Part 122
Close by the palace is a small greenhouse, erected in 1815 for the princess of Orange. It contains a few pretty good plants; but there is nothing becoming royalty either in the size of the house or the choice nature of the collection. _Datura arborea_ was now in flower, and filled the place with its odour; and the white variety of _vinca rosea_ was in bloom. There are here no hot-houses for the forcing of fruit; nor did there appear to be any thing remarkable among the hardy fruits cultivated in the garden.
This garden at the House in the Wood, is the only one worth visiting at the Hague, with the exception perhaps of Mr. Fagel’s. The Portland gardens, belonging to the Bentincks, though celebrated in former times, are now in a neglected and even ruinous condition.
SCHEVELING.
AVENUES OF TREES.
_August 27, 1817._ Early this morning we walked towards the fishing village of Scheveling, by a grand avenue lined with trees, of which all Dutchmen are justly proud. The length of this avenue is nearly a mile and a half; and it is so straight and so level, that the village church very soon appeared at the termination of the vista next the sea. The tallest and finest trees are Dutch elm, abele, oak, and beech. Many of these are of great size, and have probably seen more than two centuries.[378] Sycamore, hornbeam, birch, and different species of willow, are occasionally interspersed. There are properly three roads in this noble avenue: a central one for carriages, one for horsemen, and another for foot-passengers. The breadth of the plantation, on each side, is on an average about seventy feet. In some places, the old trees appear to have been cut down; but their places are now supplied by others. Almost all the new-planted trees are white poplars, which are of rapid growth.
FISHERY--FISHING VESSELS, &C.
We breakfasted in the _Hoff van Holland_ inn, the windows of which look out upon the ocean. In addition to the usual repast of coffee and rolls, a countryman of our own, whom we chanced here to meet, had shrimps served to breakfast, which had been shown to him all alive a few minutes before: by our desire, we had _tong-vischen_, or soles, fresh from the sea. While at breakfast, we observed, that more than two dozen of small sloops, which we easily recognised to be fishing-busses, were making directly for the low sandy beach, although it was at present a lee-shore, with a considerable surf. The sails were of various hues; Isabella yellow, chocolate brown, and milk white; and this intermixture of colours, set off by the brilliancy of a clear morning sun, increased the picturesque effect. Not a little to our surprise, the crews did not shorten sail, till their barks were just involved among the waves and breakers; and in this odd situation, generally after taking the ground, we saw them deliberately cast anchor. The propriety of the shape given to the hulls of these busses, was now manifest to us; a small British-built sloop would have been in danger of breaking up, while they shoved along among the breakers in perfect security. Indeed, that Dutch vessels in general should, of design, be built strong or clumsy, and have their hulks well rounded below, can only appear surprising to those who have not witnessed the nature of the seas which they have to navigate at home, where they must often take the ground, and where they not unfrequently sail right against the shore. As soon as the anchors were cast, the boatmen, wading up to the middle in the waves, brought out the fish on their shoulders; the sands were covered with persons of both sexes and of all ages, who began to carry off the cargoes, in broad baskets, on their heads. The principal kinds of fish were plaice, turbot, sole, skate, and thornback; a very few cod and smelts made up the list. The Dutch gave the name _schol_ to our plaice: and our sole they call _tong_. Their name for the smelt is _spiering_; which nearly approaches that by which this little fish is distinguished in the Edinburgh market, viz. _spirling_.
COAST--FISHWOMEN--CART DOGS.
A continuous broad and high bank of sand lines the coast as far as we could see, and forms the powerful protection of this part of Holland against the inroads of the ocean. Without this provision of nature, the country would be inundated by every extraordinary tide and gale; for it may be truly said, “the broad ocean leans against the land.” On the sand-hills, the same kind of plants prevail as in similar situations in England; sea-holly and buckthorn, _asparago_ and _Galium verum_, with sea-marran, _arundo arenaria_, which last is encouraged here, being found very useful in binding the sand. In some places wheat-straw had been dibbled in, as at Ostend, in order to promote the same object. Considering Scheveling as a fishing-village, we were greatly pleased with it: it was extremely neat and clean, and formed a perfect contrast with our Newhaven and Fisherrow,[379] the lanes of which are generally encumbered with all sorts of filth. We must confess, too, that in tidiness of dress and urbanity of manners, the fishwomen of Scheveling are equally superior to those of the Scottish villages just mentioned.
As we returned to the Hague, numbers of the inhabitants were also on their way to the fish-market, some carrying baskets of fish on their heads, and others employing three or four dogs to convey the fish in small light carts. We had read in books, of these draught dogs being well used, and fat and sleek; but we regret to say, that those which we saw were generally poor half-starved looking animals, bearing no equivocal marks of ill usage. The diligence with which they sped their way to town, with their cargoes, in a sultry day, with tongues lolling to the ground, seemed to entitle them to better treatment.
