Part 119
Roaming, in their free lives, by lake and stream; Beneath the splendour of their gorgeous sky; Encamping, while shot down night’s starry gleam, In piny glades, where their forefathers lie; Voices would come, and breathing whispers seem To rouse within the life which may not die; Begetting valorous deeds, and thoughts intense, And a wild gush of burning eloquence.
Such were the men who round the pilgrims came. Oh! righteous heaven! and thou, heaven-dwelling sun! How from my heart spring tears of grief and shame, To think how runs--and quickly shall have run O’er earth, for twice a thousand years, your flame, Since, for man’s weal, Christ’s victories were won; Since dying, to his sons, love’s gift divine He gave, the bond of brotherhood and the sign.--
Where shines the symbol? Europe’s mighty states, The brethren of the cross--from age to age, Have striven to quench in blood their quenchless hates; Or--cease their armed hosts awhile their rage, ’Tis but that Peace may half unclose her gates In mockery; that each diplomatic sage May treat and sign, while War recruits his power And grinds the sword fresh millions to devour.
Yet thus could, in a savage-styled land, A few,--reviled, scorn’d, hated of the whole, Stretch forth for peace the unceremonious hand, And stamp Truth, even upon a sealed scroll. They called not God, or men, in proof to stand: They prayed no vengeance on the perjured soul: But heaven look’d down, and moved with wonder saw A compact framed, where time might bring no flaw.
Yet, through the land no clamorous triumph spread. Some bursts of natural eloquence were there: Somewhat of his past wrongs the Indian said; Of deeds design’d which now were given to air. Some tears the mother o’er her infant shed, As through her soul pass’d Hope’s depictions fair; And they were gone--the guileless scene was o’er; And the wild woods absorb’d their tribes once more.
Ay, years have rolled on years, and long has Penn Pass’d, with his justice, from the soil he bought; And the world’s spirit, and the world’s true men Its native sons with different views have sought. Crushing them down till they have risen again With bloodiest retribution; yet have taught, Even while their hot revenge spread fire and scath, Their ancient, firm, inviolable faith.
When burst the war-whoop at the dead of night, And the blood curdled at the dreadful sound; And morning brought not its accustomed light To thousands slumbering in their gore around; Then, like oases in the desert’s blight, The homes of Penn’s peculiar tribe were found: And still the scroll he gave, in love and pride, Their hands preserve,--earth has not such beside.
Yes; prize it, waning race, for never more Shall your wild glades another Penn behold: Pure, dauntless legislator, who did soar Higher than dared sublimest thought of old. That antique lie which bent the great of yore, And ruleth still--Expedience stern and cold, He pluck’d with scorn from its usurped car And showed Truth strong, and glorious as a star.
The vast, the ebbless, the engulphing tide Of the white population still rolls on! And quail’d has your romantic heart of pride,-- The kingly spirit of the woods is gone. Farther, and farther do ye wend to hide Your wasting strength; to mourn your glory flown, And sigh to think how soon shall crowds pursue Down the lone stream where glides the still canoe.
And ye, a beautiful nonentity, ere long, Shall live but with past marvels, to adorn Some fabling theme, some unavailing song. But ye have piled a monument of scorn For trite oppression’s sophistry of wrong. Proving, by all your tameless hearts have borne, What now ye _might_ have been, had ye but met With love like yours, and faith unwavering yet.
The authors of “Penn and the Indians” justly observe in the last note upon their exalted poem, that “it is William Penn’s peculiar honour to stand alone as a statesman, in opposing principle to expedience, in public as well as in private life. Even Aristides, the very beau-ideal of virtuous integrity, failed in this point. The success of the experiment has been as splendid as the most philosophic worshipper of abstract morals could have hoped for or imagined.” These sentences exemplify an expression elsewhere--“Politics are Morals.”
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[365] This sash is now in the possession of Thomas Kett, Esq. of Seething-hall, near Norwich.
[366] Mr. Clarkson’s Life of W. Penn.
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QUAKERS.
ORIGIN OF THE TERM.
