  The shepherds, now, from every walk and steep, Where grateful feed attracts the dainty sheep, Collect their flocks, and plunge them in the streams And cleanse their fleeces in the noontide beams. This care perform’d, arrives another care To catch them, one by one, their wool to shear: Then come the tying, clipping, tarring, bleating; The shearers’ final shout, and dance, and eating. From hence the old engravers sometimes made This lovely month a shearer, at his trade: And hence, the symbol to the season true, A living hand so traces June to you. The “Mirror of the Months,” the pleasantest of “the year-books,” except “The Months” of Mr. Leigh Hunt, tells us that with June,—“Summer is come—come, but not to stay; at least, not at the commencement of this month: and how should it, unless we expect that the seasons will be kind enough to conform to the devices of man, and suffer themselves to be called by what name and at what period he pleases? He must die and leave them a legacy (instead of they him) before there will be any show of justice in this. Till then the beginning of June will continue to be the latter end of May, by rights; as it was according to the old style. And, among a thousand changes, in what one has the old style been improved upon by the new? Assuredly not in that of substituting the utile for the dulce, in any eyes but those of almanac-makers. Let all lovers of spring, therefore, be fully persuaded that, for the first fortnight in June, they are living in May. We are to bear in mind that all shall thus be gaining instead of losing, by the impertinence of any breath, but that of heaven, attempting to force spring into summer, even in name alone.” It seems fitting thus to introduce the following passages, and invite the reader to proceed with the author, and take a bird’s eye view of the season. Spring may now be considered as employed in completing her toilet, and, for the first weeks of this month, putting on those last finishing touches which an accomplished beauty never trusts to any hand but her own. In the woods and groves also, she is still clothing some of her noblest and proudest attendants with their new annual attire. The oak until now has been nearly bare; and, of whatever age, has been looking old all the winter and spring, on account of its crumpled branches and wrinkled rind. Now, of whatever age, it looks young, in virtue of its new green, lighter than all the rest of the grove. Now, also, the stately walnut (standing singly or in pairs in the fore-court of ancient manor-houses, or in the home corner of the pretty park-like paddock at the back of some modern Italian villa, whose white dome it saw rise beneath it the other day, and mistakes for a mushroom,) puts forth its smooth leaves slowly, as “sage grave men” do their thoughts; and which over-caution reconciles one to the beating it receives in the autumn, as the best means of at once compassing its present fruit, and making it bear more; as its said prototypes in animated nature are obliged to have their brains cudgelled, before any good can be got from them. These appearances appertain exclusively to the spring. Let us now (however reluctantly) take a final leave of that lovely and love-making season, and at once step forward into the glowing presence of summer—contenting ourselves, however, to touch the hem of her rich garments, and not attempting to look into her heart, till she lays that open to us herself next month: for whatever schoolboys calendar-makers may say to the contrary, Midsummer never happens in England till July. To saunter, at mid June, beneath the shade of some old forest, situated in the neighbourhood of a great town, so that paths are worn through it, and you can make your way with ease in any direction, gives one the idea of being transferred, by some strange magic, from the surface of the earth to the bottom of the sea! (I say it gives one this idea; for I cannot answer for more, in matters of so arbitrary a nature as the association of ideas.) Over head, and round about, you hear the sighing, the whispering, or the roaring (as the wind pleases) of a thousand billows; and looking upwards, you see the light of heaven transmitted faintly, as if through a mass of green waters. Hither and thither, as you move along, strange forms flit swiftly about you, which may, for any thing you can see or hear to the contrary, be exclusive natives of the new world in which your fancy chooses to find itself: they may be fishes, if that pleases; for they are as mute as such, and glide through the liquid element as swiftly. Now and then, indeed, one of larger growth, and less lubricated movements, lumbers up from beside your path, and cluttering noisily away to a little distance, may chance to scare for a moment your submarine reverie. Your palate too may perhaps here step in, and try to persuade you that the cause of interruption was not a fish but a pheasant. But in fact, if your fancy is one of those which are disposed to “listen to reason,” it will not be able to lead you into spots of the above kind without your gun in your hand,—one report of which will put all fancies to flight in a moment, as well as every thing else that has wings. To return, Stepping forth into the open fields, what a bright pageant of summer beauty is spread out before us!—Everywhere about our feet flocks of wild-flowers “Do paint the meadow with delight.” We must not stay to pluck and particularize them; for most of them have already had their greeting—let us pass along beside this flourishing hedge-row. The first novelty of the season that greets us here is perhaps the sweetest, the freshest, and fairest of all, and the only one that could supply an adequate substitute for the hawthorn bloom which it has superseded. Need the eglantine be named? the “sweet-leaved eglantine;” the “rain-scented eglantine;” eglantine—to which the sun himself pays homage, by “counting his dewy rosary” on it every morning; eglantine—which Chaucer, and even Shakspeare—but hold—whatsoever the poets themselves may insinuate to the contrary, to read poetry in the presence of nature is a kind of impiety: it is like reading the commentators on Shakspeare, and skipping the text; for you cannot attend to both: to say nothing of nature’s book being a vade mecum that can make “every man his own poet” for the time being; and there is, after all, no poetry like that which we create for ourselves. Begging pardon of the eglantine for having permitted any thing—even her own likeness in the poet’s looking-glass—to turn our attention from her real self,—look with what infinite grace she scatters her sweet coronals here and there among her bending branches; or hangs them, half-concealed, among the heavy blossoms of the woodbine that lifts itself so boldly above her, after having first clung to her for support; or permits them to peep out here and there close to the ground, and almost hidden by the rank weeds below; or holds out a whole archway of them, swaying backward and forward in the breeze, as if praying of the passer’s hand to pluck them. Let who will praise the hawthorn—now it is no more! The wild rose is the queen of forest flowers, if it be only because she is as unlike a queen as the absence of every thing courtly can make her. The woodbine deserves to be held next in favour during this month; though more on account of its intellectual than its personal beauty. All the air is faint with its rich sweetness; and the delicate breath of its lovely rival is lost in the luscious odours which it exhales. These are the only scented wild flowers that we shall now meet with in any profusion; for though the violet may still be found by looking for, its breath has lost much of its spring power. But, if we are content with mere beauty, this month is perhaps more profuse of it than any other, even in that department of nature which we are now examining—namely, the fields and woods. The woods and groves, and the single forest trees that rise here and there from out the bounding hedge-rows, are now in full foliage; all, however, presenting a somewhat sombre, because monotonous, hue, wanting all the tender newness of the spring, and all the rich variety of the autumn. And this is the more observable, because the numerous plots of cultivated land, divided from each other by the hedge-rows, and looking, at this distance, like beds in a garden divided by box, are nearly all still invested with the same green mantle; for the wheat, the oats, the barley, and even the early rye, though now in full flower, have not yet become tinged with their harvest hues. They are all alike green; and the only change that can be seen in their appearance is that caused by the different lights into which each is thrown, as the wind The hitherto full concert of the singing birds is now beginning to falter, and fall short. We shall do well to make the most of it now; for in two or three weeks it will almost entirely cease till the autumn. I mean that it will cease as a full concert; for we shall have single songsters all through the summer at intervals; and those some of the sweetest and best. The best of all, indeed, the nightingale, we have now lost. So that the youths and maidens who now go in pairs to the wood-side, on warm nights, to listen for its song, (hoping they may not hear it,) are well content to hear each other’s voice instead. We have still, however, some of the finest of the second class of songsters left; for the nightingale, like Catalani, is a class by itself. The mere chorus-singers of the grove are also beginning to be silent; so that the jubilate that has been chanting for the last month is now over. But the Stephenses, the Trees, the Patons, and the Poveys, are still with us, under the forms of the woodlark, the skylark, the blackcap, and the goldfinch. And the first-named of these, now that it no longer fears the rivalry of the unrivalled, not seldom, on warm nights, sings at intervals all night long, poised at one spot high up in the soft moonlit air. We have still another pleasant little singer, the field cricket, whose clear shrill voice the warm weather has now matured to its full strength, and who must not be forgotten, though he has but one song to offer us all his life long, and that one consisting but of one note; for it is a note of joy, and will not be heard without engendering its like. You may hear him in wayside banks, where the sun falls hot, shrilling out his loud cry into the still air all day long, as he sits at the mouth of his cell; and if you chance to be passing by the same spot at midnight, you may hear it then too. Yet by him who holds this “Mirror,” we must not be “charmed” from our repose, but take the advice of a poet, the contemporary and friend of Cowper. Let us not borrow from the hours of rest, For we must steal from morning to repay. And who would lose the animated smile Of dawning day, for the austere frown of night? I grant her well accoutred in her suit Of dripping sable, powder’d thick with stars, And much applaud her as she passes by With a replenish’d horn on either brow! But more I love to see awaking day Rise with a fluster’d cheek; a careful maid, Who fears she has outslept the custom’d hour, And leaves her chamber blushing. Hence to rest; I will not prattle longer to detain you Under the dewy canopy of night. Hurdis. June 1.Ovid assigns the first of June to “Carna,” the goddess of the hinge; who also presided over the vital parts of man, especially the liver and the heart. Massey, commenting on his taste, cannot divine the connection between such a power and the patronage of hinges. “False notions,” he says, “in every mode of religion, lead men naturally into confusion.” Carna, the goddess of the hinge, demands The first of June; upon her power depends To open what is shut, what’s shut unbar; And whence this power she has, my muse declare For length of time has made the thing obscure, Fame only tells us that she has that power. Helernus’ grove near to the Tiber lies, Where still the priests repair to sacrifice; From hence a nymph, whose name was GranÈ, sprung, Whom many, unsuccessful, courted long; To range the spacious fields, and kill the deer, With darts and mangling spears, was all her care; She had no quiver, yet so bright she seemed, She was by many Phoebus’ sister deemed. Ovid. The poet then relates that Janos made this GranÈ (or Carna) goddess of the hinge; And then a white thorn stick he to her gave, By which she ever after power should have, To drive by night all om’nous birds away, That scream, and o’er our houses hov’ring stray. NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.Mean Temperature 57·05. June 2.A Rogue in Grain, June 2, 1759.To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Newark, Notts, May 17, 1826. Sir,—It appears to me that there have been in “old times,” which we suppose “good times,” rogues in grain. To prove it, I herewith transmit the copy of an advertisement, from the “Cambridge Journal” of 1759. Wishing you an increasing sale to your interesting Every-Day Book, I remain, &c. Benjamin Johnson. Advertisement. WHEREAS I William Margarets the younger, was, at the last Assizes for the County of Cambridge, convicted upon an indictment, for an attempt to raise the price of Corn in Ely-market, upon the 24th day of September, 1757, by offering the sum of Six Shillings a Bushel for Wheat, for which no more than Five Shillings and Ninepence was demanded; And whereas, on the earnest solicitation and request of myself and friends, the prosecutor has been prevailed upon to forbear any further prosecution against me, on my submitting to make the following satisfaction, viz. upon my paying the sum of £50 to the poor inhabitants of the town of Ely; and the further sum of £50 to the poor inhabitants of the town of Cambridge, to be distributed by the Minister and Church-wardens of the several parishes in the said town; and the full costs of the prosecution; and upon my reading this acknowledgment of my offence publicly, and with a loud voice, in the presence of a Magistrate, Constable, or other peace officer of the said town of Ely, at the Market-place there, between the hours of twelve and one o’clock, on a public market-day, and likewise subscribing and publishing the same in three of the Evening Papers, printed at London, and in the Cambridge Journal, on four different days; and I have accordingly paid the two sums of £50, and Costs; and do hereby confess myself to have been guilty of the said offence, and testify my sincere and hearty sorrow in having committed a crime, which, in its consequences, tended so much to increase the distress of the poor, in the late calamitous scarcity: And I do hereby most humbly acknowledge the lenity of the prosecutor, and beg pardon of the public in general, and of the town of Ely in particular. This paper was read by me at the public Market-place at Ely, in the presence of Thomas Aungier, Gentleman, chief constable, on the 2d Day of June, 1759, being a public Market-day there; and is now, as a further proof of the just sense I have of the heinousness of my crime, subscribed and published by me William Margarets. Witness, James Day, Longevity.On the 2d of June, 1734, John Rousey, of the isle of Distrey, in Scotland, died at one hundred and thirty-eight years of age. The son who inherited his estate, was born to him while in his hundredth year. NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.Mean Temperature 57·85. June 3.Chronology.On this day, in the year 1789, died Paul Egede, a Danish missionary, who, with his father Hans, visited Greenland, for the conversion of the natives to christianity, in 1721. Hans was the author of a celebrated work, published in 1729, on the topography and natural history of that country. Paul conducted a new edition of his father’s book, and published a journal of his own residence in Greenland, from 1721 to 1788. He died at the age of eighty-one. Curious Inscription, | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| dicas | scis | dicit | scit | audit | expedit |
| facias | potes | facit | potest | facit | credit |
| credas | audis | credit | audit | credit | fieri potest |
| expendas | habes | expendit | habet | petit | habet |
| judices | vides | judicat | videt | judicat | est |
| non | quod cumque | nam qui | quod cumque | sÆpe | quod non |
The key is to be obtained thus; the first word of the last line must be taken and joined to the first word of the first line; then the second word of the last line to the second word of the first line, and so on to the end. Afterwards, we must begin again by taking the first word of the next line, and the following moral precepts will be the result:
1. Non dicas quodcumque scis, nam qui dicit quodcumque scit sÆpe audit quod non expedit.
Do not tell whatever thou knowest, for he who tells whatever he knows, often hears more than is agreeable.
2. Non facias quodcumque potes, nam qui facit, quodcumque potest sÆpe facit quod non credit.
Do not do whatever thou canst, for he who does whatever he can, often does more than he imagines.
3. Non credas quodcumque audis, nam qui credit quodcumque audit sÆpe quod non fieri potest.
Do not believe whatever thou hearest, for he who believes whatever he hears, will often believe what is impossible.
4. Non expendas quodcumque habes, nam qui expendit quodcumque habet sÆpe petit quod non habet.
Do not spend whatever thou hast, for he who spends whatever he has, will often be compelled to ask for what he has not.
5. Non judices quodcumque vides, nam qui judicat quodcumque videt sÆpe judicat quod non est.
Do not judge on whatever thou seest, for he who judges on whatever he sees, will often form an erroneous judgment.
June 3, 1611. “The Lady Arabella” escaped from her confinement.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Kennington, May 23, 1826.
Sir,—Annexed is an original unprinted letter, from the lady Arabella Seymour, whose misfortunes were of a peculiar kind, and from peculiar causes; those causes are to be traced to that tyrannic dread that weak sovereigns always have of any persons approaching their equals, either in mind, or by family ties. The following notices have been gleaned from the most authentic sources, viz. Lodge’s “Illustrations of British History,” “The Biographia Britannica,” &c. The letter is in the Cotton collection of Manuscripts, in the British Museum, Vespasian. F.III.
Though you be almost a stranger to me but onely by sight, yet the good opinion I generally heave to be held of your worth, together wt the great interest you have in my Lo. of Northamptons favour, makes me thus farre presume of your willingnesse to do a poore afflicted gentlewoman that good office (if in no other respect yet because I am a Christian) as to further me wt your best indeuors to his Lo. that it will please him to helpe me out of this great distresse and misery, and regaine me his Mats. fauor which is my chiefest desire. Whearin his Lo. may do a deede acceptable to God and honorable to himselfe, and I shall be infinitely bound to his Lo. and beholden to you, who now till I receiue some comfort from his Maty. rest
the most sorrowfull
creatore liuing
Arabella Stuart, whose name is hardly mentioned in history, except with regard to sir Walter Raleigh’s ridiculous conspiracy, whereby she was to have been placed on a throne, to which she had neither inclination nor pretensions, and by means unknown to herself, was the only child of Charles Stuart, fifth earl of Lennox, (uncle to king James I., and great grandson of king Henry VII.,) by Elizabeth, daughter of sir William Cavendish of Hardwick. She was born about the year 1578, and brought up in privacy, under the care of her grandmother, the old countess of Lennox, who, for many years, resided in England. Her double relation to royalty was obnoxious to the jealousy of queen Elizabeth, and the timidity of king James I., who equally dreaded her having legitimate issue, and restrained her from allying herself in a suitable manner. Elizabeth prevented her from marrying Esme Stuart, her kinsman, and heir to the titles and estates of her family, and afterwards imprisoned her for listening to some overtures from the son of the earl of Northumberland. James, by obliging her to reject many splendid offers of marriage, unwarily encouraged the hopes of inferior pretenders, among whom, says Mr. Lodge, was the fantastical William Fowler, secretary to Anne of Denmark. Thus circumscribed, she renewed a connection with William Seymour, grandson to the earl of Hertford, which, being discovered in 1609, both parties were summoned to appear before the privy council, where they
I am, Sir, &c.
A.
The Loves of “The Lady Arabella.”
From an article in the “Curiosities of Literature,” illustrations may be derived to the article of our correspondent A. “The whole life of this lady seems to consist of secret history, which, probably, we cannot now recover:—her name scarcely ever occurs without raising that sort of interest which accompanies mysterious events.” She is reputed to have been learned, and of a poetical genius; yet of her poetry there are no specimens, and her erudition rests on Evelyn’s bare mention of her name in his list of learned women.
On the death of queen Elizabeth, the pope conceived the notion of restoring the papacy in England, by uniting the lady Arabella to an Italian cardinal, of illegitimate descent from our Edward IV. His holiness presumed if he qualified the cardinal for marriage, by depriving him from the priesthood, the junction of Arabella’s relationship to Henry VII., with the churchman’s “natural” pretensions, might secure the crown! Her attachment to the catholic religion is doubtful. Perhaps her disposition was rightly estimated by father Parsons: he imagined “her religion to be as tender, green, and flexible, as is her age and sex; and to be wrought hereafter, and settled according to future events and times.” The pope’s plot failed. Winwood says, “the lady Arabella hath not been found inclinable to popery.” He wrote after the “future events,” contemplated by Parsons, had “wrought.”
Another project for making the lady Arabella queen was after the enthronement of James. The conspirators requested her by letter to address herself to the king of Spain; she laughed at the letter and sent it to James, who, as regarded her, did not think of it more seriously, and so failed a second plot, wherein the name of the illustrious Raleigh was implicated.
In the year 1604, there appears to have been a third design to make her queen, though not of this country. The earl of Pembroke writes to the earl of Shrewsbury—“A great ambassador is coming from the king of Poland, whose chief errand is to demand my lady Arabella in marriage for his master. So may your princess of the blood grow a great queen.” If this was the object of the embassy, nothing came of it.
Before the death of queen Elizabeth, the marriage of the lady Arabella with her kinsman lord Esme Stuart, whom he had created duke of Lennox, and designed for his heir, was proposed by James himself, but Elizabeth “forbad the bans” by imprisoning the proposed bride, who was suspected to have favoured a son of the earl of Northumberland, against whom Elizabeth again interposed. She had other offers. “To the lady Arabella, crowns and husbands were like a fairy banquet seen at moonlight, opening on
The distresses of this unhappy creature were heightened by her dependence on the crown. She was the cousin of James, and it was his narrow policy to constrain her from a match suitable to her rank, or perhaps to keep her single for life. Her supplies were unequal: at one time she had a grant of the duty on oats; at length he assigned her a pension of 1600l.: but whenever he suspected a natural desire in her heart she was out of favour. No woman was ever more solicited to the conjugal state, or seems to have been so little averse to it. “Every noble youth who sighed for distinction, ambitioned the notice of the lady Arabella.”
Her renewal of an early attachment to Mr. William Seymour, second son of lord Beauchamp, and grandson of the earl of Hertford, forms a story which “for its misery, its pathos, and its terror, even romantic fiction has not executed.” It was detected, and the lady Arabella and Seymour were summoned before the privy council, where Seymour was “censured for seeking to ally himself with the royal blood, although that blood was running in his own veins.” In his answer, “he conceived that this noble lady might, without offence, make the choice of any subject within this kingdom.” He says, “I boldly intruded myself into her ladyship’s chamber, in the court, on Candlemass day last, at what time I imparted my desire unto her, which was entertained; but with this caution on either part, that both of us resolved not to proceed to any final conclusion without his majesty’s most gracious favour first obtained: and this was our first meeting.” The lovers gravely promised to suppress their affections, with what sincerity is not known, for they married secretly; and in July the lady Arabella was arrested, and confined at the house of sir Thomas Parry, at Lambeth, and Seymour committed to the Tower, “for contempt in marrying a lady of the royal family without the king’s leave.”
Arabella wrote a letter to the king, which was “often read without offence, nay, it was even commended by his highness, with the applause of prince and council.” She adverted to her wrongs, and required justice with a noble fortitude, though in respectful terms. She says, “I do most heartily lament my hard fortune, that I should offend your majesty the least, especially in that whereby I have long desired to merit of your majesty, as appeared before your majesty was my sovereign: and though your majesty’s neglect of me, my good liking to this gentleman that is my husband, and my fortune, drew me to a contract before I acquainted your majesty, I humbly beseech your majesty to consider how impossible it was for me to imagine it could be offensive to your majesty, having few days before given me your royal consent to bestow myself on any subject of your majesty’s (which likewise your majesty had done long since). Besides, never having been either prohibited any, or spoken to for any, in this land, by your majesty these seven years that I have lived in your majesty’s house, I could not conceive that your majesty regarded my marriage at all; whereas if your majesty had vouchsafed to tell me your mind, and accept the free-will offering of my obedience, I would not have offended your majesty, of whose gracious goodness I presume so much, that if it were now as convenient in a worldly respect, as malice may make it seem, to separate us, whom God hath joined, your majesty would not do evil that good might come thereof, nor make me, that have the honour to be so near your majesty in blood, the first precedent that ever was, though our princes may have left some as little imitable, for so good and gracious a king as your majesty, as David’s dealing with Uriah.”
She moved the queen, through lady Jane Drummond, to interest James in her favour. A letter from lady Jane communicates his majesty’s coarse and conceited reply, and she concludes by frankly telling the captive wife, “the wisdom of this state, with the example how some of your quality in the like case has been used, makes me fear that ye shall not find so easy end to your troubles as ye expect or I wish.”
To lady Drummond’s prophetic intimation, Arabella answers by sending the queen a pair of gloves “in remembrance of the poor prisoner that wrought them, in hopes her royal hands will vouchsafe to wear them:” and she adds, that her case “could be compared to no other she ever heard of, resembling no other.” She contrived to correspond with Seymour, but their letters were discovered, and the king resolved to change her place of confinement.
James appointed the bishop of Durham
On the lady Arabella’s escape, “couriers were despatched swifter than the winds wafted the unhappy Arabella, and all was hurry in the seaports. They sent to the Tower to warn the lieutenant to be doubly vigilant over Seymour, who, to his surprise, discovered that his prisoner had ceased to be so for several hours. James at first was for issuing a proclamation in a style so angry and vindictive, that it required the moderation of Cecil to preserve the dignity while he concealed the terror of his majesty. By the admiral’s
Meanwhile “we have left the lady Arabella alone and mournful on the seas, not praying for favourable gales to convey her away, but still imploring her attendants to linger for her Seymour; still straining her sight to the point of the horizon for some speck which might give a hope of the approach of the boat freighted with all her love. Alas! never more was Arabella to cast a single look on her lover and her husband! She was overtaken by a pink in the king’s service, in Calais roads; and now she declared that she cared not to be brought back again to her imprisonment should Seymour escape, whose safety was dearest to her!”
So stately by the Thames’s side,
Fair Arabella, child of woe!
For many a day had sat and sighed.
And as shee heard the bleake windes roare,
As fast did heave her heartfelte sighes,
And still so fast her teares did poure!
During a confinement of four years the lady Arabella “sunk beneath the hopelessness of her situation, and a secret resolution in her mind to refuse the aid of her physicians, and to wear away the faster, if she could, the feeble remains of life.” The particulars of her “dreadful imprisonment” are unknown, but her letters show her affliction, and that she often thought on suicide, and as often was prevented by religious fortitude. “I could not,” she says, “be so unchristian as to be the cause of my own death.”
She affectingly paints her situation in one of her addresses to James. “In all humility, the most wretched and unfortunate creature that ever lived, prostrates itselfe at the feet of the most merciful king that ever was, desiring nothing but mercy and favour, not being more afflicted for any thing than for the losse of that which hath binne this long time the onely comfort it had in the world, and which, if it weare to do again, I would not adventure the losse of for any other worldly comfort; mercy it is I desire, and that for God’s sake!”
She “finally lost her reason,” and died in prison distracted. “Such is the history of the lady Arabella. A writer of romance might render her one of those interesting personages whose griefs have been deepened by their royalty, and whose adventures, touched with the warm hues of love and distraction, closed at the bars of her prison-grate—a sad example of a female victim to the state!
Her husband, Seymour, regained his liberty. Charles I. created him marquis of Hertford; and, under Charles II., the dukedom of Somerset, which had been lost to his family by attainder for ancient defections, was restored to it in his person. He “retained his romantic passion for the lady of his first affections; for he called the daughter he had by his second lady by the ever beloved name of Arabella Stuart.”
Nothing remains to mark the character of this noble-minded female, but the scanty particulars from whence the present are gathered, with some letters and a few rhapsodies written while her heart was breaking, and her understanding perishing. At that period she wrote the letter here brought to light towards gratifying a natural curiosity for every thing relating to her character and person; with the same intent her handwriting is faithfully traced, and subjoined from her subscription to the original.
Lady Jane Drummond.
The lady Arabella’s suitor to her majesty lady Jane Drummond, was third
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 58·15.
June 4.
Remarkable Celebration.
This was king George the Third’s birth-day, and therefore during his reign was kept at court, and in many towns throughout the kingdom.
At Bexhill, on the coast of Sussex, where the inhabitants, who scarcely exceed 800, are remarkable for longevity and loyalty, on the 4th of June, 1819, they celebrated the king’s birth-day in an appropriate and remarkable manner. Twenty-five old men, inhabitants of the parish, whose united ages amounted to 2025, averaging eighty-one each (the age of the king) dined together at the Bell Inn, and passed the day in a cheerful and happy manner. The dinner was set on table by fifteen other old men, also of the above parish, whose united ages amounted to seventy-one each, and six others, whose ages amounted to sixty-one each, rang the bells on the occasion. The old men dined at one o’clock; and at half-past two a public dinner was served up to the greater part of the respectable inhabitants to the number of eighty-one, who were also the subscribers to the old men’s dinner. The assembly room was decorated with several appropriate devices; and some of the old men, with the greater part of the company, enjoyed themselves to a late hour.
Bell Ringing
and
Hand Bells in Churches.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Sir,—In pp. 161-2, vol. ii., your correspondent H. H. N. N. of Newark, informs us of the custom of ringing a bell at six o’clock in the morning, and eight in the evening; likewise of a set of “hand bells” kept in the church there; and desires to be informed of their use. Although I cannot inform him of the particular origin of ringing the bell at particular hours in that town, yet by stating the practice in some other towns, it may, perhaps, contribute to unravel its meaning. With regard to the “hand bells,” it seems probable that they were originally placed in churches for the use of the ringers, who employed their leisure in practising and amusing themselves in the evenings when not engaged in the belfry, as is the case at the present time in some parts of London. Although I do not recollect where the hand bells are used in town, yet I have more than once lately heard it mentioned in Fenchurch-street and its neighbourhood, that the ringers were in the practice of amusing themselves with hand bells at a public-house where they assembled for the purpose of practising; and it is more than probable, that some of your readers in that neighbourhood can furnish you with further particulars.
