Part 103
Thereupon ensued a negotiation by messages, which occupied eight hours. In the course of the discussion, the grandees insisted on their claims of precedence as an aggregate body, yet, individually, they considered themselves happy when complying with the commands of the ladies. Fixed in her resolution, the lady high-chamberlain acquainted her opponents with her final determination. The decision of the great officers and grandees was equally unalterable; but at the last they proposed, that “without rising from their seats, or moving themselves, they should be _carried_ to a room at an equal distance between their own apartment and the lady high-chamberlain’s, who should be _carried_ to the same place, seated upon a high cushion, in the same manner as she sat in the queen’s chamber, to the end it might be said, that _neither side had made a step to meet each other_.” It seems that the performance of the solemnity happily terminated the important difference.
* * * * *
BOSWELLIANA.
The following anecdotes are related by, or relate to, the well-known James Boswell, who conducted Dr. Johnson to the Highlands of Scotland.
It may be recollected that when Boswell took the doctor to his father’s house, the old laird of Auchinleck remarked, that “Jamie had brought an odd kind o’ a chiel’ wi’ him.” “Sir,” said Boswell, “he is the grand luminary of our hemisphere,--quite a _constellation_, sir.”--“_Ursa Major_, (the Great Bear,) I suppose,” said the laird.
Some snip-snap wit was wont to pass between sire and son. “Jamie” was bred an advocate, and sometimes pleaded at the bar. Pleading, on a particular occasion, before his father, who, at that time, was “Ordinary on the bills,” and saying something which his lordship did not like, he exclaimed to Jamie, “Ye’re an ass, mon.”--“No, my lord,” replied Jamie, “I am not an ass, but I am a colt, the foal of an ass!”
In 1785, Boswell addressed “a Letter to the People of Scotland” on a proposed alteration in the court of session. He says in this pamphlet, “When a man of probity and spirit, a lord Newhall, whose character is ably drawn in prose by the late lord president Arniston, and elegantly in verse by Mr. Hamilton of Bangour,--when such a man sits among our judges, should they be disposed to do wrong, he can make them hear and tremble. My honoured father told me, (the late lord Auchinleck,) that sir Walter Pringle ‘spoke as one having authority’--even when he was at the bar, ‘he would _cram a decision_ down their throats.’”
Boswell tells, in the same “Letter,” that “Duncan Forbes of Culloden, when lord president of the court, gave every day as a toast at his table, ‘Here’s to every lord of session who does not deserve to be hanged!’ Lord Auchinleck and lord Monboddo, both judges, but since his time, are my authority,” says Boswell, “for this.--I do not say that the toast was very delicate, or even quite decent, but it may give some notion what sort of judges there _may_ be.”
It is further related by Boswell, that a person was executed to please his laird. “Before the heritable jurisdictions were abolished, a man was tried for his life in the court of one of the chieftains. The jury were going to bring him in ‘not guilty,’ but somebody whispered them, that ‘the young _laird_ had never seen an execution,’ upon which their verdict was--‘_death_;’ and the man was hanged _accordingly_.”
This is only to be paralleled by the story of the highland dame, whose sense of submission to the chief of her clan induced her to insinuate want of proper respect in her husband, who had been condemned, and showed some reluctance to the halter. “Git up, Donald,” said the “guid wife,” to her “ain guid man,” “Git up, Donald, and be hangit, an’ dinna _anger_ the laird.”
* * * * *
BOWEL COMPLAINTS.
A RECIPE.
The writer of a letter to the editor of the “Times,” signed “W.” in August, 1827, communicates the following prescription, as particularly useful in diarrhœa, accompanied by inflammation of the bowels:--
Take of confection of catechu 2 drachms; simple cinnamon water 4 ounces; and syrup of white poppies 1 ounce. Mix them together, and give one or two table-spoonfuls twice or thrice a day as required. To children under ten years of age give a single dessert-spoon, and under two years a tea-spoonful, two or three times, as above stated.
This mixture is very agreeable, and far preferable to the spirituous and narcotic preparations usually administered. In the course of a few hours it abates the disorder, and in almost every instance infallibly cures the patient. During the fruit season it is especially valuable.
