  The harvest-men ring Summer out
With thankful song, and joyous shout;
And, when September comes, they hail
The Autumn with the flapping flail.
* This besides being named “gerst-monat” by the Anglo-Saxons,[328] they also called haligemonath, or the “holy-month,” from an ancient festival held at this season of the year. A Saxon menology, or register of the months, (in Wanley’s addition to Hickes,) mentions it under that denomination, and gives its derivation in words which are thus literally translated “haligemonath—for that our [1185, 1186] forefathers, the while they heathens were, on this month celebrated their devil-gild.” To inquire concerning an exposition which appears so much at variance with this old name, is less requisite than to take a calm survey of the month itself.
I at my window sit, and see
Autumn his russet fingers lay
On every leaf of every tree;
I call, but summer will not stay.
She flies, the boasting goddess flies,
And, pointing where espaliers shoot,
Deserve my parting gift, she cries,
I take the leaves, but not the fruit.
Still, at this season— The rainbow comes and goes,
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;—
But yet we know, where’er we go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
“I am sorry to mention it,” says the author of the Mirror of the Months, “but the truth must be told even in a matter of age. The year then is on the wane. It is ‘declining into the vale’ of months. It has reached ‘a certain age.’—It has reached the summit of the hill, and is not only looking, but descending, into the valley below. But, unlike that into which the life of man declines, this is not a vale of tears; still less does it, like that, lead to that inevitable bourne, the kingdom of the grave. For though it may be called (I hope without the semblance of profanation) ‘the valley of the shadow of death,’ yet of death itself it knows nothing. No—the year steps onward towards its temporary decay, if not so rejoicingly, even more majestically and gracefully, than it does towards its revivification. And if September is not so bright with promise, and so buoyant with hope, as May, it is even more embued with that spirit of serene repose, in which the only true, because the only continuous enjoyment consists. Spring ‘never is, but always to be blest;’ but September is the month of consummations—the fulfiller of all promises—the fruition of all hopes—the era of all completeness. “The sunsets of September in this country are perhaps unrivalled, for their infinite variety, and their indescribable beauty. Those of more southern countries may, perhaps, match or even surpass them, for a certain glowing and unbroken intensity. But for gorgeous variety of form and colour, exquisite delicacy of tint and pencilling, and a certain placid sweetness and tenderness of general effect, which frequently arises out of a union of the two latter, there is nothing to be seen like what we can show in England at this season of the year. If a painter, who was capable of doing it to the utmost perfection, were to dare depict on canvas one out of twenty of the sunsets that we frequently have during this month, he would be laughed at for his pains. And the reason is, that people judge of pictures by pictures. They compare Hobbima with Ruysdael, and Ruysdael with Wynants, and Wynants with Wouvermans, and Wouvermans with Potter, and Potter with Cuyp; and then they think the affair can proceed no farther. And the chances are, that if you were to show one of the sunsets in question to a thorough-paced connoisseur in this department of fine art, he would reply, that it was very beautiful, to be sure, but that he must beg to doubt whether it was natural, for he had never seen one like it in any of the old masters!”
In the “Poetical Calendar” there is the following address “to Mr. Hayman,” probably Francis Hayman, the painter of Vauxhall-gardens, who is known to us all, through early editions of several of our good authors, “with copper-plates, designed by Mr. Hayman.” An Autumnal Ode. Yet once more, glorious God of day,
While beams thine orb serene,
O let me warbling court thy stay
To gild the fading scene!
Thy rays invigorate the spring,
Bright summer to perfection bring,
The cold inclemency of winter cheer,
And make th’ autumnal months the mildest of the year.
Ere yet the russet foliage fall
I’ll climb the mountain’s brow,
My friend, my Hayman, at thy call,
To view the scene below:
How sweetly pleasing to behold
Forests of vegetable gold!
How mix’d the many chequer’d shades between
The tawny, mellowing hue, and the gay vivid green!
[1187, 1188]How splendid all the sky! how still!
How mild the dying gale!
How soft the whispers of the rill,
That winds along the vale!
So tranquil nature’s works appear,
It seems the sabbath of the year:
As if, the summer’s labour past, she chose
This season’s sober calm for blandishing repose.
Such is of well-spent life the time,
When busy days are past;
Man, verging gradual from his prime,
Meets sacred peace at last:
His flowery spring of pleasures o’er,
And summer’s full-bloom pride no more,
He gains pacific autumn, mild and bland,
And dauntless braves the stroke of winter’s palsied hand.
For yet a while, a little while,
Involv’d in wintry gloom,
And lo! another spring shall smile,
A spring eternal bloom:
Then shall he shine, a glorious guest,
In the bright mansions of the blest,
Where due rewards on virtue are bestow’d,
And reap’d the golden fruits of what his autumn sow’d.
It is remarked by the gentleman-usher of the year, that “the fruit garden is one scene of tempting profusion. “Against the wall, the grapes have put on that transparent look which indicates their complete ripeness, and have dressed their cheeks in that delicate bloom which enables them to bear away the bell of beauty from all their rivals. The peaches and nectarines have become fragrant, and the whole wall where they hang is ‘musical with bees.’ Along the espaliers, the rosy-cheeked apples look out from among their leaves, like laughing children peeping at each other through screens of foliage; and the young standards bend their straggling boughs to the earth with the weight of their produce. “Let us not forget to add, that there is one part of London which is never out of season, and is never more in season than now. Covent-garden market is still the garden of gardens; and as there is not a month in all the year in which it does not contrive to belie something or other that has been said in the foregoing pages, as to the particular season of certain flowers, fruits, &c., so now it offers the flowers and the fruits of every season united. How it becomes possessed of all these, I shall not pretend to say: but thus much I am bound to add by way of information,—that those ladies and gentlemen who have country-houses in the neighbourhood of Clapham-common or Camberwell-grove, may now have the pleasure of eating the best fruit out of their own gardens—provided they choose to pay the price of it in Covent-garden market.”[329]
The observer of nature, where nature can alone be fully enjoyed, will perceive, that, in this month, “among the birds, we have something like a renewal of the spring melodies. In particular, the thrush and blackbird, who have been silent for several weeks, recommence their songs,—bidding good bye to the summer, in the same subdued tone in which they hailed her approach—wood-owls hoot louder than ever; and the lambs bleat shrilly from the hill-side to their neglectful dams; and the thresher’s flail is heard from the unseen barn; and the plough-boy’s whistle comes through the silent air from the distant upland; and snakes leave their last year’s skins in the brakes—literally creeping out at their own mouths; and acorns drop in showers from the oaks, at every wind that blows; and hazel-nuts ask to be plucked, so invitingly do they look forth from their green dwellings; and, lastly, the evenings close in too quickly upon the walks to which their serene beauty invites us, and the mornings get chilly, misty, and damp.” Finally, “another singular sight belonging to this period, is the occasional showers of gossamer that fall from the upper regions of the air, and cover every thing like a veil of woven silver. You may see them descending through the sunshine, and glittering and flickering in it, like rays of another kind of light. Or if you are in time to observe them before the sun has dried the dew from off them in the early morning, they look like robes of fairy tissue-work, gemmed with innumerable jewels.”[330]
September.
An Ode. Farewell the pomp of Flora! vivid scene!
Welcome sage Autumn, to invert the year—
Farewell to summer’s eye-delighted green!
Her verdure fades—autumnal blasts are near.
The silky wardrobe now is laid aside,
With all the rich regalia of her pride.
[1189, 1190]And must we bid sweet Philomel adieu?
She that was wont to charm us in the grove?
Must Nature’s livery wear a sadder hue,
And a dark canopy be stretch’d above?
Yes—for September mounts his ebon throne,
And the smooth foliage of the plain is gone.
Libra, to weigh the harvest’s pearly store,
The golden balance poizes now on high,
The calm serenity of Zephyr o’er,
Sol’s glittering legions to th’ equator fly,
At the same hour he shows his orient head,
And, warn’d by Thetis, sinks in Ocean’s bed.
Adieu! ye damask roses, which remind
The maiden fair-one, how her charms decay;
Ye rising blasts, oh! leave some mark behind,
Some small memorial of the sweets of May;
Ah! no—the ruthless season will not hear,
Nor spare one glory of the ruddy year.
No more the waste of music sung so late
From every bush, green orchestre of love,
For now their winds the birds of passage wait,
And bid a last farewell to every grove;
While those, whom shepherd-swains the sleepers call,
Choose their recess in some sequester’d wall.
Yet still shall sage September boast his pride,
Some birds shall chant, some gayer flowers shall blow,
Nor is the season wholly unallied
To purple bloom; the haler fruits shall grow,
The stronger plants, such as enjoy the cold,
And wear a livelier grace by being old.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 63·69.
September 1. Giles. This popular patron of the London district, which furnishes the “Mornings at Bow-street” with a large portion of amusement, is spoken of in vol. i. col. 1149.
Until this day partridges are protected by act of parliament from those who are “privileged to kill.” Application for a License. In the shooting season of 1821, a fashionably dressed young man applied to sir Robert Baker for a license to kill—not game, but thieves. This curious application was made in the most serious and business-like manner imaginable. “Can I be permitted to speak a few words to you, sir?” said the applicant. “Certainly, sir,” replied sir Robert. “Then I wish to ask you, sir, whether, if I am attacked by thieves in the streets or roads, I should be justified in using fire-arms against them, and putting them to death?” Sir Robert Baker replied, that every man had a right to defend himself from robbers in the best manner he could; but at the same time he would not be justified in using fire-arms, except in cases of the utmost extremity. “Oh! I am very much obliged to you, sir; and I can be furnished at this office with a license to carry arms for that purpose?” The answer, of course, was given in the negative, though not without a good deal of surprise at such a question, and the inquirer bowed and withdrew.
The first of September. Here the rude clamour of the sportsman’s joy,
The gun fast-thundering, and the winded horn,
Would tempt the muse to sing the rural game:
How, in his mid-career, the spaniel struck,
Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose,
Out-stretched, and finely sensible, draws full,
Fearful, and cautious, on the latent prey;
As in the sun the circling covey bask
Their varied plumes, and watchful every way
Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye.
Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat
Their idle wings, entangled more and more:
Nor on the surges of the boundless air,
Though borne triumphant, are they safe; the gun,
Glanc’d just, and sudden, from the fowler’s eye,
O’ertakes their sounding pinions; and again,
Immediate brings them from the towering wing,
Dead to the ground: or drives them wide-dispers’d,
Wounded, and wheeling various, down the wind.
These are not subjects for the peaceful muse,
Nor will she stain with such her spotless song;
Then most delighted, when she social sees
The whole mix’d animal creation round
Alive, and happy. ’Tis not joy to her,
This falsely-cheerful barbarous game of death
This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth
Awakes impatient, with the gleaming morn;
When beasts of prey retire, that all night long,
Urg’d by necessity, had rang’d the dark,
As if their conscious ravage shunn’d the light,
Asham’d. Not so the steady tyrant man,
Who with the thoughtless insolence of power
Inflam’d, beyond the most infuriate wrath
Of the worst monster that e’er roam’d the waste,
[1191, 1192]For sport alone pursues the cruel chase,
Amid the beamings of the gentle days.
Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage,
For hunger kindles you, and lawless want;
But lavish fed, in nature’s bounty roll’d,
To joy at anguish, and delight in blood,
Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.
So sings the muse of “The Seasons” on the one side; on the other, we have “the lay of the last minstrel” in praise of “Fowling,” the “rev. John Vincent, B. A. curate of Constantine, Cornwall,” whose “passion for rural sports, and the beauties of nature,” gave birth to “a poem where nature and sport were to be the only features of the picture,” and wherein he thus describes. Full of th’ expected sport my heart beats high,
And with impatient step I haste to reach
The stubbles, where the scatter’d ears afford
A sweet repast to the yet heedless game.
How my brave dogs o’er the broad furrows bound,
Quart’ring their ground exactly. Ah! that point
Answers my eager hopes, and fills my breast
With joy unspeakable. How close they lie!
Whilst to the spot with steady pace I tend.
Now from the ground with noisy wing they burst,
And dart away. My victim singled out,
In his aËrial course falls short, nor skims
Th’ adjoining hedge o’er which the rest unhurt
Have pass’d. Now let us from that lofty hedge
Survey with heedful eye the country round;
That we may bend our course once more to meet
The scatter’d covey: for no marker waits
Upon my steps, though hill and valley here,
With shrubby copse, and far extended brake
Of high-grown furze, alternate rise around.
Inviting is the view,—far to the right
In rows of dusky green, potatoes stretch,
With turnips mingled of a livelier hue.
Towards the vale, fenc’d by the prickly furze
That down the hill irregularly slopes,
Upwards they seem’d to fly; nor is their flight
Long at this early season. Let us beat,
With diligence and speed restrain’d, the ground,
Making each circuit good.
Near yonder hedge-row where high grass and ferns
The secret hollow shade, my pointers stand.
How beautiful they look! with outstretch’d tails,
With heads immovable and eyes fast fix’d,
One fore-leg rais’d and bent, the other firm,
Advancing forward, presses on the ground!
Convolv’d and flutt’ring on the blood stain’d earth,
The partridge lies:—thus one by one they fall,
Save what with happier fate escape untouch’d,
And o’er the open fields with rapid speed
To the close shelt’ring covert wing their way.
When to the hedge-rows thus the birds repair,
Most certain is our sport; but oft in brakes
So deep they lie, that far above our head
The waving branches close, and vex’d we hear
The startled covey one by one make off.
Now may we visit some remoter ground;
My eager wishes are insatiate yet,
And end but with the sun.
Yet happy he,
Who ere the noontide beams inflame the skies,
Has bagg’d the spoil; with lighter step he treads,
Nor faints so fast beneath the scorching ray.
The morning hours well spent, should mighty toil
Require some respite, he content can seek
Th’ o’er-arching shade, or to the friendly farm
Betake him, where with hospitable hand
His simple host brings forth the grateful draught
Of honest home-brew’d beer, or cider cool.
Such friendly treatment may each fowler find
Who never violates the farmer’s rights,
Nor with injurious violence, invades
His fields of standing corn. Let us forbear
Such cruel wrong, though on the very verge
Of the high waving field our days should point.
The pen of a country gentleman communicates an account of a remarkable character created by “love of the gun.” THE LOSCOE MISER. For the Every-Day Book. About sixty years ago, at Loscoe, a small village in Derbyshire, lived James Woolley, notorious for three things, the very good clocks he made, his eccentric system of farming, and the very great care he took of his money. He was, like Elwes and Dancer, an old bachelor, and for the same reason, it was a favourite maxim with him, and ever upon his lips, that “fine wives and fine gardens are mighty expensive things:” he consequently kept at a very respectful distance from both. He had, indeed, an unconquerable dread of any thing “fine,” or that approached in any way that awful and ghost-like term “expensive.” It would seem that Woolley’s avaricious bias, was not, as is generally the case, his first ruling passion, though a phrenologist, might entertain a different opinion. “When young,” says Blackner in his History of Nottinghamshire, “he was partial to shooting; but being detected at his sport upon the estate of the depraved [1193, 1194] William Andrew Horne, Esq. of Butterly (who was executed on the 11th of December, 1759, at Nottingham, for the murder of a child) and compelled by him to pay the penalty, he made a vow never to cease from labour, except when nature compelled him, till he had obtained sufficient property to justify him in following his favourite sport, without dreading the frowns of his haughty neighbour. He accordingly fell to work, and continued at it till he was weary, when he rested, and “to it again,”—a plan which he pursued without any regard to night or day. He denied himself the use of an ordinary bed, and of every other comfort, as well as necessary, except of the meanest kind. But when he had acquired property to qualify him to carry a gun, he had lost all relish for the sport; and he continued to labour at clock-making, except when he found an opportunity of trafficking in land, till he had amassed a considerable fortune, which he bequeathed to one of his relations. I believe he died about 1770.” It must have been a singular spectacle to any one except Woolley’s neighbours, who were the daily observers of his habits, to have seen a man worth upwards of 20,000l. up at five in the morning brushing away with his bare feet the dew as he fetched up his cows from the pasture, his shoes and stockings carefully held under his arm to prevent them from being injured by the wet; though, by the by, a glance at them would have satisfied any one they had but little to fear from the dew or any thing else. A penny loaf boiled in a small piece of linen, made him an excellent pudding; this with a halfpenny worth of small beer from the village alehouse was his more than ordinary dinner, and rarely sported unless on holydays, or when he had a friend or tenant to share the luxury. Once in his life Woolley was convicted of liberality. He had at great labour and expense of time made, what he considered, a clock of considerable value, and, as it was probably too large for common purposes, he presented it to the corporation of Nottingham, for the exchange. In return he was made a freeman of the town. They could not have conferred on him a greater favour: the honour mattered not—but election-dinners were things which powerfully appealed through his stomach to his heart. The first he attended was productive of a ludicrous incident. His shabby and vagrant appearance nearly excluded him from the scene of good-eating, and even when the burgesses sat down to table, no one seemed disposed to accommodate the miserly old gentleman with a seat. The chairs were quickly filled: having no time to lose, he crept under the table and thrusting up his head forced himself violently into one, but not before he had received some heavy blows on the bare skull. The most prominent incident in his history, was a ploughing scheme of his own invention. He had long lamented that he kept horses at a great expense for the purposes of husbandry. To have kept a saddle-horse would have been extravagant—and at last fancying he could do without them, they were sold, and the money carefully laid by. This was a triumph—a noble saving! The winter passed away, and his hay and corn-stacks stood undiminished; ploughing time however arrived, and his new plan must be carried into effect. The plough was drawn from its inglorious resting-place, and a score men were summoned from the village to supply the place of horses. At the breakfast-table he was not without fears of a famine—he could starve himself, but a score of brawny villagers, hungry, and anticipating a hard day’s work, would eat, and drink too, and must be satisfied. They soon proceeded to the field, where a long continued drought had made the ground almost impenetrable; the day became excessively hot, and the men tugged and puffed to little purpose; they again ate heartily, and drank more good ale than the old man had patience to think of; and difficult as it was, to force the share through the unyielding sward, it was still more difficult to refrain from laughing out at the grotesque figure their group presented. They made many wry faces, and more wry furrows, and spoiled with their feet what they had not ploughed amiss. But this was not all. Had a balloon been sent up from the field it could scarcely have drawn together more intruders; he tried, but in vain, to keep them off; they thronged upon him from all quarters; his gates were all set open or thrown off the hooks; and the fences broken down in every direction. Woolley perceived his error; the men, the rope traces, and the plough were sent home in a hurry, and with some blustering, and many oaths, the trespassers were got rid of. The fences were mended, and the gates replaced, [1195, 1196] and having to his heart’s content gratified his whim, he returned to the old-fashioned custom of ploughing with horses, until in his brains’ fertility he could discover something better and less “expensive!”
