Part 57
If greengrocers proceed in these devices, their ingenuity may suggest a rivalry of signs of a more lasting nature, suitable to the shop windows of other tradesmen.
Yours, truly,
J. R.
_April 30, 1827._
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~Garrick Plays.~
No. XVII.
[From the “Parliament of Bees;” further Extracts.]
_Oberon. Flora, a Bee._
_Ober._ A female Bee! thy character? _Flo._ Flora, Oberon’s Gardener, Huswive both of herbs and flowers, To strew thy shrine, and trim thy bowers, With violets, roses, eglantine, Daffadown, and blue columbine, Hath forth the bosom of the Spring Pluckt this nosegay, which I bring From Eleusis (mine own shrine) To thee, a Monarch all divine; And, as true impost of my grove, Present it to great Oberon’s love. _Ober._ Honey dews refresh thy meads. Cowslips spring with golden heads; July-flowers and carnations wear Leaves double-streakt, with maiden-hair; May thy lilies taller grow, Thy violets fuller sweetness owe; And last of all, may Phœbus love To kiss thee: and frequent thy grove. As thou in service true shalt be Unto our crown and royalty.
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_Oberon holds a Court, in which he sentences the Wasp, the Drone, and the Humble-bee, for divers offences against the Commonwealth of Bees._
_Oberon. Prorex, his Viceroy; and other Bees._
_Pro._ And whither must these flies be sent? _Ober._ To Everlasting Banishment. Underneath two hanging rocks (Where babbling Echo sits and mocks Poor travellers) there lies a grove, With whom the Sun’s so out of love, He never smiles on’t: pale Despair Calls it his Monarchal Chair. Fruit half-ripe hang rivell’d and shrunk On broken arms, torn from the trunk: The moorish pools stand empty, left By water, stol’n by cunning theft To hollow banks, driven out by snakes, Adders, and newts, that man these lakes: The mossy leaves, half-swelter’d, serv’d As beds for vermin hunger sterv’d: The woods are yew-trees, bent and broke By whirlwinds; here and there an oak, Half-cleft with thunder. To this grove We banish them. _Culprits._ Some mercy, Jove! _Ober._ You should have cried so in your youth, When Chronos and his daughter Truth Sojourn’d among you; when you spent Whole years in riotous merriment, Thrusting poor Bees out of their hives, Seizing both honey, wax, and lives. You should have call’d for mercy when You impaled common blossoms; when, Instead of giving poor Bees food, You ate their flesh, and drank their blood. Fairies, thrust ’em to their fate.
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_Oberon then confirms Prorex in his Government; and breaks up Session._
_Ober._----now adieu! Prorex shall again renew His potent reign: the massy world, Which in glittering orbs is hurl’d About the poles, be Lord of: we Only reserve our Royalty-- _Field Music._[182] Oberon must away; For us our gentle Fairies stay: In the mountains and the rocks We’ll hunt the Grey, and little Fox, Who destroy our lambs at feed, And spoil the nests where turtles feed.
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[From “David and Bethsabe,” a Sacred Drama, by George Peel, 1599.]