In most of the towns in the west of England, they have a custom of ringing one of the church bells (generally the treble bell) in the morning and evenings. Among other towns I noticed at Dorchester, Dorset, the practice of ringing a bell at six in the morning in the summer, and seven in the winter, at one o’clock at noon, and at eight in the evening, concluding after ringing at eight o’clock with striking as many strokes as the month is days old; and this practice I was there
At another town in Dorsetshire, Sherborne, they have an almost endless “ding-dong,” “twing-twang,” or “bim-bome,” throughout the day. Happening to be lately there on a market-day (Saturday) I was awakened in the morning, at four o’clock, by the ringing of the “church treble bell;” at six o’clock the church “chimes” were in play; at a quarter before seven the “almshouse bell” began, and continued to ring till seven, which is said to be for the purpose of calling the scholars of king Edward the Sixth’s grammar school to their studies, who were no sooner assembled than the “school bell” announced the master’s approach. At half-past eight the “almshouse bell” summoned the almsmen and women to prayers; at nine the “chimes;” at eleven the “wholesale market bell;” at twelve the “chimes;” at one the “school bell” for dinner; at half-past one the “retail market bell;” at three the “chimes,” and the church “great bell”
So much bell ringing and tolling naturally led to an inquiry of the several causes that gave rise to it. By some, the first morning and eight o’clock bell is called the “curfew bell,” and the practice of ringing it is said to have been continued from the time of William the Conqueror, who, by one of his laws, ordered the people to put out their fires and lights, and go to bed at the eight o’clock curfew bell; and others affirmed it to be, for the purpose of summoning the people to their labours.
The practice of ringing a church bell in the morning and evening is common in most towns where they have a bell, although its origin is seldom inquired about or noticed. I have often made inquiries on the subject, and have always received one of the above answers, and am inclined rather to believe its origin is the “curfew bell,” although it now serves more the purpose of warning people to their labours, than for the “extinction and relighting of all fire and candle lights.”
I am, &c.
R. T.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 59·22.
For mirth, for grief, for church I serve to call.”
R. T.
June 5.
1826. First Monday in June.
Heriot’s Hospital, Edinburgh.
A solemn festival in the Scottish metropolis is ordained by the “Statutes of George Heriot’s Hospital,” (cap. ii.) in the following words:—“But especially upon the first Monday in June, every year, shall be kept a solemn commemoration and thanksgiving unto God, in this form which followeth. In the morning, about eight of the clock of that day, the lord provost, all the ministers, magistrates, and ordinary council of the city of Edinburgh, shall assemble themselves in the committee-chamber of the said hospital; from thence, all the scholars and officers of the said hospital going before them two by two, they shall go, with all the solemnity that may be, to the Gray Friars church of the said city, where they shall hear a sermon preached by one of the said ministers, every one yearly in their courses, according to the antiquity of their ministry in the said city. The principal argument of the sermon shall be to these purposes: To give God thanks for the charitable maintenance which the poor maintained in the hospital received by the bounty of the said founder, of whom shall be made honourable mention. To exhort all men of ability, according to their means, to follow his example: To urge the necessity of good works, according to men’s power, for the testimony of their faith: And to clear the doctrine of our church from all the calumnies of our adversaries, who give us out to be the impugners of good works. After the sermon
By appointment of the governors, Mr. Robert Douglas, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, preached a sermon on the first Monday of June, of the year 1659, in commemoration of the founder; for this sermon he received the sum of one hundred marks “to buy him books,” agreeably to the statutes. From that time the usage has been continued annually, the ministers of Edinburgh preaching in rotation, according to their seniority of office, in the old Gray Friars church.
On this occasion the statue of the founder is fancifully decorated with flowers. Each of the boys receives a new suit of clothes; their relations and friends assemble; and the citizens, old and young, being admitted to view the hospital, the gaiety of the scene is highly gratifying.
It was formerly a custom with the boys to dress Heriot’s statue with flowers on the first of May, and to renew them on this anniversary festival when they received their new clothes.
It should seem, therefore, that the floral adornment of the statue annually on this day, is derived from its ancient dressing on the first of May.
The statue stands beneath the centre tower of the north or principal front, and over the middle of a vaulted archway leading to the court-yard of the hospital. Grose says, the Latin inscription above the figure signifies, “that Heriot’s person was represented by that image, as his mind was by the surrounding foundation.”
George Heriot was jeweller to king James VI., subsequently James I., of England. He was born about June, 1563, eldest son to George Heriot, one of the company of goldsmiths in Edinburgh. The elder Heriot died in 1610, having been a commissioner in the convention of estates and parliament of Scotland, and a convener of the trades of Edinburgh at five different elections of the council. The goldsmiths were then the money-dealers in Scotland; they consequently ranked among the most respectable citizens, and to this profession the subject of this memoir was brought up by his father.
It appears that so late as the year 1483, the goldsmiths of Edinburgh were classed with the “hammermen” or common smiths. They were subsequently separated, and an act of the town council on the twenty-ninth of August, 1581, conferred on the goldsmiths a monopoly of their trade, which was confirmed by a charter from James VI., in the year 1586.
A century afterwards, in 1687, James VII. invested the goldsmiths with the power of searching, inspecting, and trying all jewels set in gold, in every part of the kingdom; a license to destroy all false or counterfeit work; to punish the transgressors by imprisonment or fines, and seize the working tools of all unfree goldsmiths within the city.
In January, 1587, George Heriot married Christian, the daughter of Simon Marjoribanks, an Edinburgh merchant. On this occasion, his father gave him 1000 marks, with 500 more to fit out his shop and purchase implements and clothes, and he had 1075 marks with his wife. Their united fortunes amounted to about 214l. 11s. 8d., which Heriot’s last biographer says, was “a considerable sum in those days; but rendered much more useful by the prospect of his father’s business, which would at this time naturally be transferred to the younger and more active man.”
In May, 1588, Heriot became a member of the incorporation of goldsmiths. “Scotland which was then an independent kingdom, with a court in the metropolis, though poor in general, was probably in a state not less favourable to the success of Heriot’s occupation than at present. A rude magnificence peculiar to the age, atoned for want of elegance, by the massy splendour of its ornaments. The nobles were proud and extravagant when their fortunes would permit; and Ann of Denmark, the reigning queen, was fond of show and gallantry.” During this period, Heriot was employed by the court. In 1597, he was made goldsmith to the
Heriot rose to opulence, and lost his wife; he afterwards married Alison, eldest daughter of James Primrose, clerk to the privy-council, and grandfather of the first earl of Roseberry. On the accession of James to the throne of England, he followed the court to London, where he continued to reside almost constantly. He obtained eminence and wealth, and died there on the twelfth of February, 1624, in the sixtieth year of his age, and was buried at St. Martin’s in the Fields.
Queen Ann of Denmark’s Jewels.
In a volume of original accounts and vouchers relative to Heriot’s transactions with the queen, there are several charges which illustrate the fashion of the times in these expensive decorations, viz.—
- For making a brilliant in form of a ship.
- For gold and making of a Valentine.
- A ring with a heart and a serpent, all set about with diamonds;
- Two pendants made like moore’s heads, and all sett with diamonds;
- A ring with a single diamond, set in a heart betwixt two hands.
- Two flies with diamonds.
- A great ring in the form of a perssed eye and a perssed heart, all sett with diamonds.
- One great ring, in forme of a frog, all set with diamonds, price two hundreth poundis.
- A jewell in forme of a butterfly.
- A jewell in forme of a lillye, sett of diamonds.
- An anker sett with diamonds.
- A jewell in form of a honey-suckle.
- A pair of pendants, made lyke two drums, sett with diamondis.
- A jewel, in forme of a jolley flower, sett with diamonds.
- A jewell in forme of a horne of aboundance, set with 6 rose diamondis, and 12 table diamondis.
- A ring of a burning heart set with diamondis.
- A ring, in forme of a scallope shell, set with a table diamond, and opening on the head.
- A pair of pendentis of two handis, and two serpentis hanging at them.
- A parrate of diamondis.
- A ring of a love trophe set with diamondis.
- Two rings, lyke black flowers, with a table diamond in each.
- A daissie ring sett with a table diamond.
- A jewell in fashione of a bay leaf, opening for a pictur, and set with diamondis on the one syde.
- A pair of lizard pendantis, set with diamondis.
- A jewell for a hatt, in forme of a bay leafe, all set with diamonds.
- A little watch set all over with diamonds, 170l.
- A ryng sett all over with diamondis, made in fashion of a lizard, 120l.
- A ring set with 9 diamonds, and opening on the head with the king’s picture in that.
Margaret Hartsyde.
In an account of “jewells and other furnishings,” which were “sould and deliuered to the Queene’s most excellent matie. from the xth. of April, 1607, to the xth. of February followinge, by George Heriote, her Highnes’ jewellor,” there is the following
“Item, deliuered to Margarett Hartsyde a ring sett all about with diamonds, and a table diamond on the head, which she gaue me to vnderstand was by her Mats. direction, price xxx li.”
This item in reference to Margaret Hartsyde is remarkable, because it appears that this female, who had been in the royal household, was tried in Edinburgh on the 31st of May, 1608, for stealing a pearl, worth 110l. sterling belonging to the queen. She pretended that she retained these pearls to adorn dolls for the amusement of the royal infants, and believed that the queen would never demand them; but it appeared that she used “great cunning and deceit in it,” and disguised the jewels so as not to be easily known, and offered them to her majesty in sale. The king by special warrant declared her infamous, sentenced her to pay 400l. sterling as the value of the jewels, and condemned her to be imprisoned in Blackness castle till it was paid, and to confinement in Orkney during her life. In December, 1619, eleven years afterwards, “compeared the king’s advocate, and produced a letter of rehabilitation and restitution of Margaret Hartsyde to her fame.”
Heriot’s Hospital.
There is a memorial of queen Anne of Denmark’s fondness for dogs in a large whole-length portrait of her, surrounded by those animals, which she holds in leashes. In Heriot’s accounts there are charges for their furniture: e. g.
| “Item, for the garnishing of vj doge collers, weighing in silver xix ounces | iiij li. xvs. |
| “Item, for the workmanshipe of the said collers | ij li. xs. |
| “Item, boght to the said collers ij ounces iij quarters of silver lace, at vs. vjd. ounce | xvs. id. ob. |
| “Item, for making wp of the said collers at ijs. the peice | xijs.” |
Her majesty’s perfumes seem to have derived additions from Heriot. He furnished her with “5 ounces and a half of fyne civett, at li. 4 the ounce:” also
| “Item, for fower ounces of fyne musk de Levant, at xxxviijs. the ounce | vij li. xijs. |
| “Item, for a glass of balsome, | ij li. |
| “Item, for a glass of whyte balsome, and a glasse of black balsome | j li. xs.” |
There are no particulars of the private life of Heriot. From small beginnings, he died worth 50,000l., and acquired lands and houses at Roehampton, in Surrey, and St. Martin’s in the Fields, London. It does not appear that he had children by either of his wives, but he had two illegitimate daughters. To one of these, named in his will as “Elizabeth Band, now an infant of the age of ten years or therabout, and remaining with Mr. Starkey at his house at Windsor,” he gave his copyholds in Roehampton. To the other, whom he mentions as “Margaret Scot, being an infant about the age of four years, now remaining with one Rigden, a waterman, at his house in the parish of Fulham,” he left his two freehold messuages in St. George’s in the Fields, which he had lately purchased of sir Nicholas Fortescue, knight, and William Fortescue, his son: his leasehold terms in certain garden plots in that parish, held of the earl of Bedford, he bequeathed to Margaret Scot; and he directed 200l. to be laid out at interest, and paid to them severally when of age or married. He gave 10l. to the poor of St. Martin’s parish, 20l. to the French church there, and 30l. to Gilbert Primrose, preacher at that church; and after liberally providing for a great number of his relations, he bequeathed the residue of his estate to the provosts, bailiffs, ministers, and ordinary town-council of Edinburgh, for the time being, for and towards the founding and erecting of a hospital in the said town, and purchasing lands in perpetuity, to be employed in the maintenance
Heriot’s Statue at his Hospital, Edinburgh.
Heriot’s Hospital.
The residue of Heriot’s estate amounted to 23,625l. 10s. 3d. which sum was paid
The children of Heriot’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth Band, were among the early objects who benefited by the endowment. She had married in England, but being reduced to great difficulties, resorted to Edinburgh for relief. The magistrates allowed her one thousand merks Scots annually, till her sons were admitted into their grandfather’s hospital. She had 20l. afterwards to support her journey to London, and a present of one thousand merks.
Heriot’s hospital cost 30,000l. in the erection. The first managers purchased the barony of Broughton, a burgh of regality, about a quarter of a mile northward of the city, a property which, from local circumstances, seemed likely to rise in value. On this and other adjacent land, the “new town” of Edinburgh now stands. The greater part of the valuable grounds from the bottom of Carlton-hill eastward, reaching to Leith, and to the east road to Edinburgh, is the property of the hospital, which will derive great additional revenue when the buildings on these lands complete the connection of Leith with Edinburgh. In 1779, Heriot’s hospital possessed a real income of 1800l. per annum: its annual income in 1822 was supposed to have amounted to upwards of 12,000l.
The statutes of the hospital ordain, that the boys should be taught “to read and write Scots distinctly, to cypher, and cast all manner of accounts,” and “the Latin rudiments, but no further.” The governors, however, have wisely gone so much “further,” as to cause the boys to be instructed in Greek, mathematics, navigation, drawing, and other matters suitable to the pursuits they are likely to follow in life. The majority of the boys are apprenticed to trades in Edinburgh, with an allowance of 10l. a year for five years, amounting to an apprentice fee of 50l.; and to each, who on the expiration of his servitude produces a certificate of good conduct from his master, 5l. is given to purchase a suit of clothes. Those destined for the learned professions are sent to the university for four years, with an allowance of 30l. annually. Six or eight are generally at college, in addition to ten bursers selected by the governors from other seminaries, who have each an annual allowance of 20l.
George Heriot confided to his intimate friend “Mr. Walter Balcanquel, doctor in divinity and master of the Savoy,” the framing and ordaining of the rules for the government of his hospital; and accordingly in 1627, Dr. Balcanquel, “after consulting with the provosts, baillies, ministers, and council of Edinburgh,” compiled the statutes by which the institution continues to be governed. By these it is directed that “this institution, foundation, and hospital, shall for all time to come, perpetually and unchangeably be called by the name of George Heriot his Hospital,” and that “there shall be one common seal for the said hospital engraven with this device, Sigillum Hospitalis Georgii Heriot, about the circle, and in the middle the pattern of the hospital.”
And “because no body can be well
The schoolmaster, whose duties in teaching are already expressed by the quality of the learning defined to the boys, also “must be unmarried.”
It is charged on the consciences of the electors, “that they choose no burgess’s children, if their parents be well and sufficiently able to maintain them, since the intention of the founder is only to relieve the poor; they must not be under seven years of age complete, and they shall not stay in the hospital after they are of the age of sixteen years complete: they shall be comely and decently apparelled, as becometh, both in their linens and clothes; and their apparel shall be of sad russet cloth, doublets, breeches, and stockings or hose, and gowns of the same colour, with black hats and strings, which they shall be bound to wear during their abode in the said hospital, and no other.”
Further, it is provided, that “there shall be a pair of stocks placed at the end of the hall in the hospital, in which the master shall command to be laid any officer, for any such offences as in his discretion shall seem to deserve it; and the master likewise shall have authority to lay in the same stocks any vagrant stranger of mean quality, who, within the precincts of the hospital, shall commit any such offence as may deserve it: the officer for executing the master’s command; in this point of justice, shall be the porter of the hospital.” The porter is to be “a man, unmarried, of honest report—of good strength, able to keep out all sturdy beggars and vagrant persons;—he shall have every year a new gown, which he must wear continually at the gate; and if, at any time, he dispose himself to marry, he shall demit his place, or else be deprived of the same.”
The last of many officers ordained is “one chirurgeon-barber, who shall cut and poll the hair of all the scholars in the hospital; as also look to the cure of all those within the hospital, who any way shall stand in need of his art.”
These extracts are rather curious than important; for it is presumed, that any who are interested in acquiring further knowledge, will consult the statutes “at large.” They are set forth in “The Life of George Heriot,” published at Edinburgh in 1822, from whence the preceding particulars of the hospital and its founder are derived. They especially provide for the strict religious instruction of the boys—“while in the hospital the greatest care is bestowed on them in regard to morals and health; they have certain hours allowed them daily for exercise; and their amusements generally partake of a manly character.”
It may be quoted as an amusing incident in the annals of the establishment, that “a singular occurrence took place with the boys of Heriot’s hospital in 1681-2, the year in which the earl of Argyle was tried, and convicted of high treason, for refusing the test oath without certain qualifications. We extract the following account of it from Lord Fountainhill’s Chronological Notes of Scottish Affairs, just published: ‘Argyle was much hated for oppressing his creditors, and neither paying his own nor father’s debts, but lord Halifax told Charles II. he understood not the Scots law, but the English law would not have hanged a dog for such a crime.’ Every lawyer of common sense, or ordinary conscience, will be of the same opinion. Lord Clarendon, when he heard the sentence, blessed God that he lived not in a country where there were such laws, but he ought to have said such judges. The very hospital children made a mockery of the reasoning of the crown lawyers. The boys of Heriot’s hospital resolved among themselves, that the house-dog belonging
The Dog of Heriot’s Hospital.
There is “An Account of the Arraignment, Tryal, Escape, and Condemnation of the DOG of Heriot’s Hospital in Scotland, that was supposed to have been hang’d, but did at last slip the halter.”
From this exceedingly rare folio paper of two pages, “Printed for the author, M. D. 1682,” now before the editor of the Every-Day Book, he proceeds to extract some exponences in the case of “the dog of Heriot’s hospital,” by which “the reasoning of the crown lawyers,” in the case of the duke of Argyle, was successfully ridiculed.
Its waggish author writes in the manner of a letter, “to show you that the act, whereby all publick officers are obleadged to take the Test is rigorously put in execution; and therby many persons, baith in Kirk and State, throughout the haill Kingdome, by reasone they are not free to take the said Test, are incontinently turned out of their places.”
He then relates that this severity occasioned “the loune ladds belonging to the hospittal of Hariot’s Buildings in Edenbrough, to divert themselves with somewhat like the following tragi-commedy.”
He proceeds to state, that they “fell intil a debate amongist themselves, whither or no, ane mastiffe Tyke, who keept the outmost gate, might not, by reasone of his office of trust, come within the compass of the act, and swa, be obleadged to take the Test, or be turned out of his place.”
In conclusion, “the tyke thereupon was called, and interrogat, whither he wold take the test, or run the hazard of forfaulting his office.”
Though propounded again and again, “the silly curr, boding no ill, answered all their queries with silence, whilk had been registrat as a flat refusal, had not on of the lounes, mair bald then the rest, taken upon him to be his advocat, who standing up, pleaded that silence might as wel be interpreted assent, as refusal, and therupon insisted that it might be tendered to him in a way maist plausible, and in a poustar maist agreeable to his stomack.”
The debate lasted till all agreed “that ane printed copy should be thrumbled, of as little boulke as it could, and therafter smured over with tallow, butter, or what else might make maist tempting to his appetit: this done he readily took it, and after he had made a shift, by rowing it up and down his mouth, to separat what was pleasant to his pallat, and when all seemed to be over, on a sudden they observed somehat (ilke piece after another) droped out of his mouth, qwhilk the advocats on the other side said was the test, and that all his irksome champing and chowing of it, was only, if possible, to seperat the concomitant nutriment, and that this was mikel worse then an flat refusal, and gif it were rightly examined, would, upon Tryal, be found no less then Leising-making.”
The tyke’s advocate “opponed, that his enemies having the rowing of it up, might perhaps (through deadly spite) have put some crooked prin intil it; and that all the fumbling and rowing of it up and down his mouth, might be by reason of the prin, and not through any scunnering at the test itself; and that there was nought in the hail matter, that looked like Leising-making, except by interpretation, and his adversaries allowed to be the only interpreters.” Finally, he required that his client should have a fair trial before competent judges, “qwhilk was unanimously granted;” and on the trial “ther fell out warm pleading.”
The advocates against the tyke set forth, “that he was ou’r malapert, to take so mikel upon him; and that the chaming and cherking of the test belonged nought to him, nor to none like him, who served only in inferior offices; that his trust and power reached nought so far, and by what he had done, he had made himself guilty of mair nor abase refusal as was libelled.”
Those who defended the tyke, pleaded “that he could be guilty of nather, since he had freely taken it in his mouth, willing to have swallowed it down; and that ther was no fault in him, but in its self, that it passed not; since it fell a sqwabeling, one part of it hindering another;” that if it would “have agreed in its self
To this was answered, that “all his former good service could not excuse his present guilt.”
“Guilt!” quoth another, “if that be guilt he hath many marrows, and why should he be worse handled than all the rest?”
Notwithstanding what was urged in the tyke’s behalf, the jury found he had so mangled the test, and abused it, that it was “interpretative treason,” and found him “guilty of Leising-making:” wherefore he was ordered to close prison till he should be again called forth and receive sentence “to be hanged like a dog.”
While he was removing from the court, there chanced “a curate” to be present, and ask, “what was the matter, what ailed them at the dog?” whereto one answered, “that he, being in publick trust, was required to take the test, and had both refused it and abused it, whereupon he was to be hanged;” whereat the curate, storming, said, “They deserved all to be hanged for such presumptuous mockery;” but the boys, laughing aloud, cried with one consent, that “he, and his brethren, deserved better to be hanged than any of them, or the tyke eather, since they had swallowed that which the tyke refused.”
The verdict created no small dissension; “some suspected deadly fewd in the chanselor of the jury, alleadging that ane enemy was not fit to be a judg; this was answered, that he was of more noble extract then to stain his honor with so base an act, and that his own reputation wold make him favored; another objected that a tyke’s refusing so good a test, might be ill example to creatures of better reason; to this a pakie loun answered, that it could not be good, since Lyon Rampant, King of Tykes, nor none of his royal kin, wold not so much as lay ther lips, to it far less to swallow it, and therefore——”
Here the speaker was interrupted “by one that was a principal limmer among them (a contradiction reconciler) who would needs help him with a logical distinction, wherby he, like an Aberdeen’s man, might cant and recant again.”
There were other conjectures, “requiring the judgment of the learn’d to determine which has been maist suitable:” e.g.
One fancied, that “the tyke might take the test secundum quid, though not simpliciter;”
Another, that he might take it “in sensu diviso, though not in sensu composito;”
A third, that “though it was deadly to take it with verbal interpretatione, yet it might be taken safe enough with mental reservatione;”
A fourth thought, that “though his stomach did stand at it, in sensu univoco, yet it might easily digest it in sensu et Æquivoco;”
In this manner suppositions multiplied, and to one who proposed a “jesuitical” distinction, it was answered, that “the tyke would neither sup kail with the div’l, nor the pope, and therefore needed not his long spoon; well, said ane other, this is mair nor needs, since we are all sure that the tyke could not have kept his office so long, but he most needs have swallowed many a buttered bur before this time, and it was but gaping a little wider and the hazard was over.”
“Nay,” quoth his neighbour, “the hazard was greater than ye imagine, for the test, as it was rowed up, had many plyes and implications in it, one contrary to another; and swa the tyke might been querkened ere it had been all over, ilk ply, as it were, rancountering another, wresling and fighting.”
Then it was proposed, as the tyke had actually swallowed the better part, if not the whole test, that though he had brought it up again, yet it were better to try if he would swallow it again; “but this project was universally rejected, baith by the maist charitable, as bootless, and by the mair severe, or too great a favor.”
As regarded the condemned tyke, “matters being thus precipitat, and all hopes of reprieve uncertain, a wylie loun advised him to lay by the sheep’s (which had done him so little good) and put on the fox’s skin;” wherefore, like a sensible dog, “hiding his own tail between his legs, and griping another’s train, he passed through all the gates undiscovered and swa was missing:—
What became of him was unknown, and “the news of the tyke’s escape being blazed abroad, the court assembleth to consult what was then anent to be done.”
By one it was said that “the affronting escape, and other misdemeaners of that tyke were so great, that the highest severity was too little;”
Another said, “sine he is gone, let him go, what have we more to do, but put another in his place;”
A third said, “his presumptuous and treasonable carriage, would be of ill example to others, unless due punishment followed thereupon;”
A fourth said, “had he not been confident of his own innocency he wold never have byden a tryal, and since he met with such a surprising verdict, what could he do less than flee for his life? wold not the best in the court, if he had been in his circumstances done the like?”
A fifth said, “if he had been condemned, and hanged in time, he had not played us this prank, but seeing we have missed himself, let us seaze well on what he hath left behind him.”
Then further debate ensued, and, thereupon, the conclusion; which was ordered to be published as follows:—
Proclamation.
“Whereas ane cutt lugged, brounish coloured Mastiff Tyke, called Watch, short leged, and of low stature; who being in Office of Public Trust, was required to take the Test, and when it was lawfully tendered to him, he so abused it, and mangled it; whereupon he, after due Tryal for his presumption, was convict of Treason, and sincesyn hath broken Prison, whereupon the Court adjudges him, To be hanged like a Dog, whenever he shall be apprehended; and in the mean time declares his Office, his hail Estat heiratable and moveable, and all causualties belonging to him, to be echeated and forfaulted, and ordeans the colectors of the Court to uplift his Rents and Causualties, and to be countable to the Court, both for diligence and intermission, and also discharges all persons to reset or harbor the Fugitive Trator, and likeways, gives assurance to all persons, who shall either apprehend him, or give true information of him, swa that thereupon he bees apprehended, the person swa doing, shall have 500l. for his pains. Given at our Court, &c.”
A Remark.
A great deal of the ingenious argument in this extremely scarce witticism, was probably adduced by the “Heriot’s boys,” when they indulged in the practical humour of administering the test to the hospital dog as an “office bearer.” Independent of its ability, and because the editor of these sheets does not remember to have met with it in any collection of papers on public affairs, he has rather largely extracted from it, hoping that, as it is thus recorded, it will not be altogether misplaced. Of course, every reader may not view it in that light; but there are some who know, that such materials frequently assist the historian to the proof of questionable facts, and that they are often a clue to very interesting discoveries: by such readers, apology will not be required for the production.
It has been said of George Heriot, that “his vanity exceeded his charity.”
The prudent and calculating foresight by which Heriot rendered his fortune splendid, was exercised in deliberating the management of the inmates on his projected establishment. He had the wisdom to distrust the quality of his judgment on matters wherein his observation and knowledge were necessarily limited, and committed the drawing up of the statutes to his friend Dr. Balcanquel. There is no evidence to what extent the founder himself had any share in these rules for effectuating his intentions; but when the age wherein they were compiled is regarded, it will scarcely be alleged that he could have elected from his friends, a better executor of the best of his good wishes.
The acquisition of such experience as Dr. Balcanquel’s, in his capacity of master of the Savoy, is strong testimony of Heriot’s discrimination and manly sense. The statutes of Dr. Balcanquel, who had assisted at the synod of Dort, and was successively dean of Westminster and Durham, are free from the overlegislating disposition of his times, which while it sought to distinguish, confused the execution of purposes. To the liberal laws, and the liberal spirit wherein they have been interpreted, some of the most highly-gifted natives of Edinburgh owe the cultivation of their talents.
