had adopted to effectually disguise his person, while committing his enormous frauds, there was no connected proof of his identity. Long before his apprehension, he had hazarded experiments to discover whether his disguises were effectual. He would go to the coffee-houses about the ’Change, where he was thoroughly well known as Mr. Price, and in his real character inquire for Mr. Norton, write a letter, and leave it at the bar. In ten minutes he would return as Mr. Norton, receive the letter, and drink his coffee. While in Tothillfields-bridewell, a boy who had more than once taken cash for him to the tellers at the bank, together with the boy’s mother, who had also seen him, were conveyed to the prison to view him. The boy could not at all identify him: the mother was more positive, but still the proof was deemed scarcely sufficient to convict him. He had pledged things of value several times, under the name of Powel, with Mr. Aldous. Mrs. Pounteney had done the same in the character of Mrs. Powel. They had talked of each other, and each of them had at different times pledged the same article; yet Price on his examination denied the least knowledge of her; impudently threatened to bring actions for false imprisonment; and ridiculing the officers for not finding a ten pound note in his fob, under his watch, when he was searched, he heedlessly produced it--this identical note was one of the notes delivered by the cashier upon a teller’s ticket which Price had forged!

Price had been brought up three times for the purpose of being viewed, and his sagacity perceived the impossibility of his escaping the hand of justice. He told the keeper he had been “_betrayed_,” but this was not the fact. Meditating to avoid a public execution, he informed his son that the people of the prison came into his room sooner than he wished; and that he had something secret to write, which they might get at by suddenly coming upon him, which he wished to prevent. On this pretence he gave his son money to purchase two gimblets and a sixpenny cord, pointing out to him how he would fasten the gimblets in the post, and tie the cord across the door, which opened inwards. The poor youth obtained the implements, and Price having fastened the gimblets under two hat screws, was discovered hanging in his room, without coat or shoes, on the 25th of January, 1786.

Under his waistcoat were found three papers. One was a petition to the king, praying protection for his wife and eight children; all of whom, he said, had never offended; and stating, that he had written a pamphlet with a view to prevent a war between the crowns of England and Denmark, and to rescue the character of queen Matilda from the aspersions of the queen dowager’s party. The second was a letter of thanks to Mr. Fenwick, the keeper of the prison, for his indulgence and favours. The third was a letter to his wife, wherein he begged her forgiveness for the injuries he had done her, and intreated her attention to their offspring. In these papers, written with his dying hand, the guilty man solemnly denied every thing laid to his charge!

Immediately upon Price’s self-destruction, his unhappy wife, who had been innocent of his iniquities, was urged to discover the woman with whom he had been connected. She was assured, that though the verdict of a coroner’s inquest must be formally complied with, yet, if she rendered this act of justice to the country, his remains might afterwards receive christian burial. Her son was present and added his intreaties that she would tell, or suffer him to tell, who and where the woman was; the feelings of the widow and the mother prevailed, and she communicated the residence of her depraved aunt, who, on being taken into custody, disclosed several of the circumstances attending the destruction and concealment of the presses and implements. What remained of them were destroyed by the police, and she was delivered out of custody to the punishment of her own thoughts. It was afterwards ascertained, on a second search, that she had not discovered all the machinery. The frame with which Price had made his paper was produced to her, and she was asked what it was: “It is an instrument,” she said, “I use for mangling.” An answer which may be taken as evidence, that notwithstanding the example of Price might have taught her the folly of wickedness, and though she herself had escaped by the sufferance of extreme mercy, her mind was still disposed to evil.

Price was buried in the cross-roads, but, in about a week, his body was privately removed by night.

These particulars of Price are more numerous, and the account of him is more diffuse, than might be expected in connection with the lottery; but as he was too remarkable to have been omitted among its incidents, so his criminal career was too flagitious and notorious to be lightly passed over when he was mentioned at all.

Price’s lottery-office, in King-street, Covent-garden, was the house now (in 1826) occupied by Mr. Setchell, the bookseller. On part of the wall where Mr. Setchell’s shutters are placed, there are remains of Price’s lottery-bills still visible.

LOTTERY SUICIDE AND HEARTBREAKING.

The “Gentleman’s Magazine” of 1787 inserts what is called “a copy of a paper left by the unhappy young gentleman who lately shot himself with two pistols in Queen-street, Westminster,” wherein he execrates “the head that planned, and the heart that executed, the baneful, destructive plan of a _Lottery_.”

The same year, in a debate in the house of commons on a bill then passing to prevent insurance, Mr. Francis said his own family furnished a striking instance of the dreadful effects of a passion for this ruinous practice. He had given, at different times, to a female servant sums of money to the amount of two hundred pounds, to discharge tradesmen’s bills; and, to his great surprise, he found afterwards that, regardless of his character, or her own, she had risked the entire sum in insuring in the lottery, and had lost it. He would have been glad had the loss of money been the only one, for he would have taken it upon himself; but the poor woman lost her life within a week after this discovery had been made, dying broken-hearted and distracted.

SHARING A PRIZE.

In the Lottery of 1788 a guinea share of a ticket drawn a 20,000_l._ prize had been duly registered by Shergold and Co. who sold it, and acquainted the holder by letter that it entitled him to 1500_l._ This lucky man, who lived in the country, attended his club the same evening, and imparted the good news he had received. His joy, however, was considerably damped by a person present, who assured him that he never would be paid--that his prize was not worth a groat, and that he himself knew one who at the beginning of the lottery had a half guinea share a prize of 20,000_l._ and was entitled to 700_l._, but was glad to compromise it for 50_l._ After reciting a variety of circumstances to the same effect, and cunningly working up alarm to the highest pitch, he at length told the owner of the prize, that he knew some of the proprietors in Shergold’s house, and he believed he might be able to get some money where another could get none; he would therefore venture to give 100_l._ for the prize. This proposal being rejected, he advanced to 200_l_. from thence to 300_l._ and at last to 600_l._, which was accepted. He accordingly paid the money to the unfortunate _fortunate_ adventurer, got possession of the prize, and immediately set off for London, and received the 1500_l._ without difficulty. Several eminent lawyers, on considering the misrepresentations used in this transaction, were of opinion, that it was what is termed a catching bargain, and advised the owner, who was cozened out of 900_l._, to apply to equity for relief.[480] He seems to have been afraid of the remedy; for, though he took counsel’s opinion, it does not appear that he followed it into chancery.

* * * * *

At the Haymarket theatre, in 1791, a comedy, called the “School for Arrogance,” was produced with a prologue spoken in the character of a news-hawker, with the Lottery as one of the topics of intelligence.

_After sounding, and calling “Great News!” without; he enters with a postman’s horn, newspapers, cap and livery._

Great news! here’s money lent on bond, rare news! By honest, tender-hearted, christian jews! Here are promotions, dividends, rewards, A list of bankrupts, and of new made lords. Here the debates at length are, for the week; And here the deaf and dumb are taught to speak. Here Hazard, Goodluck, Shergold, and a band Of gen’rous gentlemen, whose hearts expand With honour, rectitude, and public spirit, Equal in high desert, with equal merit, Divide their tickets into shares and quarters; And here’s a servant-maid found hanging in her garters! Here! here’s the fifty thousand, sold at ev’ry shop! And here’s the “Newgate Calendar”--and drop. Rare news! strange news! extraordinary news! Who would not give three halfpence to peruse?

* * * * *

Shergolds seem to have persisted in a course of attempts to evade the law, by a peculiar mode of dividing and insuring tickets; but in Michaelmas term, 1791, the question was argued in the court of King’s-bench on a special verdict, whether the sellers of their receipts were liable to be apprehended and committed as vagrants under the Lottery act, and the court determined, that they were vagrants within the true intent of the act.

INSURING.

In February, 1793, the commissioners of the Lottery, in order to abate insuring, determined that no persons should be suffered to take down numbers, except the clerks of licensed offices known to the commissioners: no slips were to be sent out; but the numbers were to be taken down by one clerk in one book; Steel’s list of lottery numbers was to be abolished, and a recompence made for it; and the magistrates resolved to apprehend all suspicious persons who should be seen taking early numbers.[481]

Yet, in 1796, we find “a class of sharpers, who take Lottery Insurances,” and that this gambling, among the higher and middling ranks, was carried on to an extent exceeding all credibility, producing consequences to many private families, of great worth and respectability, of the most distressing nature.--Mr. Colquhoun represents them as “a class, in general, of very depraved or distressed characters, who keep unlicensed insurance offices, during the drawing of the English and Irish Lotteries;” many of whom, during the intervals of such lotteries, had recently invented and set up private lotteries, or wheels, called _little goes_, containing blanks and prizes, which were drawn for the purpose of establishing a ground for insurance, and producing incalculable mischiefs, inasmuch as the rage and mania were so rooted, from habit and a spirit of gaming, that no domestic pressure, and no consideration, connected either with the frauds that were practised, or the number of chances against them, would operate as a check upon the minds of the infatuated. The criminal agents felt no want of customers. The houses and offices were not only extremely numerous all over the metropolis, but in general high rented, exhibiting the appearance of considerable expense, and barricadoed in such a manner with iron doors and other contrivances as, in many instances, to defy the arm of the law. A considerable portion of their emoluments was traced to have been derived from menial servants in general; but particularly the male and female domestics in the houses of men of fashion and fortune, who were said, almost without a single exception, to be in the constant habit of insuring in the English and Irish Lotteries.

Such persons, with a spirit of gambling rendered more ardent than prevails in common life, from the example of their superiors, and from their idle and dissipated habits, entered keenly into the Lottery business; and when ill luck attended them were often led, step by step, to that point where they lost sight of moral principle, and were impelled, by desire of regaining what they had lost, to sell or pawn the property of their masters, whenever it could be pilfered so as to elude detection; and this species of peculation sometimes terminated in more atrocious crimes.

The insurance offices in the metropolis exceeded four hundred in number. To many of them persons were attached, called _Morocco Men_, who went from house to house among their customers, or attended in the back parlours of public-houses, where they were met by them to make insurances.

It was calculated, that at these offices (exclusive of what was done at the licensed offices) insurances were made to the extent of eight hundred thousand pounds, in premiums during the Irish Lottery, and above one million during the English; upon which it was calculated that they made from fifteen to twenty-five per cent. profit. This confederacy, during the English Lottery of the year 1796, supported about 2000 agents and clerks, and nearly 7500 Morocco men, including a considerable number of _ruffians and bludgeon men_, paid by a general association of the principal proprietors of the establishments, who regularly met in committee, in a well-known public-house in Oxford-market, twice or thrice a week, during the drawing of the lottery, for the purpose of concerting measures to defeat the exertions of the magistrates, by forcibly resisting or bribing the officers of justice.

* * * * *

The Lottery was declared to be inseparable from illegal insurances, by the parliamentary reports of 1807; and they further state, that “the Lottery is so radically vicious, that under no system of regulations which can be devised will it be possible for parliament to adopt it as an efficient source of revenue, and at the same time divest it of all the evils and calamities of which it has hitherto been so baneful a source.” Among these evils and calamities, the committees of parliament enumerate that “idleness, dissipation, and poverty, were increased,--the most sacred and confidential trusts were betrayed--domestic comfort was destroyed--madness was often created--suicide itself was produced--and crimes subjecting the perpetrators of them to death were committed.”

LITTLE GOES.

These were _little_ Lotteries on the same plan as the great State Lotteries, and drawn in the same manner. There were generally five or six “little goes” in the year, and they were actually set up and conducted by two or three of the licensed lottery-office keepers. The State Lottery was the parent of these “little goes.” Persons who had not patience to wait till another State Lottery gambled during the vacations in a “little go.” A “little go” was never heard of during the State Lotteries.[482]

THE GREAT GO.

Sir Nathaniel Conant, who in 1816 was chief magistrate of the police establishment at Bow-street, stated in that year to a committee of the house of commons, that the Lottery was one of the predisposing causes by which the people of the metropolis were vitiated; that it led to theft, to supply losses and disappointments, occasioned by speculating on its chances; and that illegal insurances continued to be effected:--“there are,” he says, “people in the back ground who having got 40, or 50,000_l._ by that, employ people of the lowest order, and give them a commission for what they bring; there is _a wheel within a wheel_.” Another magistrate, giving evidence before the same committee, said, “it is a scandal to the government thus to excite people to practice the vice of gaming, for the purpose of drawing a revenue from their ruin: it is an anomalous proceeding by law to declare gambling infamous, to hunt out petty gamblers in their recesses, and cast them into prison, and by law also to set up the giant gambling of the State Lottery, and encourage persons to resort to it by the most captivating devices which ingenuity, uncontrolled by moral rectitude, can invent.”[483]

CONCLUSION.

Incredible efforts were made in the summer of 1826 to keep the “last lottery” on its legs. The price of tickets was arbitrarily raised, to induce a belief that they were in great demand at the very moment when their sale was notoriously at a stand; and the lagging attention of the public of the metropolis was endeavoured to be quickened, by all sorts of stratagems, to the 18th of July, as the very last chance that would occur in England of gaining “SIX 30,000_l._ besides other Capitals,” which it was positively affirmed were “all to be drawn” on that fatal day. Besides the dispersion of innumerable bills, and the aspersions on government relative to the approaching extinction of the Lottery, the parties interested in its preservation caused London and its environs to be paraded by the following

_Procession._

1. Three men in liveries, scarlet and gold.

2. Six men bearing boards at their backs and on their breasts, with inscriptions in blue and gold, “All Lotteries end Tuesday next, six 30,000_l._”

3. Band of trumpets, clarionets, horns, &c.

4. A large purple silk banner carried by six men, inscribed in large gold letters “All Lotteries end for ever on Tuesday next, six 30,000_l._”

5. A painted carriage, representing the Lottery wheel, drawn by two dappled grey horses, tandem fashion; the fore horse rode by a postillion in scarlet and gold, with a black velvet cap, and a boy seated in a dickey behind the machine, turning the handle and setting the wheel in motion.

6. Six men with other Lottery labels.

7. A square Lottery carriage, surmounted by a gilt imperial crown; the carriage covered by labels, with “All Lotteries end on Tuesday next;” drawn by two horses, tandem, and a postillion.

8. Six men with labels.

9. Twelve men in blue and gold, with boards or poles with “Lotteries end for ever on Tuesday next.”

10. A large purple silk flag, with “all Lotteries end on Tuesday next.”

This procession with its music drew the heads of the servant maids from the windows in every suburb of the metropolis, and was followed by troops of boys, till they tired on its frequency. It sometimes stopped, and a man with a bell cried “O yes!” and “God save the king!” and, between the two, proclaimed, in set words, the “death of the Lottery on Tuesday next!” The event was likewise announced as certain in all the newspapers, and by cart-loads of bills showered down areas, and thrust under knockers; when, behold, “the Lords of the Treasury were pleased to order” the final drawing to be postponed to Thursday the 18th of October; but all the good people so informed were wisely uninformed, that this “order” was obtained by the lottery-office folks, to give them a long day to get rid of their unsold tickets.

After this, the streets were cavalcaded by men, whose bodies were concealed between long boards on each side of their horses (as represented in the engraving on page 1407) to announce the _next_ “last of the Lottery on the 18th of October” aforesaid; and men on foot walked with labels on their breasts and backs, with the same never-dying intelligence, according to the further figure in the engraving of the lottery wheel (on page 1439,) which cut, it may be here observed, represents one of the government wheels, and the sledge it was drawn upon from Somerset-house to Coopers’-hall, at the commencement of the drawing of every Lottery; on which occasion there were four horses to each wheel, and about a dozen horse-guards to protect the instruments of _Miss_-Fortune.

* * * * *

But the most pageant-like machine was an octagon frame work, covered by printed Lottery placards (as exhibited in the engraving on page 1405) with a single horse, and a driver, and a guard-like seat at the back. When drawn along the streets, as it was at a most funereal pace, it overtopped the sills of the first-floor windows. Its slow motion, and the route it chiefly took, evidenced the _low_ hopes of the proprietors. St. Giles’s and the purlieus of that neighbourhood seem to have been selected as the favoured spots from whence favours were mostly to be expected. An opportunity offered to sketch it, while it was pelted with mud and stones, and torn and disfigured by the unappreciating offspring of the sons of fortune whose regards it courted. The artist’s letter describes the scene: “As I was walking up Holborn on Monday the 9th instant, I saw a strange vehicle moving slowly on, and when I came up to it, found a machine, perhaps from twenty to thirty feet high, of an octagon shape, covered all over with Lottery papers of various colours. It had a broad brass band round the bottom, and moved on a pivot; it had a very _imposing_ effect. The driver and the horse seemed as dull as though they were attending a solemn funeral, whilst the different shopkeepers came to the doors and laughed; some of the people passing and repassing read the bills that were pasted on it, as if they had never read one before, others stationed themselves to look at it as long as it was in sight. It entered Monmouth-street, that den of filth and rags, where so great a number of young urchins gathered together in a few minutes as to be astonishing. There being an empty chair behind, one of them seated himself in it, and rode backwards; another said, “let’s have a stone through it,” and a third cried “let’s sludge it.” This was no sooner proposed than they threw stones, oyster shells, and dirt, and burst several of the sheets; this attack brought the driver from his seat, and he was obliged to walk by the side of his machine up this foul street, which his show canvassed, halting now and then to threaten the boys, who still followed and threw. I made a sketch, and left the scene. It was not an every-day occurrence, and I accompany it with these remarks.”

This was the fag-end of the last struggle of the speculators on public credulity for popularity to their “last, dying Lottery.”

* * * * *

At last, on Wednesday the 18th of October, 1826, the State Lottery expired, and its decease was announced in the newspapers of the next day by the following article:--

STATE LOTTERY.

Yesterday afternoon, at about half past six o’clock, that old servant of the state, the Lottery, breathed its last, having for a long period of years, ever since the days of queen Anne, contributed largely towards the public revenue of the country. This event took place at Coopers’-hall, Basinghall-street; and such was the anxiety on the part of the public to witness the last drawing of the Lottery, that great numbers of persons were attracted to the spot, independently of those who had an interest in the proceedings. The gallery of Coopers’-hall was crowded to excess long before the period fixed for the drawing, (five o’clock,) and the utmost anxiety was felt by those who had shares in the Lottery for the arrival of the appointed hour. The annihilation of Lotteries, it will be recollected, was determined on in the session of parliament before last; and thus a source of revenue bringing into the treasury the sums of 250,000_l._ and 300,000_l._ per annum will be dried up. This determination on the part of the legislature is hailed by far the greatest portion of the public with joy, as it will put an end to a system which many believe to have fostered and encouraged the late speculations, the effects of which have been and are still severely felt. A deficiency in the public revenue to the extent of 250,000_l._ annually, will, however, be the consequence of the annihilation of Lotteries, and it must remain for those who have strenuously supported the putting a stop to Lotteries to provide for the deficiency.

Although that which ended yesterday was the last, if we are informed correctly, the lottery-office keepers have been left with a great number of tickets remaining on their hands--a pretty strong proof that the public in general have now no relish for these schemes.

The concourse of persons in Basinghall-street was very great; indeed the street was almost impassable, and everybody seemed desirous of ascertaining the fortunate numbers. In the gallery the greatest interest was excited, as the various prizes were drawn from the wheel; and as soon as a number-ticket was drawn from the number-wheel every one looked with anxiety to his share, in order to ascertain if Fortune smiled on him. Only one instance occurred where a prize was drawn and a number held by any individual present. The fortunate person was a little man, who, no sooner had learned that his number was a grand prize, then he buttoned up his coat and coolly walked off without uttering a word. As the drawing proceeded, disappointment began to succeed the hopes indulged by those who were present. On their entrance to the hall every face wore a cheerful appearance; but on the termination of the drawing a strong contrast was exhibited, and the features of each were strongly marked with dissatisfaction.

The drawing commenced shortly after five o’clock, and ended at twenty minutes past six.

The doors of the various Lottery-offices were also surrounded by persons awaiting the issue of the drawing.

LOTTERY PUFFS.

It is not possible to go into the _Literature of the Lottery_ without occupying more room than can be spared, but young readers and posterity may be amused and surprised by some figures, from among many hundreds of wood-cuts on the bills of schemes, and invitations to buy.

“T. BISH, 4 Cornhill, and 9 Charing-cross, London, and by all his agents in the country,” put forth the following.

~Kitchen Maid.~

Mistress Molly, the Cook, At the Scheme only look, In wealth we may both of us roll, If we _brush_ for a Prize In the world we may rise, And our _skuttles_ have plenty of _cole._

~Cook Maid.~

If what you say is true, I am all in a _stew_, Lest we miss what we so much desire; Should we lose this good plan, For _a sup in the pan_, All the _fat_ will be soon _in the fire_!

Except the verses which were placed in the bill beneath the preceding cut, it contained nothing but an announcement of the day when the Lottery was to draw, and the number of capital prizes, subjoined by this information, “Tickets and shares are selling by T. BISH;” who seems to have imagined he could propitiate the “kitchen maid” and “cook maid” in his behalf, as a lottery-office keeper, by exhibiting a tea-kettle and fire implements to personify the one, and certain culinary utensils to personify the other.

“Delightful _cut_ to rear the tender mind”

from the _basement_ to the _capital_ story.

RUN, Neighbours, run, the LOTTERY’S expiring, When FORTUNE’S merry wheel, it will never turn more; She now supplies all _Numbers_, you’re desiring, ALL PRIZES, NO BLANKS, and TWENTY THOUSANDS FOUR.

Haste, Neighbours, haste, the Chance will never come again, When, without pain, for little _Cash_--you’ll all be rich; Prizes a plenty of--and such a certain source of gain, That young and old, and all the world, it must bewitch. Then run, neighbours, run, &c.

This versified address and the engraving are from another bill. The verses may be presumed as sung by the footman, to excite his fellows of the party-coloured cloth to speculate in the never-enough-to-be-sufficiently-magnified-number of chances in favour of their gaining “Four of £20,000, and--Thirty other Capitals! No Blanks!--ALL IN ONE DAY!” Yet if the words, adapted from a popular duet, were regarded as an easy vehicle to effect that benevolent purpose, they could only be so to those who, with the contractors, forgot, or perhaps, with them, did not know, that the original tells of

“a day of jubilee _cajolery_.”

Surely this must have been a “word of fear” to all except the contractors themselves, who alone would be the gainers by what the body of adventurers hazarded in the “grand scheme” of “_cajolery_.”

* * * * *

One of the bills of a former Lottery begins as follows:--

BISH

_The Last Man._

In reminding his best friends, the public, that the State Lottery will be drawn this day, 3d May, Bish acquaints them that it is the _very last but one_ that will ever take place in this kingdom, and he is THE LAST CONTRACTOR whose name will appear _singly_ before the public, as the very last will be a coalition of all the usual contractors. Bish, being “_the last man_” who appears _singly_, has been particularly anxious to make an excellent scheme, and flatters himself the one he has the honour to submit must meet universal approbation.

* * * * *

At the back of this bill are the following verses, derived from the “_cajolery_” duet:--

TO-DAY! OR NOT AT ALL

RUN, NEIGHBOURS, RUN!

Run, neighbours, run! To-day it is the Lott’ry draws, You still may be in time if your purse be low; Rhino we all know will stop, of poverty, the flaws, Possess’d of that you’ll find no one to serve you slow: The ministers in parliament of Lotteries have toll’d the knell, And have declar’d from Coopers’-hall dame Fortune soon they will expel. The blue-coat boys no more will shout that they have drawn a capital! Nor run, as tho’ their necks they’d break, to _Lucky Bish_ the news to tell. Run, neighbours, run! &c. Run, neighbours, run! this is you know the third of May, ’Tis the day dame Fortune doth her levee hold; In the scheme, as you may see, are rang’d along in proud array, Of one and twenty thousands six, in notes or gold! A _sov’reign_ cure e’en one of these would be for a consumption, sir, If such disease your pocket has, so if you’ve any gumption, sir, You’ll lose no time, but haste away, and buy a share or ticket, sir, For who can tell but this may be the very hour to nick it, sir? Run, neighbours, run! &c. Run, neighbours, run! the times they say are not the best, And cash ’tis own’d is falling short with high and low; Bankers retire now, while Notaries have little rest, And what may happen next no one pretends to know. Dame Fortune (on whom thousands drew) is going now to shut up shop, So if you’d cash a draft on her, make haste for soon her bank will stop; This very day her wheel goes round, when thousands with her gifts she’ll cheer, For those who can her smiles obtain may gaily laugh throughout the year. Run, neighbours, run! &c.

* * * * *

“BISH,” as the _contractor_ is pleased to call himself, who, after he was “the last man,” dilated into a member of parliament, employed the greatest number of Lottery-laureates of any office keeper of his time; and he and the schemes wherein he engaged were lauded, in prose as well as verse, by his “ready writers.” One of their productions says:--

JOHN BULL’s

_Wonder_

At monsieur Nong-tong-paw’s ubiquity could not be greater than the astonishment of a French gentleman, who popped into BISH’s office the other day to inquire after the capitals.--“You vill be so good to tell me de nombre of de capital you tiré--you draw yesterday?”--“Why, sir, there were....”--“Restez un peu, stay a littel moment.--You will tell me de capital more big dan two hundred pounds.”--“Why, sir, there were four drawn above 200_l._: there was No. 7849 30,000_l._”--“Ah! ma foi! dat is good dat is de grande chose. Vel, and by whom was it sel?”--“Bish sold it, sir.” “Bish, ha, ha! von lucky dog! vel, allons!”--“There was No. 602, 1000_l._, sir.”--“Ah, indeed! vel, who was sel dat?”--“Bish, sir.”--“Eh, ma foi! Bish encore? Vel.”--“There was No. 2032, 300_l._”--“And who was sel?”--“Bish, sir.”--“Eh, mon dieu! ’tis very grand fortune. Now den de last, and who vas sel dat?”--“Why, sir, the last was No. 6275, 300_l._, also sold by Bish.”--“Eh, de diable! ’tis von chose impossible, Bish sell all de four?”--“Yes, sir, and in a former lottery he sold all the three thirty thousands.”--“Den he is von golden philosopher. I vill buy, I vill--let me see. Yes, I vill buy your shop.”--His ambition was at last, however, contented with three tickets; so that he has three chances of gaining the two thirty thousands yet in the wheel; and we have no doubt Bish will have the good luck of selling them.

* * * * *

“BISH” is the subject of versified praise, in another bill.

HOW TO BE HAPPY.

Let misers hug their worship’d hoards, And lock their chests with care; Whilst we enjoy what life affords, With spirits light as air. For our days shall haily gaily be, Prizes in store before us, We’ll spend our ev’nings merrily. And BISH we’ll toast in chorus.

Let lovers droop for sparkling eyes, And heave the tender sigh: Whilst we embrace the glittering prize, And meagre care defy. For our days shall haily gaily be, Plenty in store before us; Our cash we’ll jingle merrily, And BISH we’ll toast in chorus.

Let glory call the sons of war To dare the crimson’d field; Sweet Fortune’s charms are brighter far, Her golden arms we’ll wield. Then our days will haily gaily be, Riches in store before us; We’ll dance through life most merrily, And BISH we’ll toast in chorus.

* * * * *

“BISH” on another occasion steps in with:--

PERMIT ME TO ASK

Have you seen the scheme of the present Lottery?

Do you know that it contains MORE PRIZES than BLANKS?

Have you heard how very _cheap_ the tickets are?

Are you aware, that Lotteries are about to be discontinued, the chancellor of the exchequer having said that the Lottery bill, introduced last session of parliament, should be _the last_?

I need not direct you to BISH’S, as being the luckiest offices in the kingdom, &c.

* * * * *

“BISH” adventured in the “City Lottery,” a scheme devised for getting rid of the houses in Picket-street, Temple-bar, and Skinner-street, Snow-hill; and on that occasion he favoured the world with the following:--

FREEHOLDS AND FORTUNES.

BY PETER PUN.

Tune.--“_Drops of Brandy._”

Dame Fortune is full of her tricks, And blind, as her portraits reveal, sir; Then the best way the goddess to fix, Is by putting a spoke in her wheel, sir: Her favours the Lott’ry unfolds, Then the summons to BISH don’t scorn sir; For, as _her_ cornucopia _he_ holds, He’s the lad for exalting your horn, sir. Rum ti iddity, &c.

With poverty who would be known, And live upon orts in a garret, sir, Who could get a good _house_ of his own, And fatten on roast beef and claret, sir! In the _city_ scheme this you’ll obtain, At BISH’S, where all folks _pell-mell_ come, By a ticket a _free_-hold you’ll gain, And it cannot be more _free_ than _welcome_. Rum ti iddity, &c.

This house, when you once realize it, Upholders will look sharp as lynxes, For an order to _Egyptianize_ it, With catacomb fal lals and sphynxes; Chairs and tables, a _mummy_-like crew, With crocodile grooms of the stole, sir, Sarcophagus _coal_-skuttles too, And at BISH’S you’ll fill them with _cole_, sir. Rum ti iddity, &c.

For when you’re thus furnish’d in state, And a pretty establishment got, sir, Ten to one but it pops in your pate, You’ll want sticks to be boiling the pot, sir; Then to BISH’S away for supplies, For _mopusses_ they are so plenty, You may choose a ten thousand pound prize, And if you don’t like it a twenty. Rum ti iddity, &c.

Then BISH for my money, I say, The like of him never was known, sir; As Brulgruddery says in the play, “That man’s the philosopher’s stone, sir.” Then what shall we do for this man, Who makes all your fortunes so handy? Buy his tickets as fast as you can, And drink him in _drops of brandy_. Rum ti iddity, &c.

* * * * *

“BISH” seems to have deemed “the Philosopher’s stone,” which never existed but in silly imaginations, to be a proper device for drawing customers. It is repeated in

PADDY’S PURSUIT,

A NEW SONG.

