Part 146
1821.--A clergyman of Bristol (the Rev. Mr. Sayer) having an occasion to write to sir R. C. Hoare, bart. received in reply a letter containing the following paragraph:--“I am glad to hear that the citizens of Bristol show a desire to restore the ancient monuments of their royal benefactors; pray assure them, that I shall be very happy to contribute any assistance, but my original is in such a tottering state that no time should be lost.”
Thus the beautiful High Cross which once adorned the city of Bristol may now, through the liberality of sir R. C. Hoare, be transplanted (if we may use the expression) to its native soil, after a banishment of fifty-seven years. Its reappearance in the College-green would be beautiful and highly appropriate.
At a meeting of the Bristol Philosophical and Literary Society on the 19th April, 1827, Mr. Richard Smith read a paper from Thomas Garrard, Esq. the chamberlain of Bristol, on the subject of the High Cross, together with a brief notice of “the well of St. Edith” in Peter-street. The latter, as well as the remains of the Cross, are still preserved at sir R. C. Hoare’s at Stourton. Many other interesting particulars may be found in the Bristol Mirror, April 28, 1827.
A. B.
_August, 1827._
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ORIGIN OF THE WORD TAILOR.
_To the Editor._
Dear Sir,--Bailey derives “_tailor_ from _tailler_, French, a maker of garments:” but when a boy I remember perfectly well, my grandfather, who was facetious, and attached to the usages of the past, acquainting me with _his_ origin of the word “tailor.” He stated it nearly thus:--“The term tailor originated between a botcher (a man that went from farm-house to farm-house, and made and repaired clothes by the day) and his wife--who, going to a town fair without her husband, returned in a storm at a late hour, all bespattered with mud. The wearied botcher had searched for her in vain, till meeting a neighbour, who told him his wife was gone home draggletailed, he exclaimed, ‘God be praised! _she’s_ where she ought to be; but the De’el take the _tail-’o’her_.’ His brother villagers ever after called him (not the botcher) but the _tail o’her_--hence _tailor_. The Devil among the Tailors perhaps owes its origin to a similar freak.”
Speaking of a _tail_, the following from Bailey may not be inappropriate.--“_Kentish long tails._ The Kentish men are said to have had tails for some generations, by way of punishment, as some say; for the Kentish pagans abusing Austin the monk and his associates, by beating them, and opprobriously tying fish-tails to them; in revenge of which, such appendages grew to the hind parts of all that generation. But the scene of this lying wonder was not in Kent, but at Carne, in Dorsetshire. Others again say, it was for cutting off the tail of Saint Thomas of Canterbury’s horse; who, being out of favour with Henry II., riding towards Canterbury upon a poor sorry horse, was so served by the common people. _Credat Judæus Apella._”
“Animals’ tails” were worn at country festivals by buffoons and sportmakers; for which, see “Plough Monday,” in the _Every-Day Book_; and also, see Liston, in Grojan, “I could a _tail_ unfold!” &c.
Yours truly,
*, *, P.
* * * * *
_For the Table Book._
THE CLERK IN THE DARK.
“_Set forth, but not allowed to be sung in all Churches, of all the people together._”
Once on a time, ’twas afternoon, And winter--while the weary day Danced off with Phœbus--to the tune Of “O’er the hills and far away”----
I went to church, and heard the clerk Preface the psalm with “Pardon me, But really friends it is so dark, Do all I may I cannot see”----
The “quire” that used the psalms to chant Not dreaming to be thus misled-- Struck up in chorus jubilant, The clerk’s apology instead!
MORAL.
“The force of habit” should not keep Our trust in other heads so sure, That reason may drop off to sleep. Or sense enjoy a sinecure.
A. X.
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_For the Table Book._
CINDERELLA.
