Part 34
I was born by the side of a rocky cave in the Peak of Derbyshire; before I was born, my mother dreamed I should be an ostrich. I very early showed a disposition to my present diet; instead of eating the pap offered to me, I swallowed the spoon, which was of hard stone ware, made in that country, and had the handle broken off. My coral served me in the double capacity of a plaything and a sweetmeat; and as soon as I had my teeth, I nibbled at every pan and mug that came within my reach, in such a manner, that there was scarcely a whole piece of earthenware to be found in the house. I constantly swallowed the flints out of the tinder-box, and so deranged the economy of the family, that my mother forced me to seek subsistence out of the house.
Hunger, they say, will break stone walls: this I experienced; for the stone fences lay very temptingly in my way, and I made many a comfortable breakfast on them. On one occasion, a farmer who had lost some of his flock the night before, finding me early one morning breaking his fences, would hardly be persuaded that I had no design upon his mutton--I only meant to regale myself upon his wall.
When I went to school, I was a great favourite with the boys; for whenever there was damson tart or cherry pie, I was well content to eat all the stones, and leave them the fruit. I took the shell, and gave my companions the oyster, and whoever will do so, I will venture to say, will be well received through life. I must confess, however, that I made great havock among the marbles, of which I swallowed as many as the other boys did of sugar-plums. I have many a time given a stick of barley-sugar for a delicious white alley; and it used to be the diversion of the bigger boys to shake me, and hear them rattle in my stomach. While I was there, I devoured the greatest part of a stone chimney-piece, which had been in the school time out of mind, and borne the memorials of many generations of scholars, all of which were more swept away by my teeth, than those of time. I fell, also, upon a collection of spars and pebbles, which my master’s daughter had got together to make a grotto. For both these exploits I was severely flogged. I continued, however, my usual diet, except that for a change I sometimes ate Norfolk dumplins, which I found agree with me very well. I have now continued this diet for thirty years, and do affirm it to be the most cheap, wholesome, natural, and delicious of all food.
I suspect the Antediluvians were Lithophagi: this, at least, we are certain of, that Saturn, who lived in the golden age, was a stone-eater! We cannot but observe, that those people who live in fat rich soils are gross and heavy; whereas those who inhabit rocky and barren countries, where there is plenty of nothing but stones, are healthy, sprightly, and vigorous. For my own part, I do not know that ever I was ill in my life, except that once being over persuaded to venture on some Suffolk cheese, it gave me a slight indigestion.
I am ready to eat flints, pebbles, marbles, freestone, granite, or any other stones the curious may choose, with a good appetite and without any deception. I am promised by a friend, a shirt and coarse frock of the famous Asbestos, that my food and clothing may be suitable to each other.
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FRANCIS BATTALIA.
In 1641, Hollar etched a print of Francis Battalia, an Italian, who is said to have eaten half a peck of stones a day. Respecting this individual, Dr. Bulwer, in his “Artificial Changeling,” says he saw the man, that he was at that time about thirty years of age; and that “he was born with two stones in one hand, and one in the other, which the child took for his first nourishment, upon the physician’s advice; and afterwards nothing else but three or four pebbles in a spoon, once in twenty-four hours.” After his stone-meals, he was accustomed to take a draught of beer: “and in the interim, now and then, a pipe of tobacco; for he had been a soldier in Ireland, at the siege of Limerick; and upon his return to London was confined for some time upon suspicion of imposture.”
[86] Gentleman’s Magazine.
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~Garrick Plays.~
No. IX.
[From the “Two Angry Women of Abingdon,” a Comedy, by Henry Porter, 1599.]
_Proverb-monger_.