Each of the windows of Heriot’s hospital is remarkable for being ornamented in a different manner, with the exception of two on the west side whereon the carvings exactly agree. The north gate is adorned with wreathed columns, and devices representing the modes of working in the business of a jeweller and goldsmith.
Heriot’s boys, with a daring which seems to require some check, on account of its risk, and the injury it must necessarily occasion in the course of time, have a practice of climbing this front by grasping the carvings. The insecurity of this progress to a fearful eminence, has surprised and alarmed many a spectator “frae the south.”
Inscriptions of various benefactions are placed in the council-room. There is one which records the liberality of a well-known gentleman, viz.
1804
Dr. John Gilchrist,
several Years Professor of
the Hindostanee Language in the
College of Fort William, Bengal,
presented 100l. sterling
to this Hospital,
as a small testimony
of Gratitude for
his Education in so
valuable a Seminary.
There are several engravings of his portrait. One of them by J. Moffat, Edinburgh, engraved in 1820, after a picture by Scougal, in the council-room of the edifice, is inscribed “George Heriot, Jeweller to King James VI., who, besides founding and endowing his stately hospital at Edinburgh, bequeathed to his relations above 60,000l. sterling. Obiit. 1623. Ætatis Anno 63.” His arms on this print are surmounted by the motto, “I distribute cheerfully.”
In the “Fortunes of Nigel,” by the author of “Waverely,” Heriot is introduced, with a minute description of his dress and person, seemingly derived from real data, whereas there is little other authority for such markings, than the imagination of the well-known “Great Unknown.”
The striking magnificence of Heriot’s hospital is recorded by an expression of too great force to be strictly accurate. It was observed by a foreigner, before the palace of Holyrood-house was built by Charles II., that there was at Edinburgh a palace for beggars, and a dungeon for kings.
Chronology.
On the fifth of June, 1826, Carl Maria Von Weber, the eminent musical composer, died in London, of a long standing pulmonary affection, increased probably by the untowardness of our climate. He gave a concert ten days before, wherein he composed an air,
Song.
From Lalla Rookh.
Call’d by that moonlight garland’s spell;
From Chindara’s fount, my fairy home,
Where in music, morn and night, I dwell.
Where lutes in the air are heard about,
And voices are singing the whole day long,
And every sigh the heart breathes out
Is turn’d, as it leaves the lips, to song!
Hither I come
From my fairy home,
And if there’s a magic in Music’s train,
I swear by the breath
Of that moonlight wreath,
Thy lover shall sigh at thy feet again.
And mine are the murmuring, dying notes,
That fall as soft as snow on the sea,
And melt in the heart as instantly!
And the passionate strain that, deeply going,
Refines the bosom it trembles through,
As the musk-wind over the waters blowing,
Ruffles the waves, but sweetens it too!
So, hither I come
From my fairy home,
And if there’s a magic in Music’s train,
I swear by the breath
Of that moonlight wreath,
Thy lover shall sigh at thy feet again.
These words seem to have been kindred to Von Weber’s feelings. His last opera was “Oberon:” its performance at Covent-garden derives increased interest from his premature decease. Mr. PlanchÉ adapted it for our stage, and published it as represented and superintended by its illustrious composer. There are two genuine editions of this drama, one in octavo, at the usual price, and the other in a pocket size, at a shilling, with an excellent portrait of Von Weber.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 57·72.
June 6.
Important to Anglers.
To the Editor.
The Every-Day Book has presented a more striking view of the changes of manners and customs than any book which has gone before it; yet even the editor himself, I think, never dreamed of this revolution of habits extending from the walkers on the earth to the inhabitants of “the waters which are under the earth.”
How little do men dream, when they are advocating the cause of any class of people, in what manner those very people shall repay their services. Poor Izaak Walton! He cried up anglers as the very perfection of human nature. They were the most meek, loving, and patient of God’s creatures. They were too much imbued with nature’s tranquillizing spirit to be ambitious; too excellent christians to be jealous; and all this, good, simple-hearted fellow as he was, because he was such a man himself. I have naturally great faith in the influence of nature, and, therefore, though I never could resist a smile at Izaak’s zealous eulogies on the art—calling all times, people, and places, to do honour to it; pressing kings, prophets, apostles, and even Jesus Christ himself, into the ranks of his admired anglers—yet, I involuntarily permitted his warm and open-hearted eloquence to more than half persuade me of the superior natures of his piscatorial protegÉes; in short, that they were such men as himself.
In one of my summer rambles through the peak of Derbyshire I entered Dovedale. It was in June, and on one of the most delightful evenings of that delightful month. There had been rain in the day, and the calm splendour of the declining sun fell upon a scene not more fantastically sublime in its features, than it was beautiful in its freshness. The air was deliciously cool, balmy, and saturated with the odour of flowers. The deep grass in the bottom of the valley was heavy with its luxuriance. The shrubs waved and sparkled, with their myriad drops, upon lofty crags and stern precipices; and the Dove, that most beautiful of swift and translucent streams, went sounding on its way with a voice of gladness in full accordance with every thing around it. I have seen it many times,—and the finest scenes, often seen, are apt to lose some of their effect,—yet I never felt more completely the whole fascination of the place. It put me, as such things are apt to do, into a ruminating and poetical mood,—a humour to soliloquize and admire, and to see things perhaps a little more fancifully than an etymologist, or a mathematician might.
It was exactly when that species of ephemera, the drake-fly, the glory of
But, I asked one if there was not once a very famous angler, who frequented the Dove. “Oh aye!” said he, “I know whom you mean; you mean old Dennel Hastings. For fishing and shuting he was the cob of all this country!” Alas! poor Izaak! I thought; but I glanced at the man’s fish-basket as I passed. It was empty, and I set him down as a fellow not more ignorant of Izaak than of the patient mystery. But soon after, I cast my eye upon an old and venerable figure. His basket was stored with beautiful trouts, till the lid would not shut down. His grey hair clustered thick and bushily beneath his well-worn hat, as if it was accustomed to grow in the sun and the breeze, and to be “wet with the dews of heaven.” His features were such as the father of anglers himself might have worn,—good; and apparently accustomed to express a mixed spirit of bonhommie and simplicity, but were then sharpened into the deepest intensity of an angler’s vigilant enjoyment. This, thought I, is surely the man, and I asked him if he had read “Walton’s Complete Angler.” Yes, he had it, and he had Major’s new edition, too: and, turning to me with an air of immense knowingness and importance, said—“If he was alive now he could not take a single fin.” “No,” I replied, “how is that? He could take plenty in his day; and though I do not deny that there may have been great improvement in the art, yet, skill then successful would be equally so now, unless there has been a revolution amongst the fish, and they have grown wiser. “Ay, there you have it,” he added, the fish are wiser: they wont take the same baits.” I instinctively glanced at the bait then upon the hook of my oracle, and—heaven and earth! it was Walton’s favourite bait—the drake-fly. I walked on. The romance of angling was destroyed. The glory, like a morning dream, had passed away from the whole piscatorial race; and, from esteeming an angler after the fashion of Izaak Walton, I fell into great temptation of deeming him something worse than, as exhibited in Swift’s definition, “a stick and a string, a worm at one end and a fool at the other.”
Nottingham.
W. H.
Now, as the sun declines, may be seen, emerging from the surface of shallow streams, and lying there for a while till its wings are dried for flight, the (misnamed) May-fly. Escaping, after a protracted struggle of half a minute, from its watery birth place, it flutters restlessly up and down, up and down, over the same spot, during its whole era of a summer evening; and at last dies, as the last dying streaks of day are leaving the western horizon. And yet, who shall say that in that space of time it has not undergone all the vicissitudes of a long and eventful life? That it has not felt all the freshness of youth, all the vigour of maturity, all the weakness and satiety of old age, and all the pangs of death itself? In short, who shall satisfy us that any essential difference exists between its four hours and our fourscore years
To the May Fly.
Engender’d by the sun:
A moment only on the wing,
And thy career is done.
An hour—an age to thee—
In gaiety above the stream,
Which soon thy grave must be.
An atom—art thou not
Far happier than thou e’er couldst be
If long life were thy lot?
And make thee wish for death;
But as it is thou’rt soon at rest
Thou creature of a breath!
A thing of joy and sorrow—
The earth he treads upon to-day
Shall cover him to-morrow.
Barton Wilford.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 57·45.
June 7.
Chabert.
The Human Salamander.
This exhibitor’s public performances in London, seem to have excited great curiosity in a multitude of persons unacquainted with the natural quality of the human body to endure extraordinary heat. The journals teem with astonishing accounts—people wonder as they read—and, by and by, they will “wonder at their own wonder.” Perhaps the most interesting account of his first appearance is the following:—
Hot! hot!—all hot!
Monsieur Chabert (the celebrated continental salamander) exhibited his power in withstanding the operation of the fiery element, at White Conduit Gardens, yesterday evening (June 7, 1826). In the first instance, he refreshed himself with a hearty meal of phosphorus, which was, at his own request, supplied to him very liberally, by several of his visiters, who were previously unacquainted with him. He washed down this infernal fare with solutions of arsenic and oxalic acid, thus throwing into the background the long-established fame of Mithridates. He next swallowed with great goÛt several spoonsful of boiling oil, and, as a dessert to this delicate repast, helped himself with his naked hand to a considerable quantity of molten lead. There are, we know, preparations which so indurate the cuticle as to render it insensible to the heat either of boiling oil or melting lead, and the fatal qualities of certain poisons may be destroyed, if the medium through which they are imbibed, as we suppose to be the case here, is a strong alkali. We cannot, however, guess in what manner Monsieur Chabert effected this neutralization; and it is but fair to state, that the exhibitor offered to swallow Prussic acid, perhaps the most powerful of known poisons, the effect of which is instantaneous, if any good-natured person could furnish him with a quantity of it. During the period when this part of the entertainment (if entertainment it can be called) was going on, an oven, about six feet by seven, was heated. For an hour and a quarter, large quantities of faggots were burnt in it, until at length it was hot enough for the bed-chamber of his Satanic Majesty. “O for a muse of fire!” to describe what followed. Monsieur Chabert, who seems to be a piece of living asbestos, entered this stove, accompanied by a rump-steak and a leg of lamb, when the heat was at about 220. He remained there, in the first instance, for ten minutes, till the steak was properly done, conversing all the time with the company through a tin tube, placed in an orifice formed in the sheet-iron door of the oven. Having swallowed a cup of tea, and having seen that the company had done justice to the meat he had already cooked, he returned to his fiery den, and continued there until the lamb was properly done. This joint was devoured with such avidity by the spectators, as leads us to believe, that had Monsieur Chabert himself been sufficiently baked, they would have proceeded to a Caribbean banquet. Many experiments, as to the extent to which the human frame could bear heat, without the destruction of the vital powers, have been tried from time to time; but so far as we recollect, Monsieur Chabert’s fire-resisting qualities are greater than those professed by the individuals who, before him, have undergone this species of ordeal. It was announced some time ago, in one of the French journals, that experiments had been tried with a female, whose fire-standing qualities had excited great astonishment. She, it appears, was placed in a heated oven, into which, live dogs, cats, and rabbits, were conveyed. The poor animals died, in a state of convulsion, almost immediately, while the fire queen bore the heat without complaining. In that instance, however, the heat of the oven was not so great as that which Monsieur Chabert encountered. If Monsieur Chabert will attach himself to any of the insurance companies, he will, we have no doubt, “save more goods out of the fire” than ever Nimming Ned did.
As regards the taking of poisons by this person, the “Morning Chronicle” account says, “Monsieur Chabert’s first performance was the swallowing a quantity of phosphorus, which, we need not
“But,” the same writer adds, “it was different with the pyrotechnic exhibition.—Monsieur Chabert first poured nitric acid upon metallic filings, mixed (we suppose) with sulphur, to form pyrites; these he suffered fairly to ignite in the palm of his hand, and retained the burning mass some time, although a small quantity ignited in our hand quickly made us glad to plunge it into water. Monsieur Chabert then deliberately rubbed a hot shovel over his skin, through his hair, and finally upon the tongue. This was very fairly done. The next feat was that of swallowing boiling oil. We tried the thermometer in the oil, and found it rose to 340 degrees. Monsieur Chabert swallowed a few table spoonsful of this burning liquid, which perhaps might have cooled to about 320 degrees, between the taking the oil from the saucepan and the putting it into his mouth. A gentleman in the company came forward, and dropping lighted sealing-wax upon Monsieur Chabert’s tongue, took the impression of his seal. This we suppose is what is called sealing a man’s mouth.”
There is nothing more astonishing in this than in the trick with the poisons. The little black-letter “Booke of Secretes of Albertus Magnus, imprinted at London by H. Iackson,” which discovers many “merveyls of the world,” happens to be at hand, and two of them may throw some light on the kind of means by which Monsieur Chabert performed his pyrotechnic exhibition; viz.
1. When thou wilt that thou seeme a inflamed, or set on fyre from thy head unto thy fete and not be hurt.
Take white great malowes or holy-hocke, myxe them with the white of egges; after anoynte thy body with it, and let it be untill it be dryed up; and, after, anoynte the with alume, and afterwards caste on it smal brymstone beaten unto poulder, for the fyre is inflamed on it, and hurteth not; and if thou make upon the palme of thy hand thou shalt bee able to hold the fyre without hurt.
2. A merveylous experience, which maketh menne to go into the fyre without hurte, or to bere fyre, or red hott yron in their hand, withoute hurte.
Take the juyce of Bismalua, and the whyte of an egge, and the sede of an hearbe called Psillium, also Pulicarius herba, and breake it unto powder, and make a confection, and mixe the juyce of Radysh with the whyte of an egge.
Anoynt thy body or hande with this confection, and let it be dryed and after anoynte it againe; after that, thou mayest suffer boldely the fyre without hurt.
This, without multiplying authorities, may suffice to show, that a man may continue to work great marvels in the eyes of persons who are uninformed, by simple processes well known centuries ago. The editor of the Every-Day Book was once called on by a lady making tea, to hand the boiling water in his “best manner:” he took the kettle from the fire, and placing its bottom on his right hand, bore it with extended arm across the room to his
As to M. Chabert, the “Morning Chronicle” account says, “But now came the grand and terrific exhibition—the entering the oven—for which expectation was excited to the highest pitch. We had the curiosity to apply the unerring test of the thermometer to the inside of the oven, and found the maximum of heat to be 220 deg. M. Chabert, being dressed in a loose black linen robe, rendered, he assured us, as fireproof as asbestos, by a chemical solution, entered the oven amidst the applause of the spectators. He continued like a modern Shadrach in the fiery furnace, and after a suspense of about 12 minutes, again appeared to the anxious spectators, triumphantly bearing the beef-steak fully dressed, which he had taken into the oven with him raw. M. Chabert also exhibited to us the thermometer, which he had taken into the oven with him at 60 deg., and which was now up to 590 deg. We need not say that the bulb had been kept in the burning embers, of which it bore palpable signs. This was a mere trick, unworthy of the exhibition, for Mons. Chabert really bore the oven heated to 220 deg. for full twenty minutes. Whether we were emulous of Paul Pry, and peeped under the iron door of the oven, and beheld the beef-steak and leg of mutton cooking upon a heap of charcoal and embers concealed in the corner of the oven, we must not say, ‘it were too curious to consider matters after that manner.’ We are only doing justice to Monsieur Chabert in saying, that he is the best of all fire-eaters we have yet seen, and that his performance is truly wonderful, and highly worthy of the public patronage. A man so impervious to fire, may ‘make assurance doubly sure, and take a bond of fate.’”
Stay, stay! Not quite so fast. M. Chabert is a man of tricks, but his only real trick failed to deceive; this was placing the bulb of the thermometer in burning embers, to get the mercury up to 590, while, in fact, the heat he really bore in the oven was only 220; which, as he bore that heat for “full twenty minutes,” the writer quoted deems “really wonderful.” That it was not wonderful for such an exhibitor to endure such a heat, will appear from the following statements.
About the middle of January, 1774, Dr. Charles Blagden, F.R.S., received an invitation from Dr. George Fordyce, to observe the effects of air heated to a much higher degree than it was formerly thought any living creature could bear. Dr. Fordyce had himself proved the mistake of Dr. Boerhaave and most other authors, by supporting many times very high degrees of heat, in the course of a long train of important experiments. Dr. Cullen had long before suggested many arguments to show, that life itself had a power of generating heat, independent of any common chemical or mechanical means. Governor Ellis in the year 1758 had observed, that a man could live in air of a greater heat than that of his body; and that the body, in this situation, continues its own cold; and the abbÉ Chappe d’Auteroche had written that the Russians used their baths heated to 60 deg. of Reaumur’s thermometer, about 160 of Fahrenheit’s. With a view to add further evidence to these extraordinary facts, and to ascertain the real effects of such great degrees of heat on the human body, Dr. Fordyce tried various experiments in heated chambers without chimneys, and from whence the external air was excluded. One of these experiments is thus related.
Dr. Blagden’s Narrative.
The honourable captain Phipps, Mr. (afterwards sir Joseph) Banks, Dr. Solander, and myself, attended Dr. Fordyce to the heated chamber, which had served for many of his experiments with dry air. We went in without taking off any of our clothes. It was an oblong square room, fourteen feet by twelve is length and width, and eleven in height, heated by a round stove, or cockle, of cast iron, which stood in the middle, with a tube for the smoke carried from it through one of the side walls. When we first entered the room, about two o’clock in the afternoon, the quicksilver in a thermometer, which had been suspended
These experiments, therefore, prove in the clearest manner, that the body has a power of destroying heat. To speak justly on this subject, we must call it a power of destroying a certain degree of heat communicated with certain quickness. Therefore, in estimating the heat which we are capable of resisting, it is necessary to take into consideration not only what degree of heat would be communicated to our bodies, if they possessed no resisting power, by the heated body, before the equilibrium of heat was effected; but also what time that heat
We find then, that Dr. Fordyce, Dr. Blagden, Dr. Solander, the honourable captain Phipps, sir Joseph Banks, together, bore the heat at 198 deg.; that Dr. Solander went into the room at 210, sir Joseph Banks at 211; and that M. Tillet’s oven-girls bore a heat for ten minutes which would raise the thermometer to 280 deg., being 60 deg. higher than M. Chabert bore for ten minutes at White Conduit-house. Recent experiments in England fully corroborate the experiments referred to; and, in short, an extension of our knowledge in philosophical works will outjuggle jugglers of every description.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 58·70.
June 8.
Figg, the Prize Fighter.
A printed advertisement from this “early master” in the “noble art of self-defence,” in answer to a challenge from the anciently-noted Sutton, with the challenge itself, being before the editor in the shape of a small hand-bill, printed
G.R.
At Mr. FIGG’s New Amphitheatre.
Joyning to his House, the Sign of the City of Oxford, in Oxford Road, Marybone Fields, on Wednesday next, being the 8th of June, 1726. Will be Perform’d a Tryal of Skill by the following Masters.
VVhereas I EDWARD SUTTON, Pipemaker from Gravesend, and Kentish Professor of the Noble Science of Defence, having, under a Sleeveless Pretence been deny’d a Combat by and with the Extoll’d Mr. FIGG; which I take to be occasioned through fear of his having that Glory Eclipsed by me, wherewith the Eyes of all Spectators have been so much dazzled: Therefore, to make appear, that the great Applause which has so much puff’d up this Hero, has proceeded only from his Foyling such who are not worthy the name of Swordsmen, as also that he may be without any farther Excuse; I do hereby dare the said Mr. FIGG to meet as above, and dispute with me the Superiority of Judgment in the Sword, (which will best appear by Cuts, &c.) at all the Weapons he is or shall be then Capable of Performing on the Stage.
I JAMES FIGG, Oxonian Professor of the said Science, will not fail giving this daring Kentish Champion an Opportunity to make good his Allegations; when, it is to be hop’d, if he finds himself Foyl’d he will then change his Tone, and not think himself one of the Number who are not worthy the Name of Swordsmen, as he is pleased to signifie by his Expression: However, as the most significant Way of deciding these Controversies is by Action, I shall defer what I have farther to Act till the Time above specified; when I shall take care not to deviate from my usual Custom, in making all such Bravadoes sensible of their Error, as also in giving all Spectators intire Satisfaction.
N.B. The Doors will be open’d at Four, and the Masters mount between Six, and Seven exactly. VIVAT REX.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 59·52.
June 9.
The Season, in London.
Now, during the first fortnight, Kensington Gardens is a place not to be paralleled: for the unfashionable portion of my readers are to know, that this delightful spot, which has been utterly deserted during the last age (of seven years), and could not be named during all that period without incurring the odious imputation of having a taste for trees and turf, has now suddenly started into vogue once more, and you may walk there, even during the “morning” part of a Sunday afternoon, with perfect impunity, always provided you pay a due deference to the decreed hours, and never make your appearance there earlier than twenty minutes before five, or later than half-past six; which is allowing you exactly two hours after breakfast to dress for the Promenade, and an hour after you get home to do
Vauxhall Gardens, which open the first week in this month, are somewhat different from the above, it must be confessed. But they are unique in their way nevertheless. Seen in the darkness of noonday, as one passes by them on the top of the Portsmouth coach, they cut a sorry figure enough. But beneath the full meridian of midnight, what is like them, except some parts of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments? Now, after the first few nights, they begin to be in their glory, and are, on every successive gala, illuminated with “ten thousand additional lamps,” and include all the particular attractions of every preceding gala since the beginning of time!
Now, on fine evenings, the sunshine finds (or rather loses) its way into the galleries of Summer theatres at whole price, and wonders where it has got to.
Now, boarding-school boys, in the purlieus of Paddington and Mile End, employ the whole of the first week in writing home to their distant friends in London a letter of not less than eight lines, announcing that the “ensuing vacation will commence on the —— instant;” and occupy the remaining fortnight in trying to find out the unknown numerals with which the blank has been filled up.
Finally, now, during the first few days, you cannot walk the streets without waiting, at every crossing, for the passage of whole regiments of little boys in leather breeches, and little girls in white aprons, going to church to practise their annual anthem-singing, preparatory to that particular Thursday in this month, which is known all over the world of charity-schools by the name of “walking day;” when their little voices, ten thousand strong, are to utter forth sounds that shall dwell for ever in the hearts of their hearers. Those who have seen this sight, of all the charity children within the bills of mortality assembled beneath the dome of Saint Paul’s, and heard the sounds of thanksgiving and adoration which they utter there, have seen and heard what is perhaps better calculated than anything human ever was, to convey to the imagination a faint notion of what we expect to witness hereafter, when the hosts of heaven shall utter with one voice, hymns of adoration before the footstool of the Most High
Twilight.
Fling back a lingering lovely after-day;
The moon of summer glides serenely by,
And sheds a light enchantment o’er the sky.
These, sweetly mingling, pour upon the sight
A pencilled shadowing, and a dewy light—
A softened day, a half unconscious night.
Alas! too finely pure on earth to stay,
It faintly spots the hill, and dies away.
Thatcham.
J. W.
The Water Fountain.
It seems seasonable to introduce an engraving of a very appropriate ornament of a shop window, which will not surprise any one so much as the proprietor, who, whatever may be thought to the contrary, is wholly unknown to the editor of this work.
As a summer decoration, there is scarcely any thing prettier than this little fountain. Gilt fish on the edge
This representation exemplifies the rivalry of London tradesmen to attract attention. Their endeavours have not attained the height they are capable of reaching, but the beautiful forms and graceful displays continually submitted to the sight of passengers, evince a disposition which renders our shops the most elegant in Europe.
A Fountain in June, 1826.
In the window of Mr. Farrel, Pastrycook, Lambs-Conduit-Street, London.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 59·15.
June 10.
House of God, Newcastle.
On the 10th of June, 1412, King Henry IV. granted his royal license to an hospital called the Maison de Dieu, or “House of God,” erected by Roger Thornton, on the Sandhill, Newcastle, for the purpose of providing certain persons with food and clothing. The building seems to have been completed in that year. Before it was pulled down in 1823, the “Merchant’s Court” was established over it, and at this time a new building for the company of Free Merchants, &c., is erected on its site.
The son of the founder of the old
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 59·37.
June 11.
Blessings of Instruction.
In all the robes that Eden had;
Or vale o’erspread with streams and trees,
A paradise of mysteries;
Plains with green hills adorning them,
Like jewels in a diadem?
Which beauty gilds and music fills,
Were once but deserts. Culture’s hand
Has scattered verdure o’er the land,
And smiles and fragrance rule serene,
Where barren wild usurped the scene.
Or sweetest flowers, or vilest weeds;
Flowers lovely as the morning’s light,
Weeds deadly as an aconite;
Just as his heart is trained to bear
The poisonous weed, or flow’ret fair.
Bowring.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 58·75.
June 12.
The Season, in the Country.
Sheep-Shearing.
Sheep-shearing, one of the great rural labours of this delightful month, if not so full of variety as the hay-harvest, and so creative of matter for those “in search of the picturesque” (though it is scarcely less so), is still more lively, animated, and spirit-stirring; and it besides retains something of the character of a rural holiday, which rural matters need, in this age and in this country, more than ever they did, since it became a civilized and happy one. The sheep-shearings are the only stated periods of the year at which we hear of festivities, and gatherings together of the lovers and practisers of English husbandry; for even the harvest-home itself is fast sinking into disuse, as a scene of mirth and revelry, from the want of being duly encouraged and partaken in by the great ones of the earth; without whose countenance and example it is questionable whether eating, drinking, and sleeping, would not soon become vulgar practices, and be discontinued accordingly! In a state of things like this, the Holkham and Woburn sheep-shearings do more honour to their promoters than all their wealth can purchase and all their titles convey. But we are getting beyond our soundings: honours, titles, and “states of things,” are what we do not pretend to meddle with, especially when the pretty sights and sounds preparatory to and attendant on sheep-shearing, as a mere rural employment, are waiting to be noticed.
Now, then, on the first really summer’s day, the whole flock being collected on the higher bank of the pool formed at the abrupt winding of the nameless mill-stream, at the point, perhaps, where the little wooden bridge runs slantwise across it, and the attendants being stationed waist-deep in the midwater, the sheep are, after a silent but obstinate struggle or two, plunged headlong, one by one, from the precipitous bank; when, after a moment of confused splashing, their heavy fleeces float them along, and their feet, moving by an instinctive art which every creature but man possesses, guide them towards the opposite shallows, that steam and glitter in the sunshine. Midway, however, they are fain to submit to the rude grasp of the relentless washer, which they undergo with as ill a grace as preparatory schoolboys do the same operation. Then, gaining the opposite shore heavily, they stand for a moment till the weight of water leaves them, and, shaking their streaming sides, go bleating away towards their fellows on the adjacent green, wondering within themselves what has happened.
The shearing is no less lively and picturesque, and no less attended by all the idlers of the village as spectators. The shearers, seated in rows beside the crowded pens, with the seemingly inanimate load of fleece in their laps, and bending intently over their work; the occasional whetting and clapping of the shears; the neatly-attired housewives, waiting to receive the fleeces; the smoke from the tar-kettle, ascending through the clear air; the shorn sheep escaping,
Chronology.
On this day, in the year 1734, the duke of Berwick, while visiting the trenches at the siege of Philipsburgh, near Spire, in Germany, was killed, standing between his two sons by a cannon-ball. He was the illegitimate son of the duke of York, afterwards James II., whom he accompanied in his flight from England, in 1688. His mother was Arabella Churchill, maid of honour to the duchess of York, and sister to the renowned Marlborough.