On the 30th of October, 1650, the celebrated George Fox being at a lecture delivered in Derby by a colonel of the parliament’s army, after the service was over addressed the congregation, till there came an officer who took him by the hand, and said, that he, and the other two that were with him, must go before the magistrates. They were examined for a long time, and then George Fox, and one John Fretwell of Staniesby, a husbandman, were committed to the house of correction for six months upon pretence of blasphemous expressions. Gervas Bennet, one of the two justices who signed their mittimus, hearing that Fox bade him, and those about him, “_tremble_ at the word of the Lord,” regarded this admonition so lightmindedly, that from that time, he called Fox and his friends _Quakers_. This new and unusual denomination was taken up so eagerly, that it soon ran over all England, and from thence to foreign countries.[367] It has since remained their distinctive name, insomuch, that to the present time they are so termed in acts of parliament; and in their own declarations on certain public occasions, and in addresses to the king, they designate themselves “the people called _Quakers_.” The community, in its rules and minutes, for government and discipline, denominates itself “The Society of _Friends_.”
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[367] Sewel.
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~The Will~
OF JOHN KEATS, THE POET.
_To the Editor._
Sir,--Underneath I send you a copy of a document which “poor Keats” sent to Mr. ----, in August, 1820, just before his departure for Italy.
This paper was intended by him to operate as his last will and testament, but the sages of Doctors’ Commons refused to receive it as such, for reasons which to a lawyer would be perfectly satisfactory, however the rest of the world might deem them deficient in cogency:--
COPY.
“My share of books divide amongst my friends. In case of my death this scrap of paper may be serviceable in your possession.
“All my estate, real and personal, consists in the hopes of the sale of books, published or unpublished. Now I wish ---- and you to be the first paid creditors--the rest is _in nubibus_--but, in case it should shower, pay ---- the few pounds I owe him.”
Although too late to afford him any satisfaction or comfort, it did “shower” at last; and that, too, from a source which, in its general aspect, bears all the gloominess of a cloud, without any of its refreshing or fertilizing anticipations--I mean the Court of Chancery. This unexpected “shower” was sufficiently copious to enable the fulfilment of all the wishes expressed in the above note. His friends have therefore the gratification of knowing that no pecuniary loss has been (or need have been) sustained, by any one of those with whom he was connected, either by friendship or otherwise.
I am, Sir, &c. O. Z.
~Old London Cries.~
These engravings pretty well describe the occupations of the figures they represent. The cry of “Fine writing-ink” has ceased long ago; and the demand for such a fork as the woman carries is discontinued. They are copied from a set of etchings formerly mentioned--the “Cries of London,” by Lauron. The following of that series are worth describing, because they convey some notion of cries which we hear no longer in the streets of the metropolis.
_Buy a new Almanack?_
A woman bears book-almanacks before her, displayed in a round basket.
_London’s Gazette here._
A woman holds one in her hand, and seems to have others in her lapped-up apron.
_Buy any Wax or Wafers?_
A woman carries these requisites for correspondence in a small hand-basket, or frail, with papers open in the other hand.
_My Name, and your Name, your Father’s Name, and Mother’s Name._
A man bears before him a square box, slung from his shoulders, containing type-founders’ letters, in small cases, each on a stick; he holds one in his hand. I well remember to have heard this very cry when a boy. The type-seller composed my own name for me, which I was thereby enabled to imprint on paper with common writing ink. I think it has become wholly extinct within the last ten years.
_Old Shoes for some Brooms._
A man with birch-brooms suspended behind him on a stick. His cry intimates, that he is willing to exchange them for old shoes; for which a wallet at his back, depending from his waist, seems a receptacle.
_Remember the poor Prisoners!_
A man, with a capacious covered basket suspended at his back by leather handles, through which his arms pass; he holds in his right hand a small, round, deep box with a slit in the top, through which money may be put: in his left hand is a short walking-staff for his support. In former times the prisoners in different gaols, without allowance, deputed persons to walk the streets and solicit alms for their support, of passengers and at dwelling-houses. The basket was for broken-victuals.