This formal fool, your man, speaks nought but Proverbs; And, speak men what they can to him, he’ll answer With some rhyme-rotten sentence, or old saying, Such spokes as th’ Ancient of the Parish use With “Neighbour, it’s an old Proverb and a true, Goose giblets are good meat, old sack better than new:” Then says another, “Neighbour, that is true.” And when each man hath drunk his gallon round, (A penny pot, for that’s the old man’s gallon). Then doth he lick his lips, and stroke his beard, That’s glued together with the slavering drops Of yesty ale; and when he scarce can trim His gouty fingers, thus he’ll fillip it, And with a rotten hem say, “Hey my hearts,” “Merry go sorry,” “Cock and Pye, my hearts;” And then their saving-penny-proverb comes, And that is this, “They that will to the wine, By’r Lady, mistress, shall lay their penny to mine.” This was one of this penny-father’s bastards; For on my life he was never begot Without the consent of some great Proverb-monger.
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_She Wit._
Why, she will flout the devil, and make blush The boldest face of man that ever man saw. He that hath best opinion of his wit, And hath his brain-pan fraught with bitter jests (Or of his own, or stol’n, or howsoever), Let him stand ne’er so high in’s own conceit, Her wit’s a sun that melts him down like butter, And makes him sit at table pancake-wise, Flat, flat, and ne’er a word to say; Yet she’ll not leave him then, but like a tyrant She’ll persecute the poor wit-beaten man, And so be-bang him with dry bobs and scoffs, When he is down (most cowardly, good faith!) As I have pitied the poor patient. There came a Farmer’s Son a wooing to her, A proper man, well-landed too he was, A man that for his wit need not to ask What time a year ’twere need to sow his oats, Nor yet his barley, no, nor when to reap, To plow his fallows, or to fell his trees, Well experienced thus each kind of way; After a two months’ labour at the most, (And yet ’twas well he held it out so long), He left his Love; she had so laced his lips, He could say nothing to her but “God be with ye.” Why, she, when men have dined, and call’d for cheese Will strait maintain jests bitter to digest; And then some one will fall to argument, Who if he over-master her with reason, Then she’ll begin to buffet him with mocks.
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_Master Goursey proposes to his Son a Wife_.
_Frank Goursey._ Ne’er trust me, father, the shape of marriage. Which I do see in others, seems so severe, I dare not put my youngling liberty Under the awe of that instruction; And yet I grant, the limits of free youth Going astray are often restrain’d by that. But Mistress Wedlock, to my summer thoughts, Will be too curst, I fear: O should she snip My pleasure-aiming mind, I shall be sad; And swear, when I did marry, I was mad. _Old Goursey._ But, boy, let my experience teach thee this; (Yet in good faith thou speak’st not much amiss); When first thy mother’s fame to me did come, Thy grandsire thus then came to me his son, And ev’n my words to thee to me he said; And, as thou say’st to me, to him I said, But in a greater huff and hotter blood: I tell ye, on youth’s tiptoes then I stood. Says he (good faith, this was his very say), When I was young, I was but Reason’s fool; And went to wedding, as to Wisdom’s school: It taught me much, and much I did forget; But, beaten much by it, I got some wit: Though I was shackled from an often-scout, Yet I would wanton it, when I was out; ’Twas comfort old acquaintance then to meet, Restrained liberty attain’d is sweet. Thus said my father to thy father, son; And thou may’st do this too, as I have done.
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_Wandering in the dark all night._
O when will this same Year of Night have end? Long-look’d for Day’s Sun, when wilt thou ascend? Let not this thief-friend misty veil of night Encroach on day, and shadow thy fair light; Whilst thou comest tardy from thy Thetis’ bed, Blushing forth golden-hair and glorious red. O stay not long, bright lanthern of the day, To light my mist-way feet to my right way.