The duke of Berwick on quitting the country, entered into the service of France, and was engaged in several battles against the English or their allies in Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. At his death he was in the sixty-fourth year of his age. No general of his time excelled him in the art of war except his uncle, the duke of Marlborough.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 58·40.
June 13.
Signs
“Of the Times,”
NEW AND OLD.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Liverpool, 6th June, 1826.
Sir,—The pages of The Every-Day Book, notwithstanding a few exceptions, have afforded me unqualified pleasure, and having observed your frequent and reiterated requests for communications, I have been induced to send you the following doggrels.
I ought to promise that they formed part of the sign of an alehouse, formerly standing in Chapel-street, near St. Nicholas church in this town, but which is now taken down to make room for a costly pile of warehouses since erected on the site.
The sign represented (elegantly, of course) a man standing in a cart laden with fish, and holding in his right hand what the artist intended to represent a salmon. The lines are to be supposed to be spoken by the driver:—
It’s very like a whale,
It’s a fish that’s very merry,
They say it’s catch’d at Derry;
It’s a fish that’s got a heart,
It’s catch’d and put in Dugdale’s cart.
This truly classic production of the muse of Mersey continued for several years to adorn the host’s door, until a change in the occupant of the house induced a corresponding change of the sign, and the following lines graced the sign of “The Fishing Smack:”—
And left the fishing-boat to stay.
When boisterous winds do drive you back,
Come in and drink at the Fishing Smack.
Whilst I am upon the subject of “signs,” I cannot omit mentioning a punning one in the adjoining county (Chester) on the opposite side of the Mersey, by the highway-side, leading from Liscard to Wallasea. The house is kept by a son of Crispin, and he, zealous of his trade, exhibits the representation of a last, and under it this couplet:—
And at the last I have found it here.
I do not know, sir, whether the preceding nonsense may be deemed worthy of a niche in your miscellany; but I have sent it at a venture, knowing that originals, however trifling, are sometimes valuable to a pains-taking (and, perhaps, wearied) collector.
I am, Sir, your obliged,
Lector.
By publishing the letter of my obliging correspondent “Lector,” who transmits his real name, I am enabling England to say—he has done his duty.
Really if each of my readers would do like him I should be very grateful. While printing his belief that I am a “pains-taking” collector, I would interpose
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 59·75.
June 14.
1826. Trinity Term ends.
Cheap Travelling.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Newark, May 17, 1826.
Sir,—The following singular circumstance may be relied on as a fact. The individual it relates to was well known upon the turf. I recollect him myself, and once saw the present venerable Earl of Fitzwilliam, on Stamford race-course, humorously inquire of him how he got his conveyance, in allusion to the undermentioned circumstance, and present him with a guinea.—I am, &c.
Benj. Johnson.
John Kilburn, a person well known on the turf as a list seller, &c., was at a town in Bedfordshire, and, as the turf phrase is, “quite broke down.” It was during harvest, and the week before Richmond races (Yorkshire), whither he was travelling, and near which place he was born: to arrive there in time he hit on the following expedient.—He applied to an acquaintance of his, a blacksmith, to stamp on a padlock the words ‘Richmond Gaol,’ with which, and a chain fixed to one of his legs, he composedly went into a corn-field to sleep. As he expected, he was soon apprehended and taken before a magistrate, who, after some deliberation, ordered two constables to guard him in a carriage to Richmond. No time was to be lost, for Kilburn said he had not been tried, and hoped they would not let him lay till another assize. The constables, on their arrival at the gaol, accosted the keeper with “Sir, do you know this man?” “Yes, very well, it is Kilburn; I have known him many years.” “We suppose he has broken out of your gaol, as he has a chain and padlock on with your mark. Is not he a prisoner?” “I never heard any harm of him in my life.” “Nor,” says Kilburn, “have these gentlemen: Sir, they have been so good as to bring me out of Bedfordshire, and I will not put them to further inconvenience. I have got the key of the padlock, and I will not trouble them to unlock it. I am obliged to them for their kind behaviour.” He travelled in this way about one hundred and seventy miles.
This anecdote has been seen before, perhaps, but it is now given on authority.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 59·67.
June 15.
Summer Merriment.
To the Editor of the Every-day Book.
Sir,—You have inserted in vol. i. p. 559, an interesting account of the Morris Dance in the “olden times,” and I was rather disappointed on a perusal of your extensive Index, by not finding a “few more words” respecting the Morris Dancers of our day and generation. I think this custom is of Moorish origin, and might have been introduced into this country in the middle ages. Bailey says, “the Morris Dance is an antic dance performed by five men and a boy, dressed in girl’s clothes.” The girlish part of it is, however, more honoured in “the breach than the observance.”
In June, 1826, I observed a company of these “bold peasantry, the country’s pride,” in Rosoman-street, Clerkenwell. They consisted of eight young men, six of whom were dancers; the seventh played the pipe and tabor; and the eighth, the head of them, collected the pence in his hat, and put the precious metal into the slit of a tin painted box, under lock and key, suspended before him. The tune the little rural-noted pipe played to the gentle pulsations of the tabor, is called
And what d’ye think it was about”
This may be remembered as one of the once popular street songs of the late Charles Dibdin’s composition. The dancers wore party-coloured ribands round their hats, arms, and knees, to which a row of small latten bells were appended, somewhat like those which are given to amuse infants in teeth-cutting, that tinkled with the motion of the wearers. These rustic adventurers “upon the many-headed town,” came from a village in Hertfordshire. Truly natural and simple in appearance, their features, complexion, dress, and attitude, perfectly corresponded. Here was no disguise, no blandishment, no superhuman effort. Their shape was not compressed by fashion, nor did their hearts flutter in an artificial prison. Nature represented them about twenty-five years of age, as her seasoned sons, handing down to posterity, by their exercises before the present race, the enjoyment of their forefathers, and the tradition of happy tenantry “ere power grew high, and times grew bad.” The “set-to,” as they termed it, expressed a vis-À-vis address; they then turned, returned, clapped their hands before and behind, and made a jerk with the knee and foot alternately,
Though the streets were dirty and the rain fell reluctantly, yet they heeded not the elemental warfare, but
hence their ornaments, like themselves, looked weather-beaten. Crowds collected round them. At 12 o’clock at noon, this was a rare opportunity for the schoolboys let out of their seats of learning and confinement. The occasional huzza, like Handel’s “Occasional Overture,” so pleasing to the ear of liberty, almost drowned the “Morris.” But at intervals the little pretty pipe drew the fancy, as it were, piping to a flock in the valley by the shade of sweet trees and the bosom of the silver brook. O! methought, what difference is here by comparison with the agile-limbed aËrials of St. James’s and these untutored clowns! Yet something delightful comes home to the breast, and speaks to the memory of a rural-born creature, and recals a thousand dear recollections of hours gone down the voyage of life into eternity! To a Londoner, too, the novelty does not weary by its voluntary offering to their taste, and apposition to the season.
Lubin Brown, the piper, was an arch dark-featured person; his ear was alive to Doric melody; and he merrily played and tickled the time to his note. When he stopped to take breath, his provincial dialect scattered his wit among the gapers, and his companions were well pleased with their sprightly leader. Spagnioletti, nor Cramer, could do no more by sound nor Liston, nor Yates, by grimace. I observed his eye ever alert to the movement and weariness of his six choice youths. He was a chivalrous fellow: he had won the prize for “grinning through a horse collar” at the revel, thrown his antagonist in the “wrestling ring,” and “jumped twenty yards in a sack” to the mortification of his rivals, who lay vanquished on the green. The box-keeper, though less dignified than Mr. Spring, of Drury-lane, informed me that “he and his companions in sport” had charmed the village lasses round the maypole, and they intended sojourning in town a week or two, after which the box would be opened, and an equitable division take place, previously to the commencement of mowing and hay-harvest. He said it was the third year of their pilgrimage; that they had never disputed on the road, and were welcomed home by their sweethearts and friends, to whom they never omit the carrying a seasonable gift in a very humble “Forget me not!” or “Friendship’s Offering.”
Mr. Editor, I subscribe myself,
Yours, very sincerely.
J. R. P.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 58·55.
June 16.
Chronology.
June 16, 1722, the great duke of Marlborough died. (See vol. i., p. 798.) Among the “Original Papers,” published by Macpherson, is a letter of the duke’s to king James II., whom he “deserted in his utmost need” for the service of king William, wherein he betrays to his old master the design of his new one against Brest in 1694. This communication, if intercepted, might have terminated
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 59·12.
June 17.
St. Botolph.
This English saint, whose festival is on this day, with his brother Adulph, another saint, travelled into Belgic Gaul, where Adulph became bishop of Maestricht, and Botolph returned home with news of the religious houses he had seen abroad, and recommendations from the two sisters of Ethelmund, king of the south Saxons, who resided in France, to their brother in England. Ethelmund gave him a piece of land near Lincoln, called Icanhoe, “a forsaken uninhabited desert, where nothing but devills and goblins were thought to dwell: but St. Botolphe, with the virtue and sygne of the holy crosse, freed it from the possession of those hellish inhabitants, and by the means and help of Ethelmund, built a monasterie therein.” Of this establishment of the order of St. Benedict, St. Botolph became abbot. He died on this day in June, 680, and was buried in his monastery, which is presumed by some to have been at Botolph’s bridge, now called Bottle-bridge, in Huntingdonshire; by others, at Botolph’s town, now corruptly called Boston in Lincolnshire; and again, its situation is said to have been towards Sussex. Boston seems, most probably, to have been the site of his edifice.
St. Botolph’s monastery having been destroyed by the Danes, his relics were in part carried to the monastery of Ely, and part to that of Thorney. Alban Butler, who affirms this, afterwards observes that Thorney Abbey, situated in Cambridgeshire, founded in 972, in honour of St. Mary and St. Botolph, was one of those whose abbots sat in parliament, that St. Botolph was interred there, and that Thorney was anciently called Ancarig, that is, the Isle of Anchorets. It may here be remarked, however, that Westminster was anciently called Thorney, from its having been covered by briars; and that the last-written “History of Boston” refers to Capgrave, as saying, “that in the book of the church of St. Botolph, near Aldersgate, London, there is mention how a part of the body of St. Botolph was, by king Edward of happy memory, conferred on the church of St. Peter in Westminster.” Father Porter, in his “Flowers of the Saincts,” says, “it hath been found written in the booke of St. Botolphe’s church, near Aldersgate, in London, that part of his holy bodie was by king Edward given to the abbey of Winchester.” The editor of the Every-Day Book possessed “the register book of the church of St. Botolph, near Aldersgate,” when he wrote on “Ancient Mysteries,” in which work the manuscript is described: it wanted some leaves, and neither contained the entry mentioned by Capgrave, nor mentioned the disposition of the relics of St. Botolph. Besides the places already noticed, various others throughout the country are named after St. Botolph, and particularly four parishes of the city of London, namely, in Aldersgate before mentioned, Aldgate, Billingsgate, and Bishopsgate. Butler says nothing of his miracles, but Father Porter mentions him as having been “famous for miracles both in this life and after his death.”
Lady’s Dress in 1550.
The gentleman whose museum furnished the Biddenden cake, obligingly transmits an extract from some papers in his collection, relative to a wedding on this day.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Sir,—Perhaps the following account of the dresses of a lady in olden time may be interesting to your readers:—
The wedding-clothes of Miss Eliz. Draper, 1550, a present from her husband, John Bowyer, Esq. of Lincoln’s-inn:—
| “Wedyn-apparrell bought for my wyffe, Elizabeth Draper, the younger, of Camberwell, against 17o die Junii, anno Domini, 1550, with dispensalls. | ||||
| s. | d. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First, | 4 ells of tawney taffeta, at 11s. 6d. the ell, for the Venyce gowne | 46 | 0 | |
| Item, | 4 yardes of silk Chamlett crymson, at 7s. 6d. the yard, for a kyrtle | 52 | 6 | |
| Item, | one yard and a half of tawney velvet, to gard the Venyce gowne, at 15s. the yard | 22 | 6 | |
| Item, | half a yard of crymsyn satin, for the fore-slyves | 6 | 8 | |
| Item, | 8 yards of russel’s black, at 4s. 6d. the yard, for a Dutch gowne | 35 | 0 | |
| Item, | half a yard of tawney sattyn | 5 | 0 | |
| Item, | a yard and a quarter of velvet black, to guard the Dutch gowne | 17 | 8 | |
| Item, | 6 yards of tawney damaske, at 11s. the yard | 66 | 0 | |
| Item, | one yard and half a quarter of skarlett, for a pety cote with plites | 20 | 0 | |
| Amounting to | 271 | 4 | ” | |
The wedding-ring is described as weighing “two angels and a duckett,” graven with these words, “Deus nos junxit, J.E.B.Y.R.” The date of the marriage is inserted by Mr. B. with great minuteness (at the hour of eight, the dominical letter F. the moon being in Leo), with due regard to the aspects of the heavens, which at that time regulated every affair of importance.
I am, &c.
J. I. A. F.
June 5, 1826.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 59·55.
June 18.
Chronology.
On the 18th of June, 1805, died Arthur Murphy, Esq., barrister at law, and bencher of Lincoln’s-inn; a dramatic and miscellaneous writer of considerable celebrity. He was born at Cork, in 1727, and educated in the college of St. Omers, till his 18th year, and was at the head of the Latin class when he quitted the school. He was likewise well acquainted with the Greek language. On his return to Ireland he was sent to London, and placed under the protection of a mercantile relation; but literature and the stage soon drew his attention, and wholly absorbed his mind. The success of his first tragedy, “The Orphan of China,” enabled him to discharge some pecuniary obligations he had incurred, and he made several attempts to acquire reputation as an actor; but, though he displayed judgment, he wanted powers, and was brutally attacked by Churchill, from motives of party prejudice. Mr. Murphy in a very humorous ode to the naiads of Fleet-ditch, intituled “Expostulation,” vindicated his literary character. He withdrew from the stage, studied the law, made two attempts to become a member of the Temple and of Gray’s-inn, and was rejected, on the illiberal plea that he had been upon the stage. More elevated sentiments in the members of Lincoln’s-inn admitted him to the bar, but the dramatic muse so much engaged his attention, that the law was a secondary consideration. He wrote twenty-two pieces for the stage, most of which were successful, and several are stock pieces. He first started into the literary world with a series of essays, intituled “The Gray’s-inn Journal.” At one period he was a political writer, though without putting his name to his productions. He produced a Latin version of “The Temple of Fame,” and of Gray’s “Elegy,” and a well-known translation of the works of Tacitus. He was the intimate of Foote and Garrick, whose life he wrote. He had many squabbles with contemporary wits, particularly the late George Steevens, Esq.; but, though he never quietly received a blow, he was never the first to give one. Steevens’s attack he returned with abundant interest. His friend Mr. Jesse Foot, whom he appointed his executor, and to whom he entrusted all his manuscripts, says, “He lived in the closest friendship with the most polished authors and greatest lawyers of his time; his knowledge of the classics was profound; his translations of the Roman historians enlarged his fame; his dramatic productions were inferior to none of the time in which he flourished. The pen of the poet was particularly adorned by the refined taste of the critic. He was author of ‘The Orphan of China,’ ‘The Grecian Daughter,’ ‘All in the Wrong,’ ‘The Way to keep Him,’ ‘Know your own Mind,’ ‘Three Weeks after Marriage,’ ‘The Apprentice,’ ‘The Citizen,’ and many other esteemed dramatic productions.” He had a pension of 200l. a year from government
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 60·17.
June 19.
1826.—General Election.
The united kingdom may be said to be in uproar, wherever the electors are solicited for their “sweet voices.” One place latterly seems to be without a candidate; viz. “the ancient and honorable borough of Garrett,” situate near the Leather Bottle in Garrett Lane, in the parish of Wandsworth, in the county of Surrey. Information to the Editor respecting former elections for Garrett, and especially any of the printed addresses, advertisements, or hand bills, if communicated to the Editor of the Every-Day Book immediately, will enable him to complete a curious article in the next sheet. Particulars respecting Sir Jeffery Dunstan, Sir Harry Dimsdale, Sir George Cook, Sir John Horn Conch, baronets, or other “public characters” who at any time had the honour to represent Garrett, will be very acceptable, but every thing of the sort should be forwarded without an hour’s delay.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 59·77.
June 20.
Custom at Dunmow, in Essex.
Custom at Dunmow, in Essex.
On this day, in the year 1751, a flitch of bacon was claimed at Dunmow, in Essex, by a man and his wife, who had the same delivered to them as of right, according to ancient custom, on the ground that they had not quarrelled, nor had either repented, nor had one offended the other, from the day of their marriage.—The above Engraving is after a large print by C. Mosley, “from an original painting taken on the spot by David Ogborne,” which print represents the procession of the last-mentioned claimants on their return from Dunmow church with the flitch.
Ogborne’s print, from whence the preceding engraving is taken, bears this inscription:—
“An exact Perspective View of Dunmow, late the Priory in the county of Essex, with a Representation of the Ceremony & Procession in that Mannor, on Thursday the 20 of June 1751 when Thomas Shakeshaft of the Parish of Weathersfield in the county aforesaid, Weaver, & Ann his Wife came to demand and did actually receive a Gammon of Bacon, having first kneelt down upon two bare stones within the Church door, and taken the said Oath pursuant to the ancient custom in manner & form prescribed as aforesaid.” A short account of this custom precedes the above inscription.
Mr. Brand speaks of his possessing Ogborne’s print, and of its having become “exceedingly rare;” he further cites it as being inscribed “Taken on the spot and engraved by David Ogborne.” Herein he mistakes; for, as regards Ogborne, both old and modern impressions are inscribed as already quoted in the preceding column: in the old impression “C. Mosley sculpt.” stands below “the oath” in verse, at the right hand corner of the plate; and in the modern one it is erased from that part and placed at the same corner above “the oath,” and immediately under the engraving; the space it occupied is supplied by the words “Republish’d Octr 28th. 1826 by R. Cribb, 288 Holborn”: its original note of publication remains, viz. “Publish’d according to Act of Parliament Janry. 1752.” The print is now common.
Mr. Brand, or his printer, further mistakes the name of the claimant on the print, for, in the “Popular Antiquities” he quotes it “Shapeshaft” instead of “Shakeshaft;” and he omits to mention a larger print, of greater rarity in his time, “sold by John Bowles Map & Printseller in Cornhill,” entitled “The Manner of claiming the Gamon of Bacon &c. by Thos. Shakeshaft, and Anne his wife” which it thus represents:—
The last taking of the Oath at Dunmow,
FOR THE GAMMON OF BACON.
FORM OF THE OATH.
If ever you made nuptial trangression:
Be you either married man or wife,
By household brawles or contentious strife,
Or otherwise in bed, or at boord,
Offend each other in deed, or word;
Or since the parish Clerk said Amen,
You wish’t yourselves unmarried agen:
Or in a twelve moneths time and a day
Repented not in thought any way:
But continued true and just in desire
As when you joyned hands in the holy quire
If to these conditions without all feare,
Of your own accord you will freely sweare,
A whole Gammon of Bacon you shall receive,
And bear it henceforth with love and good leave.
For this is our Custome at Dunmow well known,
Though the pleasure be ours, the Bacon’s your own.
On the taking of this oath, which is cited by an old county historian,
The “Gentleman’s Magazine,” of 1751, mentions that on this day “John Shakeshanks, woolcomber, and Anne his wife, of the parish of Weathersfield, in Essex, appeared at the customary court at Dunmow-parva, and claim’d the bacon according to the custom of that manor.” This is all the notice of the last claim in that miscellany, but the old “London Magazine,” of the same year, adds, that “the bacon was delivered to them with the usual formalities.” It is remarkable that in both these magazines the parties are named “Shakeshanks.” On reference to the court-roll, the real name appears to be Shakeshaft.
Ogborne’s print affirms that this custom was instituted in or about the year 1111, by Robert, son of Richard Fitz Gilbert, Earl of Clare: but as regards the date, which is in the time of Henry I., the statement is inaccurate; for if it originated with Robert Fitzwalter, as hereafter related, he did not live till the time of “King Henry, son of King John,” who commenced his reign in 1199, and was Henry III.
Concerning the ceremony, the print goes on to describe, that after delivering the bacon, “the happy pair are taken upon men’s shoulders, in a chair kept for that purpose, and carried round the scite of the priory, from the church to the house, with drums, minstrells, and other musick playing, and the gammon of bacon borne on a high pole before them, attended by the steward, gentlemen, and officers of the manor, with the several inferior tenants, carrying wands, &c., and a jury of bachelors and maidens (being six of each sex) walking two and two, with a great multitude of other people, young and old, from all the neighbouring towns and villages thereabouts, and several more that came from very great distances (to the amount of many thousands in the whole), with shouts and acclamations, following.”
The chair in which the successful candidates for “the bacon” were seated, after obtaining the honourable testimony of their connubial happiness, is made of oak, and though large, seems hardly big enough for any pair, but such as had given proofs of their mutual good-nature and affection. It is still preserved in Dunmow Church, and makes part of the admiranda of that place. It is undoubtedly of great antiquity, probably the official chair of the prior, or that of the lord of the manor, in which he held the usual courts, and received the suit and service of his tenants. There is an engraving of the chair in the “Antiquarian Repertory,” from whence this notice of it is extracted: it in no way differs from the chief chairs of ancient halls.
Of “the bacon,” it is stated, on Ogborne’s print, that “before the dissolution of monasteries, it does not appear, by searching the most ancient records, to have been demanded above three times, and, including this (demand of Shakeshaft’s) just as often since.” These demands are particularized by Dugdale, from a manuscript in the College of Arms,
“Robt. Fitzwalter, living long beloved of king Henry, son of king John, as also
Anno 23. Henry VI. 1445, one Richard Wright of Badbury, near the city of Norwich in the county of Norfolk, labourer (Plebeius) came to Dunmow and required the bacon, to wit, on the 27th of April, in the 23d year of the reign of King Henry VI. and according to the form of the charter was sworn before John Cannon, prior of the place and the convent, and very many other neighbours, and there was delivered to him, the said Richard a side or flitch of bacon.
Anno 7 Edw. IV. 1467, one Stephen Samuel of Ayston-Parva, in the county of Essex, husbandman, on the day of the Blessed Virgin in Lent (25th March) in the 7th year of king Edward IV. came to the priory of Dunmow, and required a gammon of bacon; and he was sworn before Roger Bulcott, then prior of the place and the convent, and also before a multitude of other neighbours, and there was delivered to him a gammon of bacon.
Anno 2 Hen. VIII. 1510, Thomas le Fuller of Cogshall, in the county of Essex, came to the priory of Dunmow, and on the 8th day of September, being Sunday, in the 2d year of king Henry VIII. according to the form of the charter, was sworn before John Tils, then Prior of the house and the convent, and also before a multitude of neighbours, and there was delivered to him, the said Thomas, a gammon of bacon.
“Hereby it appeareth,” Dugdale says, “that it was according to a charter, or donation, given by some conceited benefactor to the house; and it is not to be doubted, but that at such a time, the bordering towns and villages resorted, and were partakers of their pastimes, and laughed to scorne the poore man’s pains
In a letter from F. D. to “Mr. Urban,” Shakeshaft, alias Shakeshank, is called the ancient woolcomber of Weathersfield, and a copy of the register of the form and ceremony, observed fifty years before, is communicated as follows:—
Extract from the Court Roll.
“Dunmow, Nuper Priorat.
At a court baron of the right worshipful Sir Thomas May, knt. there holden upon Friday the 7th day of June, in the 13th year of the reign of our sovereign lord William III. by the grace of God, &c. and in the year of our lord 1701, before Thomas Wheeler, gent. steward of the said manor, it is thus enrolled:
| Homage. | { | Elizabeth Beaumont, Spinster | } | Jurat. |
| Henrietta Beaumont, Spinster | ||||
| Annabella Beaumont, Spinster | ||||
| Jane Beaumont, Spinster | ||||
| Mary Wheeler, Spinster |
“Be it remember’d, that at this court, in full and open court, it is found, and presented by the homage aforesaid, that William Parsley, of Much Easton in the county of Essex, butcher, and Jane his wife, have been married for the space of three years last past, and upward; and it is likewise found, presented, and adjudged, by the homage aforesaid, that the said William Parsley, and Jane his wife, by means of their quiet, peaceable, tender, and loving cohabitation, for the space of time aforesaid, (as appears by the said homage) are fit and qualify’d persons to be admitted by the court to receive the antient and accustom’d oath, whereby to entitle themselves to have the bacon of Dunmow delivered unto them, according to the custom of the manor.
“Whereupon, at this court, in full and open court, came the said William Parsley, and Jane his wife, in their proper persons, and humbly prayed, they might be admitted to take the oath aforesaid; whereupon the said steward, with the jury, suitors, and other officers of the court, proceeded, with the usual solemnity, to the antient and accustomed place for the administration of the oath, and receiving the gammon aforesaid, (that is to say) the two great stones lying near the church door, within the said manor, where the said William Parsley, and Jane his wife, kneeling down on the said two stones, and the said steward did administer unto them the above-mentioned oath in these words, or to this effect following, viz.
That you ne’er made nuptial transgression,
Nor since you were married man and wife,
By houshold brawls, or contentious strife,
Or otherwise, in bed or at board,
Offended each other in deed or in word;
Or in a twelvemonth’s time and a day,
Repented not in thought any way;
Or since the church clerk said Amen,
Wished yourselves unmarried again,
But continued true, and in desire
As when you joyned hands in holy quire.
“And immediately thereupon, the said William Parsley, and Jane his wife, claiming the said gammon of bacon, the court pronounced the sentence for the same, in these words, or to the effect following—
Of your own accord you do freely swear,
A whole gammon of bacon you do receive,
And bear it away with love and good leave,
For this is the custom of Dunmow well known;
Tho’ the pleasure be ours, the bacon’s your own.
“And accordingly a gammon of bacon was delivered unto the said William Parsley, and Jane his wife, with the usual solemnity.
“Examined per Thomas Wheeler, steward.”
The same day a gammon was delivered to Mr. Reynolds, steward to Sir Charles Barrington, of Hatfield Broad Oak.
The custom of this manor is commemorated “in this old distich” viz.
May lawfully goe to Dunmow and fetch a gammon of Bacon.
It is further mentioned in “Piers Plowman’s Vision,” and Chaucer refers to it in the following words:
That some men haue in Essex at Donmowe
Wife of Bath’s Prologue.
Custom of Whichnovre, Stapfords.
Bacon and Corn.
There is a similar usage, in the “Honor of Tutbury,” the whole whereof is here set forth in Dr. Plot’s words, viz.:
“I find that Sr. Philip de Somervile 10 of Edw. 3. held the Manors of Whichnovre, Scirescot, Ridware Netherton, and Cowlee, all in Com. Stafford of the Earles of Lancaster Lords of the Honor of Tutbury, by these memorable Services, viz. By two small fees, that is to say,
“When other Tenants pay for Reliefe one whole Knight’s fee, One hundred Shillings, he the said Sir Philip
“Bayliffe, or Porter, I doo you to knowe; that I am come for my self (or, if he be come for any other, shewing for whome) to demaunde one Bacon flyke, hanging in the Halle, of the Lord of Whichenovre, after the forme thereunto belongyng.
After which relacioun, the Baillyffe or Porter shall assign a day to him, upon promyse, by his feythe to retourne; and with him to bryng tweyne of his neighbours.