_Fritters, piping hot Fritters._
A woman seated, frying the fritters on an iron with four legs, over an open fire lighted on bricks; a pan of batter by her side: two urchins, with a small piece of money between them, evidently desire to fritter it.
_Buy my Dutch Biskets?_
A woman carries them open in a large, round, shallow arm-basket on her right arm; a smaller and deeper one, covered with a cloth, is on her left.
_Who’s for a Mutton Pie, or a Christmas Pie?_
A woman carries them in a basket hanging on her left arm, under her cloak; she rings a bell with her right hand.
_Lilly white Vinegar, Threepence a Quart._
The vinegar is in two barrels, slung across the back of a donkey; pewter measures are on the saddle in the space between them. The proprietor walks behind--he is a jaunty youth, and wears flowers on the left side of his hat, and a lilly white apron; he cracks a whip with his left hand; and his right fingers play with his apron strings.
_Old Satin, old Taffety, or Velvet._
A smart, pretty-looking lass, in a high-peaked crowned-hat, a black hood carelessly tied under her chin, handsomely stomachered and ruffled, trips along in high-heeled shoes, with bows of ribbons on the insteps; a light basket is on her right arm, and her hands are crossed with a quality air.
_Scotch or Russia Cloth._
A comfortably clothed, stout, substantial-looking, middle-aged man, in a cocked hat, (the fashion of those days,) supporting with his left hand a pack as large as his body, slung at his back; his right hand holds his yard measure, and is tucked into the open bosom of his buttoned coat; a specimen of his cloth hangs across his arm. Irish and Holland linen have superseded Scotch and Russia.
_Four pair for a Shilling, Holland Socks._
A woman cries them, with a shilling’s-worth in her hand; the bulk of her ware is in an open box before her. Our ancestors took great precautions against wet from without--they took much within. They were soakers and sockers.
_Long Thread Laces, long and strong._
A miserably tattered-clothed girl and boy carry long sticks with laces depending from the ends, like cats-o’-nine tails. This cry was extinct in London for a few years, while the females dressed naturally--now, when some are resuming the old fashion of stiff stays and tight-lacing, and pinching their bowels to inversion, looking unmotherly and bodiless, the cry has been partially revived.
_Pretty Maids, pretty Pins, pretty Women._
A man, with a square box sideways under his left arm, holds in his right hand a paper of pins opened. He retails ha’p’orths and penn’orths, which he cuts off from his paper. I remember when pins were disposed of in this manner in the streets by women--their cry was a musical distich--
Three-rows-a-penny, pins, Short whites, and mid-dl-ings!
_Fine Tie, or a fine Bob, sir!_
A wig-seller stands with one on his hand, combing it, and talks to a customer at his door, which is denoted by an inscription to be in “Middle-row, Holbourn.” Wigs on blocks stand on a bracketed board outside his window. This was when every body, old and young, wore wigs--when the price for a common one was a guinea, and a journeyman had a new one every year--when it was an article in every apprentice’s indenture that his master should find him in “one good and sufficient wig, yearly, and every year, for, and during, and unto the expiration, of the full end, and term, of his apprenticeship.”
_Buy my fine Singing Glasses!_
They were trumpet-formed glass tubes, of various lengths. The crier blows one of half his own height. He holds others in his left hand, and has a little box, and two or three baskets, slung about his waist.
_Japan your Shoes, your honour!_
A shoeblack. A boy, with a small basket beside him, brushes a shoe on a stone, and addresses himself to a wigged beau, who carries his cocked-hat under his left arm, with a crooked-headed walking-stick in his left hand, as was the fashion among the dandies of old times. I recollect shoeblacks formerly at the corner of almost every street, especially in great thoroughfares. There were several every morning on the steps of St. Andrew’s church Holborn, till late in the forenoon. But the greatest exhibition of these artists was on the site of Finsbury-square, when it was an open field, and a depository for the stones used in paving and street-masonry. There, a whole army of shoeblacks intercepted the citizens and their clerks, on their way from Islington and Hoxton to the counting houses and shops in the city, with “Shoeblack, your honour!” “Black your shoes, sir!”