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 60·40.
September 2. London Burnt, 1666. This notice in our almanacs was descriptively illustrated in vol. i. col. 1150-1165.
Bartholomew Fair, 1826. Another year arrives, and spite of corporation “resolutions,” and references to “the committee,” and “reports,” and “recommendations,” to abolish the fair, it is held again. “Now,” says an agreeable observer, “Now arrives that Saturnalia of nondescript noise and nonconformity, ‘Bartlemy fair;’—when that prince of peace-officers, the lord mayor, changes his sword of state into a sixpenny trumpet, and becomes the lord of misrule and the patron of pickpockets; and lady Holland’s name leads an unlettered mob instead of a lettered one; when Mr. Richardson maintains, during three whole days and a half, a managerial supremacy that must be not a little enviable even in the eyes of Mr. Elliston himself; and Mr. Gyngell holds, during the same period, a scarcely less distinguished station as the Apollo of servant-maids; when ‘the incomparable (not to say eternal) young Master Saunders’ rides on horseback to the admiration of all beholders, in the person of his eldest son; and when all the giants in the land, and the dwarfs too, make a general muster, and each proves to be, according to the most correct measurement, at least a foot taller or shorter than any other in the fair, and in fact, the only one worth seeing,—‘all the rest being impostors!’ In short, when every booth in the fair combines in itself the attractions of all the rest, and so perplexes with its irresistible merit the rapt imagination of the half-holyday schoolboys who have got but sixpence to spend upon the whole, that they eye the outsides of each in a state of pleasing despair, till their leave of absence is expired twice over, and then return home filled with visions of giants and gingerbread-nuts, and dream all night long of what they have not seen.”[331]
The almanac day for Bartholomew fair, is on the third of the month, which this year fell on a Sunday, and it being prescribed that the fair shall be proclaimed “on or before the third,” proclamation was accordingly made, and the fair commenced on Saturday the second of September, 1826. Its appearance on that and subsequent days, proves that it is going out like the lottery, by force of public opinion; for the people no longer buy lottery tickets even in “the last lottery,” nor pay as they used to do at “Bartlemy fair.” There were this year only three shows at sixpence, and one at twopence; all the rest were “only a penny.” The sixpenny shows were, Clarke, with riders and tumblers; Richardson, with his tragi-comical company, enacting “Paul Pry;” and wicked Wombwell, with his fellow brutes. In the twopenny show were four lively little crocodiles about twelve inches long, hatched from the eggs at Peckham, by steam; two larger crocodiles; four cages of fierce rattle snakes; and a dwarf lady. In the penny shows were a glass-blower, sitting at work in a glass wig, with rows of curls all over, making pretty little teacups at threepence each, and miniature tobacco pipes for a penny; he was assisted by a wretched looking female, who was a sword-swallower at the last figure, and figured in this by placing her feet on hot iron, and licking a poker nearly red hot with her tongue. In “Brown’s grand company from Paris,” there were juggling, tight-rope dancing, a learned horse, and playing on the salt-box with a rolling-pin, to a tune which is said to be peculiar to the pastime. The other penny shows were nearly as last year, and silver-haired ladies and dwarfs, more plentiful and less in demand than learned pigs, who, on that account, drew “good houses.” In this year’s fair there was not one “up-and-down,” or “round-about.” The west side of Giltspur-street was an attractive mart to certain “men of letters;” for the ground was covered with “relics of literature.” In the language of my informant, for I did not visit the fair myself, there was a “path of genius” from St. Sepulchre’s church to Cock-lane. He mentions that a person, apparently an [1197, 1198] agent of a religious society, was anxiously busy in the fair distributing a bill entitled—“Are you prepared to die?”
Roman Remains at Pentonville,
and
The White Conduit. I am not learned in the history or the science of phrenology, but, unless I am mistaken, surely in the days of “craniology,” the organ of “inhabitiveness” was called the organ of “travelling.” Within the last minute I have felt my head in search of the development. I imagine it must be very palpable to the scientific, for I not only incline to wander but to locate. However that may be, I cannot find it myself—for want, I suppose, of a topographical view of the cranium, and I have not a copy of Mr. Cruikshank’s “Illustrations of Phrenology” to refer to. At home, I always sit in the same place if I can make my way to it without disturbing the children; all of whom, by the by, (I speak of the younger ones,) are great sticklers for rights of sitting, and urge their claims on each other with a persistence which takes all my authority to abate. I have a habit, too, at a friend’s house of always preferring the seat I dropped into on my first visit; and the same elsewhere. The first time I went to the Chapter Coffee-house, some five-and-twenty years ago, I accidentally found myself alone with old Dr. Buchan, in the same box; it was by the fireplace on the left from Paternoster-row door: poor Robert Heron presently afterwards entered, and then a troop of the doctor’s familiars dropped in, one by one; and I sat in the corner, a stranger to all of them, and therefore a silent auditor of their pleasant disputations. At my next appearance I forbore from occupying the same seat, because it would have been an obtrusion on the literary community; but I got into the adjoining box, and that always, for the period of my then frequenting the house, was my coveted box. After an absence of twenty years, I returned to the “Chapter,” and involuntarily stepped to the old spot; it was pre-occupied; and in the doctor’s box were other faces, and talkers of other things. I strode away to a distant part of the room to an inviting vacancy, which, from that accident, and my propensity, became my desirable sitting place at every future visit. My strolls abroad are of the same character. I prefer walking where I walked when novelty was charming; where I can have the pleasure of recollecting that I formerly felt pleasure—of rising to the enjoyment of a spirit hovering over the remains it had animated. One of my oldest, and therefore one of my still-admired walks is by the way of Islington. I am partial to it, because, when I was eleven years old, I went every evening from my father’s, near Red Lion-square, to a lodging in that village “for a consumption,” and returned the following morning. I thus became acquainted with Canonbury, and the Pied Bull, and Barnesbury-park, and White Conduit-house; and the intimacy has been kept up until presumptuous takings in, and enclosures, and new buildings, have nearly destroyed it. The old site seems like an old friend who has formed fashionable acquaintanceships, and lost his old heartwarming smiles in the constraint of a new face. In my last Islington walk, I took a survey of the only remains of the Roman encampment, near Barnesbury-park. This is a quadrangle of about one hundred and thirty feet, surrounded by a fosse or ditch, about five-and-twenty feet wide, and twelve feet deep. It is close to the west side of the present end of the New Road, in a line with Penton-street; immediately opposite to it, on the east side of the road, is built a row of houses, at present uninhabited, called Minerva-place. This quadrangle is supposed to have been the prÆtorium or head quarters of Suetonius, when he engaged the British queen, Boadicea, about the year 60. The conflict was in the eastward valley below, at the back of Pentonville. Here Boadicea, with her two daughters before her in the same war-chariot, traversed the plain, haranguing her troops; telling them, as Tacitus records, “that it was usual to the Britons to war under the conduct of women,” and inciting them to “vengeance for the oppression of public liberty, for the stripes inflicted on her person, for the defilement of her virgin daughters;” declaring “that in that battle they must remain utterly victorious or utterly perish: such was the firm purpose of her who was a woman; the men, if they pleased, might still enjoy life and bondage.” The slaughter was terrible, eighty thousand of the Britons were left dead on the field; it terminated victoriously for the Romans, near Gray’s-inn-lane, at the place called “Battle Bridge,” in commemoration of the event. [1199, 1200] Pretorium of the Roman Camp near Pentonville. The pencil of the artist has been employed to give a correct and picturesque representation as it now appears, in September, 1826, of the last vestige of the Roman power in this suburb. The view is taken from the north-east angle of the prÆtorium. Until within a few years the ground about it was unbroken; and, even now, the quadrangle itself is surprisingly complete, considering that nearly eighteen centuries have elapsed since it was formed by the Roman soldiery. In a short time the spirit of improvement will entirely efface it, and houses and gardens occupy its site. In the fosse of this station, which is overrun with sedge and brake, there is so pretty a “bit,” to use an artist’s word, that I have caused it to be sketched. The Old Well in the Fosse. [1201, 1202] This may be more pleasantly regarded when the ancient works themselves have vanished. Within a few yards of the western side of the fosse, and parallel with it, there is raised a mound or rampart of earth. It is in its original state and covered with verdure. In fine mornings a stray valitudinarian or two may be seen pacing its summit. Its western slope has long been the Sunday resort of Irishmen for the game of foot-ball. Getting back into the New Road, its street which stands on fields I rambled in when a boy, leads to “White Conduit-house,” which derives its name from a building still preserved, I was going to say, but I prefer to say, still standing. Mr. Joseph Fussell who resides within sight of this little edifice, and whose pencil took the Roman general’s station, and the well, also drew this Conduit; and his neighbour, Mr. Henry White, engraved the three, as they now present themselves to the reader’s eye. The view of the “White Conduit” is from the north, or back part, looking towards Pentonville, with Pancras new church and other buildings in the distance. It was erected over a head of water that formerly supplied the Charter-house, and bore a stone in front inscribed “T. S.” the initials of Sutton, the founder, with his arms, and the date “1641.”[332] About 1810, the late celebrated Wm. Huntington, S.S., of Providence chapel, who lived in a handsome house within sight, was at the expense of clearing the spring for the use of the inhabitants; but, because his pulpit opinions were obnoxious, some of the neighbouring vulgar threw loads of soil upon it in the night, which rendered the water impure, and obstructed its channel, and finally ceasing to flow, the public was deprived of the kindness he proposed. The building itself was in a very perfect state at that time, and ought to have been boarded up after the field it stood in was thrown open. As the new buildings proceeded it was injured and defaced by idle labourers and boys, from mere wantonness and reduced to a mere ruin. There was a kind of upper floor or hayloft in it, which was frequently a shelter to the houseless wanderer. A few years ago some poor [1203, 1204] creatures made it a comfortable hostel for the night, with a little hay. Early in the morning a passing workman perceived smoke issuing from the crevices, and as he approached heard loud cries from within. Some mischievous miscreants had set fire to the fodder beneath the sleepers, and afterwards fastened the door on the outside: the inmates were scorched by the fire, and probably they would all have been suffocated in a few minutes, if the place had not been broken open. The “White Conduit” at this time merely stands to shame those who had the power, and neglected to preserve it. To the buildings grown up around, it might have been rendered a neat ornament, by planting a few trees and enclosing the whole with an iron railing, and have stood as a monument of departed worth. This vicinity was anciently full of springs and stone conduits; the erections have long since gone to decay, and from their many waters, only one has been preserved, which is notoriously deficient as a supply to the populous neighbourhood. During the heats of summer the inhabitants want this common element in the midst of plenty. The spring in a neighbouring street is frequently exhausted by three or four o’clock in the afternoon, the handle of the pump is then padlocked till the next morning, and the grateful and necessary refreshment of spring-water is not to be obtained without going miles in search of another pump. It would seem as if the parochial powers in this quarter were leagued with publicans and sinners, to compel the thirsty to buy deleterious beer and bowel-disturbing “pop,” or to swallow the New River water fresh with impurities from the thousands of people who daily cleanse their foul bodies in the stream, as it lags along for the use of our kitchens and tea-tables. “White Conduit-house,” has ceased to be a recreation in the good sense of the word. Its present denomination is the “Minor Vauxhall,” and its chief attraction during the passing summer has been Mrs. Bland. She has still powers, and if their exercise here has been a stay and support to this sweet melodist, so far the establishment may be deemed respectable. It is a ground for balloon-flying and skittle-playing, and just maintains itself above the very lowest, so as to be one of the most doubtful places of public resort. Recollections of it some years ago are more in its favour. Its tea-gardens then in summer afternoons, were well accustomed by tradesmen and their families; they are now comparatively deserted, and instead, there is, at night, a starveling show of odd company and coloured lamps, a mock orchestra with mock singing, dancing in a room which decent persons would prefer to withdraw their young folks from if they entered, and fire-works “as usual,” which, to say the truth, are usually very good. Such is the present state of a vicinage which, “in my time,” was the pleasantest near spot to the north of London. The meadow of the “White Conduit” commanded an extensive prospect of the Hampstead and Highgate hills, over beautiful pastures and hedge-rows which are now built on, or converted into brick clamps, for the material of irruption on the remaining glades. The pleasant views are wholly obstructed. In a few short years, London will distend its enormous bulk to the heights that overlook its proud city; and, like the locusts of old, devour every green field, and nothing will be left to me to admire, of all that I admired.
Elegy Written in Bartlemy Fair, at
Five o’clock in the morning, in 1810. The clock-bell tolls the hour of early day,
The lowing herd their Smithfield penance drie,
The watchman homeward plods his weary way
And leaves the fair—all solitude to me!
Now the first beams of morning glad the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds;
Save when the sheep-dog bays with hoarse affright,
And brutal drovers pen the unwilling folds.
[1205, 1206]Save that where sheltered, or from wind or shower,
The lock’d-out ’prentice, or frail nymph complain,
Of such as, wandering near their secret bower,
Molest them, sensible in sleep, to pain.
Beneath those ragged tents—that boarded shade,
Which late display’d its stores in tempting heaps;
There, children, dogs, cakes, oysters, all are laid,
There, guardian of the whole, the master sleeps.
The busy call of care-begetting morn,
The well-slept passenger’s unheeding tread;
The showman’s clarion, or the echoing horn,
Too soon must rouse them from their lowly bed.
Perhaps in this neglected booth is laid
Some head volcanic, oft discharging fire!
Hands—that the rod of magic lately sway’d;
Toes—that so nimbly danc’d upon the wire.
Some clown, or pantaloon—the gazers’ jest,
Here, with his train in dirty pageant stood:
Some tired-out posture-master here may rest,
Some conjuring swordsman—guiltless of his blood!
The applause of listening cockneys to command,
The threats of city-marshal to despise;
To give delight to all the grinning band,
And read their merit in spectators’ eyes,
Is still their boast;—nor, haply, theirs alone,
Polito’s lions (though now dormant laid)
And human monsters, shall acquire renown,
The spotted Negro—and the armless maid!
Peace to the youth, who, slumbering at the Bear,
Forgets his present lot, his perils past:
Soon will the crowd again be thronging there,
To view the man on wild Sombrero cast.
Careful their booths, from insult to protect,
These furl their tapestry, late erected high;
Nor longer with prodigious pictures deck’d,
They tempt the passing youth’s astonish’d eye.
But when the day calls forth the belles and beaux,
The cunning showmen each device display,
And many a clown the useful notice shows,
To teach ascending strangers—where to pay.
Sleep on, ye imps of merriment—sleep on!
In this short respite to your labouring train;
And when this time of annual mirth is gone,
May ye enjoy, in peace, your hard-earned gain![333]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 60·40.