Of all the narratives either of fact or of fiction there are none, I will pledge my veracity, like the Fairy Tales of the Nursery, for interesting all the best feelings of our nature, and for impressing an imperishable and beautiful morality upon the heart. Was there ever, can you imagine--was there ever a young woman hardened and heartless enough to explore a forbidden closet, after she had perused the romantic history of Bluebeard? Would she not fearfully fancy that every box, bag, and bottle, jar, jelly, and jam-pot was grinning hideously at her in the person of one of the departed Mrs. Bluebeards? In fact, there is not a tale that does not convey some fine instruction, and, I would venture to affirm, that does not produce more salutary influence on the youthful mind, than all that Dr. Gregory and Mrs. Chapone, Dr. Fordyce and Miss Hannah More, have ever, in their wearisome sagacity, advised.
Of the whole of these entertaining stories, perhaps the best, and deservedly the most popular, is the History of Cinderella. How deeply do we sympathise in her cinders! how do we admire her patient endurance and uncomplaining gentleness,--her noble magnanimity in not arranging her sisters’ _tresses amiss_--for presuming to be her _miss-tresses_--and finally, how do we rejoice at her ultimate and unexpected prosperity! Judge then of my horror, imagine my despair, when I read the New Monthly Magazine, and saw this most exquisite story derived from the childish folly of a strolling player! The account, which is in a paper entitled “Drafts on La Fitte,” states, that the tale originated in an actual occurrence about the year 1730 at Paris. It is to this effect:--An actor, one Thevenard, saw a shoe, where shoes are frequently to be seen, viz. at a cobbler’s stall, and, like a wise man, fell deeply in love with it. He immediately took his stand by the stall all the rest of the day--but nobody came for the shoe. Next morning “Ecce iterum Crispinus,” he was with the cobbler again, still nobody came: however, to make a short story of a long one, day after day the poor actor stood there, till the proprietor of the shoe applied for it, in the person of a most elegant young woman; when monsieur Thevenard took the opportunity of telling her, he admired her foot so much he was anxious to gain her hand; to this modest desire she kindly complied, and they were accordingly married. Thus ends this pitiful account. He must have had an inventive fancy, indeed, who could manufacture the sweet story of Cinderella out of such meagre materials--it was making a mountain out of a molehill! The gentle and interesting Cinderella dwindles down into a girl, whose only apparent merit was her economy in having her shoe patched--and the affable and affluent prince melts away into a French actor. Were the prize of squeezing her foot into the little slipper only to become the bride of an actor, I should imagine the ladies would not have been quite so anxious to stand in her shoes!
Now, gentle reader, as I have told you what is _not_ the origin of my story, it is but incumbent on me to tell you what _is_.--In the thirteenth book of the “Various History” of Ælian is the real genuine narrative from which Cinderella is derived--it is the twenty-third anecdote: and the similarity of the two stories is so great, that, I trust, a simple repetition of it will prove beyond a doubt the antiquity, as well as the rank, of my favourite Cinderella. Of all the Egyptians, says the historian, Rhodope was reckoned the most beautiful;--to her, when she was bathing, Fortune, ever fond of sudden and unexpected catastrophes, did a kindness more merited by her beauty than her prudence. One day, when she was bathing, she judiciously left her shoes on the bank of the stream, and an eagle (naturally mistaking it for a sheep or a little child) pounced down upon one of them, and flew off with it. Flying with it directly over Memphis, where king Psammeticus[501] was dispensing justice, the eagle dropped the shoe in the king’s lap. Of course the king was struck with it, and admiring the beauty of the shoe and the skill and proportion of the fabrication, he sent through all the kingdom in search of a foot that would fit it; and having found it attached to the person of Rhodope, he immediately married her.
P.S.--I have given my authority, chapter and verse, for my story; but still farther to substantiate it, I am willing to lay both my name and address before the reader.
MR. SMITH,
_London_.
_November, 1827._
[501] Psammeticus was one of the twelve kings of Egypt, and reigned about the year 670 B. C., just 2400 years before the poor Frenchman’s time!--(See his history in Herodotus, book 2. cap. 2 and 3.)
* * * * *
HORÆ CRAVENÆ.
_For the Table Book._
HITCHINGSTONE FEAST.--COWLING MOONS.