_Nathan. David._
_Nath._ Thus Nathan saith unto his Lord the King: There were two men both dwellers in one town; The one was mighty, and exceeding rich In oxen, sheep, and cattle of the field; The other poor, having nor ox, nor calf, Nor other cattle, save one little lamb, Which he had bought, and nourish’d by his hand. And it grew up, and fed with him and his, And ate and drank as he and his were wont, And in his bosom slept, and was to live As was his daughter or his dearest child.-- There came a stranger to this wealthy man, And he refused and spared to take his own, Or of his store to dress or make his meat, But took the poor man’s sheep, partly poor man’s store; And drest it for this stranger in his house. What, tell me, shall be done to him for this? _Dav._ Now, as the Lord doth live, this wicked man Is judged, and shall became the child of death; Fourfold to the poor man he shall restore, That without mercy took his lamb away. _Nath._ THOU ART THE MAN, AND THOU HAST JUDGED THYSELF.-- David, thus saith the Lord thy God by me: I thee anointed King in Israel, And saved thee from the tyranny of Saul; Thy master’s house I gave thee to possess, His wives unto thy bosom I did give, And Juda and Jerusalem withal; And might, thou know’st, if this had been too small, Have given thee more. Wherefore then hast thou gone so far astray, And hast done evil, and sinned in my sight? Urias thou hast killed with the sword, Yea with the sword of the uncircumcised Thou hast him slain; wherefore from this day forth The sword shall never go from thee and thine: For thou hast ta’en this Hithite’s wife to thee, Wherefore behold I will, saith Jacob’s God, In thine own house stir evil up to thee, Yea I before thy face will take thy wives, And give them to thy neighbour to possess. This shall be done to David in the day, That Israel openly may see thy shame. _Dav._ Nathan, I have against the Lord, I have Sinned, oh sinned grievously, and lo! From heaven’s throne doth David throw himself, And groan and grovel to the gates of hell. _Nath._ David, stand up; thus saith the Lord by me, David the King shall live, for he hath seen The true repentant sorrow of thy heart; But for thou hast in this misdeed of thine Stirr’d up the enemies of Israel To triumph and blaspheme the Lord of Hosts, And say, “He set a wicked man to reign Over his loved people and his tribes;” The Child shall surely die, that erst was born, His Mother’s sin, his Kingly Father’s scorn. _Dav._ How just is Jacob’s God in all his works! But must it die, that David loveth so? O that the mighty one of Israel Nill change his doom, and says the Babe must die Mourn, Israel, and weep in Sion gates; Wither, ye cedar trees of Lebanon; Ye sprouting almonds with your flowing tops, Droop, drown, and drench in Hebron’s fearful streams: The Babe must die, that was to David born, His Mother’s sin, his Kingly Father’s scorn.
C. L.
[182] The hum of Bees.
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~Dissertations on Doomsday.~
_For the Table Book._
§ I. NAME.
Doomsday Book, one of the most ancient records of England, is the register from which judgment was to be given upon the value, tenure, and services of lands therein described.
Other names by which it appears to have been known were Rotulus Wintoniæ, Scriptura Thesauri Regis, Liber de Wintonia, and Liber Regis. Sir Henry Spelman adds, Liber Judiciarius, Censualis Angliæ, Angliæ Notitia et Lustratio, and Rotulus Regis.
§ II. DATE.
The exact time of the Conqueror’s undertaking the Survey, is differently stated by historians. The Red Book of the Exchequer seems to have been erroneously quoted, as fixing the time of entrance upon it in 1080; it being merely stated in that record, that the work was undertaken at a time subsequent to the total reduction of the island to William’s authority. It is evident that it was finished in 1086. Matthew Paris, Robert of Gloucester, the Annals of Waverley, and the Chronicle of Bermondsey, give the year 1083, as the date of the record; Henry of Huntingdon, in 1084; the Saxon Chronicle in 1085; Bromton, Simeon of Durham, Florence of Worcester, the Chronicle of Mailros, Roger Hovedon, Wilkes, and Hanningford, in 1086; and the Ypodigma Neustriæ and Diceto in 1087.
The person and property of Odo, bishop of Bayeux, are said to have been seized by the Conqueror in 1082.
§ III. ORIGIN AND OBJECT.
Ingulphus affirms, that the Survey was made in imitation of the policy of Alfred, who, at the time he divided the kingdom into counties, hundreds, and tithings, had an Inquisition taken and digested into a Register, which was called, from the place in which it was reposited, the Roll of Winchester. The formation of such a Survey, however, in the time of Alfred, may be fairly doubted, as we have only a solitary authority for its existence. The separation of counties also is known to have been a division long anterior to the time of Alfred. Bishop Kennet tells us, that Alfred’s Register had the name of Domeboc, from which the name of _Doomsday Book_ was only a corruption.
Dom-boc is noticed in the laws of Edward the elder, and more particularly in those of Æthelstan, as the code of Saxon laws.
§ IV. MODE OF EXECUTION.
