Part 63
A few months ago a letter, bearing the following curious superscription, was put into the post-office in Manchester:--“For Mr. Colwell that Keeps the Shop in Back Anderson-st. to Bee Gave to Jack Timlen that Keeps the pigs in his own Sellar in Back Anderson-st. the irish man that has the Large family that bgs the mail from Mr. Colwell and milk to Bolton.”[195]
[195] Bolton Express.
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~Garrick Plays.~
No. XIX.
[From the “Silver Age,” an Historical Play, by Thomas Heywood, 1613.]
_Proserpine seeking Flowers._
_Pros._ O may these meadows ever barren be, That yield of flowers no more variety! Here neither is the White nor Sanguine Rose, The Strawberry Flower, the Paunce, nor Violet; Methinks I have too poor a meadow chose: Going to beg, I am with a Beggar met, That wants as much as I. I should do ill To take from them that need.--
* * * * *
_Ceres, after the Rape of her Daughter._
_Cer._ Where is my fair and lovely Proserpine? Speak, Jove’s fair Daughter, whither art thou stray’d I’ve sought the meadows, glebes, and new-reap’d fields Yet cannot find my Child. Her scatter’d flowers, And garland half-made-up, I have lit upon; But her I cannot spy. Behold the trace Of some strange wagon,[196] that hath scorcht the trees, And singed the grass: these ruts the sun ne’er sear’d. Where art thou, Love, where art thou, Proserpine?--
_She questions Triton for her Daughter._
_Cer._----thou that on thy shelly trumpet Summons the sea-god, answer from the depth. _Trit._ On Neptune’s sea-horse with my concave trump Thro’ all the abyss I’ve shrill’d thy daughter’s loss. The channels clothed in waters, the low cities In which the water-gods and sea-nymphs dwell, I have perused; sought thro’ whole woods and forests Of leafless coral, planted in the deeps; Toss’d up the beds of pearl; rouzed up huge whales, And stern sea-monsters, from their rocky dens; Those bottoms, bottomless; shallows and shelves, And all those currents where th’ earth’s springs break in; Those plains where Neptune feeds his porpoises, Sea-morses, seals, and all his cattle else: Thro’ all our ebbs and tides my trump hath blazed her, Yet can no cavern shew me Proserpine.
_She questions the Earth._
_Cer._ Fair sister Earth, for all these beauteous fields, Spread o’er thy breast; for all these fertile crops, With which my plenty hath enrich’d thy bosom; For all those rich and pleasant wreaths of grain, With which so oft thy temples I have crowned; For all the yearly liveries, and fresh robes, Upon thy summer beauty I bestow-- Shew me my Child! _Earth._ Not in revenge, fair Ceres, That your remorseless ploughs have rak’t my breast, Nor that your iron-tooth’d harrows print my face So full of wrinkles; that you dig my sides For marle and soil, and make me bleed my springs Thro’ all my open’d veins to weaken me-- Do I conceal your Daughter. I have spread My arms from sea to sea, look’d o’er my mountains, Examin’d all my pastures, groves, and plains, Marshes and wolds, my woods and champain fields, My dens and caves--and yet, from foot to head, I have no place on which the Moon[197] doth tread. _Cer._ Then, Earth, thou’st lost her; and, for Proserpine, I’ll strike thee with a lasting barrenness. No more shall plenty crown thy fertile brows; I’ll break thy ploughs, thy oxen murrain-strike: With idle agues I’ll consume thy swains; Sow tares and cockles in thy lands of wheat, Whose spikes the weed and cooch-grass shall outgrow, And choke it in the blade. The rotten showers Shall drown thy seed, which the hot sun shall parch, Or mildews rot; and what remains, shall be A prey to ravenous birds.--Oh Proserpine!-- You Gods that dwell above, and you below, Both of the woods and gardens, rivers, brooks, Fountains and wells, some one among you all Shew me her self or grave: to you I call.
_Arethusa riseth._
_Are._ That can the river Arethusa do. My streams you know, fair Goddess, issue forth From Tartary by the Tenarian isles: My head’s in Hell where Stygian Pluto reigns. There did I see the lovely Proserpine, Whom Pluto hath rapt hence; behold her girdle, Which on her way dropt from her lovely waist, And scatter’d in my streams.--Fair Queen, adieu! Crown you my banks with flowers, as I tell true.