From the county of Cork in dear Ireland I came, To England’s _swate_ Island a fortune to gain; Where I heard that the _strates_ were all paved with gold, And the hedges grew Guineas! so Paddy was told! I jump’d on dry land to my neck up in water, Which to some spalpeens gave subject for laughter; But, says I, with a grin, as I dragg’d myself out, “I’m not come to England to be food for a trout.” Fal de ral, de ral lal, O whack! Then to London I came, that _monstracious_ city, Where the lads dress so gay, and the ladies look _pratty_; But, Och! blood-and-ouns! only mark my surprise, When only great stones in the _strates_ met my eyes! No Guineas at all on the bushes there grew; Not a word that they told me, I found, sirs, was true: “Och! why wa’n’t I drown’d, and made food for the fish!” Thus I growled, ’till I lighted on one _Master Bish_. Fal de ral, &c. _Master Bish_ had found out the Philosopher’s stone, And a Thousand yellow Guineas he gave me for One! Thus Fortune to Pat was _monstraciously_ kind, Tho’ no gold on the bushes or _strates_ I could find! Then honeys attend, and pursue my advice; Och! to 9, Charing-cross, be off in a trice; Buy a Lottery Chance, for the Drawing Day’s near, And perhaps, like friend Paddy, a Fortune you’ll clear. Fal de ral, &c.

* * * * *

“BISH” we find again attempting to attract, with the following:--

THE

PHILOSOPHER’S STONE.

------------------------------ That stone, Philosophers in vain so long have sought,

Says Milton, would not prove more valuable to its possessor than an absolute knowledge of _certain_ numbers which lie hidden in the Wheel of Fortune till Fate declares to the enraptured ears of the adventurer, who has founded his hopes of success on them, their union with _certain_ large sums of money, viz. Twenty, Ten, or Five Thousand Pounds; for there are many such sums yet in the wheel, yet to be determined, yet to be gained by hazarding a mere trifle.

He, who life’s sea successfully would sail, Must often throw a sprat to catch a whale. Apply this proverb then; think, ere too late, What fortune, honour, and what wealth await The very trifling sum[484] of one pound eight.

* * * * *

“BISH,” of course, imagined, or wished, the public to be amazingly surprised at his popularity, and therefore indulged them with this song:

WHAT’S THE MATTER?

_By Quintin Query, Esq._

Tune.--“O Dear, what can the Matter be?”

“_O dear, what can the matter be?_” To tell, who can be at a loss? The people are running by dozens to BISH’S, To make out their dreams, and fulfil all their wishes, And try to come in for the loaves and the fishes, At 4, Cornhill, and 9, Charing-cross. “_O dear, what can the matter be?_” I’ll tell you, good friend, if you wish; The people are trying dame Fortune to cozen, And the old women’s tongues are eternally buzzing, About _lucky numbers_, 19 to the dozen, And all they can talk of is BISH. “_O dear, what can the matter be?_” I dare say you’re dying to know; The horns blow about, be it rainy or sunny, The walls they are cover’d with bills all so funny, To shew you the way how to finger the money, And you all know that “_makes the mare go_.” “_O dear, what can the matter be?_” The bellman he rings such a peal? To tell those whose fortunes are rusted with rickets, To call at _good luck’s_ (that is, _Bish’s_) two wickets, And a transfer obtain for 500 Whole Tickets; How conceited they’d make a man feel! “_O dear, what can the matter be?_” For joy you’ll be dancing a jig; For _good_ luck most folks are delighted to choose a day, And a lucky day surely must be a good news day, Then the day of all days is the very _next Tuesday_; Then, Misfortune’s _black Monday_ a fig!

* * * * *

“BISH,” on another occasion, treated the “gentle public,” like so many children, with another optical delusion.

FORTUNE’S GALANTY SHOW.

Tune.--“GALANTY SHOW.”

O pretty show, O raree show, O finey galanty show, O pretty galanty show!

_Chaunt._

Come, all my merry customers, of high, middling, and low degree, Look in at one of these little glasses, and you shall see what you shall see; My fine galanty show you great wonders shall view in, You shall see the high road to Fortune, and that’s better than the road to Ruin. O pretty show, O raree show, O finey galanty show, O pretty galanty show!

There you see the New Lott’ry Scheme, such as never was plann’d before! _Fewer_ Tickets, and _fewer Blanks_, and yet the _Prizes_ are _more_; And besides the usual 5’s, 10’s, and 20 Thousands (_Peep thro’ one of these wickets_,) You shall see such a Prize as was never yet known, neither more nor less than 1000 whole Tickets! O pretty show, &c. And there you shall see, (_Look a little to the right_) Mr. BISH’s Shop on _Cornhill_: (_Now a little to the left_) And there’s his other Shop at _Charing- cross_, where buy Shares if you will; You’ll get a part of the 1000 whole Tickets, I’ll be bound, And that’s very much like getting a part of more than a _Hundred Thousand Pounds_! O pretty show, &c. Then look straight forward, and there you see _Coopers’ Hall_, (_Isn’t it a fine building?_) there the Tickets they draw; And there you see the pretty little Blue-coat Boys, and nicer little fellows you never saw; There you’ll see ’em pulling the Numbers and Prizes out of the very Grand Wheels And when one has a Ticket in the Lottery, and sees such a sight, how _narvous_ one feels! O pretty show, &c. And there--(_Rub the glass a little cleaner_) there’s a sight I’d not have you miss fora pound, The little Boy draws out a _Number_ (_Let me see what Number you have got_) aye, that’s it, I’ll be bound; There don’t the Clerk (_On the left hand_) look exactly as if he was calling it, don’t you _see_ how he _cries_? And the other little Boy draws, and the other Clerk looks as if he bawl’d out a £20,000 Prize. O pretty show, &c. There you see (’tis no Dream of Castles in the Air, called _Utopia_) There you see Fortune pouring the _Guineas_ out of--what the deuce is it? a great long hard name--Oh! her _Cornucopia_! That’s a fine _Golden Horn_, that holds all the Prizes, I declare, And to get its Contents would be a pretty _Horn Fair_! O pretty show, &c.

* * * * *

“BISH” was pleased to devise the scheme of a Lottery to be drawn on St. Swithin’s day, wherein wine was added to the prizes, and therefore, and because its novelty was deemed alluring, we find one of his bills beginning with an apostrophising and prophetic couplet:--

Hail, famed ST. SWITHIN! who, with pow’r benign, Instead of rain pour showers of gold and wine!

Another in the same Lottery, beneath a wood-cut of a bunch of grapes, breaks out:--

On the 15th of JULY what a _golden_ supply Of _wine_ given _gratis_ by BISH, If you can get but a _share_, you’ll have plenty to spare, And can treat all your friends as you wish.

“BISH,” on the same occasion, throws the “leer of invitation,” with

TRY IN TIME.

Och! Judy, my jewel, come here when I call; We may now get _wine gratis_, for _nothing at all_; And _gold_ like _paratees_ pil’d up in a heap, Which is offer’d us too, honey, almost as cheap.

But there’s no time to lose if we’re meaning to try, For ’tis _all in one day_, on the _15th July_. And since the grand scheme is beyond all compare, He’s a spalpeen who won’t buy a fortunate share.

“BISH,” in another bill, oddly enough, put an old, one-legged smoker, with a _patch_ over one eye, a carbuncled nose, and his only foot flannelled up for the gout, the effects of drinking, in an arm chair, with the following lines below:--

“LAID UP IN PORT.”

Od’s blood! what a time for a seaman to skulk, Like a lazy land-lubber ashore; If I’m laid up at all, I’ll be laid up in port, And surrounded by prizes galore. Tommy Bish shall fill my glass, And the puppies, as they pass, Sha’n’t run down the old commodore, The rich old commodore, the cosey old commodore, The boozing old commodore he; While I’m friends with mighty BISH, He will crown my ev’ry wish, Tho’ I’ll never more be fit for sea.

Then also, “Bish” favoured his “friends” with the opportunity of singing,

BACCHUS AND PLUTUS, OR THE UNION.

Tune.--“Derry Down.”

A ROW was kick’d up in the regions above, For PLUTUS and BACCHUS for precedence strove; And in words such as these did their anger express, Till JOVE swore he’d kick them both out of the mess. Derry down.

First BACCHUS advanc’d, tho’ he scarcely could stand, Determin’d, he swore, to have the _whip hand_; And thus he began.--“Why, you sordid old elf, All your thoughts are employ’d in the scraping of pelf.

“Can gold, I would ask, e’er enliven the soul Like the juice of the grape, or a full flowing bowl? Can the glittering bauble such pleasure impart, Or make the blood circle so warm round the heart?

“That gold is an evil, there’s many will say, As my vot’ries oft find when the reck’ning’s to pay; Had gold ne’er existed, the true jolly fellow For ever might tipple, and always get mellow.

“I swear by old Styx!--that this truth it will _stand_:” But the wine in his noddle usurp’d the command,-- A _knock-’em-down argument_ BACCHUS soon found, For quickly he measur’d his length on the ground.

“As BACCHUS is _down_,” then says PLUTUS, “I’ll _rise_;” And this speech he address’d to the knobs of the skies:-- “That gold is a blessing, I’m sure I can prove: The soother of cares, and cementer of love!

“You know the old proverb, of _poverty_, sure, ’Tis something about--‘_when she enters the door, That love, through the window, soon toddles away_;’ But if there were gold, I’m sure that he’d stay.

“I’ll own that my bounties are sometimes misus’d: But pray why should I, sirs, for that be abus’d?” Here JOVE stopp’d him short, and with positive air, Insisted that they should their quarrel forbear.

“Your claims I admit, sir, and BACCHUS’ too; But a plan to unite you, I now have in view; You know TOMMY BISH?”--“To be sure!” exclaim all, “’Tis on him, that dame Fortune her bounty lets fall!”

“Well,--a Lottery he’s plann’d, with an union rare, Where _money_ and _wine_ each come in for a share; There are _three thirty thousands_ to gratify _you_; And the _twelve pipes of wine_, sirs, for BACCHUS will do.”

Says BACCHUS to PLUTUS--“Then give us your hand, I’ll tipple his wine, till no more I can stand; And as JOVE has inform’d us there’s _money_ enough, Why you, Mister PLUTUS, can finger the _stuff_.

“Besides, I have heard, or my memory’s fail’d, How greatly last Lott’ry his luck has prevail’d; The _three twenty thousands_, he sold (the rum fish!) Then let us be off, and buy tickets of BISH!” Derry down.

“BISH,” who in the former bill had subjoined, in plain prose, that “lotteries must end for ever,” likewise issued the following--

DUTIES ON WINES.

The minister in reducing the duty, so that wines may be sold at one shilling per bottle cheaper, has done much to increase the _spirits_ of the people; at the same time he has adopted another measure that will in a few months DESTROY THE FREE TRADE of every person in the kingdom to obtain for a small sum a great fortune in a few weeks, by having determined to abolish Lotteries, which must soon end for ever; therefore, the present is one of the last opportunities to buy, &c.

* * * * *

“BISH,” according to the old plan, “ever ready to serve his friends,” issued

THE AMBULATOR’S GUIDE TO THE LAND OF PLENTY.

BY PURCHASING A TICKET, _In the present Lottery_,

You may _reap_ a golden _harvest_ in _Cornhill_, and pick up the _bullion_ in _Silver-street_; have an interest in _Bank-buildings_; possess a _Mansion-house_ in _Golden-square_, and an estate like a _Little Britain_; pour red wine down _Gutter-lane_; never be in _Hunger_ford-market; but all your life continue a _May-fair_.

BY PURCHASING A HALF,

You need never be confined within _London-wall_, but become the proprietor of many a _Long-acre_; represent a _Borough_, or an _Aldermanbury_; and have a snug share in _Threadneedle-street_.

BY PURCHASING A QUARTER,

Your affairs need never be in _Crooked-lane_, nor your legs in _Fetter-lane_; you may avoid _Paper-buildings_; steer clear of the _King’s-bench_, and defy the _Marshalsea_; if your heart is in _Love-lane_, you may soon get into _Sweetings-alley_, obtain your lover’s consent for _Matrimony-place_, and always live in a _High-street_.

BY PURCHASING AN EIGHTH,

You may ensure plenty of _provision_ for _Swallow-street_; finger the _Cole_ in _Coleman-street_; and may never be troubled with _Chancery-lane_; you may cast _anchor_ in _Cable-street_; set up business in a _Fore-street_, or a _Noble-street_; and need never be confined within a _Narrow-wall_.

BY PURCHASING A SIXTEENTH,

You may live _frugal_ in _Cheapside_; get _merry_ in _Liquorpond-street_; soak your _hide_ in _Leather-lane_; be a wet _sole_ in _Shoe-lane_; turn _maltster_ in _Beer-lane_, or _hammer_ away in _Smithfield_.

In short, life must indeed be a _Long-lane_, if it’s without a _turning_. Therefore if you are wise, without _Mincing_ the matter, be _Fleet_ and go _Pall-mall_ to _Cornhill_ or _Charing-cross_, and enroll your name in the _Temple_ of Fortune, BISH’s.

LOTTERY FOR WOMEN IN INDIA.

_Advertisement._

“BE IT KNOWN, that SIX FAIR PRETTY YOUNG LADIES, with two sweet and engaging young children, lately IMPORTED FROM EUROPE, having roses of health blooming on their cheeks, and joy sparkling in their eyes, possessing amiable manners, and highly accomplished, whom the most indifferent cannot behold without expressions of rapture, are to be RAFFLED FOR next door to the British gallery. SCHEME: _twelve tickets_, at twelve rupees each; the highest of the three throws, doubtless, takes the most fascinating, &c.”[485]

* * * * *

The four engravings on this page, with the lines beneath them, are from other Lottery bills.

“Throw _Physic_ to the Dogs,” for me The best _composing draught’s_ a Fee; For _sinking Chest_, _low pulse_, or cold, There’s no _Specific_ equals Gold.

“My Dancing Days are over!”

Though the lotteries soon will be over, I’m told, That now is the time to get pailsful of gold; And if there is any real truth in a dream, I myself shall come in for a share of the cream. We hail, ere the Sun, the first breath of the morn, And ’tis said “early birds get the best of the corn,” Of the _Four Twenty Thousands_ perhaps fortune may Have in store one for me, as they’re drawn in _One Day_!

For the gay fruits of nature what wish can you feel, When compar’d with the _fruits_ of the lottery wheel; My basket of fruit I’d exchange with great glee, If one _golden pippin_ they’d only give me.

“BISH, contractor for another Lottery,” during the proceedings in parliament respecting the queen, availed himself of a celebrated answer by one of the witnesses at the bar of the house of lords, and issued the following:--

NON MI RICORDO!

OR,

_A few Questions on a new Subject_.

_QUESTION._

Good Signor, if your memory serves, A question I would ask or two; Then pray may I the favour beg, That you will answer, if I do?

_ANSWER._

_Non mi ricordo_, I can’t say, Whether my mem’ry serves or no; But let me hear them first, I pray; What I remember you shall know.

_QUESTION._

Since Lotteries in this realm began, And many good ones there have been, Do you suppose the oldest man, So good a Scheme at this has seen?

_ANSWER._

_Non mi ricordo_, surely no; Comparisons are idle tales, For such a Lottery Scheme as this, I must confess my memory fails.

_QUESTION._

Now what peculiar features, pray, Distinguish this from all the rest? And why do all the people say, “Unquestionably this is best?”

_ANSWER._

_Non mi ricordo_, ’tis in vain For me its merits now to say; To tell them all ’twould take, ’tis plain, From now until the Drawing Day.

_QUESTION._

Its merits I will gladly own, But folks will questions ask, and pray If your opinion is requir’d, Just tell me, sir, what you would say?

_ANSWER._

_Non mi ricordo_: read the Scheme, One word will answer all your wish ’Tis BISH’s plan, ’tis BISH’s theme, It must be good, ’tis plann’d by BISH.

* * * * *

“BISH,” in the annexed, _puffs_ at Queen Anne’s prize of “5000 pounds,” as “so small.” This may be imagined to have been asserted under poetical licence; for, in fact, 5000_l._ in those days was almost equal to the largest prize in modern Lotteries.

THE

_Bonne Bouche_ of Lotteries.

Tune.--“MODERATION AND ALTERATION.”

In the reign of Queen Anne, when first Lott’ries were invented, With very few Prizes Advent’rers were contented; The largest of which, (so small were Fortune’s bounds,) “_Paid in faire Plate_,” was but 5000 Pounds. Moderation! Moderation! O, what a wonderful Moderation!

Soon 5000_l._ was deem’d but a small Bait, And 10,000 then was the Great Prize of State: _Twenty_ follow’d soon after, then _Thirty_--bold push! And at last 40,000 was made the _Bonne Bouche_! Alteration! Alteration! &c.

Now the Lott’ry Contractors a New Plan pursue, All former outdoings resolv’d to outdo; And have struck out a Plan to increase Public Gain, By which, _One Hundred Thousand_ Pounds you may obtain. Temptation! Temptation! &c.

If two Numbers are drawn in a specifi’d way, 1000 _Whole Tickets_ the Holders repay; And a 1000 Whole Tickets a Chance may reveal, Of all the Great Prizes contain’d in the Wheel. Admiration! Admiration! &c. O, what a subject for Admiration!

Now if you could get them, and ’twouldn’t be strange, For the rest of your life, how your fortune would change! A Coach, a Town-House, and a Country-House, too! Leading Man in the County!--O, wou’dn’t that do? Fascination! Fascination! &c.

Then of Loans, and such fat things, such slices you’d gain! Then a Member of Parliament’s Seat you’d obtain! Next _Knighthood_--then _Baronet_--and in a short space, A Peerage--“_My Lord!_” and at last, “_Please your Grace!_” Exaltation! Exaltation! &c.

Such things are quite flattering, and surely such are, But a Pleasure far greater remains to declare; Consider, what _Power_ Wealth and Honour procure, To relieve the Oppress’d, and to succour the Poor. Exultation! Exultation! &c.

Then with Patriot Ardour your Country to serve, For Riches are Curses, from[486] these if you swerve; And all this may be gain’d, if your Fortune you try, And of BISH, Fortune’s Favorite, a Ticket you buy. Expectation! Expectation! &c.

* * * * *

“BISH,” whose bills may be taken as a specimen of such kind of Lottery advertisements by whomever issued, will be observed to have constantly addressed them to the lowest minds and the meanest capacities. One more may further exemplify the remark:--

THE AGE OF WONDERS.

Tune.--“_Bang up._”

This is a _Wonder working_ age, by all it is agreed on, And _Wonders_ rise up ev’ry day, for public gaze to feed on; To sketch a few ’tis my intent, while now I’m in the mind, sir, And crown them all with _one_ you’ll own, will leave them far behind, sir. Then push along; for _something new_, the public taste will dash on: For _Wonders_ now are all the _rage_, and _novelty’s_ the fashion. The _juggling Indians_ show such feats, a lady’s taste ’twould shock it, They _swallow swords_, and _swallow_ too the _money from our pocket_, A gentle fair, by fear unmov’d, with courage she so fraught is, On _red-hot iron_ skips a _dance_, and _bathes in aqua-fortis_. Then push along; for _something new_, the public taste will dash on, For _Wonders_ now are all the _rage_, and _novelty’s_ the fashion. The greatest _Wonder_ yet to tell, which all the world surprizes, Is BISH’s _famous Lottery_, and BISH’s _wondrous_ prizes, Three _fifty thousands_ grace the scheme, which yet remain undrawn, sir, A _wonder_ which was never known since any man was born, sir. Then push along, to BISH’s go! of fortune he’s the man, sir, A vote of thanks, _nem. con._ we’ll pass for such a noble plan, sir.[487]

* * * * *

“BISH” when, what he called, “The Last Lottery of All!” had arrived, very cavalierly turned round on the government; and, on the eve of becoming a candidate for a seat in the house of commons, paid his compliments to his future colleagues in the following address:--

TO THE PUBLIC.

At the present moment, when so many articles, necessary to the comforts of the poorer classes, are more or less liable to taxation, it may surely be a question, whether the abolition of Lotteries, by which the state was a gainer of nearly half a million per annum, be, or be not, a wise measure!

’Tis true, that, as they were formerly conducted, the system was fraught with some evil. Insurances were allowed upon the fate of numbers through protracted drawings, and as the insurances could be effected for very small sums, those who could ill afford loss, imbibed a spirit for gambling, which the legislature very wisely most effectually prevented, by adopting, in the year 1809, the present improved mode of _deciding the whole Lottery in one day_.

As it is at present conducted, the Lottery is a voluntary tax, contributed to only by those who can afford it, and collected without trouble or expense; one, by which many branches of the revenue are considerably aided, and by means of which hundreds of persons find employment. The wisdom of those who at this time resign the income produced by it, and add to the number of the unemployed, may, as I have observed in a former address, surely be questioned.

Mr. Pitt, whose ability, in matters of financial arrangement, few will question, and whose morality was proverbial, would not, I am bold to say, have yielded to an outcry against a tax, the continuing of which would have enabled him to let the labourer drink his humble beverage at a reduced price, or the industrious artisan to pursue his occupation by a cheaper light. But we live in other times--in the age of improvement!--To stake patrimonial estates at hazard or écarte in the purlieus of St. James’s is _merely amusement_, but to purchase a ticket in the Lottery, by means of which a man may _gain_ an estate at a trifling risk, is--immoral! nay, within a few hours of the time I write, were not many of our nobility and senators, some of whom, I dare say, voted against Lotteries, assembled betting thousand upon a _horse race_?

In saying so much, it may be thought that I am somewhat presumptuous, or that I take a partial view of the case. It is, however, my honest opinion, abstracted from personal considerations, that the measure of abolishing Lotteries is an unwise one, and as such I give it to that public, of whom I have been for many years the highly favoured servant, and for whose patronage, though Lotteries cease, my gratitude will ever continue.

As one of the last contractors, I have assisted in arranging a scheme, &c.! &c.!! &c.!!!

* * * * *

After this, perhaps, the reader may exclaim “I am satisfied!” and therefore, as we have the assurance of Mr. Bish that there will “never be another Lottery” to be lamented, the time has arrived for subjoining the following

~Epitaph.~

In Memory of THE STATE LOTTERY, the last of a long line whose origin in England commenced in the year 1569,[488] which, after a series of tedious complaints, _Expired_ on the 18th day of October, 1826. During a period of 257 years, the family flourished under the powerful protection of the British Parliament; the minister of the day continuing to give them his support for the improvement of the revenue. As they increased, it was found that their continuance corrupted the morals, and encouraged a spirit of Speculation and Gambling among the lower classes of the people; thousands of whom fell victims to their insinuating and tempting allurements. Many philanthropic individuals in the Senate, at various times for a series of years, pointed out their baneful influence without effect, His Majesty’s Ministers still affording them their countenance and protection. The British Parliament being at length convinced of their mischievous tendency, HIS MAJESTY GEORGE IV., on the 9th July, 1823,[489] pronounced sentence of condemnation on the whole race; from which time they were almost NEGLECTED BY THE BRITISH PUBLIC. Very great efforts were made by the Partisans and friends of the family to excite the public feeling in favour of the last of the race, in vain: It continued to linger out the few remaining moments of its existence without attention or sympathy, and finally terminated its career unregretted by any virtuous mind.

W. P.

~Interesting Addenda.~

A few remarkable facts, which were omitted in the proper order of narration, are now inserted.

ANCIENT LOTTERY.

About 1612 king James I., “in special favour for the plantation of English colonies in Virginia, granted a Lottery to be held at the west end of St. Paul’s; whereof one Thomas Sharplys, a taylor of London, had the chief prize, which was four thousand crowns in fair plate.”[490]

A DOUBLE MISTAKE.

Old Baron d’Aguilar, the Islington miser, was requested by a relation to purchase a particular ticket, No. 14,068, in the Lottery to be drawn in the year 1802, (but which was sold some few days before). The baron died on the 16th of March following, and the number was the first-drawn ticket on the 24th, and, as such, entitled to twenty thousand pounds. The baron’s representatives, under these circumstances, therefore published an advertisement, offering a reward of 1000_l._ to any person who might have found the said ticket, and would deliver it up. Payment was stopped. A wholesale linen-draper, in Cornhill, who had ordered his broker to buy him ten tickets, which he deposited in his chest, on copying the numbers, for the purpose of examining them, made a mistake of one figure, and called it 14,168 instead of 14,068, which was the 20,000_l._ prize. The lottery being finished, he sent ten tickets to be examined and marked. To his utter astonishment, he then found the error of the number copied on his paper. On his demanding payment at the lottery office, a caveat was entered by old d’Aguilar’s executors; but an explanation taking place, the 20,000_l._ was immediately paid him.

CHRISTOPHER BARTHOLOMEW.

This person, who inherited a good fortune from his parents, was prosperous in his business, and had every prospect of success and eminence in life, fell a victim to an unconquerable itch for gambling in the Lottery. At one time, the White-conduit-house, with its tea-gardens and other premises, as also the Angel-inn, now the best tavern in Islington, were his freeholds: and he rented land to the amount of 2000_l._ a year, in the neighbourhood of that place, and Holloway. He was remarkable for having the greatest quantity of haystacks of any grower in the neighbourhood of London. He kept his carriage and servants in livery, and was believed to have been worth 50,000_l._ He was not only the proprietor, but the landlord of White-conduit-house, to which, by his taste in laying out its grounds, and the manner of conducting his business, he attracted great custom. On one occasion, having been unusually successful in the Lottery, he gave a public breakfast at his tea-gardens, “to commemorate the smiles of Fortune,” as he so expressed himself upon the tickets of admission at this _fête champêtre_.

At times he was very fortunate in the Lottery, and this tended to increase the mania which hurried him to his ruin. He was known to have spent upwards of 2000 guineas in a day for insurance, to raise which, stack after stack of his immense crops of hay were cut down and hurried to market, as the readiest way to obtain the supplies for these extraordinary outgoings; and at last he was obliged to part with his freehold, from accumulated difficulties and embarrassments, and he passed the remaining thirteen years of his life in great poverty, subsisting by the charity of those who knew him in “better days,” and by the paltry emolument he derived from serving as a juryman in the sheriff’s court for the county. His propensity to the Lottery, even under these degrading difficulties, never forsook him. Meeting one day, in the year 1807, with an old acquaintance, he told him he had a strong presentiment, that if he could purchase a particular number in the ensuing Lottery it would prove successful. His friend, after remonstrating with him on the impropriety of persevering in a practice that had been already attended with such evil consequences, was at last persuaded to advance the money to purchase a sixteenth, and go halves with him in the adventure. It was drawn a prize of 20,000_l._, and from the proceeds from this extraordinary turn of fortune, he was prevailed upon to purchase an annuity of 60_l._ _per annum_. Totally addicted, however, to the pernicious habit of insurance, he disposed of his annuity, and lost every shilling of the money; yet such was the meanness of his mind and circumstances, that he frequently applied to persons who had been served by him in his prosperity, for an old coat, or some other article of cast apparel; and not many days before he died, he begged a few shillings to purchase necessaries.

Bartholomew in intellect and manners was superior to the generality of men, and at one time possessed the esteem of all who knew him. His fate may be a warning to all ranks, particularly to those who are in trade, not to engage in hazardous pursuits. He died in a two pair of stairs room, in Angel-court, Windmill-street, in the Haymarket, in March, 1809, aged 68.[491]

* * * * *

A correspondent refers to Rees’s Cyclopædia as containing a good account of Lotteries, with table of chances relative to their schemes; and he adds, that Dr. Kelly, the well-known calculator, assured him he had ascertained that the chances of obtaining certain prizes were even more against the adventurer than would appear by those tables.

* * * * *

When the tickets were publicly drawn in Guildhall, and the drawing was protracted for several weeks, it was a curious sight for an indifferent spectator to go and behold the visages of the anxious crowd; to mark the hopes and the fears that seemed to agitate them, as their numbers or numbers near to theirs were announced. It is a fact, that poor medical practitioners used constantly to attend in the hall, to be ready to let blood, in cases where the sudden proclaiming of the fate of tickets in the hearing of the holders of them, was found to have an overpowering effect upon their spirits. The late Mr. Dalmahoy, of Ludgate-hill, was accustomed to affirm, that he owed his first establishment in a business which afterwards proved so prosperous, to the gratitude of a person, to whose assistance, when a young man, he had stept in, upon one of those critical emergencies.[492]

ORIGIN OF LOTTERIES.

The historian of “Inventions” says, that if, as some had done, he were to “reckon among the first traces of Lotteries every division of property made by lot, it might be said that Joshua partitioned the promised land into Lottery prizes before it was conquered.” In his opinion, the peculiarity of Lotteries consists in their numbers being distributed gratuitously, or, as in public Lotteries, for a certain price; it being left to chance to determine what numbers were to obtain the prizes, the value of which had been previously settled. He speaks of the “conditions and changes invented by ingenuity to entice people to purchase shares, and to conceal and increase the gain of the undertakers;” and, of the “delusion they occasion to credulous and ignorant people, by exciting hopes that have little probability in their favour.” He deems that the hint of modern Lottery was derived from the Romans. The rich persons at Rome, and particularly the emperors, endeavoured to attach the people by distributing among them presents consisting of eatables and other expensive articles, which were named _congiaria_. Tokens, or tickets, called _tesseræ_ (in Greek συμζολα,) were generally given out, and the possessors, on presenting them at the store or magazine of the donor, received those things which they announced. In many cases, these tickets were distributed to every person who applied for them, and then these donations resembled our distribution of bread, but not our Lotteries, in which chance must determine the number of those who were to participate in the number of things distributed. In the course of time, the Roman populace was called together, and the articles distributed thrown to them from a stage. Such things were called _missilia_, and belonged to those who had the good fortune to catch them; but as oil, wine, corn, and such like articles, could not be distributed in this manner, and as other articles were injured by the too great eagerness of the people, tokens or tickets were thrown in their stead. These were square pieces of wood or metal, and sometimes balls of wood, inscribed with the names of the articles. Those who had obtained these _tesseræ_ were allowed to transfer or sell them.[493]

* * * * *

Under “Lottery,” an antiquary refers to the _pittacia_ of Petronius. The Romans issued gratis, to their visitors in the Saturnalia, tickets which were all prizes, and marked with inscriptions called _apophoreta_. The Lotteries of Augustus were mere bagatelles for sport; Nero’s were very costly; those of Heliogabalus ridiculous; as, a ticket for six slaves, another for six flies, &c. these were handed round in vases.[494]

* * * * *

Imitations, on a reduced scale, of the Roman _congiaria_ have amused the continental princes and princesses of modern times. They distribute small presents to their courtiers, by causing trinkets or toys to be marked with numbers; the numbers being written on separate tickets, which are rolled up and put into a small basket or basin.[495]

* * * * *

In Italy, during the middle ages, the merchants or shop-keepers, in order to sell their wares more speedily and advantageously, converted their shops into offices of luck, where each person, for a small sum, was allowed to draw a number from the jar of fortune, which entitled the holder to the article written upon it; but as these shop-keepers gained excessive profits, and cheated the credulous people, by setting on their wares an extravagant price, which was concealed by the blanks, these practices were prohibited, or permitted only under strict inspection, and on paying a certain sum to the poor, or the sovereign.