On the highest part of Sutton Common, in Craven, is a huge block of solid granite, of about fifty yards in circumference, and about ten yards high. It is regarded as a great natural curiosity, and has for generations been a prominent feature in the legends and old wife’s tales of the neighbourhood. On the west side is an artificial excavation, called “The Chair,” capable of containing six persons comfortably, though I remember it once, at a pinch, in a tremendous thunder shower, containing eight. On the north side is a similar excavation, called “The Churn,” from its resemblance to that domestic utensil; on the top is a natural basin, fourteen yards in circumference. This stone is the boundary-mark for three townships and two parishes, viz. the townships of Sutton, Cowling, and Laycock, and the parishes of Kildwick and Keighley. From time immemorial it has been customary to hold a feast round Hitchingstone on the 1st of August, the amusements at which are of a similar nature with those of the village feasts and tides (as they are called in some places) in the vicinity, as dancing, racing, &c. At a short distance from Hitchingstone are two smaller stones, one on the east, called Kidstone, the other on the north-east, called Navaxstone; whence the three names are derived I am ignorant.
The inhabitants of Cowling, or Cowling-head, the village from which the township takes its name, are known in Craven as “Moons;” an epithet of derision, which is said to have had its origin from the following circumstance:--Cowling-head is a wild mountain village, and the inhabitants are not famed for travelling much; but it is told, that once upon a time, a Cowling shepherd got so far from home as Skipton, (six miles;) on entering Skipton it was a fine moonlight night, and the shepherd is said to have made this sagacious remark: “How like your Skipton moon is to our Cowling-head moon.” Be the story true or not, the inhabitants are called “Moons;” and in the vulgar vocabulary of Craven a silly fellow is called a “Cowling moon.” Not knowing a single inhabitant of Cowling I cannot speak of their civilization; but it does not say much for their advancement in knowledge, that the Joannites have a chapel amongst them, and remain true to their _prophetess_; who, as they suppose,
is but vanish’d from the earth awhile, To come again with bright unclouded smile.
While residing a few days at a gentleman’s house in the neighbourhood, I frequently observed the Cowling Joannites, with their long beards, rambling up and down the fells. A friend likened them to the ancient Druid priests, but I thought they more resembled goats, and formed no bad substitute for that animal, which is almost wholly banished from the fells of the district.
HE’S GOT T’OIL-BOTTLE IN HIS POCKET.
This is a Craven saying, and is applied to a person, who, like the heathen Janus, has two faces; in other words, one who acts with duplicity, who will flatter you to your face, and malign you behind your back. Alas! how many are there amongst all ranks, and in all places, who have “got t’oil bottles in their pockets.”
SWINE HARRY.
This is the name of a field on the side of Pinnow, a hill in Lothersdale, in Craven; and is said to have derived its name from the following singular circumstance. A native of the valley was once, at the dead of night, crossing the field with a pig which he had stolen from a neighbouring farmyard; he led the obstinate animal by a rope tied to its leg, which was noosed at the end where the thief held it. On coming to a ladder-style in the field, being a very corpulent man, and wishing to have both hands at liberty, but not liking to release the pig, he transferred the rope from his hands to his neck; but when he reached the topmost step his feet slipped, the pig pulled hard on the other side, the noose tightened, and on the following morning he was found dead. I believe this story to be a fact; it was told me by an aged man, who said it happened in his father’s time.
T. Q. M.
_Sept. 2, 1827._
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THOMAS SMITH,
A QUACK EXTRAORDINARY.
_For the Table Book._
The following advertisement, somewhat abridged from the original, which must have been put forth upwards of a century ago, abundantly proves, that quackery and puffing had made some progress even at that period:--
“In King-street, Westminster, at the Queen’s-arms and Corn-cutter, liveth Thomas Smith; who, by experience and ingenuity, has learnt the art of taking out and curing all manner of corns, without pain, or drawing blood. He likewise takes out all manner of nails, which cause any disaster, trouble, or pain, which no man in England can do the like. He cures the tooth-ache in half an hour, let the pain be never so great, and cleanses and preserves the teeth. He can, with God’s assistance, perform the same in a little time.