* * * * *
[From the “Golden Age,” an Historical Play, by the same Author, 1611.]
_Sibilla, the Wife of Saturn, is by him enjoined to slay the new-born Jupiter. None can do it for his smiles._
_Sibilla. Vesta. Nurse._
_Sib._ Mother, of all that ever mothers were Most wretched! Kiss thy sweet babe ere he die, That hath life only lent to suffer death. Sweet Lad, I would thy father saw thee smile. Thy beauty, and thy pretty infancy, Would mollify his heart, were’t hew’d from flint, Or carved with iron tools from Corsic rock. Thou laugh’st to think thou must be kill’d in jest. Oh! if thou needs must die, I’ll be thy murtheress, And kill thee with my kisses, pretty knave.-- And can’st thou laugh to see thy mother weep? Or art thou in thy chearful smiles so free, In scorn of thy rude father’s tyranny? I’ll kiss thee ere I kill thee: for my life The Lad so smiles, I cannot hold the knife. _Vest._ Then give him me; I am his Grandmother, And I will kill him gently: this sad office Belongs to me, as to the next of kin. _Sib._ _For heaven’s sake, when you kill him, hurt him not._ _Vest._ Come, little knave, prepare your naked throat I have not heart to give thee many wounds, My kindness is to take thy life at once. Now-- Alack, my pretty Grandchild, smilest thou still? I have lust to kiss, but have no heart to kill. _Nurse._ You may be careless of the King’s command But it concerns me; and I love my life More than I do a Stripling’s. Give him me, I’ll make him sure; a sharp weapon lend, I’ll quickly bring the Youngster to his end.-- Alack, my pretty knave, ’twere more than sin With a sharp knife to touch thy tender skin. O Madam, he’s so full of angel grace, I cannot strike, he smiles so in my face. _Sib._ I’ll wink, and strike; come, once more reach him hither; For die he must, so Saturn hath decreed: ’Las, for a world I would not see him bleed. _Vest._ Ne shall he do. But swear me secrecy; The Babe shall live, and we be dangerless.
C. L.
[196] The car of Dis.
[197] Proserpine; who was also Luna in Heaven, Diana on Earth.
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THE FIRST BUTTERFLY.
One of the superstitions prevailing in Devonshire is, that any individual neglecting to kill the first butterfly he may see for the season will have ill-luck throughout the year. The following recent example is given by a young lady:--“The other Sunday, as we were walking to church, we met a man running at full speed, with his hat in one hand, and a stick in the other. As he passed us, he exclaimed, ‘I sha’n’t hat’en now, I b’lieve.’ He did not give us time to inquire what he was so eagerly pursuing; but we presently overtook an old man, whom we knew to be his father, and who being very infirm, at upwards of seventy, generally hobbled about by the aid of two sticks. Addressing me, he observed, ‘My _zin_ a took away wan a’ my sticks, miss, wan’t be ebble to kill’n now, though, I b’lieve.’ ‘Kill what?’ said I. ‘Why, ’tis a butterfly, miss, the _furst_ hee’th a zeed for the year; and they zay that a body will have cruel bad luck if a ditn’en kill a _furst_ a zeeth.’”[198]
[198] Dorset Chronicle, May, 1825.
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KING JAMES I. AT DURHAM.
_To the Editor._
Sir,--If you think the subjoined worthy of a place in your _Table Book_, I shall feel glad to see it. I believe it has never been in print; it is copied from an entry in one of the old corporation books.
Yours, very truly,
M. J.
_Durham, May, 1827._
THE MANNER OF THE KINGES MAJESTY COMING TO THE CITTIE OF DURHAM, ANNO DOM. 1617, AS FOLLOWETH.