From hence was derived the modern Lottery of the continent, when articles of merchandise were no longer employed as prizes, but certain sums of money instead, the amount of which was determined by the amount of money received, after the expenses and gain of the conductors were deducted. In these Lotteries, the tickets were publicly drawn by the charity boys, blindfolded. As they could not be conducted without defrauding the adventurers, it was at first believed, through old-fashioned conscientiousness, that it was unlawful to take advantage of the folly and credulity of the people, except for pious or charitable purposes. The gains were sometimes applied to the portioning of poor young women, the redemption of captives, or the formation of funds for the indigent, and other benificent objects. It was vainly imagined, that these public games of hazard would banish others still more dangerous; nor was it foreseen, that the exposure of tickets for sale, and their division into shares, would maintain and diffuse a spirit of gambling. This, however, was the result, and the profit from Lotteries became so great, that princes and ministers were induced to employ them as operations of finance: the people were forbidden to purchase tickets in foreign Lotteries, and, in order that the tickets of the state might be disposed of sooner, and with more certainty, many rulers were so shameless as to pay part of the salaries of their servants in tickets, and to compel guild companies and societies to expend in Lotteries what money they had saved. In 1764, this abuse was mentioned by the states of Wirtemburg among the public grievances, and in 1770 the duke promised that it should be abolished.

* * * * *

So early as 1521, the council of Osnaburg, in Germany, established a Lottery with wearing articles of merchandise for the prizes. In 1615, the magistrates of Hamburgh sanctioned a Lottery for building a house of correction in that city. An engraving is mentioned with the following title, “Representation of the _Loto Publico_, which was drawn in the large hall of the council-house at Nuremburg, anno 1715.” This is supposed to have been the first Lottery in that city. The first Lottery at Berlin was drawn in July, 1740; it contained 20,000 tickets at five dollars each; there were 4028 prizes; and the capital one was a house worth 24,000 dollars.

* * * * *

In 1549, a Lottery was drawn at Amsterdam for the building a church steeple; and another at Delft in 1595. In the hospital for old men, at Amsterdam, there is a beautiful painting by Daniel Vinckenbooms, which represents the drawing of a Lottery in the night time. He was born about 1578, and died in 1629.

* * * * *

In France, whither the Lottery was introduced from Italy, it was set on foot by merchants, and the only prizes were articles of merchandise: but, in 1539, Francis I. endeavoured to turn them to his own advantage. He permitted them under the inspection of certain members of the government, with a view, as was pretended, of banishing deceptive and pernicious games of chance; but on condition that he should receive for every ticket a _teston de dix sols six deniers_. It appears, however, from a royal order of recommendation, in February, 1541, that this Lottery was not then completed, and it is not known whether it ever was.

* * * * *

In 1572 and 1588, Louis de Gonzague duc de Nivernois established a Lottery at Paris, for the purpose of giving marriage portions to poor virtuous young women on his estates. The prize tickets were inscribed _Dieu vous a élue_, or, _Dieu vous console_; the former insured to the young woman who drew it 500 francs on her wedding-day; the latter, inscribed on the blanks, suggested the hope of better fortune the year following. No Lottery was ever drawn with so much ceremony and parade. Pope Sextus V. promised those who promoted it the remission of their sins: and, before the drawing, which began every year on Palm Sunday, mass was said.

* * * * *

Ladies of quality were induced by this example to establish similar Lotteries for the building or repairing of churches or convents, and other religious or benevolent purposes. Three ladies set on foot a Lottery with tickets at 40 sous each, for redeeming persons who had fallen into slavery among the Turks. Some other ladies instituted a Lottery in behalf of their confessor, who had been made a bishop, that they might buy him a carriage and horses, with other requisites, to support his episcopal dignity.

French history records the institution of many Lotteries as the means employed to make valuable presents to ladies, and other persons of distinction. It is supposed the largest of the kind was one designed by cardinal Mazarine, to increase his splendour and popularity among the courtiers. The tickets were distributed as presents.[496]

* * * * *

Louis XIV., on the days which were not fast days, went to dine at Marly with madame de Maintenon and other ladies. After dinner, the minister who wished to converse with him arrived, and when his business was finished, if they did not walk, he conversed, listened to music, played at cards, or helped to draw _Lotteries_, the tickets of which cost nothing, but were all prizes. They were composed of trinkets, jewels, and silks; but there were never any snuff-boxes, because he could not endure snuff, or suffer those who used it to approach him.[497]

* * * * *

In the seventeenth century these games of chance grew into Lotteries, in the proper sense of the word. During a scarcity of money which prevailed in 1644, Lawrence Tonti came from Naples to Paris, and proposed that kind of life-rents, or annuities, which are named after him _Tontines_; though they were used in Italy long before his time. After tedious disputes, his proposal was rejected; for which, in 1556, he substituted, with the royal approbation, a large Lottery in order to raise funds for building a stone bridge and an aqueduct. This Lottery was never completed, and consequently never drawn; and a wooden bridge was constructed, instead of that which had been burnt. The first Lottery on the plan of Tonti was set on foot at Paris in 1660, when the conclusion of peace, and the marriage of Louis XIV., were celebrated. It was drawn publicly, under the inspection of the police. The price of each ticket was a Louis d’or, which at that time was only eleven livres; and the highest prize was a hundred thousand livres. This was gained by the king himself, but he would not receive it, and left it to the next Lottery, in which he had no ticket. In 1661, all private Lotteries were prohibited under severe penalties, and from that time there were no other Lotteries than the _Loteries royales_.[498]

* * * * *

The ill-famed Italian or Genoese Lottery in Germany was, as its name shows, an invention of the Genoese, and arose from the mode in which the members of the senate were elected; for when that republic existed in a state of freedom, the names of the eligible candidates were thrown into a vessel called _seminario_, or, in modern times, into a wheel of fortune; and during the drawings of them it was customary for people to lay bets in regard to those who might be successful. That is to say, one chose the name of two or three _nobili_, for these only could be elected, and ventured upon them, according to pleasure, a piece of money; while, on the other hand, the opposite party, or the undertaker of the bank, who had the means of forming a pretty accurate conjecture in regard to names that would be drawn, doubled the stakes several times. Afterwards the state itself undertook the bank for these bets, which was attended with so much advantage; and the drawing of the names was performed with great ceremony. The _venerabile_ was exposed, and high mass was celebrated, at which all the candidates were obliged to be present.

* * * * *

A member of the senate, named Benedetto Gentile, is said to have first introduced this Lottery, in the year 1620; and it is added, that the name of Gentile having never been drawn, the people took it into their heads that he, and his names, had been carried away by the devil. But at length, the wheel being taken to pieces in order to be mended, the name, which by some accident had never been drawn was found concealed in it.

This mode of Lottery is presumed to have been peculiar to the Genoese, who, for their own benefit established in many continental towns commissioners, to dispose of tickets, and to pay the prizes to those who had been fortunate.

* * * * *

These pernicious Lotteries continued till the end of the eighteenth century, when they were almost every where abolished and forbidden. To the honour of the Hanoverian government, no _Lotto_ was ever introduced into it, though many foreigners offered large sums for permission to cheat the people in this manner. Those who wish to see the prohibitions issued against the _Lotto_, after making a great part of the people lazy, indigent, and thievish, may find them in Schlozer’s Staats-Anzeigen,

Si son exécrable mémoire Parvient à la postérité, C’est que le crime, aussi bien que la gloire, Conduit à l’immortalité.[499]

THE LAST LOTTERY IN ENGLAND.

Elia says, in the “New Monthly Magazine,”--“The true mental epicure always purchased his ticket early, and postponed inquiry into its fate to the last possible moment, during the whole of which intervening period he had an imaginary twenty thousand locked up in his desk--and was not this well worth all the money? Who would scruple to give twenty pounds interest for even the ideal enjoyment of as many thousands during two or three months? ‘_Crede quod habes, et habes_,’ and the usufruct of such a capital is surely not dear at such a price. Some years ago, a gentleman in passing along Cheapside saw the figures 1069, of which number he was the sole proprietor, flaming on the window of a Lottery office as a capital prize. Somewhat flurried by this discovery, not less welcome than unexpected, he resolved to walk round St. Paul’s, that he might consider in what way to communicate the happy tidings to his wife and family; out upon repassing the shop, he observed that the number was altered to 10,069; and, upon inquiry, had the mortification to learn that his ticket was blank, and had only been stuck up in the window by a mistake of the clerk. This effectually calmed his agitation; but he always speaks of himself as having once possessed twenty thousand pounds, and maintains that his ten minutes’ walk round St. Paul’s was worth ten times the purchase-money of the ticket. A prize thus obtained has moreover this special advantage;--it is beyond the reach of fate, it cannot be squandered, bankruptcy cannot lay siege to it, friends cannot pull it down, nor enemies blow it up; it bears a charmed life, and none of woman-born can break its integrity, even by the dissipation of a single fraction. Show me the property in these perilous times that is equally compact and impregnable. We can no longer become enriched for a quarter of an hour; we can no longer succeed in such splendid failures; all our chances of making such a miss have vanished with the Last of the Lotteries.

“Life will now become a flat, prosaic routine of matter-of-fact; and sleep itself, erst so prolific of numerical configurations and mysterious stimulants to Lottery adventure, will be disfurnished of its figures and figments. People will cease to harp upon the one lucky number suggested in a dream, and which forms the exception, while they are scrupulously silent upon the ten thousand falsified dreams which constitute the rule. Morpheus will stifle Cocker with a handful of poppies, and our pillows will be no longer haunted by the book of numbers.

“And who, too, shall maintain the art and mystery of puffing in all its pristine glory when the Lottery professors shall have abandoned its cultivation? They were the first, as they will assuredly be the last, who fully developed the resources of that ingenious art; who cajoled and decoyed the most suspicious and wary reader into a perusal of their advertisements, by devices of endless variety and cunning; who baited their lurking schemes with midnight murders, ghost stories, crim-cons, bon-mots, balloons, dreadful catastrophes, and every diversity of joy and sorrow to catch newspaper-gudgeons. Ought not such talents to be encouraged? Verily, the abolitionists have much to answer for!”

* * * * *

Here, at last, ends the notices respecting the Lottery, of which much has been said, because of all depraving institutions it had the largest share in debasing society while it existed: and because, after all, perhaps, the monster is “only scotched, not killed.”

[429] See vol. i. col. 1486.

[430] Morning Herald, Sept. 3, 1817.

[431] Maitland’s London.

[432] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1778.

[433] Stow, in his Annals.

[434] Ibid.

[435] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1798.

[436] Anderson’s History of Commerce.

[437] Malcolm’s Manners.

[438] “Whereas some give out that they could never receive their books after they were drawn in the first lottery, the author declares, and it will be attested, that of seven hundred prizes that were drawn, there were not six remaining Prizes that suffered with his in the fire; for the drawing being on the 10th of May, 1665, the office did then continue open for the delivery of the same (though the contagion much raged) until the latter end of July following; and opened again, to attend the delivery, in April, 1666, whither persons repaired daily for their prizes, and continued open until the fire.”

[439] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[440] Malcolm’s Manners.

[441] Anderson.

[442] Malcolm.

[443] Ibid.

[444] Anderson.

[445] Spectator, No. 191.

[446] Sunday, October 22, 1826.

[447] The Times, November 3, 1826.

[448] Mr. Smeeton in the _Examiner_.

[449] Malcolm.

[450] Smollett.

[451] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[452] Lounger’s Common Place Book.

[453] Smollett.

[454] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[455] Anderson.

[456] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1731.

[457] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[458] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1739.

[459] The Champion, January 10, 1740.

[460] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[461] Ibid.

[462] Maitland. Gentleman’s Magazine.

[463] Universal Magazine.

[464] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[465] Ibid.

[466] Smollett. Gentleman’s Magazine.

[467] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[468] In the Universal Magazine for December.

[469] Universal Magazine.

[470] Memoir of Holland in Universal Magazine.

[471] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[472] Ibid.

[473] Universal Magazine.

[474] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[475] Ibid.

[476] Ibid.

[477] Ibid.

[478] Anderson.

[479] Universal Magazine.

[480] Town and Country Magazine.

[481] Universal Magazine.

[482] Report of Committee of House of Commons on Lotteries, 1808.

[483] Report of Police Committee of House of Commons 1816.

[484] The price of a Sixteenth in the present Lottery.

[485] Communicated by J. J. A. F. from a Calcutta newspaper of Sept. 3, 1818.

[486] Charity and Patriotism.

[487] This and other of the bills quoted are lent by our correspondent, J. J. A. F. from his Lottery Collections.

[488] See _ante_.

[489] The day the royal assent was given to the last Lottery act.

[490] Baker’s Chronicle.

[491] Mr. Nelson’s History of Islington.

[492] A few interesting Anecdotes, &c. 18mo. 1810.

[493] Beckmann.

[494] Fosbroke, Ency. of Antiquities.

[495] Beckmann.

[496] Ibid.

[497] Private Life of Louis XIV.

[498] Beckmann.

[499] Ibid.

~November 16.~

EXTRAORDINARY LUNAR HALO.

On the night of this day in 1823, about half past nine o’clock, Dr. T. Forster observed a very remarkable and brilliant phenomenon about the moon. It was a coloured discoid halo, consisting of six several concentric circles; the nearest to the moon, or the first disk around her, being dull white, then followed circles of orange, violet, crimson, green, and vermillion; the latter, or outermost, subtending in its diameter an angle of above ten degrees. This phenomenon was evidently produced by a refraction in the white mist of a stratus, which prevailed through the night, but it varied in its colours, as well as in its brilliancy, at different times.[500]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 43·00.

WHIMS AND ODDITIES.

The company of odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins in the hollow of the wild mountain, were not greater objects of wonder to Rip Van Winkle, than forty original designs by Mr. Hood will be to the reader who looks for the first time at this gentleman’s “Whims and Oddities.”[501]

All the world knows, or ought to know, that among persons called literary there are a few peculiarly _littery_; who master an article through confusion of head and materials, and, having achieved the setting of their thoughts and places “to rights,” celebrate the important victory by the triumph of a short repose. At such a minute, after my last toilsome adventure in the “Lottery,” sitting in my little room before the fire, and looking into it with the comfortable knowledge that the large table behind me was “free from all incumbrances,” I yearned for a recreative dip into something new, when Mr. Hood’s volume, in a parcel bearing the superscription of a kind hand, was put into mine. It came in the very nick; and, as I amused myself, I resolved to be thenceforth, and therefrom, as agreeable as possible to my readers.

* * * * *

On the title-page of Mr. Hood’s book is this motto, “O Cicero! Cicero! if to pun be a crime, ’tis a crime I have learned of thee: O Bias! Bias! if to pun be a crime, by thy example I was biassed!--_Scriblerus._”

The first engraving that opened on me was of

In this figure, “a medley of human faces, wherein certain features belong in common to different visages,--the eyebrow of one, for instance, forming the mouth of another,”--Mr. Hood has successfully “tried to typify a common characteristic of dreams; namely, the entanglement of divers ideas, to the waking mind distinct or incongruous, but, by the confusion of sleep, inseparably ravelled up, and knotted into Gordian intricacies. For, as the equivocal feature, in the emblem, belongs indifferently to either countenance, but is appropriated by the head that happens to be presently the object of contemplation; so, in a dream, two separate notions will mutually involve some convertible incident, that becomes, by turns, a symptom of both in general, or of either in particular. Thus are begotten the most extravagant associations of thoughts and images,--unnatural connections, like those marriages of forbidden relationships, where mothers become cousins to their own sons or daughters, and quite as bewildering as such genealogical embarrassments.”

As an illustration of this kind of dream, the author relates a dismal one, “which originated in the failure of his first and last attempt as a dramatic writer;” and another, wherein the preliminaries were pleasant, and the conclusion was whimsical. “It occurred,” says Mr. Hood, “when I was on the eve of marriage; a season, when, if lovers sleep sparingly, they dream profusely. A very brief slumber sufficed to carry me in the night-coach to Bognor. It had been concerted, between Honoria and myself, that we should pass the honeymoon at some such place upon the coast. The purpose of my solitary journey was to procure an appropriate dwelling, and which, we had agreed, should be a little pleasant house, with an indispensable look out upon the sea. I chose one, accordingly; a pretty villa, with bow-windows, and a prospect delightfully marine. The ocean murmur sounded incessantly from the beach. A decent, elderly body, in decayed sables, undertook, on her part, to promote the comforts of the occupants by every suitable attention, and, as she assured me, at a very reasonable rate. So far, the nocturnal faculty had served me truly. A day-dream could not have proceeded more orderly; but, alas, just here, when the dwelling was selected, the sea view secured, the rent agreed upon, when every thing was plausible, consistent, and rational, the incoherent fancy crept in and confounded all,--by marrying me to the old woman of the house!”

Because it never happened that Mr. Hood in his dreams fancied himself deprived of any sense, he was greatly puzzled by this question,--

“_How does a_ BLIND _man dream?_”

“I mean” says Mr. H. “a person with the opaque crystal from his birth. He is defective in that very faculty which, of all others, is most active in those night-passages, thence emphatically called Visions. He has had no acquaintance with external images; and has, therefore, none of those transparent pictures that, like the slides of a magic-lantern, pass before the mind’s eye, and are projected by the inward spiritual light upon the utter blank. His imagination must be like an imperfect kaleidoscope, totally unfurnished with those parti-coloured fragments, whereof the complete instrument makes such interminable combinations. It is difficult to conceive such a man’s dream.

“Is it, a still benighted wandering,--a pitch-dark night progress, made known to him by the consciousness of the remaining senses? Is he still pulled through the universal blank, by an invisible power, as it were, at the nether end of the string?--regaled, sometimes, with celestial voluntaries, and unknown mysterious fragrances, answering to our more romantic flights; at other times, with homely voices, and more familiar odours; here, of rank smelling cheeses, there, of pungent pickles or aromatic drugs, hinting his progress through a metropolitan street. Does he over again enjoy the grateful roundness of those substantial droppings from the invisible passenger,--palpable deposits of an abstract benevolence,--or, in his nightmares, suffer anew those painful concussions and corporeal buffetings, from that (to him) obscure evil principle, the Parish Beadle?

“This question I am happily enabled to resolve, through the information of the oldest of those blind Tobits that stand in fresco against Bunhill-wall; the same who made that notable comparison, of scarlet, to the sound of a trumpet. As I understood him, harmony, with the gravel-blind, is prismatic as well as chromatic. To use his own illustration, a wall-eyed man has a _palette_ in his ear as well as in his mouth. Some stone-blinds, indeed, dull dogs without any _ear_ for colour, profess to distinguish the different hues and shades by the touch; but _that_, he said, was a slovenly, uncertain method, and in the chief article, of paintings, not allowed to be exercised.

“On my expressing some natural surprise at the aptitude of his celebrated comparison,--a miraculous close likening, to my mind, of the known to the unknown,--he told me, the instance was nothing, for the least discriminative among them could distinguish the scarlet colour of the mail guards’ liveries, by the sound of their horns: but there were others, so acute their faculty! that they could tell the very features and complexion of their relatives and familiars, by the mere tone of their voices. I was much gratified with this explanation; for I confess, hitherto, I was always extremely puzzled by that narrative in the ‘Tatler,’ of a young gentleman’s behaviour after the operation of couching, and especially at the wonderful promptness with which he distinguished his father from his mother,--his mistress from her maid. But it appears, that the blind are not so blind as they have been esteemed in the vulgar notion. What they cannot get one way they obtain in another: they, in fact, realize what the author of Hudibras has ridiculed as a fiction, for they set up

---------communities of senses, To chop and change intelligences, As Rosicrucian Virtuosis Can _see with ears_--and hear with noses.”

Never having tried opium, and therefore without experience of “such magnificent visions” as are described by its eloquent historian, “I have never,” says Mr. Hood, “been buried for ages under pyramids; and yet, methinks, have suffered agonies as intense as _his_ could be, from the common-place inflictions. For example, a night spent in the counting of interminable numbers,--an inquisitorial penance,--everlasting tedium,--the mind’s treadmill.”

* * * * *

That “the _innocent_--sleep,” is an exceptionable position. What happy man, with a happy wife by his side, and the first, sweet, restless plague and pledge of their happiness by hers, has not been awakened to a sense of his felicity, by a weak, yet shrill and spirit-stirring “la-a, la-a, la-a, la-a, la-a-a, la-a-a--a,” of some secret sorrow, “for ever telling, yet untold.”

Happy the man whose only care A _few_ paternal _achings_ are.

Gentle reader of the Benedictine order! I presume not to anticipate the pleasure thou wilt derive from contemplating thyself engaged in a domestic exercise, suited to the occasion,--pacing thy bed-room at “the heavy middle of the night,” holding the _little_ “innocent”

Fondly lock’d in _duty’s_ arms;

its dear eyes provokingly open to the light of the chamber-lantern; thine own closed by drowsiness, yet kept unsealed by affection; thy lips arranged for the piano of carminative sounds--“quivering to the young-eyed cherubim”--

Oh! slumber my darling Thy sire is a knight--

--thy “darling” ceasing its “sweet voice,” to offer more decisively by its looks, “I would out-night you.” Brother Benedict! there is an engraving of thee, and thine, in the book I speak of, mottoed, “Son of the sleepless!”

Let me extract another _cut_, seemingly a portrait of the _alarming_ “hope of the family,” after thou hast for some few years tried, perchance, “the _Locke_ system; which, after all,” according to Mr. Hood, “is but a _canal_ system for raising the babe-mind to unnatural levels”--

* * * * *

At about the age of “My son, sir,” boys seek to satisfy their curiosity, and gratify their taste. It is the _spelling_-time of young experience, and they are extremely diligent. Their senses are fresh and undepraved, and covetous of the simplest pleasures.

Every town in England, and every village, with inhabitants and wealth sufficient to consume a hogshead of “brown moist” within a reasonable time, exhibits an empty sugar cask in the open street; it is every little grocer’s pride, and every poor boy’s delight:--

“Gentle reader, read the motto! read the motto!” Look at the engraving; “_show_ it to your children, and to your children’s children,” and ask them what they _think_. If you desire an immediate living example to illustrate professor Malthus’s principle, that “population always comes up to the mean of subsistence,” set out a sugar cask, and there will be a swarm of boys about it, from no one knows whither, in ten minutes. The first takes possession of the inside, and is “monarch of all he surveys.” Like the throne, it is an envied, and an unquiet possession. From the emulous, on all sides, he receives vain addresses and remonstrances, and against their threatening hands is obliged to keep a sharp look out; but his greatest enemy, and for whom he keeps a sharp look _over_, is the grocer’s man. A glimpse of that arch-foe “frightens him from his impropriety” in a twinkling; unless, indeed, from the nearness of the adversary he fail to escape, when, for certain, his companions leave him “alone in his glory,” and then he knows for a truth, that “after sweet comes sour.” The boy there, straddling like the “Great Harry,” has had his wicked will of the barrel to satiety, and therefore vacates his place in favour of him of the hat, on whose nether end “time hath written strange defeatures.” It is not so certain, that the fine, fat, little fellow, with his hands on the edge of the tub, and the ends of his toes on the ground, will ascend the side, as that he who stoops in front is enjoying the choicest pickings of the prize. The others are mere common feeders, or gluttons, who go for quantity; _he_ is the epicure of the party--

He seeks but little here below But seeks that little _good_;

and, of foretaste, he takes his place at the bung-hole, where the sugar crystallizes, and there revels in particles of the finest candies. “I pity the poor child,” says Mr. Hood, “that is learned in alpha beta, but ignorant of top and taw”--and I pity every poor child who only knows that a sugar tub is sweet, and is ignorant of the sweetest of its sweets. There are as many different pickings in it as there are _cuts_ in a shoulder of mutton, or Mr. Hood’s book. My authority for this information is an acute, pale-faced, sickly, printer’s boy, an adapt in lickerish things, who declared the fact the morning after he had been to see Mr. Mathews, by affirming, with enthusiasm, “I’ve tried it, I’ve analyzed it, and I know it.”

“Ah! little think the gay, licentious proud,”

who spend their money on bulls-eyes and hard-bake, which are modern inventions, of the delicacies within a grocer’s plain, upright and downright, good, old, natural, brown sugar tub--

“O! there’s nothing half so sweet in life.”

Mr. Hood introduces another “sweet pleasure,” with another equally apt quotation:--

This figure of “THE POPULAR CUPID,” Mr. Hood copied, “by permission, from a lady’s Valentine;” and he says, “in the romantic mythology it is the image of the divinity of Love.” He inquires, “Is this he, that, in the mind’s eye of the poetess, drifts adown the Ganges--

Pillow’d in a lotus flow’r, Gather’d in a summer hour, Floats _he_ o’er the mountain wave, Which would be a tall ship’s grave?

--Does Belinda believe that such a substantial Sagittarius lies ambushed in her perilous blue eye?--I can believe in his dwelling alone in the heart--seeing that he must occupy it to repletion: in his constancy--because he looks sedentary, and not apt to roam: that he is given to melt--from his great pinguitude: that he burneth with a flame--for so all fat burneth: and hath languishings--like other bodies of his tonnage: that he sighs--from his size. I dispute not his kneeling at ladies’ feet--since it is the posture of elephants--nor his promise, that the homage shall remain eternal. I doubt not of his dying--being of a corpulent habit, and a short neck: of his blindness--with that inflated pig’s cheek. But, for his lodging in Belinda’s blue eye, my whole faith is heretic--for she hath never a _sty_ in it.”

Mr. Hood, doubtless, desires that the world should know his “Whims and Oddities” through his own work; its notice here, therefore, while it affords a winter evening’s half hour entertainment, is not to mar his hopes. But it is impossible to close its merry-making leaves without shadowing forth a little more of the volume.

It ought to be observed, that the prints just presented are from engravings in Mr. Hood’s book, of which there are forty drawn by his own pencil; and, that he attaches a motto to each, so antithetical, as to constitute the volume a pocket portfolio of designs to excite risibility. For example:--

He tells a story of his “Aunt Shakerly,” a lady of enormous bulk, who placed Mr. Hood’s baby cousin in the nursing-chair while she took in the news, and then, in her eagerness to read the accidents and offences, unthinkingly sat, with the gravity of a coroner’s inquest, in the aforesaid chair, and thereby unconsciously suppressed “an article of intelligence”--an occurrence which there is little reason to doubt appeared among the “horribles,” in the favourite department of her paper, the next morning. The engraving that pictures this is mottoed, “THE SPOILED CHILD!”

Mr. Hood institutes “A Complaint against Greatness,” through “an unhappy candidate for the show at Sadler’s repository,” described in the following item of the catalogue--“The reverend Mr. Farmer, a four years’ old Durham ox, fed by himself, upon oil-cake and mangel-wurzel.” The complainant, however, says, “I resemble that worthy agricultural vicar only in my fat living.”

This being the season when these condemned animals come up from the country to the metropolis, it seems a fit time to hear the complainant’s description of his journey. “Wearisome and painful was my pilgrim-like progress to this place, by short and tremulous steppings--like the digit’s march upon a dial. My owner, jealous of my fat, procured a crippled drover, with a withered limb, for my conductor; but even _he_ hurried me beyond my breath. The drawling hearse left me labouring behind; the ponderous fly-waggon passed me like a bird upon the road, so tediously slow is my pace. It just sufficeth, oh, ye thrice happy oysters! that have no locomotive faculty at all, to distinguish that I am not at rest. Wherever the grass grew by the way-side, how it tempted my natural longings--the cool brook flowed at my very foot, but this short, thick neck forbade me to eat or drink; nothing but my redundant dewlap is likely ever to graze on the ground!--If stalls and troughs were not extant, I must perish. Nature has given to the elephant a long, flexible tube, or trunk, so that he can feed his mouth, as it were, by his nose: but is man able to furnish me with such an implement? Or would he not still withhold it, lest I should prefer the green herb, my natural, delicious diet, and reject his rank, unsavoury condiments?--What beast, with free will, but would repair to the sweet meadow for its pasture”--

Verily, it is humane thus to lecture man from the mouth of an animal, whose species is annually deformed for butcherly pride, and the loathing of the table--“to see the prize-steak loaded with that rank, yellow abomination, might wean a man from carnivorous habits for ever.” The supplicant for our compassion adds, in behalf of himself and his dumb-fellow creatures, “It may seem presumption in a brute to question the human wisdom; but truly, I can perceive no beneficial ends worthy to be set off against our sufferings. There must be, methinks, a nearer (and a better) way of augmenting the perquisites of the kitchen-wench and the fire-man.” There is an admirable cut of the over-fed petitioner, breathing “O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!” The figure of the crippled drover is excellent.

Mr. Hood devises a romantic adventure that befel a herd of these animals of the common class, and a little wooden, white-painted house on four wheels, to which a sedentary citizen and his wife had retired to spend their days, “impaled” by the wayside on Hounslow-heath, where--

Having had some quarters of school breeding, They turn’d themselves, like other folks, to reading; But setting out where others nigh have done, And being ripen’d in the seventh stage, The childhood of old age, Began as other children have begun,-- Not with the pastorals of Mr. Pope, Or Bard of Hope, Or Paley, ethical, or learned Porson,-- But spelt, on sabbaths, in St. Mark, or John, And then relax’d themselves with Whittington, Or Valentine and Orson-- But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con, And being easily melted, in their dotage, Slobber’d,--and kept Reading,--and wept Over the White Cat, in their wooden cottage.

Thus reading on--the longer They read, of course, their childish faith grew stronger In gnomes, and hags, and elves, and giant grim,-- If talking trees and birds reveal’d to him, She saw the flight of fairyland’s fly-waggons, And magic-fishes swim In puddle ponds, and took old crows for dragons,-- Both were quite drunk from the enchanted flaggons; When as it fell upon a summer’s day. As the old man sat a feeding On the old babe-reading, Beside his open street-and-parlour door, A hideous roar Proclaim’d a drove of beasts was coming by the way.