The pleasant Comedy, from which these Extracts are taken, is contemporary with some of the earliest of Shakspeare’s, and is no whit inferior to either the Comedy of Errors, or the Taming of the Shrew, for instance. It is full of business, humour, and merry malice. Its night-scenes are peculiarly sprightly and wakeful. The versification unencumbered, and rich with compound epithets. Why do we go on with ever new Editions of Ford, and Massinger, and the thrice reprinted Selections of Dodsley? what we want is as many volumes more, as these latter consist of, filled with plays (such as this), of which we know comparatively nothing. Not a third part of the Treasures of old English Dramatic literature has been exhausted. Are we afraid that the genius of Shakspeare would suffer in our estimate by the disclosure? He would indeed be somewhat lessened as a miracle and a prodigy. But he would lose no height by the confession. When a Giant is shown to us, does it detract from the curiosity to be told that he has at home a gigantic brood of brethren, less only than himself? Along _with_ him, not _from_ him, sprang up the race of mighty Dramatists who, compared with the Otways and Rowes that followed, were as Miltons to a Young or an Akenside. That he was their elder Brother, not their Parent, is evident from the fact of the very few direct imitations of him to be found in their writings. Webster, Decker, Heywood, and the rest of his great contemporaries went on their own ways, and followed their individual impulses, not blindly prescribing to themselves his tract. Marlowe, the true (though imperfect) Father of our _tragedy_, preceded him. The _comedy_ of Fletcher is essentially unlike to that of his. ’Tis out of no detracting spirit that I speak thus, for the Plays of Shakspeare have been the strongest and the sweetest food of my mind from infancy; but I resent the comparative obscurity in which some of his most valuable co-operators remain, who were his dear intimates, his stage and his chamber-fellows while he lived, and to whom his gentle spirit doubtlessly then awarded the full portion of their genius, as from them toward himself appears to have been no grudging of his acknowledged excellence.
C. L.
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~Characters.~
AGRESTILLA.
_For the Table Book._
There is a story in the Rambler of a lady whom the great moralist calls Althea, who perversely destroyed all the satisfaction of a party of pleasure, by not only finding, but seeking for fault upon every occasion, and affecting a variety of frivolous fears and apprehensions without cause. Female follies, like “states and empires, have their periods of declension;” and nearly half a century has passed away since it has been deemed elegant, or supposed interesting, to scream at a spider, shudder in a boat, or assert, with vehemence of terror, that a gun, though ascertained not to be charged, may still “go off.” The tendency to fly from one extreme to the other has ever been the characteristic of weak minds, and the party of weak minds will always support itself by a considerable majority, both among women and men. Something may be done by those minor moralists, modestly termed essayists and novelists, who have brought wisdom and virtue to dwell in saloons and drawing-rooms. Mrs. H. More and Miss Edgeworth have pretty well written down the affectation of assuming “the cap, the whip, the masculine attire,” and the rage for varnishing and shoe-making has of itself subsided, by the natural effect of total incongruity between the means and the end. Ladies are now contented to be ladies, that is, rational beings of the softer sex, and do not affect to be artists or mechanics. Nevertheless, some peculiarities of affectation do from time to time shoot up into notice, and call for the pruning-knife of the friendly satirist.
AGRESTILLA is an agreeable, well-informed person of my own sex, from whose society I have derived great pleasure and advantage both in London and Paris. A few weeks since, she proposed to me to accompany her to spend some time in a small town in Normandy, for the benefit of country air: to this plan I acceded with great readiness; an apartment was secured by letter, and we proceeded on our journey.
I have lived too long in the world ever to expect unmixed satisfaction from any measure, and long enough never to neglect any precaution by which personal comfort is to be secured. To this effect I had represented, that perhaps it might be better to delay fixing on lodgings till we arrived, lest we should find ourselves bounded to the view of a market-place or narrow street, with, perchance, a butcher’s shop opposite our windows, and a tin-man or tallow-chandler next door to us. Agrestilla replied, that in London or Paris it was of course essential to one’s consideration in society to live in a fashionable neighbourhood, but that nobody minded those things “in the country.” In vain I replied, that _consideration_ was not what I considered, but freedom from noise and bad smells: I was then laughed at for my fastidiousness,--“Who in the world would make difficulties about such trifles in the _country_, when one might be out of doors from morning till night!”
