Part 44
This is a drunken sort of game.--The _queff_, or cup, is filled to the brim, then one of the company takes a pair of dice, and cries “Hy-jinks,” and throws. The number he casts points out the person that must drink; he who threw beginning at himself number one, and so round, till the number of the person agree with that of the dice, (which may fall upon himself, if the number be within twelve,) then he sets the dice to him, or bids him take them. He on whom they fall is obliged to drink, or pay a small sum of money as forfeit; then he throws and so on: but if he forgets to cry “Hy-jinks” he pays a forfeiture. Now, he, on whom it falls to drink, gets all the forfeited money in the bank, if he drinks, and orders the cup to be filled again, and then throws. If he errs in the articles, he loses the privilege of drawing the money. The articles are (1 _drink_;) 2 _draw_; 3 _fill_; 4 _cry_ “Hy-jinks;” 5 _count just_; 6 _choose your double man_; viz. when two equal numbers of the dice is thrown, the person whom you choose must pay double forfeit, and so must you when the dice is in his hand.
A rare project this, and no bubble I can assure you, for a covetous fellow may save money, and get himself as drunk as he can desire in less than an hour’s time.[103]
S. S. S.
[103] Notes on Allan Ramsay’s Elegy upon Maggy Johnston.
* * * * *
~Clubs.~
THE SILENT CLUB.
There was at Amadan a celebrated academy. Its first rule was framed in these words:--
“The members of this academy shall think much--write little--and be as mute as they can.”
A candidate offered himself--he was too late--the vacancy was filled up--they knew his merit, and lamented their disappointment in lamenting his own. The president was to announce the event; he desired the candidate should be introduced.
He appeared with a simple and modest air, the sure testimony of merit. The president rose, and presented a cup of pure water to him, so full, that a single drop more would have made it overflow; to this emblematic hint he added not a word but his countenance expressed deep affliction.
The candidate understood that he could not be received because the number was complete, and the assembly full; yet he maintained his courage, and began to think by what expedient, in the same _kind of language_, he could explain that a supernumerary academician would displace nothing, and make no essential difference in the rule they had prescribed.
Observing at his feet a rose, he picked it up, and laid it gently upon the surface of the water, _so_ gently that not a drop of it escaped. Upon this ingenious reply, the applause was universal; the rule slept or winked in his favour. They presented immediately to him the register upon which the successful candidate was in the habit of writing his name. He wrote it accordingly; he had then only to thank them in a single phrase, but he chose to thank them without saying a word.
He figured upon the margin the number of his new associates, 100; then, having put a cipher before the figure 1, he wrote under it--“_their value will be the same_”--0100.
To this modesty the ingenious president replied with a politeness equal to his address: he put the figure 1 before the 100, and wrote, “_they will have eleven times the value they had_--1100.”
* * * * *
CHARLESTOWN UGLY CLUB.[104]
_For the Table Book._
By a standing law of this “ugly club,” their club-room must always be the ugliest room in the ugliest house of the town. The only furniture allowed in this room is a number of chairs, contrived with the worst taste imaginable; a round table made by a back-woodsman; and a Dutch looking-glass, full of veins, which at one glance would make even a handsome man look a perfect “fright.” This glass is frequently sent to such gentlemen as doubt their qualifications, and neglect or decline to take up their freedom in the club.
When an ill-favoured gentleman first arrives in the city, he is waited upon, in a civil and familiar manner, by some of the members of the club, who inform him that they would be glad of his company on the next evening of their meeting; and the gentleman commonly thanks the deputation for the attention of the club, to one so unworthy as himself, and promises to consider the matter.
It sometimes happens, that several days elapse, and the “strange” gentleman thinks no more of the club. He has perhaps repeatedly looked into his own glass, and wondered what, in the name of sense, the club could have seen in his face, that should entitle him to the distinction they would confer on him.
He is, however, waited upon a second time by the most respectable members of the whole body, with a message from the president, requesting him not to be diffident of his qualifications, and earnestly desiring “that he will not fail to attend the club the very next evening--the members will feel themselves highly honoured by the presence of one whose appearance has already attracted the notice of the whole society.”