* * * * *
~Epitaph~
ON A MARINE OFFICER
Here lies retired from busy scenes A First Lieutenant of Marines; Who lately lived in peace and plenty On board the ship the Atalanta: Now, stripp’d of all his warlike show, And laid in box of elm below, Confined to earth in narrow borders, He rises not till further orders.[337]
[337] From the “Notes of a Bookworm.”
Vol. II.--36.
_For the Table Book._
This eccentric individual, whose fertile pen procured him notoriety, was the son of a small grocer at March in the Isle of Ely. To use his favourite expression, he “came forth” on Friday, the 13th of April, 1735, O. S. He received the rudiments of his education under “dame Hawkins,” from whom he was removed to a most sagacious schoolmaster, named Wendall; and he “astonished his schoolfellows by the brilliancy of his genius,” till he was bound to his cousin Coward, of Lynn, to learn the art and mystery of a “glover and breeches-maker.” He had nearly passed through his apprenticeship, and attained to the age of twenty, unconscious of the numerous “ills that flesh is heir to,” when one day gazing at a small shop-window, nearly blinded by gloves and second-hand unmentionables, an accidental aperture favoured him with a glimpse of the too charming Miss Barbara Green, in the act of making wash-leather gloves. She was a maiden, and though something more than fifty, her fading beauty rendered her, to Nathan, all that
“Youthful poets fancy when they love.”
From that moment his eyes lost their lustre,--
“Love, like a worm i’ th’ bud, preyed on his damask cheek.”
He was to be seen pursuing his avocations at his “board of green cloth” day by day, sitting
----“Like Patience on a monument Smiling at grief.”
He “never told his love” till chance enabled him to make the idol of his hope the offer of his hand. “No,” said the too fascinating Barbara Green, “I will be an _Evergreen_.” The lady was inexorable, and Nathan was in despair; but time and reflection whispered “grieving’s a folly,” and “it’s better to have any wife than none,” and Nathan took unto himself another, with whom he enjoyed all the “ecstatic ecstasies” of domestic felicity.
Nathan’s business at Lynn became inadequate to his wants, and he removed to the village of Dersingham, a few miles distant; and there, as a “glover, poet, haberdasher, green-grocer, and psalm-singer,” he vegetated remote from vulgar throng, and beguiled his leisure by “cogitating in cogibundity of cogitation.”--Here it was, he tells us, that in 1775 he had a “wonderful, incomprehensible, and pathetic dream”--a vision of flames, in the shapes of “wig-blocks” and “Patagonian cucumbers,” attended with horrid crashes, like the noise of a thousand Merry Andrew’s rackets, which terrified and drove him to the “mouth of the sea;” where, surrounded by fire and water, he could only escape from dreadful destruction by--awaking. He believed that the fiery wig-blocks were “opened to him” in a dream as a caution, to preserve him from temptation. It was soon after this that, seeing one of his neighbours at the point of death, he “cogitated” the following
“REFLECTION.
“What creatures are we! Under the hands of he, Who created us for to be, Objects of his great mercy: And the same must I be, When years seventy, Creep upon me.”
On another occasion, while his wife was dangerously ill, Nathan, sitting by her bedside, became overwhelmed with “the influence of fancy,” and believing her actually dead, concocted this
“EPITAPH.
“My wife is dead,--she was the best, And I her bosom friend; Yes, she is gone,--her soul’s at rest, And I am left to mend.”
Nathan made a trifling mistake; for, “to his great surprise,” his wife recovered, and the epitaph was put by till the proper time should arrive.
Nathan’s dexterity in wielding his pen enabled him to serve unlettered swains in other matters, besides their nether garments. He wrote letters for them “on love or business,” in
“Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.”
The following ending of a “Love-letter written by particular desire,” is a specimen of his “effusions in prose.”
----“Marriage is like war; the battle causes fear, but the sweet hope of winning at the last stimulates us to proceed. But the effects of matrimony are much more agreeable than war, because the engagement may be accomplished without being prejudicial to the welfare of society. Were I to mention all the comparisons my warm imagination could furnish me with, it would swell this letter to a very great bulk.
“So to conclude;--the many inconveniences attending my being in business alone, are beyond conception; and I wish the fatigue to be abated by sharing it with some congenial soul, who may be intrusted with both secrets and circumstances, and all affairs of importance, too tedious to mention.”