For the adjusting of this Survey, certain commissioners, called the king’s justiciaries, were appointed inquisitors: it appears, upon the oaths of the sheriffs, the lords of each manor, the presbyters of every church, the reeves of every hundred, the bailiffs, and six villans of every village, were to inquire into the name of the place, who held it in the time of Edward (the Confessor,) who was the present possessor, how many hides in the manor, how many carrucates in demesne, how many homagers, how many villans, how many cotarii, how many servi, what freemen, how many tenants in socage, what quantity of wood, how many meadows and pasture, what mills and fish-ponds, how much added or taken away, what the gross value in king Edward’s time, what the present value, and how much each free-man or soch-man had or has. All this was to be triply estimated; first, as the estate was in the time of the Confessor; then, as it was bestowed by king William; and, thirdly, as its value stood at the formation of the Survey. _The jurors were, moreover, to state whether any advance could be made in the value._ The writer of the Saxon Chronicle, with some degree of asperity, informs us, that not a hyde or yardland, not an ox, cow, or hog, were omitted in the census.
PRINCIPAL MATTERS NOTICED IN THIS RECORD.
§ I. PERSONS.
(1.) After the bishops and abbats, the highest persons in rank were the Norman barons.
(2.) _Taini_, tegni, teigni, teini, or teinni, are next to be mentioned, because those of the highest class were in fact nobility, or barons of the Saxon times. Archbishops, bishops, and abbats, as well as the great barons, are also called thanes.
(3.) _Vavassores_, in dignity, were next to the barons, and higher thanes. Selden says, they either held of a mesne lord, and not immediately of the king, or at least of the king as of an honour or manor and not in chief. The grantees, says sir Henry Spelman, that received their estates from the barons or capitanei, and not from the king, were called valvasores, (a degree above knights.)
(4.) The _aloarii_, alodarii, or alodiarii, tenants in allodium, (a free estate “possessio libera.”) The _dinges_ mentioned, tom i. fol. 298, are supposed to have been persons of the same description.
(5.) _Milites._ The term miles appears not to have acquired a precise meaning at the time of the Survey, sometimes implying a soldier, or mere military servant, and sometimes a person of higher distinction.
(6.) _Liberi Homines_ appears to have been a term of considerable latitude; signifying not merely the freeman, or freeholders of a manor, but occasionally including all the ranks of society already mentioned, and indeed all persons holding in military tenure. “The ordinary freemen, before the conquest,” says Kelham, “and at the time of compiling Doomsday, were under the protection of great men; but what their quality was, further than that their persons and blood were free, that is, that they were not nativi, or bondmen, it will give a knowing man trouble to discover to us.” These freemen are called in the Survey _liberi homines comendati_. They appear to have placed themselves, by voluntary homage, under this protection: their lord or patron undertook to secure their estates and persons, and for this protection and security they paid to him an annual stipend, or performed some annual service. Some appear to have sought a patron or protector, for the sake of obtaining their freedom only; such _the liberi homines comendatione tantum_ may be interpreted. According to the laws of the Conqueror, a quiet residence of a year and a day, upon the king’s demesne lands, would enfranchise a villan who had fled from his lord. “_Item si servi permanserint sine calumnia per annum et diem in civitatibus nostris vel burgis in muro vallatis, vel in castris nostris, a die illa liberi afficiuntur et liberi a jugo servitutis suæ sunt in perpetuum._” The _commendati dimidii_ were persons who depended upon two protectors, and paid half to one and half to the other. _Sub commendati_ were under the command of those who were themselves depending upon some superior lord. _Sub commendati dimidii_ were those who were under the _commendati dimidii_, and had two patrons or protectors, and the same as they had. _Liberi homines integri_ were those who were under the _full_ protection of one lord, in contradistinction to the _liberi homines dimidii_. Commendatio sometimes signified the annual rent paid for the protection. _Liberi homines ad nullam firmam pertinentes_ were those who held their lands independent of any lord. Of others it is said, “qui remanent in manu regis.” In a few entries of the Survey, we have _liberæ feminæ_, and one or two of _liberæ feminæ commendatæ_.
(7.) _Sochmanni_, or _socmens_, were those inferior landowners who had lands in the soc or franchise of a great baron; privileged villans, who, though their tenures were absolutely copyhold, yet had an interest equal to a freehold.
(8.) Of this description of tenantry also were the _rachenistres_, or _radchenistres_, who appear likewise to have been called _radmanni_, or _radmans_. It appears that some of the radchenistres, like the sochmen, were less free than others. Dr. Nash conjectured that the radmanni and radchenistres were probably a kind of freemen who served on horseback. Rad-cnihꞇ is usually interpreted by our glossarists _equestris homo sive miles_, and Raðheꞃe _equestris exercitus_.