Upon Good Friday, being the 18th of April, 1617, Mr. Heaborne, one of his majesties gentlemen ushers spoke to George Walton, Maior, that it was his majesties pleasure to come in state unto the cittie, and that it were fitting that the maior and aldermen should be ready upon the next daie following, being Satturdaie, to give their attendance upon his majestie in some convenient place within the cittie; and the said maior to have his _foot-cloth horse_ their ready to attend, which likewise was done upon Elvet Bridge, near the tower thereof, being new rayled, within the rayles of wood then made for that purpose: at which time his said majesties said gentleman usher standing by the said maior and aldermen till his majesties coming, when there was a speech delivered by the said maior to his majestie, together with the maces and staffe; and at time fitting in the same speech so made, a silver bowle gilt, with a cover, was presented by the said maior to his majestie, which appeares as followeth:--
“Most gracious soveraigne. What unspeakable joy is this your highness presents unto us, your loving subjects; our tongues are not able to utter, nor our meanes to shew you welcome. Your gracious majestie, at your happie cominge hither with much peace and plentie found this cittie inabled, with divers liberties and priveledges, all sovering pittie and power spiritual and temporal being in yourself, gave unto us the same againe; and afterwards, of your gracious bountie, confirmed them under your great seal of England. We humbly beseech your majestie continue your favours towards this cittie; and in token of our love and loyaltie, crave the acceptance of this myte, and we shall be readie to the uttermost expence of our dearest bloud, to defend you and your royal progeny here on earth, as with our prayers to God to blesse you and all yours in all eternitie.”
After which speech the maior was called by his majesties gentleman usher to take his horse, and to ride before his majestie; immediate upon which commandment made by his majesties gentleman usher, there was at the same place, about forty yards distance, certayne verses spoken by an apprentice of this cittie to his majestie, as followeth: after which, the maior was placed in rank next the sword, and so rode forward, carring the citties mace, to the church.
_To the Kinges most Excellent Majestie._
“Durham’s old cittie thus salutss our king With entertainment, she doth homlie bring: And cannot smyle upon his majestie With shew of greatness; but humilitie Makes her express herself in modern guise Dejected to this north, bare to your eyes. For the great prelate, which of late adorde His dignities, and for which we implore Your highnesse aide to have a continuance-- And so confirmed by your dread ---- arm. Yet what our royal James did grant herein, William, our bishoppe, hath oppugnant been; Small task to sway down smallnesse, where man’s might Hath greater force than equity or right. But these are only in your brest included From your most gracious grant. Therefore we pray, That the faire sunshine of your brightest daie, Would smyle upon this cittie with clere beams, To exhale the tempest off insuing streames. Suffer not, great prince, our ancient state, By one fore’d will to be depopulate, Tis one seeks our undoeing: but to you, Ten thousand hearts shall pray, and knees shall bowe And this dull cell of earth wherein we live, Unto your name immortal prayse shall give. Confirm our grant, good kinge. Durham’s old cittie Would be more powerful so it has Jame’s pittie.”
REMARK.
The complaint against the bishop arose from a suit which he had instituted against the corporation in the Exchequer, for taking all the bishop’s privileges and profits of the markets and courts into their own hands, and for driving his officers by violence out of the tollbooth on the 3d of October, (7th of James I.,) and preventing their holding the courts there as usual, as well as for several other similar matters, when judgment was given against the corporation on the 24th of June, (8th of James I.,) 1611.
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MARCH OF INTELLECT.
Every intelligent mind of right reflection accords its wishes for general enlightenment. It appears, from a fashionable miscellany, that a late distinguished writer expressed himself to that effect; the following are extracts from the article referred to. They contain, in the sequel, a forcible opinion on the tendency of the present general diffusion of literature.--
CONVERSATIONS OF MATURIN.
Maturin’s opinions of poetry, as of every thing else, were to be inferred rather than gathered. It was very difficult to draw him into literary conversation: like Congreve, he wished to be an author only in his study. Yet he courted the society of men of letters when it was to be had; but would at any time have sacrificed it to dally an hour in the drawing-room, or at the quadrille. Sometimes, however, amongst friends (particularly if he was in a splenetic mood) he freely entered into a discussion upon the living authors of England, and delivered his opinions rapidly, brilliantly, and with effect. On one occasion a conversation of this description took place, in which I had the pleasure of participating. I will recall the substance of it as well as I can. Do not expect from Maturin the turgidity of Boswell’s great man, or the amiable philosophy of Franklin: you will be disappointed if you anticipate any thing profound or speculative from him; for at the best of times he was exceedingly fond of mixing up the frivolity of a fashionable conversazione with the most solid subjects.
