Part 65
The Hindu husbandman rises at cock crow, washes his hands, feet, and face, repeats the names of some of his gods, and perhaps takes a whiff of his pipe or a quid of tobacco, and is now ready to begin his labour. He lets loose his oxen, and drives them leisurely to his fields, allowing them to graze, if there is any grass on the ground, as they go along, and takes his breakfast with him tied up in a dirty cloth, or it is sent after him by one of his children, and consists of a cake (made unleavened of the flour of Badjeree or Juwaree,) and some of the cookery of the preceding day, or an onion or two. On reaching his field it is perhaps seven or eight o’clock; he yokes his oxen, if any of the operations of husbandry require it, and works for an hour or two, then squats down and takes his breakfast, but without loosing his cattle. He resumes his work in a quarter of an hour, and goes on till near twelve o’clock, when his wife arrives with his dinner. He then unyokes his oxen, drives them to drink, and allows them to graze or gives them straw; and takes his dinner by the side of a well or a stream, or under the shade of a tree if there happens to be one, and is waited on during his meal by his wife. After his dinner he is joined by any of his fellow labourers who may be near, and after a chat takes a nap on his spread cumley or jota for half an hour, while his wife eats what he has left. He yokes his cattle again about two or half-past two o’clock, and works till sunset, when he proceeds leisurely home, ties up and feeds his oxen, then goes himself to a brook, bathes and washes, or has hot water thrown over him by his wife at home. After his ablutions, and perhaps on holidays anointing himself with sandal wood oil, he prays before his household gods, and often visits one or more of the village temples. His wife by this time has prepared his supper, which he takes in company with the males of the family. His principal enjoyment seems to be between this meal and bed-time, which is nine or ten o’clock. He now fondles and plays with his children, visits or is visited by his neighbours, and converses about the labour of the day and concerns of the village, either in the open air or by the glimmering light of a lamp, learns from the shopkeeper or beadle what strangers have passed or stopped at the village, and their history, and from any of the community that may have been at the city (Poohnah) what news he has brought. In the less busy times, which are two or three months in the year, the cultivators take their meals at home, and have sufficient leisure for amusement. They then sit in groups in the shade and converse, visit their friends in the neighbouring villages, go on pilgrimages, &c. &c.
The women of the cultivators, like those of other Asiatics, are seldom the subject of gallantry, and are looked on rather as a part of their live stock than as companions, and yet, contrary to what might be expected, their condition seems far from being unhappy. The law allows a husband to beat his wife, and for infidelity to maim her or else put her to death; but these severities are seldom resorted to, and rarely any sort of harsh behaviour. A man is despised who is seen much in company with women. A wife, therefore, never looks for any fondling from her husband; it is thought unbecoming in him even to mention her name, and she is never allowed to eat in company with him, from the time of their wedding dinner; but patiently waits on him during his meals, and makes her repast on what he leaves. But setting aside these marks of contempt, she is always treated with kindness and forbearance, unless her conduct is very perverse and bad, and she has her entire liberty. The women have generally the sole direction of household affairs, and if clever, notwithstanding all their disadvantages, not unfrequently gain as great an ascendancy over their lords as in other parts of the world.[203]
[203] Mr. Coates in Trans. Bombay Lit. Soc.
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ROUND ROBIN.
It was customary among the ancients to write names, whether of the gods, or of their friends, in a circle, that none might take offence at seeing another’s name preferred to his own. The Cordeliers have formerly been known to have paid the same attention to delicacy, and when a pope has demanded the names of some priests of their order, that one might be raised to the purple, they have sent those names written circularly, that they might not seem to recommend one more than another. The race of sailors are the only people who preserve this very ancient custom in its purity, for when any remonstrance is on foot among them, they sign it in a circle, and call it a _round robin_.
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NAMES.
Toward the middle of the fifteenth century, it was the fancy of the wits and learned men of the age, particularly in Italy, to change their baptismal names for classical ones. As Sannazarius, for instance, who altered his own plain name “Jacopo” to “Actius Syncerus.” Numbers did the same, and among the rest, Platina the historian, at Rome, who, not without a solemn ceremonial, took the name of “Callimachus,” instead of “Philip.” Pope Paul II., who reigned about that time, unluckily chanced to be suspicious, illiterate, and heavy of comprehension. He had no idea that persons could wish to alter their names, unless they had some bad design, and actually scrupled not to employ imprisonment, and other violent methods, to discover the fancied mystery. Platina was most cruelly tortured on this frivolous account; he had nothing to confess, so the pope, after endeavouring in vain to convict him of heresy, sedition, &c. released him, after a long imprisonment.
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Formerly there were many persons surnamed _Devil_. In an old book, the title of which does not recur, mention is made of one Rogerius Diabolus, lord of Montresor.