(9.) _Villani._ The clearest notion of the tenure of villani is probably to be obtained from sir W. Blackstone’s Commentaries. “With regard to folk-land,” says he, “or estates held in villenage, this was a species of tenure neither strictly Feodal, Norman, nor Saxon, but mixed or compounded of them all; and which also, on account of the heriots that usually attend it, may seem to have somewhat Danish in its composition. Under the Saxon government, there were, as sir William Temple speaks, a sort of people in a condition of downright servitude, used and employed in the most servile works, and belonging, both they and their children, and their effects, to the lord of the soil, like the rest of the cattle or stock upon it. These seem to have been those who held what was called the _folk-land_, from which they were removable at the lord’s pleasure. On the arrival of the Normans here, it seems not improbable that they, who were strangers to any other than a feodal state, might give some sparks of enfranchisement to such wretched persons as fell to their share, by admitting them, as well as others, to the oath of fealty, which conferred a right of protection, and raised the tenant to a kind of estate superior to downright slavery, but inferior to every other condition. This they called _villenage_, and the tenants villeins; either from the word _vilis_, or else, as sir Edward Coke tells us, a villa; because they lived chiefly in villages, and were employed in rustic works of the most sordid kind. They could not leave their lord without his permission; but if they ran away, or were purloined from him, might be claimed and recovered by action, like beasts or other chatels. The villeins could acquire no property either in lands or goods; but if he purchased either, the lord might enter upon them, oust the villein, and seize them to his own use, unless he contrived to dispose of them before the lord had seized them; for the lord had then lost his opportunity. The law however protected the persons of villeins, as king’s subjects, against atrocious injuries of the lord.”
(10.) _Bordarii_ of the Survey appear at various times to have received a great variety of interpretations. Lord Coke calls them “boors, holding a little house, with some land of husbandry, bigger than a cottage.” Some have considered them as cottagers, taking their name from living on the borders of a village or manor; but this is sufficiently refuted by Doomsday itself, where we find them not only mentioned generally among the agricultural occupiers of land, but in one instance as “circa aulam manentes,” dwelling near the manor-house; and even residing in some of the larger towns. Boꞃð, bishop Kennett notices, was a cottage. The _cos-cets_, corcez, cozets, or cozez, were apparently the same as the cottarii and cotmanni; cottagers who paid a certain rent for very small parcels of land.
(11.) _Bures_, buri, or burs, are noticed in the first volume of Doomsday itself, as synonymous with _coliberti_. The name of coliberti was unquestionably derived from the Roman civil law. They are described by lord Coke as tenants in free socage by free rent. Cowel says, they were certainly a middle sort of tenants, between servile and free, or such as held their freedom of tenure under condition of such works and services, and were therefore the same landholders whom we meet with (in aftertimes) under the name of conditionales.
Such are the different descriptions of tenantry, and their rights more particularly noticed in Doomesday.
(12.) _Servi._ It is observed by bishop Kennett, and by Morant after him, in his History of Essex, that the servi and villani are, all along in Doomsday, divided from each other; but that no author has fixed the exact distinction between them. The servi, bishop Kennett adds, might be the pure villanes, and villanes in gross, who, without any determined tenure of land, were, at the arbitrary pleasure of the lord, appointed to servile works, and received their wages and maintenance at the discretion of the lord. The other were of a superior degree, and were called villani, because they were villæ or glebæ adscripti, i. e. held some cottage and lands, for which they were burthened with such stated servile works as their lords had annexed to them. The Saxon name for servus was Eꞅne. The ancillæ of the Survey were females, under circumstances nearly similar to the servi. These were disposed of in the same way, at the pleasure of the lord. The laws, however, protected their chastity; they could not be violated with impunity, even by their owners.
(13.) _Censarii_, _censores_, or _censorii_, were also among the occupiers of land. They appear to have been free persons, _censum reddentes_.
(14.) _Porcarii._ Although in one or two instances in Doomsday Survey mere swine-herds seem to have been intended by _Porcarii_, yet in the generality of entries in which they are mentioned, they appear in the rank of free occupiers, who rented the privilege of feeding pigs in the woodlands, some for money, and some for payments in kind.