[1207, 1208] September 3. Purton Fair, Wilts. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. August 18, 1826. Dear Sir,—Perhaps you, or some of your readers, may be acquainted with a small village in the north of Wiltshire, called Purton, very pleasantly situated, and dear to me, from a child; it being the place where I passed nearly all my boyish days. I went to school there, and there spent many a pleasant hour which I now think of with sincere delight; and perhaps you will not object to a few particulars concerning a fair held there on the first day of May and the third day of September in every year. The spot whereon Purton fair is annually celebrated, is a very pleasant little green called the “close,” or play-ground, belonging to all the unmarried men in the village. They generally assemble there every evening after the toils of the day to recreate themselves with a few pleasant sports. Their favourite game is what they call backswording, in some places called singlestick. Some few of the village have the good fortune to be adepts in that noble art, and are held up as beings of transcendent genius among the rustic admirers of that noted science. They have one whom they call their umpire, to whom all disputes are referred, and he always, with the greatest possible impartiality, decides them. About six years ago a neighbouring farmer, whose orchard joins the green, thought that his orchard might be greatly improved. He accordingly set to work, pulled down the original wall, and built a new one, not forgetting to take in several feet of the green. The villagers felt great indignity at the encroachment, and resolved to claim their rights. They waited till the new wall should be complete, and in the evening of the same day a party of about forty marched to the spot armed with great sticks, pickaxes, &c., and very deliberately commenced breaking down the wall. The owner on being apprised of what was passing, assembled all his domestics and proceeded to the spot, when a furious scuffle ensued, and several serious accidents happened. At last, however, the aggressor finding he could not succeed, proposed a settlement; he entirely removed the new wall on the following day, and returned it to the place where the old one stood. On the morning of the fair, as soon as the day begins to dawn, all is bustle and confusion throughout the village. Gipsies are first seen with their donkies approaching the place of rendezvous; then the village rustics in their clean white Sunday smocks, and the lasses with their Sunday gowns, caps, and ribands, hasten to the green, and all is mirth and gaiety. I cannot pass over a very curious character who used regularly to visit the fair, and I was told by an ancient inhabitant that he had done so for several years. He was an old gipsy who had attained to high favour with all the younkers of the place, from his jocular habits, curious dress, and the pleasant stories he used to relate. He called himself “Corey Dyne,” or “Old Corey,” and those are the only names by which he was known. He was accustomed to place a little hat on the ground, from the centre of which rose a stick about three feet high, whereon he put either halfpence or a small painted box, or something equally winning to the eye of his little customers. There he stood crying, “Now who throws with poor old Corey—come to Corey—come to Corey Dyne; only a halfpenny a throw, and only once a year!” A boy who had purchased the right to throw was placed about three feet from the hat, with a small piece of wood which he threw at the article on the stick, and if it fell in the hat, (which by the by it was almost invariably sure to do,) the thrower lost his money; but if out of the hat, on the ground, the article from the stick was claimed by the thrower. The good humour of “Old Corey” generally ensured him plenty of custom. I have oftentimes been a loser with him, but never a winner. I believe that no one in all Purton knows from whence he is, although every body is acquainted with him. There was a large show on the place, at which the rustics were wont to gaze with surprise and admiration. The chief object of their wonder was our “punch.” They could not form the slightest idea how little wooden figures could talk and dance about; they supposed that there must be some life in them. I well remember that I once undertook to set them right, but was laughed at and derided me for my presumption and boast of superior knowledge. There was also another very merry fellow who frequented the fair by the name of “Mr. Merryman.” He obtained [1209, 1210] great celebrity by giving various imitations of birds, &c., which he would very readily do after collecting a sufficient sum “to clear his pipe,” as he used to say. He then began with the nightingale, which he imitated very successfully, then followed the blackbird—linnet—goldfinch—robin—geese and ducks on a rainy morning—turkies, &c. &c. Then, perhaps, after collecting some more money “to clear his pipe,” he would imitate a jackass, or a cow. His excellent imitation of the crow of a cock strongly affected the risible muscles of his auditors. The amusements last till near midnight, when the rustics, being exhilarated with the effects of good strong Wiltshire ale, generally part after a few glorious battles. The next day several champions enter the field to contest the right to several prizes, which are laid out in the following order:— 1st. A new smock. 2nd. A new hat with a blue cockade. 3rd. An inferior hat with a white cockade. 4th. A still inferior hat without a cockade. A stage is erected on the green, and at five o’clock the sport commences; and a very celebrated personage, whom they call their umpshire, (umpire,) stands high above the rest to award the prizes. The candidates are generally selected from the best players at singlestick, and on this occasion they use their utmost skill and ingenuity, and are highly applauded by the surrounding spectators. I must not forget to remark that on this grand, and to them, interesting day, the inhabitants of Purton do not combat against each other. No—believe me, sir, they are better acquainted with the laws of chivalry. Purton produces four candidates, and a small village adjoining, called Stretton, sends forth four more. These candidates are representatives of the villages to which they respectively belong, and they who lose have to pay all the expenses of the day; but it is to the credit of the sons of Purton I record, that for seven successive years their candidates have been returned the victors. The contest generally lasts two hours, and, after that, the ceremony of chairing the representatives takes place, which is thus performed:—Four chairs made with the boughs of trees are in waiting, and the conquerors are placed therein and carried through the village with every possible demonstration of joy, the inhabitants shouting “Purton for ever! huzza! my boys, huzza!” and waving boughs over their triumphant candidates. After the chairing they adjourn to the village public-house, and spend the remainder of the evening as before. The third day is likewise a day of bustle and confusion. All repair to a small common, called the cricket ground, and a grand match takes place between the Purton club and the Stretton club; there are about twenty candidates of a side. The vanquished parties pay a shilling each to defray the expense of a cold collation, which is previously provided in a pleasant little copse adjoining the cricket-ground, and the remainder of the day is spent convivially. I remember hearing the landlord of the public-house at Purton, (which is situated on one side of the green,) observe to a villager, that during the three days’ merriment he had sold six thousand gallons of strong beer and ale; the man of course doubted him, and afterwards very sarcastically remarked to me, “It’s just as asy, measter, for he to zay zix thousand gallons as dree thousand!” Does not this, good Mr. Editor, show a little genuine Purton wit? I have now, my dear sir, finished, and have endeavoured to describe three pleasant days spent in an innocent and happy manner; and if I have succeeded in affording you any service, or your readers any amusement, I am amply rewarded. Allow me to add I feel such an affection for old Purton, that should I at any time in my life visit Wiltshire, I would travel twenty miles out of my road to ramble once more in the haunts of my boyhood. Believe me, my dear Sir,
Yours very sincerely,
C. T. August, 18, 1826.
P.S. Since writing the above I have received a letter from a very particular friend who went to Purton school five years, to whom I applied for a few extra particulars respecting the fair, &c., and he thus writes, “Dear C. You seem to think that with the name I still retain all the characteristics and predilections of a hodge; and therefore you seek to me for information respecting the backsword-playing, fair, &c. Know that as to the first, it is (and has been for the last two years) entirely done away with, as the principal ‘farmers’ in the place ‘done’ [1211, 1212] like it, and so don’t suffer it. As to the fair, where lads and lasses meet in their best gowns, and ribands, and clean smocks, you must know, most assuredly, more of it than I do, as I seldom troubled about it. You must bear in mind that this fair is exactly the same as that held in the month of May, but as no notice has been taken of it by Mr. Hone in either of his volumes, I suppose it very little matters whether your description is of the fair held in May or September.” I have to lament, my dear sir, the discontinuance of the ancient custom of backswording at Purton village; but so long as they keep up their fairs, the other loss will not be so much felt. C. T.
August 30, 1826. I forgot to mention in my particulars of Purton-fair, that Old Corey, and the other celebrated worthies, only come to the September fair, as the May fair is disregarded by them, it being a fair principally for the sale of cattle, &c. and the September fair is entirely devoted to pleasure. Perhaps you can introduce this small piece of intelligence, together with the following doggrel song written for the occasion. C. T. TO THE WORTHY AND RESPECTABLE INHABITANTS OF PURTON,
This SONG is most respectfully inscribed,
By their ever true and devoted humble servant, Charles Tomlinson. SONG. Purton Fair. Come, neighbours, listen, I’ll sing you a song,
Which, I assure you, will not keep you long;
I’ll sing a good song about old Purton fair,
For that is the place, lads, to drive away care.
The damsels all meet full of mirth and of glee,
And they are as happy as happy can be;
Such worth, and such beauty, fairs seldom display,
And sorrow is banished on this happy day.
There’s the brave lads of Purton at backsword so clever,
Who were ne’er known to flinch, but victorious ever;
The poor boys of Stretton are basted away,
For Purton’s fam’d youths ever carry the day.
’Tis “Old Corey Dyne,” who wisely declares,
Stretton’s lads must be beaten at all Purton’s fairs;
They can’t match our courage, then, huzza! my boys,
To still conquering Purton let’s kick up a noise.
“Old Corey’s” the merriest blade in the fair,
What he tells us is true, so, prithee, don’t stare;
“Remember poor Corey, come, pray have a throw,
’Tis but once a year, as you very well know.”
But—here ends my song, so let’s haste to the green,
’Tis as pretty a spot as ever was seen;
And if you are sad or surrounded with care,
Haste quickly! haste quickly! to Old Purton Fair.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 61·07.
[1213, 1214] September 4. How to keep Apples. Gather them dry, and put them with clean straw, or clean chaff, into casks; cover them up close, and put them into a cool dry cellar. Fruit will keep perfectly good a twelvemonth in this manner. How to mark your fruit. Let the cultivator of choice fruit cut in paper the initial letters of his name, or any other mark he likes; and just before his peaches, nectarines, &c. begin to be coloured, stick such letters or mark with gum-water on that side of the fruit which is next the sun. That part of the rind which is under the paper will remain green, in the exact form of the mark, and and so the fruit be known wheresoever found, for the mark cannot be obliterated.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 59·92.
September 5. Old Bartholomew. This day has been so marked in our almanacs since the new style. The Season. We may expect very pleasant weather during this month. For whether the summer has been cold, warm, or showery, September, in all latitudes lying between 45 and 55 degrees north, produces, on an average, the finest and pleasantest weather of the year: as we get farther south the pleasantest temperature is found in October; more northward than 55 degrees the chills of autumn are already arrived, and we must look for temperature to August.[334]
The Gymnasium.
For the Every-Day Book. HÆc opera atque hÆ sunt generosi Principis artes.
Juv. Sat. 8. L. 224. Let cricket, tennis, fives, and ball,
The active to amusement call;
Let sportsmen through the fields at morn
Discharge the gun and sound the horn,—
Gymnastic sport shall fill my hours,
Renew my strength and tone my powers.
I learn to climb, to walk and run,
I make defence, and dangers shun;
Now quick, now slow, now poised on high,
I stand in air and vault the sky;
The sailor’s skill, the soldier’s part,
I compass by Gymnastic art.
All life’s concerns require that health
Should be secured to gather wealth;
That limb and muscle, nerve and vein,
Should vigorous force and motion gain:—
Seek the Gymnasium,—try the plan,
And be the strong and graceful man.
The Olympic games, of Grecian birth,
Gave many a youth athletic worth;
Hence Romans shone;—hence Britons fought,
The Picts and Vandals influence caught;
The lance, the spear, and arrow flew,
And prove what deeds Gymnastics do.
With ease the horseman learns to ride
And keep his hobby in his pride;
Bloodless the feats are here pursued,
And vanquished contests are renewed.
Hey for Gymnastics!—’tis the rage
Both with the simple and the sage.
Clias, and Voelker as the chief,
Each makes his charge and gives relief;
Each points his pupils to the goal,
And, more than Parry, gains the pole:—
Up and be trim!—the sport is fine,—
Fling down the gauntlet,—mount the line.
Caleidoscopes were once the taste,—
Velocipedes were rode for haste,—
Those fed the eye with pleasing views,
These ran the streets and tithed their dues;
Thrown to the shade like fashions past,
Gymnastics reign, for they are last.
Nature with art is like a tower,
Strong in defence in every hour;
Nature with art can nearly climb
The Alp and Appenine of time;
Make life more lasting, life more bold,
By true Gymnastic skill controlled.
J. R. Prior. Sept. 1826.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 60·35.
September 6. Chronology. On the 6th of September, 1734, died in France, the Sieur Michael Tourant, aged ninety-eight, of whom it is said he never eat salt, and had none of the infirmities of old age.[335]
[1215, 1216] A Total Eclipse in Caligraphy. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Sir,—As a subscriber to your highly entertaining work, I take the liberty of sending you the following. In the first volume of the Every-Day Book, page 1086, I found an account of some small writing, executed by Peter Bales, which Mr. D’Israeli presumed to have been the whole bible written so small, that it might be put in an English walnut no bigger than a hen’s egg. “The nut holdeth the book; there are as many leaves in this little book as in the great bible, and as much written in one of the little leaves, as a great leaf of the bible.”—There is likewise an account in the same pages of the “Iliad” having been written so small that it might be put in a nut-shell; which is nothing near so much as the above. I have lately seen written within the compass of a new penny piece, with the naked eye, and with a common clarified pen, the lord’s prayer, the creed, the ten commandments, the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth collects after Trinity, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c., the name of the writer, place of abode, nearest market town, county, day of the month and date of the year, all in words at length, and with the whole of the capital letters and stops belonging thereto, the commandments being all numbered. It was written by, and is in the possession of, Mr. John Parker of Wingerworth, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire: the writing bears date September 10, 1823. This piece of writing, I find, upon calculation, to be considerably smaller than either of the before-mentioned pieces. My calculation is as follows:— A moderate sized egg will hold a book one inch and three quarters by one inch and three-eighths. Bibles have from about sixty to eighty lines in a column; I have not seen more. In this ingenious display of fine penmanship, there are eighty lines in one inch, and two half-eighths of an inch, which in one inch and three quarters, (the length of the bible,) is one hundred and six lines, which would contain one-third more matter than the bibles with eighty lines in a column; and one line of this writing, one inch and two-half eighths of an inch in length, (which is the sixteenth of an inch less in bread than the small bible,) is equal to two lines from one column of the great bible—for example. Isaiah. Chap. XXIV.—Two lines of verse 20, the bible having seventy-nine lines in a column:— “and the transgression thereof shall be heavy
upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again.” Ezekiel, Chap. XXX.—Two lines of verse 12, the bible having sixty-three lines in a column:— “and I will make the Land waste, and all that
is therein, by the hand of strangers.” One line of Mr. Parker’s writing being part of the seventh collect after Trinity:— “good things; graft in our hearts the love of thy name, increase in us true religion, now”— Another line being part of the ninth and tenth commandments:— “false witness against thy neighbour. 10.—Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house.”— Mr. Parker very obligingly submits his writing to the inspection of the curious, and would execute one similar for a proper reward. If this account should be thought worthy of a place in your “Every-Day Book,” I shall feel much obliged by its insertion, and will endeavour to send you something amusing respecting the customs, pastimes, and amusements of this part of Derbyshire. I am, Sir,
Your well-wisher
And obedient servant,
John Francis Browne. Lings, near Chesterfield,
August, 30, 1826.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 59·17.
September 7. Enurchus. For this saint, in the church of England calendar, see vol. i. col. 1253.
Chronology. On the 7th of September, 1772, a most astonishing rain fell at Inverary, in Scotland, by which the rivers rose to such a height, as to carry every thing along with the current that stood in the way. Even trees that had braved the floods for more than one hundred years, were torn up by the roots and carried down the stream. Numbers of bridges were swept away, and the military roads rendered impassable. All the duke of Argyle’s cascades, bridges, and bulwarks, were destroyed at his fine palace, in that neighbourhood.[336] [1217, 1218] Baron Brown, the Durham Poet. Baron Brown, the Durham Poet. A Latin line beneath his name
May lift along the laureate’s fame,
As on a crutch, and make it go
For half an age, for all to know
That there was one, in our time,
Who thought mere folly not a crime;
And, though he scorn’d to be a scorner
And offer Brown to Poets Corner,
Imagined it a fit proceeding
To give his life—let who will sneer at
It—“Palmam qui meruit ferat.”
Mr. John Sykes, bookseller, Johnson’s-head, Newcastle, in the “Local Records, or Historical Register of Remarkable Events,” which, in 1824, he compiled into a very interesting octavo volume, inserts the death, with some account of the “life, character, and behaviour,” of the self-celebrated poet-laureate of Durham, whose portrait adorns this page. He has not been registered here under the day of his decease according to Mr. Syke’s obit, but it is not fitting as regards this work, that Brown should die for ever, and therefore, from a gentleman who knew him, the reader will please to accept the following Memoir of James Brown. For the Every-Day Book. This curious personage was well known for a long series of years to the inhabitants of Northumberland and Durham, and we believe few men have figured on [1219, 1220] the stage of the world more remarkable for their peculiarities and eccentricities. Of the early part of James Brown’s life little is known that can be depended upon, but the compiler of the present article has heard him assert that he was born at Berwick-on-Tweed; if this be the case it is probable he left that town at a very early age, as in his speech none of the provincialisms of the lower order of inhabitants of Berwick could be observed, and had he resided there for any length of time, he must have imperceptibly imbibed the vulgar dialect. Certain, however, it is, that when a young man he resided in that “fashionable” part of Newcastle-upon-Tyne called “the Side,” where he kept a rag-shop, and was in the habit of attending the fairs in the neighbourhood with clothes ready-made for sale. During his residence in Newcastle his first wife died; of this person he always spoke in terms of affection, and was known long after her death, to shed tears on her being alluded to. In all probability it was owing to his loss of her that his mind became disturbed, and from an industrious tradesman he became a fanatic. A few years after her decease he married a Miss Richardson, of Durham, a respectable though a very eccentric character, and who survived him a year. This lady being possessed of a theatre, and some other little property in Durham, he removed to that city to reside. When Brown first devoted himself to the muses is uncertain, but about thirty-three years ago, he lived in Newcastle, styled himself the poet-laureate of that place, and published a poem explanatory of a chapter in the Apocalypse, which was “adorned” with a hideous engraving of a beast with ten horns. Of this plate he always spoke in terms of rapture. We have heard that it was designed by the bard; but as Mr. B., though a poet, never laid any claim to the character of an artist, it is our belief that he had no hand in its manufacture, but that it was the work of some of those waggish friends who deceived him by their tricks, and rendered his life a pleasure. Their ingenious fictions prevented his dwelling on scenes by which his existence might have been embittered, and it is but justice to his numerous hoaxers to assert, that without their pecuniary assistance he would have often been in want of common necessaries. Though credulous he was honest; though poor he was possessed of many virtues; and while they laughed at the fancies of the visionary, they respected the man. Brown once indulged a gentleman in Durham with a sight of the drawing above alluded to, and on a loud laugh at what the poet esteemed the very perfection of terrific sublimity, Brown told him “he was no christian, or he would not deride a scriptural drawing which the angel Gabriel had approved!” Brown’s poesy was chiefly of a serious nature, (at least it was intended to be so,) levity and satire were not his forte. Like Dante, his imagination was gloomy—he delighted to describe the torments of hell—the rattling of the chains, and the screams of the damned; the mount of Sisyphus was his Parnassus, the Styx was his Helicon, and the pale forms that flit by Lethe’s billows, the muses that inspired his lay. His poems consisted chiefly of visions, prophecies, and rhapsodies, suggested by some part of the sacred volume of the contents of which he had an astonishing recollection. When he was at the advanced age of ninety-two it was almost impossible to quote any passage of scripture to him without his remembering the book, chapter, and frequently the verse from whence it was taken. Of his poetry (though in his favourite city he has left many imitators) we cannot say any thing in praise; it had “neither rhyme nor reason,” it was such as a madman would inscribe on the walls of his cell. His song, like that of the witches in Thalaba, was “an unintelligible song” to all but the writer, on whose mind in reading it, to use the words of one of the sweetest of our modern poets, “meaning flashed like strong inspiration.” The only two lines in his works that have any thing like meaning in them are— “When men let Satan rule their heart
They do act the devil’s part.”