“I wear a silver badge, with three verses; the first in English, the second in Dutch, the third in French, with the States of Holland’s crownet on the top, which was gave me as a present by the States-general of Holland, for the many cures, &c. My name on the badge underwritten, THOMAS SMITH, who will not fail, God willing, to make out every particular in this bill, &c.
“The famousest ware in England, which never fails to cure the tooth-ache in half an hour, price one shilling the bottle. Likewise a powder for cleansing the teeth, which makes them as ivory without wearing them, and without prejudice to the gums, one shilling the box. Also two sorts of water for curing the scurry in the gums; though they are eaten away to the bottom, it will heal them, and cause them to grow as firm as ever, very safe, without mercury, or any unwholesome spirit. To avoid counterfeits, they are only sold at his own house, &c., price of each bottle half a crown, or more, according to the bigness, with directions.”--_Harl. MSS._
Smith is mentioned in the Tatler. He used to go out daily in quest of customers, and made a periodical call at all the coffee-houses then in London.
H. M. L.
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DUNCHURCH, COW, AND CALF.
_To the Editor._
Sir,--I am confidently assured, that the following coincidences really occur. You may not perhaps deem them unworthy of the very small space they will occupy in your amusing columns, of which I have ever been a constant reader.
T. R.
At _Dunchurch_, near Coventry, is an inn, or public-house, called the _Dun Cow_, which supplies its landlord with the milk of existence. He is actually named _Duncalf_; the product of his barrels may be, therefore, not unaptly termed,--_mother’s milk_.
* * * * *
~Discoveries~
OF THE
ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.
No. XIV.
THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD, &c.
Two thousand years have elapsed since the time of Hippocrates, and there has scarcely been added a new aphorism to those of that great man, notwithstanding all the care and application of so many ingenious men as have since studied medicine.
There exist evident proofs that Hippocrates was acquainted with the circulation of the blood. Almelooven, in vindication of this father of medicine not having more amply treated of this subject in his works, assigns this reason, that Hippocrates having many other important matters to discuss, judged that to enlarge upon what was so well known, and had been so well explained by others, was as needless as it would have been to have written an Iliad after Homer. It is less requisite here to cite passages as proofs of Hippocrates’s knowledge on this vital principle in the animal economy, than to state the fact of his acquaintance with it. Briefly it may suffice to mention, that Hippocrates compares the course of rivers, which return to their sources in an unaccountable and extraordinary manner, _to the circulation of the blood_. He says, that “when the bile enters into the blood it breaks its consistence, and disorders its regular course.” He compares the admirable mechanism of the blood “to clues of thread, whose filaments overlap each other;” and he says, that “_in the body it performs just such a circuit, always terminating where it began_.”
Mr. Dutens is of opinion that Plato, Aristotle, Julius Pollux, Apuleius, and other ancients, treat the circulation of the blood as well known in their time. To that end he cites passages from their writings, and proceeds to affirm, that what reduces to a very small degree the honour of Harvey’s claim to the discovery is, that Servetus had treated of it very distinctly before him, in the fifth part of his book _De Christianismi Restitutione_; a work so very scarce, that there are but few who can boast of having seen it in print. Mr. Wotton, in his _Reflections upon the Ancients and Moderns_, cites this passage of Servetus entire. In this passage Servetus distinguishes three sorts of spirits in the human body, and says that blood, “which he calls a vital spirit, is dispersed through the body by the _anastomosis_, or mutual insertion of two vessels, at their extremities, into one another.” Here it deserves observation, that Servetus is the first who employed that term to express the communication between the veins and arteries. He makes “the expanded air in the lungs contribute to the formation of blood, which comes to them from the right ventricle of the heart, by the canal of the pulmonary artery.” He says, that “the blood is there refined and perfected by the action of the air, which subtilises it and blends itself with that vital spirit, which the expanded heart then receives as a fluid proper to carry life every where.” He maintains that “this conveyance and manner of preparing the blood in the lungs is evident from the junction of the veins with the arteries in this viscera.” And he concludes with saying, that “the heart having received the blood thus prepared by the lungs sends it forth again by the artery of its left ventricle, called the aorta, which distributes it into all parts of the body.” Andreas Cesalpinus, who lived likewise in the sixteenth century, has two passages which completely contain all that we know about the circulation of the blood. He explains at length “how the blood, gushing from the right ventricle of the heart through the pulmonary artery to pass into the lungs, enters anastomosically into the pulmonary veins, to be conveyed to the left ventricle of the heart, and afterwards distributed by the aorta into all parts of the body.” Let it be remarked, that, according to Boerhaave, the first edition of Cesalpin’s book was at Venice in 1571; that is, almost sixty years before Harvey’s work appeared, who studied at Padua, which is not far from Venice; and spent a considerable part of his time there.