“And, in the meyn tyme, the said Bailliffe shall take with him tweyne of the Freeholders of the Lordship of Whichenovre; and they three, shall go to the Manoir of Rudlowe, belongynge to Robert Knyghtleye, and there shall somon the forseid Knyghteley or his Baillyffe; commanding him, to be redy at Whichenovre, the day appoynted, at pryme of the day, withe his Caryage; that is to say, a Horse and a Sadylle, a Sakke, and a Pryke, for to convey and carye the said Baconne, and Corne, a journey owtt of the Countee of Stafford, at hys costages. And then the sayd Baillyffe, shall, with the sayd Freeholders, somone all the Tenaunts of the said Manoir, to be ready at the day appoynted, at Whichenovre, for to doo and perform the services which they owe to the Baconne. And, at the day assign’d, all such as owe services to the Baconne, shall be ready at the Gatte of the Manoir off Whichenovre, frome the Sonnerysing to None, attendying and awatyn for the comyng for hym, that fetcheth the Baconne. And, when he is comyn, there shall be delivered to hym and hys felowys, Chapeletts; and to all those whiche shall be there; to do their services deue to the Baconne: And they shall lede the seid Demandant wythe Trompes and Sabours, and other maner of Mynstralseye, to the Halle-dore, where he shall fynde the Lord of Whichenovre, or his Steward, redy to deliver the Baconne, in this manere:—
“He shall enquere of hym, whiche demandeth the Baconne, yf he have brought tweyn of hys Neghbors with hym. Whiche must answere; They be here ready. And then the Steward shall cause thies two Neighbours to swere, yf the seyd Demandaunt be a weddyt man; or have be a man weddyt: and yf sythe his Marriage, one yere and a day be passed: and, yf he be a freeman, or a villeyn. And yf hys seid neghbours make Othe, that he hath for hym all thies three poynts rehersed; then shall the Baconne be take downe, and broghte to the Hall-dore; and shall there be layd upon one halfe a Quarter of Wheatte; & upon one other of Rye. And he that demandeth the Baconne shall kneel upon his knee; and shall hold his right hand upon a booke; which booke shall be layde above the Baconne, and the Corne; and shall make Othe, in this manere.
“Here ye, Sir Philippe de Somervile, Lord of Whichenovre, mayntener and gyver of this Baconne; That I A. sithe I Wedded B. my wife, and sythe I hadd hyr in my kepyng, and at my wylle, by a yere and a day, after our Mariage; I wold not have chaunged for none other; farer, ne fowler; rycher ne pourer; ne for none other descended of greater lynage; slepyng, ne waking, at noo tyme. And yf the seyd B. were sole, and I sole, I would take her to be my Wyfe, before alle the wymen of the worlde; of what condiciones soever they be; good or evylle, as helpe me God ond hys Seyntys; and this fleshe, and all fleshes.
“And hys neighbors shall make Othe,
“Moreover, the said Sir Philippe holdeth of his Lorde, th’ Erle, the Manoir of Briddleshalle, by thies services; that, att such tyme, that hys sayd Lorde holdeth hys Chrystemes at Tutbury, the seyd Sir Phelippe shall come to Tutbury, upon Chrystemasse Evyn; and shall be lodged yn the Town of Tutbury, by the Marshall of the Erlys house: and upon Chrystymesse-day, he himself, or some othyr Knyght (his Deputye) shall go to the Dressour; and shall serve to his Lordys meese: and then shall he kerve the same meet to hys sayd Lord: And thys service shall he doo aswell at Souper, as at Dynner: and when hys Lord hath etyn; the said Sir Philippe shall sit downe, in the same place, wheir hys Lord satt: and shalle be served att hys Table, by the Steward of th’ Erlys house. And, upon Seynt Stevyn-day, when he haith dyned, he shall take leve of hys Lorde, and shall kysse hym: and, for hys service he shall nothing take, ne nothing shall gyve. And all thyes services, tofore-rehersed, the seyd Sir Philippe hath doo, by the space of xlviii. yeres; and hys ancestors byfore hym, to hys Lordys, Erlys of Lancastre.
“Item, the said Sir Philippe holdeth of his seid Lord, th’Erle, his Manoirs of Tatenhull and Drycotte, en percenerye, by thies services; that the seid Sir Phelippe, or his Atturney for hym, shall come to the Castell of Tutburye, upon Seynt Petyr day, in August, which is called Lammesse; and shall shew the Steward, or Receiver, that he is come thither to hunt, and catch his Lord’s Greese, at the costages of hys Lorde. Whereupon the Steward or the Receiver shall cause a Horse and Sadylle to be deliveryd to the sayd Sir Phelippe, the price Fifty shillings; or Fifty shillings in money, and one Hound; and shall pay to the said Sir Phelippe, everyche day, fro the said day of Seynt Peter, to Holy Roode-day, for hymself Two shillings six pence a day; and everyche day for his servant, and his Bercelett, during the sayd time twelve pence. And all the Wood-masters of the Forest of Nedewode and Duffelde, withe alle the Parkers and Foresters, shall be commandyd to awatte, and attend upon the sayd Sir Phelippe, while theyre Lord’s Greese be takyn, in all places of the seyde Forestys, as upon their Master, during the said tyme. And the said Sir Phelippe, or his Attorny, shall deliver to the said Parkers, or Foresters, that shall belonge to their Lordys Lardere; commandyng them to convey itt to the Erlys Lardyner, abyding at Tutbury: and with the remenant, the seyd Sir Phelippe shall do hys plesoure. And, upon Holy-Rood-day the sayd Sir Phelippe shall returne to the Castell of Tutbury, upon the said Horse, with his Bercelet; and shall dyne with the Steward or Receyver: and after Dynner he shall delyver the Horse, Sadylle, and Bercelett to the Steward or Receyvour; and shall kysse the Porter and depart.”
Having here set forth these singular usages in the “Pea season,” it may not be amiss to add the following—
Receipt to make Somersetshire Bacon.
The best time is between September and Christmas. Procure a large wooden trough; lay the sides of the hog in the trough, and sprinkle them heavily with bay-salt; leave them twenty-four hours to drain away the blood, and other over-abounding juices. Then take them out, wipe them dry, and throw away the drainings. Take some fresh bay-salt, and heating it well in an iron frying-pan, (beware not to use copper or brass though ever so well tinned,) rub the meat till you are tired; do this four days successively, turning the meat every other day. If the hog is large, keep the sides in the brine (turning them ten times) for three weeks; then take them out, and dry them thoroughly in the usual manner.
Finally, remembering that the customs before stated relate to marriage, it occurs that there is the following
Receipt for a Good Match.
Take a scold and a blockhead—the match must be good.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 60·47.
June 21.
The Longest Day.
This day the sun enters the sign Cancer, and is then at his extreme distance north of the Equator, passing in the zenith over the heads of all the inhabitants situated on the tropical line; while to us, who reside in London, he appears at his greatest altitude, and hence arises the increased heat we experience from his rays.
To individuals within the Arctic circle the sun at this time does not set.
Cancer is the first of the summer signs, and when the sun enters it we have our longest day. According to Sir William Jones, “the Hindu Asbrono mer Varaha lived when the solstices were in the first degrees of Cancer and Capricorn.” It is now above 2000 years since the solstices thus coincided, and, at present, the sign Cancer begins near the two stars which form the upper foot in the constellation Gemini, and terminates about the fourth degree within the eastern boundary of the constellation Cancer. In the Zodiac of Dendera this sign is represented by a scarabÆus or beetle.
Fruits.
To the eye and palate of the imagination, this month and the next are richer than those which follow them; for now you can “have your fruit and eat it too;” which you cannot do then. In short, now the fruit blossoms are all gone, and the fruit is so fully set that nothing can hurt it; and what is better still, it is not yet stealable, either by boys, birds, or bees; so that you are as sure of it as one can be of any thing, the enjoyment of which is not actually past. Enjoy it now, then, while you may; in order that, when in the autumn it disappears, on the eve of the very day you had destined for the gathering of it (as every body’s fruit does), you alone may feel that you can afford to lose it. Every heir who is worthy to enjoy the estate that is left to him in reversion, does enjoy it whether it ever comes to him or not.
On looking more closely at the Fruit, we shall find that the Strawberries, which lately (like bold and beautiful children) held out their blossoms into the open sunshine, that all the world might see them, now, that their fruit is about to reach maturity, hide it carefully beneath their low-lying leaves, as conscious virgins do their maturing beauties;—that the Gooseberries and Currants have attained their full growth, and the latter are turning ripe;—that the Wall-fruit is just getting large enough to be seen among the leaves without looking for;—that the Cherries are peeping out in white or “cherry-cheeked” clusters all along their straight branches;—and that the other standards, the Apples, Pears, and Plums, are more or less forward, according to their kinds.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 59·49.
The Longest Day.
For the Every-Day Book.
By Venus nursed till morn,—
The light unrolls thy golden life
And thou art sweetly born.
Of heat, and air, and strain!
Millions rejoice and millions die
Within thy halcyon reign.
’Twas yesterday the same:—
To-morrow! thou wilt join the dead,
And only live by name—
To Hope’s eternal shore:
The sun departs—Thou, Longest Day—
Thou wilt be seen no more!
Thou Parr of Time—Farewell!
St. Thomas, shortest of thy race,
Shall ring thine annual knell.
J. R. Prior.
Young Birds.
The following letter is to be considered as addressed to the reader, rather than the editor, who, as yet, is not even a tyro in the art wherein his respected correspondent has evidently attained proficiency. Indeed the communication ought to have been inserted in May. If its agreeable writer, and his good-natured readers, can excuse the omission, the birds and the editor will be equally obliged.
The Rearing and Treatment of Young Birds.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Or by the hedge-rows green, the fowler strays,
Seeking the infant bird.
Sir,—As the time has arrived for taking the young from the feathered tribe, it may not be amiss to say a few words by way of advice to the uninitiated, concerning the rearing, and training of these amusing creatures, who repay our cares with their rich melody.
We may now get Chaffinches, Goldfinches, Linnets, Larks, &c. in the streets, or at the different shops at a very small expense, either singly, or by the nest, according to their ages, but I should recommend all who wish to purchase young birds to go to a regular dealer, who sell them quite as cheap, and warrant them cocks. Buy them when they begin to feed themselves—or, if younger, when you have them home, put them in a cage, rather roomy:—then for Linnets, Goldfinches, or Chaffinches, mix rape-seed, bruised, and bread, steeped in boiling water—with which, when cooled, you may feed them, putting it into their mouths from the end of a stick, about every two hours; water they will not require, the food being sufficiently moist for them. When you find them peck at the stick, and take their food eagerly from it, which they will do at about a fortnight old, place some food about the cage with clean dry gravel, scattering among it some dry seed bruised; they will pick it up, and so be weaned off the moist food, which is no longer proper for them—also place water in the pot. This, as regards their feeding, is all you have to do, while they remain healthy—if sick, you must treat them according to the nature of their complaint. I think their sickness at this early stage of their existence is either caused by cold, or by the oily nature of their food, it being too strong for their stomachs; to remedy this, mix a little of the fine gravel with it, this will help their digestion. Sometimes the seed will scour them, in that case, boiled milk, or rust of iron put into their water is a remedy. So much as concerns the hard-billed tribe.
If your fancy runs on soft-billed birds, such as the skylark, woodlark, nightingale, or robin, you must feed them with egg, and bread moistened with water; or beef, raw or cooked; changing it as they grow and begin to feed themselves, to dry egg chopped small, and crumbled bread; throwing in with it German paste, until you find them contented with the latter. All these birds will live healthy, and sing stout, on this food, except the nightingale; he must have beef and egg. The remedy for sickness and scouring is as before; if the paste binds them, give them raw beef, or chopped fig; the latter is good for all birds, keeping them in beautiful feather, and cool in body. When a month old, cage them off in their proper cages.
Give your captives good food, and clear water; keep their dwellings free from vermin, which you may always do
Squirt a mouthful of water over your birds now and then, it will do them good; this will much assist them in their moulting, and make them throw their feathers faster, particularly larks, nightingales, and robins. The latter may have their water-pans to fix inside the cage, so that they can dabble in them, when they like; this will save the trouble of taking them out to clean their feet. Larks must be taken out once a week, or their claws will become clogged with dirt, and rot off. The cleaning their feet is but very little trouble; dip them in warm water, and rub the dirt gently off with your thumb and finger. As these innocent creatures delight you with the beauty of their feathers, and sweetness of their song, too much cannot be done for their comfort.
Hoping this little dissertation (if I may so call it) will be useful,
I am, &c.
S.R.J.
I conclude with the following
Sonnet
On hearing a Thrush singing in the rain.
Mellow’d by distance, comes upon the ear,
Tho’ gather’d clouds have made the heavens drear,
And the rain hisses in the hazel bush,
Wherein he warbles with a voice as clear
As if blue skies were over, and he near
The one that lov’d him—sweet, yet sad to hear!
For it remindeth me of one I’ve heard,
Singing to other ears, herself unseen,
In her own bower, like that delightful bird,
While yet her bosom’s hopes were fresh and green,
One, whom I heard again in after years,
When sorrow smote her,—singing midst her tears.
S. R. J.
May, 1826.
The editor has often wished, for the sake of feathered posterity, that he could ensure their liberty; but he can no more do that, than persuade those who think they have “vested rights” in the bodies of certain of the airy race, to open their cages and “set the prisoners free.” It is in his power, however, to assist a little in ameliorating their condition, by urging re-perusal and strict attention to the preceding letter. He is himself particularly struck with the direction, “squirt a mouthful of water over your birds now and then—it will do them good.” He ventures with becoming diffidence to suggest, whether to syringe a little may not be as beneficial as to “squirt a mouthful.” This is the only exception he dares to hint, and it is to be marked as a qualified one, and, under a sense of inexperience, made “at a hazard.” But he agrees that “a nightingale,”—a caged nightingale, alas!—“must have beef and egg;” and “that larks must be taken out once a week”; and—he may be wrong—if they fly away, so much the better. He is strongly of opinion that birds are like himself—they cannot “bear confinement,” and be happy.
June 22.
1826. General Election.
Parliament having existed to its utmost legal duration, the electors exercised, or withheld the exercise of their franchise, according to their individual wishes or hopes, desires or fears, intelligence or ignorance; or as feelings of independence directed, or influence over weakness misdirected. Contests were as numerous and fierce as usual; and, as might have been expected, in some places, the numerical state of the poll-books intimated more of intellectual enlargement than the final results. No new arguments or means were resorted to. The following paragraph is only inserted as an instance, that to buy as cheap, and sell as dear as possible, as a principle of trade, was not thoroughly lost sight of by dealers.
Price of Provisions during Elections.
During the election at Sudbury, four cabbages sold for 10l., and a plate of gooseberries fetched 25l.; the sellers, where these articles were so dear, being voters. At Great Marlow, on the contrary, things were cheap, and an elector during the election bought a sow and nine young pigs for a penny.
Election for Garrett.
The “County History” says, that the Hamlet of Garrett is in the road from Wandsworth to Tooting. About two centuries ago it appears to have been a single house called the Garvett. In it was the mansion-house of the Brodrick family, pulled down about fifty years ago; the ground is let to a market gardener; part of the garden wall remains. Garrett now contains about fifty houses, amongst which are some considerable manufactures. This used to be for many years the scene of a mock election, and much indecency on the meeting of every new parliament, when several characters in low life appeared as candidates, being furnished with fine clothes and gay equipages by the publicans, who made a good harvest. The last of these, known by the name of Sir Harry Dimsdale, was a deformed dwarf, little better than an idiot, who used to cry muffins in the streets about St. Ann’s, Soho, and died about 1809. It has been dropped at the two last general elections; but the memory of it will be preserved by Foote’s diverting farce of “The Mayor of Garrett.”—There are three prints displaying the proceedings on occasion of this election.
Since the preceding statement, which is almost in the words of Lysons, Garrett has been increased, and may be said, in 1826, to contain double the number of houses. Lysons and Bray call it a “hamlet;” and this denomination, if taken to mean “a small village,” is applicable to this place.
For particulars concerning the “Mock Election,” with a view to insertion in the Every Day-Book, Garrett itself has been visited, and persons seen there, and in the neighbourhood, who took part in the proceedings, and well remember them. Their statements of this public burlesque will be laid before the reader presently.
As a preliminary, it may be remarked that in the election for Garrett, there was a whimsical assumption of office, and an arbitrary creation of officers and characters unknown in the elections of other boroughs. In particular, there was a “Master of the Horse.” The person so dignified at its latter elections was pointed out as the oldest individual in Wandsworth, who had figured in the “solemn mockery,” and as, therefore, most likely to furnish information, from “reminiscences” of his “ancient dignity.” He was described as “Old Jack Jones the sawyer;” and it was added, “You’ll find him by the water side; turn down by the church; he is lame and walks with a crutch; any body’ll tell you of him; he lives in a cottage by the bridge; if you don’t find him at home, he is most likely at the Plume of Feathers, or just in the neighbourhood; you’ll be sure to know him if you meet him—he is a thorough oddity, and can tell all about the Garrett Election.” The “Plume” was resorted to, and “old Jack Jones” obligingly sought by Mr. Attree the landlord, who for that purpose peregrinated the town; and the “Master of the Horse” made his entry into the parlour with as much alacrity as his wooden assistants helped him to. It was “the accustomed place,” wherein he had told his story “many a time and oft;” and having heard, “up town” that there was “somebody quite curious about the Garrett Election,” he was dragging his “slow length along,” when “mine host of the Feathers” met him on the way.
John Jones may be described as “one of the has beens.” In his day he was tall of stature, stout of body, and had done as much work as any man of his time—when he was at it. But, then, he had overstrained himself, and for some years past had not been able to do a stroke of work; and he had seen a deal of “ran-dan,” and a racketty life had racketted his frame, and
Had written strange defeatures on his brow.”
After the first civilities, and after he had deposited his crutch and stick by the side of a chair, and himself in an adjoining one, and after the glowing
John Jones’s topic was not a dry one, nor was John Jones dry, but in the commencement he had “preferred a little porter to any thing else in the world,” except, and afterwards accepted, “a drop of something by itself;” and, by degrees, he became communicative of all he could recollect. In the course of the present article his information will be embodied, with other memoranda, towards a history of the elections of the “borough of Garrett.”
Had an artist been present at the conversation, he might have caught the features of the “Ex-master of the Horse,” when they were heightened by his subject to a humorous expression. He was by no means unwilling to “have his head taken off;” but he deemed the “execution” an affair of so much importance as to solemnize his features from their wonted hilarity while speaking, to the funereal appearance which the writer has depicted, and the engraver perpetuated, in the following representation:—
John Jones, of Wandsworth,
MASTER OF THE HORSE AT THE LAST ELECTIONS FOR GARRETT.
As a memorial of a remarkable living character, this portrait may be acceptable; he is the only person alive at Wandsworth, of any distinction in the popular elections of its neighbourhood.
The following interesting account respecting Garrett is in “A Morning’s Walk to Kew”—
By Sir Richard Phillips.
Wandsworth having been the once-famed scene of those humorous popular
Southward of Wandsworth, a road extends nearly two miles to the village of Lower Tooting, and nearly midway are a few houses, or hamlet, by the side of a small common, called Garrat, from which the road itself is called Garrat Lane. Various encroachments on this common led to an association of the neighbours about three-score years since, when they chose a president, or mayor, to protect their rights; and the time of their first election being the period of a new parliament, it was agreed that the mayor should be re-chosen after every general election. Some facetious members of the club gave, in a few years, local notoriety to this election; and, when party spirit ran high in the days of Wilkes and Liberty, it was easy to create an appetite for a burlesque election among the lower orders of the Metropolis. The publicans at Wandsworth, Tooting, Battersea, Clapham, and Vauxhall, made a purse to give it character; and Mr. Foote rendered its interest universal, by calling one of his inimitable farces, “the Mayor of Garrat.” I have indeed been told, that Foote, Garrick, and Wilkes, wrote some of the candidates’ addresses, for the purpose of instructing the people in the corruptions which attend elections to the legislature, and of producing those reforms by means of ridicule and shame, which are vainly expected from solemn appeals of argument and patriotism.
Not being able to find the members for Garrat in Beatson’s Political Index, or in any of the Court Calendars, I am obliged to depend on tradition for information in regard to the early history of this famous borough. The first mayor of whom I could hear was called Sir John Harper. He filled the seat during two parliaments, and was, it appears, a man of wit, for, on a dead cat being thrown at him on the hustings, and a bystander exclaiming that it stunk worse than a fox, Sir John vociferated, “that’s no wonder, for you see it’s a poll-cat.” This noted baronet was, in the metropolis, a retailer of brick-dust; and, his Garrat honours being supposed to be a means of improving his trade and the condition of his ass, many characters in similar occupations were led to aspire to the same distinctions.
He was succeeded by Sir Jeffery Dunstan, who was returned for three parliaments, and was the most popular candidate that ever appeared on the Garrat hustings. His occupation was that of buying OLD WIGS, once an article of trade like that in old clothes, but become obsolete since the full-bottomed and full-dressed wigs of both sexes went out of fashion. Sir Jeffery usually carried his wig-bag over his shoulder, and, to avoid the charge of vagrancy, vociferated, as he passed along the street, “old wigs;” but, having a person like Esop, and a countenance and manner marked by irresistible humour, he never appeared without a train of boys, and curious persons, whom he entertained by his sallies of wit, shrewd sayings, and smart repartees; and from whom, without begging, he collected sufficient to maintain his dignity of mayor and knight. He was no respecter of persons, and was so severe in his jokes on the corruptions and compromises of power, that this street-jester, was prosecuted for using what were then called seditious expressions; and, as a caricature on the times, which ought never to be forgotten, he was in 1793 tried, convicted, and imprisoned! In consequence of this affair, and some charges of dishonesty, he lost his popularity, and, at the general election for 1796, was ousted by Sir Harry Dimsdale, muffin-seller, a man as much deformed as himself. Sir Jeffery could not long survive his fall; but, in death as in life, he proved a satire on the vices of the proud, for in 1797 he died, like Alexander the Great, and many other heroes renowned in the historic page—of suffocation from excessive drinking!
Sir Harry Dimsdale dying also before the next general election, and no candidate starting of sufficient originality of character, and, what was still more fatal, the victuallers having failed to raise a PUBLIC PURSE, which was as stimulating a bait to the independent candidates for Garrat, as it is to the independent candidates for a certain assembly; the borough of Garrat has since remained vacant, and the populace have been without a professed political buffoon.
None but those who have seen a London
Before relating certain amusing facts which have never before appeared in print, or giving further particulars respecting Sir Jeffery Dunstan and Sir Henry Dimsdale, it seems fitting to add from the “Gentleman’s Magazine” of 1781, as follows:—
“Wednesday June 25, the septennial mock election for Garrat was held this day; and upwards of 50,000 people were, on that ludicrous occasion, assembled at Wandsworth.”
In the same volume there is an article which, as it is the only other notice in that useful miscellany concerning this celebrated usage, and as there is not any notice of it in other magazines of the time, is here annexed.
July, 25.
Mr. Urban.—The learned antiquary finds a pleasure in tracing the origin of ancient customs, even when time has so altered them as totally to obliterate their use. It may therefore not be unpleasing to the generality of your readers, while it is yet recent in memory, to record in your Magazine the laudable motive that gave rise to the farcical custom of electing a Mayor of Garrat, which is now become truly ridiculous.
I have been told, that about thirty years ago, several persons who lived near that part of Wandsworth which adjoins to Garrat Lane, had formed a kind of club, not merely to eat and drink, but to concert measures for removing the encroachments made on that part of the common, and to prevent any others being made for the future. As the members were most of them persons in low circumstances, they agreed at every meeting to contribute some small matter, in order to make up a purse for the defence of their collective rights. When a sufficient sum of money was subscribed, they applied to a very worthy attorney in that neighbourhood, who brought an action against the encroachers in the name of the president (or, as they called him, the MAYOR) of the club. They gained their suit with costs; the encroachments were destroyed; and ever after, the president, who lived many years, was called “The Mayor of Garrat.”
This event happening at the time of a general election, the ceremony upon every new parliament, of choosing outdoor members for the borough of Garrat, has been constantly kept up, and is still continued, to the great emolument of all the publicans at Wandsworth, who annually subscribe to all incidental expenses attending this mock election.
M. G.
The late eminent antiquary, Dr. Ducarel, made inquiries respecting this custom of the late Mr. W. Massey of Wandsworth, who answered them in the following letter:—
Wandsworth, June 25, 1754.
Dr. Ducarel.—I promised to give you an account of the mock election for Garrat, a district within the compass of the parish of Wandsworth. I have been informed, that about 60 or 70 years ago, some watermen, belonging to this town, went to the Leather Bottle, a public house at Garrat, to spend a merry day, which, being the time of a general election for members of Parliament, in the midst of their frolick they took it into their heads to chuse one of their company a representative for that place; and, having gone through the usual ceremonies of an election, as well as the occasion would permit, he was declared duly elected. Whether the whimsical custom of swearing the electors upon a brick-bat, ‘quod rem cum aliqua muliere, intra limites istius pagi, habuissent,’ was then first established, or that it was a waggish after-thought, I cannot determine, but it has been regarded as the due qualification of the electors for many elections last past.
This local usage, from that small beginning,
I have herewith sent you copies of some of the hand-bills of the candidates, that were printed and plentifully dispersed (in imitation of the grand monde) before the election came on, by which you may judge of the humour in which the other parts of it were conducted. Their pseudo-titles, as you will observe, are Lord Twankum, Squire Blow-me-down, and Squire Gubbins. Lord Twankum’s right name is John Gardiner, and is grave-digger to this parish; Blow-me-down is —— Willis, a waterman; and Squire Gubbins, whose name is —— Simmonds, keeps a publichouse, the sign of the Gubbins’ Head, in Blackman-street, Southwark.
Some time hence, perhaps, also it may be a matter of inquiry what is meant by the Gubbins’ Head. This Simmonds formerly lived at Wandsworth, and went from hence to keep a public-house in Blackman-street; he being a droll companion in what is called low-life, several of his old acquaintance of this town used to call at his house, when they were in London, to drink a pot or two; and, as he generally had some cold provisions (which by a cant name he usually called “his gubbins”), he made them welcome to such as he had, from whence he obtained that name; and putting up a man’s head for the sign, it was called the “Gubbins’ Head.” A hundred years hence, perhaps, if some knowledge of the occasion of the name of this sign should not be preserved in writing, our future antiquaries might puzzle themselves to find out the meaning of it. I make no question, but that we have many elaborate dissertations upon antique subjects, whose originals, being obscure or whimsy, like this, were never truly discovered. This leads me to the commendation of the utility of your design in recording singular accidents and odd usages, the causes and origin of which might otherwise be lost in a long tract of time.
Garrett Election, 1826.
It seems to be the desire of certain admirers of certain popular customs to get up another burlesque election for Garrett; the last was thirty years ago.
The following is a copy of a Notice, now executing (June 23, 1826) at a sign-painters, on a board ten feet high, for the purpose of being publicly exhibited. It need scarcely be observed that the commencing word of this very singular composition, which ought to be Oyez, is improperly spelt and divided, and “yes” is unaccountably placed between three inverted commas; the transcript is verbatim, and is arranged in this column as the original is on the signboard.
O ‘‘‘Yes’’’
NOTICE
That on Thursday
6th July, 1826
In conformity of
THE HIGH
AUTHORITIES,
Of the United
KINGDOM
will assemble
THROUGHOUT
the EMPIRE
and particularly
at the Hustings at
GARRAT,
to whit, conformable
to the Custom
Of our Ancient
LIBERTY.
SIR JOHN
PAUL PRY,
now offers himself
to a Generous
PUBLIC
GOD SAVE THE
KING
The last representative of Garrett was a “remarkable character” in the streets of the metropolis for many years. His ordinary costume was very different from
Sir Jeffery Dunstan, M. P. for Garrett,
COSMOPOLITE, AND MUFFIN-SELLER.
The individual who figured as conspicuously as the most conspicuous, and who may be regarded as the last really humorous candidate at this election was
Sir Jeffery Dunstan, M. P. for Garrett,
AND ITINERANT DEALER IN OLD WIGS.
The kind of oratory and the nature of the argument employed by the candidates in their addresses to their constituents, can scarcely be better exemplified than by the following
Speech of Sir Jeffery Dunstan.
My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen,
A landed property being the only unexceptionable qualification that entitles me to a seat in the august parliament of Great Britain, I presume my estate in the Isle of Mud will, in point of propriety, secure to me your votes and interests, to represent you in the ensuing parliament.
Ladies and gem’men, I propose, for the good of mankind, to anticipate a few promises like other great men, but which I will strictly adhere to, that is, as long as I find it’s my interest so to do.
First, in regard to his Majesty’s want of money, I am determined to make him easy on that point—(Lord bless him!)—by abolishing the use of it entirely, and reducing the price of gold, it being the worst canker to the soul of man; and the only expedient I can think of to prevent bribery and corruption, an evil which all the great big wigs of Westminster cannot prevent, notwithstanding all their gravity and knowledge, as the late proceedings against governor Green Peas can fully testify.
Next, as my worthy constituents may be assured, I shall use all my honest endeavours to get a majority in the house. I shall always take the popular side of the question; and to do all I can to oblige that jewel of a man, Sugar-Plumb Billy, I shall assist him in paying off the national debt, without wetting a sponge. My scheme for this, ladies and gem’men, is to unmarry all those who choose it, on such terms as the minister shall think fit. This being a glorious opportunity for women of spirit to exert themselves, and regain their long lost empire over their husbands, I hope they will use all their coaxing arts to get me elected in their husband’s place; and this will greatly increase the influence of the crown, and vastly lower India bonds.
As I detest the idea of a placeman, I pledge myself not to accept of anything less than the government of Duck Island, or the bishoprick of Durham, for I am very fond of a clean shirt, and lawn sleeves, I think, look well; besides, the sine qua non is the thing I aim at, like other great men. The India Company, too, I will convey from Leadenhall-street to Westminster, and, according to my own wig principles, I will create all the directors’ and nabobs’ titles, and, besides, show them how to get what they have been long aiming at—the way to Botany Bay. I shall likewise prove the Excise Office to be the greatest smuggle in the nation, for they smuggled the ground from the public on which their office stands, and for which I shall conjure up Old Gresham’s ghost, to read them a lecture upon thieving.
Like the great men, I pledge my honour, life, and fortune, that I will remove all heavy taxes, and by a glorious scheme, contrived by me and my friend Lord George Gordon, I shall, by a philosophical, aristocratical thermometer, or such-like hydraulics, discover the longitude among the Jews of Duke’s Place, and the secret of Masonry.
City honours I never courted, nor would I give an old wig to be drawn in idle state through Cheapside’s foggy air on a 9th of November.—No, I would rather sit by the side of my great friend Mr. Fox, in the Duke of Devonshire’s coach, and make another coalition, or go with him to India, and be a governor’s great man; for,
Was always Jeffery Dunstan’s fate.
Though my Lord George has turned Jew, and wears a broom about his chin
Sir Jeffery Dunstan, M.P.
Exparte Dimsdale, Bart.
“Two single Gentlemen roll’d into one.”
TAKE NOTICE.
Whereas, on or upon the last page but one of the last sheet, that is to say, columns 829 and 830 of the Every-Day Book, there are two whole length portraits, each whereof is subscribed, or inscribed beneath, with one name.
And whereas each, and both, is and are, thereby, that is to say, by the said one name, called, or purported to be called, “Sir Jeffery Dunstan, M.P. for Garrett, &c.”
And whereas the said two engravings are portraits of two several, separate, and distinct individuals.
And whereas it is hereby declared to be true and certain, and not to be gainsayed or denied, that two neither are, nor is, nor can be, one.
Therefore, All whom it may concern are hereby intended, and required to be instructed, and informed thereof.
And further, that the first, or top, or uppermost portrait, although subscribed “Sir Jeffery Dunstan, &c.” is to be seen, taken, and received, as and for the true and faithful likeness of sir Harry Dimsdale, Bart. M.P. for Garrett, and for no or none other.
And furthermore, that the second, or last portrait is, in truth, a like true, and faithful likeness of sir Jeffery Dunstan, as is there truly stated:
And more, furthermore, that the misnomer, as to the said Sir Harry Dimsdale, was unpurposed and accidentally made and written by the undersigned, and overseen by the overseer, when the same was set up or composed in type by the compositor; and that he, the said compositor, was bound in duty not to think, but unthinkingly, and without thought, to do as he did, that is to say, follow his copy, and not think:
And lastly, that the last portrait, subscribed “Sir Jeffery Dunstan,” is rightly and truly so subscribed:
Wherefore, the portrait of the “cosmopolite and muffin seller,” was, and is, only, and alone, and no other, than the just and faithful likeness of sir Harry Dimsdale, according, and notwithstanding as aforesaid.
And therefore, the well-disposed are enjoined and required to dele, or strike out, the misnomer thereof, or thereto affixed, and in tender consideration of the premises to forget and forgive the same, which proceeded wholly, solely, entirely, and unhappily from
A. B.
June 28, 1826.
Attestation, &c.
This is to certify, that so much of the above contents as are within my knowledge, and the whole thereof, according to my full and perfect belief, is, and are, strictly and entirely true: And that the signature thereto subjoined is true and honest, in manner and form following, to wit,—the letter “A” is, of itself alone, what it purports to be, that is to say, “A,” by itself, “A;” And the letter “B,” in alphabetical order, is, also in nominal order, the literal beginning, or initial, of the real name, which is, or ought, or is meant to be attached thereto, namely—“Blunder:” And that the said “Blunder” is altogether honest, and much to be pitied; and is known so to be, by every one as well acquainted with the said “Blunder,” and the rest of the family, as myself.—
The Printer.
Mock Election at Garrett,
25th of June, 1781.
This is the burlesque election referred to at column 825, when “upwards of 50,000 people were, on that ludicrous occasion, assembled at Wandsworth.”
That notice, with the interesting letter concerning the origin of this popular custom, from Mr. Massey to Dr. Ducarel, on column 826, was inserted with other particulars, in the last sheet, for the purpose of inciting attention to the subject and under an expectation that the request there urged, for further information, might be further complied with. The hope has been realized to a certain extent, and there will now be placed before the reader the communications of correspondents, and whatever has been obtained from personal intercourse with those who remember the old elections for Garrett.
To mention the earliest within remembrance, it is proper to say that this public burlesque was conducted in 1777 with great spirit; sir John Harper was then elected, and a man in armour rode in that procession. The name of this champion was “Jem Anderson,” a breeches-maker of Wandsworth, and a wonderful humorist.
At sir John Harper’s election, on the 25th of June, 1781, he had six rivals to contend with. A printed bill now before the editor, sets forth their titles and qualifications in the following manner:—
“THE GARRATT ELECTION.
“The Possessions and Characters of the Seven Candidates that put up for that Great and Important Office, called
THE MAYOR OF GARRETT.
“Sir Jeffery Dunstan, sir William Blase, sir Christopher Dashwood, sir John Harper, sir William Swallowtail, sir John Gnawpost, and sir Thomas Nameless.
“On Wednesday, the 25th instant, being the day appointed for the Garrat election, the candidates proceeded from different parts of London to Garrat-green, Wandsworth.
“Sir Jeffery Dunstan: he is a man of low stature, but very great in character and abilities; his principal view is to serve his king and country, his worthy friends and himself.
“The next gentleman that offered himself was sir William Blase, a man of great honour and reputation, and was of high rank in the army, serving his king and country near forty years, and had the honour to be a corporal in the city trainbands, the last rebellion.
“The third, admiral Dashwood, well known in the county of Surry, to many who has felt the weight of his hand on their shoulders, and shewing an execution in the other.
“Sir John Harper is a man of the greatest abilities and integrity, and his estate lies wherever he goes; his wants are supplied by the oil of his tongue, and is of the strictest honour: he made an oath against work when in his youth, and was never known to break it.
“Sir William Swallow-tail is an eminent merchant in the county of Surry, and supplies most of the gardeners with strawberry-baskets, and others to bring their fruit to market.
“Sir John Gnawpost is a man well known to the public; he carries his traffic under his left arm, and there is not a schoolboy in London or Westminster but what has had dealings with him:—His general cry is ‘twenty if you win, and five if you lose.’
“Sir Thomas Nameless,”—of reputation unmentionable.
Having thus described the candidates from the original printed “Hustings paper,” it is proper to state that its description of them is followed by a woodcut representing two figures—one, of sir Jeffery Dunstan, in the costume and attitude of his portrait given at column 830, but holding a pipe in his right hand, and one of another candidate, who, for want of a name to the figure, can scarcely be guessed at; he is in a court dress, with a star on the right breast of his coat, his right arm gracefully reposing in the pocket of his unmentionables, and his left hand holding a bag, which is thrown over his left shoulder.
Beneath that engraving is
“The speech of sir Jeffery Dunstan, Bart. delivered from the hustings.
“Gentlemen,
“I am heartily glad to see so great a number of my friends attend so early on the great and important business of this day. If I should be so happy as to be the object of your choice, you may depend on it that your great requests shall be my sole study both asleep and awake. I am determined to oppose lord N(ort)h in every measure he proposes; and that my electors shall have porter at threepence a pot; that bread shall be sold at four pence a quartern loaf, and corn be brought fairly to market, not stived up in granaries to be eat by rats and mice; and that neither Scotchmen or Irishmen shall have a seat in our parliament.
“Gentlemen, as I am not an orator or personable man, be assured I am an honest member. Having been abused in the public papers, I am resolved, if it cost me a thousand pounds, to take the free votes of the electors. It is true, it has cost me ten shillings for a coach, to raise which, I have pawned my cloathes; but that I regard not, since I am now in a situation to serve my king, whom I wish God to bless, also his precious queen, who, under the blessing of a king above, hath produced a progeny which has presaged a happy omen to this country.
“Gentlemen, I can assure you with the greatest truth, that the cloaths I have on are all my own, for the meanness of borrowing cloaths to appear before you, my worthy electors, I highly detest; and bribery and other meanness I abhor;—but
The above oration is headed by “This is my original speech;” below it is added as follows:—
“N. B. When sir John Harper’s man arrived on the hustings with flying colours, he began to insult sir Jeffery, who immediately made him walk six times round the hustings, ask his honour’s pardon, drop his colours and dismount.”
With this information the bill concludes.
A song printed at the time, but now so rare as not to be met with, further particularizes some of the candidates at this election. In the absence of an original copy, the parol evidence of “old John Jones of Wandsworth,” has been admitted as to certain verses which are here recorded accordingly.
Garrett Election Song, 1781.
Recited by the “ex-master of the horse,”
at the “Plume of Feathers,” Wandsworth,
on the 14th of June, 1826.
To see the sight what thousands run!
Sir William Blase, and all his crew,
Sure, it was a droll sight to view.
In Wandsworth town did there parade;
With his high cap and wooden sword
He look’d as noble as a lord!
In basket-coach, so neatly drest;
With hand-bells playing all the way,
For Swallowtail, my boys, huzza!
With drums and fifes did sweetly play;
He, in a boat, was drawn along,
Amongst a mighty gazing throng.
Behind the boat old Pluto steer’d;
The Andrew, riding by his side,
Across a horse, did nobly stride.
All in his carriage, and six bays,
With star upon his breast, so fine,
He did each candidate outshine.
He bow’d to all in gallant strain,
The speech he made was smart and cute,
And did each candidate confute.
The droll sir William acted well;
And when they came to Garrett green,
Sure what laughing there was seen!
And every thing honest and fair,
For surely Garrett is the place,
Where pleasure is, and no disgrace!
Sir William Swallowtail was one William Cock, a whimsical basket-maker of Brentford, who deeming it proper to have an equipage every way suitable to the honour he aspired to, built his own carriage, with his own hands, to his own taste. It was made of wicker, and drawn by four high hollow-backed horses; whereon were seated dwarfish boys, whimsically dressed for postilions. In allusion to the American war, two footmen rode before the carriage tarred and feathered, the coachman wore a wicker hat, and sir William himself, from the seat of his vehicle, maintained his mock dignity in grotesque array, amidst unbounded applause.
The song says, that sir William Swallowtail came “with hand-bells playing all the way,” and “old John Jones,” after he “rehearsed” the song, gave some account of the player on the hand-bells.
The hand-bell player was Thomas Cracknell, who, at that time, was a publican at Brentford, and kept the “Wilkes’s Head.” He had been a cow-boy in the service of lady Holderness; and after he took that public-house, he so raised its custom that it was a place of the first resort in Brentford “for man and horse.” With an eye to business, as well as a disposition to waggery, he played the hand-bells in support of sir William Swallowtail, as much for the good of the “Wilkes’s Head” as in honour of his neighbour Cock, the basket-maker, who, with his followers, had opened Cracknell’s house. Soon after the election he let the “Wilkes’s Head,” and receiving a handsome sum for good-will and coming-in, bound himself in a penalty of 20l. not to set up within ten miles of the spot. In the afternoon of the day he gave up possession, he went to his successor with the 20l. penalty, and informed him he had taken another house in the neighbourhood. It was the sign of the “Aaron and Driver,” two race-horses, of as great celebrity as the most favoured of the then Garrett candidates. Cracknell afterwards became a rectifier or distiller at Brentford.
Sir John Harper was by trade a weaver, and qualified, by power of face and
MOCK ELECTION FOR GARRETT.
Sir John Harper’s Election, 1781.
Such scenes as these, in days of yore,
When little folks deem’d great ones less,
And aped their manners and address;
When, further still to counterfeit,
To mountebanks they gave a seat,
By virtue of a mobbing summons,
As members of the House of Commons.
Through Garrett, then, a cavalcade,
A long procession, longer made.
For why, the way was not so wide
That horsemen, there, abreast, could ride,
As they had rode, when they came down,
In order due, to Wandsworth town;
And given also, many blows
In strife, the great “Sir John” arose
On high, in high phaeton, stood,
And pledged his last, best, drop of blood,
As sure as he was “Harper,” to
Undo all things that wouldn’t do,
And vow’d he’d do, as well as undo,
He’d do—in short, he’d do—what none do:
Although his speech, precisely, is
Unknown, yet here, concisely, is
Related all, which, sought with pains,
Is found to be the last remains,
Of all, at Garrett, done and said;
And more than elsewhere can be read.
The preceding engraving is from a large drawing, by Green, of a scene at this election in 1781, taken on the spot. Until now, this drawing has not been submitted to the public eye.
In the above accurate representation of the spot, the sign of the Leather Bottle in Garrett-lane is conspicuous. Its site at that time was different from that of the present public-house bearing that name.
It is further observable, that “Harper for ever” is inscribed on the phaeton of the mock candidate for the mock honours of the mock electors; and that the candidate himself is in the act of haranguing his worthy constituents, some of whose whimsical dresses will give a partial idea of the whimsical appearance of the assembled multitude. Every species of extravagant habiliment seems to have been resorted to. The little humourist in a large laced cocked hat, and his donkey in trappings, are particularly rich, and divide the attention of the people on foot with sir John Harper himself. The vender of a printed paper, in a large wig, leers round at him in merry glee. The sweeps, elevated on their bit of “come-up,” are attracted by the popular candidate, whose voice seems rivalled by the patient animal, from whose back they are cheering their favourite man.
In this election, we find the never-to-be-forgotten sir Jeffery Dunstan, who it is not right to pass without saying something more of him than that on this occasion he was a mere candidate, and unsuccessful. He succeeded afterwards to the seat he sought, and will be particularly noticed hereafter; until when, it would perhaps be more appropriate to defer what is about to be offered respecting him; but the distinguished favour of a communication from C. L. on such a subject, seems to require a distinguished place; his paper is therefore selected to prematurely herald the fame of the celebrated crier of “old wigs” in odd fashioned days, when wigs were a common and necessary addition to every person’s dress.
Reminiscence of Sir Jeffery Dunstan
By C. L.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
To your account of sir Jeffery Dunstan in columns 829-30 (where, by an unfortunate Erratum the effigies of two Sir Jefferys appear, when the uppermost figure is clearly meant for sir Harry Dimsdale) you may add, that the writer of this has frequently met him in his latter days, about 1790 or 1791, returning in an evening, after his long day’s itinerancy, to his domicile—a wretched shed in the most beggarly purlieu of Bethnal Green, a little on this side the Mile-end Turnpike. The lower figure in that leaf most correctly describes his then appearance, except that no graphic art can convey an idea of the general squalor of it, and of his bag (his constant concomitant) in particular. Whether it contained “old wigs” at that time I know not, but it seemed a fitter repository for bones snatched out of kennels, than for any part of a Gentleman’s dress even at second hand.
The Ex-member for Garrat was a melancholy instance of a great man whose popularity is worn out. He still carried his sack, but it seemed a part of his identity rather than an implement of his profession; a badge of past grandeur; could any thing have divested him of that, he would have shown a “poor
The life of humour, and the soul of whim,
Gallant and gay on Garrat’s hustings proud.
But it is thus that the world rewards its favourites in decay. What faults he had, I know not. I have heard something of a peccadillo or so. But some little deviation from the precise line of rectitude, might have been winked at in so tortuous and stigmatic a frame. Poor Sir Jeffery! it were well if some M. P.’s in earnest have passed their parliamentary existence with no more offences against integrity, than could be laid to thy charge! A fair dismissal was thy due, not so unkind a degradation; some little snug retreat, with a bit of green before thine eyes, and not a burial alive in the fetid beggaries of Bethnal. Thou wouldst have ended thy days in a manner more appropriate to thy pristine dignity, installed in munificent mockery (as in mock honours you had lived)—a Poor Knight of Windsor!
Every distinct place of public speaking demands an oratory peculiar to itself. The forensic fails within the walls of St. Stephen. Sir Jeffery was a living instance of this, for in the flower of his popularity an attempt was made to bring him out upon the stage (at which of the winter theatres I forget, but I well remember the anecdote) in the part of Doctor Last.
C. L.
The Garrett Oath.
Almost all that can be said of the oath of qualification, administered to the electors at the Garrett hustings, has been already said in the letter to Dr. Ducarel, on column 826. It was printed, and from one of these once manifold documents, which are now so rare as not to be attainable in a perfect state, the following title, &c. is copied literally.
“The
OATH
of
Qualification
for the
Ancient Borough of
GARRAT
According as it stands in the
Old Record handed down to us
By the
Grand Volgee
by order of the Great
CHIN KAW CHIPO
First Emperor of the Moon
Anno Mundi 75.
“That you have been admitted peaceably and quietly into possession of a Freehold—
****
[Here the original, referred to, is so defective as not to be copyable.]
****
——“within the said manor of Garrat; and that you did (bona fide) keep
****
“Sworn (coram nobis) at our
Great Hall on Garrat Green,
covered with the plenteous harvest
of the Goddess Ceres, and dedi-
cated to the Jovial God Comus.”
}
More than this it is not possible to give of the Garrett oath.
During a Garrett election all Wandsworth was in an uproar. It was the resort of people of all descriptions, and the publicans entertained them as conveniently as possible; yet, on one occasion, the influx of visiters was so immense that every ordinary beverage was exhausted, and water sold at twopence a glass.
By “old John Jones,” “the doings at Wandsworth” on the election day are described as “past description.”
Besides the “hustings” at Garrett, scaffoldings and booths were erected in Wandsworth at every open space: these were filled with spectators to the topmost rows, and boys climbed to the tops of the poles; flags and colours were hung across the road; and the place was crowded by a dense population full of activity and noise. For accommodation to view the humours of the day extraordinary prices were paid to the proveditors.
John Jones remembers “when Foote the player came to Wandsworth, to have a full view of all the goings on.” According to his account, the English Aristophanes “paid nine guineas for the fore room at surgeon Squire’s, facing the church, for himself and his friends to sit in and see the fun.” There was an immense scaffolding of spectators and mob-orators, at the corner by the churchyard, opposite the window where Foote and his companions were seated.
It has been already noticed, that Foote dramatised this mock election by his “Mayor of Garratt:” the first edition, printed in 1764, is called “a comedy in two acts; as it is performed at the theatre-royal in Drury-lane.” On turning to the “dramatis personÆ,” it will be found he performed Major Sturgeon himself, and, likewise, Matthew Mug in the same piece: Mrs. Clive playing Mrs. Sneak to Weston’s Jerry Sneak.
Foote’s “Mayor of Garratt” may be deemed an outline of the prevailing drollery and manners of the populace at Wandsworth: a scene or two here will be amusing and in place. This dramatist sketched so much from the life, that it is doubtful whether every marked character in his “comedy” had not its living original. It is certain, that he drew Major Sturgeon from old Justice Lamb, a fishmonger at Acton, and a petty trading justice, whose daughter was married by Major Fleming, a gentleman also “in the commission of the peace,” yet every way a more respectable man than his father-in-law.
Referring, then, to Foote’s “comedy,” sir Jacob Jollup, who has a house at Garratt, holds a dialogue with his man Roger concerning the company they expect—
Sir J. Are the candidates near upon coming?
Roger. Nic Goose, the tailor from Putney, they say, will be here in a crack, sir Jacob.
Sir J. Has Margery fetch’d in the linen?
Roger. Yes, sir Jacob.
Sir J. Are the pigs and the poultry lock’d up in the barn?
Roger. Safe, sir Jacob.
Sir J. And the plate and spoons in the pantry?
Roger. Yes, sir Jacob.
Sir J. Then give me the key; the mob will soon be upon us; and all is fish that comes to their net. Has Ralph laid the cloth in the hall?
Roger. Yes, sir Jacob.
Sir J. Then let him bring out the turkey and chine, and be sure there is plenty of mustard; and, d’ye hear, Roger, do you stand yourself at the gate, and be careful who you let in.
Roger. I will, sir Jacob.[exit.
Sir J. So, now I believe thing: are pretty secure.—
Mob. [Without.] Huzza!
Re-enter Roger.
Sir J. What’s the matter now, Roger?
Roger. The electors desire to know if
Sir J. By no means; let them be free in their choice: I shan’t interfere.
Roger. And if your worship has any objection to Crispin Heeltap, the cobler, being returning officer?
Sir J. None, provided the rascal can keep himself sober. Is he there?
Roger. Yes, sir Jacob. Make way there! stand further off from the gate: here is madam Sneak in a chaise along with her husband.
Sir Jacob has work enough on his hands with his relations, and other visiters, who have arrived to see the election from his mansion; he calls his “son Bruin” to come in;—“we are all seated at table man; we have but just time for a snack; the candidates are near upon coming.”
Then, in another scene,—
Enter Mob, with Heeltap at their head; some crying “a Goose,” others “a Mug,” others “a Primmer.”
Heel. Silence, there; silence!
1 Mob. Hear neighbour Heeltap.
2 Mob. Ay, ay, hear Crispin.
3 Mob. Ay, ay, hear him, hear Crispin: he will put us into the model of the thing at once.
Heel. Why then, silence! I say.
All. Silence.
Heel. Silence, and let us proceed, neighbours, with all the decency and confusion usual on these occasions.
1 Mob. Ay, ay, there is no doing without that.
All. No, no, no.
Heel. Silence then, and keep the peace; what! is there no respect paid to authority? Am not I the returning officer?
All. Ay, ay, ay.
Heel. Chosen by yourselves, and approved of by sir Jacob?
All. True, true.
Heel. Well then, be silent and civil; stand back there that gentleman without a shirt, and make room for your betters. Where’s Simon Snuffle the sexton?
Snuffle. Here.
Heel. Let him come forward; we appoint him our secretary: for Simon is a scollard, and can read written hand; and so let him be respected accordingly.
3 Mob. Room for master Snuffle.
Heel. Here, stand by me: and let us, neighbours, proceed to open the premunire of the thing: but first, your reverence to the lord of the manor: a long life and a merry one to our landlord, sir Jacob huzza!
Mob. Huzza!
Sneak. How fares it, honest Crispin?
Heel. Servant, master Sneak. Let us now open the premunire of the thing, which I shall do briefly, with all the loquacity possible; that is, in a medium way; which, that we may the better do it, let the secretary read the names of the candidates, and what they say for themselves; and then we shall know what to say of them. Master Snuffle, begin.
Snuffle. [Reads.] “To the worthy inhabitants of the ancient corporation of Garratt: gentlemen, your votes and interest are humbly requested in favour of Timothy Goose, to succeed your late worthy mayor, Mr. Richard Dripping, in the said office, he being”——
Heel. This Goose is but a kind of gosling, a sort of sneaking scoundrel. Who is he?
Snuffle. A journeyman tailor from Putney.
Heel. A journeyman tailor! A rascal, has he the impudence to transpire to be mayor? D’ye consider, neighbours, the weight of this office? Why, it is a burthen for the back of a porter; and can you think that this cross-legg’d cabbage-eating son of a cucumber, this whey-fac’d ninny, who is but the ninth part of a man, has strength to support it?
1 Mob. No Goose! no Goose!
2 Mob. A Goose!
Heel. Hold your hissing, and proceed to the next.
Snuffle. [Reads.] “Your votes are desired for Matthew Mug.”
1 Mob. A Mug! a Mug!
Heel. Oh, oh, what you are ready to have a touch of the tankard; but fair and soft, good neighbours, let us taste this master Mug before we swallow him; and, unless I am mistaken, you’ll find him a bitter draught.
1 Mob. A Mug! a Mug!
2 Mob. Hear him; hear master Heeltap.
1 Mob. A Mug! a Mug!
Heel. Harkye, you fellow with your mouth full of Mug, let me ask you a question: bring him forward. Pray is not this Matthew Mug a victualler?
3 Mob. I believe he may.
Heel. And lives at the sign of the Adam and Eve?
3 Mob. I believe he may.
Heel. Now, answer upon your honour
3 Mob. I don’t know.
Heel. You lie, sirrah: an’t it a groat?
3 Mob. I believe it may.
Heel. Oh, may be so. Now, neighbours, here’s a pretty rascal; this same Mug, because, d’ye see, state affairs would not jog glibly without laying a farthing a quart upon ale; this scoundrel, not contented to take things in a medium way, has had the impudence to raise it a penny.
Mob. No Mug! no Mug!
Heel. So, I thought I should crack Mr. Mug. Come, proceed to the next, Simon.
Snuffle. The next upon the list is Peter Primmer, the schoolmaster.
Heel. Ay, neighbours, and a sufficient man: let me tell you, master Primmer is a man for my money; a man of learning, that can lay down the law: why, adzooks, he is wise enough to puzzle the parson; and then, how you have heard him oration at the Adam and Eve of a Saturday night, about Russia and Prussia. ’Ecod, George Gage, the exciseman, is nothing at all to un.
4 Mob. A Primmer.
Heel. Ay, if the folks above did but know him. Why, lads, he will make us all statesmen in time.
2 Mob. Indeed!
Heel. Why, he swears as how all the miscarriages are owing to the great people’s not learning to read.
3 Mob. Indeed!
Heel. “For,” says Peter, says he, “if they would but once submit to be learned by me, there is no knowing to what a pitch the nation might rise.”
1 Mob. Ay, I wish they would.
Sneak. Crispin, what, is Peter Primmer a candidate?
Heel. He is, master Sneak.
Sneak. Lord I know him, mun, as well as my mother: why, I used to go to his lectures to Pewterers’-hall, ’long with deputy Firkin.
Heel. Like enough.
Mob. [Without.] Huzza!
Heel. Gad-so! the candidates are coming.[Exeunt Mob, &c.
Re-enter Sir Jacob Jollup, Bruin, and Mrs. Bruin, through the garden gate.
Sir J. Well, son Bruin, how d’ye relish the corporation of Garratt?
Bruin. Why, lookye, sir Jacob, my way is always to speak what I think; I don’t approve on’t at all.
Mrs. B. No?
Sir J. And what’s your objection?
Bruin. Why, I was never over fond of your May-games: besides corporations are too serious things; they are edgetools, sir Jacob.
Sir J. That they are frequently tools, I can readily grant: but I never heard much of their edge.
Afterwards we find the knight exclaiming—
Sir J. Hey-day! What, is the election over already?
Enter Crispin, Heeltap, &c.
Heel. Where is master Sneak!
Sneak. Here, Crispin.
Heel. The ancient corporation of Garratt, in consideration of your great parts and abilities, and out of respect to their landlord, sir Jacob, have unanimously chosen you mayor.
Sneak. Me? huzza! Good lord, who would have thought it? But how came master Primmer to lose it?
Heel. Why, Phil Fleam had told the electors, that master Primmer was an Irishman; and so they would none of them give their vote for a foreigner.
Sneak. So then I have it for certain.[Huzza!
ELECTION FOR GARRETT,
June 25, 1781.
Sir William and Lady Blase’s Equipage,
BETWEEN THE SPREAD EAGLE AND THE RAM AT WANDSWORTH, ON THE ROAD TO GARRETT.
This engraving is from another large unpublished drawing by Green, and is very curious. Being topographically correct, it represents the signs of the inns at Wandsworth as they then stood; the Spread Eagle carved on a pillar, and the Ram opposite painted and projecting. The opening, seen between the buildings on the Spread Eagle side, is the commencement of Garrett-lane, which runs from Wandsworth to Tooting, and includes the mock borough of Garrett.
This animated scene is full of character. The boat is drawn by horses, which could not be conspicuously represented here without omitting certain bipeds; it is in the act of turning up Garrett-lane. Its chief figure is “my lady Blase” dressed beyond the extreme, and into broad caricature of the fashion of the times. “I remember her very well,” says Mrs. ——, of Wandsworth, “and so I ought, for I had a good hand in the dressing of her. I helped to put together many a good pound
In Green’s drawing, here engraven in miniature, there is an excellent group, which from reduction the original has rendered almost too small to be noticed without thus pointing it out. It consists of a fellow, who appears more fond of his dog than of his own offspring; for, to give the animal as good a sight of lady Blase as he had himself, he seats him on his own shoulders, and is insensible to the entreaty of one of his children to occupy the dog’s place. His wife, with another child by her side, carries a third with its arms thrust into the sleeves of her husband’s coat, which the fellow has pulled off, and given her to take care of, without the least regard to its increase of her living burthen. Before them are dancing dogs, which have the steady regard of a “most thinking” personage in a large wig. Another wigged, or, rather, an over-wigged character, is the little crippled “dealer and chapman,” who is in evident fear of a vociferous dog, which is encouraged to alarm him by a mischievous urchin. The one-legged veteran, with a crutch and a glass in his hand, seems mightily to enjoy the two horsemen of the mop and broom. We see that printed addresses were posted, by an elector giving his unmixed attention to one of them pasted on the Ram sign-post. The Pierrot-dressed character, with spectacles and a guitar, on an ass led by a woman, is full of life; and the celebrated “Sam House,” the bald-headed publican of Westminster, with a pot in his hand, is here enjoying the burlesque of an election, almost as much, perhaps, as he did the real one in his own “city and liberties” the year before, when he distinguished himself, by his activity, in behalf of Mr. Fox, whose cause he always zealously supported by voice and fist.
The last Westminster election, wherein Sam House engaged, was in 1784, when on voting, and being asked his trade by the poll-clerk, he answered, “I am a publican and republican.” This memorable contest is described by the well-known colonel Hanger. He says:—
“The year I came to England the contested election for Westminster, (Fox, Hood, and Wray, candidates,) took place. The walking travellers, Spillard and Stewart; the Abyssinian Bruce, who feasted on steaks cut from the rump of a living ox; and various others, who, in their extensive travels, encountered wild beasts, serpents, and crocodiles; breakfasted and toasted muffins on the mouth of a Volcano; whom hunger compelled to banquet with joy on the leavings of a lion or tiger, or on the carcase of a dead alligator; who boast of smoking the pipe of peace with the little carpenter, and the mad dog; on having lived on terms of the strictest intimacy with the Cherokees, the Chickasaws, the Chuctaws, and with all the aws and ees of that immense continent, who from the more temperate shore of the Mississippi, have extended their course to the burning soil of India, and to the banks of the Ganges; from the frozen ocean to the banks of the more genial Po;—may boast their experience of the world, and their knowledge of human life: but no one, in my opinion, has seen real life, or can know it, unless he has taken an active part in a contested election for Westminster!
“In no school can a man be taught a better lesson of human life;—there can he view human nature in her basest attire; riot, murder, and drunkenness, are the order of the day, and bribery and perjury walk hand in hand:—for men who had no pretensions to vote, were to be found in the garden in as great plenty as turnips, and at a very moderate rate were induced to poll.
“A gentleman, to make himself of any considerable use to either party, must possess a number of engaging, familiar, and condescending qualities; he must help a porter up with his load, shake hands with a fisherman, pull his hat off to an oyster wench, kiss a ballad-singer, and be familiar with a beggar. If, in addition to these amiable qualities, he is a tolerable good boxer, can play a good stick, and in the evening drink a pailful of all sorts of liquors, in going the rounds to solicit voters at their various clubs, then, indeed, he is a most highly finished useful agent. In all the above accomplishments
This was the cause to which Sam House was attached; and, perhaps, there was not greater difference between the scenes described by Hanger, and those at Garrett, than between the same scenes, and more recent ones, on similar occasions in the same city.
What has hitherto been related concerning the Garrett election, in 1781, is in consequence of the editor having had recourse to the remarkable drawings from whence the present engravings have been made. From that circumstance he was strongly induced to inquire concerning it, and, as a faithful historian, he has recorded only what he is able to authenticate. A few facts relating to the elections between that period and a much later one, are so blended as to defy positive appropriation to particular dates, from want of accurate recollection in the persons relating them; they are, therefore, annexed, as general traits of the usual mode of conducting these burlesques.
At one of the Garrett elections, after 1781, there was a sir Christopher Dash’em started as candidate. “Old John Jones” says he was a waterman, that his real name was Christopher Beachham, (perhaps Beauchamp,) that he was a fellow of “exceeding humour” and ready wit, and, as an instance of it, that being carried before a magistrate for cutting fences and posts, the justice was informed that the delinquent was no other than the celebrated sir Christopher Dash’em.—“Oh,” said the justice, “you are sir Christopher Dash’em, are you?”—“It’s what they please to style me,” observed sir Christopher.—“Oh! oh!” remarked the magistrate, “I have heard of your character a long while ago.”—“Then,” said sir Christopher, “I’ll be greatly obliged to your worship to tell me where it is, for I lost it a long while ago.”
Sir Solomon Hiram, another Garrett candidate, was a shrewd, clever carpenter, of Battersea, named Thomas Solomon. It was his constant saying, that he “never bowed to wooden images,” by which he meant rank without talent. He succeeded in his election. The motto on his carriages was “Gin gratis! Porter for nothing!”
Our living chronicler, “John Jones,” says, that on the day of election, sir Solomon Hiram was “dressed like an old king, in a scarlet coat with gold lace, large sleeves with very large hanging cuffs; a wig such as George the Second wore, with large falling curls, and the tail in a silk bag: he held a roll of parchment in his hand, and looked for all the world—like a king.”
Nor must “old John Jones” himself be forgotten, for he rode as “master of the horse” at four elections in a marvellous proper dress. He was mounted on the largest dray horse that could be got, in the full regimentals of the Surrey yeomanry, grey, blue, and red: he had a cap on his head twenty-three inches high; and bore in his hand a sword seven feet long and four inches wide, like the sword of the “ancient and honourable Lumber Troop.” His boots were up to his hips, and he wore wooden spurs thirteen inches long, with steel rowels three inches in diameter. The mane of his horse was plaited with ears of corn, denoting a plentiful harvest and the coming cheapness of bread; and he had two pages to lead his horse.
The “Garrett cavalry” or troop of “horse guards,” of which “John Jones” was the commander, were forty boys of all ages and sizes, for whom flannel uniforms were purposely made, of the exact pattern of the Surrey yeomanry. They wore enormous cockades made of shavings, and were put a-straddle on horses of all sizes, and sorted thereto, as much as possible, by contraries. The smallest boys were on the largest horses, and the biggest boys on the least. It was their duty to join the candidates’ procession, and with the “master of the horse” at their head, proceed to the hustings in order “to preserve the freedom of election.”
At Richmond theatre, about thirty years ago, Foote’s “Mayor of Garratt” was performed for the benefit of Follett, a celebrated comedian and clown, and he
Sir Jeffery Dunstan.
In the year 1785, sir John Harper, who had succeeded to the representation of Garrett, by the unbiassed choice of the electors, vacated his seat by death, and sir Jeffery Dunstan again became a candidate for their suffrages.
This distinguished individual was a child of chance—a foundling. He was picked up in the year 1759 at a churchwarden’s door in St. Dunstan’s in the East, and not being owned, was reared in the workhouse so as ultimately to attain about two-thirds the usual height of manhood, with knock-knees, and a disproportionately large head. At twelve years old, he was bound apprentice for nine years to the art, trade, mystery, and occupation of a green grocer; this was a long time to serve, and Jeffery, soaring to independence, adopted as a principle that “time was made for slaves, and not for freemen;” he therefore broke through time and servitude, and ran away to Birmingham. It was his pride that, though the hard labour in the factories of the “workshop of Europe” increased the malformation of his person, it added strength to his mind; and in 1776, he returned to London with his knees and ideas knocking together much more than before. He soon afterwards formed a matrimonial connection, and had two daughters, whom he called “Miss Nancy” and “Miss Dinah,” and who testified their filial politeness by uniformly calling him “papa.”
From the earliest period of sir Jeffery’s life, he was a friend to “good measures”—especially those for “spirituous liquors;” and he never saw the inside of a pot without going to the bottom of it. This determination of character created difficulties to him: for his freedom was not always regulated by the doctrines of the great Blackstone “on the rights of persons,” and consequences ensued that were occasionally injurious to sir Jeffery’s face and eyes. The same enlightened judge’s views of “the rights of things” do not seem to have been comprehended by sir Jeffery: he had long made free with the porter of manifold pots, and at length he made free with a few of the pots. For this he was “questioned,” in the high commission court of oyer and terminer, and suffered an imprisonment, which, according to his manner of life, and his notions of the liberty of the subject, was frivolous and vexatious. On his liberation, he returned to an occupation he had long followed, the dealing in “old wigs,” and some circumstances developed in the course of the preceding inquiry seem to favour a supposition, that the bag he carried had enabled him to conceal his previous “free trade” in pots. But, be that as it might, it is certain that to his armorial bearings of four wigs, he added a quart pot for a crest.
From the period that he obtained a “glorious minority” by his opposition to sir John Harper for Garrett, he looked for the first opening in the representation of that borough with a view to fill it himself. On the death of sir John, he issued an address to the electors, committees were formed, and an active canvass was commenced at every public-house to which the constituent body resorted for refreshment and solace. On the day of election, sir Jeffery left London in a splendid phaeton, with a body of friends in every possible description of vehicle, from a coal-waggon to a wheel-barrow drawn by dogs; the procession extended a mile in length, and sir Jeffery Dunstan was elected by an immense majority. At successive elections he was successively successful, and maintained his seat for Garrett until his death.
One of the answers to the editor’s request for particulars concerning the Garrett election, is the following letter:—
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Sir,—After frequently promising to do something for the Every-Day Book, I
At this house sir Jeffery was near losing his life, in addition to his teeth. He was “in the chair,” as usual, which was placed on the table, and he was supported by his friends “Ray the tinker,” who now lies in the same grave with him, and a “sir Charles Hartis,” a deformed fidler, and an unsuccessful candidate for Garratt honours. Such a trio was scarcely ever seen, and very attractive. The sixpences collected from visiters, on entering, lay in a plate on the table, and “sir Jeffery” was on his legs giving them “old wigs,” in his best style, when, being top-heavy with liquor, he suddenly lost his balance, and over he went. “Ray the tinker” was upset, and the fiddle of “sir Charles” knocked into the fire; in a moment the candles were put out, and all was darkness and confusion; when a light was brought, sir Jeffery and the money were both missing, and he was considered the purloiner: but the fact was, some knaves who had an eye to the cash, took advantage of sir Jeffery’s fall, blew out the lights, stole the money, and picking up “sir Jeff” at the same moment, dragged him out of the house to fix the fraud on him. The poor fellow was found the next morning by some workmen almost frozen to death and pennyless, in a miserable hole, into which they had dropped him!
Sir Jeffery wore his shirt open, and the collar turned down. This was in him a sort of pride; for he would frequently in an exulting manner say to inferiors, “I’ve got a collar to my shirt, sir.” In life his face was dark and dirty, but when coffined, says Mr. Thomas Michael, his skin was remarkably fair and clear.
Sir Jeffery once kept an ass that had but one ear, the other being close cropped off; with this poor creature, who carried the “wigs, &c.” he for many years collected a crowd but a few paces from the writer’s habitation. His wit and smart sayings flew about. Now the joke fell on himself, and now on his one-eared ass. Then he varied the cry of “old wigs,” by mimicking another’s singing-cry of, “lilly, lilly, lilly, lilly white—sand oh!” After the pence had well tumbled in, he would retire to his favourite retreat, the “Horse and Leaping Bar,” to dine on “duck and green peas,” or “roast goose and apple sauce,” &c.
At this house, which is on the south side of the high street, “sir Jeff,” in a “regular” manner, got “regularly drunk.” Here he sung the “London cries;” recited his mock speeches on the corruptions of parliament; and, placed in an arm chair on the table, nightly afforded sport to a merry company.
No sooner had sir Jeffery ceased to breathe, than the resurrection men were on the alert to obtain his body. They had nearly succeeded prior to interment, by drawing him through the window of the room in which he lay.
The surgeons of the day were eager to obtain a prize, but their hopes were disappointed by the late John Liptrap, esq. who had the body removed to a place of safety. This gentleman paid all the expences of sir Jeffery’s funeral; a grave ten feet deep was dug close to the north wall of the watchhouse of St. Mary, Whitechapel, where he now lies. The head of the coffin somewhat undermines the church-rail, and the public footway. His wife lies at his feet, and his daughter Dinah, sleeps the “sleep of death” at his side.
“Miss Nancy,”—sir Jeffery used to say, “Miss Nancy, make the gentlemen a curtsey,”—“Miss Nancy” survived them all; she married a costermonger, or to speak a little more politely, a knight of the “whip and hamper,” who is said to have added to his avocations that of snatching bodies for the surgeons, till death, the final snatcher, snatched him. Miss Nancy still survives.
Respecting sir Jeffery Dunstan’s death, his grave digger, Thomas Michael, relates this story. Sir Jeffery had called in at
It was strongly suspected that sir Jeffery’s death was purposely caused by resurrection men, for the liquor he was made to swallow was drugged. One of this fraternity endeavoured to stop the burial of the body, by pretending a relation from Ireland was on his way to claim it. The fellow disguised himself, and endeavoured to personate a native of that country, but the fraud was detected.
I am, &c.
T. W. L.
June 19, 1823.
This obliging correspondent, who knew so much respecting sir Jeffery Dunstan, was likely to furnish more; particular inquiries were therefore addressed to him by letter, and he has since obligingly communicated as follows:—
For the Every-Day Book.
Sir Jeffery Dunstan’s descendants.—Sir Jeffery’s Hut.—Whitechapel Obelisk.—Dipping for old wigs.
To oblige Mr. Hone I set out in pursuit of “Miss Nancy,” who is now called “lady Ann,” thinking she might be able to furnish me with particulars regarding her father, “sir Jeffery,” and the “Garrett election.” Near the sign of the “Grave Maurice,” in the “road side” of Whitechapel, I addressed myself to a clean, elderly looking woman, whose brow bespoke the cares of three score years at least, and asked her if she could inform me whether sir Jeffery’s daughter, “Miss Nancy” was living or not? “Lord bless you, sir!” said she, “living! aye; I saw her pass with her cats-meat barrow not five minutes ago; and just now I saw running by, a little girl, the fourth generation from sir Jeffery.” I soon ascertained that “lady Ann” lived with her son and his wife, at No. 7, North-street, opposite the Jews’ burying ground, where I knocked boldly, and, to my surprise, was answered by a fine dark little girl of eleven, that her grandmother could not be seen, because she was “very drunk.”
At seven in the evening, by appointment I called, and saw the same little girl again, and was told her father was “drunk also,” and that her mother had instructed her to say, that many similar applications had been made, and “a deal of money offered,” for the information I sought; which spoke in plain terms they had nothing to communicate, or if they had, a good price must be paid for it.
Recollecting that I had been informed that a good likeness of “sir Jeffery” was to be seen at the “Blind Beggar,” near the turnpike, and supposing it not unlikely, from that circumstance, that the landlord of that house might know more of the man than I did myself, I resorted thither. The bar was crowded with applicants for “full proof,” and “the best cordials.” I took my station at the lower end, and calling for a glass of ale, it was served me by Mr. Porter himself, when I took the opportunity of asking him if he had not a portrait of sir Jeffery Dunstan in his parlour; he said there had been one there till lately, but that during the alterations it was removed. On my right hand was a man with a pint of ale and a glass in his hand, and a woman with him, seated on the top of a barrel. At this juncture the man called out to the landlord, “is it not somebody that ‘I knows,’ that you are talking about?” An answer was given in the affirmative. I looked at the man, and perceiving that he was about my own age, observed that his years, like mine, did not warrant much personal knowledge of the person of whom we had been speaking. “Why,” said Mr. Porter, smiling, “that is his grandson; that is sir Jeffery’s grandson.” I, too, could not help smiling on calling to mind that this was the very man that was “also drunk,” and that this, his money-loving wife, who had denied me an interview, I was addressing. I told them the nature of my visit to their house. She said her daughter had informed her of every thing. I then, to use a nautical phrase, “boxed all points of the compass,” without effect. They evidently knew nothing, or did not care to know; the wife, however, told me that her sister, who was either dead, or “abroad,” knew “all sir Jeffery’s speeches from the beginning to end;” and the husband recounted ’squire Liptrap’s kindness in
I urged, “that none of us had any thing to boast of in point of ancestry, and that were I sir Jeffery’s grandson, my great grandfather’s great natural talent and ready flow of wit would induce me to acknowledge him as my great ancestor under any circumstances.” This produced nothing more than that his grandfather, “though he could neither read nor write, could speak many languages.” I left them—the husband, as we say, “top heavy,” the wife expostulating to get him home, and at the same time observing they must be up by three o’clock in the morning “to be off with the cart.”
On my road homewards, I turned up Court-street to “Ducking-pond side,” to take a view of “sir Jeffery’s hut;” it is adjoining his late patron’s distillery, who permitted him to live there rent free. The door is bricked up, and it now forms part of a chandler’s shop. The thick black volumes of smoke from the immense chimnies were rolling above my head to the west, while beneath, in the same direction, came the pestiferous stench from those deadly slaughtering places for horses, that lie huddled together, on the right. It brought to my mind Mr. Martin’s story in the “House,” of the poor starving condemned “animals” and the “truss of hay.” I turned hastily away from the scene, and I conjure thee, reader, go not near it, for it breathes
In my preceding notice of “sir Jeffery and his ass,” perhaps I have not been sufficiently explicit. In the “season,” he would sometimes carry the best of fruit in his hampers for sale, as well as his “bag of wigs.” The allusion to the “duck and green peas,” &c. was a sort of joke, which sir Jeffery used constantly, in his witty way, to put off to “standers-by” when “lady Ann,” or “Miss Dinah,” came from their “lady mother” to inform him that his dinner was ready.
An elderly friend of mine perfectly well recollects sir Jeffery’s “one-eared ass,” his hamper of russetings, and sir Jeffery himself, with his back placed against the side of the stone obelisk which then stood at the corner of the road, opposite Whitechapel church rails. There he kept the boys and girls at bay with the ready use of his hands; while his ready tongue kept the elder folks constantly laughing. But where is the stone obelisk. Gone—like sir Jeffery. The spirit of destruction, miscalled improvement, wantonly threw it down. It fell in the pride of its age and glory, before Time’s effacing hand had marked it. Away with destroyers, I say! They may have bettered the condition of the pathway by substituting an iron railway for one of wood, but have they done so by removing that excellent unoffending barrier, the “pillar of stone,” and placing in its stead a paltry old cannon choaked with a ball?
I recollect in my boyish days I never passed that “obelisk” without looking up, and reading on its sculptured sides, “twelve miles to Romford,” “seventeen to Epping.” Then it told the traveller westward, the exact distance to the Royal Exchange and Hyde Park-corner. All beyond it, in an easterly direction, to my youthful fancy, was fairy land; it spoke of pure air, green fields, and trees; of gentle shepherdesses, and arcadian swains. Delightful feelings, which only those who are born and bred in towns can fully enter into! It had originally a tongue of another description, for it seemed to say, in legible characters, “this is the east-end corner of the metropolis,”—at least it marked it as strongly as ever Hyde Park-corner did the west. Pardon the digression, reader, and I will conclude.
When sir Jeffery raised the cry of “old wigs,” the collecting of which formed his chief occupation, he had a peculiarly droll way of clapping his hand to his mouth, and he called “old wigs, wigs, wigs!” in every doorway. Some he disposed of privately, the rest he sold to the dealers in “Rag-fair.” In those days, “full bottoms” were worn by almost every person, and it was no uncommon thing to hear sea-faring persons, or others exposed to the cold, exclaim, “Well, winter’s at hand, and I must e’en go to Rosemary-lane, and have ‘a dip for a wig.’” This “dipping for wigs” was nothing more than putting your hand into a large barrel and pulling one up; if you liked it you paid your shilling, if not, you dipped again, and paid sixpence more, and so on. Then, also, the curriers used them for cleaning the waste, &c. off the leather, and I have no doubt would use them now if they could get them.
Sir Jeffery’s ideas of “quality” ran very high at all times, and were never higher than when his daughter Nancy, “beautiful Miss Nancy,” was married to “lord Thompson,” a dustman.—“Twenty coaches,” said sir Jeffery, “to lady Ann’s wedding, madam, and all filled with the first nobility.” A dustman on his wedding-day, in our days, is content with a seat in a far different vehicle, and being carried on his brethren’s shoulders to collect a little of the “needful” to get drunk with at night. To the honour of “lord Thompson” be it said, after such a noble alliance, he soon “cut” the fraternity, and, as I have before observed, became a knight of the “whip and hamper,” vulgo “a costermonger.”
June 23, 1826.
T. W. L.
The last representative of Garrett was sir Jeffery Dunstan’s successor, the renowned sir Harry Dimsdale. From the death of sir Harry the seat remained vacant.
It must be added, however, that for this borough sir George Cook demanded to sit. No committee determined on the claims of the “rival candidates;” but the friends of sir George, an eminent dealer in apples and small vegetables near Stangate, maintained that he was the rightful member in spite of sir Harry Dimsdale’s majority, which was alleged to have been obtained by “bribery and corruption.”
Whatever distaste refinement may conceive to such scenes, it must not be forgotten that they constitute a remarkable feature in the manners of the times. It is the object of this work to record “manners,” and the editor cannot help expressing somewhat of the disappointment he feels, on his entreaties for information, respecting the elections for Garrett, having failed to elicit much information, which it is still in the power of many persons to communicate. He has original facts, of a very interesting nature, ready to lay before the public on this topic; but he omits to do it, in order to afford a few days longer to those who have the means of enabling him to add to his reserved collection. To that end he once more solicits the loan of hand-bills, advertisements, addresses, scraps, or any thing any way connected with the subject. He begs, and hopes, to be favoured with such matters with all possible speed. It is his wish to dispose of this election in the following sheet, and therefore “not a moment is to be lost.”
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 58·85.
June 23.
St. John’s Eve.
An ancient custom is still maintained by the inhabitants of Ripon, in Yorkshire. On midsummer-eve, every housekeeper, who, in the course of the year, has changed his residence into a new neighbourhood, spreads a table before his door in the street, with bread, cheese, and ale, for those who choose to resort to it. The guests, after staying awhile, if the master is of ability, are invited to supper, and the evening is concluded with mirth and good humour. The origin of this usage is unknown, but it probably was instituted for the purpose of introducing new comers to an early acquaintance with their neighbours; or, with the more laudable design of settling differences, by the meeting and mediation of friends.
The late rev. Donald M‘Queen, of Kilmuir, in the Isle of Sky, in certain reflections on ancient customs preserved in that island, mentions what he observed at this season in Ireland, where he conceives the catholic religion to have accommodated itself to the ancient superstitions of the natives, and grafted Christianity on pagan rites. He remarks, that “the Irish have ever been worshippers of fire and of Baal, and are so to this day. The chief festival in honour of the sun and fire is upon the 21st of June (23d?) when the sun arrives at the summer solstice, or rather begins its retrograde motion.”
Mr. M‘Queen says, “I was so fortunate in the summer of 1782 as to have my curiosity gratified. At the house where I was entertained, it was told me that we should see at midnight the most singular sight in Ireland, which was the lighting of fires in honour of the sun. Accordingly, exactly at midnight, the fires began to appear; and going up to the leads of the house, which had a widely extended view, I saw, on a radius of thirty miles, all around, the fires burning on every
The eve of the summer solstice was a season of divinations in early times, and with one of these, described by a living bard, the day may conclude.
St. John’s Eve.
Sinks the broad sun upon the waveless sea!
Above, below, around him, shedding light,
All glorious and beautiful to see:
Garish as day, with night’s tranquillity
Reposing on all things.—“Then bid farewell
To household duties and its drudgery—
Come, one and all, and this fair maid shall tell
Who shall be wise henceforth, from this our festival.”
Wont to assemble to decide their fate:
The first begotten child with rose-deck’d hair
Clad as a bride—her features all sedate,
Like one of holy calling—walk’d in state,
Before a bacchanal procession, loud
In their mirth—dancing with glee elate—
And shouting as they went—a motley crowd
Spreading along the shore, like shadow from a cloud.
With water from the ocean, to the brim
Fill a small vessel as the first essay
Towards making into one the future—(dim
And dark as ’tis)—perceptible—to him
Alone this boon.—When a young virgin, fair,
With knocking heart that maketh her head swim
Lest she, her hopes, have wither’d—from her hair
Taketh a rose (her emblem) she had braided there;
Lovely as Hebe, from her faery zone,
Loosens the band that clasps it—somewhat vext
That like the rose it floats not—as ’tis known,
Or so imagined, that the charm hath flown
From what’s beneath the surface—so she deem’d
E’en when the next a diamond had thrown
Into the vessel, which, though sunken, seemed
A star upon the surface—it so upward gleamed.