Long-horned, and short, of many a different breed, Tall, tawny brutes, from famous Lincoln-levels, Or Durham feed; With some of those unquiet, black, dwarf devils, From nether side of Tweed, Or Firth of Forth; Looking half wild with joy to leave the North,-- With dusty hides, all mobbing on together,-- When,--whether from a fly’s malicious comment Upon his tender flank, from which he shrank; Or whether Only in some enthusiastic moment,-- However, one brown monster, in a frisk, Giving his tail a perpendicular whisk, Kick’d out a passage thro’ the beastly rabble; And after a pas seul,--or, if you will, a Horn-pipe, before the basket-maker’s villa, Leapt o’er the tiny pale,-- Back’d his beef-steaks against the wooden gable, And thrust his brawny bell-rope of a tail Right o’er the page, Wherein the sage Just then was spelling some romantic fable.

The old man, half a scholar, half a dunce, Could not peruse, who could?--two tales at once; And being huff’d At what he knew was none of Riquet’s tuft; Bang’d-to the door, But most unluckily enclosed a morsel Of the intruding tail, and all the tassel:-- The monster gave a roar, And bolting off with speed, increased by pain, The little house became a coach once more, And, like Macheath, “took to the road” again!

When this happened the old man’s wife was absent,

Getting up some household herbs for supper, Thoughtful of Cinderella, in the tale, And quaintly wondering _how_ magic shifts Could o’er a common pumpkin so prevail, To turn it to a coach;

nor did she turn round, till house and spouse had turned a corner out of sight.

The change was quite amazing; It made her senses stagger for a minute, The riddle’s explication seem’d to harden; But soon her superannuated _nous_ Explained the horrid mystery;--and raising Her hand to heaven, with the cabbage in it, On which she meant to sup,-- “Well! this _is_ fairy work! I’ll bet a farden, Little prince Silverwings has ketch’d me up, And set me down in some one else’s garden!”

Here ends the “fairy tale” of Hounslow-heath.

* * * * *

“She is far from the land!” is a motto to an engraving of a _land_ lady, frightened by voyaging in a Thames wherry, opposite St. Paul’s. Her after alarms at sea are concluded pleasantly:--

“We were off Flamborough-head. A heavy swell, the consequence of some recent storm to the eastward, was rolling right before the wind upon the land:--and, once under the shadow of the bluff promontory, we should lose all the advantage of a saving westerly breeze. Even the seamen looked anxious: but the passengers, (save one,) were in despair. They were, already, bones of contention, in their own misgivings, to the myriads of cormorants and waterfowl inhabiting that stupendous cliff. Miss Oliver alone was sanguine. She was all nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles; her cheeriness increased in proportion with our dreariness. Even the dismal pitching of the vessel could not disturb her unseasonable levity;--it was like a lightening before death--but, at length, the mystery was explained. She had springs of comfort that we knew not of. Not brandy, for that we shared in common; nor supplications, for those we had all applied to; but her ears, being jealously vigilant of whatever passed between the mariners, she had overheard from the captain,--and it had all the sound, to her, of a comfortable promise,--that ‘if the wind held, we should certainly _go on shore_.’”

* * * * *

The popular ballad of “Sally Brown and Ben the Carpenter,” which first appeared in the “London Magazine,” is inserted in this volume. “I have never been vainer of any verses,” says Mr. Hood, “than of my part in the following ballad. The lamented Emery, drest as Tom Tug, sang it at his last mortal benefit at Covent-garden; and, ever since, it has been a great favourite with the watermen of the Thames, who time their oars to it, as the wherrymen of Venice time theirs to the lines of Tasso. With the watermen, it went naturally to Vauxhall: and, over land, to Sadler’s-wells. The guards, not the mail coach but the life guards, picked it out from a fluttering hundred of others, all going to one air, against the dead wall at Knightsbridge. Cheap printers of Shoe-lane and Cow-cross, (all pirates!) disputed about the copyright, and published their own editions; and, in the mean time, the authors, to have made bread of their song, (it was poor old Homer’s hard ancient case!) must have sung it about the streets. Such is the lot of literature! the profits of ‘Sally Brown’ were divided by the ballad-mongers: it has cost, but has never brought me, a halfpenny.”

* * * * *

A “Recipe for Civilisation,” in Hudibrastic lines, is waggishly ascribed to the “pen of Dr. Kitchiner--as if, in the ingredients of versification, he had been assisted by his _Butler_.” It is accompanied by a whimsical whole length of “the Cook’s Oracle,” adjusting musical notes on the bars of a gridiron, a ludicrous allusion to the good-humoured Doctor’s diversified attainments in science and popularity.

* * * * *

From an odd poem, attributed to an odd personage, “The Last Man,” two verses are selected, as an example of feelings which the punning on the title-page seemed to have proscribed:--

I’ve buried my babies one by one, And dug the deep hole for Joan, And cover’d the faces of kith and kin, And felt the old church-yard stone Go cold to my heart, full many a time, But I never felt so lone.

For the lion and Adam were company, And the tiger him beguiled; But the simple kine are foes to my life, And the household brutes are wild. If the veriest cur would lick my hand I could love it like a child!

* * * * *

Mr. Hood’s pen essays “WALTON REDIVIVUS: _A New River Eclogue_.”

“[Piscator is fishing--near the sir Hugh Middleton’s Head, without either basket or can. Viator cometh up to him, with an angling-rod and a bottle.]”

It is prefaced by a citation “_From a Letter of C. Lamb_,” in these words:--“My old New River has presented no extraordinary novelties lately. But there Hope sits, day after day, speculating on traditionary gudgeons. I think she hath taken the fisheries. I now know the reasons why our forefathers were denominated East and West Angles. Yet is there no lack of spawn, for I wash my hands in fishets that come through the pump, every morning, thick as motelings--little things that perish untimely, and never taste the brook.”

To face this “Eclogue” there is a motto, “My banks they are furnished,” beneath a whole length figure, _so_ like “poor Jemmy Whittle!”--only not looking so good natured.

* * * * *

“Love me, love my dog,” is a fearful _cut_--Mr. Hood’s step-mother, and her precious “Bijou”--with a story, and a tail-piece--“O list unto my tale of woe,”--unnaturally natural.

* * * * *

One of the best pieces in the volume is “The Irish Schoolmaster,” who, from a clay cabin, “the College of Kilreen,” hangs out a board, “with painted letters red as blood,” announcing “CHILDREN TAKEN IN TO BATE.”

Six babes he sways,--some little and some big, Divided into classes six;--alsoe, He keeps a parlour boarder of a pig, That in the college fareth to and fro, And picketh up the urchins’ crumbs below And eke the learned rudiments they scan, And thus his A, B, C doth wisely know,-- Hereafter to be shown in caravan, And raise the wonderment of many a learned man.

Alsoe, he schools some tame familiar fowls, Whereof, above his head, some two or three Sit darkly squatting, like Minerva’s owls, But on the branches of no living tree, And overlook the learned family; While, sometimes, Partlet, from her gloomy perch, Drops feather on the nose of Dominie, Meanwhile, with serious eye, he makes research In leaves of that sour tree of knowledge--now a birch.

* * * * *

Now, by the creeping shadows of the moon, The hour is come to lay aside their lore; The cheerful pedagogue perceives it soon, And cries, “Begone!” unto the imps,--and four Snatch their two hats and struggle for the door, Like ardent spirits vented from a cask, All blythe and boisterous,--but leave two more, With Reading made Uneasy for a task, To weep, whilst all their mates in merry sunshine bask,

Like sportive elfins on the verdant sod, With tender moss so sleekly overgrown, That doth not hurt, but kiss, the sole unshod, So soothely kind is Erin to her own! And one, at hare and hound, plays all alone,-- For Phelim’s gone to tend his step-dame’s cow; Ah! Phelim’s step-dame is a canker’d crone! Whilst other twain play at an Irish row, And, with shillelah small, break one another’s brow!

But careful Dominie, with ceaseless thrift, Now changeth ferula for rural hoe; But, first of all, with tender hand doth shift His college gown, because of solar glow, And hangs it on a bush to scare the crow: Meanwhile, he plants in earth the dappled bean, Or trains the young potatoes all a-row, Or plucks the fragrant leek for pottage green, With that crisp curly herb, call’d Kale in Aberdeen.

And so he wisely spends the fruitful hours, Linked each to each by labours, like a bee; Or rules in learning’s hall, or trims her bow’rs;-- Would there were many more such wights as he, To sway each capital academie Of Cam and Isis; for, alack! at each There dwells, I wot, some dronish Dominie, That does no garden work, nor yet doth teach, But wears a floury head, and talks in flow’ry speech!

* * * * *

For the entire of the subjects already extracted from, and for many others not adverted to, even by name, reference should be had to the work itself. There is one design, however, so excellent a specimen of Mr. Hood’s clear conception and decisive execution, that merely in further illustration of his talent it is here introduced.

An engraving of Mr. Hood’s admirable “Parish Beadle,” from his “Progress of Cant,” was inserted in an account of that print on p. 130 of the present volume of the _Every-Day Book_. Great as was the merit of that print, in point of wit and humour, and curious as it will always be regarded for its multiform developement of character, and relationship to the manners of the age, yet it is largely exceeded, in these respects, by the volume of “Whims and Oddities.” Possessing the rare talent, of illustrating what he writes by his own drawings, Mr. Hood is to be esteemed in a twofold capacity. He has, withall, the remarkable merit of having acquired his knowledge of art by his own teaching; and, what augurs well, the praise which the “Progress of Cant” deserved and obtained, has wholesomely invigorated him to higher mastery. There is a firmness of execution in the designs to the “Whims and Oddities,” surprisingly superior to the general manner of his meritorious etching just mentioned. The book is altogether the most original that the press of late years has produced; and, luckily, it comes like a seasonable visiter, to raise shouts of laughter “round about the coal-fire” in cold weather.

[500] The varieties and causes of these phenomena are described in Dr. Forster’s “Researches about Atmospheric Phenomena,” 3d edition, p. 98.

[501] “Whims and Oddities, in Prose and Verse; with forty original designs by Thomas Hood, one of the authors of ‘Odes and Addresses to Great People,’ and the designer of the Progress of Cant, London, Relfe, 1826.” 12mo. 10_s._ 6_d._

~November 17.~

HUGH,

_Bishop of Lincoln_.

His name is in the church of England calendar and almanacs on this day, which was ordained his festival by the Romish church, wherein he is honoured as a saint.

* * * * *

St. Hugh was born in Burgundy in 1140, educated in a convent, took the habit of the Chartreuse near Grenoble before he was of age, was ordained priest, and, at the end of ten years, the procuratorship of the monastery was intrusted to him. Henry II. of England, confiding in his prudence and sanctity, induced him to come over and regulate the new monastery of Carthusians, founded by the king at Witham in Somersetshire, which was the first of that order established in England. He was consecrated bishop of Lincoln, 21st September, 1186, exerted his episcopal authority to restore ecclesiastical discipline, especially amongst his clergy, and maintained the claims of the church against the crown itself. In quality of ambassador from king John, he went to France and negotiated a peace; on his return he was seized with a fever, presumed to have been occasioned by his abstemiousness, and died at London, on blessed ashes strewed on the floor, as he directed, in the form of a cross, on the 17th of November, 1200. His body was embalmed, and conveyed with great pomp to Lincoln, where it was met by king John of England and king William of Scotland, with three archbishops, fourteen bishops, above a hundred abbots, and a great number of earls and barons. The two kings put their shoulders under the bier as it was carried into the church.

Alban Butler, from whom these particulars are derived, affirms that three paralytic persons, and some others, recovered their health at St. Hugh’s tomb. He further relates, that, during the saint’s life time, Henry II., being on his way from Normandy to England, in a furious storm, prayed for mercy, through the merits and intercession of St. Hugh, whereon a calm ensued, and the voyage was made in safety.

* * * * *

THE UNTOMBED MARINERS.

_An incident really witnessed in the Bay of Biscay._

The waves roll’d long and high In the fathomless Biscay, And the rising breeze swept sullen by, And the day closed heavily.

Our ship was tight and brave, Well trimm’d and sailing free, And she flew along on the mountain wave, An eagle of the sea.

The red cross fluttering yet, We lower’d the noble sign, For the bell had struck, it was past sunset, And the moon began to shine.

Her light was fitful, flung From a sky of angry gloom, Thick hurrying clouds o’er the waters hung, Their hue was of the tomb.

Yet now and then a gleam Broke through of her silent ray, And lit around with her soften’d beam Some spot of that plumbless bay.

O’er the bulwark’s side we heard The proud ship break the spray, While her shrouds and sheets by the wild winds stirr’d, Made music mournfully.

And we talk’d of battles past, Of shipwreck, rock, and shore, Of ports where peril or chance had cast Our sail the wide world o’er.

The watch look’d by the lee, A shapeless log was seen, A helmless ship it appear’d to be, And it lay the waves between.

Oh ’twas a fearful sight That helpless thing to see, Swimming mastless and lone at high midnight A corps on the black, black sea!

There were souls, perchance, on board, And heaving yet their breath, Men whose cry, amid their despair, was heard Not to meet ocean-death.

Our chief on deck up sprung, We lay too in that hollow deep-- Below, as our voices and trampling rung, The sleepers sprang from sleep.

The boat we loosed and lower’d, There were gallant hearts to go, The dark clouds broke that the moon embower’d, And her lights shone cheering through.

And we watch’d that little boat Pull up the mountain wave, Then sink from view, like a name forgot, Within an ancient grave.

They go--they climb the hull, As the waters wash the deck, They shout, and they hear but the billows dull Strike on that lonely wreck.

The skeletons of men Lay blanch’d and marrowless there, But clothed in their living garb, as when That ’reft ship was their care.

Lash’d to their planks they lay, The ropes still round them tied, Though drifted long leagues in that stormy bay, Since they hoped, despaired, and died.

Tombless in their decay, Mid the watery solitude, Days dawn’d upon them and faded away, Cold moons their death-sleep view’d.

Their names no trace may tell, Nor whither their passage bound, And our seamen leave the desolate hull With death and darkness round.

They tread their deck again, And silent hoist their boat-- They think of the fate of the unknown men Who for years may wildly float.

Those bones, that ocean bier, They well may sadly see, For they feel that the gallant ship they steer, _Their_ sepulchre may be.

There is grief for beauty’s woe, Laurels strew the hero’s hearse-- Are there none will the generous tear bestow For those untomb’d mariners![502]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 42·02.

[502] New Monthly Magazine.

~November 18.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 18th of November, 1777, died William Bowyer, an eminent printer of London, where he was born on the 17th of December, 1699. He had been always subject to a bilious colic, and for the last ten years of his life was afflicted with the palsy; yet he retained a remarkable cheerfulness of disposition, and his faculties, though somewhat impaired, enabled him to maintain the conversation of his literary friends, pursue a course of incessant reading, which was his principal amusement, and correct the learned works, especially the Greek books, printed at his press. Within a few weeks before his death, he sunk under his maladies and the progress of decay. His numerous critical writings afford ample evidence of his ability as a scholar; and as a learned printer, he had no rival for more than half a century. Of his regard to religion and morals, both in principle and practice, his whole life bore unquestionable evidence. His probity was inflexible. The promptitude with which he relieved every species of distress, and his modesty in endeavouring to conceal his benefactions, marked the benevolence and delicacy of his disposition. In the decline of life, and in his testamentary arrangements, he seems to have been influenced by a regard to two great objects; one was to repay the benefactions which had been conferred on his father at a time when he peculiarly needed assistance, and the other was to be himself a benefactor to the meritorious in his own profession. By his will, after liberally providing for his only surviving son, and allotting various private bequests, he appropriated several sums to “the benefit of printing,” particularly with a view to the relief of aged printers, compositors or pressmen, and to the encouragement of the journeyman compositor, whom he particularly describes, and who is required to be capable of reading and construing Latin, and, at least, of reading Greek fluently with accents. These latter bequests he committed to the direction and disposal of the master, wardens, and assistants of the Company of Stationers.

Mr. Bowyer was buried, agreeably to his own direction, at Low-Layton, in Essex, and a monument erected, at the expense of his friend, Mr. Nichols, to his father’s memory and his own, with a Latin inscription written by himself. There is a bust of him in Stationers’-hall, with an English inscription annexed, in his own words: and beside it are a portrait of his father, and another of his patron, Mr. Nelson, all presented to the Company by Mr. Nichols, who was his apprentice, partner, and successor; and who has done ample justice to his eminent predecessor’s memory, by an invaluable series of “Anecdotes” of Mr. Bowyer, and many celebrated literary characters of the last and present century, whose persons or writings Mr. Nichols’s professional labours and varied erudition had acquainted him with.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·82.

~November 19.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On this day in 1703 died, in the Bastille at Paris, an unknown prisoner, celebrated throughout Europe under the appellation of the _Man with the Iron Mask_; he had been confined, for state reasons, from the year 1661. There have been various disquisitions and controversies respecting his identity, but a recent work seems to have rendered it probable, that he was an Italian diplomatist who counteracted certain projects of Louis XIV., and was therefore condemned, by that monarch’s despotism, to perpetual imprisonment, in an iron mask, for the concealment of his features.

PLEASANT ILLUSTRATIONS--AND ADDITIONAL NOTICES.

A correspondent is pleased to communicate a series of reminiscences occasioned by accounts in the first volume. They form two interesting articles, viz.

MEMORANDA I.

_On Vol. I. of the Every-Day Book._

“Pages attend on books as well as lords.”

J. R. P.

Sir,--It is obvious, that he who reads the _Every-Day Book_ will think of things connected with the contents stated, and wish to append them as memoranda, for the perusal of those interested in the resuscitations of old customs and matters of fact. With this impression, I have collected my stray knowledge, and condensed it in the following compass. The _pages_ quoted, refer to the _first_ volume. _Ex. g._

122. “Powerful Optical Illusion.” Approaching a lamp in the high road near town, an object crossed my path; it appeared like a _large crab_, and, as I drew nearer, ran up the side of a house in the road-way with great velocity. When I reached the lamp, to my satisfaction, I proved this appearance to have been caused by a full-sized _spider_, which had passed the light, and made upwards to its web. Had I not accounted for this natural circumstance, I should certainly have considered it as a phenomenon worthy of anxiety.

123. “The Spectre.” A young lady in Bedfordshire, on coming of age, was promised by her father a present of any thing she chose to accept at his hand. She said, A skeleton! Her choice was gratified--a skeleton was sent for from London, and placed in a case in a room accessible to her. The room has ever since gone by the name of the “_Stranger’s Room_.” “Have you seen? or will you see, the stranger?” is the question put to all visitors. The daughter of Herodias seems to have scarcely exceeded the eccentric taste of this young lady.

136. “St. Agnes’ Eve.” After fasting the whole of the day, upon going to bed an egg must be filled with salt, and eaten, which occasions a great thirst. The vessel the female dreams of drinking from, according to situation and circumstances, denotes who will be her husband.

This charm for the _ague_, on “St. Agnes’ Eve,” is customary to be said up the chimney, by the eldest female in the family--

“Tremble and go! First day shiver and burn: Tremble and quake! Second day shiver and learn: Tremble and die! Third day never return.”

179. “Bears” are seen on the Stock Exchange in human shape, natural ones are kept by friseurs to supply grease for the hair. The Black Bear in Piccadilly, Taylor’s Bear in Whitechapel, the White Bear, and the Bear and Ragged Staff, as a punster would say, are _bear-able_ enough; but, I reprehend the “Dancing Bears” being led through the streets to perform antics for money. Two have appeared this month. Each with two monkeys, a camel, dromedary, and organ. Travellers have told of their sagacity; we believe them: but, that bears are made to stand upon hot iron, and undergo the severest discipline before they are fit for public exhibition, is a truth which harrows the feeling, and makes me wish the dancing bears unmuzzled, and let loose upon those who have the guidance of their education. The _ursa major_ of the literary hemisphere, Dr. Johnson, might have been a match for them.

207. “St. Blase.” He seems to have neglected the protecting the “Woolcombers.” Since the introduction of machinery, by Arkwright and others, very little cloth is manufactured by hand. The woolcomber’s greasy and oily wooden horse, the hobby of his livelihood, with the long teeth and pair of cards, are rarely seen. When scribblers, carders, billies, and spinning jennies, came into use, the wheel no longer turned at the cottage door, but a revolution among the working classes gave occasion for soldiers to protect the mills--time, however, has ended this strife with wool, and begun another with cotton.

246. “Pancake Day.” It is a _sine qua non_ at “_Tedbury Mop_,” before a maid servant is wholly qualified for the farmer’s kitchen, that she make apple fritters, and toss them without soot, or spoiling the batter.

348. “Sadler’s Wells.” It closed this season (1826) with a real benefit for Mrs. Fitzwilliam, October 2d. The new feature has been the horse-racing, in the open air, represented as at Newmarket. Boards were erected on every side, to conceal the race from the public in general, and ensure novelty to the play-going folks in particular. To give publicity to this amusement, the high-mettled racers, with riders, flags and bugles, in proper costume, paraded the environs daily, and distributed bills descriptive of cups, plate, bets, and other taking articles of jockeyship, which took place at evening. The thing did not take so much money as wished.

364. “St. Patrick’s Day” being my natal day, though not of Erin’s clime, I never fail dedicating a large _plum pudding_ to his _saintship_; round my table the “olive branches” spread, and I make this record to encourage all persons to do the same, in remembrance of _their_ parent’s solicitude, and the prospective harmony of the young.

402. “Good Friday.” The bun so fashionable, called the _Sally Lunn_, originated with a young woman of that name in Bath, about thirty years ago. She first cried them, in a basket with a white cloth over it, morning and evening. Dalmer, a respectable baker and musician, noticed her, bought her business, and made a song, and set it to music in behalf of “Sally Lunn.” This composition became the street favourite, barrows were made to distribute the nice cakes, Dalmer profited thereby, and retired; and, to this day, the _Sally Lunn_ cake, not unlike the hotcross bun in flavour, claims preeminence in all the cities in England.

422. “Lifting” is a custom practised with hurdles among shepherds, in the South Downs, at their marriages. The bride and bridegroom are carried round a flock of sheep; a fleece is put for their seat, and may-horns, made of the rind of the sycamore tree, are played by boys and girls. There is another sort of “lifting,” however; I have seen a tale-bearer in the village tossed in a blanket by the maids, as it is represented in “Don Giovanni in London,” a scene in the King’s Bench.

I am, Sir,

Your’s sincerely,

JEHOIADA.

MEMORANDA II.

_On Vol. I. of the Every-Day Book._

Franklin says, ‘farthings will amount to pounds:-- So _memorandums_ saved, will books produce.

J. R. P.

~Videlicit.~

507. “The Martin.” It is considered a presage of good, for this bird to build its nest in the corner of the bedroom-window; and particularly so, should the first inhabitants return in the season. I know it to be true, that a pair of martins built their nest in the curtains of a bed belonging to Mrs. Overton, of Loverrall, Yorkshire. The nest was suffered to remain unmolested, and access given to it from the air. Six successive seasons the old birds revisited their chosen spot, brought forth their young, and enjoyed their peace, till the death of their most kind benefactress; when a distribution of the furniture taking place, it dislodged the tenants of the wing, which to each of them was not all _Mihi Beati Martini_--“My eye, Betty Martin.”

570. “Milkmaids’ garland.” After I had sailed up the river Wye, and arrived at Chepstow-castle, my attention was arrested by one of the prettiest processions I remember to have enjoyed. It consisted of milkmaids dancing and serenading round an old man, whose few gray hairs were crowned by a wreath of wild flowers; he held a blossomy hawthorn in his right hand, and bore a staff, with cowslips and bluebells, in his left. A cow’s horn hung across his shoulders, which he blew on arriving at a house. The youths and lasses were more than thirty in number. Their arms, and heads and necks, were surrounded by clusters of lilies of the valley, and wild roses. Then came an apple-cheeked dame with a low-crowned, broad-brim hat; she wore spectacles, mittens were drawn up to her elbows, her waist trim, a woollen apron bound it, her petticoat short, blue worsted stockings, a high-heeled pair of shoes with silver buckles, and a broad tongue reposing on each instep. In one hand she held a brass kettle, newly scoured, it was full of cream; in the other, a basket of wood strawberries. To whoever came up to her with a saucer or basin, she gave a portion of her cream and fruit, with the trimmest curtsey I ever saw made by a dainty milkwoman betwixt earth and sky. She was “Aunt Nelly,” and her “Bough Bearer,” called “Uncle Ambrose,” was known for singing a song, “’Twas on one moonshiny night,” which his defective pronunciation lisped “meaun sheeiney.” Ambrose strummed an instrument in his turn, partly harp, and partly hirdy-girdy. Six goats, harnessed in flowers, carried utensils in milking and butter making; and the farmer of the party rode on a bull, also tastily dressed with the produce of the fields and hedges. A cheese and a hatchet were suspended behind him, and he looked proudly as he guided the docile animal to the public-house, into which the milkmaids and their sweethearts went, quickened in their motions by the cat-gut, which made stirring sounds up stairs. The flowery flag was thrust upwardly into the street, facing the iron bridge; and, getting again into the fisherman’s boat, I sailed and loitered down the banks of the river, charmed with what I had seen, felt, and understood. Of the milkmaids, Miss Thomas of Landcote was the darkest, the neatest, and the tallest--she stood _only_ five feet, ten inches high.

692. “Kiss in the ring.” The ‘_kissing crust_’ is that part of the loaf which is slightly burnt, and parted from the next loaf: hungry children who go home from the baker’s, know best what it is, by the sly bits they filch from that part denominated the ‘kissing crust.’

807. “Buy a Broom!” Since Bishop harmonised this popular cry, the Flemish girls cry ‘Buy a _brush_?’ but a greater novelty has arisen in some of them singing glees, quartets, and quintets in the streets. The tune is unconcordant, slow, and grave; these warblers walk in a line down the centre, with their hands crossed before their stomachs. Their simple attitude, together with their sunny cast, and artless glance, render them objects of pity; but the pence fall not so plentily to them as to the real John Bull, straightforward songs of the young weavers that go about with the model of a loom in work, fixed to the top of a rod five feet high.

839. “French pulpit.” The pulpit at Union Chapel, Islington, is made of beautiful grained “Honduras mahogany;” and that of St. Pancras, New-road, of the farfamed “Fairlop oak.”--Wesley and Whitefield were contented to emerge in their first career from the hogsheads of a grocer in Moorfields.

858. “Copenhagen-house.” This year, the Spanish and Italian refugees have resorted to this house in great numbers, and played many famous matches at ball. Nothing can be more retired than the garden formed into bowers for visiters--if the building mania should not recover, age will give the young plantations beauty, pleasure, and effect. Two new roads are made near Copenhagen-house; the one, leading from Kentish-town to Holloway, the other, from the latter to Pentonville. At “the Belvidere” racket is much played, and archery practised at “White Conduit-house.” It is gratifying that the labours of the _Every-Day Book_ are _not in vain_--the “Conduit” spoken of in vol. ii. col. 1203 has undergone repair; it is hoped, it will be enclosed by the proprietors as one of the new relics of venerable antiquity.

1435. “Beadles.” The beadle of Camberwell is a lineal descendant of Earl Withrington, of the same name so celebrated in the battle of Chevy Chase.

JEHOIADA.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·25.

~November 20.~

Edmund. King and Martyr.[503]

OFFENSIVE BARBERS.

On the 20th of November, 1746, fifty-one barbers were convicted before the commissioners of excise, and fined in the penalty of twenty pounds each, for having in their custody hair-powder not made of starch, contrary to act of parliament; and, on the 27th of the same month, forty-nine other barbers were convicted of the like offence, and fined in the same penalty.[504]

ROMAN STATIONS AT PANCRAS AND PENTONVILLE.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--The following observations have been the result of a visit to the site of the undoubted Roman camp at Pentonville, and the conjectural remains at St. Pancras. Respecting the former, I have been able to ascertain, that in the course of the year 1825 a labourer, who was occupied in digging in the prætorium, turned up a considerable quantity of arrow heads; and shortly afterwards, another labourer, digging a few yards to the south of the same spot, for materials to mend a road, uncovered a pavement of red tiles, about sixteen feet square, each tile being about an inch and a half thick, and about six inches square; they were mostly figured, and some had “strange characters upon them:” unfortunately, the discoverer had neither taste nor curiosity, and they were consigned to the bottom of a deep road.[505] Respecting the “Brill” (at Pancras) I have examined the ground, and find that S. G. (p. 1347,) is incorrect in stating the prætorium was perfect, half of it having been converted into bricks some months ago; and the brickmakers inform me, that nothing was found, not even a tile or brass coin. I will extract a little respecting this camp from a work of some authority, viz. The Environs of London.

Mr. Lysons, in that work, treats the idea of a camp having been made near this spot as quite conjectural,[506] and remarks, that Dr. Stukely’s imagination, in the pursuit of a favourite hypothesis, would sometimes enable him to see more than other antiquaries; leaving the language of conjecture, the Dr. points out the disposition of the troops, and the station of each general’s tent, with as much confidence as if he had himself been in the camp. Here was Cæsar’s prætorium; here was stationed Mandubrace, king of London;[507] here were the quarters of M. Crassus, the quæstor; here was Cominus; there the Gaulish princes, &c. &c. It is but justice to Dr. Stukely’s memory to mention, that this account of Cæsar’s camp was not printed in his life-time. As he withheld it from the public, it is probable he was convinced that his imagination had carried him too far, on this subject. Dr. S. remarks, that the vallum thrown up in the civil war was in the fields next the duke of Bedford’s: he adds, that it was levelled after the Restoration, and that scarcely a trace of it was (when he wrote) visible, notwithstanding Cæsar’s camp remained in so perfect a state after an interval of 1800 years. Mr. Lysons does not suppose, that the entrenchment at the _Brill_ was thrown up by the Londoners in 1642, since the name denotes something more ancient;[508] but it certainly appears, by the diurnals published at the time, that entrenchments and ramparts were thrown up in the fields near Pancras-church, during the civil war. He thinks it not improbable, that the moated areas, above-mentioned, near the church, were the sites of the vicarage and rectory-house, which are mentioned in a survey of the parish of Pancras _circa_ 1251.[509] This is certainly the most probable conclusion, and far superior to the wild chimeras of the learned doctor.