Filled with self-importance by a lively sense of his vast acquirements, and his amazing utility to his village neighbours, he turned his thoughts to the “affairs of the nation” in the year 1799, and projected the salvation of the empire, by a plan of finance for raising adequate supplies to carry on the war against France with vigour. This he submitted in a spirited memorial, addressed
“TO THE HON. WM. PITT, _First of Ministers_, &c. &c. &c.
“May it please your gracious Honour, Dear sir, to take into your honourable consideration the undermentioned business, which at this critical crisis and expensive period wants very much to be put in practice, to the advantage of the world, the benefit of our own government, the public’s welfare, and the glory of Dersingham.”
Nathan’s memorial runs to great length, but he states its real “business” in a few words.--“Beloved and honourable sir, be not angry at my proposal, if not approved of, which is, to beg of all dukes, lords, earls, baronets, country squires, profound justices, gentlemen, great and rich farmers, topping tradesmen, and others, who, to my certain and inconceivable knowledge, have so much unnecessary ornamental and useless _plate_, of all sorts and descriptions, to deliver up the same immediately to government, to be made into money for the support of this just and necessary war. Honoured sir, my plan is not to debar any one from having a sufficient quantity of such like plate, but only that which stands and remains useless and unused, which would raise many hundreds, if not thousands of money. I have but little, yet I am (so is my wife, in God’s name) minded, willing, and desirous, out of half a dozen teaspoons, to deliver up half, which you know, mighty sir, will be exactly three.”
Nathan proceeds to say, that “Many useless things, such as great waiters, tea-kettles, frying and sauce pans, and sundry other articles in the gold and silver way, too tedious to mention, were they now turned into money, would supply your wants of cash. Brass, earthenware, pipe-clay, china and glass, nothing can be sweeter, nor look neater, and sufficient for any man or woman upon earth to eat and drink out of.--Mr. Pitt, these sentiments I deliver from my heart; they are the dictates of wisdom and the fruit of experience.--Was our good and gracious king, as also yourself, worthy Mr. Pitt, once to come down into the country, and take a survey of matters, you would be astonished how abundance of individuals live. Pray, sir, in God’s name, take off a few taxes from the necessaries of life, especially salt, sugar, leather, and parchment. I myself have but six or seven shillings a week coming in, and sometimes not that, by losses and bad debts; and now corn is risen, we labour under great apprehension in other articles.--Dear and noble sir, I once heard a sermon preached on a thanksgiving day, for the proclamation of peace, by one Rev. Mr. Stony, at Lynn, Norfolk, mentioning the whole calamities of the war; and he brought your honourable father in, very fine. I wish from the bottom of my heart I may shortly hear such a like one preached upon yourself.”
In conclusion, Nathan thus inquires of Mr. Pitt, “Honoured sir, from whence comes wars, and rumours of wars, cock-fightings, and burglaries?” Finally, says Nathan, “The limits of one sheet of paper being filled, I must conclude, with wishing well to our good and gracious king, the queen, and all the royal family; as also to your honour, Mr. Pitt, your consort, sons and daughters, (if any,) and family in general.”
Nathan established his public character by his epistle to Mr. Pitt. He made known its contents to all his friends, and shortly after he had transmitted it, he received an acknowledgment of thanks and a promise of reward, in a scrawling hand with an unintelligible signature; whereupon he sagely consoled himself with this remark, that great men, “despising the common, plebeian method of writing, generally scratch their names so illegible, that neither themselves nor any body else can read them.”
Nathan’s notoriety was now at its height. He usually visited Lynn once or twice a week; and flattered by the general encomiums bestowed on his transcendent abilities by his admirers in that ancient town, he ventured to disclose a long-cherished hope, the object of his ardent ambition, to appear in print as an author. His desire was fostered by several literary youths, resident in Lynn, to whom he submitted his writings for arrangement, and in 1800 they were published to the world under the title of “Quaint Scraps, or Sudden Cogitations.” Previous to its appearance, he received repeated congratulations on the forthcoming book. Among other “Commendatory Verses” was a poetical address, purporting to have been written in America, addressed “To Nathan Coward, the sage Author of Scraps and Cogitations, by Barnabas Boldero, LL.D. VS. MOPQ. &c. of the Cogitating College, Philadelphia.” This pleasing testimonial required Milton, and the “far-famed bards of elder times,” to give place to the rising luminary of the poetical hemisphere.