FISH-MARKET--STORKS
We traced the steps of some of our Scheveling companions to the fish-market. As might be expected, the market proved commodious and clean, and well supplied with water. Salmon was pretty common; carp was plentiful; and a single John Dory and a single sturgeon appeared on a stall. At some seasons, we believe, sturgeons are abundant, being taken in numbers at the mouths of the Rhine, when about to ascend that river. Four tame storks were stalking up and down in the market. They were in full plumage; and did not appear to have been pinioned, so as to disable them from flying. Their food consists wholly of the garbage which they pick up about the fish-stalls. A small house, like a dog’s kennel, is appropriated to their use; for the stork seems to be held as sacred by the Dutch as by the Mahomedans.[380]
[376] _Haag_, _hag_, _haigh_, &c. are explained in the _Every Day-Book_. Art. Hagbush-lane.--ED.
[377] _Conterminous_: bordering.--_Johnson._ ED.
[378] Le Long, indeed, puts this beyond doubt; for, writing in 1630, he describes this avenue as being then “adorned with fine trees.” _Kabinet van Outheden_, &c. published in 1732.
[379] Two small towns on the shore of the Frith of Forth, near Edinburgh, chiefly inhabited by fishermen and their families.
[380] Caledonian Horticultural Tour.
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~Michaelmas.~
CRABBING FOR HUSBANDS
_To the Editor._
Sir,--At this season “village maidens” in the west of England go up and down the hedges gathering _Crab-apples_, which they carry home, putting them into a loft, and form with them the initials of their supposed suitors’ names. The _initials_, which are found on examination to be most perfect on _old_ “Michaelmas Day,” are considered to represent the strongest attachments, and the best for the choice of husbands. This custom is very old, and much reliance is placed on the appearances and decomposition of the Crabs. Should this trifle be worthy of being added to your extensive notices of manners and localities, I shall be encouraged to forward you other little remembrances of like tendency. In the interim, give me leave to assure you, Sir, that I am your gratified reader,
PUCERON.
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Mr. Brand mentions, as a popular superstition, that if a tree of any kind is split--and weak, rickety, or ruptured children drawn through it, and afterwards the tree is bound, so as to make it unite, as the tree heals and grows together, so will the child acquire strength.
Sir John Cullum, who saw this operation twice performed, thus describes it:--“For this purpose a young _ash_ was each time selected, and split longitudinally, about five feet: the fissure was kept wide open by my gardener; whilst the friend of the child, having first stripped him naked, passed him thrice through it, almost head foremost. As soon as the operation was performed, the wounded tree was bound up with a packthread; and, as the bark healed, the child was to recover. The first of the young patients was to be cured of the rickets, the second of a rupture.” This is a very ancient and extensive piece of superstition.
In the Gentleman’s Magazine, for October, 1804, is an engraving of an ash tree, then growing by the side of Shirley-street, (the road leading from Hockley House to Birmingham,) at the edge of Shirley-heath, in the parish of Solihull, Warwickshire. It is stated that this tree is “close to the cottage of Henry Rowe, whose infant son, Thomas Rowe, was drawn through the trunk or body of it in the year 1791, to cure him of a rupture, the tree being then split open for the purpose of passing the child through it.” The writer proceeds to say, “The boy is now thirteen years and six months old: I have this day, June 10, 1804, seen the ash tree and Thomas Rowe, as well as his father, Henry Rowe, from whom I have received the above account; and he superstitiously believes that his son Thomas was cured of the rupture, by being drawn through the cleft in the said ash tree, and by nothing else.”
Another writer concerning the same tree says, “The upper part of a gap formed by the chisel has closed, but the lower remains open. [As represented in the plate, from whence the engraving at the head of this article is taken.] The tree is healthy and flourishing. Thomas Chillingworth, son of the owner of an adjoining farm, now about 34, was, when an infant of a year old, passed through a similar tree, now perfectly sound, which he preserves with so much care that he will not suffer a single branch to be touched, for it is believed the life of the patient depends on the life of the tree; and that the moment it is cut down, be the patient ever so distant, the rupture returns, and a mortification ensues, and terminates in death. Rowe’s son was passed through the present tree in 1792, at the age of one or two. It is not, however, uncommon for persons to survive for a time the felling of the tree. In one case the rupture returned suddenly, and mortification followed. These trees are left to close of themselves, or are closed with nails. The wood-cutters very frequently meet with the latter. One felled on Bunnan’s farm was found full of nails. This belief is so prevalent in this part of the country, that instances of trees that have been employed in the cure are very common. The like notions obtain credit in some parts of Essex.”