I will conclude this slight, and, I am aware, imperfect view of the various opinions, for and against, by observing, that I resided in Somers-town and its neighbourhood for a considerable period; I carefully watched every excavation made for sewers, foundations for houses, chapels, &c., but I never heard of any discoveries having been made. The place lies too low to have even been frequented by the Romans, more especially when the violence of the river of Wells is considered, which must have descended from the hills like a torrent, and have flooded the whole of the neighbourhood of Somers-town, Battle-bridge, &c.

I am, Sir, yours, &c.

T. A.

_Oct. 24, 1826._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 41·12.

[503] See vol. i. col. 1493.

[504] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[505] On visiting this camp, I searched for the “Old Well in the Fosse;” judge my surprise, when I found a modern circular frame of wood sunk in the fosse to collect clear water for the use of bricklayers, &c. this is a specimen of artists “pretty bits.”

[506] _Alias_--coinages of their own fancy.

[507] The idea is ridiculous, that the prætorium of the Roman general should be placed in a swampy, low situation, while such an advantageous position on the high ground, on which St. Pancras-church stands, is given to a native prince; another circumstance is against the doctor’s hypothesis, that this was a Roman camp, viz. a running stream through it.

[508] Dr. Stukely derives it from Bury Hill; but the lowness of the situation refutes such an etymology.

[509] View of London, vol. iii. p. 343-344.

~November 21.~

ÆROSTATION.

Messieurs Montgolfier, two brothers, paper-makers at Annonay in the department of Ardeche, in 1782 discovered the use of rarefied air in floating balloons; and on the 21st of November, 1783, the marquis d’Arlandes and M. Pilatre Rosier made the first _unconfined_ aërial voyage in a machine called a “Montgolfier,” in honour of the inventors, to distinguish it from balloons made with inflammable air.[510]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·27.

[510] Butler’s Chronological Exercises.

~November 22.~

CECILIA.[511]

Towards the latter end of the seventeenth century, an entertainment was instituted, on the 22d of November, in commemoration of her, by many of the first rank in the kingdom; which was continued annually for a considerable time. A splendid entertainment was provided at Stationers’-hall, which was constantly preceded by a performance of vocal and instrumental music, by the most capital performers. This feast is represented by Mr. Motteux, in 1691, as “one of the genteelest in the world; there are no formalities nor gatherings like as at others, and the appearance there is splendid.” The words, which were always an encomium on their patroness, were set by Purcell, Blow, and others of the greatest eminence; and it became the fashion for writers of all ranks to celebrate saint Cecilia. Besides the odes to her by Dryden, and Pope, Addison, and Yalden, employed their talents on this subject. We have also odes to saint Cecilia by Shadwell, D’Urfey, and some still more indifferent poets. It appears by Mr. Motteux, that there were in 1691 “admirable concerts in Charles-street and York-buildings.”

On the anniversary of St. Cecilia, in 1697, a sermon was preached at St. Bride’s church by Dr. Brady, which he published under the title of “Church Music Vindicated.” The last account discovered by Mr. Nichols, of any entertainment to her memory at Stationers’-hall, is in Mr. Hughes’s ode in 1703. The festivity appears to have been also celebrated at Oxford, and to have been continued there longer. There are two odes to St. Cecilia; one, in 1707, composed by Mr. Purcell, the other, in 1708, by Dr. Blow, “both performed at St. Mary-hall, in Oxon, by Mr. Saunders and Mr. Court, assisted by the best voices and bands.” Mr. Addison’s ode was performed there in 1699; and he has “a song,” without date, on the same occasion.[512]

CECILIAN SOCIETY.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

The “Cecilian Society,” established in 1785 by a few individuals, has continued, to the present day, to meet once a week for rehearsal, and once a fortnight for the public performance of vocal and instrumental music, chiefly sacred, by Handel, occasionally relieved by popular modern composition.

This society has been the school of eminent composers and performers: such as Barthelomon, Everett, Purkis, Banner, Busby, Griffin, Russel, Miss Bolton, Jacobs, Miss Gray, and many others; among whom are the brothers, the Mr. Nightingales, so highly esteemed in the musical world for their professional talent, and irreproachable demeanour.

The venerable president, Mr. Z. Vincent, is one of the old school of harmonists, and a man of letters. His heart and soul are identified in Handel’s oratorios, and his judgment continues unimpaired. A Mr. Edwards is another instance of attachment to the society, he having been a member upwards of twenty years. The great “unity” that has prevailed, and still prevails, in this society, is an example worthy of a niche in the _Every-Day Book_. Their present performances are held at the “Albion Hall,” Moorfields, and well attended by the issue of “tickets.” In honour of this day, a grand miscellaneous concert is annually performed; many celebrated professionals attend, and the lovers of harmony never fail of having a high treat.

ASTRONOMICAL.

On the 22nd of November the sun enters Sagittarius.

According to an old magical MS. of the fourteenth century, an aspect of “Sagittary” seems to have dominion over dogs. “_When you wish to enter where there are dogs; that they may not hinder you_, make a tin image of a dog, whose head is erected towards his tail, under the first face of _Sagittary_, and say over it, ‘I bind all dogs by this image, that they do not raise their heads or bark;’ and _enter where you please_.”[513]

Commander of some forces there, And intimate with Mr. Mayor.

*

Benjamin Mayo is believed to be the proper name of the “General,” his other appellations he derived from having been the ringleader of the boys, from his youth to the present time, on all occasions for which they assemble together in the town of Nottingham.

In order “to secure the boundaries of the town, a certain number of respectable characters, annually appointed, form what is called the _Middleton_, _Mickleton_, or _Leet Jury_, and circumambulate them twice a year, with the coroner at their head; it is also the duty of this jury to break down all obstructions in old roads, to fine those persons who may have made such encroachments as do not immediately obstruct a public road, and to present all nuisances at the quarter sessions.”[514] At the Easter and Michaelmas quarter sessions, the day for these duties is always appointed to be the Monday se’nnight following; and hence it is called _Middleton Monday_. The name of “Middleton is said to be retained from lord Middleton,” who is steward of the Peveril Court, which has now no jurisdiction in Nottingham, it being a town-county. The origin of these matters, however, is of little consequence in an account of the “General;” they are only referred to as preparatory to the observation, that he is a conspicuous personage in the ceremonial of the day.

On “Middleton Monday” all the school-boys in the town expect a holyday; it is the _juvenile Saturnalia_; and though the “General” is great on all occasions, he is especially so on “Middleton Monday;” for compared with him, the mayor, the coroner, and other municipal authorities, are subordinate officers in the estimation of the youthful tribes.

Previous to the jury commencing their survey, away trots “General,” with several hundreds of boys at his heels, to secure the sacred and inviolable right of a holyday. Two or three urchins, with shining, morning faces, lead the way to their own schoolmaster’s, who, in violation of the “orders of the day,” is seated amidst the few children whose parents have refused to grant a holyday, and therefore dare not “play _travant_.” Some “devoted Decius” in miniature, ventures in, on the forlorn hope of procuring liberty for the rest. Down drop books, pens, pencils, to the increasing cry of “Out, out, out.” The commander-in-chief arrives, amidst the cheers of his enthusiastic and devoted troops, takes up his position opposite to the door, and commands the onset. The advanced guard assail the portal with redoubled blows of their pocket-handkerchiefs, and old rope-ends, knotted into _tommies_, and the main body throw the missile mud. Ere long, a random stone breaks some window; this is speedily followed by a second and third crash; out sallies the master to seize the culprit, his sentinels are overpowered, the invaders rush in, the besieged are unmercifully belaboured till the capitulation is completed, but no sooner do they join the “liberating army,” than a shout of triumph is raised, and the place is abandoned. The aide-de-camps having reported to “the General,” what other fortresses hold out, the nearest is attacked in the same way. It often happens, however, that a parley is demanded, and “the General” shamelessly receives a bribe to desist. Alas! that one so devoted to the cause of liberty should be so easily corrupted--twopence will induce the commander-in-chief to withdraw, with his faithful followers, of fickle principle, and leave the anxious garrison to the uncontrolled power of its wily governor.

Upwards of twenty years ago, opposition to “the General” was rare, but about that period schoolmasters began to learn their strength. One individual successfully resisted during a three hours’ siege; the house for years bore marks of the mud with which it was pelted; but ever after he was triumphant, though frequently at the expense of an oaken staff, or an ash sapling, broken in repulsing the invaders. After repeated assaults, “the General” deemed this “hold” impregnable, and desisted from his attacks.

So many of the disciples of learning being emancipated, or prisoners, as “the General” can liberate or capture, he sets forward with the “surveying council,” escorted by his army, to commence the perambulation of the town. If a projecting scraper endanger the shins of the burgesses, it is recorded, and the Middleton jury pass on; but the juvenile admirers of summary and instantaneous justice are for the immediate removal of the offender. Perhaps the good old dame of the house “likes not these new regulations,” and takes up a strong position in its defence, armed with a mop and bucket of water. After a momentous pause, a hardy champion rushes forward to seize the offensive iron, and wrench it from its seat; he retires, overwhelmed and half drowned; hero after hero presses on, and is defeated; till some modern Ajax grapples with the mop, and making a diversion in favour of the assailants, the luckless scraper is borne off in triumph.

View “the General” at eleven o’clock, with his forces drawn up in front of the Castle lodge, demanding admittance into the Castle yard--a summons always evaded by the distribution of a quantity of cakes and gingerbread. On “the General’s” word of command the precious sweets are thrown, one by one, over the gate, and the confusion of a universal scramble ensues. After the whole is distributed, the popularity of “the General” rapidly wanes; hundreds are reduced to scores, and scores to ones--at noon he is

Deserted in his utmost need By those his former bounty fed.

In memory, however, of his departed greatness, he never deigns to work for the rest of the day.

Before the approach of “Middleton Monday,” fifty times a day the important question is put to the General, “When will be _Middleton Monday_?” Once he said, “I don’t know yet, the mayor ha’n’t ax’d me what day’ll suit me.” On the following Saturday he answered, “The mayor sent his respects to know if I’d let it be Middleton Monday next week; and I sent my respects, and I’d come.”

Ben Mayo has ever been “null, void, and of no effect,” except in his character of “General.” He is a harmless idiot, who, during most of his life, has been an inmate of St. Peter’s workhouse. He is now nearly fifty years of age. If erect, he would be under the middle size; his stature not being more than four feet nine inches. He is very round-shouldered. His eyes are dark grey, and rather lively; the lower part of his face is no way remarkable, but his forehead is very high, and singularly prominent in the middle; his head, which is thinly covered with hair cut very short, always projected before him in his shuffling gait, which is rather a run than a walk. His vestment generally consists of the “hodden grey” uniform of the parish; his shirt collar, like that of some other public characters, is usually unbuttoned, and displays his copper-coloured bosom. Grey stockings and quarter boots complete his equipment, for he never wears a hat. Though coarse, his dress is generally clean and tidy.

“The General” is constant in his attendance at church, where his behaviour is serious; and he would on no account be seen about in the streets on the Sabbath, for, being one of the public characters of the town, it would be setting a bad example. In politics, he is a staunch supporter of the powers that be; on such occasions as the king’s birth-day, and the coronation, Ben is sure to be seen with a bunch of blue riband to his coat, while at an election, to display his loyalty, he is dusted with power-blue from the crown of his head to the skirts. He has, however, no objection to aid “the Jacobin corporation,” as far as in him lies; and, according to his own account, he is particularly intimate with the mayor for the time being, whom he allows to be the first man in the town--himself being second. He is remarkably fond of peace and with his wand in hand will “charge” it, where there is no fear of its being broken.

Like other military men, “General” is a favourite with the ladies, inasmuch as he is known equally to high and low, and makes promises to all indiscriminately (who please him) that he will marry them “next Sunday morning;” at the same time, he cautions the favoured fair not to be later than half past seven, “for fear somebody else should get him.”

The “General’s” usual occupation is to sell the cheap commodities of the walking stationers, such as dreadful shipwrecks, horrid murders, calendars of the prisoners, last dying speeches and behaviours, or lists of the race horses. Sometimes, when the titles of these occur closely, he makes curious “varieties of literature.” Not long since, he was calling “A right and true calendar of all the running horses confined in his majesty’s _gole_, owners’ names, horses’ names, and colours of the riders, tried, cast, ’quit, and condemned before my lord judge this ’sizes, and how they came in every heat of the three days, with the sentences of the prisoners.”

About four years ago, at Lenton fair and wakes, which are always at Whitsuntide, and numerously attended from Nottingham, being only a mile distant, some wag set “General” to proclaim the Lenton fair. On this occasion he mounted an enormous cocked hat of straw, and had his wand in his hand. He jumbled together pigs, gingerbread, baa-lambs, cows, dolls, horses, ale, fiddling, sheep, &c. in a confused mass; whilst the latter part of the proclamation, though perfectly true, was very far from being “quite correct.”

Of the many anecdotes current of “General,” one or two authentic ones will display the union of shrewdness and simplicity common to persons of his order of intelligence. On a certain occasion, when public attention was directed towards the commander-in-chief, one evening in the twilight Ben began, “Here’s the grand and noble speech as the duke of York made yesterday.” A person, who had heard nothing of such a speech, immediately purchased one, and on approaching a window found himself possessed of a piece of blank paper. “General,” said he, “here’s nothing on it.” “No, sir, the duke of York said _nowt_.” Being set, at the workhouse, to turn a wheel, he did so properly enough for about half an hour, but becoming tired, he immediately began to turn backwards, nor could he be persuaded to the contrary. A blockhead once tried to make him quarrel with an idiot lad, as they were employed in sweeping the street together; “Oh,” said he, “he is a poor soft lad, and beneath _my_ notice.” There is another instance of his dislike of work: having been set to weed part of the garden, he performed the task by pulling up all the flowers and herbs, and leaving the weeds growing. He once found a sixpence, and ran up the street shouting, “Who’s lost sixpence, who’s lost sixpence?” “It’s mine, General,” said one. “But had your’s a hole in it?” “Yes,” said he--“But this hasn’t,” rejoined General, and away he ran. His mode of running is remarkable, inasmuch as one leg is considerably shorter than the other, which gives his body an up-and-down motion. One peculiarity is, that when he has any fresh papers to sell he will never stop to take money till quite out of breath, and arrived at the extremity of the town.

* * * * *

DAVID LOVE, of whom there is an account in the present volume of the _Every-Day Book_, p. 226, is still in Nottingham. In May he visited Hull, but while carolling his wild lays in a place where he was not known, he was apprehended as a vagrant, and consigned to the tread-mill for a fortnight.

“Oft from apparent ills our blessings flow.”

David, on his return to Nottingham, favoured us with “three _varra couras_ poems of David Love’s composing, all about the _trad_ wheel, where he _warked_ for a fortnight--only a penny.” His numerous admirers purchased considerably.

Besides the “General” and the “bard” now living, Nottingham has been the residence of several equally noted personages deceased; such as Tommy Rippon, Piping Charley, the ventriloquist, &c.; and we have yet amongst us Jacky Peet, and other memorable characters, whose fame, it is feared, may not find an honest chronicler.

_Nottingham, Oct. 23, 1826._

~G.~

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·65.

[511] See vol. i. col. 1495.

[512] Nichols’s Sel. Coll. of Poems.

[513] Fosbroke’s British Monachism.

[514] Blackner’s History of Nottingham.

~November 23.~

ST. CLEMENT.[515]

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--In your last year’s volume I see you have taken great notice of St. Clement, and the customs observed on his day; but I do not see any mention of a custom which was common in _Worcestershire_, where I was born. I am entirely ignorant of its origin; yet in my youth I have often been at its celebration. The custom was as follows:--

On the afternoon of St. Clement’s day, a number of boys collected together in a body, and went from house to house; and at the door of each house, one, or sometimes more, would recite, or chaunt, the following lines--

Catherine and Clement, be here, be here; Some of your apples, and some of your beer Some for Peter, and some for Paul, And some for him that made us all. Clement was a good old man, For his sake give us some; Not of the worst, but some of the best, And God will send _your soul to rest_.

Some would say,

And God will send _you a good night’s rest_

Sometimes grown men would go in like manner, and, to such, the people of the house would give ale or cider; but to the boys they gave apples, or, if they had none to spare, a few halfpence. Having collected a good store of apples, which they seldom failed to do, the boys repaired to some one of their houses, where they roasted and ate the apples; and frequently the old would join the young, and large vessels of ale or cider would be brought in, and some of the roasted apples thrown hot into it, and the evening would then be spent with much mirth and innocent amusement; such as, I sorrow to think, have departed never to return.

Such, sir, was one of the usages “in my youthful days,” in that part of the country of which I have spoken. I have had but little intercourse with it of late years, but I fear these _improved_ times have left but little spirit or opportunity for the observance of such ways, or the enjoyment of such felicity. Much has been said of improvement, and the happy state of the present over times past; but, on striking the balance, it may be found that the poor have lost much of their solid comfort, for the little improvement they have obtained.

You, Mr. Editor, have exposed with a masterly hand the superstitions and monkery of the olden time, for which you have my best thanks, in common, I believe, with those of nine out of every ten in the nation; but should a Mr. HONE arise two hundred years hence, I think he would have something to say upon these _our_ times. I fear, however, I am going beyond my object, which is not to find fault, but to acquaint you with a practice which, if worthy a place in your pleasant, instructive, and highly useful work, I shall be glad to see there memorialed.

I am, &c.

SELITS.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·02.

[515] See vol. i. col. 1497.

~November 24.~

SPECTRES AND APPARITIONS.

In a popular “calendar” there are some observations on this day, which, as the time for telling “Ghost stories” is come in, seem appropriate. They are to the effect, that there is an essential difference between “Ocular Spectres” and “Spectral Illusions.”

_Ocular Spectres_ move with the motion of the eye, whatever may be the forms of the spectrum on the retina; hence, they are spectra in the eye.

_Spectral Illusions_, or _Ghosts_, seem to move with their own proper motion, like real persons, and the objects in dreams; hence they are not in the eye itself or retina, but may arise in the brain.

We know nothing of the particular laws whereby these forms are regulated, as they occur without the conscious precurrence of the usual chains of thought, and often represent forms, and combinations of forms, almost entirely new to us. Some persons only see these spectres once or twice in their lives, and that only during diseases: others are continually harassed by them, and often mistake some one consistent spectre, which frequently comes and converses with them, for their guardian angel. In proportion, however, as the phantom gains on the credulity of the patient who beholds it, the latter approximates towards insanity. According to the disturbance of the brain of the individuals, the spectres are either horrifying or delightful, and partake of the character of the patient’s mind, as it is influenced variously by desire, fear, hope, and so on. We have known instances where the antiphlogistic measures resorted to with success, have been viewed by the patient, when recovered, as positive evils, having forcibly torn from him some perpetual and pleasing illusion.

The late Mr. John Wheeler, prebendary of Westminster, used to relate a remarkable story of the Abbé Pilori at Florence, who incurred a tremendous spectral disorder in consequence of a surfeit of mushrooms he one day ate. These fungi, not digesting, disturbed his brain, and he saw the frightful and appalling forms of scorpions continually before his eyes for a length of time.

This brings to our minds yet another observation with regard to spectra. Persons who are somewhat delirious from fever are apt to give to half-distinguished forms, in a darkish chamber, the most frightful imaginary shapes. This is a disorder distinct from that of seeing phantoms. A. Y. R. a child, being ill of fever, saw some bulbous roots laying on a table in the room, and conceived them immediately to be scorpions; nor could any thing convince her of the contrary, and they consequently were removed out of the room to relieve her terrors.

A familiar instance of deception is exemplified in the false voices which some persons imagine they hear calling them, faintly in common, but so as to deceive for a moment. When this false perception of sound concurs with images of spectral illusion, a formidable imitation of reality is maintained.[516]

* * * * *

A poetical friend, whose signature will be recollected as having been attached to “SEA SONNETS,” obligingly communicates a seasonable effusion of the like order of composition, prefaced by the following passage from Dr. Buchan:--

“If the power of volition be suspended, persons may dream while they are awake. Such is the case when, in an evening, looking into the fire, we let slip the reins of the imagination, and, yielding implicitly to external objects, a succession of splendid or terrific imagery is produced by the embers in the grate.”

* * * * *

FIRE-SIDE SONNET.

_For the Every-Day Book._

For very want of thought and occupation Upon my fire, as broad and high it blaz’d, In idle and unweeting mood I gaz’d, And, in that mass of bright and glowing things Fancy, which in such moments readiest springs, Soon found materials for imagination: Within the fire, all listless as I maz’d, There saw I trees and towers, and hills and plains, Faces with warm smiles glowing, flocks and swains. And antic shapes of laughable creation: And thus the poet’s soul of fire contains A store of all things bright and glorious! rais’d By fancy, that daft artizan, to shape Into fair scenes and forms, that nature’s best may ape.

W. T. M.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·80.

[516] Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar.

~November 25.~

ST. CATHERINE.

For an account of this Saint, see vol. i. col. 1504.

BUBBLES.

In the “Morning Advertiser” of this day, 1807, which year was almost as much distinguished by joint-stock impositions as the present, there are two advertisements, which, from their station in the advertising columns of that paper, have a more remarkable, than if they had been displayed in its columns of entertainment, viz:

FINAL MEETING of the PUBLIC BLACKING SUBSCRIPTION COMPANY, held at the Boot in Leather-lane,

ANTHONY VARNISH, Esq. in the Chair, Sir John Blackwell, Knight, being indisposed.

The Chairman reported that Mr. Timothy Lightfoot, the Treasurer, had brushed off with the old fund, and that the deputation who had waited on Mr. Fawcett, the Proprietor of the Brilliant Fluid Blacking, at No. 76, Houndsditch, could not prevail on him to dispose of his right thereto in favour of this Company, although they had made him the most liberal offers.

Resolved, That this Meeting being fully sensible that any attempt to establish a rival Blacking would totally fail of success, from the high estimation in which the above popular article is held, and the mishap of the Treasurer having damped the ardour of the undertaking, that this design be altogether abandoned.

Resolved, That the character of the Promoters of this Company ought not to be blackened in public esteem, as there is no direct proof of their having shared the spoils with the Treasurer.

Signed, by Order of the Meeting,

JACOB BRUSHWELL, Sec.

THE LONDON COMPANY for GENUINE MATCHES.--It having been suggested to Mr. Parr, Proprietor of the Equitable Office, Holborn-hill, that a complaint prevails among Servants, owing to the adulteration of Brimstone, and the badness of Wood, in consequence of which, they cannot get their Fires lighted in proper time, which obliges many of their Masters to go to business without their breakfast.

Such imposition having proved very injurious to a number of servants, by being discharged for neglect of duty, has induced Mr. Parr, in conjunction with six eminent Timber Merchants, to purchase those extensive Premises in Gunpowder-alley, near Shoe-lane, formerly occupied by the Saltpetre Company, for the sole purpose of a Genuine Match Manufactory.

The Public may be assured that this laudable undertaking is countenanced by some of the first characters in the United Kingdoms.

The Managers pledge themselves to employ the best work-people, both men, women, and children, that can be procured, which will amount to 1500 persons and upwards, as they conclude, by the large orders already received, that a less number will procrastinate the business.

Each Subscriber to have the privilege of recommending two, who are to bring certificates from the Minister of the Parish where they reside, of their being sober, honest, and industrious persons.

The Managers further engage to make oath before the Lord Mayor every three months, that the matches are made of the most prime new yellow Deal, and also that the Brimstone is without the least adulteration.

Not less than 12 penny bunches can be had.

Any order amounting to 1_l._ will be sent free of expense, to any part of the town, not exceeding two miles from the Manufactory.

The Capital first intended to be raised is Two Millions, in 50_l._ Shares, 2_l._ per Share to be paid at the time of subscribing, 3_l._ that day month, 4_l._ in six weeks, 5_l._ in two months, and so on regularly until the whole is subscribed.

Holders of five shares to be on Committees, and holders of ten will qualify them for Directors.

Although this plan has not been set on foot more than a week, it is presumed the call for Shares has been equal to a month’s demand for Shares in any of the late Institutions.

Schemes at large may be had, and Subscriptions received by Mr. Tinder, Secretary, at the Counting-house, from ten till two; also at his Residence, near the Turpentine Manufactory, St. John-street-road, from four to six; likewise by Messrs. Sawyer, Memel, and Tieup, Solicitors, Knave’s-acre, Westminster.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 41·27.

~November 26.~

THE SEASON.

Autumnal appearances are increasing, and occasional gales of wind and interchanges of nipping frost hasten the approaching winter. The following passage seems to allude to the wintry garb of nature:--“The earth mourneth and languisheth; Lebanon is ashamed and withereth away; Sharon is like a wilderness; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits.”--Isaiah, xxiii. 9.

Soon shall we be compelled to exclaim with the poet, in reference to this, generally speaking, gloomy season,

That time of year thou mayest in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang On those wild boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined quires, where late the sweet birds sang.

November, however, has its bright as well as its dark side. “It is now,” observes a pleasing writer, “that the labourer is about to enjoy a temporary mitigation of the season’s toil. His little store of winter provision having been hardly earned and safely lodged, his countenance brightens, and his heart warms, with the anticipation of winter comforts. As the day shortens and the hours of darkness increase, the domestic affections are awakened anew by a closer and more lengthened converse; the father is now once more in the midst of his family; the child is now once more on the knee of its parent; and she, in whose comfort his heart is principally interested, is again permitted, by the privileges of the season, to increase and to participate his happiness. It is now that the husbandman is repaid for his former risk and anxiety--that, having waited patiently for the coming harvest, he builds up his sheaves, loads his waggons, and replenishes his barns.” It is now that men of study and literary pursuit are admonished of the best season suited for the pursuits of literature; and the snug fireside in an armed chair, during a long winter’s evening, with an entertaining book, is a pleasure by no means to be despised. There is something, too, very pleasing in the festivals which are now approaching, and which preserve the recollection of olden time.[517]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 41·52.

[517] Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar.

~November 27.~

A NATIONAL DEATH DAY.

The chapter of an old, black-letter book of wonderful things concludes with the following amusing paragraph:--

“Here may we also speak of the people, Lucumoria, dwelling among the hilles, beyond the river Olbis. These men die every year the 27 of November, which day at Rutheas was dedicated to Saint Gregorie; and in the next spring following, most commonly at the four and twentieth day of April, they rise again like frogs.”[518]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·00.

[518] Batman’s Doome.

~November 28.~

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·65.

~November 29.~

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·90.

~November 30.~

ST. ANDREW.

Respecting this Saint, the patron of Scotland, there is a notice in vol. i. 1537.

THE MODEL LOTTERY.

_For the Every-Day Book._

A Model Lottery is drawn on the 30th of November, at Mr. Oldershaw’s office, Lower-street, Islington. Several capital prizes are made, the principal of which is Fonthill Abbey, valued at 5_l._ There are others less valuable, Islington church, Cannonbury Tower, the Queen’s Head, Sir William Curtis’s villa, at Southgate,--the house in which Garrick was born,--many Italian buildings, and a variety to the number of 500. Each adventurer, by paying three shillings, draws a share which is equal, in the worst chance, to the deposit. The scheme is contrived by an ingenious artist and his wife, whose names are Golding. Previously to the drawing-day, three days are allowed for friendly inspection. It is laudable to see this Model Lottery patronised by the most respectable ladies and gentlemen in the vicinity where it takes place. This is the second year of its existence.

P.S. For Bradenstock, p. 1371, read Bradenstoke; and for Brinkworth, p. 1373, read Bremhill. Dr. Allsop, of Calne, was the gentleman who cut out the “White Horse at Cheverill,” at which place and time a revel was most merrily kept.

J. R. P.

CORRECTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS,

_For the Every-Day Book_.

Your correspondent in his account of “Clack Fall Fair,” p. 1371, has fallen into a few mistakes.

Bradenstoke was not an _abbey_, but a _priory_.

He might have inquired some further particulars of the Golden Image, said to have been found. In whose possession it now is? It is believed the circumstance, if true, is not generally known in the neighbourhood. _Query_, the name of the Carpenter?

The idea of a subterraneous passage from Bradenstoke Priory to Malmsbury Abbey, a distance of eight or ten miles, intersected by a deep valley, through which the Avon meanders, is absurd, and can only be conceived as one of the wild traditions derived from monkish times.

Can your correspondent furnish further particulars of the horrible story of the boy murdered by his schoolmaster, when and whom?

His account of “Joe Ody’s” exploits may be very correct. He is well remembered by the elder peasantry.

It is presumed, your correspondent meant to say, that the song was attributed to _Bowles_ of _Bremhill_, not _Brinkworth_. The Rev. W. L. Bowles is rector, or vicar, of Bremhill, about five or six miles from Clack Brinkworth, about the same distance in the opposite direction.

Your correspondent might have noticed the mound called _Clack Mount_. Perhaps he will favour you with further recollections of the localities of Clack, and its vicinity.

The remains of a _may-pole_ are visible at Clack; but the pole itself is believed not to be remembered by any person now living, or, if remembered, by very old persons only.

A READER.

While I have a home, and can do as I will, December may rage over ocean and hill, And batter my door--as he does once a year-- I laugh at his storming, and give him good cheer. Derry down, &c.

I’ve a trencher and cup, and something to ask A friend to sit down to--and then a good flask: The best of all methods, to make Winter smile, Is living as I do--in old English style. Derry down, &c.

Now--whoever regards a comfortable fire, in an old-fashioned cottage, as a pleasant sight, will be pleased by this sketch, as a cheerful illustration of the dreary season; nor may it be deemed too intrusive, perhaps, to mention, that the artist who drew and engraved it, is Mr. SAMUEL WILLIAMS.

In this, the last, month of the year “the beautiful Spring is almost forgotten in the anticipation of that which is to come. The bright Summer is no more thought of, than is the glow of the morning sunshine at night-fall. The rich Autumn only just lingers on the memory, as the last red rays of its evenings do when they have but just quitted the eye. And Winter is once more closing its cloud-canopy over all things, and breathing forth that sleep-compelling breath which is to wrap all in a temporary oblivion, no less essential to their healthful existence than is the active vitality which it for a while supersedes.” Yet among the general appearances of nature there are still many lively spots and cheering aspects. “The furze flings out its bright yellow flowers upon the otherwise bare common, like little gleams of sunshine; and the moles ply their mischievous night-work in the dry meadows; and the green plover ‘whistles o’er the lea;’ and the snipes haunt the marshy grounds; and the wagtails twinkle about near the spring-heads; and the larks get together in companies, and talk to each other, instead of singing to themselves; and the thrush occasionally puts forth a plaintive note, as if half afraid of the sound of his own voice; and the hedge-sparrow and titmouse try to sing; and the robin does sing still, even more delightfully than he has done during all the rest of the year, because it now seems as if he sang for us rather than for himself--or rather to us, for it is still for his supper that he sings, and therefore for himself.”[519]

* * * * *

The “Poetical Calendar” offers a little poem with some lines descriptive of the month, which are pleasant to read within doors, while “rude Boreas” is blustering without:--

DECEMBER.