“Zounds!” he says to himself on perusing the billet, “what do they mean by teasing me in this manner? I am surely not so ugly,” (walking to his glass,) “as to attract the notice of the whole town on first setting my foot upon the wharf!”
“Your nose is very long,” cries the spokesman of the deputation. “Noses,” says the strange gentleman, “are no criterion of ugliness: it’s true, the tip-end of mine would form an acute angle with a base line drawn horizontally from my under lip; but I defy the whole club to prove, that acute angles were ever reckoned ugly, from the days of Euclid down to this moment, except by themselves.”
“Ah, sir,” answers the messenger, “how liberal has nature been in bestowing upon you so elegant a pair of lantern jaws! believe me, sir, you will be a lasting honour to the club.”
“My jaws,” says the ugly man in a pet, “are such as nature made them: and Aristotle has asserted, that all her works are beautiful.”
The conversation ends for the present. The deputation leaves the strange gentleman to his reflections, with wishes and hopes that he will consider further.
Another fortnight elapses, and the strange gentleman, presuming the club have forgotten him, employs the time in assuming _petit-maître_ airs, and probably makes advances to young ladies of fortune and beauty. At the expiration of this period, he receives a letter from a pretended female, (contrived by the club,) to the following purport:--
“My dear sir,
“There is such a congeniality between your countenance and mine, that I cannot help thinking you and I were destined for each other. I am unmarried, and have a considerable fortune in pine-barren land, which, with myself, I wish to bestow upon some deserving man; and from seeing you pass several times by my window, I know of no one better entitled to both than yourself. I am now almost two years beyond my grand climacteric, and am four feet four inches in height, rather less in circumference, a little dropsical, have lovely red hair and a fair complexion, and, if the doctor do not deceive me, I may hold out twenty years longer. My nose is, like yours, rather longer than common; but then to compensate, I am universally allowed to have charming eyes. They somewhat incline to each other, but the sun himself looks obliquely in winter, and cheers the earth with his glances. Wait upon me, dear sir, to-morrow evening.
“Yours till death, &c.
“M. M.”
“What does all this mean?” cries the ugly gentleman, “was ever man tormented in this manner! Ugly clubs, ugly women! imps and fiends, all in combination to persecute me, and make my life miserable! I am to be ugly, it seems, whether I will or not.”
At this critical juncture, the president of the club, who is the very pink of ugliness itself, waits upon the strange gentleman, and takes him by the hand. “My dear sir,” says he, “you may as well walk with me to the club as not. Nature has designed you for us, and us for you. We are a set of men who have resolution enough to dare to be ugly; and have long let the world know, that we can pass the evening, and eat and drink together with as much social glee and real good humour as the handsomest of them. Look into this Dutch glass, sir, and be convinced that we cannot do without you.”
“If it must be so, it must,” cries the ugly gentleman, “there seems to be no alternative; I will even do as you say!”
It appears from a paper in “The American Museum” of 1790, that by this mode the “ugly club” of Charleston has increased, is increasing, and cannot be diminished. According to the last accounts, “strange” gentlemen who do not comply with invitations to join the club in person are elected “honorary” members, and their names enrolled _nolens volens_.
P. N.
[104] See col. 264.
* * * * *
SUMMER DRINKS.
IMPERIAL.
Take two gallons of water, two ounces of ginger bruised, and two lemons; boil them together; when lukewarm, pour the whole on a pound and a half of loaf sugar, and two ounces of cream of tartar; add four table spoonfuls of yeast, and let them work together for six hours; then strain the liquor, and bottle it off in small stone bottles: it will be ready for use in a few hours.
SHERBET.
Take nine Seville oranges and three lemons, grate off the yellow from the rinds, and put the raspings into a gallon of water, with three pounds of double refined sugar, and boil it to a candy height; then take it off the fire, and add the pulp of the oranges and lemons; keep stirring it till it be almost cold, then put it in a vessel for use.
LEMON WATER.