Our author’s last, and as he esteemed it, his best work—his monumentum Ære perennius, was a pamphlet published in Newcastle in 1820, by Preston and Heaton, at the reasonable price of one shilling; for, unlike his brother bards, Mr. Brown never published in an expensive form. He was convinced that merit would not lie hid though concealed in a pamphlet, but like Terence’s beauty, diu latere non potest, and that nonsense, though printed in quarto with the types of a Davison, would be still unnoticed and neglected. On his once being shown the [1221, 1222] quarto edition of the “White Doe,” and told that he ought to publish in a similar manner, his answer was that “none but the devil’s poets needed fine clothes!” The pamphlet above alluded to was entitled “Poems on Military Battles, Naval Victories, and other important subjects, the most extraordinary ever penned, a Thunderbolt shot from a Lion’s Bow at Satan’s Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Devil and the Kingdom of this World reserving themselves in darkness for the great and terrible Day of the Lord, as Jude, the servant of God, declareth: By James Brown, P. L.” This singular work was decorated with a whole length portrait of the author treading on the “devil’s books,” and blowing a trumpet to alarm sinners; it was, as we have heard him say, the work of a junior pupil of the ingenious Mr. Bewick. During the contest for Durham, in 1820, a number of copies of an election squib, written by a humble individual connected with a northern newspaper, and entitled “A Sublime Epistle, Poetic and Politic, by James Brown, P. L.” was sent him for distribution; these, after printing an explanatory address on the back of the title, wherein he called himself S. S. L. D., the “Slayer of Seven Legions of Devils,” and disowned the authorship, he turned to his own emolument by selling at sixpence a copy. In religious affairs Brown was extremely superstitious; he believed in every mad fanatic who broached opinions contrary to reason and sense. The wilder the theory, the more congenial to his mind. He was successively a believer in Wesley, Messrs. Buchan, Huntington, Imanuel Swedenburg, and Joanna Southcote; had he lived a little longer he would probably have been “a ranter.” He was a great reader, and what he read he remembered. The bible, of which he had a very old and curious pocket edition in black letter, was his favourite work; next to that he esteemed Alban Butler’s wonderful lives of the saints, to every relation of which he gave implicit credit, though, strange to tell, he was in his conversation always violent against the idolatries of the catholic church. When Brown was a follower of Mr. Buchan, he used to relate that he fasted forty days and forty nights, and it is to this subject that veterinary doctor Marshall, of Durham, his legitimate successor, alludes in the following lines of an elegy he wrote on the death of his brother poet and friend:— “He fasted forty days and nights
When Mr. Buchan put to rights
The wicked, for a wonder;
And not so much, it has been thought,
As weigh’d the button on his coat,
He took to keep sin under.”
So said a Bion worthy of such an Adonis! but other accounts differ. If we may credit Mr. Sykes, the respectable author of “Local Records,” Marshall erred in supposing that the poet, camelion-like, lived on air for “forty days and forty nights.” Mr. Sykes relates that in answer to a question he put to him as to how he contrived for so long a time to sustain the cravings of nature, Brown replied, that “they (he and the rest of the party of fasters) only set on to the fire a great pot, in which they boiled water, and then stirred into it oatmeal, and supped that!” Brown was very susceptible of flattery, and all his life long constantly received letters in rhyme, purporting to come from Walter Scott, Byron, Shelley, Southey, Wilson, and other great poets; with communications in prose from the king of England, the emperor of Morocco, the sultan of Persia, &c. All of these he believed to be genuine, and was in the habit of showing as curiosities to his friends, who were frequently the real authors, and laughed in their sleeves at his credulity. In 1821, Brown received a large parchment, signed G. R., attested by Messrs. Canning and Peel, to which was suspended a large unmeaning seal, which he believed to be the great seal of Great Britain. This document purported to be a patent of nobility, creating him “baron Durham, of Durham, in the county palatine of Durham.” It recited that this title was conferred on him in consequence of a translation of his works having been the means of converting the Mogul empire! From that moment he assumed the name and style of “baron Brown,” and had a wooden box made for the preservation of his patent. Of the poetic pieces which Brown was in the habit of receiving, many were close imitations of the authors whose names were affixed to them, and evinced that the writers were capable of better things. One “from Mr. Coleridge,” was a respectable [1223, 1224] burlesque of the “Ancient Mariner,” and began:— It is a lion’s trumpeter,
And he stoppeth one of three.
Another, “from Mr. Wilson,” commenced thus:— Poetic dreams float round me now,
My spirit where art thou?
Oh! art thou watching the moonbeams smile
On the groves of palm in an Indian isle;
Or dost thou hang over the lovely main
And list to the boatswain’s boisterous strain;
Or dost thou sail on sylphid wings
Through liquid fields of air,
Or, riding on the clouds afar,
Dost thou gaze on the beams of the evening star
So beautiful and so fair.
O no! O no! sweet spirit of mine
Thou art entering a holy strain divine
A strain which is so sweet,
Oh, one might think ’twas a fairy thing,
A thing of love and blessedness,
Singing in holy tenderness,
A lay of peaceful quietness,
Within a fairy street!
But ah! ’tis Brown, &c. &c.
A piece “from Walter Scott” opened with:— These burlesques were chiefly produced by the law and medical students in Newcastle and Durham, and the young gentlemen of the Catholic College of Ushaw, near the latter place. As the writer of this sketch was once congratulating Mr. Brown on his numerous respectable correspondents, the old man said that he had an acquaintance far superior to any of his earthly ones, and no less a personage than the angel Gabriel, who, he stated, brought him letters from Joanna Southcote, and call to carry back his answers! This “Gabriel” was a young West Indian then residing in Durham, who used to dress himself in a sheet with goose wings on his shoulders and visit the poet at night, with letters purporting to be written to him in heaven by the far-famed prophetess. After “Gabriel” left Durham, Brown was frequently told of the deception which had been practised upon him, but he never could be induced to believe that his nocturnal visiter was any other than the angel himself. “Did I not,” he once said, “see him clearly fly out at the ceiling!” Brown used to correspond with some of Joanna’s followers in London, on the subject of these supposed revelations, and actually found (credite posteri) believers in the genuineness. Amongst Brown’s strange ideas, one was that he was immortal, and should never die. Under this delusion when ill he refused all medical assistance, and it induced him at the age of 90 to sell the little property which he acquired by marriage, for a paltry guinea a week, to be paid during the life of himself and Mrs. Brown, and the life of the survivor. The property he parted from, in consideration of this weekly stipend, was a leasehold house in Sadler-street, (the theatre having been pulled down soon after the erection of the present one opposite to it,) and the house was conveyed to two Durham tradesmen, Robinson Emmerson and George Stonehouse, by whom the allowance was for some time regularly paid; but on the latter becoming embarrassed in his circumstances, the payment was discontinued, and poor Brown and his aged wife were thrown on the world without a farthing, at a time when bodily and mental infirmities had rendered them incapable of gaining a livelihood. Far be it from the writer of this to cast any aspersion on Messrs. Emmerson and Stonehouse, but it does certainly appear to him that their conduct to Brown was unkind to say the least of it. After this calamity Brown became for a few months an inhabitant of a poor-house, which he subsequently left for a lodging at an obscure inn, where, on the 11th of July, 1823, he died in a state of misery and penury at the advanced age of 92; his wife shortly afterwards died in the poorhouse. They are both interred in the churchyard of St. Oswald. Such was James Brown the Durham poet, who with all his eccentricities was an honest, harmless and inoffensive old man. Of his personal appearance, the excellent portrait which accompanies this memoir from a drawing by Mr. Terry [1225, 1226] is an exact resemblance. All who knew him will bear testimony to its correctness. It is indeed the only one in existence that gives a correct idea of what he was. The other representations of him are nothing better than caricatures. D.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 58·45.
September 8. Nativity B. V. M. The legend of this festival retained in the church of England calendar, is related in vol. i. col. 1274. Chronology. Fatal Puppet Play. Extract from the Parish Register of Burwell, in Cambridgeshire, “1727, September 8. N. B. About nine o’clock in the evening, a most dismal fire broke out in a barn in which a great number of persons were met together to see a puppet-show. In the barn there were a great many loads of new light straw; the barn was thatched with straw, which was very dry, and the inner roof of the barn was covered with old dry cobwebs; so that the fire, like lightning, flew round the barn in an instant, and there was but one small door belonging to the barn, which was close nailed up, and could not be easily broke open; and when it was opened, the passage was so narrow, and every body so impatient to escape, that the door was presently blocked up, and most of those that did escape, which were but very few, were forced to crawl over the heads and bodies of those that lay on a heap at the door, and the rest, in number seventy-six, perished instantly, and two more died of their wounds within two days. The fire was occasioned by the negligence of a servant, who set a candle and lantern to, or near, the heap of straw that was in the barn. The servant’s name was Richard Whitaker, of the parish of Hadstock, in Essex, near Linton, in Cambridgeshire, who was tried for the fact at the assizes held at Cambridge, March 27, 1728, but he was acquitted.”[338]
Staines Church, Middlesex.
Exhumation. In a small apartment under the staircase leading to the gallery at the west end of the church, is presented the singular and undesirable spectacle of two unburied coffins, containing human bodies. The coffins are covered with crimson velvet and are otherwise richly embellished. They are placed beside each other on trestles, and bear respectively the following inscriptions:— “Jessie Aspasia. The most excellent and truly beloved wife of F. W. Campbell, Esq. of Barbreck, N. B. and of Woodlands in Surrey. Died in her 28th year, July 11th, 1812.” “Henry E. A. Caulfield, Esq.
Died Sept. 3, 1808.
Aged 29 years.” As it was necessarily supposed that coffins thus open to inspection would excite much curiosity, a card is preserved at the sexton’s house, which states, in addition to the intelligence conveyed by the above inscriptions, that the deceased lady was daughter of W. T. Caulfield, Esq. of Rahanduff in Ireland, by Jessie, daughter of James, third lord Ruthven; and that she bore, with tranquil and exemplary patience, a fatal disorder produced by grief on the death of her brother, who removed from a former place of sepulture, now lies beside her in unburied solemnity.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 57·87.
September 9. The Season. At this period of the year the fashionable people of unfashionable times were accustomed to close their sojournments on the coasts, and commence their inland retreats before they “came to town for good.” In this respect manners are altered. The salubrity of the ocean-breeze is now courted, and many families, in defiance of gales and storms, spend the greater part of the winter at the southern watering places. The increase of this remarkable deviation deserves to be noticed, as a growing accommodation to the purposes of life.
A literary gentleman on his arrival from viewing the world of waters, obliges the editor with some original flowings from his pen, so fresh and beautiful, that they are submitted immediately to the reader’s enjoyment. [1227, 1228] Sonnet.
Written in a Cottage by the Sea-side. Hastings. Ye, who would flee from the world’s vanities
From cities’ riot, and mankind’s annoy,
Seek this lone cot, and here forget your sighs,
For health and rest are here—guests but too coy.
If the vast ocean, with its boundless space,
Its power omnipotent, and eternal voice,
Wean not thy thoughts from wearying folly’s choice,
And mortal trifling, unto virtue’s grace,
To high intent, pure purpose, and sweet peace,
Leaving of former bitter pangs no trace;—
If each unworthy wish it does not drown,
And free thee from ennui’s unnerving thrall,
Then art thou dead to nature’s warning call,
And fit but for the maddening haunts of town.
August, 1826. W. T. M. Sonnet Stanzas.
On the Sea. I never gaze upon the mighty sea,
And hear its many voices, but there steals
A host of stirring fancies, vividly
Over my mind; and memory reveals
A thousand wild and wondrous deeds to me;
Of venturous seamen, on their daring keels;
And blood-stain’d pirates, sailing fearlessly;
And lawless smugglers, which each cave conceals;
In his canoe, the savage, roving free;
And all I’ve read of rare and strange, that be
On every shore, o’er which its far wave peals:
With luxuries, in which Imagination reels,
Of bread fruit, palm, banana, cocoa tree,
And thoughts of high emprize, and boundless liberty!
I ne’er upon the ocean gaze, but I
Think of its fearless sons, whose sails, unfurl’d,
So oft have led to Art’s best victory.
Columbus upon unknown waters hurl’d,
Pursuing his sole purpose, firm and high,
The great discovery of another world;
And daring Cook, whose memory’s bepearled
With pity’s tears, from many a wild maid’s eye;
Their Heiva dance, in fancy I espy,
While still the dark chief’s lip in anger curled:
O’er shipwreck’d Crusoe’s lonely fate I sigh,
His self-form’d bark on whelming billows whirled;
And oft, in thought, I hear the Tritons cry,
And see the mermaid train light gliding by.
[1229, 1230]I never gaze upon the boundless deep,
But still I think upon the glorious brave,
Nelson and Blake, who conquered but to save;
I hear their thunders o’er the billows sweep,
And think of those who perish’d on the wave,
That Britain might a glorious harvest reap!
High hearts and generous, Vain did foemen
Peace to their souls, and sweetly may they sleep,
Entomb’d within the ocean’s lonely cave!
Still many a lovely eye for them shall weep,
Tears, far more precious than the pearls, that keep
Their casket there, or all the sea e’er gave,
To the bold diver’s grasp, whose fearless leap
With wealth enriches, or in death must sleep!
W. T. M.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 58·55.
September 10. The Rainbow. Behold yon bright, ethereal bow,
With evanescent beauties glow;
The spacious arch streams through the sky,
Decked with each tint of nature’s dye:
Refracted sunbeams, through the shower,
A humid radiance from it pour;
Whilst colour into colour fades,
With blended lights and softening shades.
Lunar Rainbow. On the 10th of September, 1802, a very beautiful lunar rainbow was observed at Matlock, in Derbyshire, between the hours of eight and nine in the evening: its effect was singularly pleasing. The colours of these phenomena are sometimes very well defined; but they have a more tranquil tone than those which originate in the solar beams. They are not unfrequent in the vicinity of Matlock, being mentioned by some writers among the natural curiosities of that delightful spot. On Saturday evening, September 28, 1822, an extremely interesting iris of this description was distinctly observed by many persons in the neighbourhood of Boston, in Lincolnshire. It made its appearance nearly north, about half-past eight in the evening. This bow of the heavens was every way complete, the curvature entire, though its span was extensive, and the altitude of its apex seemed to be about 20 degrees. The darkness occasioned by some clouds pregnant with rain, in the back ground of this white arch of beauty, formed a striking contrast, while several stars in the constellation of Ursa Major, (the great bear,) which were for a time conspicuous, imparted additional grandeur to the scene.[339]
An observer of a nocturnal rainbow on the 17th of August 1788, relates its appearance particularly. “On Sunday evening, after two days, on both of which, particularly the former, there had been a great deal of rain, together with lightning and thunder, just as the clocks were striking nine, three and twenty hours after full moon, looking through my window, I was struck with the appearance of something in the sky which seemed like a rainbow. Having never seen a rainbow by night, I thought it a very extraordinary phenomenon, and hastened to a place where there were no buildings to obstruct my view of the hemisphere. The moon was truly ‘walking in brightness,’ brilliant as she could be, not a cloud was to be seen near her; and over-against her, toward the northwest, or perhaps rather more to the north, was a rainbow, a vast arch, perfect in all its parts, not interrupted or broken as rainbows frequently are, but unremittedly visible from one horizon to the other. In order to give some idea of its extent, it is necessary to say, that, as I stood toward the western extremity of the parish of Stoke Newington, it seemed to take its rise from the west of Hampstead, and to end, perhaps, in the river Lea, the eastern boundary of Tottenham; its colour was white, cloudy, or greyish, but a part of its western leg seemed to exhibit tints of [1231, 1232] a faint, sickly green. I continued viewing it for some time, till it began to rain; and at length the rain increasing, and the sky growing more hazy, I returned home about a quarter or twenty minutes past nine, and in ten minutes came out again, but by that time all was over, the moon was darkened by clouds, and the rainbow of course vanished.”[340]
Pump at Hammersmith. A “walking” man should not refrain
To take a saunter up Webb’s-lane,
Tow’rds Shepherd’s bush, and see a rude
Old lumb’ring pump. It’s made of wood,
And pours its water in a font
So beautiful—that if he do’n’t
Admire how such a combination
Was form’d, in such a situation,
He has no power of causation,
Or taste, or feeling; but must live
Painless, and pleasureless; and give
Himself to doing what he can;
And die a sort of sort-of-man.