Each of them had a large, old tin-kettle, containing his apparatus, viz. a capacious pipkin, or other large earthen-pot, containing the blacking, which was made of ivory black, the coarsest moist sugar, and pure water with a little vinegar--a knife--two or three brushes--and an old wig. The old wig was an indispensable requisite to a shoeblack; it whisked away the dust, or thoroughly wiped off the wet dirt, which his knife and brushes could not entirely detach; a rag tied to the end of a stick smeared his viscid blacking on the shoe, and if the blacking was “real japan,” it shone. The old experienced shoe-wearers preferred an oleaginous, lustreless blacking. A more liquid blacking, which took a polish from the brush, was of later use and invention. Nobody, at that time, wore boots, except on horseback; and every body wore breeches and stockings: pantaloons or trousers were unheard of. The old shoeblacks operated on the shoes while they were on the feet, and so dexterously as not to soil the fine white cotton stocking, which was at one time the extreme of fashion, or to smear the buckles, which were universally worn. Latterly, you were accommodated with an old pair of shoes to stand in, and the yesterday’s paper to read, while your shoes were cleaning and polishing, and your buckles were whitened and brushed. When shoestrings first came into vogue, the prince of Wales (now the king) appeared with them in his shoes, and a deputed body of the buckle-makers of Birmingham presented a petition to his royal highness to resume the wearing of buckles, which was good-naturedly complied with. Yet in a short time shoestrings entirely superseded buckles. The first incursion on the shoeblacks was by the makers of “patent cake-blacking,” on sticks formed with a handle, like a small battledoor; they suffered a more fearful invasion from the makers of liquid blacking in bottles. Soon afterwards, when “Day and Martin” manufactured the _ne plus ultra_ of blacking, private shoeblacking became general, public shoeblacks rapidly disappeared, and now they are extinct. The last shoeblack that I remember in London, sat under the covered entrance of Red Lion-court, Fleet-street, within the last six years.
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ANTIQUARIAN MEMORANDUM.
_For the Table Book._
CHAIR AT PAGE’S LOCK.
At a little alehouse on the Lea, near Hoddesdon, called “Page’s Lock,” there is a curious antique chair of oak, richly carved. It has a high, narrow back inlaid with cane, and had a seat of the same, which last is replaced by the more durable substitute of oak. The framework is beautifully carved in foliage, and the top rail of the back, as also the front rail between the legs, have the imperial crown in the centre. The supports of the back are twisted pillars, surmounted with crowns, by way of knobs, and the fore-legs are shaped like beasts’ paws.
The date is generally supposed to be that of Elizabeth; and this is confirmed by the circumstance of the chairs in the long gallery of Hatfield-house, in Hertfordshire, being of similar construction, but _without_ the crowns. The date of these latter chairs is unquestionably that of Elizabeth, who visited her treasurer, Burleigh, whose seat it was. The circumstance of the crowns being carved on the chair above-named, and their omission in those at Hatfield would seem to imply a regal distinction and we may fairly infer, that it once formed part of the furniture of queen Elizabeth’s hunting-lodge situate on Epping forest, not many miles from Hoddesdon.
GASTON.
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MINISTER OF KIRKBY LONSDALE, KIRKBY KENDAL.--LUNE BRIDGE.
_To the Editor._
Sir,--The Tenth Part of your interesting publication, the _Table Book_, has been lent to me by one of your constant readers; who, aware of the interest which I take in every thing connected with Westmoreland, pointed out the Notes of T. Q. M. on a Pedestrian Tour from Skipton to Keswick.[368]
It is not my intention to review those notes, or to point out the whole of his inaccuracies; but I shall select one, which, in my humble judgment, is quite inexcusable. After stating that the Rev. Mr. Hunt was once the curate of Kir_k_by (not K_ir_by, as your correspondent spells it) Lonsdale, he adds, “I believe the well-known Carus Wilson is the officiating minister at present.” What your narrator means by the appellation “well known,” he alone can determine--and to which of the family he would affix the term, I cannot possibly imagine. The eldest son is rector of Whittington, an adjoining parish; the second son of the same family is vicar of Preston, in Lancashire; the third is the curate of Tunstal, in the same county. These are all the gentlemen of that family who are, or ever were, “officiating ministers:” and I can safely assure your correspondent, that not one of them _ever was_ the officiating minister of Kirkby Lonsdale. The vicar is the Rev. Mr. Sharp; who the curate is I forget, but an inquirer could have easily ascertained it; and an inquiry would have furnished him with some very curious details respecting the actual incumbent.