An English monk, “Willelmus, cognomento Diabolus,” and another person, “Hughes le Diable, lord of Lusignan.”
Robert, duke of Normandy, son to William the Conqueror, was surnamed “the Devil.”
In Norway and Sweden there were two families of the name of “Trolle,” in English “Devil,” and every branch of these families had an emblem of the “Devil” for their coat of arms.
In Utrecht there was a family of “Teufels,” or “Devils,” and another in Brittany named “Diable.”
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A SEA BULL.
An Irishman, who served on board a man of war in the capacity of a waister, was selected by one of the officers to haul in a tow-line of considerable length, which was towing over the tafrail. After rowsing in forty or fifty fathoms, which had put his patience severely to proof, as well as every muscle of his arms, he muttered to himself, “Sure, it’s as long as to day and to-morrow! It’s a good week’s work for any five in the ship!--Bad luck to the arm or leg it’ll leave me at last!--What! more of it yet!--Och, murder; the sa’s mighty deep to be sure!”--After continuing in a similar strain, and conceiving there was little probability of the completion of his labour, he suddenly stopped short, and addressing the officer of the watch, exclaimed, “Bad manners to me, sir, if I don’t think somebody’s _cut off the other end of it_!”
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CHEERFUL FUNERAL.
Lodovick Cortusius, an eminent lawyer, who died at Padua on the 15th of July, 1518, when upon his death-bed forbad his relations to shed tears at his funeral, and even put his heir under a heavy penalty if he neglected to perform his orders. On the other hand, he ordered musicians, singers, pipers, and fiddlers, of all kinds, to supply the place of mourners, and directed that fifty of them should walk before his corpse with the clergymen, playing upon their several instruments; for this service he ordered each of them half a ducat. He likewise appointed twelve maids in green habits to carry his corpse to the church of St. Sophia, where he was buried, and that they too as they went along should sing aloud, having each of them, as a recompense, a handsome sum of money allotted for a portion. All the clergy of Padua marched before in long procession, together with all the monks of the convent, except those wearing black habits, whom he expressly excluded by his will, lest the blackness of their hoods should throw a gloom upon the cheerfulness of the procession.
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ANECDOTE.
CHARLES I. AND PARLIAMENTS.
Mr. Pye, the late poet laureate, in his “Sketches,” says, “When I was at Oxford, my tutor having the revisal of some papers relative to the civil war, (I know not if they have been published,) showed me a letter from one of the king’s secretaries, with remarks on the margin in the king’s own handwriting. One expression particularly struck me, as seeming to show his determination to lay aside the use of parliaments. The paper was a circular request to some of the counties for their pecuniary assistance, I believe on the Scots’ invasion. The words were, as nearly as I can recollect, (sixteen years having elapsed since I saw the letter,) ‘Your obliging me in this instance will induce me to ask your aid in a manner more agreeable to yourselves.’ These words had a line drawn through them; and there was written on the margin, in the king’s hand: ‘I have SCORED out these words, as they seem to imply a promise of calling a parliament, of which I have no intention.’”
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THE YANKEE CAUGHT IN HIS OWN TRAP.
_For the Table Book._
A Pat--an odd joker--and Yankee more sly, Once riding together, a gallows pass’d by: Said the Yankee to Pat, “If I don’t make too free, Give that gallows its due, pray where then would you be?” “Why honey,” said Pat, “faith that’s easily known I’d be riding to town--by myself--all alone.”
SAM SAM’S SON
Vol. I.--23.
--Ancient Charity let flow this brook Across the road, for sheep and beggar-men To cool their weary feet, and slake their thirst.
*
On our way from Penge,[204] W. thought this object worth sketching. He occupied himself with his pencil, and I amused myself with dropping grains of dust among a fleet of tadpoles on the yellow sands, and watching their motions; a few inches from them, in a clearer shallow, lay a shoal of stickle-backs as on their Dogger-bank: a thread and a blood-worm, and the absence of my friend, and of certain feelings in behalf of the worms, would have afforded me excellent sport. The rivulet crosses the road from a meadow, where I heard it in its narrow channel, and muttering inwardly “the rapids are near,” from the “Canadian Boat-song,” I fell into a reverie on Wilson’s magnificent painting of the falls of Niagara, in Mr. Landseer’s painting-room. While I seated myself by the wayside, and, among ground-ivy and periwinkle, discriminating the diminutive forms of trees in the varied mosses of an old bank, I recollected descriptions I had read of transatlantic scenery, and the gigantic vegetation on the Ohio and Mississipi.
A labourer told us, that this little brook is called “Chaffinch’s River,” and that it springs from “the Alders,” near Croydon, and runs into the Ravensbourne.
[204] See p. 674.
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~Garrick Plays.~
No. XX.