“Avaunt! avaunt! hide your diminish’d heads! When the sun shines the stars should seek their beds. No longer clouds the dawning light imprison. The golden age is come! a mighty sun has risen A mighty sun, whose congregated rays At Dersingham pour forth their dazzling blaze; Not there alone, but e’en throughout all nations, Beam Nathan’s _Scraps and Sudden Cogitations_! None better knows Pindaric odes to write, None e’er a better love-song can indite; None better knows to play the tragic part, Or with sweet anthems captivate the heart; None better knows to sport extemp’re wit, Or with strange spells avert an ague fit; None better knows to frame th’ elegiac air, Or with the nasal Jews harp charm the ear.”
This address is printed entire in Nathan’s book, which consisted of epitaphs, love-letters, valentines, cures for the ague and consumption, reflections, songs, &c. &c. The preface, the sketch of his life, and the conclusion to the work, were drawn up by Nathan’s youthful editors. Through them Nathan appealed to the reviewers in an address, containing the following spirited passage:--“It is ye, ye mites of criticism, it is ye alone I fear; for, like your namesakes, the greater the richness and goodness of the cheese the more destructive are your depredations, and the more numerous your partisans.” Towards the public, the poet of Dersingham was equally candid and courageous.--“I shun the general path of authors,” says Nathan, “and instead of ‘feeling conscious of the numerous defects, and submitting my trifles, with all possible humility, to the candour of a generous public,’ I venture to assert, that the public must receive the greatest advantage from my labours; and every member of society shall bless the hour that ushered into existence my ‘Quaint Scraps and my Sudden Cogitations.’ For what author, were he actually conscious of his numerous defects, would wish to trust himself to the mercy of that _generous public_, whom every one condemns for want of discernment and liberality. No, I profess, and I am what I do profess, a man of independent spirit! and although I have hitherto dwelt in obscurity, and felt the annihilating influence of oppression and the icy grasp of poverty, yet I have ever enjoyed the praiseworthy luxury of having an opinion of my own; because,--I am conscious of the inferiority of the opinions of others.”
These were some of the preliminary means by which, with an honesty worthy to be imitated by authors of greater fame, Nathan aspired to win “golden opinions.” The final sentence of his valedictory address “to the reader” is remarkable for feeling and dignity. “I am conscious,” says Nathan, “that I begin to fade; and be assured, that if I should be so fortunate as to blossom a few years longer, it must be entirely imputed to the animating influence of your praises, which will be grateful as the pure and renovating dews of heaven. And when at length the soft breeze of evening shall fly over the spot where I once bloomed, the traveller will refresh it with the soft tears of melancholy, and sigh at the frailty of all sublunary grandeur.”
His wish accomplished, and his book published, Nathan’s spare person, (about the middle size,) clad in tight leather “shorts,” frequently ambulated the streets of Lynn, and he had the ineffable pleasure of receiving loud congratulations from his numerous friends. Here, perhaps, his literary career had terminated, had not Napoleon’s abortive threats of invasion roused Nathan to take his stand, with daring pen, in defiance of the insolent foe. Our patriotic author produced a “Sermon” on the impending event. His former editorial assistants again aided him, and announced his intentions by a prospectus, setting forth that, on such an occasion, “when address, argument, and agitation, elegy, epitaph, and epithalamium, puff, powder, poetry, and petition, have been employed to invigorate and inspirit the minds of Englishmen, it surely must be a matter of serious exultation, that a writer of such superlative celebrity as Nathan Coward should draw his pen in defence of the common cause.--Cold and disloyal indeed must be that breast which, even on the bare perusal, does not feel the glow of enthusiastic patriotism,--does not beat with rapture at the pride of Dersingham, the glory of his country, and the admiration of the universe.”