[1233, 1234] Some persons walk the strait road from Dan to Beersheba, and finding it firm beneath the foot, have no regard to any thing else, and are satisfied when they get to their journey’s end. I do not advise these good kind of people to go to Hammersmith; but, here and there, an out-of-the-way man will be glad to bend his course thitherward, in search of the object represented. It is fair to say I have not seen it myself: it turned up the other day in an artist’s sketch-book. He had taken it as an object, could tell no more than that he liked it, and, as I seemed struck by its appearance, but could not then go to look at it and make inquiries, he volunteered his services, and wrote me as follows:—“I went to Hammersmith, and was some time before I could find the place again; however, I at length discovered it in Webb’s-lane, opposite the Thatched-house, (Mr. Gowland is the landlord.) There I took some refreshment, and gained what information I could, which was but little. The stone font with other things (old carved ornaments, &c., which were used in fitting up the upper rooms of some cottages that the pump belongs to) were purchased at a sale; and this was all I could obtain at the Thatched-house. Coming from thence I learned from a cobler at work that there was originally a leaden pump, but that it was doubled up, and rolled away, by some thieves, and they attempted to take the font, but found it too heavy. The Crispin could not inform me where the sale was, but he told me where his landlady lived and her name, which was Mrs. Springthorp, of Hammersmith, any one could tell me her house: so, being very tired, I took coach, and rode to town without inquiry. Please to send me word whether I shall do it for next week.” To the latter inquiry my answer of course was “yes,” but I am as dark as my informant, as to the origin of what he calls the “font” which forms the sink of this pump. It does not appear to me to be a font, but a vase. I could have wished he had popped the question to “Mrs. Springthorp” respecting the place from whence it came, and concerning the “other things, old carved ornaments, &c.” I entreat some kind reader to diligently seek out and obligingly acquaint me with full particulars of these matters. In the mean time I console myself with having presented a picturesque object, and with the hope of being enabled to account for the agreeable union.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 58·07.
September 11. Woodland Walks. These are delightful at any time. At about this season of the year, 1817, the following poetical description appeared in a newspaper which no longer exists:— LINES
By Mr. J. H. Reynolds. Whence is the secret charm of this lone wood,
Which in the light of evening sweetly sleeps!—
I tread with lingering feet the quiet steeps,
Where thwarted oaks o’er their own old age brood;—
And where the gentler trees, in summer weather,
Spring up all greenly in their youth together;
And the grass is dwelling in a silent mood,
And the fir-like fern its under forest keeps
In a strange stillness. My winged spirit sweeps
Not as it hath been wont,—but stays with me
Like some domestic thing that loves its home;
It lies a-dreaming o’er the imagery
Of other scenes,—which from afar do come,
Matching them with this indolent solitude.
Here,—I am walking in the days gone by,—
And under trees which I have known before.
My heart with feelings old is running o’er—
[1235, 1236]And I am happy as the morning sky.
The present seems a mockery of the past—
And all my thoughts flow by me, like a stream,
That hath no home, that sings beneath the beam
Of the summer sun,—and wanders through sweet meads,—
In which the joyous wildflower meekly feeds,—
And strays,—and wastes away in woods at last.
My thoughts o’er many things fleet silently,—
But to this older forest creep, and cling fast.
Imagination, ever wild and free,
With heart as open as the naked sea,
Can consecrate whate’er it looks upon:—
And memory, that maiden never lone,
Lights all the dream of life. While I can see
This blue deep sky,—that sun so proudly setting
In the haughty west,—this spring patiently wetting
The shadowy dell,—these trees so tall and fair,
That have no visiters but the birds and air:—
And hear those leaves a gentle whispering keep,
Light as young joy, and beautiful as sleep,—
The melting of sweet waters in the dells,—
The music of the loose flocks’ lulling bells,
Which sinks into the heart like spirit’s spells.
While these all softly o’er my senses sweep,—
I need not doubt that I shall ever find
Things, that will feed the cravings of my mind.
My happiest hours were past with those I love
On steeps;—in dells, with shadowy trees above;
And therefore it may be my soul ne’er sleeps,
When I am in a pastoral solitude:—
And such may be the charm of this lone wood,
That in the light of evening sweetly sleeps.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 58·40.
September 12. Storm at Enghien. On the 12th of September, 1817, the gentlemen forming a deputation of the “Caledonian Horticultural Society,” while inspecting Mr. Parmentier’s gardens at Enghien, were suddenly overtaken by a violent thunder storm, and compelled to flee for shelter to Mr. Parmentier’s house. “As this thunder storm was of a character different from what we are accustomed to in Scotland, and much more striking than what we had witnessed at Brussels, a short notice of it may be excused.—A dense, black cloud was seen advancing from the east; and as this cloud developed itself and increased in magnitude, one-half of the horizon became shrouded in darkness, enlivened only by occasional flashes of forked lightning, while the other half of the horizon remained clear, with the sun shining bright. As the black cloud approached, the sun’s rays tinged it of a dull copper colour, and the reflected light caused all the streets and houses to assume the same lurid and metallic hue. This had a very uncommon and impressive effect. Before we reached the mayor’s house, scarce a passenger was to be seen in the streets; but we remarked women at the doors, kneeling, and turning their rosaries as they invoked their saints. Meantime ‘thick and strong the sulphurous flame descended;’ the flashes and peals began to follow each other in almost instantaneous succession, and the tout-ensemble became awfully sublime. A sort of whirlwind, which even raised the small gravel from the streets, and dashed it against the windows, preceded the rain, which fell in heavy drops, but lasted only a short time. The sun now became obscured, and day seemed converted into night. Mr. Parmentier having ordered wine, his lady [1237, 1238] came to explain that she could not prevail on any of the servants to venture across the court to the cellar. The mayor, in spite of our remonstrances, immediately undertook the task himself; and when, upon his return, we apologised for putting him to so much trouble, he assured us that he would not on any account have lost the brilliant sight he had enjoyed, from the incessant explosions of the electric fluid, in the midst of such palpable darkness. Such a scene, he added, had not occurred at Enghien for many years; and we reckoned ourselves fortunate in having witnessed it. We had to remain housed for more than two hours; when the great cloud began to clear away, and to give promise of a serene and clear evening.” Two days before, on the 10th, the same party had been surprised at Brussels by a similar tempest. They were on a visit to the garden of Mr. Gillet, and remarking on the construction of his forcing-house. “In this forcing-house, as is usual, the front of the roof extends over the sloping glass, till it reaches the perpendicular of the parapet. Mr. Gillet had no doubt, that the object of this sort of structure is to help to save the glass from the heavy falls of hail, which frequently accompany thunder storms. Just as he had made this observation, we perceived menacing thunder clouds approaching: the gardener hastened to secure his glazed frames; Mr. Gillet took his leave; and before we could get home, the whole horizon was overcast; lightning flashed incessantly; the streets seemed to have been suddenly swept of the inhabitants, the shop-doors were shut, and we could scarcely find a person of whom to inquire the way.”—The day had been altogether sultry; and at ten o’clock P. M. the mercury in the thermometer stood at seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit.[341]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 56·42.
September 13.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 56·90.
September 14. Holy Cross. The origin of the festival of “Holy Cross,” standing in the church of England calendar and almanacs, is related in vol. i. col. 1291, with some account of the rood and the rood-loft in churches.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 58·20.
September 15. “The Devil looking over Lincoln.” On the 15th of September, 1731, “the famous devil that used to overlook Lincoln college in Oxford, was taken down, having, about two years since, lost his head, in a storm.” On the same day in the same year “a crown, fixed on the top of Whitehall gate in the reign of king Charles II., fell down suddenly.”[342]
The origin of the statue of the devil at Oxford is not so certain as that the effigy was popular, and gave rise to the saying of “the devil looking over Lincoln.”
Satanic Superstitions. That the devil has a “cloven foot,” which he cannot hide if it be looked for is a common belief with the vulgar. “The ground of this opinion at first,” says sir Thomas Browne, “might be his frequent appearing in the shape of a goat,” (this accounts also for his horns and tail,) “which answers this description. This was the opinion of the ancient christians, concerning the apparition of panites, fauns, and satyrs; and of this form we read of one that appeared to Anthony in the wilderness.” Mr. Brand collects, respecting this appearance, that Othello says, in the “Moor of Venice,” “I look down towards his feet; but that’s a fable;
If that thou be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee;”
which Dr. Johnson explains: “I look towards his feet, to see, if, according to the common opinion, his feet be cloven.” There is a popular superstition both in [1239, 1240] England and Scotland relative to goats: that they are never to be seen for twenty-four hours together; and that once in that space, they pay a visit to the devil in order to have their beards combed. Baxter, in his “World of Spirits,” mentions an anecdote from whence Mr. Brand imagines, that “this infernal visitant was in no instance treated with more sang froid on his appearing, or rather, perhaps, his imagined appearance, than by one Mr. White of Dorchester.” That gentleman was assessor to the Westminster Assembly at Lambeth, and “the devil, in a light night, stood by his bed-side: he looked awhile whether he would say or do any thing, and then said, ‘If thou hast nothing else to do, I have;’ and so turned himself to sleep.”
King James I. told his parliament in a speech on a certain occasion, that “the devil is a busy bishop.” It has been objected to this saying of “His Most Dread Majesty,” that it would have sounded well enough from a professed enemy to the bench, “but came very improperly from a king who flattered them more, and was more flattered by them, than any prince till his time.”[343]
Printers’ Devils. As I was going the other day into Lincoln’s-inn, (says a writer in the “Grub-street Journal” of October 26, 1732,) under a great gateway, I met several lads loaded with great bundles of newspapers, which they brought from the stamp-office. They were all exceeding black and dirty; from whence I inferred they were “printers’ devils,” carrying from thence the returns of unsold newspapers, after the stamps had been cut off. They stopt under the gateway, and there laid down their loads; when one of them made the following harangue: “Devils, gentlemen, and brethren:—though I think we have no reason to be ashamed on account of the vulgar opinion concerning the origin of our name, yet we ought to acknowledge ourselves obliged to the learned herald, who, upon the death of any person of title, constantly gives an exact account of his ancient family in my London Evening Post. He says, there was one monsieur Devile, or De Ville, who came over with William the Conqueror, in company with De Laune, De Vice, De Val, D’Ashwood, D’Urfie, D’Umpling, &c. One of the sons of a descendant of this monsieur De Ville, was taken in by the famous Caxton in 1471, as an errand boy; was afterwards his apprentice, and in time an eminent printer, from whom our order took their name; but suppose they took it from infernal devils, it was not because they were messengers frequently sent in darkness, and appeared very black, but upon a reputable account, viz., John Fust, or Faustus, of Mentz, in Germany, was the inventor of printing, for which he was called a conjurer, and his art the black art. As he kept a constant succession of boys to run on errands, who were always very black, these they called devils; some of whom being raised to be his apprentices, he was said to have raised many a devil. As to the inferior order among us, called flies, employed in taking newspapers off the press, they are of later extraction, being no older than newspapers themselves. Mr. Bailey thinks, their original name was lies, taken from the papers they so took off, and the alteration occasioned thus. To hasten these boys, the pressmen used to cry flie, lie, which naturally fell into one single word lie. This conjecture is confirmed by a little corruption in the true title of the fLying Post; since, therefore, we are both comprehended under the title of devils, let us discharge our office with diligence; so may we attain, as many of our predecessors have done, to the dignity of printers, and to have an opportunity of using others as much like poor devils, as we have been used by them, or as they and authors are used by booksellers. These are an upstart profession, who have engrossed the business of bookselling, which originally belonged solely to our masters. But let them remember, that if we worship Belial and Beelzebub, the God of flies, all the world agrees, that their God is mammon.”
The preceding is from the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for October, 1732; and it is mentioned, that “at the head of the article is a picture emblematically displaying the art and mystery of printing; in which are represented a compositor, with an ass’s head; two pressmen, one with the head of a hog, the other of a horse, being names which they fix upon one another; a flie taking off the sheets, and a devil hanging them up; a messenger with a greyhound’s [1241, 1242] face kicking out the “Craftsman;” a figure with two faces, for the master, to show he prints on both sides; but the reader is cautioned against applying it to any particular person, who is, or ever was a printer; for that all the figures were intended to represent characters and not persons.”
It is a proverbial expression, not confined to our country, that “the devil is not so black as he is painted.” The French, in their usual forms of speech, mention him with great honour and respect. Thus, when they would commend any thing, they break out into this pious exclamation, “Diable! que cela est bon!” When they would represent a man honest, sincere, and sociable, they call him “un bon Diable.” Some of our own countrymen will say, a thing is “devilish good;” a lady is “devilish pretty.” In a mixture of surprise and approbation, they say, “the devil’s in this fellow, or he is a comical devil.” Others speak of the apostate angel with abhorrence, and nothing is more common than to say, “such a one is a sad devil.” I remember when I was at St. Germains, a story of a gentleman, who being in waiting at the court of king James II., and the discourse running upon demons and apparitions, the king asked him whether ever he had seen any thing of that sort. “Yes,” replied he, “last night.” His majesty asked him what he had seen. He answered, “the devil.” Being asked in what shape,—“O sir,” said he, with a sigh, “in his usual and natural shape, that of an empty bottle.”[344]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 59·32.
September 16. Fraudulent Debtor. On the 16th of September, 1735, Mr. Yardley died in the Fleet prison, where he had been confined nearly ten years in execution for a debt of a hundred pounds. He was possessed of nearly seven hundred a year, and securities and other effects to the value of five thousand pounds were found in his room.[345]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 59·04.
September 17. Lambert. There is an account of this saint of the church of England calendar, in vol. i. col. 1295.
Remarkable Thief. On the 17th of September, 1737, the secret was discovered of some mysterious robberies committed in Gray’s-inn, while the inhabitants had been in the country. About a month before, there died at a madhouse near Red Lion-square, one Mr. Rudkins, who had chambers up three pair of stairs, at No. 14, in Holborn-court, Gray’s-inn. His sister-in law and executrix, who lived in Staffordshire, wrote to Mr. Cotton, a broker, to take care of the effects in her behalf; and he having read a Mr. Warren’s advertisement of his chambers having been robbed, found several of his writings there; several things of a Mr. Ellis, who had been robbed about two years before of above three hundred pounds, of a Mr. Lawson’s of the Temple, and of captain Haughton’s, whose chambers were broken open some years previously, and two hundred pounds’ reward offered for his writings, which were a part found here. There were also found books to one hundred pounds’ value, belonging to Mr. Osborne the bookseller in Gray’s-inn. It is remarkable, that when Mr. Rudkins had any thing in view in this way, he would padlock up his own door, and take horse at noonday, giving out to his laundress that he was going into the country. His chambers consisted of five rooms, two of which not even his laundress was ever admitted into, and in these was found the booty, with all his working tools, picklocks, &c. He had formerly been a tradesman in King-street, near Guildhall. It is further remarkable of this private house-breaker, that he always went to Abingdon’s coffee-house, in Holborn, on an execution-day, to see from thence the poor wretches pass by to their dismal end; and at no other time did he frequent that coffee-house.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 58·95.
September 18. George I. and II. Landed. The “coming over” of these two kings of the house of Brunswick, is marked in [1243, 1244] the almanacs on this day, which is kept as a holiday at all the public offices, except the excise, stamps, and customs.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 58·97.
September 19. University of Gottingen. In September, 1737, a new university founded at Gottingen, by his Britannic majesty, which has since attained to great eminence, was “opened with a very solemn inauguration.” In 1788, the black board, on the walls of its council-house, bore three edicts for the expulsion of three students named Westfield, Planch, and Bauer. These papers were drawn up in Latin by the celebrated professor Heyne, and are printed in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for June, 1789. King George IV., when prince regent in 1814, sent a copy of every important work published in England during the ten preceding years, as a present to the library of the university, agreeable to a promise he had made to that purport.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 57·87.
September 20. Health—Cholera Morbus. This is, of all times of the year, the most productive of epidemical disorders of the bowels, which are erroneously ascribed to fruits, but which, in reality, the autumnal fruits seem best calculated to mollify. If the diarrhea be very violent, or accompanied with incessant vomiting, as in cholera morbus, the best practice is, after the intestinal canal has been suffered copiously to evacuate itself, to take small doses of chalk, or of some other substance known to check the disorder, with which chemists are always prepared. But in ordinary cases, it is a safer plan to let the disease spend itself, as there is a great deal of irritation of the intestines, which the flux carries off. We should avoid eating animal food, but take tea, broths, gruel, and other diluents, and the disorder will usually soon subside of itself. After it has so subsided we should guard against its return, by taking great care to keep the bowels regular, by eating light and vegetable food and fruits, or now and then taking a gentle dose of aloes, gr. iiii. The pills which commonly go by the name of Hunt’s pills, if genuine, are very good medicines to regulate the bowels. When low spirits and want of bile indicate the liver to partake much of the disease, two grains of the pil. hydrarg., commonly called blue pill, may be used now and then with advantage.[346]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 58·45. [346] Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar.