Johannes Leonicenus says, that the famous Paul Sarpi, otherwise known by the name of Father Paul, was he who discovered the circulation of the blood, and first discerned “the valves of the veins, which, like the suckers of a pump, open to let the blood pass, but shut to prevent its return;” and that he communicated this secret to Fabricius ab Aquapendente, professor of medicine at Padoua in the sixteenth century, and successor to Fallopius, who discovered it to Harvey, at that time studying physic under him in the university of Padoua.
SERVETUS.
HIS BOOKS--CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO--DE TRINITATE ERRORIBUS--DE TRINITATE DIALOGORUM.
Mr. Dutens, in the course of his remarks on Servetus’s discourse concerning the circulation of the blood, observes as follows:--
“Servetus published on this subject two different books. That for which he was burnt at Geneva, in 1553, is entitled _Christianismi Restitutio_, and had been printed but a month before his death. The care they took to burn all the copies of it at Vienne in Dauphiny, at Geneva, and at Frankfort, rendered it a book of the greatest scarcity. Mention is made of one copy of it in the catalogue of Mr. de Boze’s books, p. 40, which has been regarded as the only one extant. I have had in my hands a surreptitious copy of it, published at London, which formerly belonged to Dr. Friend; in the 143d, 144th, and 145th pages of which occurs the passage (on the circulation.) The book is in quarto, but without the name of the place where it was printed, or the time when, and is incomplete, the bishop of London having put a stop to the impression, which, if I mistake not, was about the year 1730. Care should be taken not to confound this with another work of his, printed in 12mo. in 1531, without mention of the place where, but supposed to be at Lyons. It is entitled _De Trinitatis Erroribus Libri Septem, per Michaelem Serveto, alias Reves, ab Aragonia Hispanum_; and there is along with it another treatise, printed in 1532, entitled _Dialogorum de Trinitate, Lib. 2. de Justitia Regni Christi, Capitula 4. per Michaelem Serveto, alias Reves, ab Aragonià Hispanum_. This last, which is very scarce, and sold once for one hundred pistoles, (that is 40_l._ sterl.) is in the library of the duke of Roxburgh at London, where I have seen it, but it contains not the passage referred to, which is only to be met with in the corrected and enlarged edition of that work, published in 1553, and entitled _Christianismi Restitutio_.”
Dr. Sigmond, in a recent work, entitled “The Unnoticed Theories of Servetus,” speaks of a Life of Servetus in the Historical Dictionary;[502] another, ascribed to M. de la Roche, in the “Bibliothèque Angloise,” with extracts relating to Servetus’s Theory of the Circulation of the Blood; and a third, by M. D’Artigny, in the “Mémoires des Hommes Illustres,” who extracted the history of the trial from the archives of the archbishop of Vienne in Dauphine. “And I have lately read with considerable pleasure,” says Dr. Sigmond, “an Apology for the Life of Servetus, by Richard Wright; not because he adds any thing to our previous knowledge of his life and conduct, but that a spirit of candour and liberality entitles the volume to much consideration. He has evidently not met with the _Christianismi Restitutio_.”