Last of the months, severest of them all, Woe to the regions where thy terrors fall! For lo! the fiery horses of the sun Thro’ the twelve signs their rapid course have run, Time, like a serpent, bites his forked tail, And Winter on a goat bestrides the gale; Rough blows the north wind near Arcturus’ star, And sweeps, unrein’d, across the polar bar, On the world’s confines where the sea bears prowl, And Greenland whales, like moving islands, roll: There, on a sledge, the rein-deer drives the swain To meet his mistress on the frost-bound plain. Have mercy, Winter!--for we own thy power, Thy flooding deluge, and thy drenching shower; Yes--we acknowledge what thy prowess can, But oh! have pity on the toil of man! And, tho’ the floods thy adamantine chain Submissive wear--yet spare the treasur’d grain: The peasants to thy mercy now resign The infant seed--their hope, and future mine. Not always Phœbus bends his vengeful bow, Oft in mid winter placid breezes blow; Oft tinctur’d with the bluest transmarine The fretted canopy of heaven is seen; Girded with argent lamps, the full-orb’d moon In mild December emulates the noon; Tho’ short the respite, if the sapphire blue Stain the bright lustre with an inky hue; Then a black wreck of clouds is seen to fly, In broken shatters, thro’ the frighted sky: But if fleet Eurus scour the vaulted plain, Then all the stars propitious shine again.

[519] Mirror of the Months.

~December 1.~

OBESITY.

Mr. Edward Bright, of Maldon, in the county of Essex, who died at twenty-nine years of age, was an eminent shopkeeper of that town, and supposed to be, at that time, the largest man living, or that had ever lived in this island. He weighed six hundred, one quarter, and twenty-one pounds; and stood about five feet nine inches high; his body was of an astonishing bulk, and his legs were as large as a middling man’s body. Though of so great a weight and bulk, he was surprisingly active.

After Bright’s death, a wager was proposed between Mr. Codd and Mr. Hants, of Maldon, that five men at the age of twenty-one, then resident there, could not be buttoned within his waistcoat without breaking a stitch or straining a button. On the 1st of December, 1750, the wager was decided at the house of the widow Day, the Black Bull in Maldon, when five men and two more were buttoned within the waistcoat of the great personage deceased. There is a half-sheet print, published at the time, representing the buttoning up of the seven persons, with an inscription beneath, to the above effect.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 41·10.

~December 2.~

WINTER.

Winter may be now considered as having set in; and we have often violent winds about this time, which sweep off the few remaining leaves from the trees, and, with the exception of a few oaks and beeches, leave the woods and forests nothing but a naked assemblage of bare boughs. December, thus robbing the woods of their leafy honours, is alluded to by Horace, in his Epod. xi.:--

Hic tertius December, ex quo destiti Inachiâ furere, Sylvis honorem decutit.

Picture to yourself, gentle reader, one of these blustering nights, when a tremendous gale from south-west, with rattling rain, threatens almost the demolition of every thing in its way: but add to the scene the inside of a snug and secure cottage in the country,--the day closed, the fire made up and blazing, the curtains drawn over a barricadoing of window-shutters which defy the penetration of Æolus and all his excarcerated host; the table set for tea, and the hissing urn or the kettle scarce heard among the fierce whistling, howling, and roaring, produced alternately or together, by almost every species of sound that wind can produce, in the chimneys and door crannies of the house. There is a feeling of comfort, and a sensibility to the blessings of a good roof over one’s head, and a warm and comfortable hearth, while all is tempest without, that produces a peculiar but real source of pleasure. A cheerful but quiet party adds, in no small degree, to this pleasure. Two or three intelligent friends sitting up over a good fire to a late hour, and interchanging their thoughts on a thousand subjects of mystery,--the stories of ghosts--and the tales of olden times,--may perhaps beguile the hours of such a stormy night like this, with more satisfaction than they could a midsummer evening under the shade of trees in a garden of roses and lilies. And then, when we retire to bed in a room with thick, woollen curtains closely drawn, and a fire in the room, how sweet a lullaby is the piping of the gale down the flues, and the peppering of the rain on the tiles and windows; while we are now and then rocked in the house as if in a cradle![520]

_For the Every-Day Book._

DECEMBER MUSINGS.

SONNET STANZAS.

Ανεμων πνεοντων την ηχω προσκυνει.

PYTHAGORAS

_Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem-- Aut, gelidas hybernus aquas cum fuderit auster, Securem somnos, imbre juvante, sequi!_

TIBULLUS.

I love to hear the high winds pipe aloud, When ’gainst the leafy nations up in arms; Now screaming in their rage, now shouting, proud-- Then moaning, as in pain at war’s alarms: Then softly sobbing to unquiet rest, Then wildly, harshly, breaking forth again As if in scorn at having been represt, With marching sweep careering o’er the plain And, oh! I love to hear the gusty shower Against my humble casement, pattering fast, While shakes the portal of my quiet bower; For then I envy not the noble’s tower, Nor, while my cot thus braves the storm and blast, Wish I the tumult of the heavens past. Yet wherefore joy I in the loud uproar Does still life cloy? has peace no charms for me? Pleases calm nook and ancient home no more, But do I long for wild variety? Ah! no;--the noise of elements at jar, That bids the slumbers of the worldling close, Lone nature’s child does not thy visions mar, It does but soothe thee to more sure repose! I sigh not for variety nor power, My cot, like castled hall, can brave the storm; Therefore I joy to list the sweepy shower, And piping winds, at home, secure and warm: While soft to heaven my orisons are sent, In grateful thanks for its best boon, CONTENT!

W. T. M.[521]

THE SEASON.

The gloominess of the weather, and its frequently fatal influence on the mind, suggest the expediency of inserting the following:--

DISSUASIONS FROM DESPONDENCY.

1. If you are distressed in mind, _live_; serenity and joy may yet dawn upon your soul.

2. If you have been contented and cheerful, _live_; and generally diffuse that happiness to others.

3. If misfortunes have befallen you by your own misconduct, _live_; and be wiser for the future.

4. If things have befallen you by the faults of others, _live_; you have nothing wherewith to reproach yourself.

5. If you are indigent and helpless, _live_; the face of things may agreeably change.

6. If your are rich and prosperous, _live_; and enjoy what you possess.

7. If another hath injured you, _live_; his own crime will be his punishment.

8. If you have injured another, _live_; and recompence it by your good offices.

9. If your character be attacked unjustly, _live_; time will remove the aspersion.

10. If the reproaches are well founded, _live_; and deserve them not for the future.

11. If you are already eminent and applauded, _live_; and preserve the honours you have acquired.

12. If your success is not equal to your merit, _live_; in the consciousness of having deserved it.

13. If your success hath exceeded your merit, _live_; and arrogate not too much to yourself.

14. If you have been negligent and useless to society, _live_; and make amends by your future conduct.

15. If you have been active and industrious, _live_; and communicate your improvements to others.

16. If you have spiteful enemies, _live_; and disappoint their malevolence.

17. If you have kind and faithful friends, _live_; to protect them.

18. If hitherto you have been impious and wicked, _live_; and repent of your sins.

19. If you have been wise and virtuous, _live_; for the future benefit of mankind.--And lastly,

20. If you hope for immortality, _live_; and prepare to enjoy it.

These “DISSUASIONS” are ascribed to the pen of a popular and amiable poet.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·17.

[520] Perennial Calendar, Dec. 2.

[521] These stanzas are very little more than an amplification of the well known lines of Lucretius,

_Suave mari magno turbantibus æquora ventis, E terrâ magnum alterius spectare laborem._

Cicero has expressed the same sentiment in his “De Natura;” see also lord Bacon and Rochefoucau amongst the moderns.

W. T. M

~December 3.~

1826. Advent Sunday.

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 3rd of December, 1729, died at Paris, John Hardouin, a learned Jesuit, especially celebrated for his condemnation of the writings of almost all the Greek and Latin authors as forgeries in the middle ages. He supposed that all history, philosophy, science, and even divinity, before the middle of the XIVth century, had been forged in the abbies of Germany, France, and Italy, by a set of monks, who availed themselves of the taking of Constantinople by the French in 1203, its recovery by the Greeks 1261, and the expedition of St. Louis to the Holy Land, to make the world believe that the writings of the Greeks and Romans were then first discovered, and brought into the west: whereas they had been compiling them in their cells, and burying them in their libraries, for their successors to draw forth to light. Though he was ably refuted by Le Clerc and other distinguished writers, and recanted his opinions, in consequence of the superiors of his church proscribing his works, yet he repeated these absurd notions in subsequent publications.[522]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·62.

[522] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~December 4.~

THE WALKING POST.

In December, 1808, was living William Brockbank, whose daily pedestrian achievements occasioned public notice of him to the following effect. He was the Walking Post from Manchester to Glossop, in Derbyshire, a distance of sixteen miles, which he performed every day, Sundays excepted; returned the same evening, and personally delivered the letters, newspapers, &c. in that populous and commercial country, to all near the road, which made his daily task not less than thirty-five miles, or upwards. What is more extraordinary, he

“This daily coarse of duty _walk’d_”

in less than twelve hours a day, and never varied a quarter of an hour from his usual time of arriving at Glossop.

Brockbank was a native of Millom, in Cumberland, and had daily walked the distance between Whitehaven and Ulverstone, frequently under the necessity of wading the river at Muncaster, by which place he constantly went, which is at least three miles round. Including the different calls he had to make at a short distance from the road, his daily task was not less than forty-seven miles.[523]

THE WEATHER.

Now is the time when, in some parts of England, a person of great note formerly, in every populous place, was accustomed to make frequent nocturnal rambles, and proclaim all tidings which it seemed fitting to him that people should be awakened out of their sleep to harken to. For the use of this personage, “the Bell-man,” there is a book, now almost obsolete as regards its use, with this title explanatory of its purpose,--“The Bell-man’s Treasury, containing above a Hundred several Verses fitted for all Humours and Fancies, and suited to all times and seasons.” London, 1707, 8vo. From the riches of this “treasury,” whence the predecessors of the present parish Bell-man took so much, a little may be extracted for the reader’s information. First then, if the noisy rogue were thereunto moved by a good and valuable consideration, we find, according to the aforesaid work, and the present season, that we ought to be informed, by sound of bell, and public proclamation,

_Upon a Windy Night._

Now ships are tost upon the angry main, And Boreas boasts his uncontrolled reign: The strongest winds their breath and vigour prove, And through the air th’ increasing murmurs shove. Think, you that sleep secure between the sheets, What skies your _Bell-man_ tempts, what dangers meets.

Then, again, according to the book of forms, he is instructed to agitate us with the following

_Upon a Star-light Night._

Were I a conjurer, such nights as these I’d choose to calculate nativities; For every star to that degree prevails, One might e’en count, and then turn up their tails. This night will _Flamstead_, and the _Moorfields’_ fry Such knowledge gain, they’ll seldom tell a lye.

As an amplification of the common cry of watchmen, may be produced the ancient Bell-man’s.

_Upon a Night of all Weathers._

This night, so different is the changing _weather_, Boisterous or calm, I cannot tell you whether ’Tis either fair or foul; but, altogether, Just as to cry a star-light night I study, Immediately the air grows dark and cloudy: In short, the temper of the skies, if _any_, Is _all_, and nature makes a _miscellany_.

MEN IN THE MOON.

A few years ago, professor Gruithausen, of Munich, wrote an essay to show that there are many plain indications of inhabitants in the moon. In answer to certain questions, the “Munich Gazette” communicates some remarkable results, derived from a great number of observations--

1. In what latitude in the moon are there indications of vegetation?

2. How far are there indications of animated beings?

3. Where are the greatest and plainest traces of art on the surface of the moon?

With respect to the first question, it appears from the observations of Schroter and Gruithausen, that the vegetation on the moon’s surface extends to fifty-five south latitude, and sixty-five north latitude. Many hundred observations show, in the different colours and monthly changes, three kinds of phenomena which cannot possibly be explained, except by the process of vegetation.

To the second question it is answered, that the indications from which the existence of living beings is inferred, are found from fifty north latitude, to thirty-seven, and perhaps forty-seven, south latitude.

The answer to the third question, points out the places on the moon’s surface in which are appearances of artificial causes altering the surface. The author examines the appearances that induce him to infer that there are artificial roads in various directions; and he describes a colossal edifice, resembling our cities, on the most fertile part near the moon’s equator, standing accurately according to the four cardinal points. The main cities are in angles of forty-five degrees and ninety degrees. A building resembling what is called a star-redoubt, the professor presumes to be dedicated to religious purposes, and as they can see no stars in the daytime (their atmosphere being so pure) he thinks that they worship the stars, and consider the earth as a natural clock. His essay is accompanied by plates.

* * * * *

The sombre sadness of the evening shades Steal slowly o’er the wild sequester’d glen, And seem to make its loneliness more lonely-- In ages past, nature was here convuls’d, And, with a sudden and terrific crash, Asunder rent the adamantine hills-- Now, as exhausted with the pond’rous work, She lies extended in a deathful trance-- The mountains form her couch magnificent; Heaven’s glittering arch her canopy; The snows made paler by the rising moon, Her gorgeous winding sheet; and the dark rocks That cast deep shadows on the expanse below, The sable ’scutcheon of the mighty dead-- The roar of waters, and the north wind’s moan Give music meet for her funereal dirge.

Yon giant crag, the offspring of her throes, Has rear’d his towering bulk a thousand years, Grown hoary in the war of elements, And still defies the thunder, and the storm But in his summer pride, his stately form Is mantled o’er with purple, green, and gold, And his huge head is garlanded with flowers.

PENNY LOTTERIES AT BROUGH, WESTMORELAND.

About this time, when gardens look in a dormant state, there are frequently Penny Lotteries in the north of England; and very often a whole garden is purchased for one penny. There are sometimes twenty tickets or more, as the case may be, all written on them “blank,” save “_the prize_.” These are put into a hat, and a boy stands on a form or chair holding the hat on his head, while those who have bought a ticket ascend the form alternately, “one by one,” and, shutting their eyes, take a ticket, which is opened by a boy who is at the bottom for that purpose. The tickets are only a penny each, and sometimes a garden (worth a few shillings) or whatever the sale may be, is bought for so trifling a sum.

W. H. H.

* * * * *

_For the Every-Day Book._

SONNET TO WINTER.

WINTER! though all thy hours are drear and chill, Yet hast thou one that welcome is to me Ah! ’tis when daylight fades, and noise ’gins still, And we afar can faintly darkness see;[524] When, as it seems too soon to shut out day And thought, with the intrusive taper’s ray, We trim the fire, the half-read book resign, And in our easy chairs at ease recline, Gaze on the deepening sky, in thoughtful fit Clinging to light, as loath to part with it Then, half asleep, life seems to us a dream,-- And magic, all the antic shapes, that gleam Upon the walls, by the fire’s flickerings made; And, oft we start, surpris’d but not dismay’d. Ah! when life fades, and death’s dark hour draws near, May we as timely muse, and be as void of fear!

W. T. M.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·90.

[523] Sporting Magazine.

[524] Darkness visible.--_Milton._

~December 5.~

ST. NICHOLAS’ EVE.

The versifier of ancient customs, Naogeorgus, relates through the English of his translator, Barnaby Googe, a curious practice on the vigil of this festival:--

Saint Nicholas money usde to give to maydens secretlie, Who, that he still may use his woonted liberalitie, The mothers all their children on the Eeve doe cause to fast, And when they every one at night in senselesse sleepe are cast, Both Apples, Nuttes, and Peares they bring, and other things beside, As caps, and shooes, and petticotes, which secretly they hide, And in the morning found, they say, that this saint Nicholas brought: Thus tender mindes to worship saints and wicked things are taught.

A festival or ceremony called Zopata, from a Spanish word signifying a shoe, prevails in Italy in the courts of certain princes on St. Nicholas’ day. Persons hide presents in the shoes and slippers of those they do honour to, in such manner as may surprise them on the morrow when they come to dress. This is said to be done in imitation of the practice of St. Nicholas, who used in the night time to throw purses in at the windows of poor maids, for their marriage portions.[525]

Mr. Brady says, that “St. Nicholas was likewise venerated as the protector of virgins; and that there are, or were until lately, numerous fantastical customs observed in Italy and various parts of France, in reference to that peculiar tutelary patronage. In several convents it was customary, on the eve of St. Nicholas, for the _boarder_ to place each a silk stocking at the door of the apartment of the abbess, with a piece of paper enclosed, recommending themselves to ‘_great St. Nicholas of her chamber_:’ and the next day they were called together to witness the saint’s attention, who never failed to fill the stockings with sweetmeats, and other trifles of that kind, with which these credulous virgins made a general feast.”[526]

PIG-ALLS.

A correspondent remarks, that it is now customary for boys to take their pigs by the hedgeways in the country to feed upon the ‘haws,’ which in the west are called _pegalls_, or _pigalls_. The boys go foremost with long poles, and beat the hedges, while the swine, after hearing where they fall, work most industriously for their provender till dusk, when they are driven home till daylight.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·70.

[525] Brand.

[526] Brady’s Clavis Calendaria.

~December 6.~

ST. NICHOLAS.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--In your fiftieth number, p. 1566, under the head

“St. Nicholas in Russia,”

you give a very correct account of the festivities which usually enliven the 5th December in _Holland_, but not a word of _Russia_. It appears you have mistaken the situation of Leeuwarden, which is not a Russian, but a Dutch town. Friesland was one of the Seven United Provinces. Perhaps you may think it worth while to correct this error.

N. N.

_December 18, 1825._

* * * * *

“At the Est ende of the Chirche of Bethlem ys a cave in the grounde wher sumtyme stod a Chirche of Seynt Nicholas. In the same cave entred ower blyssid lady with hyr Sone, and hyd hyr for ffer of Kyng Herrod. The gronde ys good for Norces that lake mylk for ther Childern.”[527]

* * * * *

On the 6th of December 1826 _The Times_ newspaper contained the subjoined article:--

_M. BOCHSA._

The following is an extract from the _French Moniteur_ of Thursday, February 19, 1818:--

COURT OF ASSIZE AT PARIS.

SITTING OF FEB. 17.

CASE OF THE COMPOSER BOCHSA.

The Court condemned, in contumacy, Nicholas Bochsa, composer of music and harp-player, whose disappearance about a year ago, it will be recollected, made so scandalous a noise. He was accused--

1. Of having, on the 26th of last September, committed the crime of private forgery, by counterfeiting, or causing to be counterfeited, a bond for four thousand francs, and by signing it with the forged signatures, Berton, Mehul, Nicolo, and Boyeldieu.

2. Of having, on the 13th of October, 1816, committed a private forgery, by counterfeiting a resolution and receipt of the committee of the shareholders of the theatre Feydeau, and by signing them with the forged signature Rezicourt.

3. Of having, on the 20th of January, 1817, committed a private forgery, by counterfeiting a resolution of the shareholders of the theatre Feydeau, with the same forged signature.

4. Of having, on the 1st of March, 1817, committed a commercial forgery, by fabricating a bill of exchange for 16,500 francs, and signing it with the forged signatures, Despermont, Perregaux, Lafitte and Company, and Berton.

5. Of having, on the 9th of March, 1817, committed a private forgery, by counterfeiting an invoice of musical instruments, and a bond for 14,000 francs, and signing them with the forged signature of Pozzo di Borgo.

6. Of having, on the 11th of March, 1817, committed the crime of private forgery, by fabricating three bonds for different sums, and signing them with the forged signatures, Count Chabrol, and Finquerlin.

7. Of having, on the 11th of March, 1817, committed a private forgery, by fabricating two bonds, one for 10,000 francs, the other for 5,000 francs, upon the funds of the English legation, and by signing them with the forged signatures, Stuart, Amaury, and Wells.

8. Of having knowingly made use of all these forged documents.

Besides these forgeries, Bochsa appears to have fabricated many others, particularly bonds bearing the forged signatures of M. le Comte De Cazes, and of Lord Wellington.

The Court pronounced him guilty of all these private and commercial forgeries, and condemned him to twelve years of forced labour, to be branded with the letters T. F., to be fined 4,000 francs, &c.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 41·10.

THE BOY BISHOP.

In addition to the particulars respecting the institution of a child to “the office and work of a bishop,” in the Romish church, on St. Nicholas’s day, the following is extracted from the English annals.--“The Boy bishop, or St. Nicholas, was commonly one of the choristers, and therefore in the old offices was called _Episcopus Choristarum, Bishop of the Choristers_, and was chosen by the rest to this honour. But afterward there were many St. Nicholases: and every parish, almost, had its St. Nicholas. And from this St. Nicolas’s day to Innocents’ day at night, this boy bore the name of a bishop, and the state and habit too, wearing the mitre and the pastoral staff, and the rest of the pontifical attire; nay, and reading the holy offices. While he went his procession, he was much feasted and treated by the people, as it seems, much valuing his blessing; which made the people so fond of keeping this holyday.”[528]

It appears from the register of the capitulary acts of York cathedral, that the Boy Bishop there was to be handsome and elegantly shaped.[529]

He lived longer than men who were stronger, And was too old to live any longer.

On the 6th of December, 1670, died Henry Jenkins, aged one hundred and sixty-nine years.

Jenkins was born at Bolton-upon-Swale in 1500, and followed the employment of fishing for one hundred and forty years. When about eleven or twelve years old, he was sent to Northallerton, with a horse-load of arrows for the battle of Flodden-field, with which a bigger boy (all the men being employed at harvest) went forward to the army under the earl of Surrey; king Henry VIII. being at Tournay. When he was more than a hundred years old, he used to swim across the river with the greatest ease, and without catching cold. Being summoned to a tithe cause at York, in 1667, between the vicar of Catterick and William and Peter Mawbank, he deposed, that the tithes of wool, lamb, &c. were the vicar’s, and had been paid, to his knowledge, one hundred and twenty years and more. And in another cause, between Mr. Hawes and Mr. Wastel of Ellerton, he gave evidence to one hundred and twenty years. Being born before parish registers were kept, which did not come into use till the thirtieth of Henry VIII., one of the judges asked him what memorable battle or event had happened in his memory; to which he answered, “that when the battle of Flodden-field was fought, where the Scots were beat, with the death of their king, he was turned of twelve years of age.” Being asked how he lived, he said, “by thatching and salmon fishing;” that when he was served with a subpœna, he was thatching a house, and would dub a hook with any man in Yorkshire; that he had been butler to lord Conyers, of Hornby-castle, and that Marmaduke Brodelay, lord abbot of Fountains, did frequently visit his lord, and drink a hearty glass with him; that his lord often sent him to inquire how the abbot did, who always sent for him to his lodgings, and, after ceremonies, as he called it, passed, ordered him, besides wassel, a quarter of a yard of roast-beef for his dinner, (for that monasteries did deliver their guests meat by measure,) and a great black jack of strong drink. Being further asked, if he remembered the dissolution of religious houses, he said, “Very well; and that he was between thirty and forty years of age when the order came to dissolve those in Yorkshire; that great lamentation was made, and the country all in a tumult, when the monks were turned out.”

In the same parish with Jenkins, there were four or five persons reputed a century old, who all said he was an elderly man ever since they knew him. Jenkins had sworn in Chancery and other courts to above a hundred and forty years’ memory. In the king’s remembrancer’s office, in the exchequer, is a record of a deposition taken, 1665, at Kettering, in Yorkshire, in a cause “Clark and Smirkson,” wherein Henry Jenkins, of Ellerton-upon-Swale, labourer, aged 157 years, was produced and sworn as a witness. His diet was coarse and sour; towards the latter end of his days he begged up and down.

Born when the Roman catholic religion was established, Jenkins saw the supremacy of the pope overturned; the dissolution of monasteries, popery re-established, and at last the protestant religion securely fixed on a rock of adamant. In his time the invincible armada was destroyed; the republic of Holland was formed; three queens were beheaded, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Mary queen of Scots; a king of Spain was seated upon the throne of England; a king of Scotland was crowned king of England at Westminster, and his son and successor was beheaded before his own palace; lastly, the great fire in London happened in 1666, at the latter end of his wonderfully long life.

Jenkins could neither read nor write. He died at Ellerton-upon-Swale, and was buried in Bolton church-yard, near Catterick and Richmond, in Yorkshire, where a small pillar was erected to his memory, and this epitaph, composed by Dr. Thomas Chapman, master of Magdalen-college, Cambridge, from 1746 to 1760, engraven upon a monument in Bolton church.

INSCRIPTION.

Blush not, MARBLE! To rescue from oblivion The Memory of HENRY JENKINS; A person obscure in birth, But of a life truly memorable: For, He was enriched With the goods of Nature If not of Fortune; And happy In the duration, If not variety, Of his enjoyments: And, tho’ the partial world Despised and disregarded His low and humble state, The equal eye of Providence Beheld and blessed it, With a patriarch’s health, and length of days: To teach mistaken man, These blessings Were intail’d on temperance, A life of labour, and a mind at ease. He liv’d to the amazing age of 169, Was interr’d here _December_ 6th, 1670; And had this justice done to his memory 1743.[530]

There is a large half sheet portrait of Henry Jenkins, etched by Worlidge, (after an original painting by Walker,) from whence the present engraving is copied, and there is a mezzotinto of him after the same etching.

[527] From the MS. Diary of sir Richard Torkington, quoted in Mr. Fosbroke’s “British Monachism,” 51, from the “Gentleman’s Magazine” 1812.

[528] Strype’s “Memorials.”

[529] Brand.

[530] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1814. Inscription beneath Worlidge’s print.

~December 7.~

OLD SIGHTS OF LONDON.

In December, 1751, the following “Uncommon Natural Curiosities” were exhibited in London.

1. A _Dwarf_, from Glamorganshire, in his fifteenth year, two feet six inches high, weighing only twelve pounds, yet very proportionable.

2. _John Coan_, a Norfolk dwarf, aged twenty-three; he weighed, with all his clothes, but thirty-four pounds, and his height, with his hat, shoes, and wig on, was but thirty-eight inches; his body was perfectly straight, he was of a good complexion, and sprightly temper, sung tolerably, and mimicked a cock’s crowing very exactly. A child three years eight months old, of an ordinary size, with his clothes on, weighed thirty-six pounds, and his height, without any thing on his head, was thirty-seven inches seven-tenths, which on comparison gives an idea of the smallness of this dwarf.

3. A _Negro_, who by a most extraordinary and singular dilatation and contraction of the deltoid and biceps muscles of the arm, those of the back, &c., clasped his hands full together, threw them over his head and back, and brought them in that position under his feet. This he repeated, backwards or forwards, as often as the spectators desired, with the greatest facility.

4. A _Female Rhinoceros_, or true Unicorn, a beast of upwards of eight thousand pounds weight, in a natural coat of mail or armour, having a large horn on her nose, three hoofs on each foot, and a hide stuck thick with scales pistol proof, and so surprisingly folded as not to hinder its motion.

5. A _Crocodile_, _alive_, taken on the banks of the Nile in Egypt, a creature _never seen before alive in England_.[531]

This is a verbatim account of these sights published at the time; the prices of admission are not mentioned, but they were deemed worthy of notice as remarkable exhibitions at the period. In the present day the whole of them would scarcely make more than a twopenny show; and, at that low rate, without a captivating showman, they would scarcely attract. London streets are now literally “strewed with rarities,” and “uncommon things,” at which our forefathers stared with wonder, are most common.

A PARTICULAR ARTICLE.

“A READER,” at p. 1584, should have had “Lyneham, Wilts,” as the place of his residence, attached to his remarks on an account of “Clack Fall Fair,” at p. 1371, which was supplied by “an old correspondent,” with whose name and address the editor is acquainted, and whose subjoined communication claims regard. He writes in explanation, and adds some very pleasant particulars.

CLACK FALL FAIR.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Dear Sir,--I cannot allow your pages to close without replying to the “Corrections and Illustrations,” p. 1584, made by “A Reader” respecting “Clack and its vicinity.”

_First._ I observe that Bradenstoke priory is usually called the “Abbey,” in the neighbourhood,--not the “Priory.” There is a tree growing upon the tower, and a legend respecting it. I was once taken up to see it blossom, having slept in the room under it with my schoolfellow, John Bridges, whose mother, at that time a widow, kept the farm, and a most excellent woman she was.

_Secondly._ I should have considered the stating, “that a carpenter, while digging, struck his spade against an image of gold, and has it in his possession,” was sufficient, without further inquiry or remark. I repeat the fact for a truth. I _know_ the _man_, and have _seen_ the IMAGE. As an antiquary myself, I assure you, sir, I could fain dig for similar hidden treasures in the hope of like reward. The person who owns the image is not needy, he therefore would not part with his weight of gold for more sovereign current weight.

_Thirdly._ When young, I descended several feet into the “subterraneous passage” referred to by your “Reader.” Though I am willing to admit the possibility of monkish imposition--such a passage has, however, been believed to have existed by the oldest people of Clack. Similarly, it is conjectured, that a passage once ran from Canonbury-tower, Islington, to the palace Kensington. Your “Reader” is rather too sceptical to challenge me to a proof, which I take only in a topographical sense. Of whatever effect tradition may be, much historical truth is notwithstanding embodied in it: furthermore, it is well known, that subterraneous passages led from place to place, when castle building was in vogue.

_Fourthly._ The oldest man living in Seagry, at the time I was shown the stone in Malmsbury abbey, whose name was Carey, was the occasion of my going to that place to see the stone: I paid sixpence to the person who gave me a view of it. He represented it to have been done by “Geoffry Miles”--the boy was a choirister: this is his information, not mine. The impression ever after guarded my conduct in school.

_Fifthly._ As to “Joe Ody,” your “Reader’s” own words prove the truth of what I have said of him, and the “_may be correct_” is not called for. The lord chancellor could not have been more doubtful than your anonymous “Reader,” as to my information and communication. Some of the Ody family are now residing in Camberwell, whither your “Reader” may resort, should he be desirous of learning more of Joe’s merry-andrewism, who was no mean disciple of the rev. Andrew, his patron.