Put two slices of lemon, thinly pared, into a tea-pot, with a little bit of the peel, and a bit of sugar, or a large spoonful of capillaire, pour in a pint of boiling water, and stop it close for two hours.
GINGER BEER.
To four gallons of water, put three pounds of brown sugar, two ounces of ginger, one ounce and a half of hops, and about half a pound of fern-root cut small; boil these together till there be about three gallons. To colour it, burn a little sugar and put it in the liquor. Pour it into a vessel when cold, add two table-spoonfuls of barm, and then proceed as with common beer.
* * * * *
CABBAGE, AND TAILORS.
The Roman name Brassica came, as is supposed, from “præséco,” because it was cut off from the stalk: it was also called Caulis in Latin, on account of the goodness of its stalks, and from which the English name Cole, Colwort, or Colewort, is derived. The word cabbage, by which all the varieties of this plant are now improperly called, means the firm head or ball that is formed by the leaves turning close over each other: from that circumstance we say the cole has cabbaged.--From thence arose the cant word applied to tailors, who formerly worked at the private houses of their customers, where they were often accused of cabbaging: which means the rolling up pieces of cloth instead of the list and shreds, which they claim as their due.[105]
[105] Phillips’s Hist. of Cultivated Vegetables.
* * * * *
APRIL.
FROM THE FRENCH OF REMY BELLEAU.
APRIL! sweet month, the daintiest of all. Fair thee befall: April! fond hope of fruits that lie In buds of swathing cotton wrapt, There closely lapt Nursing their tender infancy--
April! that dost thy yellow, green, and blue, Around thee strew, When, as thou go’st, the grassy floor Is with a million flowers depaint, Whose colours quaint Have diaper’d the meadows o’er--
April! at whose glad coming zephyrs rise With whisper’d sighs, Then on their light wings brush away, And hang amid the woodlands fresh Their aery mesh, To tangle Flora on her way--
April! it is thy hand that doth unlock, From plain and rock, Odours and hues, a balmy store, That breathing lie on Nature’s breast, So richly blest, That earth or heaven can ask no more--
April! thy blooms, amid the tresses laid Of my sweet maid, Adown her neck and bosom flow; And in a wild profusion there, Her shining hair With them hath blent a golden glow--
April! the dimpled smiles, the playful grace, That in the face Of Cytherea haunt, are thine: And thine the breath, that, from the skies, The deities Inhale, an offering at thy shrine--
’Tis thou that dost with summons blythe and soft, High up aloft, From banishment these heralds bring. These swallows, that along the air Send swift, and bear Glad tidings of the merry spring.
April! the hawthorn and the eglantine, Purple woodbine, Streak’d pink, and lily-cup and rose, And thyme, and marjoram, are spreading, Where thou art treading, And their sweet eyes for thee unclose.
The little nightingale sits singing aye On leafy spray, And in her fitful strain doth run A thousand and a thousand changes. With voice that ranges Through every sweet division
April! it is when thou dost come again, That love is fain With gentlest breath the fires to wake, That cover’d up and slumbering lay, Through many a day, When winter’s chill our veins did slake.
Sweet month, thou seest at this jocund prime Of the spring time, The hives pour out their lusty young, And hear’st the yellow bees that ply, With laden thigh, Murmuring the flow’ry wilds among.
MAY shall with pomp his wavy wealth unfold, His fruits of gold, His fertilizing dews, that swell In manna on each spike and stem And like a gem, Red honey in the waxen cell.
Who will may praise him, but my voice shall be, Sweet month for thee; Thou that to her do’st owe thy name, Who saw the sea-wave’s foamy tide Swell and divide, Whence forth to life and light she came.
* * * * *
ETYMOLOGY.
The following are significations of a few common terms:--
_Steward_ literally means the keeper of the place; it is compounded of the two old words, _stede_ and _ward_: by the omission of the first _d_ and _e_ the word steward is formed.
_Marshal_ means one who has the care of horses: in the old Teutonic, _mare_ was synonymous with horse, being applied to the kind; _scale_ signified a servant.
_Mayor_ is derived from the Teutonic _Meyer_, a lover of might.