[From “Bussy D’Ambois his Revenge,” a Tragedy, by George Chapman, 1613.]
_Plays and Players._
_Guise._--I would have these things Brought upon Stages, to let mighty Misers See all their grave and serious mischiefs play’d, As once they were in Athens and old Rome. _Clermont._ Nay, we must now have nothing brought on Stages But puppetry, and pied ridiculous antics. Men thither come to laugh, and feed fool-fat: Check at all goodness there, as being profaned: When, wheresoever Goodness comes, she makes The place still sacred, though with other feet Never so much ’tis scandal’d and polluted. Let me learn any thing, that fits a man, In any Stables shewn, as well as Stages.-- _Baligny._ Why, is not all the World esteem’d a Stage? _Clermont._ Yes, and right worthily; and Stages too Have a respect due to them, if but only For what the good Greek Moralist says of them: “Is a man proud of greatness, or of riches? Give me an expert Actor; I’ll shew all That can within his greatest glory fall: Is a man ’fraid with poverty and lowness? Give me an Actor; I’ll shew every eye What he laments so, and so much does fly: The best and worst of both.”--If but for this then, To make the proudest outside, that most swells With things without him, and above his worth, See how small cause he has to be so blown up; And the most poor man, to be griev’d with poorness; Both being so easily borne by expert Actors: The Stage and Actors are not so contemptful, As every innovating Puritan, And ignorant Swearer out of jealous envy, Would have the world imagine. And besides That all things have been liken’d to the mirth Used upon Stages, and to Stages fitted; The Splenetive Philosopher, that ever Laugh’d at them all, were worthy the enstaging: All objects, were they ne’er so full of tears, He so conceited, that he could distill thence Matter, that still fed his ridiculous humour. Heard he a Lawyer, never so vehement pleading, He stood and laugh’d. Heard he a Tradesman, swearing Never so thriftily, selling of his wares, He stood and laugh’d. Heard he a Holy Brother, For hollow ostentation, at his prayers Ne’er so impetuously, he stood and laugh’d. Saw he a Great Man, never so insulting, Severely inflicting, gravely giving laws, Not for their good but his--he stood and laugh’d. Saw he a Youthful Widow, Never so weeping, wringing of her hands For her dead Lord, still the Philosopher laugh’d.-- Now, whether he supposed all these Presentments Were only maskeries, and wore false faces, Or else were simply vain, I take no care; But still he laugh’d, how grave soe’er they were.
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_Stoicism._
---- in this one thing all the discipline Of manners and of manhood is contain’d; A Man to join himself with the Universe In his main sway; and make (in all things fit) One with that All; and go on, round as it: Not plucking from the whole his wretched part, And into straits, or into nought revert; Wishing the complete Universe might be Subject to such a rag of it as He.
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_Apparitions before the Body’s Death_ SCOTICE, _Second Sight_.
---- these true Shadows of the Guise and Cardinal, Fore-running thus their Bodies, may approve, That all things to be done, as here we live, Are done before all times in th’ other life.
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[From “Satiromastix,” a Comedy, by Thomas Decker, 1602: in which Ben Jonson, under the name of Horace, is reprehended, in retaliation of his “Poetaster;” in which he had attacked two of his Brother Dramatists, probably Marston and Decker, under the names of Crispinus and Demetrius.]
_Horace._ What could I do, out of a just revenge, But bring them to the Stage? they envy me, Because I hold more worthy company. _Demetrius._ Good Horace, no; my cheeks do blush for thine, As often as thou speaks’t so. Where one true And nobly-virtuous spirit for thy best part Loves thee, I wish one ten even from my heart. I make account I put up as deep share In any good man’s love, which thy worth owns, As thou thyself; we envy not to see Thy friends with bays to crown thy Poesy. No, here the gall lies; we that know what stuff Thy very heart is made of, know the stalk On which thy learning grows, and can give life To thy (once dying) baseness, yet must we Dance antics on thy paper. _Crispinus._ This makes us angry, but not envious. No; were thy warpt soul put in a new mould, I’d wear thee as a jewel set in gold.
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[From the “Antipodes,” a Comedy, by Richard Brome, 1633.]