_Sixthly._ Your “Reader’s” hit at “Bowles” is corrected by me at the page in which his reference stands. Would that the “Bowles’ controversy” with Byron and Roscoe, respecting Pope, had been as easily terminated, and with as little acrimony and as much satisfaction!

_Seventhly._ The room I have already occupied in this paper prevents my stating much concerning “Clack Mount;”--this mount is, however, remarkable for two things,--the resort of bonfire makers, November 5, and the club at Whitsuntide. At the time of the _ox-roasting_ many years since, in peaceful-ending times and rejoicing, this “mount” was a scene of delight and festivity. A band of music resorted thither, a line was formed as on club-day, beer was given round, and the collected people of both sexes, young and old, joined in the hilarious jubilee; after which the band, graced by every pretty girl, paraded to the priory, and played there in the best room. Its furniture, I remember, looked clubbed, dark, and glossy; it seemed, to me, a pity to tread on the shining floor, it was so antiquely neat and sacred. Given to kissing, when very young, I shall never forget touching the rosy cheeks of Miss Polly Bridges behind the awful door of the sacristy, at which theft I was caught by her laughing mother;--I beg to apologise to your “Reader,” sir, for this (digression) _confession_, but as my ancestors came from the priory, and _Christmas_ being near, I trust he will _pardon_ me, as Polly’s mother gave me _absolution_. On this ox-roasting occasion, Clack seemed really rising out of the stones. Dancing, music, holyday, and mirth, pervaded every house; and, very unusual, every poor person that brought a plate for the portion of slices of sheep, roasted opposite at baker Hendon’s, pretended to have _more_ children than there were at home; some families imposed on the cook by two and three applications.--Who does not recollect the ox and sheep roasting? I can hardly resist a description of the many scenes I witnessed several days successively in the various villages--of the many happy hearts, and their intimate enjoyments. I could almost follow the example of “Elia” himself, and at once be jocose, classical, and fastidious. But mercy on your readers’ patience denies me the pleasure.

Therefore, _Lastly_, “The Maypole.” It was standing, fifteen feet high, thirty-six years ago. The higher part was cut off at the request of Madam Heath, before whose house, and the Trooper, it stood. I once myself saw the “morris-dance” round it, when cowslips, oxlips, and other flowers were suspended up and down it: nails were driven round the lower part to prevent a further incision. Unfortunately for the writer, the land which lies from “Clack to Barry-end,” a distance less than two miles, once belonged to my forefathers. Maud Heath, who caused a _causeway_ to be made and kept in order to this day, from Callaway’s-bridge to Chippenham, was one of my collaterals.

Thanking you, sir, for your indulgence, and a “Reader” for his giving me an opportunity of illustrating his positions,

I am,

truly yours,

AN OLD CORRESPONDENT.

_Dec. 11, 1826._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·82.

[531] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~December 8.~

CONCEPTION B. V. M.

This day is so marked in the church of England calendar and almanacs. It is the Romish festival of “_The Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin_,” whom that church states to have been conceived and born without original sin. A doctrine whereon more has been written, perhaps, than any other point of ecclesiastical controversy. One author, Peter D’Alva, has published forty-eight folios on the mysteries of the Conception.

The immaculate conception and happy nativity of the Virgin are maintained to have taken place at Loretto, about 150 miles from Rome; and further, that at that particular place, “hallowed by her birth,” she was saluted by the angel Gabriel, and that she there nurtured our Saviour until he was twelve years of age. The popular belief readily yielding to that which power dictated, Loretto became one of the richest places in the world, from the numerous pilgrimages and votive presents made to the “_Sancta Casa_,” or “Holy House,” to enclose which, a magnificent church was erected and dedicated to the Virgin, hence generally styled “our Lady of Loretto.”

Peter the Lombard originally started the mystery of the immaculate conception in the year 1060; though Baronius affirms, that it was “discovered by Revelation” in the year 1109, to one, (but his name is not recorded,) “who was a great lover of the Virgin, and daily read her office.” On the day he was to be married, however, he was “so much occupied,” that this usual piece of devotion escaped his attention until he was in “the nuptial office,” when, suddenly recollecting the omission, he sent his bride and all the company home while he performed it. During this pious duty, the Virgin appeared to him with her son in her arms, and reproached him for his neglect, affording, however, the glorious hope of salvation, if he would “quit his wife and consider himself espoused to her,” declaring to him the whole of the circumstances of her nativity, which he reported to the pope, who naturally caused her feast immediately to be instituted.

The canons of Lyons attempted to establish an office for this mystery in the year 1136, but Bernard opposed it. The council at Oxford, in 1222, left people at liberty either to observe the day or not. Sixtus IV., however, in the year 1476, ordered it to be generally held in commemoration, although the alleged circumstances attendant upon this immaculate conception are not, even in the church of Rome, held as an article of faith, but merely reckoned a “pious opinion.” The council of Trent confirmed the ordinances of Sixtus, but without condemning as heretics those who refused to observe it; and Alexander V. issued his bull, even commanding that there should not be any discussion upon such an intricate subject. The Spaniards, however, were so strenuous in their belief of this mystery, that from the year 1652, the knights of the military orders of St. James of the sword, Calatrava, and Alcantara, each made a vow at their admission to “defend” the doctrine.

In the popish countries, the Virgin is still the principal favourite of devotion, and is addressed by her devotees under the following, from among many other titles, ill suiting with the reformed sentiments of this country.

_Empress of Heaven!_

_Queen of Heaven!_

_Empress of Angels!_

_Queen of Angels!_

_Empress of the Earth!_

_Queen of the Earth!_

_Lady of the Universe!_

_Lady of the World!_

_Mistress of the World!_

_Patroness of the Men!_

_Advocate for Sinners!_

_Mediatrix!_

_Gate of Paradise!_

_Mother of Mercies!_

_Goddess! and_

_The only Hope of Sinners!_

Under the two latter, they implore the Virgin for salvation by the power which, as a mother, she is inferred to possess of “commanding her son!” The legends afford tales in support of the opinion, that she not only possesses, but actually exerts such authorities.--“O Mary,” says St. Bonaventure, “be a man never so wicked and miserable a sinner, you have the soft compassion of a mother for him, and never leave him until you have reconciled him to his judge.” One instance of which peculiar protection of sinners is recorded from father Crassett, who with much solemnity states, that “a soldier, hardened by his occupation, had not only renounced Christ, but given himself up wholly to the devil and the most vicious courses, though, as he did not also renounce the Virgin, he in a time of much necessity fervently prayed for her intercession.” This application, he adds, “was instantly attended to, and the man heard the benevolent mother of our Lord desire her son to have mercy upon him; who, not to refuse his parent, answered, he would do it for her sake, notwithstanding he had himself been wholly forgotten and unnoticed.”

The first who was particularly noticed as introducing this worship of the Virgin, is Peter Gnapheus, bishop of Antioch, in the fifth century, who appointed her name to be called upon in the prayers of the church. It is said that Peter Fullo, a monk of Constantinople, introduced the name of the Virgin Mary in the public prayers about the year 480; but it is certain, she was not generally invoked in public until a long time after that period.[532]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·22.

[532] Mr. Brady’s Clavis Calendaria.

~December 9.~

JEWISH MARRIAGE CEREMONY.

On the 9th of December, 1809, the following cause was tried in the court of King’s-bench, Guildhall, London, before lord Ellenborough and a special jury.

_Holme_ and others v. _Noah_.

Mr. Garrow stated this to be an action upon a bill of exchange for a small sum of money for coals, which the plaintiffs, who were coal-merchants, had furnished to the defendant, who was an ingenious lady, employing herself in drawing pictures. The bill, when due, had not been honoured.

Mr. Park, in defence to the action, maintained, that the defendant was a married woman, and said he held an excellent treatise in his hand, called “_Uxor Hebreiaca_,” from whence he cited in behalf of his client, who was a Jewess, whose husband was alive.

Mr. Philips, reader of the Synagogue of the Jews in Leadenhall-street, proved the marriage to have taken place in the year 1781; he was present at it. The proper priest, now dead, officiated in the usual form and solemnity, and these parties were duly united in lawful marriage, according to the Mosaic form. He was one of the attesting witnesses of the entry of the marriage in the book of the priest.

Mr. Levi proved that he knew the husband and wife; was present at the marriage, he being then only thirteen.

Jos. Abidigore, a teacher of the Hebrew language, read in English the entry in the priest’s book of this marriage; the ceremony was executed by the priest. The entry in English was thus:

“Fourth day of the week, in the second month Neron, in the year 5541 after the creation of the world, according to the reckoning here in London. Henry Noel said to Emily--“Become thou a wife unto me, according to the law of Moses, and I will ever after maintain thee according to the rites of the Jews;” and the priest said, “I heard him account her wife, and she shall bring to him the dowry of her virginity according to the law, and she shall remain and cohabit with him.” To which the lady did consent and become unto him his wife, and she offered him presents consisting of silver and gold, and splendid ornaments of gold, and 100 pieces of fine silver; and the bridegroom accepted these presents of the bride, and brought also 100 pieces of the like gold, ornaments, and fine silver; the whole amounting together to 200 pieces of gold and fine silver; and the bridegroom doth take all the responsibility of the care of all for himself, for his bride, and for their children. And their maintenance to be had out of the property which he doth possess, under this solemn union.”

_Lord Ellenborough._--This marriage being proved to be duly had according to the solemnities of the Mosaic law, the plaintiffs must be called.--_Plaintiffs non-suited._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 37·85.

~December 10.~

A WELSH BAPTISM.

_For the Every-Day Book._

On the 10th of December, 1813, in passing through the small village of Llangemuch, in Carmarthenshire, I observed several of the villagers assembled round the door and windows of one of the cottages, and heard within the loud tones of what proved to be one of their preachers. I entered, and found them employed in the baptism of a child. The font was a pint basin, placed on a small plate; the humble table was covered with a clean napkin. The minister, a brawny, round-shouldered young man, with deep-cut features and overhanging brows, his eyes closed, and his body moving in every direction, roared out in the most discordant and deafening din; his voice then suddenly fell--then rose, and fell again, with most surprising, but most inharmonious modulation. The child he then proceeded to _cross_, “in the name, &c.,” the whole being in the Welsh language: the name of the child (Henry) was the only English sound which caught my ear. Next followed, what appeared to me, an address to the parents. The scene was picturesque. The cottage rude, and but half illumined by the dim light--the vehement contortions of the preacher--the mother and the child, with several young women, whose cheeks were as ruddy as the Welsh cloaks with which they were _adorned_, sitting beside the fire--the father, in his countenance a mixture of rudeness and of puritanism, leaning against the wall in an attitude of the profoundest attention--two or three old women coughing and groaning around the preacher--some labourers standing in a group, in a dark corner, scarcely discernible--and the chubby children, half wishing, but not daring, to continue their sports: these, and the other features of this unstudied scene, would have formed an admirable subject for the pencil of a Wilkie. At length the preacher approached to a conclusion, and wound up his address in a peroration, distinguished by increased energy of manner, by more hideous faces, by accelerated motions of his limbs, and by louder vociferation. He suddenly sat down: the religious part of the ceremony was over, and I was invited to partake of the rustic fare which had been provided for the occasion.

J. D.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 37·90.

~December 11.~

THE FEMALE CHARACTER.

Ledyard, the traveller, who died at Cairo in 1788, on his way to accomplish the task of traversing the widest part of the continent of Africa from east to west, in the supposed latitude of the Niger, pays a just and handsome tribute to the kind affections of the sex.

“I have always observed,” says Ledyard, “that women, in all countries, are civil and obliging, tender and humane; that they are ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest; and that they do not hesitate, like men, to perform a generous action. Not haughty, not arrogant, not supercilious, they are full of courtesy, and fond of society; more liable, in general, to err than man, but, in general, also more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. To a woman, whether civilized or savage, I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar; if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, the women have ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so: and to add to this virtue, (so worthy the appellation of benevolence,) these actions have been performed in so free and so kind a manner, that, if I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught; and if hungry, I ate the coarse morsel with a double relish.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·20

~December 12.~

NATIONAL SONG.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--I perceive in page 539 of the present volume, you have inserted the national song of “God save the King,” in the Welsh language, as translated by the able and learned Dr. W. O. Pughe, perhaps the following version of the same in the _Gaelic_ language, or that spoken by the Highlanders of Scotland, may prove acceptable to many readers.

O Dhia! cum suas, ard Dheors’ ar Righ, Gleidh fad ’a slan an Righ, Dhia tearn án Righ. Cuir buaidh, air a shluagh ’sa chath, Dion iad, fo d’ sgiath ’s mhagh Gu’m fad a riaghlis é gu maith, Dhia sabhal an Righ.

O Dhia! le d’ sgiath dion da shliochd, Gun choirp ’s gun chunart am feasd, Crun ’oirdearg na Righachd. Thoir dha, thar uile namhid, buaidh, Air tir agus, air a chuan, ’S gliocas mòr an fheum uair, Dhia bean’ichdo shluagh an Righ.

Bithidh ait’n diugh thar tir na ’n tònn, Aoibhneas, aighar, ceol’s fònn, Air son deugh shlaint ’an Righ. Deich agus da fhichid bliadhna Le cumhachd, onair agus cial, Lion è caithir alba na buaidh, Buanich O Dhia! sa’ ol an Righ.

Among the translations of Dr. Owen Pughe, his version of “_Non nobis Domine_” is excellent. I subjoin it, that you may make what use of it you please.

O, nid i ni, ein Jor, o nid i ni, Ond deled i dy Enw ogoniant byth, Ond deled i dy Enw ogoniant byth.

GWILYM SAIS.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·05.

~December 13.~

_Lucy._[533]

ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH.

Be virtuous; govern your passions; restrain your appetites; avoid excess and high-seasoned food; eat slowly, and chew your food well. Do not eat to full satiety. Breakfast betimes; it is not wholesome to go out fasting. In winter, a glass or two of wine is an excellent preservative against unwholesome air. Make a hearty meal about noon, and eat plain meats only. Avoid salted meats: those who eat them often have pale complexions, a slow pulse, and are full of corrupted humours. Sup betimes, and sparingly. Let your meat be neither too little nor too much done. Sleep not till two hours after eating. Begin your meals with a little tea, and wash your mouth with a cup of it afterward.

The most important advice which can be given for maintaining the body in due temperament, is to be very moderate in the use of all the pleasures of sense; for all excess weakens the spirits. Walk not too long at once. Stand not for hours in one posture; nor lie longer than necessary. In winter, keep not yourself too hot; nor in summer too cold. Immediately after you awake, rub your breast where the heart lies, with the palm of your hand. Avoid a stream of wind as you would an arrow. Coming out of a warm bath, or after hard labour, do not expose your body to cold. If in the spring, there should be two or three hot days, do not be in haste to put off your winter clothes. It is unwholesome to fan yourself during perspiration. Wash your mouth with water or tea, lukewarm, before you go to rest, and rub the soles of your feet warm. When you lie down, banish all thought.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·57.

[533] See vol. i. 1570.

~December 14.~

IRISH LINEN.

In December, 1738, was shown at the Linen Hall, in Dublin, a piece of linen, accounted the finest ever made; there were 3800 threads in the breadth. The trustees of the linen manufacture set a value of forty guineas on the piece, which contained 23 yards. It was spun by a woman of Down. About two years before, Mr. Robert Kaine, at Lurgan, county of Ardmagh, sold 24 yards of superfine Irish linen, manufactured in that town, for 40_s._ per yard, to the countess of Antrim which occasioned the following lines:--

Would all the great such patterns buy, How swiftly would the shuttles fly, Cambray should cease, and Hamburgh too, To boast their art! since Lurgan! you May, like Arachne, dare to vie, With any spinning deity; Nay, tho’ Asbestos she should weave, Thou, Lurgan, should’st the prize receive.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·20.

~December 15.~

A LITERARY DISASTER.

On a certain day, the date of which is uncertain, in the month of December, 1730, the books and MSS. of Dr. Tanner, bishop of St. Asaph, being on their removal from Norwich to Christchurch college in Oxford, fell into and lay under water twenty hours, and received great damage. Among them were near 300 volumes of MSS. purchased of Mr. Bateman, a bookseller, who bought them of archbishop Sancroft’s nephew. There were in all seven cart loads.[534]

It may be recollected that bishop Tanner was the friend of Mr. Browne Willis, respecting whom an account has been inserted, with an original letter from that distinguished antiquary to the prelate when chancellor of Norwich.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean temperature 38·67.

[534] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~December 16.~

Cambridge Term ends.

O SAPIENTIA.

The meaning of this term in the calendar is in vol. i. 1571.

STORY-TELLING.

Is a diversion of necessity in winter, when we are confined by the weather, and must make entertainment in the house, because we cannot take pleasure in the open air. Though at any time we may like, yet now we _love_ to hear accounts of sayings and doings in former times; and, therefore, it seems that a description of an old house in the country, and an old and true story belonging to it, may be agreeable.

AN ANCIENT HALL.

Littlecotes-house, two miles from Hungerford, in Berkshire, stands in a low and lonely situation. On three sides it is surrounded by a park that spreads over the adjoining hill; on the fourth, by meadows, which are watered by the river Kennet. Close on one side of the house is a thick grove of lofty trees, along the verge of which runs one of the principal avenues to it through the park. It is an irregular building of great antiquity, and was probably erected about the time of the termination of feudal warfare, when defence came no longer to be an object in a country-mansion. Many circumstances in the interior of the house, however, seem appropriate to feudal times. The hall is very spacious, floored with stones, and lighted by large transom windows, that are clothed with casements. Its walls are hung with old military accoutrements, that have long been left a prey to rust. At one end of the hall is a range of coats of mail and helmets, and there is on every side abundance of old-fashioned pistols and guns, many of them with matchlocks. Immediately below the cornice hangs a row of leathern jerkins, made in the form of a shirt, supposed to have been worn as armour by the vassals. A large oak-table, reaching nearly from one end of the room to the other, might have feasted the whole neighbourhood; and an appendage to one end of it, made it answer at other times for the old game of shuffle-board. The rest of the furniture is in a suitable style, particularly an arm-chair of cumbrous workmanship, constructed of wood, curiously turned, with a high back and triangular seat, said to have been used by judge Popham in the reign of Elizabeth. The entrance into the hall is at one end by a low door, communicating with a passage that leads from the outer door, in the front of the house, to a quadrangle within; at the other it opens upon a gloomy staircase, by which you ascend to the first floor, and passing the doors of some bed-chambers, enter a narrow gallery, which extends along the back front of the house from one end to the other of it, and looks upon an old garden. This gallery is hung with portraits, chiefly in the Spanish dresses of the sixteenth century. In one of the bed-chambers, which you pass in going towards the gallery, is a bedstead with blue furniture, which time has now made dingy and threadbare; and in the bottom of one of the bed-curtains you are shown a place where a small piece has been cut out and sewn in again; a circumstance which serves to identify the scene of the following story:--

It was a dark, rainy night in the month of November, that an old midwife sat musing by her cottage fire-side, when on a sudden she was startled by aloud knocking at the door. On opening it she found a horseman, who told her that her assistance was required immediately by a person of rank, and that she should be handsomely rewarded, but that there were reasons for keeping the affair a strict secret, and, therefore, she must submit to be blindfolded, and to be conducted in that condition to the bed-chamber of the lady. After proceeding in silence for many miles through rough and dirty lanes, they stopped, and the midwife was led into a house, which, from the length of her walk through the apartment, as well as the sounds about her, she discovered to be the seat of wealth and power. When the bandage was removed from her eyes, she found herself in a bed-chamber, in which were the lady, on whose account she had been sent for, and a man of haughty and ferocious aspect. The lady gave birth to a fine boy. Immediately the man commanded the midwife to give him the child, and, catching it from her, he hurried across the room, and threw it on the back of the fire, that was blazing in the chimney. The child, however, was strong, and by its struggles rolled itself off upon the hearth, when the ruffian again seized it with fury, and, in spite of the intercession of the midwife, and the more piteous entreaties of the mother, thrust it under the grate, and raking the live coals upon it, soon put an end to its life. The midwife, after spending some time in affording all the relief in her power to the wretched mother, was told that she must be gone. Her former conductor appeared, who again bound her eyes, and conveyed her behind him to her own home; he then paid her handsomely, and departed. The midwife was strongly agitated by the horrors of the preceding night; and she immediately made a deposition of the fact before a magistrate. Two circumstances afforded hopes of detecting the house in which the crime had been committed; one was, that the midwife, as she sat by the bed-side, had, with a view to discover the place, cut out a piece of the bed-curtain, and sewn it in again; the other was, that as she had descended the staircase, she had counted the steps. Some suspicions fell upon one Darrell, at that time the proprietor of Littlecote-house and the domain around it. The house was examined, and identified by the midwife, and Darrell was tried at Salisbury for the murder. By corrupting his judge, he escaped the sentence of the law; but broke his neck by a fall from his horse in hunting, in a few months after. The place where this happened is still known by the name of Darrell’s hill: a spot to be dreaded by the peasant whom the shades of evening have overtaken on his way.[535]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·67.

[535] In Dr. Drake’s “Shakspeare and his Times,” from sir Walter Scott’s “Rokeby.”

~December 17.~

COUNTRY MANSIONS.

During the reign of Henry VIII., and even of Mary, they were, if we except their size, little better than cottages, being thatched buildings, covered on the outside with the coarsest clay, and lighted only by lattices. When Harrison wrote, in the age of Elizabeth, though the greater number of manor-houses still remained framed of timber, yet he observes, “such as be latelie builded, are com’onlie either of bricke or hard stone, or both; their roomes large and comelie, and houses of office further distant from their lodgings.” The old timber mansions, too, were then covered with the finest plaster, which, says the historian, “beside the delectable whitenesse of the stuffe itselfe, is laied on so even and smoothlie, as nothing in my judgment can be done with more exactnesse:” and at the same time, the windows, interior decorations, and furniture, were becoming greatly more useful and elegant. “Of old time our countrie houses,” continues Harrison, “instead of glasse did use much lattise, and that made either of wicker or fine rifts of oke in chekerwise. I read also that some of the better sort, in and before the time of the Saxons, did make panels of horne instead of glasse, and fix them in woodden calmes. But as horne in windows is now quite laid downe in everie place, so our lattises are also growne into lesse use, because glasse is come to be so plentifull, and within a verie little so good cheape if not better then the other. The wals of our houses on the inner sides in like sort be either hanged with tapisterie, arras worke, or painted cloths, wherein either diverse histories, or hearbes, beasts, knots, and such like are stained, or else they are seeled with oke of our owne, or wainescot brought hither out of the east countries, whereby the roomes are not a little commanded, made warme, and much more close than otherwise they would be. As for stooves we have not hitherto used them greatlie, yet doo they now begin to be made in diverse houses of the gentrie. Like in the houses of knights, gentlemen, &c. it is not geson to behold generallie their great provision of Turkie worke, pewter, brasse, fine linen, and thereto costlie cupbords of plate, worth five or six hundred or a thousand pounds, to be deemed by estimation.”

The house of every country-gentleman of property included a neat chapel and a spacious hall; and where the estate and establishment were considerable, the mansion was divided into two parts or sides, one for the state or banqueting-rooms, and the other for the household; but in general, the latter, except in baronial residences, was the only part to be met with, and when complete, had the addition of parlours; thus Bacon, in his Essay on Building, describing the household side of a mansion, says, “I wish it divided at the first into a hall, and a chappell, with a partition between, both of good state and bignesse; and those not to goe all the length, but to have, at the further end, a winter and a summer parler, both faire: and under these roomes a faire and large cellar, sunke under ground: and likewise, some privie kitchens, with butteries and pantries, and the like.” It was the custom also to have windows opening from the parlours and passages into the chapel, hall, and kitchen, with the view of overlooking or controlling what might be going on; a trait of vigilant caution, which may still be discovered in some of our ancient colleges and manor-houses.

The hall of the country squire was the usual scene of eating and hospitality, at the upper end of which was placed the orsille, or high table, a little elevated above the floor, and here the master of the mansion presided, with an authority, if not a state, which almost equalled that of the potent baron. The table was divided into upper and lower messes, by a huge saltcellar, and the rank and consequence of the visitors were marked by the situation of their seats above and below the saltcellar; a custom which not only distinguished the relative dignity of the guests, but extended likewise to the nature of the provision, the wine frequently circulating only above the saltcellar, and the dishes below it being of a coarser kind than those near the head of the table.[536]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·50.

[536] Dr. Drake

~December 18.~

Oxford Term ends.

OLD ENGLISH LIVING.

The usual fare of country-gentlemen, relates Harrison, was “foure, five, or six dishes, when they have but small resort,” and accordingly, we find that Justice Shallow, when he invites Falstaffe to dinner, issues the following orders: “Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William Cook.” But on feast-days, and particularly on festivals, the profusion and cost of the table were astonishing. Harrison observes, that the country-gentlemen and merchants contemned butcher’s meat on such occasions, and vied with the nobility in the production of rare and delicate viands, of which he gives a long list; and Massinger says,

“Men may talk of country Christmasses, Their thirty-pound butter’d eggs, their pies of carp’s tongues, Their pheasants drench’d with ambergris, the carcasses Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to Make sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts Were fasts, compared with the city’s.”

_City Madam_, act ii. sc. 1.

It was the custom in the houses of the country-gentlemen to retire after dinner, which generally took place about eleven in the morning, to the garden-bower, or an arbour in the orchard, in order to partake of the banquet or dessert; thus Shallow, addressing Falstaffe after dinner, exclaims, “Nay, you shall see mine orchard: where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year’s pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of carraways, and so forth.” From the banquet it was usual to retire to evening prayer, and thence to supper, between five and six o’clock; for, in Shakspeare’s time, there were seldom more than two meals--dinner and supper; “heretofore,” remarked Harrison, “there hath beene much more time spent in eating and drinking than commonlie is in these daies; for whereas of old we had breakfasts in the forenoone, beverages or nuntions after dinner, and thereto reare suppers generallie when it was time to go to rest. Now these od repasts, thanked be God, are verie well left, and ech one in manner (except here and there some yoonge hungrie stomach that cannot fast till dinner time) contenteth himselfe with dinner and supper onelie. The nobilitie, gentlemen, and merchantmen, especiallie at great meetings, doo sit commonlie till two or three of the clocke at afternoone, so that with manie it is an hard matter to rise from the table to go to evening praier, and returne from thence to come time enough to supper.”

The supper, which, on days of festivity, was often protracted to a late hour, and often, too, as substantial as the dinner, was succeeded, especially at Christmas, by gambols of various sorts; and sometimes the squire and his family would mingle in the amusements, or, retiring to the tapestried parlour, would leave the hall to the more boisterous mirth of their household; then would the blind harper, who sold his fit of mirth for a groat, be introduced, either to provoke the dance, or to rouse their wonder by his minstrelsy; his “matter being, for the most part, stories of old time,--as the tale of sir Topas, the reportes of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical rimes, made purposely for recreation of the common people, at Christmas dinners and brideales.”

The posset, at bed-time, closed the joyous day--a custom to which Shakspeare has occasionally alluded: thus Lady Macbeth says of the “surfeited grooms,” “I have drugg’d their possets;” Mr. Quickly tells Rugby, “Go; and we’ll have a posset for’t soon at night, in faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire;” and Page, cheering Falstaffe, exclaims, “Thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house.” Thomas Heywood, a contemporary of Shakspeare, has particularly noticed this refection as occurring just before bed-time: “Thou shalt be welcome to beef and bacon, and perhaps a bag-pudding; and my daughter Nell shall pop a posset upon thee when thou goest to bed.”[537]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·35.

[537] Dr. Drake.

~December 19.~

AN UPSTART.

Bishop Earle says, “he is a holiday clown, and differs only in the stuff of his clothes, not the stuff of himself; for he bare the king’s sword before he had arms to wield it; yet, being once laid o’er the shoulder with a knighthood, he finds the herald his friend. His father was a man of good stock, though but a tanner or usurer: he purchased the land, and his son the title. He has doffed off the name of a country fellow, but the look not so easy; and his face still bears a relish of churne-milk. He is guarded with more gold lace than all the gentlemen of the country, yet his body makes his clothes still out of fashion. His house-keeping is seen much in the distinct families of dogs, and serving-men attendant on their kennels, and the deepness of their throats is the depth of his discourse. A hawk he esteems the true burden of nobility, and is exceeding ambitious to seem delighted in the sport, and have his fist gloved with his jesses. A justice of peace he is to domineer in his parish, and do his neighbour wrong with more right. He will be drunk with his hunters for company, and stain his gentility with droppings of ale. He is fearful of being sheriff of the shire by instinct, and dreads the assize week as much as the prisoner. In sum, he’s but a clod of his own earth, or his land is the dunghill, and he the cock that crows over it; and commonly his race is quickly run, and his children’s children, though they scape hanging, return to the place from whence they came.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·40.

~December 20.~

Ember Week. See vol. i.

AN OLD ENGLISH SQUIRE.

Mr. Hastings, an old gentleman of ancient times in Dorsetshire, was low of stature, but strong and active, of a ruddy complexion, with flaxen hair. His clothes were always of green cloth, his house was of the old fashion; in the midst of a large park, well stocked with deer, rabbits, and fish-ponds. He had a long, narrow bowling-green in it; and used to play with round sand bowls. Here, too, he had a banqueting-room built, like a stand, in a large tree. He kept all sorts of hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger; and had hawks of all kinds, both long and short winged. His great hall was commonly strewed with marrow bones; and full of hawk-perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. The upper end of it was hung with fox-skins, of this and the last year’s killing. Here and there a pole-cat was intermixed; and hunters’ poles in great abundance. The parlour was a large room, completely furnished in the same style. On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay some of the choicest terriers, hounds, and spaniels. One or two of the great chairs had litters of cats in them, which were not to be disturbed. Of these, three or four always attended him at dinner; and a little white wand lay by his trencher, to defend it if they were too troublesome. In the windows, which were very large, lay his arrows, cross-bows, and other accoutrements. The corners of the room were filled with his best hunting and hawking poles. His oyster table stood at the lower end of the room, which was in constant use twice a day all the year round; for he never failed to eat oysters both at dinner and supper, with which the neighbouring town of Pool supplied him. At the upper end of the room stood a small table with a double desk; one side of which held a church bible, the other the book of martyrs. On different tables in the room lay hawks’ hoods, bells, old hats, with their crowns thrust in, full of pheasant eggs; tables, dice, cards, and store of tobacco pipes. At one end of this room was a door, which opened into a closet, where stood bottles of strong beer and wine; which never came out but in single glasses, which was the rule of the house; for he never exceeded himself, nor permitted others to exceed. Answering to this closet was a door into an old chapel, which had been long disused for devotion; but in the pulpit, as the safest place, was always to be found a cold chine of beef, a venison pasty, a gammon of bacon, or a great apple-pie, with thick crust well baked. His table cost him not much, though it was good to eat at. His sports supplied all but beef and mutton; except on Fridays, when he had the best of fish. He never wanted a London pudding, and he always sang it in with “My part lies therein-a.” He drank a glass or two of wine at meals; put sirup of gillyflowers into his sack; and had always a tun glass of small beer standing by him, which he often stirred about with rosemary. He lived to be a hundred; and never lost his eye-sight, nor used spectacles. He got on horseback without help; and rode to the death of the stag, till he was past four-score.[538]

Anciently it was the custom with many country gentlemen to spend their Christmas in London.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·17.