By the way, let me mention the curious fact of this town retaining its ancient name, while Kendal, a neighbouring town, has lost, in common parlance, a moiety of its name. In all legal documents Kendal is described as _Kirkby_ Kendal, as the former is _Kirkby_ Lons-dale; and the orthography is important, as it shows at once the derivation of these names. _Kirk-by-Lon’s-dale_, and _Kirk-by-Ken_ or _Kent-dale_, evidently show, that the prominent object, the churches of those towns on the banks of their respective river, the _Lune_, _Loyne_, or _Lon_, as it is variously written, and the _Kent_ or _Ken_, and their _dales_, or vallies, furnished the cognomen.
I should be much obliged to T. Q. M. if he would point out the house where my friend Barnabee
viewed An hall, which like a taverne shewed Neate gates, white walls, nought was sparing, Pots brimful, no thought of caring.
If a very curious tradition respecting the very fine and remarkable bridge over the river Lune, together with a painting of it done for me by a cobbler at Lancaster, would be at all interesting to you, I shall be happy to send them to your publishers. The picture is very creditable to the artist; and after seeing it, I am sure you will say, that however (if ever) just, in former days, the moderns furnish exceptions to the well-known maxim--
Ne sutor ultra crepidam.
I am, sir,
your obedient servant,
BOB SHORT.
_London, Sept. 25, 1827._
[368] Col. 271, &c.
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~Discoveries~
OF THE
ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.
No. X.
THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM THAT OF THE ANCIENTS.
Copernicus places the sun in the centre of our system, the fixed stars at the circumference, and the earth and other planets in the intervening space; and he ascribes to the earth not only a diurnal motion around its axis, but an annual motion round the sun. This simple system, which explains all the appearances of the planets and their situations, whether processional, stationary, or retrograde, was so fully and distinctly inculcated by the ancients, that it is matter of surprise it should derive its name from a modern philosopher.
Pythagoras thought that the earth was a movable body, and, so far from being the centre of the world, performed its revolutions around the region of fire, that is the sun, and thereby formed day and night. He is said to have obtained this knowledge among the Egyptians, who represented the sun emblematically by a beetle, because that insect keeps itself six months under ground, and six above; or, rather, because having formed its dung into a ball, it afterwards lays itself on its back, and by means of its feet whirls that ball round in a circle.
Philolaüs, the disciple of Pythagoras, was the first publisher of that and several other opinions belonging to the Pythagorean school. He added, that the earth moved in an oblique circle, by which, no doubt, he meant the zodiac.
Plutarch intimates, that Timæus Locrensis, another disciple of Pythagoras, held the same opinion; and that when he said the planets were animated, and called them the different measures of time, he meant no other than that they served by their revolutions to render time commensurable; and that the earth was not fixed to a spot, but was carried about by a circular motion, as Aristarchus of Samos, and Seleucus afterwards taught.
This Aristarchus of Samos, who lived about three centuries before Jesus Christ, was one of the principal defenders of the doctrine of the earth’s motion. Archimedes informs us, “That Aristarchus, writing on this subject against some of the philosophers of his own age, placed the sun immovable in the centre of an orbit, described by the earth in its circuit.” Sextus Empiricus cites him, as one of the principal supporters of this opinion.
From a passage in Plutarch it appears, that Cleanthes accused Aristarchus of impiety and irreligion, by troubling the repose of Vesta and the Larian gods; when, in giving an account of the phenomena of the planets in their courses, he taught that heaven, or the firmament of the fixed stars, was immovable, and that the earth moved in an oblique circle, revolving at the same time around its own axis.