I met him in the county of Wicklow on a pedestrian excursion in the autumn; a relaxation he constantly indulged in, particularly at that season of the year. It was in that part of the vale of Avoca, where Moore is said to have composed his celebrated song: a green knoll forms a gradual declivity to the river, which flows through the vale, and in the centre of the knoll there is the trunk of an old oak, cut down to a seat. Upon that venerable trunk, say the peasants, Moore sat when he composed a song that, like the Rans de Vache of the Swiss, will be sung amidst those mountains and valleys as long as they are inhabited. Opposite to that spot I met Maturin, accompanied by a young gentleman carrying a fishing-rod. We were at the distance of thirty miles from Dublin; in the heart of the most beautiful valley in the island; surrounded by associations of history and poetry, with spirits subdued into tranquillity by the Italian skies above, and the peaceful gurgling of the waters below us. Never shall I forget Maturin’s strange appearance amongst those romantic dells. He was dressed in a crazy and affectedly shabby suit of black, that had waxed into a “brilliant polish” by over zeal in the service of its master; he wore no cravat, for the heat obliged him to throw it off, and his delicate neck rising gracefully from his thrice-crested collar, gave him an appearance of great singularity. His raven hair, which he generally wore long, fell down luxuriantly without a breath to agitate it; and his head was crowned with a hat which I could sketch with a pencil, but not with a pen. His gait and manner were in perfect keeping; but his peculiarities excited no surprise in me, for I was accustomed to them. In a short time we were seated on the banks of the Avoca, the stream cooling our feet with its refreshing spray, and the green foliage protecting us from the sun.
“Moore is said to have written his song in this place.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” replied Maturin. “No man ever wrote poetry under a burning sun, or in the moonlight. I have often attempted a retired walk in the country at moonlight, when I had a madrigal in my head, and every gust of wind rang in my ears like the footsteps of a robber. One robber would put to flight a hundred tropes. You feel uneasy in a perfectly secluded place, and cannot collect your mind.”
“But Moore, who is a poet by inspiration, could write in any circumstances?”
“There is no man of the age labours harder than Moore. He is often a month working out the fag-end of an epigram. ’Pon my honour, I would not be such a victim to literature for the reputation of Pope, the greatest man of them all.”
“Don’t you think that every man has his own peculiarity in writing, and can only write under particular excitements, and in a particular way?”
“Certainly. Pope, who ridiculed such a caprice, practised it himself; for he never wrote well but at midnight. Gibbon dictated to his amanuensis, while he walked up and down the room in a terrible passion; Stephens wrote on horseback in a full gallop; Montaigne and Chateaubriand in the fields; Sheridan over a bottle of wine; Molière with his knees in the fire; and lord Bacon in a small room, which he said helped him to condense his thoughts. But Moore, whose peculiarity is retirement, would never come here to write a song he could write better elsewhere, merely because it related to the place.”
“Why omit yourself in the list? you have your own peculiarity.”
“I compose on a long walk; but then the day must neither be too hot, nor cold; it must be reduced to that medium from which you feel no inconvenience one way or the other; and then when I am perfectly free from the city, and experience no annoyance from the weather, my mind becomes lighted by sunshine, and I arrange my plan perfectly to my own satisfaction.”
“From the quantity of works our living poets have given to the public, I would be disposed to say that they write with great facility, and without any nervous whim.”
* * * * *
“But lord Byron--he must write with great ease and rapidity?”
“That I don’t know; I never could finish the perusal of any of his long poems. There is something in them excessively at variance with my notions of poetry. He is too fond of the obsolete; but that I do not quarrel with so much as his system of converting it into a kind of modern antique, by superadding tinsel to gold. It is a sort of mixed mode, neither old nor new, but incessantly hovering between both.”
“What do you think of Childe Harold?”
“I do not know what to think of it, nor can I give you definitively my reasons for disliking his poems generally.”