September 21. The Season. Swallows and martins are still very numerous, the general migration not having begun. They roost in immense numbers on buildings, round about which martins fly some times in such quantities as almost to darken the air with their plumes. Sparrows, linnets, various finches, and also plovers, are now seen about in flocks, according to an annual habit, prevalent among many kinds of birds, of assembling together in autumn.[347]
The accompanying stanzas applicable to the season, are extracted from an original poem, entitled “The Libertine of the Emerald Isle,” which will, probably, be published early in the next year. Autumn.
For the Every-Day Book. The leaves are falling, and the hollow breeze
At ev’ning tide sweeps mournfully along,
Making sad music, such as minor keys
Develope in a melancholy song:
The meadows, too, are losing by degrees
Their green habiliments—and now among
The various works of nature there appears
A gen’ral gloom, prophetic of the year’s
Approaching dissolution:—but to me
These sombre traits are pregnant with delight,
And yield my soul more true felicity
Than words can justly picture:—they invite
My mind to contemplation—they agree
With my heart’s bias, and at once excite
Those feelings, both of love and admiration,
Which make this world a glorious revelation!
[1245, 1246]Hence—not unfrequently when all is still,
And Cynthia walks serenely through the sky,
Silv’ring the groves and ev’ry neighb’ring hill,
I sit and ponder on the years gone by:
This is the time when reason has her fill
Of this world’s good and evil, when the eye
Of contemplation takes a boundless range
Of spheres that never vacillate or change!
Sweet Autumn! thou’rt surrounded with the charms
Of reason, and philosophy, and truth,
And ev’ry “sound reflection” that disarms
This life of half its terrors:—in our youth
We feel no sense of danger, and the qualms
Of conscience seldom trouble us forsooth,
Because the splendour of its reign destroys
Whatever checks our sublunary joys?
But thou art far too rigid and severe
To let these errors triumph for a day,
Or suffer folly, in her mad career,
To sweep our reas’ning faculties away!
Thou pointest out the fun’ral of the year,
The summer’s wreck and palpable decay,
Stamping a “moral lesson” on the mind,
To awe, restrain, and meliorate mankind!
But men are callous to thy warning voice,
And pass thee by, regardless of thy worth,
Making a false and perishable choice
Of all the fleeting pleasures of the earth:
They love gross riot, turbulence, and noise,
The Bacchanalian’s ebriating mirth,
And when the autumn of their lives creeps on,
Their wit has vanish’d, and their strength is gone!
But had they been observant of thy pow’rs,
And ponder’d o’er thy ruin and decay,
They might have well applied them to those hours
Which nothing, for an instant, can delay;
But whilst health, strength, and competence are our’s,
And youth is basking in the summer’s ray,
Life’s autumn scenes reluctantly are view’d,
And folly’s visions joyously pursued!
B. W. R.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 58·02.
September 22. St. Maurice. This saint, to whom and his companions a festival is celebrated by the Romish church on this day, received a similar honour in England. They are said to have been officers in the Theban legion, which refused to sacrifice to the gods on their march into Gaul, and were, therefore, ordered to be decimated by Maximian. Every tenth man was accordingly put to death, and on their continued resistance, a second decimation ordered, and Maurice and his companions encouraged them, and the whole legion consisting of six thousand six hundred men, well armed, being no way intimidated to idolatry by cruelty, were slaughtered by the rest of the army, and relics of their bodies were gathered and preserved, and worked miracles.[348]
Battle of Threekingham. For the Every-Day Book. The village of Threekingham, in the county of Lincoln, was known by the name of Laundon, previous to this day, A. D. 870, when a battle was fought between the English and Danes, of which Ingulphus, a monk of Crowland abbey, has left the following account. The Danes entered England in the year 879, and wintered at York; and in the year 880 proceeded to the parts of Lindsey, in Lincolnshire, where they commenced their destructive depredations by laying waste the abbey of Bardney. In the month of September in the latter year, earl Algar, with two of his seneschals, (Wibert, owner of Wiberton, and Leofric, owner of Leverton,) attended by the men of Holland (Lincolnshire), Toly, a monk (formerly a soldier), with two hundred men belonging to Crowland abbey, and three hundred from Deeping, Langtoft, and Boston, Morcar, lord of Bourn, with his powerful family, and Osgot, sheriff of Lincolnshire, with the forces of the county, being five hundred more, mustered in Kesteven, on the day of St. Maurice, and fought with the Danes, over whom they obtained considerable advantage, killing three of their kings and many of their private soldiers, and pursued the rest to their very camp, until night obliged them to separate. In the same night several princes and earls of the Danes, with their followers, who had been out in search of plunder, came to the assistance of their countrymen; by the report of which many of the English were so dismayed that they took to flight. Those, however, who had resolution to face the enemy in the morning, went to prayers, and were marshalled for battle. [1247, 1248] Among the latter was Toly with his five hundred men in the right wing, with Morcar and his followers to support them; and Osgot the sheriff, with his five hundred men, and with the stout knight, Harding de Riehall, and the men of Stamford. The Danes, after having buried the three kings whom they had lost the day before, at a place there called Laundon, but since, from that circumstance, called Three-king-ham, marched out into the field. The battle began, and the English, though much inferior in numbers, kept their ground the greater part of the day with steadiness and resolution, until the Danes feigning a flight, were rashly pursued without attention to order. The Danes then took advantage of the confusion of the English, returned to the charge, and made their opponents pay dearly for their temerity; in fine, the Danes were completely victorious. In this battle, earl Algar, the monk Toly, and many other valiant men, were slain on the part of the English; after which the Danes proceeded to the destruction of the abbeys of Crowland, Thorney, Ramsey and Hamstede (Peterborough) and many other places in the neighbourhood.—Thus far is from Ingulphus the monk. A fair, said to have arisen from the above circumstance, is annually held at Three-king-ham, on a remarkable piece of ground, called Stow Green Hill, reported to be the spot whereon the battle was principally contested, and Domesday-book in some degree corroborates the statement; for in the Conqueror’s time, A. D. 1080, when that survey was taken, we find that there was then a fair held here, which yielded forty shillings, accounted for to Gilbert de Gand, lord of Foldingham. This fair, however, is not held now in the month of September, but commences on the 15th of June, and continues till the fourth of July, and was very probably changed in the fifty-second year of the reign of king Henry III., who according to Tanner’s “Notitia Monastica,” granted a charter for a fair at this place to the monastery of Sempringham. Sleafordensis. September 8, 1826.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 57·70.
September 23. Opening of the Winter Theatres. For the Every-Day Book. To cultivate pleasant associations, may well be deemed a part and parcel of the philosophy of life. Now that spring, that sweet season redolent of flowers and buds hath passed away, and summer mellowing into autumn, has well nigh fallen into the “sere the yellow leaf,” we in “populous city pent,” gladly revert to those social enjoyments peculiar to a great metropolis, and among which stand conspicuous, the amusements of the acted drama. The opening of the winter theatres may be reckoned as one of the principal fasti of cockney land, an epoch which distinctly marks the commencement of a winter in London. How changed from the auspicious season, when the bright sun glancing into our gloomy retreats, tantalizes us with visions of the breathing sweets of nature, and when we in our very dreams “babbled of green fields,”—to the period when even the thronged and dirty streets are endurable, as we wend our way perchance through a fog, (a London particular,) towards the crowded and gaily lighted theatre, by contrast made more brilliant. “My first play” forms an era to most young persons, and is generally cherished among our more agreeable juvenile reminiscences: but the subject has been recently expatiated upon so delightfully and in so genial a spirit by Elia, as almost to make further comment “a wasteful and ridiculous excess.” I well remember the vast and splendid area of old Drury-lane theatre, where the mysterious green curtain portico, to that curious microcosm the stage, first met my youthful gaze. The performances were, the “Stranger” and “Blue Beard,” both then in the very bloom of their popularity: and whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the moral tendency of the first, all must allow that never piece was more effective in the representation, when aided by the unrivalled talents of Kemble, and Mrs. Siddons, at that time in the zenith of their powers. I confess, that to my unsophisticated boyish feelings, subdued by the cunning of the scene, it seemed quite natural, that the sufferings of bitter remorse and repentance should suffice to ensure the pity and forgiveness of outraged society.—Happy age, when the generous impulses of our [1249, 1250] nature are not yet blunted by the stern experience of after life! This brings me to record a remarkable and disastrous event in theatrical annals, and one which in a great measure suggested the present communication. It was my fortune to be present at the last performances ever given on the boards of Old Drury—and which took place on Thursday evening the 23rd of February, 1809—when was acted for the first, and as it proved, the last time, a new opera composed by Bishop, called the “Circassian Bride.” The next night this magnificent theatre was a pile of burning ruins. The awful grandeur of the conflagration defies description, but to enlarge upon a circumstance so comparatively recent would be purely gratuitous; it was, however, an event which might be truly said, “to eclipse the harmless gaiety of nations,”—for the metropolis then presented the unprecedented spectacle of the national drama without a home,—the two sister theatres both prostrate in the dust! Annexed is a copy of the play-bill, which at this distance of time, may perhaps be valued as an interesting relic, illustrative of dramatic history. J. H.
NEVER ACTED.
Theatre Royal, Drury-lane. This present Thursday, February 23,
1809. Their Majesties Servants will perform a
New Opera, in Three Acts, called the CIRCASSIAN BRIDE. With New Scenery, Dresses, and Decorations. The Overture and Music entirely new,
composed by Mr. Bishop. CIRCASSIANS.
Alexis, Mr. Braham,
Rhindax, Mr. De Camp,
Demetrio, Mr. Marshall,
Basil, Mr. Ray,
Officers, Mr. Gibbon, Mr. Miller,
Chief Priest, Mr. Maddocks,
Erminia, Miss Lyon. ENGLISH.
Ben Blunt, Mr. Bannister,
Tom Taffrel, Mr. Smith,
Rachael, Mrs. Mountain. TARTARS.
Usberg, (the Khan,) Mr. J. Smith,
Barak, Mr. Mathews,
Kerim, Mr. Fisher, Hassan, Mr. Cooke,
Slaves, Messrs. Webb, Evans,
Chatterley,
Anna, Mrs. Bland. The DANCE by
Mesds. Green, Twamley, Davis,
H. and F. Dennet. Chorus of Circassians, Tartars, &c.
By Messrs. Danby, Cook, Evans, Caulfield,
Bond, Dibble, Jones,
Mesds. Stokes, Chatterley, Menage,
Maddocks, Wells, Butler.
The New Scenes designed by
Mr. Greenwood,
And executed by him, Mr. Banks, and
Assistants.
The Dresses and Decorations, by
Mr. Johnston,
and executed by him, Mr. Banks and
Mr. Underwood.
The Female Dresses designed and executed
by Miss Rein.
Books of the Songs to be had in the
Theatre. To which will be added the Farce of FORTUNE’S FROLIC. Robin Roughhead, Mr. Mathews,
Rattle, Mr. Palmer, Nancy Miss Lacy
Margery, Mrs. Sparks,
Dolly, Mrs. Harlowe. Places for the Boxes to be taken of Mr.
Spring, at the Box-Office, Russel-street. No money to be returned. Vivant Rex et Regina!(Lowndes and Hobbs,
Printers, Marquis-court, Drury-lane.)
“Elia.”-Why should J. H. pop on me with his mention of Elia, just as I was about to write “an article?” Write!—it’s impossible. I have turned to “My First Play”—I cannot get it out my head: the reader must take the consequence of my inability, and of the fault of J. H., and read what I shall never approach to, in writing, were I to “grind my quill these hundred years”—— MY FIRST PLAY
By Elia. At the north end of Cross-court there yet stands a portal, of some architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving at present for an entrance to a printing-office. This old door-way, if you are young, reader, you may not know was the identical pit entrance to Old Drury—Garrick’s Drury—all of it [1251, 1252] that is left. I never pass it without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring to the evening when I passed through it to see my first play. The afternoon had been wet, and the condition of our going (the elder folks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beating heart did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of which I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation! I seem to remember the last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it. We went with orders, which my godfather F. had sent us. He kept the oil shop (now Davies’s) at the corner of Featherstone-building, in Holborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty in speech, and had pretensions above his rank. He associated in those days with John Palmer, the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy; if John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow somewhat of his manner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by, Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn, that young Brinsley brought his first wife on her elopement with him from a boarding school at Bath—the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over a quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmonious charge.—From either of these connections, it may be inferred that my godfather could command an order for the then Drury-lane theatre at pleasure—and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets, in Brinsley’s easy autograph, I have heard him say was the sole remuneration which he had received for many years’ nightly illumination of the orchestra, and various avenues of that theatre—and he was content that it should be so. The honour of Sheridan’s familiarity—or supposed familiarity—was better to my godfather than money. F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen; grandiloquent, yet courteous. His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was Ciceronian. He had two Latin words almost constantly in his mouth, (how odd sounds Latin from an oilman’s lips!) which my better knowledge since, has enabled me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been sounded vice vers—but in those young years they impressed me with more awe than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro—in his own peculiar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, or anglicized, into something like verse verse. By an imposing manner, and the help of these distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was little) to the highest parochial honours which St. Andrew’s has to bestow. He is dead, and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for my first orders (little wondrous talismans!—slight keys, and insignificant to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabian paradises!) and moreover, that by his testamentary beneficence I came into possession of the only landed property which I could ever call my own—situate near the road-way village of pleasant Puckeridge, in Hertfordshire. When I journied down to take possession, and planted foot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended upon me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger paces over my allotment of three quarters of an acre, with its commodious mansion in the midst with the feeling of an English freeholder, that all betwixt sky and centre was my own. The estate has passed into more prudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian can restore it. In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who abolished them!—with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at the door—not that which is left—but between that and an inner door in shelter—O when shall I be such an expectant again;—with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable playhouse accompaniment in those days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical fruiteresses then was, “Chase some oranges, chase some numparels, chase a bill of the play;”—chase pro chuse. But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed—the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to “Troilus and Cressida,” in Rowe’s “Shakspeare”—the tent scene with Diomede—and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a measure the feeling of that evening.—The boxes at that time, full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and the pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed) resembling—a homely fancy—but I judged it to be sugar-candy—yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy!—The [1253, 1254] orchestra lights at length arose, those “fair Auroras!” Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again—and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time. The curtain drew up—I was not past six years old—and the play was Artaxerxes! I had dabbled a little in the Universal History—the ancient part of it—and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for I understood not its import—but I heard the word Darius, and I was in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not players. I was in Persepolis for the time; and the burning idol of their devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was awe-struck, and believed those significations to be something more than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such pleasure has since visited me but in dreams.—Harlequin’s Invasion followed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistrates into reverend beldams seemed to me a piece of grave historic justice, and the tailor carrying his own head to be as sober a verity as the legend of St. Denys. The next play to which I was taken was the “Lady of the Manor,” of which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, called “Lun’s Ghost”—a satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead—but to my apprehension (too sincere for satire) “Lun” was as remote a piece of antiquity as “Lud”—the father of a line of Harlequins—transmitting his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of white patch-work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead. My third play followed in quick succession. It was the “Way of the World.” I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge; for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of good lady Wishfort affected me like some solemn tragic passion. “Robinson Crusoe” followed; in which Crusoe, man Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic as in the story.—The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have clean passed out of my head. I believe, I no more laughed at them, than at the same age I should have been disposed to laugh at the grotesque Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old round church (my church) of the Templars. I saw these plays in the season 1781-2, when I was from six to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for at school all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! At the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all— Was nourished, I could not tell how.—
I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. The same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reference, was gone!—The green curtain was no longer a veil, drawn between two worlds, the unfolding of which was to bring back past ages, to present “a royal ghost,”—but a certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The lights—the orchestra lights—came up a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter’s bell—which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many centuries—of six short twelvemonths—had wrought in me. Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreasonable expectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotions with which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearance to me of Mrs. Siddons in “Isabella.” Comparison and retrospection soon yielded to the present attraction of the scene; and [1255, 1256] the theatre became to me, upon a new stock, the most delightful of recreations.
After this robbery of “Elia,” my conscience forces me to declare that I wish every reader would save me from the shame of further temptation to transgress, by ordering “Elia” into his collection. There is no volume in our language so full of beauty, truth, and feeling, as the volume of “Elia.” I am convinced that every person who has not seen it, and may take the hint, will thank me for acquainting him with a work which he cannot look into without pleasure, nor lay down without regret. It is a delicious book.
Sherborne Bells. On this day it is a custom to exercise the largest bell of one of our country churches, in the manner described in the following communication. Tolling Day. For the Every-Day Book. The 23d of September has obtained in Sherborne, Dorset, the name of “tolling-day,” in commemoration of the death of John Lord Digby, baron Digby of Sherborne, and earl of Bristol, in the year MDCXCVIII. and in conformity with the following wish expressed in a codicil annexed to his lordship’s will. “Item, I give and bequeath out of my said estate to the parish church, the yearly sum of ten pounds, to be paid by my successors, lords of the said manor for the time being, at and upon, or within forty days after, the feast days of St. Michael the archangel, and of the annunciation of our blessed lady St. Mary the virgin, by equal portions yearly and for ever, and to be employed and bestowed by the churchwardens of the said parish for the time being, with the consent of the lord of the said manor for the time being, in keeping in good repair the chancel, and towards the reparations of the rest of the said church, yearly and for ever; provided that my successors, the lord or lords of the said manor for the time being, shall have and enjoy a convenient pew, or seat, in the said chancel for himself and family for ever; and provided that the said churchwardens for the time being, shall cause the largest bell in the tower of the said church, to be tolled six full hours, that is to say, from five to nine of the clock in the forenoon, and from twelve o’clock till two in the afternoon, on that day of the said month whereon it shall be my lot to depart this life, every year and for ever; otherwise this gift of ten pounds per annum shall determine and be void.” This custom is annually observed, but not to the extent above intended, the tolling of the bell being limited to two hours instead of six. It begins to toll at six o’clock and continues till seven in the morning, when six men, who toll the bell for church service, repair to the mansion of the present earl Digby, with two large stone jars, which are there filled with some of his lordship’s strong beer, and, with a quantity of bread and cheese, taken to the church by the tollers and equally divided amongst them, together with a small remuneration in money paid by the churchwardens as a compensation for their labour. At twelve o’clock the bell is again tolled till one, and in the evening divine service is performed at the church, and a lecture suited to the occasion delivered from the pulpit; for which lecture or sermon the vicar is paid thirty pounds, provided by the will of the above donor. R. T.