[538] Dr. Drake; from Hutchins’s Dorsetshire.

~December 21.~

ST. THOMAS’S DAY.

Now is a busy day in London, for wardmotes are held in the city by the aldermen of every ward, “for the election of officers for the year ensuing;” and hence, in the social public rooms of the citizens, there is great debate this evening, on the merits of the common-council-men returned without opposition, or on the qualifications of candidates who contest the poll for two days longer. The “Lumber-Troop” muster strong at their head-quarters near Gough-square; the “codgers” enlighten each other and their pipes in Bride-lane; the “Counsellors under the Cauliflower” hold divided council, they know where; and the “free and easy Johns” are to night more free than easy. These societies are under currents that set in strong, and often turn the tide of an election in favour of some “good fellow,” who is good no where but in “sot’s-hole.”

And now the “gentlemen of the inquest,” chosen “at the church” in the morning, dine together as the first important duty of their office; and the re-elected ward-beadles are busy with the fresh chosen constables; and the watchmen are particularly civil to every “drunken gentleman” who happens to look like one of the new authorities. And now the bellman, who revives the history and poetry of his predecessors, will vociferate--

_On_ St. Thomas’s _Day_.

My masters all, this is St. _Thomas_’ Day, And Christmas now can’t be far off, you’ll say, But when you to the Ward-motes do repair, I hope such good men will be chosen there, As _constables_ for the ensuing year As will not grutch the _watchmen_ good strong beer.[539]

Or,

_Upon the Constables first going out._

The world by sin is so degenerate grown, Scarce can we strictly call our own, _our own_; But by the patronage your watch affords, The thief in vain shall ’tempt the tradesman’s hoards: Their nightly ease enjoys each happy pair, Secure as those who first in Eden were: When willing quires of angels, as they slept, O’er their soft slumbers watchful centry kept.[540]

DOLEING DAY.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_Maidstone, 20th Dec. 1825._

Sir,--There is a custom prevalent in this neighbourhood, and without doubt at other places, to which I beg to call your attention. The subject to which I allude is the annual solicitation for charity on St. Thomas’s day. It has taken place here from time immemorial; consequently my object in writing is to request you will favour us in your instructive miscellany, with the origin of the custom, if possible. I shall relate a few instances of its prevalency which come within my own knowledge.

At Loose, near Maidstone, Mr. T. Charlton gives the poor of the parish certain quantities of wheat, apportioned to their families, in addition to which, his daughters give the widows a new flannel petticoat each; who, at the same time, go to the other respectable inhabitants of the place to solicit the usual donation, and it is not an uncommon thing for a family to get in this way six or seven shillings.

This custom is also prevalent at Linton, an adjoining parish; and I am informed that lord Cornwallis, who resides there, intends giving to the resident poor something very considerable. At Barming, C. Whittaker, esq. is provided with 100 loaves to distribute to the resident poor on this day, which to my own knowledge is annual on his part; they likewise go to the other respectable inhabitants, who also give their alms in the way they think best.

It may not be amiss to say, that the custom here is known by the name of “Doleing,” and the day is called “Doleing-day.”

If any of your correspondents, or yourself, can throw any light on this very ancient custom, I have no doubt but it will be very acceptable to your readers, and to none more than to

Your obliged friend,

W. W.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 37·17.

[539] Bellman’s Treasury, 1707.

[540] Ibid.

~December 22.~

CARD PLAYING.

As on this prevalent custom of the season there have been remarks, an anecdote from the Worcester Journal of 1760, before servants’ vails were abolished, and soon after the battle of Minden, may be added.

At a young lady’s rout there appeared a card hung to each of the candlesticks, with these words, “No card money, but you may speak to the drummer.” In a corner of a room stood the figure of a drummer on a box, with a hole in the top to receive money, and the figure held a paper in its hand containing a dialogue between John and Dick, two of the lady’s servants, wherein they mutually agreed, “Their wages being fully sufficient to defray all their reasonable demands, to dispose of the card money as a token of their regard to the Minden heroes; and, with their good young lady’s consent, appointed the drummer to be their receiver.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·37.

~December 23.~

THE CHRISTMAS DAYS.

_For the Every-Day Book._

Symptoms of the returning season of Christmas and its festivities are approaching; for the rustics are standing at the street-corners with boughs of clustering berry-holly with pointed leaves, glossy laurel, and the pink-eyed lauristina:--the cheesemonger perks a dandy sprig of evergreen in the centre of his half butter tub, and hangs the griskins and chines at his doorposts: the show of over-fed beasts is advertised, and graziers and come-up-to-town farmers, loiter here to see the prize-cattle and prizes adjudged to the best feeders: butchers begin to clear all obstructions, and whiten their shambles, and strew sawdust on the pavement, and in the avenues, to the scales and little countinghouse box in which sits the female accountant, “brisk as a bee” and full of the “Ready-reckoner:” fishmongers are no less active in showing the large eels and dainty fish, that are “fresh as a daisy” and cold as death: sprats arrive in abundance, and are cried up and down alleys and streets with wondrous competition: pew-openers now have leave of their churchwardens to buy quantum sufficit of yew, laurel, holly, and other evergreens to tie in bunches to the sconces and interior parts of churches: idle shopkeepers cannot be persuaded yet to clear the filth from their doors, thinking, perhaps, a temporary obstruction is a permanent attraction: watchmen now veer forth early at noon, with lanterns at their breasts, though it would be difficult to read the secrets deposited within: poulterers are early at market, and their shops are piled with poultry in a state of nudity and death: the undertaker is busy, like the tailor, with his work, and the charms of Christmas give temporary bustle to most classes of tradesmen: the green-grocer is decorating his half-glazed windows with his best fruits and most attractive edibles, which are served as luxuries rather than generous enjoyments; and his sly daughter takes care a certain branch of the business shall not be forgotten--I allude to

_The Mistletoe._

Sweet emblem of returning peace, The heart’s full gush, and love’s release; Spirits in human fondness flow And greet the pearly _Mistletoe_.

Many a maiden’s cheek is red By lips and laughter thither led; And flutt’ring bosoms come and go Under the druid _Mistletoe_.

Dear is the memory of a theft When love and youth and joy are left;-- The passion’s blush, the roses glow, Accept the Cupid _Mistletoe_.

Oh! happy, tricksome time of mirth Giv’n to the stars of sky and earth! May all the best of feeling know, The custom of the _Mistletoe_!

Spread out the laurel and the bay, For chimney-piece and window gay: Scour the brass gear--a shining row, And Holly place with _Mistletoe_.

Married and single, proud and free, Yield to the season, trim with glee: Time will not stay,--he cheats us, so-- A kiss?--’tis gone!--the _Mistletoe_.

_Dec. 1826._

*, *, P. * * * * *

A GLOOMY MORNING BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

It is methinks a morning full of fate! It riseth slowly, as her sullen car Had all the weights of sleep and death hung at it! She is not rosy-finger’d, but swoln black! Her face is like a water turn’d to blood, And her sick head is bound about with clouds As if she threatened night ere noon of day! It does not look as it would have a hail Or health wished in it, as of other morns.

_Jonson._

“And where did she come from? and who can she be? Did she fall from the sky? did she rise from the sea?”

Late one evening in the spring of 1817, the rustic inhabitants of Almondsbury, in Gloucestershire, were surprised by the entrance of a young female in strange attire. She wore leather shoes and black worsted stockings, a black stuff gown with a muslin frill at the neck, and a red and black shawl round her shoulders, and a black cotton shawl on her head. Her height was about five feet two inches, and she carried a small bundle on her arm containing a few necessaries. Her clothes were loosely and tastefully put on in an oriental fashion. Her eyes and hair were black, her forehead was low, her nose short, her mouth wide, her teeth white, her lips large and full, her under lip projected a little, her chin was small and round, her hands were clean and seemed unused to labour. She appeared about twenty-five years of age, was fatigued, walked with difficulty, spoke a language no one could comprehend, and signified by signs her desire to sleep in the village. The cottagers were afraid to admit her, and sought the decision of Mr. Worrall, a magistrate for the county, at Knole, whose lady caused her own maid to accompany her to a public-house in the village, with a request that she should have a supper, and a comfortable bed.

In the morning Mrs. Worrall found her, with strong traces of sorrow and distress on her countenance, and took her with her to Knole, but she went reluctantly. It was Good Friday, and at the mansion, observing a cross-bun, she cut off the cross, and placed it in her bosom.

Paper and a pen were handed to her to write her name; she shook her head: and when she appeared to comprehend what was meant, pointed to herself, and cried “Caraboo.” The next day she was taken to Bristol, examined before the mayor, at the Council-house, and committed to St. Peter’s Hospital as a vagrant, whither persons of respectability flocked to visit the incomprehensible inmate. From that place Mrs. Worrall removed her once more to Knole. A gentleman, who had made several voyages to the Indies, extracted from her signs, and gestures, and articulation, that she was the daughter of a person of rank, of Chinese origin, at “Javasu,” and that whilst walking in her garden, attended by three women, she had been gagged, and bound, and carried off, by the people of a pirate-prow, and sold to the captain of a brig, from whence she was transferred to another ship, which anchored at a port for two days, where four other females were taken in, who, after a voyage of five weeks, were landed at another port: sailing for eleven more weeks, and being near land, she jumped overboard, in consequence of ill usage, and swimming ashore, found herself on this coast, and had wandered for six weeks, till she found her way to Almondsbury. She described herself at her father’s to have been carried on men’s shoulders, in a kind of palanquin, and to have worn seven peacocks’ feathers on the right side of her head, with open sandals on her feet, having wooden soles; and she made herself a dress from some calico, given her by Mrs. Worrall, in the style of her own which had been embroidered. The late Mr. Bird, the artist, sketched her, according to this account, as in the engraving.

The particulars connected with these recitals, and her general conduct, were romantic in the extreme. At the end of two months she disappeared; and, to the astonishment of the persons whose sympathies she had excited, the lady Caraboo a native of Javasu, in the east, was discovered to have been born at Witheridge in Devonshire, where her father was a cobbler! A very full account of her singular imposition is given in “A Narrative,” published by Mr. Gutch of Bristol, in 1817, from whence this sketch is taken. After her remarkable adventures, she found it convenient to leave this country. A Bath correspondent writes as follows:--

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

In the year 1824, Caraboo having returned from America, took apartments in New Bond-street, where she made a public exhibition of herself--admittance _one shilling_ each person; but it does not appear that any great number went to see her.

Z.

* * * * *

GENTLE CRAFTSMEN,

An opportunity has not occurred, till now, to introduce the following

It was purposed to have been accompanied by others: as it is, indulgence is craved for it as a specimen of the art and dexterity of our ancestors in shoe-making and wearing. It is drawn from the original, purchased by Mr. J. J. A. F., with other curiosities, at the sale of the Leverian Museum.

The shoe is of white kid leather, calashed with black velvet. There are marks of stitches by which ornaments had been affixed to it. Its clog is simply a straight piece of stout leather, inserted in the underleather at the toe, and attached to the heel. That such were walked in is certain; that the fair wearers could have run in them is impossible to imagine. They were in fashion at the Restoration.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·72.

~December 24.~

ROBIN HOOD.

_For the Every-Day Book._

The 24th of December, among other causes, is rendered remarkable from its having been the day on which the bold Robin Hood breathed his last, in the year 1247.

The accounts of the life of this extraordinary outlaw are so various, and so much mixed up with fable, that to render a true history of him would be almost impossible.

His real name was Fitz-Ooth, his grandfather, Ralph Fitz-Ooth Earl of Kyme, whose name appears in the Roll of Battle Abbey, came over to England with William Rufus, and was married to a daughter of Gilbert de Gìent earl of Lincoln.[541]

His father, William Fitz-Ooth, in the times of feudal dependancy, was a ward of Robert earl of Oxford, who, by the King’s order, gave him his niece in marriage, the third daughter of lady Roisia de Vere, countess of Essex.[542]

Having dissipated his fortune, Robin Ooth, or Hood, as he was named, joined a band of depredators, and, as their chief, laid heavy contributions, for his support, on all such as he deemed rich enough to bear the loss.

He was famed for his courage, skill in archery, and kindness to the poor, who often shared with him in the plunder he had taken. The principal scene of his exploits is said to have been in Sherwood Forest, and the period, that of the reign of Richard I., thus described by Stowe:--

“In this time (1190) were many robbers and outlaws; among the which Robin Hood and Little John, renowned thieves, continued in woods, dispoyling and plundering the goods of the rich; they killed none but such as would invade them, or by resistance for their own defence.

“The said Robert entertained an hundred tall men and good archers with such spoiles and thefts as he got, upon whom four hundred (were they ever so strong) durst not give the onset. He suffered no woman to be oppressed, violated, or otherwise molested; poor men’s goods he spared, abundantly relieving them with that which by theft he got from abbeys, and the houses of rich earles: whom Major (the historian) blameth for his rapine and theft, but of all thieves he affirmeth him to be the prince, and the most gentle theefe.”[543]

“It is said,” writes Baker, “that he was of noble blood, at least made noble, no less than an earl, for deserving services, but having wasted his estate in riotous courses, very penury forced him to this course.”[544]

Robin Hood was the hero of many popular songs, several of which are to be found in “Evans’s Collection of Old Ballads,” as early as the reign of Edward III. R. Langlande, a priest, in his “Pierce Plowman’s Visions,” notices him:--

“I cannot perfitly my Paternoster, as the priest it singeth, I can rimes of Robenhod and Randal of Chester, But of our Lorde or our Lady I learne nothyng at all.”

He is reported to have lived till the year 1247; but Baker, in his “Chronology,” makes his death, which is said to have been caused by treachery, to have taken place in the reign of Richard I. “The King set forth a Proclamation to have him apprehended; it happened he fell sick, at a certain nunnery in Yorkshire, called Berckleys, and desiring to be let blood, was betrayed, and made to bleed to death.”[545]

The manner of his death is also recorded in an old ballad, entitled “Robin Hood and the valiant Knight, together with an Account of his Death and Burial.”

* * * * *

“And Robin Hood he to the green wood, And there he was taken ill. And he sent for a monk, to let him blood Who took his life away; Now this being done, his archers did run, It was not time to stay.”

At Kirklees, in Yorkshire, formerly a Benedictine nunnery, is a gravestone, near the park, under which it is said Robin Hood lies buried. There is the remains of an inscription on it, but it is quite illegible. Mr. Ralph Thoresby, in his “Ducatus Leodiensis,” gives the following as the epitaph:--

“Hear undernead dis laith stean Laiz Robert Earl of Huntington, Nea arcir ver az hie sa geude: An piple kaud im Robin Heud. Sic utlawz as hi, an iz men, Wil England never sigh agen. Obiit 24 kal. Dekembris, 1247.”

Some of his biographers have noticed him as earl of Huntingdon, but they are not borne out in this by any of the old ballads, this epitaph alone calling him by that title. All the learned antiquarians agree in giving no credence to the genuineness of the above composition, alleging, among other causes, the quaintness of the spelling, and the pace of the metre, as affording them strong grounds for suspicion.

However strongly the name and exploits of Robin Hood may have been impressed on our memories from the “oft told” nursery tales, yet we have lately had it in our power to become more intimately, and, as it were, personally acquainted with this great chieftain of outlaws, through the medium of the author of “Waverley,” who has introduced “friend Locksley” to the readers of his “Ivanhoe,” in such natural and glowing colours, as to render the forgetting him utterly impossible.

HENRY BRANDON.

_Leadenhall-street._

~Christmas-eve.~

BELLMAN’S VERSES

_Upon Christmas-eve_.

This night (you may my Almanack believe) Is the return of famous Christmas-eve: Ye virgins then your cleanly rooms prepare, And let the windows bays and laurel wear; Your _Rosemary_ preserve to dress your _Beef_, Nor forget me, which I advise in chief.

_Another on the same._

Now, _Mrs. Betty_, pray get up and rise, If you intend to make your _Christmas_ pies: Scow’ring the pewter falls to _Cisley’s_ share; And _Margery_ must to clean the house take care: And let Doll’s ingenuity be seen, In decking all the windows up with _green_.[546]

* * * * *

It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader, that several notices of this day have been already presented; yet, many as they are, there are others from whence a few may be gleaned, with the probability of their still being acceptable.

With Mr. Leigh Hunt, who is foremost among modern admirers of the old festivals of the season, Christmas is, as it ought to be, the chief. His papers, in 1817, which occasioned the following letter, are not at hand to cite; and, perhaps if they were, the excellent feelings of his “fair correspondent” might be preferred to some of even _his_ descriptions.

_To the Editor of the Examiner._

Sir,--I am of the number of your readers who recollect, with pleasure and gratitude, your papers last year on keeping Christmas, and I looked forward with a hope, which has not been disappointed, that you would take some notice again of its return. I feel unwilling to intrude on your valuable time, yet I cannot refrain from thanking you for your cheering attempts to enforce a due observance of this delightful season. I thank you in my own name, and I thank you in the name of those to whom the spring of life is opening in all its natural and heartfelt enjoyments. I thank you in the name of the more juvenile part of the holyday circle, who, released from the thraldom of school discipline, are come _home_, (that expressive word,) to bask awhile in the eyes and the smiles of their fond parents; and, lastly, I thank you on behalf of those who have none to plead for them, and to whom pleasure is but a name--the sick at heart and sick in body, the friendless and the fatherless, the naked and the hungry. To all of these I hope to extend a portion of happiness and of help, with a heart full of gratitude to Him who has “cast my lot in a goodly heritage.” I have, under this feeling, been for some days past busily employed in preparing for passing Christmas _worthily_. My beef and mince-meat are ready, (of which, with some warm garments, my poor neighbours will partake,) and my holly and _mistletoe_ gathered; for I heartily approve of your article, and am of opinion that to the false refinement of modern times may be traced the loss of that primitive and pure simplicity which characterised “other times.” To your list of “authorities” I beg leave to add that learned and truly Christian prelate, Bishop Hall, who, in his “Contemplation on the Marriage of Cana,” so strongly enforces the doctrine, that the Creator is best honoured in a wise and _rational_ enjoyment of the creature.

Cordially wishing you the chief of sublunary blessings, _i. e._ health of body and health of mind, I remain, Sir, your obliged and constant reader,

A WIFE, A MOTHER, AND

AN ENGLISHWOMAN.

_South Lambeth, Dec. 21, 1818._

* * * * *

In Mr. Nichols’s Collection of Poems there are some pleasant verses, which seem to have proceeded from his own pen:--

TO H----Y M----N, ESQ.

_On his refusing a_ CHRISTMAS DINNER _with a Friend, on pretence of gallanting some Ladies to Leicester_.

When you talk about Leicester I hope you’re a jester. Why desert an old friend, For no purpose or end? But to play the gallant, With belles who will flaunt, And who, cruel as vain, Will rejoice in your pain! No--Come to our pudding We’ll put all things good in Give you beef, the sirloin, If with us you will dine; Perhaps too a capon, With greens and with bacon: Give you port and good sherry, To make your heart merry, Then sit down to a pool, ’Stead of playing the fool; Or a rubber at whist, But for this as you list. Next, give muffins and tea, As you sometimes give me. As for supper, you know, A potato, or so; Or a bit of cold ham, As at night we ne’er cram; Or a tart, if you please, With a slice of mild cheese. Then we’ll sing--sing, did I say? Yes: “The Vicar of Bray;”[547] And, what I know you don’t hate “My fond shepherds of late:”[548] Nor think me a joker, If I add “Ally Croaker.”[549] In fine, we’ll sing and delight ye, Till you say, “Friends, good night t’ ye.”

1780.

N. J.

Whether these verses were written by Mr. Nichols or not, the mention of his name occasions it to be observed, that about a week before the present date he died, at the age of eighty-five.

The editor of this humble work, who has derived much assistance in its progress from the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” which Mr. Nichols edited for nearly half a century, would omit to do rightly if he were not thus to acknowledge the obligation. Nor can he recollect without feelings of respectful gratitude, that his name appeared a few years ago in the “Domestic Occurrences” of the “Gentleman’s Magazine” with fidelity to its readers, unaccompanied by remarks which some of its admirers might, perhaps, at that time have admired. Its critical pages subsequently distinguished the volume on “Ancient Mysteries” by approval; and since then they have been pleased to favour, and even praise, the publication of which this is the last sheet. There was no personal intimacy to incline such good-will, and therefore it may be fairly inferred to have resulted from pure feelings and principles of equity. Mr. Nichols’s rank as a literary antiquary is manifested by many able and elaborate works. As he declined in life, his active duties gradually and naturally devolved on his successor: may that gentleman live as long in health and wealth, and be remembered with as high honour, as his revered father.

_Dec. 23, 1826._

W. H.

GLASTONBURY THORN.

On Christmas-eve, (new style,) 1753, a vast concourse of people attended the noted thorn, but to their great disappointment there was no appearance of its blowing, which made them watch it narrowly the 5th of January, the Christmas-day, (old style,) when it blowed as usual.--_London Evening Post._

On the same evening, at Quainton, in Buckinghamshire, above two thousand people went, with lanterns and candles, to view a blackthorn in that neighbourhood, and which was remembered to be a slip from the famous Glastonbury thorn, and that it always budded on the 24th, was full blown the next day, and went all off at night. The people finding no appearance of a bud, it was agreed by all, that December 25 (new style) could not be the right Christmas-day, and accordingly refused going to church, and treating their friends on that day as usual: at length the affair became so serious, that the ministers of the neighbouring villages, in order to appease them, thought it prudent to give notice, that the _Old_ Christmas-day should be kept holy as before.[550]

* * * * *

This famous hawthorn, which grew on a hill in the church-yard of Glastonbury-abbey, it has been said, sprung from the staff of St. Joseph of Arimathea, who having fixed it in the ground with his own hand on Christmas-day, the staff took root immediately, put forth leaves, and the _next_ day was covered with milk-white blossoms. It has been added, that this thorn continued to blow every Christmas-day during a long series of years, and that slips from the original plant are still preserved, and continue to blow every Christmas-day to the present time.

There certainly was in the abbey church-yard a hawthorn-tree, which blossomed in winter, and was cut down in the time of the civil wars: but that it always blossomed on Christmas-day was a mere tale of the monks, calculated to inspire the vulgar with notions of the sanctity of the place. There are several of this species of thorn in England, raised from haws sent from the east, where it is common. One of our countrymen, the ingenious Mr. Millar, raised many plants from haws brought from Aleppo, and all proved to be what are called Glastonbury thorns. This exotic, or eastern thorn, differs from our common hawthorn in putting out its leaves very early in spring, and flowering twice a year; for in mild seasons it often flowers in November or December, and again at the usual time of the common sort; but the stories that are told of its budding, blossoming, and fading on Christmas-day are ridiculous, and only monkish legends.[551]

“HODENING” IN KENT.

At Ramsgate, in Kent, they begin the festivities of Christmas by a curious musical procession. A party of young people procure the head of a dead horse, which is affixed to a pole about four feet in length, a string is tied to the lower jaw, a horse cloth is then attached to the whole, under which one of the party gets, and by frequently pulling the string keeps up a loud snapping noise, and is accompanied by the rest of the party grotesquely habited and ringing hand-bells. They thus proceed from house to house, sounding their bells and singing carols and songs. They are commonly gratified with beer and cake, or perhaps with money. This is provincially called a _hodening_; and the figure above described a “hoden,” or wooden horse.

This curious ceremony is also observed in the Isle of Thanet on Christmas-eve, and is supposed to be an ancient relic of a festival ordained to commemorate our Saxon ancestors’ landing in that island.[552]

CHRISTMAS POTTAGE.

Amongst the customs observed on Christmas-eve, the Venetians eat a kind of pottage, which they call _torta de lasagne_, composed of oil, onions, paste, parsley, pine nuts, raisins, currants, and candied orange peel.

MARSEILLES’ FESTIVAL.

Many festivals, abrogated in France by the revolution, were revived under Buonaparte. Accordingly, at Marseilles on Christmas-eve all the members of any family resident in the same town were invited to supper at the house of the senior of the family, the supper being entirely _au maigre_, that is, without meat,--after which they all went together to a solemn mass, which was performed in all the churches at midnight: this ceremony was called in Provence _faire calène_. After mass the party dispersed and retired to their respective houses; and the next day, after attending high mass in the morning, they assembled at dinner at the same house where they had supped the night before, a turkey being, as in England, an established part of the dinner. The evening was concluded with cards, dancing, or any other amusement usual on holydays. Formerly there had been the midnight mass, which was often irregularly conducted, and therefore on the revival of the old custom it was omitted.[553]

* * * * *

CHRISTMAS.

With footstep slow, in furry pall yclad, His brows enwreathed with holly never sere Old Christmas comes, to close the wained year; And aye the shepherd’s heart to make right glad; Who, when his teeming flocks are homeward had, To blazing hearth repairs, and nutbrown beer, And views well pleased the ruddy prattlers dear Hug the grey mungrel; meanwhile maid and lad Squabble for roasted crabs. Thee, Sire, we hail, Whether thine aged limbs thou dost enshroud In vest of snowy white and hoary veil, Or wrap’st thy visage in a sable cloud; Thee we proclaim with mirth and cheer, nor fail To greet thee well with many a carol loud.

_Bamfylde._

CAROLS.

The practice of singing canticles or carols in the vulgar tongue on Christmas-eve, and thence called _noels_ in the country churches of France, had its origin about the time that the common people ceased to understand Latin. The word _noel_ is derived from _natalis_, and signified originally a cry of joy at Christmas.[554]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 37·87.

[541] Stukeley’s Palæographia Britannica, No. 11. 1745.

[542] Ibid.

[543] Stowe’s Annals, 159.

[544] Baker’s Chronicles, 94.

[545] Ibid.

[546] Bellman’s Treasury, 1707.

[547] “In good king Charles’s golden days.”

This is said to have been written by an officer in colonel Fuller’s regiment, in the reign of king George I. It is founded on an historical fact, and, though it reflects no great honour on the hero of the poem, is humorously expressive of the complexion of the times in the successive reigns from Charles II. to George I.

[548] “My fond shepherds of late were so blest.”

A favourite air in Dr. Arne’s “Eliza.”

[549] “There lived a youth in Ballan o Crazy.”

This song is ascribed to a lady of great quality: it does not, however, abound with the wit which usually flows from female pens; but it admits of being sung with great humour.

[550] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[551] Communicated by D. B. C. from Boswell’s Antiquities of England and Wales.

[552] Busby’s Concert Room and Orchestra Anecdotes, &c.

[553] Miss Plumptre.

[554] Burney’s History of Music.

~December 25.~

CHRISTMAS-DAY.

BELLMAN’S VERSES, 1707,

_Upon Christmas Day._

_To the Shepherds._

Go, happy shepherds, leave your flocks and hie To Bethlem, where your infant Lord doth lie: And when you’ve view’d his Sacred Person well, Spare not aloud what you have seen to tell. Write volumes of these things, and let them bear The title of the _Shepherd’s Calendar_: This I assure you never _shepherds_ knew With all their studies half so much as you.[555]

WHITEHAVEN CUSTOMS.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_Whitehaven, 4th Sept. 1826._

Sir,--You furnished your readers last Christmas with a dish, greatly up-heaped, of information regarding the manner in which it was kept in various parts of the kingdom. I enclose herein a printed copy of the play, which is said, or rather sung, at and about that time, by numbers of boys in this town. The comedians, of which there are many companies, parade the streets, and ask at almost every door if the _mummers_ are wanted. They are dressed in the most grotesque fashion; their heads adorned with high paper caps, gilt and spangled, and their bodies with ribbons of various colours, while St. George and the prince are armed with ten swords. The “mysterie” (query?) ends with a song, and afterwards a collection is made. This is the only relic of ancient times which exists in this town, excepting, indeed, it be the _Waites_--a few persons who parade the streets for a fortnight or three weeks before Christmas, and play upon violins one or two lively jig tunes, and afterwards call upon the inhabitants for a few pence each. The same persons, when they hear of a marriage, or of the arrival from abroad of a sea-faring man, regularly attend and fiddle away till they raise the person or persons; and for this they expect a trifling remuneration.

I am satisfied you will join me, in surprise, that for so great a number of years, such a mass of indecent vulgarity as “Alexander and the king of Egypt,” should been used without alteration.

Upon the death of any individual, poor or rich, in this town, and the day before the funeral, the parish clerk, or the clerk of the church in whose church-yard the corpse is to be interred, goes round the town, with or without mourning as the case may be, and rings a bell, like a bellman, and thus announces his purpose: “All friends and neighbours are desired to attend the corpse of A. B. from Queen-street to St. James’s church to-morrow afternoon at four o’clock.”

Some of these hints may be of use to you--if so I shall rejoice; for a kinder-hearted publication than yours I never perused.

For the present I am, Mr. Hone,

Yours, most respectfully,

AN ADMIRER OF YOUR EVERY-DAY BOOK.

* * * * *

The tract accompanying the preceding communication is entitled “Alexander and the King of Egypt; a mock Play, as it is acted by the Mummers every Christmas. Whitehaven. Printed by T. Wilson, King-street.” Eight pages, 8vo. An opportunity is thus obligingly afforded of making the following extracts: