Part 4
On the night of the 16th of December, 1780, a severe battle was fought between the keepers and deer-stealers on Chettle Common, in Bursey-stool Walk. The deer-stealers had assembled at Pimperne, and were headed by one Blandford, a sergeant of dragoons, a native of Pimperne, then quartered at Blandford. They came in the night in disguise, armed with deadly offensive weapons called swindgels, resembling flails to thresh corn. They attacked the keepers, who were nearly equal in number, but had no weapons but sticks and short hangers. The first blow was struck by the leader of the gang, it broke a knee-cap of the stoutest man in the chase, which disabled him from joining in the combat, and lamed him for ever. Another keeper, from a blow with a swindgel, which broke three ribs, died some time after. The remaining keepers closed in upon their opponents with their hangers, and one of the dragoon’s hands was severed from the arm, just above the wrist, and fell on the ground; the others were also dreadfully cut and wounded, and obliged to surrender. Blandford’s arm was tightly bound with a list garter to prevent its bleeding, and he was carried to the lodge. The Rev. William Chafin, the author of “Anecdotes respecting Cranbourn Chase,” says, “I saw him there the next day, and his hand in the window: as soon as he was well enough to be removed, he was committed, with his companions, to Dorchester gaol. The hand was buried in Pimperne church-yard, and, as reported, with the honours of war. Several of these offenders were labourers, daily employed by Mr. Beckford, and had, the preceding day, dined in his servants’ hall, and from thence went to join a confederacy to rob their master.” They were all tried, found guilty and condemned to be transported for seven years; but, in consideration of their great suffering from their wounds in prison, the humane judge, sir Richard Perryn, commuted the punishment to confinement for an indefinite term. The soldier was not dismissed from his majesty’s service, but suffered to retire upon half-pay, or pension; and set up a shop in London, which he denoted a game-factor’s. He dispersed hand-bills in the public places, in order to get customers, and put one into Mr. Chafin’s hand in the arch-way leading into Lincoln’s-inn-square. “I immediately recognised him,” says Mr. Chafin, “as he did me; and he said, that if I would deal with him, he would use me well, for he had, in times past, had many hares and pheasants of mine; and he had the assurance to ask me, if I did not think it a good breeding-season for game!”
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_Buck-hunting._
_Buck_-hunting, in former times, was much more followed, and held in much greater repute, than now. From letters in Mr. Chafin’s possession, dated in June and July 1681, he infers, that the summers then were much hotter than in the greater part of the last century. The time of meeting at Cranbourn Chase in those days seems invariably to have been at four o’clock in the evening; it was the custom of the sportsmen to take a slight repast at two o’clock, and to dine at the most fashionable hours of the present day. Mr. Chafin deemed hunting in an evening well-judged, and advantageous every way. The deer were at that time upon their legs, and more easily found; they were empty, and more able to run, and to show sport; and as the evening advanced, and the dew fell, the scent gradually improved, and the cool air enabled the horses and the hounds to recover their wind, and go through their work without injury; whereas just the reverse of this would be the hunting late in a morning. What has been mentioned is peculiar to Buck-hunting only.
_Stag_-hunting is in some measure a summer amusement also; but that chase is generally much too long to be ventured on in an evening. It would carry the sportsman too far distant from their homes. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, in pursuing the stag, to have the whole day before them.
It was customary, in the last century, for sportsmen addicted to the sport of Buck-hunting, and who regularly followed it, to meet every season on the 29th day of May, king Charles’s restoration, with oak-boughs in their hats or caps, to show their loyalty, (velvet caps were chiefly worn in those days, even by the ladies,) and to hunt young male deer, in order to enter the young hounds, and to stoop them to their right game, and to get the older ones in wind and exercise, preparatory to the commencement of the buck-killing season.
This practice was termed “blooding the hounds;” and the young deer killed were called “blooding-deer,” and their venison was deemed fit for an epicure. It was reported, that an hind quarter of this sort of venison, which had been thoroughly hunted, was once placed on the table before the celebrated Mr. Quin, at Bath, who declared it to be the greatest luxury he ever met with, and ate very heartily of it. But this taste seems not to have been peculiar to Mr. Quin; for persons of high rank joined in the opinion: and even judges, when on their circuits, indulged in the same luxury.
The following is an extract from a steward’s old accompt-book, found in the noble old mansion of Orchard Portman, near Taunton, in Somersetshire
“10th August 1680. Delivered Sr William, in the higher Orial, going a hunting with the Judges £2. 0_s._ 0_d._”
From hence, therefore, it appears, that in those days buck-hunting, for there could be no other kind of hunting meant, was in so much repute, and so much delighted in, that even the judges could not refrain from partaking in it when on their circuits; and it seems that they chose to hunt their own venison, which they annually received from Orchard park at the time of the assizes. “I cannot but deem them good judges,” says Mr. Chafin, “for preferring hunted venison to that which had been shot.”
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_Other Sports of Cranbourn Chase._
Besides buck-hunting, which certainly was the principal one, the chase afforded other rural amusements to our ancestors in former days. “I am well aware,” Mr. Chafin says, in preparing some notices of them, “that there are many young persons who are very indifferent and care little about what was practised by their ancestors, or how they amused themselves; they are looking forward, and do not choose to look back: but there may be some not so indifferent, and to whom a relation of the sports of the field in the last century may not be displeasing.” These sports, in addition to hunting, were hawking, falconry, and cocking.
Packs of hounds were always kept in the neighbourhood of the chase, and hunted there in the proper seasons. There were three sorts of animals of chase besides deer, viz. foxes, hares, and mertincats: the race of the latter are nearly extinct; their skins were too valuable for them to be suffered to exist. At that time no hounds were kept and used for any particular sort of game except the buck-hounds, but they hunted casually the first that came in their way.
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_First Pack of Fox-hounds._
The first real steady pack of fox-hounds established in the western part of England was by Thomas Fownes, Esq. of Stepleton, in Dorsetshire, about 1730. They were as handsome, and fully as complete in every respect, as any of the most celebrated packs of the present day. The owner was obliged to dispose of them, and they were sold to Mr. Bowes, in Yorkshire, the father of the late lady Strathmore, at an immense price. They were taken into Yorkshire by their own attendants, and, after having been viewed and much admired in their kennel, a day was fixed for making trial of them in the field, to meet at a famous hare-cover near. When the huntsman came with his hounds in the morning, he discovered a great number of sportsmen, who were riding in the cover, and whipping the furzes as for a hare; he therefore halted, and informed Mr. Bowes that he was unwilling to throw off his hounds until the gentlemen had retired, and ceased the slapping of whips, to which his hounds were not accustomed, and he would engage to find a fox in a few minutes if there was one there. The gentlemen sportsmen having obeyed the orders given by Mr. Bowes, the huntsman, taking the wind of the cover, threw off his hounds, which immediately began to feather, and soon got upon a drag into the cover, and up to the fox’s kennel, which went off close before them, and, after a severe burst over a fine country, was killed, to the great satisfaction of the whole party. They then returned to the same cover, not one half of it having been drawn, and very soon found a second fox, exactly in the same manner as before, which broke cover immediately over the same fine country: but the chase was much longer; and in the course of it the fox made its way to a nobleman’s park. It had been customary to stop hounds before they could enter it, but the best-mounted sportsmen attempted to stay the Dorsetshire hounds in vain. The dogs topped the highest fences, dashed through herds of deer and a number of hares, without taking the least notice of them; and ran in to their fox, and killed him some miles beyond the park. It was the unanimous opinion of the whole hunt, that it was the finest run ever known in that country. A collection of field-money was made for the huntsman much beyond his expectations; and he returned to Stepleton in better spirits than he left it.
Before this pack was raised in Dorsetshire, the hounds that hunted Cranbourn Chase, hunted all the animals promiscuously, except the deer, from which they were necessarily kept steady, otherwise they would not have been suffered to hunt in the chase at all.
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_Origin of Cranbourn Chase._
This royal chase, always called “The King’s Chase,” in the lapse of ages came into possession of an earl of Salisbury. It is certain that after one of its eight distinct walks, called Fernditch Walk, was sold to the earl of Pembroke, the entire remainder of the chase was alienated to lord Ashley, afterwards earl of Shaftesbury. Alderholt Walk was the largest and most extensive in the whole Chase; it lies in the three counties of Hants, Wilts, and Dorset; but the lodge and its appurtenances is in the parish of Cranbourn, and all the Chase courts are held at the manor-house there, where was also a prison for offenders against the Chase laws. Lord Shaftesbury deputed rangers in the different walks in the year 1670, and afterwards dismembering it, (though according to old records, it appears to have been dismembered long before,) by destroying Alderholt Walk; he sold the remainder to Mr. Freke, of Shroton, in Dorsetshire, from whom it lineally descended to the present possessor, lord Rivers.
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Accounts of Cranbourn Chase can be traced to the æra when king John, or some other royal personage, had a hunting-seat at Tollard Royal, in the county of Wilts. Hence the name of “royal” to that parish was certainly derived. There are vestiges in and about the old palace, which clearly evince that it was once a royal habitation: and it still bears the name of “King John’s House.” There are large cypress trees growing before the house, the relics of grand terraces may be easily traced, and the remains of a park to which some of them lead. A gate at the end of the park at the entrance of the Royal Chase, now called “Alarm Gate,” was the place probably where the horn was blown to call the keepers to their duty in attending their lord in his sports. There is also a venerable old wych-elm tree, on the Chase side of the “Alarm Gate,” under which lord Arundel, the possessor of Tollard Royal, holds a court annually, on the first Monday in the month of September. A view of the mansion in its present state, is given in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for September 1811.
[8] Hutchins’s Dorset. Capper.
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~Barley-break.~
Mr. Strutt, the indefatigable historian of the “Sports and Pastimes of the People of England,” says of _Barley-break_: “The excellency of this sport seems to have consisted in running well, but I know not its properties.” Beyond this Mr. Strutt merely cites Dr. Johnson’s quotation of two lines from sir Philip Sidney, as an authority for the word. Johnson, limited to a mere dictionary explanation, calls it “a kind of rural play; a trial of swiftness.”
Sidney, in his description of the rural courtship of Urania by Strephon, conveys a sufficient idea of “Barley-break.” The shepherd seeks the society of his mistress wherever he thinks it likely to find her.
Nay ev’n unto her home he oft would go, Where bold and hurtless many play he tries; Her parents liking well it should be so, For simple goodness shined in his eyes: Then did he make her laugh in spite of woe So as good thoughts of him in all arise; While into none doubt of his love did sink, For not himself to be in love did think.
This “sad shepherd” held himself towards Urania according to the usual custom and manner of lovers in such cases.
For glad desire, his late embosom’d guest, Yet but a babe, with milk of sight he nurst: Desire the more he suckt, more sought the breast Like dropsy-folk, still drink to be athirst; Till one fair ev’n an hour ere sun did rest, Who then in Lion’s cave did enter first, By neighbors pray’d, she went abroad thereby At _Barley-break_ her sweet swift foot to try.
Never the earth on his round shoulders bare A maid train’d up from high or low degree, That in her doings better could compare Mirth with respect, few words with courtesie, A careless comeliness with comely care, Self-guard with mildness, sport with majesty Which made her yield to deck this shepherd’s band: And still, believe me, Strephon was at hand.
Then couples three be straight allotted there, They of both ends the middle two do fly; The two that in mid-place, Hell,[9] called were, Must strive with waiting foot, and watching eye, To catch of them, and them to Hell to bear, That they, as well as they, Hell may supply Like some which seek to salve their blotted name With other’s blot, till all do taste of shame.
There you may see, soon as the middle two Do coupled towards either couple make, They false and fearful do their hands undo, Brother his brother, friend doth his friend forsake, Heeding himself, cares not how fellow do, But of a stranger mutual help doth take: As perjured cowards in adversity, With sight of fear, from friends to fremb’d[10] doth fly,
The game being played out with divers adventurers
All to second _Barley-break_ again are bent.
During the second game, Strephon was chased by Urania.
Strephon so chased did seem in milk to swim; He ran, but ran with eye o’er shoulder cast, More marking her, than how himself did go, Like Numid’s lions by the hunters chased, Though they do fly, yet backwardly do glow With proud aspect, disdaining greater haste: What rage in them, that love in him did show; But God gives them instinct the man to shun, And he by law of _Barley-break_ must run.
Urania caught Strephon, and he was sent by the rules of the sport to the condemned place, with a shepherdess, named Nous, who affirmed
it was no right, for his default, Who would be caught, that she should go-- But so she must. And now the third assault Of _Barley-break_.------
Strephon, in this third game, pursues Urania; Klaius, his rival suitor, suddenly interposed.
For with pretence from Strephon her to guard, He met her full, but full of warefulness, With in-bow’d bosom well for her prepared, When Strephon cursing his own backwardness Came to her back, and so, with double ward, Imprison’d her, who both them did possess As heart-bound slaves.------
Her race did not her beauty’s beams augment, For they were ever in the best degree, But yet a setting forth it some way lent, As rubies lustre when they rubbed be; The dainty dew on face and body went, As on sweet flowers, when morning’s drops we see: Her breath then short, seem’d loth from home to pass, Which more it moved, the more it sweeter was.
Happy, O happy! if they so might bide To see their eyes, with how true humbleness, They looked down to triumph over pride; With how sweet blame she chid their sauciness-- Till she brake from their arms------ And farewelling the flock, did homeward wend, And so, that even, the _Barley-break_ did end.
This game is mentioned by Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” as one of our rural sports, and by several of the poets, with more or less of description, though by none so fully as Sidney, in the first eclogue of the “Arcadia,” from whence the preceding passages are taken.
The late Mr. Gifford, in a note on Massinger, chiefly from the “Arcadia,” describes Barley-break thus: “It was played by six people, (three of each sex,) who were coupled by lot. A piece of ground was then chosen, and divided into three compartments, of which the middle one was called _hell_. It was the object of the couple condemned to this division to catch the others, who advanced from the two extremities; in which case a change of situation took place, and hell was filled by the couple who were excluded by preoccupation from the other places: in this _catching_, however, there was some difficulty, as, by the regulations of the game, the middle couple were not to separate before they had succeeded, while the others might break hands whenever they found themselves hard pressed. When all had been taken in turn, the last couple were said to be in _hell_, and the game ended.”
Within memory, a game called Barley-break has been played among stacks of corn, in Yorkshire, with some variation from the Scottish game mentioned presently. In Yorkshire, also, there was another form of it, more resembling that in the “Arcadia,” which was played in open ground. The childish game of “Tag” seems derived from it. There was a “tig,” or “tag,” whose touch made a prisoner, in the Yorkshire game.
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BARLA-BREIKIS.
In Scotland there is a game nearly the same in denomination as “Barley-break,” though differently played. It is termed “Barla-breikis,” or “Barley-bracks.” Dr. Jamieson says it is generally played by young people, in a corn-yard about the stacks; and hence called _Barla-bracks_, “One stack is fixed as the _dule_ or goal, and one person is appointed to catch the rest of the company, who run out from the _dule_. He does not leave it till they are all out of his sight. Then he sets out to catch them. Any one who is taken, cannot run out again with his former associates, being accounted a prisoner, but is obliged to assist his captor in pursuing the rest. When all are taken, the game is finished; and he who is first taken, is bound to act as catcher in the next game. This innocent sport seems to be almost entirely forgotten in the south of Scotland. It is also falling into desuetude in the north.”[11]
[9] It may be doubted whether in the rude simplicity of ancient times, this word in the game of Barley-break was applied in the same manner that it would be in ours.
[10] _Fremeb_, (obsolete,) strange, foreign. _Ash._ Corrupted from _fremd_, which, in Saxon and Gothic, signified a stranger, or an enemy. _Nares._
[11] Mr. Archdeacon Nares’s Glossary.
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~Scraps.~
PLATE TAX.
An order was made in the house of lords in May, 1776, “that the commissioners of his majesty’s excise do write circular letters to all such persons whom they have reason to suspect to have _plate_, as also to those who have not paid regularly the duty on the same.” In consequence of this order, the accountant-general for household plate sent to the celebrated John Wesley a copy of the order. John’s answer was laconic:--
“Sir,
“I have _two_ silver tea-spoons in London, and _two_ at Bristol. This is all the plate which I have at present; and I shall not buy any more while so many round me want bread. I am, Sir,
“Your most humble servant,
“JOHN WESLEY.”
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THE DIAL.
This shadow on the dial’s face, That steals, from day to day, With slow, unseen, unceasing pace, Moments, and months, and years away This shadow, which in every clime, Since light and motion first began, Hath held its course sublime; What is it?--Mortal man! It is the scythe of Time. --A shadow only to the eye. It levels all beneath the sky.
A chairman late’s a chairman dead, And to his grave, by chairman sped, They wake him, as they march him through The streets of Bath, to public view.
_To the Editor._
_Bath._
Sir,--I beg leave to transmit for your use the following attempt at description of an old and singular custom, performed by the chairman of this my native city, which perhaps you are not altogether a stranger to, and which is still kept up among them as often as an opportunity permits for its performance. Its origin I have not been able to trace, but its authenticity you may rely on, as it is too often seen to be forgotten by your Bath readers. I have also accompanied it with the above imperfect sketch, as a further illustration of their manner of burying the “dead,” alias, exposing a drunkard of their fraternity. The following is the manner in which the “obsequies” to the intoxicated are performed.
If a chairman, known to have been “dead” drunk over night, does not appear on his station before ten o’clock on the succeeding morning, the “undertaker,” _Anglice_, his partner, proceeds, with such a number of attendants as will suffice for the ceremony, to the house of the _late_ unfortunate. If he is found in bed, as is usually the case, from the effects of his sacrifice to the “jolly God,” they pull him out of his nest, hardly permitting him to dress, and place him on the “bier,”--a chairman’s horse,--and, throwing a coat over him, which they designate a “pall,” they perambulate the circuit of his station in the following order:--
1. _The sexton_--a man tolling a small hand-bell.
2. _Two mutes_--each with a black stocking on a stick.
3. _The torch bearer_--a man carrying a lighted lantern.
4. _The “corpse”_ borne on the “hearse,” carried by two chairmen, covered with the aforesaid pall.
The procession is closed by the “mourners” following after, two and two; as many joining as choose, from the station to which the drunkard belongs.
After exposing him in this manner to the gaze of the admiring crowd that throng about, they proceed to the public-house he has been in the habit of using, where his “wake” is celebrated in joviality and mirth, with a gallon of ale at his expense. It often happens that each will contribute a trifle towards a further prolongation of the carousal, to entrap others into the same deadly snare; and the day is spent in baiting for the chances of the next morning, as none are exempt who are not at their post before the prescribed hour.
I am, &c.
W. G.
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~William Gifford, Esq.~
On Sunday morning, the 31st of December, 1826, at twenty minutes before one o’clock, died, “at his house in James-street, Buckingham-gate, in the seventy-first year of his age, William Gifford, Esq., author of the ‘Baviad and Mæviad,’ translator of ‘Juvenal and Persius,’ and editor of the ‘Quarterly Review,’ from its commencement down to the beginning of the year just past. To the translation of ‘Juvenal’ is prefixed a memoir of himself, which is perhaps as modest and pleasant a piece of autobiography as ever was written.”--_The Times_, January 1, 1827.