Bow Bells. Who has not heard of “Bow Bells?” Who that has heard them does not feel an interest in their sounds, or in the recollection of them? The editor is preparing an article on “Bow Bells,” and for that purpose particularly desires communications. Accounts relative to their present or former state, or any facts or anecdotes respecting them at any time, are earnestly solicited from every reader as soon as possible.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 56·02.
September 24. A Good Tenant. In the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” for September, 1775, Mr. Clayton, a wealthy farmer of Berkshire, is related to have died at the extraordinary age of a hundred and fifteen years, and retained his faculties to the last; he is further remarkable, for having rented one farm ninety years. An occupancy of so great duration, by one individual, is perhaps unequalled in the history of landlord and tenant. [1257, 1258]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 55·40.
September 25. Sea Side Sports. There is an exhilarating effect in the sea-air and coast scenery, which inland views or atmosphere, however fine, fail to communicate. On the 25th of September, 1825, a gentleman and lady came out of one of the hotels near the Steyne, and after taking a fair start, set off running round the Steyne. They both ran very swiftly, but the young lady bounded forward with the agility of the chamois and the fleetness of the deer, and returned to the spot from whence they started a considerable distance before the gentleman. She appeared much pleased with her victory. There were but few persons on the Steyne at the time, but those who were there, expressed their admiration at the swiftness of this second Atalanta.[349]
Brighton. In Mr. Hazlitt’s “Notes of a Journey through France and Italy,” he mentions the place from whence he sailed for the continent:— “Brighton stands facing the sea, on the bare cliffs, with glazed windows to reflect the glaring sun, and black pitchy bricks shining like the scales of fishes. The town is however gay with the influx of London visiters—happy as the conscious abode of its sovereign! Every thing here appears in motion—coming or going. People at a watering-place may be compared to the flies of a summer; or to fashionable dresses, or suits of clothes, walking about the streets. The only idea you gain is, of finery and motion. The road between London and Brighton, presents some very charming scenery; Reigate is a prettier English country-town than is to be found anywhere—out of England! As we entered Brighton in the evening, a Frenchman was playing and singing to a guitar.—The genius of the south had come out to meet us.” When Mr. Hazlitt arrived at Brighton, it was in the full season. He says, “A lad offered to conduct us to an inn. ‘Did he think there was room?’ He was sure of it. ‘Did he belong to the inn?’ ‘No,’ he was from London. In fact, he was a young gentleman from town, who had been stopping some time at the White-horse hotel, and who wished to employ his spare time (when he was not riding out on a blood-horse) in serving the house, and relieving the perplexities of his fellow-travellers. No one but a Londoner would volunteer his assistance in this way. Amiable land of Cockayne, happy in itself, and in making others happy! Blest exuberance of self-satisfaction, that overflows upon others! Delightful impertinence, that is forward to oblige them!”
It is here both in place and season, to quote a passage of remarkably fine thought:— “There is something in being near the sea, like the confines of eternity. It is a new element, a pure abstraction. The mind loves to hover on that which is endless, and for ever the same. People wonder at a steam-boat, the invention of man, managed by man, that makes its liquid path like an iron railway through the sea—I wonder at the sea itself, that vast Leviathan, rolled round the earth, smiling in its sleep, waked into fury, fathomless, boundless, a huge world of water-drops.—Whence is it, whither goes it, is it of eternity or of nothing? Strange ponderous riddle, that we can neither penetrate nor grasp in our comprehension, ebbing and flowing like human life, and swallowing it up in thy remorseless womb,—what art thou? What is there in common between thy life and ours, who gaze at thee? Blind, deaf and old, thou seest not, hearest not, understandest not; neither do we understand, who behold and listen to thee! Great as thou art, unconscious of thy greatness, unwieldy, enormous, preposterous twin-birth of matter, rest in thy dark, unfathomed cave of mystery, mocking human pride and weakness. Still is it given to the mind of man to wonder at thee, to confess its ignorance, and to stand in awe of thy stupendous might and majesty, and of its own being, that can question thine!”[350]
In Mr. Hazlitt’s “Journey through France and Italy,” there are “thoughts [1259, 1260] that breathe and words that burn.” His conceptions of beauty and grandeur, are at all times simple and vast. His works are pervaded by the results of profound thinking. His sentences have the power of elevating things that are deemed little remarkable, and of lowering those which successive submissions to over praise, have preposterously magnified. Many of the remarks on works of art, in his “Notes of a Journey through France and Italy,” will be wholly new to persons who never reflected on the subjects of his criticism, and will not be openly assented to by others thinking as he does, who, for the first time, has ventured to publicly dissent from received notions. If any of his opinions be deemed incorrect, the difference can easily be arbitrated. Taking the originals, whether corporeal or imaginary existences, as the standard, our pure sight and feeling may be relied on as unerring judges of the imitations.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 54·27.
September 26. St. Cyprian. Old Holy Rood. For these remembrances in the church of England calendar and almanacs, see vol. i. p. 1324.
Communications of local customs are always received and inserted with satisfaction. It is with peculiar pleasure that the editor submits the following, from a gentleman with respect to whom he has nothing to regret, but that he is not permitted to honour the work, by annexing the name of the respectable writer to the letter.
Paisley Hallow-Eve Fires.
Sheffield Scotland Feast. Paisley, September 21, 1826. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Sir,—Having been a subscriber to your Every-Day Book from its first appearance in this town, up to the present time, I reproach myself with neglect, in not having sent you before now, an account of a rather singular custom prevalent here, and, as it should seem, of ancient date. The river White Cart, on which Paisley stands, although affected by the tide, and navigable to the town for vessels not exceeding fifty tons’ burden, is often remarkably shallow at low water. This is especially the case between the highest and the lowest of three stone bridges, by which the old town or burgh is connected with the new town. In this shallow part of the stream, parties of boys construct, on Hallow-eve,—the night when varied superstitions engross most of old Scotia’s peasantry,—circular raised hearths, if I may so term them, of earth or clay; bordered by a low round wall composed of loose stones, sods, &c. Within these enclosures, the boys kindle on their hearths, bonfires, often of considerable size. From the bridges, the appearance of these bonfires, after nightfall, is singular; and attracts, as spectators, many of the grown-up inhabitants of the place. The number and glare of the fires, their tremulous reflection in the surrounding water, the dark moving figures of the boys that group around them, and the shouts and screams set up by the youthful urchins in testimony of enjoyment, might almost make one fancy that the rites and incantations of magic, or of wizardry, were taking place before one’s very eyes. What is the origin of this custom, or how long it has prevailed, I do not know. Ere I relinquish my pen, allow me to describe to you another singular custom, which obtains in the largest town of England, north of the Trent.[351] No one is better acquainted than, Mr. Hone, are you, with the existence of the wake or feast, still held annually in some of the towns, and nearly all the parochial villages of the midland and northern counties. In many of the larger towns, the traces of the ancient wake are, indeed, nearly worn out, and this is pretty much the case with that particular town, to which reference has just been made, namely, Sheffield; our great national emporium for cutlery, files, edge-tools, and the better kinds of plated goods. Only in a few ancient and primitive families, do roast beef, plum-pudding, and an extra allowance of Yorkshire stingo, gracing, on Trinity Sunday, a large table, begirt with some dozen of happy, and happy-faced [1261, 1262] town and country cousins, show, that the venerable head of the family, and his antique dame, have not forgotten Sheffield feast-day. But if the observance of Sheffield feast itself be thus partial, and verging towards disuse, amends is made for the circumstance, in the establishment, and pretty vigorous keeping up of sundry local feasts, held on different days, within the town, or in its suburbs. Besides those of the Wicker and little Sheffield, which are suburban, Broad-lane and Scotland-street, in the town itself, have their respective feasts too. At Little Sheffield and in Broad-lane, the zest of the annual festivity is often heightened by ass-races; foot-races, masculine, for a hat; foot-races, feminine, for a chemise; grinning-matches; and, though less frequently, the humours and rattle of a mountebank and his merry andrew. Occasionally too changes, in imitation of those on the church bells, are rung, by striking with a hammer, or a short piece of steel, on six, eight, or ten long bars each suspended by twine from the roof of a workshop, and the entire set chosen so as to resemble pretty nearly, a ring of bells, both in diversity and in sequence of tone.[352] Scotland feast, however, in point of interest, bears away the bell from all the other district revels of Sheffield. It is so called from Scotland-street, already mentioned; a long, hilly, and very populous one, situated in the northern part of the town. On the eve of the feast, which is yearly held on the 29th of May, the anniversary of the restoration of our second Charles, parties of the inhabitants repair into the neighbouring country; whence, chiefly however from Walkley-bank, celebrated as Sheffield schoolboys too well know for birch trees, they bring home, at dead of night, or morning’s earliest dawn, from sixteen to twenty well-sized trees, besides a profusion of branches. The trees they instantly plant in two rows; one on each side of the street, just without the kirbstone of the flagged pavement. With the branches, they decorate the doors and windows of houses, the sign-boards of drinking-shops, and so on. By five or six in the morning Scotland-street, which is not very wide, has the appearance of a grove. And soon, from ropes stretched across it, three, four, or five, superb garlands delight the eyes, and dance over the heads of the feast-folk. These garlands are composed of hoops, wreathed round with foliage and flowers, fluttering with variously coloured ribands, rustling with asidew,[353] and gay with silver tankards, pints, watches, &c. Before the door of the principal alehouse, the largest tree is always planted. The sign of this house is, if memory do not deceive me, the royal oak.[354] But be this as it may, certain it is, that duly ensconced among the branches of the said tree, may always be seen the effigy, in small, of king Charles the Second: to commemorate indeed the happy concealment and remarkable escape of the merry monarch, at Boscobel, should seem to be the object of creating a sylvan scene at “Scotland feast;” while that of holding the feast itself on the anniversary of his restoration is, there can be little doubt, to celebrate with honour the principal event in the life of him, after whose ancient and peculiar kingdom the street itself is named. To the particulars already given, it needs scarcely be added, that dancing, drinking, and other merry-making are, as a Scotsman would say, rife,[355] at the annual commemoration thus briefly described. Thanking you for much instruction, as well as entertainment, already derived from your book, and wishing you success from its publication, I remain, Sir, Your obedient servant,
Gulielmus.
Asidew. In vol. i. col. 1213, arsedine is noticed as having been in use at Bartholomew fair, and Mr. Archdeacon Nares’s supposition is mentioned, that arsedine, arsadine, or orsden, as it was variously called, was a corruption of arsenic, or orpiment. The editor then ventured to hazard a different suggestion, and show that the word might be saxon, and expressive of “pigments [1263, 1264] obtained from minerals and metals.” Since then, a note in Mr. Sharp’s remarkably interesting “Dissertation on the Country Mysteries,” seems to favour the notion. Mr. Sharp says, “At the end of Gent’s ‘History of York, 1730,’ is an advertisement of numerous articles, sold by Hammond, a bookseller of that city, and amongst the rest occurs ‘Assidue or horse-gold,’ the very next article to which, is ‘hobby-horse-bells.’—A dealer in Dutch metal, Michael Oppenheim, 27, Mansell-street, Goodman’s-fields, thus described himself in 1816—‘Importer of bronze powder, Dutch metal, and Or-sedew,’ and upon inquiry respecting the last article, it proved to be that thin yellow metal, generally known by the name of tinsel, much used for ornamenting children’s dolls, hobby-horses, and some toys, as well as manufactured into various showy articles of dress. The word orsedew is evidently a corruption of oripeau i. e. leaf (or skin) gold, afterwards brass. The Spaniards call it oropoel, gold-skin, and the Germans flitter-gold.”[356] Through Mr. Sharp we have, at length, attained to a knowledge of this substance as the true arsedine of our forefathers, and the asidew of the Sheffield merry-makers at present.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 55·57. [351] I speak advisedly. As a town, Sheffield, the place here referred to, is larger and more populous than Leeds. In 1821 it contained with its suburbs, but without including either out-hamlets, or the country part of the parish, at least 58,000 inhabitants;—Leeds no more than 48,000.[352] When the period for which an apprentice is bound (seven years) expires, his “loosing” is held by himself, and shopmates. Then are these steel bells made to jangle all day. At night the loosing is farther celebrated by a supper and booze. The parochial ringers frequently attend festivities with a set of hand-bells, which, in the estimation of their auditors, they make “discourse most eloquent music.”[353] Asidew. The orthography of this word may be wrong. I never, to my knowledge, saw it written. It is used in Sheffield to express a thin, very thin brass leaf, of a high gold colour.[354] In my boyish days, one Ludlam kept it. Was it he to whom belonged the dog which gave occasion to this proverbial saying? “As idle as Ludlam’s dog, that lay down to bark?”[355] Abundant.[356] Mr. Sharp’s Dissertation, p. 29.