The same writer proceeds to observe a superstition “concerning the power of ash trees to repel other maladies or evils, such as _Shrew-mice_; the stopping one of which animals alive into a hole bored in an ash is imagined an infallible preventive of their ravages in lands.”
On this there are some particulars in point related by the Rev. Gilbert White, in his “Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne,” a parish near Alton, in Hampshire. “In a farm-yard near the middle of this village stands, at this day, a row of pollard-_ashes_, which, by the seams and long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly show that in former times they have been cleft asunder. These trees, when young and flexible, were severed and held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped naked, were pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that, by such a process, the poor babes would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the operation was over, the tree, in the suffering part, was plastered with loam, and carefully swathed up. If the parts coalesced and soldered together, as usually fell out, where the feat was performed with any adroitness at all, the party was cured; but where the cleft continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would prove ineffectual. Having occasion to enlarge my garden not long since, I cut down two or three such trees, one of which did not grow together. We have several persons now living in the village, who, in their childhood, were supposed to be healed by this superstitious ceremony, derived down perhaps from our Saxon ancestors, who practised it before their conversion to Christianity.”
Again, as respects _shrew-mice_, Mr. White says, “At the south corner of the plestor, or area, near the church, there stood, about twenty years ago, a very old grotesque hollow pollard-_ash_, which for ages had been looked on with no small veneration as a _shrew_-ash. Now a _shrew_-ash is an ash, whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, are immediately to relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the running of a _shrew-mouse_ over the part affected: for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against this accident, to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always kept a _shrew_-ash at hand; which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was made thus:--Into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged in, no doubt, with several quaint incantations long since forgotten. As the ceremonies necessary for such a consecration are no longer understood, all succession is at an end, and no such tree is known to subsist in the manor or hundred. As to that on the plestor, the late vicar stubbed and burnt it, when he was waywarden, regardless of the remonstrances of the by-standers, who interceded in vain for its preservation, urging its power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been
‘Religione patrum multos servata per annos.’”
Mr. Ellis, in a note on this practice of enclosing field-mice, cites a letter to Mr. Brand, dated May 9, 1806, from Robert Studley Vidal, Esq. of Cornborough, near Biddeford, a gentleman to whom Mr. Brand was much indebted for information on the local customs of Devonshire. Mr. Vidal says:--“An usage of the superstitious kind has just come under my notice, and which, as the pen is in my hand, I will shortly describe, though I rather think it is not peculiar to these parts. A neighbour of mine, on examining his sheep the other day, found that one of them had entirely lost the use of its hinder parts. On seeing it, I expressed an opinion that the animal must have received a blow across the back, or some other sort of violence which had injured the spinal marrow, and thus rendered it paralytic: but I was soon given to understand, that my remarks only served to prove how little I knew of country affairs, for that the affection of the sheep was nothing uncommon, and that the cause of it was well known; namely, a mouse having crept over its back. I could not but smile at the idea; which my instructor considering as a mark of incredulity, he proceeded very gravely to inform me, that I should be convinced of the truth of what he said by the means which he would use to restore the animal; and which were never known to fail. He accordingly despatched his people here and there in quest of a field-mouse; and having procured one, he told me that he should carry it to a particular tree at some distance, and, enclosing it within a hollow in the trunk, leave it there to perish. He further informed me, that he should bring back some of the branches of the tree with him, for the purpose of their being drawn now and then across the sheep’s back; and concluded by assuring me, with a very scientific look, that I should soon be convinced of the efficacy of this process; for that, as soon as the poor devoted mouse had yielded up his life a prey to famine, the sheep would be restored to its former strength and vigour. I can, however, state, with certainty, that the sheep was not at all benefited by this mysterious sacrifice of the mouse. The tree, I find, is of the sort called witch-elm, or witch-hazel.”
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TREES
POETICALLY AND NATIONALLY REGARDED.
