Chapter 4

The next capacity in which we find Ledyard is that of a corporal of marines, on board the ship of Captain Cook, then preparing for his third and last voyage round the world. Of this voyage Ledyard is said to have kept a minute journal, which, as in all cases of voyages of discovery, went among the rest to the Admiralty, and was never restored. Two years afterwards, Ledyard, with the assistance of a brief outline of the voyage published in London, and from his own recollection, brought out, in a small duodecimo, his narrative of the principal transactions of the voyage, in which, we hear (for we have never seen it) he blames the officers, and Captain Cook in particular, for several instances of precipitate and incautious conduct, not to say severity, towards the various natives with whom they were brought in contact. It was to this want of caution, and a due consideration for the habits and feelings of the Sandwich Islanders, that he imputed the death of this celebrated navigator. The late Admiral Burney, who served as a lieutenant on the voyage, says that, "with an ardent disposition, Ledyard had a passion for lofty sentiment and description." He adds that, after Cook's death, Ledyard proffered his services to Captain Clarke, to undertake the office of historiographer of the expedition, and presented a specimen descriptive of the manners of the Society Islanders; "but," says this author, "his ideas were thought too sentimental, and his language too florid."

_(To be concluded in our next.)_

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THE GATHERER.

"A snapper up of unconsidered trifles." SHAKSPEARE.

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POLSTEAD.

_(For the Mirror.)_

The village of Polstead, though obscurely situate, is not entirely destitute of celebrity, chiefly derived from an abundance of the small, sweet, black cherries,[10] so common in London, and known for miles round by the exclusive denomination of Polstead cherries. There are here large orchards of cherry-trees; and it is a common observation, that the face of a Polstead man is an index of a good or bad cherry season; if productive, he may be seen with his chin in the air, his hands in his pockets, and a saucy answer on the tip of his tongue; if, on the contrary, the crop of cherries has failed, he hangs his head, folds his hands behind him, and if asked whence he comes, replies, in a subdued tone, "_From poor Poustead_."

Unhappily, as in the event that has given notoriety to this obscure village, there are some exceptions, but the inhabitants are for the most part peaceable, well conducted, and only remarkable for their orthodox belief in ghosts and witches. An old gentleman, who died there some years ago, lamented till his death a sight he had lost when a boy, only for the want of five pounds--a man having undertaken for that sum to make all the witches in the parish dance on the knoll together; and though he grew up a penurious man, (and lived a bachelor till fifty), he never ceased to lament that such an opportunity of seeing these weird-sisters collected together, never occurred again. He used to say he had seen a witch "_swam_ on Polstead Ponds," and "she went over the water like a cork." He had, when a boy, stopped a wizard in his way to Stoke, by laying a line of single straws across the path; and, concealed in a hedge, he had watched an old woman (alias witch) feeding her imps in the form of three blackbirds.

The house in which Mrs. Corder lives is one of the best in the place, where, strictly speaking, there are not above half-a-dozen, including the manor-house and rectory, the remainder being mere cottages; and yet the parish is a rich one. It is singular, that among the peasantry are to be found the names of Montague, Bedford, Salisbury, Mortimer, and Holland, while the cognomens of those who inhabit the houses may be nearly comprised in as many syllables.

In the adjoining village of Stoke is the seat of Sir William Rowley, and detached from it a street, called Thirteen Kings'-street, where, according to local tradition, thirteen kings once met. In the same parish is Scotland-hall, and another detached street, called Scotland-street, containing some five or six cottages; and half a mile from thence is a hilly field, of a dark clayey soil, occasioned, says tradition, by the flowing of blood down the hill, during a terrible battle fought there between the Scots and English.

ZETA.

[10] Black orvones.

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CONUNDRUM.

Why is the gravy of a leg of pork the best gravy in the world? Because there's no Jews like it.--_John Bull_.

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POETRY AND PAINTING.

What the monk said of Virgil's _AEneid_, "that it would make an excellent poem if it were only put into rhyme;" is just as if a Frenchman should say of a beauty, "Oh, what a fine woman that would be, if she was but painted!"