The bauble that each prized as somewhat dear,
The youths o’eranxious lest they be surpass’d
By maidens in their zealous acts sincere,
(Who crowd about them as they hover near
The sacred vase, observing them the while;)
Drop gold, and gems, and crystals for the ear,
Adorn’d with quaint devices, to beguile
With love, the heart that’s languishing, and free from guile.
That bow unto the moon, whose soft rays sleep
Upon their beauty,) and youths flush’d with care
And keen anxiety, press forward there:
Meanwhile, the little cherub-bride draws nigh,
And from the vessel with her small hand fair,
Brings forth the gem that gladdens some one’s eye,
That grants to him or her the gift of prophecy.
Barton Wilford.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 58·62.
June 24.
St. John’s Day.
Midsummer Day.
There are several interesting notices of usages on this day and midsummer-eve, in vol. i. from col. 825 to 855. To the account of the “old London watch” there cited, from “Stow’s Survey,” should be added from Mr. Douce’s notes, quoted by Mr. Brand, that the watch “was laid down in the twentieth year of Henry VIII;” and that “the chronicles of Stow and Byddel assign the sweating sickness as a cause for discontinuing the watch.” Mr. Douce adds, that “Niccols says the watches on midsummer and St. Peter’s-eve were laid down by licence from the king, ‘for that the cittie had then bin charged with the leavie of a muster of 15,000 men.’”
Warwick Bonfires.
A large paper copy of Brand’s “Popular Antiquities,” with MS. notes upon it by a gentleman of great reputation as an antiquary, and who has publicly distinguished himself by erudite dissertations on certain usages of ancient times, was some time ago most obligingly forwarded by that gentleman to the editor of the Every-Day Book, with permission to use the valuable manuscript additions. Hitherto it happened, from peculiar circumstances, that the advantage has not been available, but this and future sheets will be enriched from that source. The gentleman referred to cites from—“an Indenture of covenant between Thomas Oken of Warwick and his twelve feoffees, dated the 20th of January, 13 Elizabeth,” (1571,) the following clause:—
“Also that (the feoffees) their heirs or assignes shall lykewise yerelie, for ever, after the deceasse of the said Thomas Oken, distribute, or cause to be distributed, and paide, out of the yerelie revenewes of the forsaid lands and teneme’tes, to and amongest the neyhgboures of the bonfire of the said T. O., w’thin the High payv’ment Warde in the said towne of Warwick, towe shillinges of lawfull englysshe money, and thre shillings more of lawfull englysshe money, to be paid by equall porcions, to and amongest the neyhboures of the other thre bonfyres, beinge w’thin the said ward of the high pay’ment, to make merry w’t all, at there said bonfyres, yff any be in the vigilles or daies of seynt John Baptist and seynt Peter; and yff they have noe bonfires, that then the same to be ymployed to some other good use or uses, as to them shal be thought metest and convenient.”
The same gentleman quotes and refers to the following illustration of the day:—
“It was the 24 June, (at LÖdingen in Norway on the confines of Lapland) the festival of St. John the Baptist; and the people flocked from all quarters to sport the whole night round a blazing fire, kindled on the top of an adjacent hill: a practice common about the time of the solstice, to the whole of the Gothic tribes, being a vestige of that most ancient worship of the resplendant image of the divinity, the glorious luminary of day.”—Edinburgh Review, October, 1813, Art. Von Buch’s Travels in Norway and Lapland.
The Cow-Mass
At Dunkirk.
The emperor Charles V. found it expedient to exhibit to the turbulent inhabitants of Dunkirk, a show called the Cow-mass, on St. John’s-day. Whether it has been resumed is uncertain, but in 1789 it
The morning is ushered in by the merry peals of the corillons, or bell-playing. The streets are very early lined with soldiers; and, by eight o’clock, every house-top and window is filled with spectators, at least forty thousand exclusive of inhabitants.
About ten o’clock, after high mass at the great church, the show begins, by the townsmen being classed according to the different trades, walking two and two, each holding a burning wax candle, and at least a yard long, and each dressed not in their best apparel, but in the oldest and oddest fashion of their ancestors.
After the several companies is a pageant containing an emblematical representation of its trade, and this pageant is followed by patron saints, most of which are of solid silver adorned with jewels. Bands of music, vocal and instrumental, attend the companies, the chorusses of which are very solemn.
Then followed the friars and regular clergy, two and two, in the habits of their different orders, slow in their motion, and with the appearance of solemn piety.
Then came the abbot in a most magnificent dress, richly adorned with silver and gold, his train supported by two men in the dress of cardinals. The host was borne before him by an old white-bearded man of a most venerable aspect, surrounded by a great number of boys in white surplices, who strewed frankincense and myrrh under his feet; and four men supported a large canopy of wrought silver over his head, while four others sustained a large silver lantern, with a light in it at the end of a pole.
They then proceeded to the bottom of the street, where there was elevated a grand altar, ascended by a flight of steps; there the procession stopped, while the abbot came from under his canopy and took the host from the old man: ascending the altar, he held up the host in his elevated hands, and the vast multitude instantly fell on their knees, from the house-tops down to the dirt in the streets below.
After this solemnity, gaiety in the face of every one appeared, and the procession recommenced.
Other pageants came forth, from the great church, followed by a vast moving machine, consisting of several circular stages to represent Heaven; on the bottom stages appeared many friars and nuns, each holding white lilies in their hands, and on the uppermost stage but one were two figures, representing Adam and Eve, and several winged angels, in white flowing garments. On the uppermost stage was one figure only, to represent God, on whom all the eyes of the lower figures were directed, with looks of adoration and humility; this machine was drawn by horses.
Next followed an enormous figure to represent Hell. It was something like an elephant, with a large head and eyes, and a pair of horns, on which several little devils, or rather boys dressed like devils, were sitting; the monster was hollow within, and the lower jaw was movable, by moving of which it frequently exhibited the inward contents, which was filled with full-grown devils, who poured out liquid fire from the “jaws of hell.” At the same time, the figure was surrounded by a great number of external devils dressed in crape, with hideous masks and curled tails.
Between the figures which represented “heaven” and “hell,” several young ladies passed with wreaths of flowers on their heads, and palms in their hands, riding in elegant carriages. After Hell followed old Lucifer himself, armed with a pitchfork, and leading St. Michael the archangel in chains. Michael and Lucifer were followed by a person dressed in a kind of harlequin’s coat hung round with bells, holding a hoop in his hands, through which he frequently jumped, and showed many other feats of activity; but what, or who he represented I cannot say (except it were a fool).
Then came a grand carriage, covered with a superb canopy, from the middle of which hung a little dove; under the dove was a table covered with a carpet, at which were sitting two women dressed in white, with wings, pointing upwards to the dove. They represented the salutation of the Virgin Mary.
Next followed a group of dancing boys surrounding a stable, in which was seen the Virgin Mary again, and the child in the manger. This machine was followed by another fool, like the former, with a hoop of bells.
The next machine was a fish, fifteen feet long, moved by men, on wheels, concealed within; upon its back sat a boy, richly dressed, and playing upon a harp. The gold, silver, and jewels, which decorated this fish, were valued at ten thousand pounds and were finished by the
Then appeared Joseph as flying from Egypt; a woman representing a virgin with a young child upon her lap, and mounted on an ass, which was led by Joseph, who had a basket of tools on his back, and a long staff in his hand. Joseph and his spouse were attended by several devils, who beat off the people that crowded too close upon the procession: these two were followed by a fourth fool, or hoop-dancer.
Then came a large and magnificent carriage, on which sat a person representing the grand monarque sitting on a throne, dressed in his robes, with a crown, ball, and sceptre, lying before him on a table covered with embroidered velvet. His most christian majesty was attended by several devils, hoop-dancers, and banner-bearers.
Then followed another machine bearing the queen in her royal robes, attended by a great many ladies and maids of honour; the jewels of her crown were said to be of vast value; on this stage there was a grand band of music, and many dancers richly attired.
Then followed Bacchus, a large fat figure, dressed in coloured silk, attended by a great number of bacchanals holding goblets up to their mouths as in the act of drinking, with a few more devils and hoop-dancers.
Then followed a kind of a sea triumph, in the front of which appeared Neptune with his trident and crown, in a large shell, surrounded by boys dressed in white, who were throwing out and drawing in a deep sea-lead, as sounding for land.
Six men followed in white shirts, with poles twenty-five feet long, decorated with bells and flowers; frequently shaking their poles, or endeavouring to break them; for he who could break one was exempted a whole year from all parish duty.
The pole-bearers were followed by a large ship, representing a ship of war drawn on wheels by horses, with sails spread, colours flying, and brass guns on board fired off very briskly: on the quarter-deck stood the admiral, captain and boatswain, who, when he whistled, brought forth the sailors, some dancing, others heaving the log, and the tops filled with boys.
The ship was followed by the representation of a large wood, with men in it dressed in green; a green scaly skin was drawn over their own, and their faces were masked to appear as savages, each squirting water at the people from large pewter syringes. This piece of machinery, which was very noble, was the production of the Jesuit’s college, and caused great jollity among the common people.
The wood was followed by a very tall man, dressed like an infant in a body-coat, and walking in a go-cart, with a rattle in his hand.
This infant was followed by a man forty-five feet high, with a boy looking out of his pocket, shaking a rattle and calling out.—“grandpapa! grandpapa!” He was clothed in blue and gold, which reached quite to the ground, and concealed a body of men who moved it and made it dance.
After him followed a figure nearly of the same stature, mounted on a horse of suitable size for the enormous rider, which made a most striking and elegant appearance, both man and horse being executed in a masterly manner. It was made in a moving posture, two of the feet being raised from the ground.
Then followed a woman of equal stature, and not inferior in elegance to those which preceded; she had a watch at her side as large as a warming-pan, and her head and breast richly decorated with jewels; her eyes and head turned very naturally; and as she moved along she frequently danced, and not inelegantly.
“Thus,” says its describer, “ended the Cow-mass, a show scarce exceeded by any in the known world.”
Midsummer Wrestling.
In the church of Bradmore, Nottinghamshire, is a monument for sir Thomas Parkyns, who is represented standing in a posture for wrestling, and in another part he appears thrown by Time, with the following lines, written by Dr. Friend:—
Which may be thus translated:—
The noblest boxer on the British strand:
His nervous arm each bold opposer quell’d,
In feats of strength by none but thee excell’d:
Till, springing up, at the last trumpet’s call,
He conquers thee, who wilt have conquer’d all.
The inscription underneath takes notice of his wife’s fortune, and the estates he purchased; that he rebuilt his farm-houses, was skilled in architecture and medicine, and that he wrote a book on wrestling, called “The Cornish Hug Wrestler.”
This gentleman was remarkable for his skill in that exercise; he trained many of his servants and neighbours to it, and when those manly (though now thought unpolished) diversions were in fashion, he exhibited his pupils in public with no small Éclat.
By his will he left a guinea to be wrestled for at Bradmore every midsummer-day, and money to the ringers, of whom he also made one. He displayed his learning in several curious inscriptions. Over a seat by the road-side, Hic sedeas, viator si tu defessus es ambulando. The honour of a visit from a judge on the circuit, was commemorated at the horse-block by, Hinc Justiciarius Dormer equum ascendere solebat.
Chronology.
1340. On the twenty-fourth of June, Edward III. fought a great naval battle off Sluys on the coast of Flanders, and gained a complete victory over the French. Edward’s force did not exceed two hundred and forty sail; the French had four hundred sail, and forty thousand men. The English took two hundred and thirty of the ships, and killed thirty thousand Frenchmen, and two of their admirals. Edward’s presence animated his archers, who were as invincible then, as they were six years afterwards on the plains of Cressy.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 59·57.
June 25.
1826.—The first Sunday after Midsummer Day.
Fellowship Porters.
Mr. Brand says, “It is the duty of the rector of St. Mary at Hill, in which parish Billingsgate is situated, to preach a sermon every year, on the first Sunday after midsummer-day, before the society of Fellowship Porters, exhorting them to be charitable towards their old decayed brethren, and ‘to bear one another’s burthens.’”
It is remarkable that Mr. Brand, who was the rector of this church, and who quotes largely from the churchwardens’ accounts of that parish, in illustration of manifold customs whereon he treats, says nothing further respecting his “duty,” as rector, towards the Fellowship Porters: he does not even subjoin how long the annual sermon appeared to have been preached, nor does he say so much as a recent compiler who notices the custom as follows:—
“Annually on the Sunday after midsummer-day, according to ancient custom, the fraternity of Fellowship Porters of the city of London repair to the church of St. Mary at Hill in the morning, where, during the reading of the psalms, they reverently approach the altar, two and two, on the rails of which are placed two basins, and into these they put their respective offerings. They are generally followed by the congregation, and the money offered is distributed among the aged poor and inferior members of that fraternity.”
The birds now begin to be very active in devouring the fruits, and cherryclacks are set up to drive them away; the perpetual flapping of which, in the light breezes by night, are too well-known to the student by the nightly lamp.
The Cherryclack.
In his chamber sits at ease,
And tries to read without avail;
For every moment the light breeze
Springs up and nestles in the trees.
That drives its flippant windsails round
With Lybs still puffing at his back,
Provoking endless click-a-tee-clack.
To read, but can’t; confounds the cherries,
And swears that every effort’s vain
To answer all his master’s queries;
For Greek and Latin quite a jeer is,
Is interrupted, for alack!
When he begins one to rehearse,
The thread is broke, himself thrown back,
By this perpetual click-a-tee-clack.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 61·55.
June 26.
Midsummer Harvest
In France.
The harvest in Provence begins about midsummer; the process of gathering it in is very different from ours. It is cut, bound up in sheaves, and carried away immediately to the thrashing-floor, where it is stacked up. The thrashing-floor, or aire, (to give it the name by which it is called in the country,) is out in the open field; it is of a circular form, and paved sometimes with stone, sometimes with a stiff clay beaten down till it becomes nearly as hard as stone. In the parts near the aire, while one man cuts the corn and binds the sheaves, another takes them upon his back, two or three at a time, and carries them away to the aire; when the distance is somewhat greater, the sheaves are loaded upon an ass or mule; and when the distance is considerable, then a cart is employed, provided the ground be not too steep to admit of it, which happens not unfrequently. In no case is the corn left standing where it is cut, but carried away immediately.
When all is in this manner collected at the aire, it is spread out thick upon it, and one or two horses or mules blindfolded, with a man standing in the middle and holding the reins, are made to run round and round, till the corn is separated from the straw; after which the one is put into sacks and stored up in the granary, and the other put into a loft for winter food for the cattle. No such thing as a barn is to be seen, at least in the southern parts of Province.
Rain during harvest is so very unusual, that this whole process may be carried on without fear of interruption from wet, or of the corn being injured for want of shelter.
The scripture injunction, “not to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn,” is explained by seeing this mode of thrashing. It is said both to be a more expeditious and effectual process than the flail; but it appears very hard work to the animals, especially being performed under the influence of such a burning sun. Our mode of thrashing is, perhaps, equally hard work to mankind.
During the time of harvest, which is considered as lasting till the corn is all thrashed and laid up, the peasant makes the cornstack his bed: he sleeps upon it, attended by his dog, as a precaution against nocturnal depredators; and the air and ground are both so dry, that he has nothing to apprehend from damps.
Chronology.
On the twenty-sixth of June, 1752, died cardinal Julius Alberoni. He was born in 1664; his father, a gardener near Parma, who obtained for him a small post in the cathedral where he took priests orders, was enabled by the fortune of war to serve Campistron, the French poet, who was secretary to the duke of Vendome, and who introduced him to that warrior, to whom Alberoni betrayed the granaries of his countrymen. Vendome perceived his talent for political intrigue, and in reward of this treason, appointed him to conduct a correspondence with the princess d’Ursins who governed the affairs of Spain. In quality of agent to the duke of Parma, Alberoni was settled at the Spanish court, and contrived to marry the princess to Philip V. The new queen gave him her confidence, and obtained for him a cardinal’s hat; he was made a grandee of Spain, and became prime minister, in which capacity he endeavoured to excite the Turks against the emperor, attempted the restoration of the pretender to the throne of England, aimed at dispossessing the duke of Orleans from the regency of France, and securing it for Philip V., and by these and other ambitious endeavours, raised a host of
The Season.
“Now” in this month, as in the month of July, and as, for example, in June, 1826, “we occasionally have one of those sultry days which make the house too hot to hold us, and force us to seek shelter in the open air, which is hotter;—when the interior of the blacksmith’s shop looks awful, and we expect the foaming porter pot to hiss, as the brawny forger dips his fiery nose into it;—when the birds sit open-mouthed upon the bushes; and the fishes fry in the shallow ponds; and the sheep and cattle congregate together in the shade, and forget to eat;—when pedestrians along dusty roads quarrel with their coats and waistcoats, and cut sticks to carry them across their shoulders; and cottagers’s wives go about their work gown-less; and their daughters are anxious to do the same, but that they have the fear of the vicar before their eyes;—when every thing seen beyond a piece of parched soil quivers through the heated air; and when, finally, a snow-white swan, floating above its own image, upon a piece of clear cool water into which a weeping-willow is dipping its green fingers, is a sight not to be turned from suddenly.”
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 60·15.
June 27.
Chronology.
Fire in Lincoln’s Inn.
On the twenty-seventh of June, 1752, about one in the morning, a fire broke out in Lincoln’s-inn new square, by which No. 10 and 11 were entirely consumed. The chambers of R. Wilbraham, the hon. Edward Harley, hon. Charles York, E. Hoskyns, — Chomley, Edmund Sawyer, master in chancery, and — Ansell, Esqs. all in No. 10, with the papers, books, plate, furniture, and wearing apparel were totally destroyed. In the next staircase, No. 11, were Mr. John Sharpe, solicitor to the treasury, and Messrs. Edward Booth, Ambler, Fazakerly, Fellers, and Wilmot. The loss and difficulties in which many families were involved, the titles to whose properties were lodged with the above gentlemen, were not to be computed. Mr. Wilbraham had lately purchased an estate of great value, the title-deeds of which, among other numberless deeds, mortgages, &c. were burnt. His clerk, Mr. Pickering, lost above eleven hundred pounds in money and bank notes of his own and others, and securities for thirty thousand pounds more, also all the title-deeds of lord Leigh’s estate. When the fire was discovered most of the watch were asleep or drunk, and the wife of an upholder in Carey-street, whose husband left his bed to assist the sufferers, hanged herself in his absence.
In 1752, was living at Clee-hall, near Ludlow, in Salop, lady Wadeley at the great age of 105. She had been blind for several years, but at that time could see remarkably well. She was then walking about in perfect health, and cutting a new set of teeth.
The Grave.
Why should it be a word of fear,
Jarring upon the mortal ear?
There repose and silence dwell:
The living hear the funeral knell,
But the dead no funeral knell can hear.
Does the gay flower scorn the grave? the dew
Forget to kiss its turf? the stream
Refuse to bathe it? or the beam
Of moonlight shun the narrow bed,
Where the tired pilgrim rests his head?
No! the moon is there, and smiling too!
And there may you see the harebell blue
Bending his light form—gently—proudly,
And listen to the fresh winds, loudly
Playing around yon sod, as gay
As if it were a holiday,
And children freed from durance they.
Bowring.
Seal of Edward the First, for the Port of London, Found in the River Thames
Seal of Edward the First, for the Port of London,
Found in the River Thames.
A remarkably fine impression, of which the above is a faithful copy both as to size and device, has been transmitted to the editor of the Every-Day Book by a gentleman, the initials of whose name are J. L., and from him the following account has been obtained.
The seal itself was drawn by ballast-heavers from the bed of the Thames opposite Queenhithe, in 1809 or 1810, and purchased from them by the late Mr. Bedder, of Basing-lane. He was by profession a bricklayer, but a man of considerable taste, a lover of antiquities, and the possessor of a collection of rare and curious coins in high preservation, which he had accumulated at a considerable expense.
This seal, from the inscription around it, appears to have been an official seal of the port of London. It is of silver, very thick, beautifully executed, and in the finest possible condition. By whom it is now possessed is not known to Mr. J. L., who received the impression from Mr. Bedder himself.
The editor may venture to assert that full justice is done to it in the preceding representation; and as he is unable to give further information, he will be happy to receive and communicate any other particulars respecting the original.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 60·57.
June 28.
A Village Fete.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Wisbech, June 24, 1826.
Dear Sir,—The rural village of Wisbech St. Mary, two miles west of this
And am,
Dear Sir,
Yours, with very great respect,
J. P.
[COPY.]
Youth’s high-mettled Gambols view,
And by fancy warm’d awhile,
Scenes of former bliss renew;
Love repeats his tender tale,
Cheeks responsive learn to glow,
And while Song and Jest prevail,
Nut-brown tankards circling flow.
Wouldst thou wish such joys to share,
Haste then to the Village Fair.”
Wisbech St. Mary’s
RACES,
And annual exhibition of Rustic Sports,
Will this Year be celebrated with the usual Splendour, on
Wednesday and Thursday, June 28th and 29th, 1826.
This Annual Festival is now considered as a superior Establishment to a Country Fair or other Merry-making, by the Numerous Respectable and Fashionable Assemblage of Company, who regularly attend from all parts of the Neighbourhood. Undisturbed by those scenes of intoxication and disorder, so usually prevalent at Village Feasts, the greatest harmony prevails throughout, and the superior Accommodation afforded by the Landlord of the WHEEL INN to all classes of well-behaved and respectable Visiters, cannot fail to render WISBECH ST. MARY’S RACES popular and attractive; or, in language more poetical—
The Sports to consist of Horse, Pony, and Donkey Racing;—Wheelbarrow Racing;—Jumping in Sacks;—Jingling Matches, and Foot Racing; all for
FREE PRIZES.
And to add a greater stimulus to the aspiring PLOUGH BOY, and for the encouragement of Agriculture in general, the Stewards purpose having
A Ploughing Match,
When will be given a Sovereign for the best, and a Half-sovereign for the second best Furrow, to be determined by impartial Judges chosen on the ground. The first Plough to start on Thursday Morning at Ten o’Clock precisely.
By the Plough we in turn behold the rich mow—
By the Plough all our tables with plenty are spread—
Then who but must wish Success to the Plough!
A full Band is engaged to play loyal and popular Tunes during the Amusements, which will commence each Evening precisely at Five o’clock.
And Saint Mary’s Village will assemble then
Her Maids and Ploughmen: and bright
The lights will shine o’er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily! and when
Music arises with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look love to eyes, which speak again,
And all go merry as a marriage bell.
Tickets for the Ball to be had at the bar of the Wheel Inn.
(Leach, Printer, Wisbech.)
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 60·85.
June 29.
Chronology.
On the twenty-ninth of June, 1813, died at his house in St. Alban’s-street, London, Valentine Green, Esq. A.R.S., keeper of the British Institution; greatly respected for his superior talents as a mezzotinto engraver, for the purity and universality of his taste in works of art, for the general urbanity of his manners, and for that invariable benignity of disposition, which, in popular language, is usually styled “goodness of heart.”
Mr. Green, besides his distinguished merit as an artist, acquired considerable reputation as an author, by publishing, in 1796, a valuable work, entitled, “The History and Antiquities of the City and Suburbs of Worcester,” in two quarto volumes; a performance of great research and labour. He was born at Salford, near Chipping-Norton, in Oxfordshire, October 3, 1739.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 61·70.
June 30.
London Porter.
All the world knows that London is famous for porter; it is not of this porter we speak to-day, but of a personage who derives his quality from the means by which he has attained the honour of doing credit to the corporation. The individual alluded to, was publicly made known by a police report of the thirtieth of June, 1826, viz.—
Mr. Alderman Wood came to the Mansion-house for the purpose of contradicting a statement which appeared in the Courier newspaper, that he had persecuted a poor man, named Brown, and procured his discharge, for sticking up bills against him (Alderman Wood). He thought it worth while not to let such a statement go unanswered; for he never exercised such an influence in the course of his life, and he never heard of such a man until the charge was made in the newspaper. He wished to know whether there really was such a man connected with the Mansion-house establishment.
The Lord Mayor said, he believed there was such a man, not belonging to the Mansion-house, but to the Mansion-house porter. The fact was, that their porter, like the porter to the “Castle of Indolence,” had become so exceedingly fat, that he had employed a valet to do the only work which there was for him to do—namely, to sweep the gateway. This valet was the aforesaid Brown, in whom the liberty of the subject, and the constitution, was alleged to have been violated. How, or why, he had quitted the Mansion-house, the porter alone could tell.
The porter was then sent for, and he waddled into the justice-room. In answer to his lordship’s inquiries, he stated that he had employed Brown at half-a-crown per week, to sweep the door and do other work for him.
The Lord Mayor.—When did he absent himself from his duty?—The porter replied, it was about three weeks ago.
The Lord Mayor.—Did you discharge him from his office on constitutional grounds, or for acting against Mr. Alderman Wood?
The Porter.—Bless your worship, no: I can’t tell why he went off.
Alderman Wood professed himself satisfied with this contradiction: he thought the affair unworthy of farther
From this description of the “initial” to the Mansion-house, he seemed “a fit and proper person” to be taken by a “limner,” and represented, by the art of the engraver, to the readers of the Every-Day Book. An artist every way qualified was verbally instructed to view him; but instead of transmitting his “faithful portrait,” he sent a letter, of which the following is a
Copy.
To Mr. Hone.
Dear Sir,—I went this morning to the Mansion-house and had an interview with the porter, but that porter was very different to what I expected to have found. Instead of a very fat lazy fellow, fatted by indolence, I found a short active little man, about five feet high, not fat, nor lean, but a comfortable size, dressed in black, powdered hair, and top boots, pleasing and easy in his manners, and such a one that every one would suppose would get an inferior person to do his dirty work. There is nothing extraordinary in him to be remarkable, therefore I made no sketch of him; but proceeded to Limehouse on a little business, and from thence home, and feel so excessively tired that I send this scrawl, hoping you will excuse me coming myself.
Yours respectfully,
—— ——
Between this gentleman’s “view of the subject,” and the preceding “report,” there is a palpable difference; where the mistake lies, it is not in the power of the editor to determine. The letter-writer himself is “of a comfortable size,” and is almost liable to the suspicion of having seen the porter of the Mansion-house, from the opposite passage of the Mansion-house tavern, as through an inverted telescope. The lord mayor’s alleged comparison of the porter at his own gate, with the porter of the “Castle of Indolence,” may justify an extract of the stanzas wherein “that porter,” and “his man,” are described.
A comely full spread porter, swoln with sleep:
His calm, broad, thoughtless aspect, breath’d repose
And in sweet torpour he was plunged deep,
Nor could himself from ceaseless yawning keep;
While o’er his eyes the drowsy liquor ran,
Thro’ which his half-wak’d soul would faintly peep—
Then taking his black staff, he call’d his man,
And rous’d himself as much as rouse himself he can.
He was, to weet, a little rogueish page,
Save sleep and play who minded naught at all,
Like most the untaught striplings of the age.
This boy he kept each band to disengage,
Garters and buckles, task for him unfit,
But ill becoming his grave personage,
And which his portly paunch would not permit,
So this same limber page to all performed it.
Great store of caps, of slippers, and of gowns;
Wherewith he those that enter’d in array’d.
Loose, as the breeze that plays along the downs,
And waves the summer-woods when evening frowns,
O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein,
But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,
And heightens ease with grace, this done, right fain
Sir porter sat him down, and turned to sleep again.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 61·40.