We arrived at the place of our destination; my mind expanded with pleasure at the sight of large rooms, wide staircases, and windows affording the prospect of verdure. The stone-floors and the paucity of window curtains, to say nothing of blinds to exclude the sun, appeared to me inconveniences to be remedied by the expenditure of a few francs; but Agrestilla, as pertinacious in her serenity as Althea in her querulousness, decided that we ought to take things in the rough, and make anything do “in the country.” Scraps of carpet and ells of muslin are attainable by unassisted effort, stimulated by necessity, and I acquired and maintained tolerable ease of mind and body, till we came to discuss together the grand article of society. My maxim is, the best or none at all. I love conversation, but hate feasting and visiting. Agrestilla lays down no maxim, but her practice is, good if possible--if not, second-best; at all events, a number of guests and frequent parties. Though she is not vain of her mind or of her person, yet the display of fine clothes and good dishes, and the secret satisfaction of shining forth the queen of her company, make up her enjoyment: Agrestilla’s taste is gregarious. To my extreme sorrow and apprehension, we received an invitation to dine with a family unknown to me, and living nine miles off! To refuse was impossible, the plea of preengagement is inadmissible with people who tell you to “choose your day,” and as to pretending to be sick, I hold it to be presumptuous and wicked. The conveyance was to be a cart! the time of departure six in the morning! Terrified and aghast, I demanded, “How are we to get through the day?” No work! no books! no subjects of mutual interest to talk upon!--“Oh! dear me, time soon passes ‘in the country;’ we shall be three hours going, the roads are very bad, then comes breakfast, and then walking round the garden, and then dinner and coming home early.” This invitation hung over my mind like an incubus,--like an eye-tooth firm in the head to be wrenched out,--like settling-day to a defaulter, or auricular confession to a ceremonious papist and bad liver. My only hope was in the weather. The clouds seemed to be for ever filling and for ever emptying, like the pitchers of the Danaides. The street, court, and garden became all impassable, without the loan of Celestine’s _sabots_ (anglice wooden shoes.) Celestine is a stout Norman girl, who washes the dishes, and wears a holland-mob and a linsey-woolsey petticoat. Certainly, thought I, in my foolish security, while this deluge continues nobody will think of visiting “in the country.” But vain and illusive was my hope! Agrestilla declared her intention of keeping her engagement “if it rained cats and dogs;” and the weather cleared up on the eve of my execution, and smiled in derision of my woe. The cart came. Jemmy Dawson felt as much anguish in his, but he did not feel it so long. We were lumbered with inside packages, bundles, boxes, and baskets, accumulated by Agrestilla; I proposed their being secured with cords (_lashed_ is the sea-term) to prevent them from rolling about, crushing our feet and grazing our legs at every jolt. Agrestilla’s politeness supprest an exclamation of amazement, that people could mind such trifles “in the country!”--for her part, she never made difficulties.--Being obliged to maintain the equilibrium of my person by clinging to each side of the cart with my two hands, I had much to envy those personages of the Hindû mythology, who are provided with six or seven arms: as for my bonnet it was crushed into all manner of shapes, my brain was jarred and concussed into the incapacity to tell whether six and five make eleven or thirteen, and my feet were “all murdered,” as the Irish and French say. What exasperated my sufferings was the reflection on my own folly in incurring so much positive evil, to pay and receive a mere compliment! Had it been to take a reprieve to a dear friend going to be hanged, to carry the news of a victory, or convey a surgeon to the wounded, I should have thought nothing and said less of the matter; but for a mere dinner among strangers, a long day without interest and occupation!--really I consider myself as having half incurred the guilt of suicide. Six or seven times at least, the horse, painfully dragging us the whole way by the strain of every nerve and sinew, got stuck in the mud, and was to be flogged till he plunged out of it. More than once we tottered upon ridges of incrusted mud, when a very little matter would have turned us over. I say nothing about _Rut_land--I abhor and disdain a pun--but we did nothing but cross ruts to avoid puddles, and cross them back again to avoid stones, and the ruts were all so deep as to leave but one semicircle of the wheel visible. I never saw such roads--the Colossus of Rhodes would have been knee-deep in them. At last we arrived--Agrestilla as much out of patience at my calling it an evil to have my shins bruised black and blue, while engaged in a party of pleasure “in the country,” as I to find the expedition all pain and no pleasure. We turned out of the cart in very bad condition; all our dress “clean put on,” as the housewives say, rumpled and soiled, our limbs stiff, our faces flushed, and by far too fevered to eat, and too weary to walk. How I thought, like a shipwrecked mariner, not upon my own “fireside,” as English novelists always say, but upon my quiet, comfortable room, books, work, independence, and _otium_ with or without _dignitate_ (let others decide that.) Oh! the _fag_ of talking when one has nothing to say, smiling when one is ready to cry, and accepting civilities when one feels them all to be inflictions! Of the habits, the manners, the appearance, and the conversation of our hosts, I will relate nothing; I have eaten their bread, as the Arabs say, and owe them the tribute of thanks and silence. Agrestilla was as merry as possible all day; she has lived in the company of persons of sense and education, but--nobody expects refinement “in the country!” In vain I expostulate with her, pleading in excuse of what she terms my fastidiousness, that I cannot change my fixed notions of elegance, propriety, and comfort, to conform to the habits of those to whom such terms are as _lingua franca_ to a Londoner, what he neither understands nor cares for.