(15.) The _homines_, who are so frequently mentioned, included all sorts of feudatory tenants. They claimed a privilege of having their causes and persons tried only in the court of their lord, to whom they owed the duty of submission, and professed dependance.
(16.) _Angli_ and _Anglici_ occur frequently in the Survey among the under tenants, holding in different capacities.
(17.) Among the _offices_ attached to names, we find accipitrarii or ancipitrarii, arbalistarii or balistarii arcarii biga, camerarii campo, constabularius, cubicularius, dapifer, dispensator, equarius, forestarii huscarli ingeniator, interpres, lagemanni, Latinarius, legatus liberatores marescal, or marescalcus medici, monitor, pincerna recter navis regis, scutularius, stalre, stirman or stiremannus regis, thesaurarius and venatores of a higher description.
(18.) _Offices_ of an _inferior_ description, and trades, are aurifabri, carpentarii, cemetarii, cervisiarii, coci, coqui, or koci, fabri, ferrarii, figuli fossarii, fossator, granetarius, hostarius, inguardi, joculator regis, joculatrix, lanatores, loricati, lorimarius, loripes, mercatores, missatici, monetarii, parcher, parm’t piscatores, pistores, portarius potarii, or poters, prebendarii prefecti, prepositi salinarii servientes, sutores, tonsor, and vigilantes homines. Among ecclesiastical offices, we have Capicerius, Æcel. Winton the sacrist, and Matricularias, Æcel. S. Johannis Cestriæ. Buzecarts were mariners. Hospites, occupiers of houses.
Among the assistants in husbandry, we find apium custos, avantes homines, berquarii bovarii caprarum mediator daia granatarius mellitarii, mercennarius, porcarii, and vacarius.
S. R. F.
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I. ANCIENT TENURE.
II. MODERN ANECDOTE.
_For the Table Book._
TENURE OF THE ANCIENT MANOR OF BILSINGTON PRIORY, THE SEAT OF THOMAS CARR RIDER, ESQ.
The manor of Bilsington inferior was held in grand sergeantry in the reign of Edward III. by the service of presenting three maple cups at the king’s coronation and, at the time of the coronation of Charles II., by the additional service of carrying the last dish of the second course to the king’s table. The former service was performed by Thomas Rider, who was knighted (Mos pro Lege) by his late majesty George III., when the king, on receiving the maple cups from the lord of the manor, turned to the mayor of Oxford, who stood at his right hand, and, having received from him for his tenure of that city a gold cup and cover, gave him these three cups in return.
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ANECDOTE OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS WASHINGTON AND THE CELEBRATED ADMIRAL VERNON, UNCLE TO THE LATE EARL OF SHIPBROOK.
When the admiral was attacking Porto Bello, with his six ships only, as is described on the medal struck on the occasion, he observed a fine young man in appearance, who, with the most intrepid courage, attended with the most perfect calmness, was always in that part of the ship which was most engaged. After the firing had ceased, he sent his captain to request he would attend upon him, which he immediately obeyed; and the admiral entering into conversation, discovered by his answers and observations that he possessed more abilities than usually fall to the lot of mankind in general. Upon his asking his name, the young man told him it was George Washington; and the admiral, on his return home, strongly recommended him to the attention of the admiralty. This great man, when he built his house in America, out of gratitude to his first benefactor, named it “Mount Vernon,” and at this moment it is called so.
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~Zoology.~
I. THE KING’S OSTRICH.
II. THE HORSE ECLIPSE.
Mr. Joshua Brookes, the eminent anatomist, gave a lecture on Wednesday evening, the 25th of April, 1827, at the house of the Zoological Society, in Bruton-street, on the body of an ostrich which his majesty had presented to the society. The lecture was attended by lord Auckland, lord Stanley, Dr. Birkbeck, and several other noblemen and gentlemen distinguished for their devotion to the interests of science. The ostrich, which was a female, and had been presented to his majesty about two years before by colonel Denham, had been kept at Windsor, and had died about three weeks previous to the lecture, of obesity, a disease which frequently shortens the lives of wild animals of every species, when attempts are made to domesticate them.