“Rise, Britons, rise, and rising nobly raise Your joyful Pæans to great Nathan’s praise; Nathan, whose powers all glorious heights can reach, Now charm an ague,--now a Sermon preach;-- Nathan, who late, as time and cause seem’d fit, Despatch’d a letter to great premier Pitt. Showing how quick the public in a dash Might change their spoons and platters into cash; And now with zeal, attach’d to name nor party, Thunders out vengeance ’gainst great Buonaparte; Zeal that no rival bard shall e’er exceed; To prove your judgment, quickly buy and read.”
Soon after the publication of his “Sermon,” Nathan became more sensible to the infirmities of “threescore years and ten.” And the epitaph on his wife having been duly appropriated, for in good time she died, he removed to Liverpool, where he had a daughter married and settled, and there, in her arms, about the year 1815, he breathed his last at the age of eighty.--_Requiescat in pace._
K.
* * * * *
PETER AND MARY.
Dr. Soams, master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, towards the close of the sixteenth century, by a whimsical perverseness deprived the college over which he presided of a handsome estate. Mary, the widow of Thomas Ramsey, lord mayor of London, in 1577, after conferring several favours on that foundation, proffered to settle five hundred pounds a year (a very large income at that period) upon the house, provided that it might be called “The college of Peter and Mary.” “No!” said the capricious master, “Peter, who has lived so long single, is too old now for a female partner.” Fuller says it was “a dear jest by which to lose so good a benefactress.” The lady, offended by the doctor’s fantastic scruple, turned the stream of her benevolence to the benefit of other public foundations.
* * * * *
~Garrick Plays.~
No. XXXII.
[From “Love’s Metamorphosis,” a Comedy, by John Lily, M. A. 1601.]
_Love half-denied is Love half-confest._
_Nisa. Niobe, her maid._
_Nisa._ I fear Niobe is in love.
_Niobe._ Not I, madam; yet must I confess, that oftentimes I have had sweet thoughts, sometimes hard conceits; betwixt both, a kind of yielding; I know not what; but certainly I think it is not love: sigh I can, and find ease in melancholy: smile I do, and take pleasure in imagination: I feel in myself a pleasing pain, a chill heat, a delicate bitterness; how to term it I know not; without doubt it may be Love; sure I am it is not Hate.
* * * * *
[From “Sapho and Phao,” a Comedy, by the same Author, 1601.]
_Phao, a poor Ferryman, praises his condition.--He ferries over Venus; who inflames Sapho and him with a mutual passion._
_Phao._ Thou art a ferryman, Phao, yet a freeman; possessing for riches content, and for honours quiet. Thy thoughts are no higher than thy fortunes, nor thy desires greater than thy calling. Who climbeth, standeth on glass, and falleth on thorn. Thy heart’s thirst is satisfied with thy hand’s thrift, and thy gentle labours in the day turn to sweet slumbers in the night. As much doth it delight thee to rule thy oar in a calm stream, as it doth Sapho to sway the sceptre in her brave court. Envy never casteth her eye low, ambition pointeth always upward, and revenge barketh only at stars. Thou farest delicately, if thou have a fare to buy any thing. Thine angle is ready, when thy oar is idle; and as sweet is the fish which thou gettest in the river, as the fowl which others buy in the market. Thou needest not fear poison in thy glass, nor treason in thy guard. The wind is thy greatest enemy, whose might is withstood by policy. O sweet life! seldom found under a golden covert, often under a thatcht cottage. But here cometh one; I will withdraw myself aside; it may be a passenger.
_Venus, Phao; She, as a mortal._
_Venus._ Pretty youth, do you keep the ferry, that conducteth to Syracusa?
_Phao._ The ferry, fair lady, that conducteth to Syracusa.
_Venus._ I fear, if the water should begin to swell, thou wilt want cunning to guide.
_Phao._ These waters are commonly as the passengers are; and therefore, carrying one so fair in show, there is no cause to fear a rough sea.
_Venus._ To pass the time in thy boat, can’st thou devise any pastime?
_Phao._ If the wind be with me, I can angle, or tell tales: if against me, it will be pleasure for you to see me take pains.
_Venus._ I like not fishing; yet was I born of the sea.
_Phao._ But he may bless fishing, that caught such an one in the sea.
_Venus._ It was not with an angle, my boy, but with a net.
_Phao._ So, was it said, that Vulcan caught Mars with Venus.
_Venus._ Did’st thou hear so? it was some tale.