It is easy to conform one’s exterior to rural habits, by putting on a coarse straw hat, thick shoes, and linen gown, but the taste and feeling of what is right, the mental perception must remain the same. Nothing can be more surprising to an English resident in a country-town of France, than the jumble of ranks in society that has taken place since the revolution. I know a young lady whose education and manners render her fit for polished society in Paris; her mother goes about in a woollen jacket, and dresses the dinner, not from necessity, for that I should make no joke of, but from taste; and is as arrant an old gossip as ever lolled with both elbows over the counter of a chandler’s shop.--Her brother is a _garde du corps_, who spends his life in palaces and drawing-rooms, and she has one cousin a little pastry-cook, and another a washer-woman.--They have a lodger, a maiden lady, who lives on six hundred francs per annum, (about twenty-four pounds,) and of course performs every menial office for herself, and, except on Sundays, looks like an old weeding-woman; her brother has been a judge, lives in a fine house, buys books and cultivates exotics. Low company is tiresome in England, because it is ignorant and stupid; in France it is gross and disgusting. The notion of being merry and entertaining is to tell gross stories; the _demoiselles_ sit and say nothing, simper and look pretty: what a pity it is that time should change them into coarse, hard-featured _commères_, like their mothers! The way in Normandy is to dine very early, and remain all the evening in the dinner-room, instead of going into a fresh apartment to take coffee. Agrestilla does not fail to conform to the latter plan in Paris, because people of fashion do so, and Agrestilla is a fashionable woman, but she wonders I should object to the smell of the dinner “in the country.” I have been strongly tempted to the crime of sacrilege by robbing the church for wax candles, none being to be got at “the shop.” My incapacity for rural enjoyments and simple habits is manifest to Agrestilla, from my absurdly objecting to the smell of tallow-candles “in the country.” Agrestilla’s rooms are profusely lighted with wax in Paris, “but nobody thinks of such a thing ‘in the country’ for nearly a month or two,”--as if life were not made up of months, weeks, and hours!
I am afraid, Mr. Editor, that I may have wearied you by my prolixity, but since all acumen of taste is to disappear, when we pass the bills of mortality, I will hope that my communication may prove good enough to be read--in the _country_.
N.
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FEMALE FRIENDSHIP.
Joy cannot claim a purer bliss, Nor grief a dew from stain more clear, Than female friendship’s meeting kiss, Than female friendship’s parting tear. How sweet the heart’s full bliss to pour To her, whose smile must crown the store! How sweeter still to tell of woes To her, whose faithful breast would share In every grief, in every care, Whose sigh can lull them to repose! Oh! blessed sigh! there is no sorrow, But from thy breath can sweetness borrow; E’en to the pale and drooping flower That fades in love’s neglected hour; E’en with her woes can friendship’s pow’r One happier feeling blend: ’Tis from her restless bed to creep, And sink like wearied babe to sleep, On the soft couch her sorrows steep, The bosom of a friend.
_Miss Mitford._
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LINES TO A SPARROW.
WHO COMES TO MY WINDOW EVERY MORNING FOR HIS BREAKFAST.