“You have taken up a prejudice, perhaps, from a passage you have forgotten, and never allowed yourself patience to examine it.”
“Perhaps so; but I am not conscious of a prejudice.”
“No man is.”
* * * * *
“And which of the living poets fulfils your ideal standard of excellence?”
“Crabbe. He is all nature without pomp or parade, and exhibits at times deep pathos and feeling. His characters are certainly homely, and his scenes rather unpoetical; but then he invests his subject with so much genuine tenderness and sweetness, that you care not who are the actors, or in what situations they are placed, but pause to recollect where it was you met something similar in real life. Do you remember the little story ‘Delay is Danger?’ I’ll recite you a few lines describing my favourite scene, an autumn-evening landscape:--
“On the right side the youth a wood survey’d, With all its dark intensity of shade; Where the rough wind alone was heard to move, In this, the pause of nature and of love, When now the young are rear’d, and when the old, Lost to the tie, grow negligent and cold-- Far to the left he saw the huts of men Half hid in mist that hung upon the fen; Before him swallows, gathering for the sea, Took their short flights, and twitter’d on the lea And near the bean-sheaf stood, the harvest done, And slowly blacken’d in the sickly sun; All these were sad in nature, or they took Sadness from him, the likeness of his look, And of his mind--he ponder’d for a while, Then met his Fanny with a borrow’d smile.”
“Except Gray’s Elegy, there is scarcely so melancholy and touching a picture in English poetry.”
“And whom do you estimate after Crabbe?”
“I am disposed to say Hogg. His Queen’s Wake is a splendid and impassioned work. I like it for its varieties, and its utter simplicity. What a fine image is this of a devoted vessel suddenly engulfed at sea:
“Some ran to the cords, some kneel’d at the shrine. But all the wild elements seem’d to combine; ’Twas just but one moment of stir and commotion, And down went the ship like a bird of the ocean!”
“But do not altogether take me at my word in what I say of Crabbe and Hogg. They have struck the chord of my taste; but they are not, perhaps, the first men of the day. Moore is a writer for whom I feel a strong affection, because he has done that which I would have done if I could: but after him it would be vain to try any thing.”
* * * * *
“Is it your opinion that the swarm of minor poets and writers advance the cause of literature, or that the public taste would be more refined and informed, if those who administered to it were fewer and better?”
“I object to prescribing laws to the republic of letters. It is a free republic, in which every man is entitled to publicity if he chooses it. The effect unquestionably of a swarm of minor poets is the creation of a false taste amongst a certain class; but then that is a class that otherwise would have no taste at all, and it is well to draw their attention to literature by any agency. In the next age their moral culture will improve, and we shall go on gradually diminishing the contagion.”[199]
[199] New Monthly Magazine.
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We have here a print of the cherry-woman of a hundred years ago, when cherries were so little grown, that the popular street cry was double the price of the present day. Readers of the _Every-Day Book_ may remember the engraving of the “London barrow-woman,” with her cherry-cry--“round and sound”--the cherry-woman (that _was_) of our own times--the recollection of whose fine person, and melodious voice, must recur to every one who saw and heard her--a real picture to the mind’s eye, discoursing “most excellent music.”
The man blowing a trumpet, “Troop, every one!” was a street seller of hobby-horses--toys for the children of a hundred years ago. He carried them, as represented in the engraving, arranged in a partitioned frame on his shoulder, and to each horse’s head was a small flag with two bills attached. The crier and his ware are wholly extinct. Now-a-days we give a boy the first stick at hand to thrust between his legs as a Bucephalus--the shadow of a shade:--our forefathers were better natured, for they presented him with something of the semblance of the generous animal. Is a horse now less popular with boys than then? or did they, at that time, rather imitate the galloping of the real hobby-horse in the pageants and mummeries that passed along the streets, or pranced in the shows at fairs and on the stage? Be that as it may, this is a pretty plaything for “little master;” and toymakers would find account in reviving the manufacture for the rising generation. They have improved the little girl’s doll, and baby-house: are they ignorant that boys, as soon as they can walk, demand a whip and a horse?
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MR. HOBDAY’S GALLERY.
No. 54, PALL-MALL.