_Sheriff_ is compounded of the old words _shyre_ and _reve_--an officer of the county, one who hath the overlooking of the shire.
_Yeoman_ is the Teutonic word _gemen_, corrupted in the spelling, and means a commoner.
_Groom_ signifies one who serves in an inferior station. The name of bridegroom was formerly given to the new-married man, because it was customary for him to wait at table on his bride and friends on his wedding day.
* * * * *
All our words of necessity are derived from the German; our words of luxury and those used at table, from the French. The sky, the earth, the elements, the names of animals, household goods, and articles of food, are the same in German as in English; the fashions of dress, and every thing belonging to the kitchen, luxury, and ornament, are taken from the French; and to such a degree of exactness, that the names of animals which serve for the ordinary food of men, such as _ox_, _calf_, _sheep_, when alive, are called the same in English as in German; but when they are served up for the table they change their names, and are called _beef_, _veal_, _mutton_, after the French.[106]
[106] Dutens.
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ORGANS.
_For the Table Book._
A few particulars relative to organs, in addition to those at col. 260, may be interesting to musical readers.
The instrument is of so great antiquity, that neither the time nor place of invention, nor the name of the inventor, is identified; but that they were used by the Greeks, and from them borrowed by the Latins, is generally allowed. St. Jerome describes one that could be heard a mile off; and says, that there was an organ at Jerusalem, which could be heard at the Mount of Olives.
Organs are affirmed to have been first introduced into France in the reign of Louis I., A. D. 815, and the construction and use of them taught by an Italian priest, who learned the art at Constantinople. By some, however, the introduction of them into that country is carried as far back as Charlemagne, and by others still further.
The earliest mention of an organ, in the northern histories, is in the annals of the year 757, when the emperor Constantine, surnamed Copronymus, sent to Pepin of France, among other rich presents, a “musical machine,” which the French writers describe to have been composed of “pipes and large tubes of tin,” and to have imitated sometimes the “roaring of thunder,” and, at others, the “warbling of a flute.”
Bellarmine alleges, that organs were first used in churches about 660. According to Bingham, they were not used till after the time of Thomas Aquinas, about A. D. 1250. Gervas, the monk of Canterbury, who flourished about 1200, says, they were in use about a hundred years before his time. If his authority be good, it would countenance a general opinion, that organs were common in the churches of Italy, Germany, and England, about the tenth century.
_March_, 1827.
* * * * *
PERPLEXING MARRIAGES.
At Gwennap, in Cornwall, in March 1823, Miss Sophia Bawden was married to Mr. R. Bawden, both of St. Day. By this marriage, the father became brother-in-law to his son; the mother, mother-in-law to her sister; the mother-in-law of the son, his sister-in-law; the sister of the mother-in-law, her daughter-in-law; the sister of the daughter-in-law, her mother-in-law; the son of the father, brother-in-law to his mother-in-law, and uncle to his brothers and sisters; the wife of the son, sister-in-law to her father-in-law, and aunt-in-law to her husband; and the offspring of the son and his wife would be grandchildren to their uncle and aunt, and cousins to their father.
* * * * *
In an account of Kent, it is related that one Hawood had two daughters by his first wife, of which the eldest was married to John Cashick the son, and the youngest to John Cashick the father. This Cashick the father had a daughter by his first wife, whom old Hawood married, and by her had a son: with the exception of the former wife of old Cashick, all these persons were living at Faversham in February, 1650, and his second wife could say as follows:--
My father is my son, and | My sister is my daughter, I’m mother’s mother; | I’m grandmother to my brother.
* * * * *
STEPS RE-TRACED.
Catherine de Medicis made a vow, that if some concerns which she had undertaken terminated successfully, she would send a pilgrim on foot to Jerusalem, and that at every three steps he advanced, he should go one step back.
It was doubtful whether there could be found a man sufficiently strong and patient to walk, and go back one step at every third. A citizen of Verberie, who was a merchant, offered to accomplish the queen’s vow most scrupulously, and her majesty promised him an adequate recompense. The queen was well assured by constant inquiries that he fulfilled his engagement with exactness, and on his return, he received a considerable sum of money, and was ennobled. His coat of arms were a cross and a branch of palm-tree. His descendants preserved the arms; but they degenerated from their nobility, by resuming the commerce which their ancestor quitted.[107]
[107] Nouv. Hist. de Duch. de Valois.
* * * * *
~Street Circulars.~
No. I.
_For the Table Book._
WHISTLING JOE.
He whistles as he goes for want of _bread_.[108]
* * * * *
Old books declare,--in Plutus’ shade, Whistling was once a roaring trade,-- Great was the call for nerve and gristle; That Charon, with his Styx in view, Pierced old Phlegethon through and through, And whist-led in the ferry-whistle--
That Polyphemus whistled when He p-layed the pipe r in a pen, And sought Ulysses’ bark to launch; That Troy, King Priam had not lost, But for the whistlers that were horsed[109] Within the horse’s wooden paunch.
Jupiter was a whist-ling wight, And Juno heard him with delight; And Boreas was a reedy swain, Awak’ning Venus from the sea: But of the Moderns?--Joe is he That whistles in the streets for gain.
You wonder as you hear the tone Sound like a herald in a zone Distinctly clear, minutely sweet; You list and Joe is dancing, now You laugh, and Joe returns a bow Returning in the crooked street.
He scrapes a stick across his arm And knocks his knees, in need, to charm;[110] Instead of tabor and a fiddle, _Et omne solis_,--on his sole! He, _solus omnis_, like a pole Supports his body in the middle.
Thus, of the sprites that creep, or beg, With wither’d arm, or wooden leg, Uncatalogued in Bridewell’s missal; Joe is the fittest for relief, He whistles gladness in his grief,[111] And _hardly_ earns it for his _whistle_.
J. R. P.
[108] Vide Dryden’s Cymon,
“He whistled as he went for want of _thought_.”
[109] This word rhymes with _lost_, to oblige the cockneys.
[110] Like the punning clown in the stocks, that whistled _Over the wood laddie!_
[111]
“Whistle! and I will come to thee, my love.”
* * * * *
Vol. I.--16.
~Maundy Thursday.~
THE THURSDAY BEFORE GOOD FRIDAY.
There are ample particulars of the present usages on this day at the chapel royal, St. James’s, in the _Every-Day Book_, with accounts of celebrations in other countries; to these may be added the ceremonies at the court of Vienna, recently related by Dr. Bright:--
“On the Thursday of this week, which was the 24th of March, a singular religious ceremony was celebrated by the court. It is known in German catholic countries by the name of the _Fusswaschung_, or the ‘washing of the feet.’ The large saloon, in which public court entertainments are given, was fitted up for the purpose; elevated benches and galleries were constructed round the room for the reception of the court and strangers; and in the area, upon two platforms, tables were spread, at one of which sat twelve men, and at the other twelve women. They had been selected from the oldest and most deserving paupers, and were suitably clothed in black, with handkerchiefs and square collars of white muslin, and girdles round their waists.
“The emperor and empress, with the archdukes and archduchesses, Leopoldine and Clementine, and their suites, having all previously attended mass in the royal chapel, entered and approached the table to the sound of solemn music. The Hungarian guard followed, in their most splendid uniform, with their leopard-skin jackets falling from their shoulders, and bearing trays of different meats, which the emperor, empress, archdukes, and attendants, placed on the table, in three successive courses, before the poor men and women, who tasted a little, drank each a glass of wine, and answered a few questions put to them by their sovereigns. The tables were then removed, and the empress and her daughters the archduchesses, dressed in black, with pages bearing their trains, approached. Silver bowls were placed beneath the bare feet of the aged women. The grand chamberlain, in a humble posture, poured water upon the feet of each in succession, from a golden urn, and the empress wiped them with a fine napkin she held in her hand. The emperor performed the same ceremony on the feet of the men, and the rite concluded amidst the sounds of sacred music.”
* * * * *
~Good Friday--Easter.~
“VISITING THE CHURCHES” IN FRANCE.