_Directions to Players._
_Nobleman._ ---------My actors Are all in readiness, and I think all perfect, But one, that never will be perfect in a thing He studies; yet he makes such shifts extempore, (Knowing the purpose what he is to speak to), That he moves mirth in me ’bove all the rest. For I am none of those Poetic Furies, That threats the actor’s life, in a whole Play That adds a syllable, or takes away. If he can fribble through, and move delight In others, I am pleased.-- * * * * Let me not see you now, In the scholastic way you brought to town with you, With see-saw sack-a-down, like a sawyer; Nor in a comic scene play Hercules Furens, Tearing your throat to split the audients’ ears;-- And you, Sir, you had got a trick of late Of holding out your breech in a set speech; Your fingers fibulating on your breast, As if your buttons or your bandstrings were Helps to your memory; let me see you in’t No more, I charge you. No, nor you, Sir, In that o’er-action of your legs I told you of, Your singles and your doubles--look you--thus-- Like one of the dancing-masters of the bear-garden; And when you’ve spoke, at end of every speech, Not minding the reply, you turn you round As tumblers do, when betwixt every feat They gather wind by firking up their breeches. I’ll none of these absurdities in my house; But words and actions married so together, That shall strike harmony in the ears and eyes Of the severest, if judicious, critics. _Players._ My Lord, we are corrected. _Nobleman._ Go, be ready.-- But you, Sir, are incorrigible, and Take licence to yourself to add unto Your parts your own free fancy; and sometimes To alter or diminish what the writer With care and skill composed; and when you are To speak to your Co-actors in the scene, You hold interloqutions with the audients. _Player._ That is a way, my Lord, has been allowed On elder stages, to move mirth and laughter. _Nobleman._ Yes, in the days of Tarleton and Kemp, Before the Stage was purged from barbarism, And brought to the perfection it now shines with. Then Fools and Jesters spent their wits, because The Poets were wise enough to save their own For profitabler uses.--
C. L.
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THE DIVER OF CHARYBDIS.
_To the Editor._
Sir,--Mr. Brydone, in the quotations you have made,[205] appears to doubt the accuracy of the stories relating to Charybdis. I never recollect to have heard mention of the name of Colus, but apprehend he was the same as the famous Sicilian diver, Nicolo Pesce. Associated with Charybdis, some notice of this extraordinary man may not be uninteresting.
The authenticity of this account depends entirely on the authority of Kircher. He assures us, he had it from the archives of the kings of Sicily; but its having so much of the marvellous in it, many have been disposed to doubt its accuracy. Historians are too fond of fiction, but we should by no means doubt their sincerity, when we find them on other subjects not contemptible authorities.
“In the time of Frederic, king of Sicily, (says Kircher,) there lived a celebrated diver, whose name was _Nicholas_, and who, from his amazing skill in swimming, and his perseverance under the water, was surnamed the _fish_. This man had from his infancy been used to the sea; and earned his scanty subsistence by diving for corals and oysters, which he sold to the villagers on shore. His long acquaintance with the sea at last brought it to be almost his natural element. He was frequently known to spend five days in the midst of the waves, without any other provisions than the fish which he caught there, and ate raw. He often swam over from Sicily into Calabria, a tempestuous and dangerous passage, carrying letters from the king. He was frequently known to swim among the gulfs of Lipari, no way apprehensive of danger.
“Some mariners out at sea one day observing something at a distance from them, regarded it as a sea-monster; but upon its approach it was known to be Nicholas, whom they took into their ship. When they asked him whither he was going in so stormy and rough a sea, and at such a distance from land, he showed them a packet of letters, which he was carrying to one of the towns of Italy, exactly done up in a leather bag, in such a manner that they could not be wetted by the sea. He kept them company for some time in their voyage, conversing and asking questions; and, after eating with them, took his leave, and jumping into the sea, pursued his voyage alone.
“In order to aid these powers of enduring in the deep, nature seemed to have assisted him in a very extraordinary manner; for the spaces between his fingers and toes were webbed as in a goose: and his chest became so very capacious, that he was able, at one inspiration, to take in as much breath as would serve him a whole day.
“The account of so extraordinary a person did not fail to reach the king himself; who commanded Nicholas to be brought before him. It was no easy matter to find Nicholas, who generally spent his time in the solitudes of the deep; but, at last, after much searching, he was discovered, and brought before his majesty. The curiosity of this monarch had long been excited by the accounts he had heard of the bottom of the gulf of Charybdis; he now therefore conceived that it would be a proper opportunity to obtain more certain information. He therefore commanded the poor diver to examine the bottom of this dreadful whirlpool; and, as an incitement to his obedience, he ordered a golden cup to be thrown into it. Nicholas was not insensible of the danger to which he was exposed; dangers best known only to himself, and therefore he presumed to remonstrate; but the hopes of the reward, the desire of pleasing the king, and the pleasure of showing his skill, at last prevailed. He instantly jumped into the gulf, and was as instantly swallowed up in its bosom. He continued for three quarters of an hour below, during which time the king and his attendants remained on shore anxious for his fate: but he at last appeared, holding the cup in triumph in one hand, and making his way good among the waves with the other. It may be supposed he was received with applause when he came on shore; the cup was made the reward of his adventure; the king ordered him to be taken proper care of; and, as he was somewhat fatigued and debilitated with his labour, after a hearty meal he was put to bed, and permitted to refresh himself with sleeping.