A gentleman, who, on a tour in 1790, visited the burial-place of Edmond Waller, in the church-yard of Beaconsfield, describes the poet’s splendid tomb as enclosed, or cradled, with spiked iron palisadoes, inserted into a great old ash tree, under which his head reposes. “This umbrageous tree overshadows the whole mausoleum. As the pagan deities had each their favourite tree--Jupiter, the oak; Apollo, the laurel; Venus, the myrtle; Minerva, the olive; &c.--so poets and literary men have imitated them herein; and all lovers of solitude are, like the Lady Grace of Sir John Vanbrugh, fond of a cool retreat from the noon-day’s sultry heat _under a great tree_.”[381]
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A modern author, whose works are expressive of beauty and feeling, and from whom an elegant extract on “Gardens” in a former page has been derived, adverts to the important use which the poets have made of trees by way of illustration. He says--
Homer frequently embellishes his subjects with references to them; and no passage in the Iliad is more beautiful, than the one where, in imitation of Musæus, he compares the falling of leaves and shrubs to the fall and renovation of great and ancient families.--Illustrations of this sort are frequent in the sacred writings.--“I am exalted like a cedar in Libanus,” says the author of Ecclesiastes, “and as a cypress tree upon the mountain of Hermon. I was exalted like a palm tree in Engeddi, and as a rose plant in Jericho; as a fair olive in a pleasant field, and grew up as a plane tree by the water; as a turpentine tree I stretched out my branches, and my branches are the branches of honour and grace; as a vine brought I forth pleasant savour, and my flowers are the fruits of honour and victory.”--In the Psalms, in a fine vein of allegory, the vine tree is made to represent the people of Israel: “Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cut out the heathen, and planted it. Thou didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with its shadow, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars.”
In Ossian, how beautiful is the following passage of Malvina’s lamentation for Oscar:--“I was a lovely tree in thy presence, Oscar, with all my branches round me; but thy death came like a blast from the desert, and laid my green head low; the spring returned with its showers, but no green leaf of mine arose.” Again, where old and weary, blind and almost destitute of friends, he compares himself to a tree that is withered and decayed:--“But Ossian is a tree that is withered; its branches are blasted and bare; no green leaf covers its boughs:--from its trunk no young shoot is seen to spring; the breeze whistles in its grey moss; the blast shakes its head of age; the storm will soon overturn it, and strew all its dry branches with thee, Oh Dermid, and with all the rest of the mighty dead, in the green winding vale of Cona.”
That traveller esteemed himself happy, who first carried into Palestine the rose of Jericho from the plains of Arabia; and many of the Roman nobility were gratified, in a high degree, with having transplanted exotic plants and trees into the orchards of Italy. Pompey introduced the ebony on the day of his triumph over Mithridates; Vespasian transplanted the balm of Syria, and Lucullus the Pontian cherry. Auger de Busbeck brought the lilac from Constantinople; Hercules introduced the orange into Spain; Verton the mulberry into England:--and so great is the love of nations for particular trees, that a traveller never fails to celebrate those by which his native province is distinguished. Thus, the native of Hampshire prides himself upon his oaks; the Burgundian boasts of his vines, and the Herefordshire farmer of his apples. Normandy is proud of her pears; Provence of her olives; and Dauphiné of her mulberries; while the Maltese are in love with their own orange trees. Norway and Sweden celebrate their pines; Syria her palms; and since they have few other trees of which they can boast, Lincoln celebrates her alders, and Cambridge her willows! The Paphians were proud of their myrtles, the Lesbians of their vines; Rhodes loudly proclaimed the superior charms of her rose trees; Idumea of her balsams; Media of her citrons, and India of her ebony. The Druses boast of their mulberries; Gaza of her dates and pomegranates; Switzerland of her lime trees; Bairout of her figs and bananas; Damascus of her plums; Inchonnaugan of its birch, and Inchnolaig of its yews. The inhabitants of Jamaica never cease to praise the beauty of their manchenillas; while those of Tobasco are as vain of their cocoas.--The natives of Madeira, whose spring and autumn reign together, take pride in their cedars and citrons; those of Antigua of their tamarinds, while they esteem their mammee sappota to be equal to any oak in Europe, and their mangos to be superior to any tree in America. Equally partial are the inhabitants of the Plains of Tahta to their peculiar species of fan palm; and those of Kous to their odoriferous orchards. The Hispaniolans, with the highest degree of pride, challenge any one of the trees of Europe or Asia to equal the height of their cabbage trees--towering to an altitude of two hundred and seventy feet:--Even the people of the Bay of Honduras have imagination sufficient to conceive their logwood to be superior to any trees in the world; while the Huron savages inquire of Europeans, whether they have any thing to compare with their immense cedar trees.[382]
[381] Mr. T. Gosling, in the Gent. Mag. Sept. 1790.
[382] The Philosophy of Nature.
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THE PEARL.
A PERSIAN FABLE.
_Imitated from the Latin of Sir W. Jones._
Whoe’er his merit underrates, The worth which he disclaims creates.
It chanc’d a single drop of rain Fell from a cloud into the main: Abash’d, dispirited, amaz’d, At last her modest voice she rais’d: “Where, and what am I? Woe is me! What a mere drop in such a sea!”-- An oyster yawning, where she fell, Entrapp’d the vagrant in his shell; In that alembic wrought--for he Was deeply vers’d in alchemy-- This drop became a pearl; and now Adorns the crown on GEORGE’S brow.
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~Discoveries~
OF THE
ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.
No. XI.
COMETS.