September 27. Chronology. On the 27th of September, 1772, died at Turnhurst, in Staffordshire, James Brindley, a man celebrated for extraordinary mechanical genius and skilful labours in inland navigation. He was born at Tunsted, in the parish of Wormhill, Derbyshire, in 1716, where he contributed to support his parents’ family till he was nearly seventeen years of age, when he bound himself apprentice to a wheelwright named Bennet, near Macclesfield, in Cheshire. In the early period of his apprenticeship, he performed several parts of the business without instruction, and so satisfied the millers, that he was always consulted in preference to his master, and before the expiration of his servitude, when Mr. Bennet, by his age and infirmities, became unable to work, he carried on the business, and provided a comfortable subsistence for the old man and his family. About this time Bennet was employed in constructing an engine paper-mill, the first of the kind that had been attempted in these parts; but, as he was likely to fail in the execution of it, Mr. Brindley, without communicating his design, set out on Saturday evening after the business of the day was finished, and having inspected the work, returned home on Monday morning, after a journey of fifty miles, informed his master of its defects, and completed the engine to the entire satisfaction of the proprietors. He afterwards engaged in the mill-wright business on his own account. The fame of his inventions in a little while spread far beyond his own neighbourhood. In 1752, he was employed to erect a curious water-engine at Clifton, in Lancashire, for the purpose of draining coal-mines, which had before been performed at an enormous expense. The water for the use of this engine was conveyed from the river Irwell by a subterraneous channel, nearly six hundred yards long, which passed through a rock; and the wheel was fixed thirty feet below the surface of the ground. In 1755, he constructed a new silk-mill at Congleton, in Cheshire, according to the plan proposed by the proprietors, after the execution of it by the original undertaker had failed; and in the completion of it he added many new and useful improvements. He introduced one contrivance for winding the silk upon the bobbins equally, and not in wreaths; and another for stopping, in an instant, not only the whole of this extensive system, in all its various movements, but any individual part of it at pleasure. He likewise invented machines for cutting the tooth and pinion wheels of the different engines, in a manner that produced a great saving of time, labour, and expense. He also introduced into the mills, used at the potteries in Staffordshire for grinding flintstones, several valuable additions, which greatly facilitated the operation. In 1756, he constructed a steam-engine at Newcastle-under-Line, upon a new plan. The boiler was made with brick and stone, instead of iron plates, and the water was heated by fire-places, so constructed as to save the consumption of fuel. He also introduced cylinders of wood instead of those of iron, and substituted [1265, 1266] wood for iron in the chains which worked at the end of the beam. But from these and similar contrivances for the improvement of this useful engine, his attention was diverted by the great national object of “inland navigation.” In planning and executing canals his mechanical genius found ample scope for exercise, and formed a sort of distinguishing era in the history of our country. Envy and prejudice raised a variety of obstacles to the accomplishment of his designs and undertakings; and if he had not been liberally and powerfully protected by the duke of Bridgwater, his triumph over the opposition with which he encountered must have been considerably obstructed. The duke possessed an estate at Worsley, about seven miles from Manchester, rich in mines of coal, from which he derived little or no advantage, on account of the expense attending the conveyance by land carriage to a suitable market. A canal from Worsley to Manchester, Mr. Brindley declared to be practicable. His grace obtained an act for that purpose; and Brindley was employed in the conduct and execution of this, the first undertaking of the kind ever attempted in England, with navigable subterraneous tunnels and elevated aqueducts. At the commencement of the business it was determined, that the level of the water should be preserved without the usual obstruction of locks, and to carry the canal over rivers and deep vallies. It was not easy to obtain a sufficient supply of water for completing the navigation, but Brindley, furnished with ample resources, persevered, and conquered all the embarrassments, occasioned by the nature of the undertaking, and by the passions and prejudices of individuals. Having completed the canal as far as Barton, where the river Irwell is navigable for large vessels, he proposed to carry it over that river by an aqueduct thirty-nine feet above the surface of the water. This was considered as a chimerical and extravagant project; and an eminent engineer said, “I have often heard of castles in the air, but never before was shown where any of them were to be erected.” The duke of Bridgwater, confiding in the judgment of Brindley, empowered him to prosecute the work; and in about ten months the aqueduct was completed. This astonishing work commenced in September, 1760, and the first boat sailed over it the 17th of July, 1761. The canal was then extended to Manchester, where Mr. Brindley’s ingenuity in diminishing labour by mechanical contrivances, was exhibited in a machine for landing coals upon the top of a hill. The duke of Bridgwater extended his views to Liverpool; and obtained, in 1762, an act of parliament for branching his canal to the tide-way in the Mersey. This part is carried over the river Mersey and Bollan, and over many wide and deep vallies. Over the vallies it is conducted without a single lock; and across the valley at Stretford, through which the Mersey runs, a mound of earth, raised for preserving the water, extends for nearly a mile. In the execution of every part of the navigation, Mr. Brindley displayed singular skill and ingenuity; and in order to facilitate his purpose, he produced many valuable machines. His economy and forecast are peculiarly discernible in the stops, or flood-gates, fixed in the canal, where it is above the level of the land. They are so constructed, that if any of the banks should give way and occasion a current, the adjoining gates will rise merely by that motion, and prevent any other part of the water from escaping than that which is near the breach between the two gates. Encouraged by the success of the duke of Bridgwater’s undertakings, a subscription was entered into by a number of gentlemen and manufacturers in Staffordshire, for constructing a canal through that county. In 1766, this canal, “The Grand Trunk Navigation,” was begun; and it was conducted with spirit and success, under the direction of Brindley, as long as he lived. After this, Brindley constructed a canal from the Grand Trunk, near Haywood, in Staffordshire, to the river Severn near Bewdley, connecting Bristol with Liverpool and Hull. This canal, about forty-six miles in length, was completed in 1772. His next undertaking was a canal from Birmingham, which should unite with the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal near Wolverhampton. It is twenty six miles in length, and was finished in about three years. To avoid the inconvenience of locks, and for the more effectual supply of the canal with water, he advised a tunnel at Smethwick; his advice was disregarded; and the managers were afterwards under the necessity of erecting two steam engines. He executed the canal from Droitwich to the Severn, [1267, 1268] for the conveyance of salt and coals; and planned the Coventry navigation, which was for some time under his direction; but a dispute arising, he resigned his office. Some short time before his death, he began the Oxfordshire canal, which, uniting with the Coventry canal, serves as a continuation of the Grand Trunk navigation to Oxford, and thence by the Thames to London. Mr. Brindley’s last undertaking was the canal from Chesterfield to the river Trent at Stockwith. He surveyed and planned the whole, and executed some miles of the navigation, which was finished five years after his death by his brother-in-law, Mr. Henshall, in 1777. Such was Mr. Brindley’s established reputation, that few works of this kind were undertaken without his advice. They are too numerous to be particularized, but it may be added that he gave the corporation of Liverpool a plan for clearing their docks of mud, which has been practised with success; and proposed a method, which has also succeeded, of building walls against the sea without mortar. The last of his inventions was an improved machine for drawing water out of mines, by a losing and gaining bucket, which he afterwards employed with advantage in raising coals. When difficulties occurred in the execution of any of Mr. Brindley’s works, he had no recourse to books, or to the labours of other persons. All his resources were in his own inventive mind. He generally retired to bed, and lay there one, two, or three days, till he had devised the expedients which he needed for the accomplishment of his objects; he then got up, and executed his design without any drawing or model, which he never used, except for the satisfaction of his employers. His memory was so tenacious, that he could remember and execute all the parts of the most complex machine, provided he had time, in his previous survey, to settle, in his mind, the several departments, and their relations to each other. In his calculations of the powers of any machine, he performed the requisite operation by a mental process, in a manner which none knew but himself, and which, perhaps, he was not able to communicate to others. After certain intervals of consideration, he noted down the result in figures; and then proceeded to operate upon that result, until at length the complete solution was obtained, which was generally right. His want of literature, indeed, compelled him to cultivate, in an extraordinary degree, the art of memory; and in order to facilitate the revival, in his mind, of those visible objects and their properties, to which his attention was chiefly directed, he secluded himself from the external impressions of other objects, in the solitude of his bed. Incessant attention to important and interesting objects, precluded Mr. Brindley from any of the ordinary amusements of life, and indeed, prevented his deriving from them any pleasure. He was once prevailed upon by his friends in London to see a play, but he found his ideas so much disturbed, and his mind rendered so unfit for business, as to induce him to declare, that he would not on any account go to another. It is not improbable, however, that by indulging an occasional relaxation, remitting his application, and varying his pursuits, his life might have been prolonged. The multiplicity of his engagements, and the constant attention which he bestowed on them, brought on a hectic fever, which continued, with little or no intermission, for some years, and at last terminated his useful and honourable career, in the 56th year of age. He was buried at New Chapel, in the same county. Such was the enthusiasm with which this extraordinary man engaged in all schemes of inland navigation, that he seemed to regard all rivers with contempt, when compared with canals. It is said, that in an examination before the house of commons, when he was asked for what purpose he apprehended rivers were created, he replied, after some deliberation, “to feed navigable canals.” Those who knew him well, highly respected him “for the uniform and unshaken integrity of his conduct; for his steady attachment to the interest of the community; for the vast compass of his understanding, which seemed to have a natural affinity with all grand objects; and, likewise, for many noble and beneficial designs, constantly generating in his mind, and which the multiplicity of his engagements, and the shortness of his life, prevented him from bringing to maturity.”[357]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 55·50.
[1269, 1270] September 28. Madame Geneva lying in State. On the 28th of September, 1736, when the “Gin Act,” which was passed to prevent the retailing of spirituous liquors in small quantities was about to be enforced, it was deemed necessary to send a detachment of sixty soldiers from Kensington to protect the house of sir Joseph Jekyl, the master of the rolls in Chancery-lane, from the violence threatened by the populace against that eminent lawyer for his endeavours in procuring the obnoxious statute. The keepers of the gin-shops testified their feelings by a parade of mock ceremonies for “Madame Geneva lying-in-state,” which created a mob about their shops, and the justices thought proper to commit some of the chief mourners to prison. On this occasion, the signs of the punch-houses were put in mourning; and lest others should express the bitterness of their hearts by committing violences, the horse and foot-guards and trained bands were ordered to be properly stationed. Many of the distillers, instead of spending their time in empty lamentations, betook themselves to other branches of industry. Some to the brewing trade, which raised the price of barley and hops; some took taverns in the universities, which nobody could do before the “Gin Act,” without leave of the vice-chancellor; others set up apothecaries’ shops. The only persons who took out fifty pound licenses were one Gordon, Mr. Ashley of the London punch-house, and one more. Gordon, a punch-seller in the Strand, devised a new punch made of strong Madeira wine, and called Sangre.[358]
County Customs. It may be hoped that our readers who live in the apple districts will communicate the usages of their neighbourhoods to the Every-Day Book. For the present we must thank “an old correspondent.” Griggling. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Dear Sir,—The more I read of your Every-Day Book, the stronger my recollection returns to my boyhood days. There is not a season wherein I felt greater delight than during the gathering in of the orchards’ produce. The cider barrels cleaned and aired from the cellar—the cider-mill ready—the baskets and press, the vats, the horse-hair cloths, and the loft, fitted for the process and completion of making cider—the busy people according to Philips, seek— The pippin, burnish’d o’er with gold,
Of sweetest honey’d taste, the fair permain,
Temper’d like comeliest nymph, with white and red.
*****
Let every tree in every garden own,
The redstreak as supreme, whose pulpous fruit,
With gold irradiate, and vermillion shines.
Hail Herefordian plant! that dost disdain
All other fields.
The Herefordshire cider is so exquisite, that when the earl of Manchester was ambassador in France, he is said frequently to have passed this beverage on their nobility for a delicious wine. Leasing in the corn-fields after the sheaves are borne to the garner, is performed by villagers of all ages, that are justly entitled to glean, like ants, the little store against a rainy day. But after the orchard is cleared, (and how delightful a shower—the shaking the Newton instructing apples down,) the village (not chimney-sweepers) climbing boys collect in a possÉ, and with poles and bags, go into the orchard and commence griggling. The small apples are called griggles. These, the farmers leave pretty abundantly on the trees, with an understanding that the urchins will have mercy on the boughs, which, if left entirely bare, would suffer. Suspended like monkeys, the best climbers are the ring-leaders; and less boys pick up and point out where an apple still remains. After the trees are cleared, a loud huzza crowns the exertion; and though a little bickering as to the quality and quantity ensues, they separate with their portion, praising or blaming the owner, proportionate to their success. If he requests it, which is often the case before they depart, the head boy stands before the house, and uncovered, he recites the well-known fable in the “Universal Spelling Book”—“A rude boy stealing apples.”—Then the hostess, or her daughter, brings a large jug of cider and a slice of bread and cheese, or twopence, to the great pleasure of the laughing recipients of such generous bounty. Down to the present month the custom of griggling is continued with variation in the western hamlets, though innovation, which is the abuse of privilege, has [1271, 1272] prevented many orchard-owners allowing the boys their griggling perambulations. With much respect, I am, &c. P.—— T.—— *,*,P. September 20, 1826.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 53·37.
September 29. St. Michael. In the former volume, there are particulars of St. Michael, at col. 500, 629, and 1325. To the latter article, there is a print of this archangel, with six others of his order: on the present page he appears with other characteristics. This print from a large engraving on copper, by one of the Caracci family in 1582, after a picture by Lorenzo Sabbatini of Bologna, represents the holy family, and St. John, and St. Michael standing on the devil, and presenting souls to the infant Jesus from a pair of scales. The artist has adopted this mode to convey a notion of the archangel, in quality of his office, as chief of the guardian angels, and judge of the claims of departed spirits. In vol. i. p. 630, there are notices relative to St. Michael in this capacity.
The church of Notre Dame, at Paris, rebuilt by “devout king Robert,” was conspicuously honoured by a statue of the chief of the angelic hierarchy, with his [1273, 1274] scales. “On the top, and pinnacle before the said church,” says Favine, “is yet to be seene the image of the arch-angell St. Michael, the tutelaric angell, and guardian of the most christian monarchie of France, ensculptured after the antique forme, holding a ballance in the one hand, and a crosse in the other; on his head, and toppe of his wings, are fixed and cramponned strong pikes of iron to keepe the birds from pearching thereon.” Favine proceeds to mention a popular error concerning these “pikes of iron,” to defend the statue from the birds. “The ignorant vulgar conceived that this was a crowne of eares of corne, and thought it to be the idole of the goddesse Ceres.” He says this is “a matter wherein they are much deceived; for Isis and Ceres being but one and the same, her temple was at S. Ceour and S. Germain des Prez.”[359] Louis XI. instituted an order in honour of St. Michael, the arch-angel, on occasion of an alleged apparition of the saint on the bridge at Orleans, when that city was besieged by the English in 1428.
St. George. It has been intimated in vol. i., col. 500, that there are grounds to imagine “that St. George and the dragon are neither more nor less than St. Michael contending with the devil.” The reader who desires further light on this head, will derive it from a dissertation by Dr. Pettingall, expressly on the point. It may here, perhaps, be opportune to introduce the usual representation of St. George and the dragon, by an impression from an original wood-block, obligingly presented to this work by Mr. Horace Rodd. St. George and the Dragon. To-morrow morning we shall have you look,
For all your great words, like St. George at Kingston,
Running a footback from the furious dragon,
That with her angrie tail belabours him
For being lazie.
Woman’s Prize. So say Beaumont and Fletcher, from whence we learn that the prowess of “St. George for England,” was ludicrously travestied.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 55·27.
September 30. The Season. It is noted under the present day in the “Perennial Calendar,” that at this time the heat of the middle of the days is still sufficient to warm the earth, and cause a large ascent of vapour: that the [1275, 1276] chilling frosty nights, which are also generally very calm, condense into mists; differing from clouds only in remaining on the surface of the ground. Now by the cool declining year condensed,
Descend the copious exhalations, check’d
As up the middle sky unseen they stole,
And roll the doubling fogs around the hill.
......Thence expanding far,
The huge dusk gradual swallows up the plain
Vanish the woods; the dimseen river seems
Sullen and slow to roll the misty wave.
Even in the height of noon oppressed, the sun
Sheds weak and blunt his wide refracted ray;
Whence glaring oft, with many a broadened orb,
He frights the nations. Indistinct on earth,
Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life
Objects appear, and wildered o’er the waste,
The shepherd stalks gigantic.
“Extraordinary News!” To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Sir,—The character and manners of a people may be often correctly ascertained by an attentive examination of their familiar customs and sayings. The investigation of these peculiarities, as they tend to enlarge the knowledge of human nature, and illustrate national history, as well as to mark the fluctuation of language, and to explain the usages of antiquity, is, therefore, deserving of high commendation; and, though occasionally, in the course of those inquiries, some whimsical stories are related, and some very homely phrases and authorities cited, they are the occurrences of every day, and no way seem to disqualify the position in which several amusing and popular customs are brought forward to general view. Under this impression, it will not be derogatory to the Every-Day Book, to observe that by such communications, it will become an assemblage of anecdotes, fragments, remarks, and vestiges, collected and recollected:— —————Various,—that the mind
Of desultory man, studious of change,
And pleas’d with novelty, may be indulged.
Cowper. Should the following extract, from a volume of Miscellaneous Poems, edited by Elijah Fenton, and printed by Bernard Lintot, without date, but anterior to 1720, in octavo, be deemed by you, from the foregoing observations, deserving of notice, it is at your service. Old Bennet was an eccentric person, at the early part of the last century, who appears to have excited much noise in London. On the Death of Old Bennet, the News Cryer. “One evening, when the sun was just gone down,
As I was walking thro’ the noisy town,
A sudden silence through each street was spread,
As if the soul of London had been fled.
Much I inquired the cause, but could not hear,
Till fame, so frightened, that she did not dare
To raise her voice, thus whisper’d in my ear:
Bennet, the prince of hawkers, is no more,
Bennet, my Herald on the British shore;
Bennet, by whom, I own myself outdone,
Tho’ I a hundred mouths, he had but one.
He, when the list’ning town he would amuse,
Made echo tremble with his ‘bloody news.’
No more shall Echo, now his voice return,
Echo for ever must in silence mourn.—
Lament, ye heroes, who frequent the wars,
The great proclaimer of your dreadful scars.
Thus wept the conqueror, who the world o’ercame,
Homer was wanting to enlarge his fame
Homer, the first of hawkers that is known,
Great news from Troy, cried up and down the town.
None like him has there been for ages past,
Till our stentorian Bennet came at last.
Homer and Bennet were in this agreed,
Homer was blind, and Bennet could not read.”
“Bloody News!” “Great Victory!” or more frequently “Extraordinary Gazette!” were, till recently, the usual loud bellowings of fellows, with stentorian lungs, accompanied by a loud blast of a long tin-horn, which announced to the delighted populace of London, the martial achievements of the modern Marlborough. These itinerants, for the most part, were the link-men at the entrances to the theatres; and costermongers, or porters, assisting in various menial offices during the day. A copy of the “Gazette,” or newspaper they were crying, was generally affixed under the hatband, in front, and their demand for a newspaper generally one shilling. Those newscriers are spoken of in the past sense, as the further use of the horn is prohibited by the magistracy, subject to a penalty of ten shillings for a first offence, and twenty shillings on the conviction of repeating so heinous a crime. “Oh, dear!” as Crockery says, I think in these times of “modern improvement,” every thing is changing, and in many instances, much for the worse. I suspect that you, Mr. Editor, possess a fellow-feeling on the subject, and shall [1277, 1278] no further trespass on your time, or on the reader’s patience, than by expressing a wish that many alterations were actuated by manly and humane intentions, and that less of over-legislation and selfishness were evinced in these pretended endeavours to promote the good of society. I am, &c.
J. H. B.
The present month can scarcely be better closed than with some exquisite stanzas from the delightful introduction to the “Forest Minstrel and other Poems, by William and Mary Howitt.” Mr. Howitt speaks of his “lightly caroll’d lays,” as— ——— never, surely, otherwise esteem’d
Than a bird’s song, that, fill’d with sweet amaze
At the bright opening of the young, green spring,
Pours out its simple joy in instant warbling.
For never yet was mine the proud intent
To give the olden harp a thrilling sound,
Like those great spirits who of late have sent
Their wizard tones abroad, and all around
This wond’rous world have wander’d; and have spent,
In court and camp, on bann’d and holy ground,
Their gleaning glances; and, in hall and bower,
Have learn’d of mortal life the passions and the power:
Eyeing the masters of this busy earth,
In all the changes of ambition’s toil,
From the first struggles of their glory’s birth,
Till robed in power—till wearied with the spoil
Of slaughter’d realms, and dealing woe and dearth
To miserable men—and then the foil
To this great scene, the vengeance, and the frown
With which some mightier hand has pull’d those troublers down:
Eyeing the passages of gentler life,
And different persons, of far different scenes;
The boy, the beau—the damsel, and the wife—
Life’s lowly loves—the loves of kings and queens;
Each thing that binds us, and each thing that weans
Us from this state, with pains and pleasures rife;
The wooings, winnings, weddings, and disdainings
Of changeful men, their fondness and their feignings:
And then have brought us home strange sights and sounds
From distant lands, of dark and awful deeds;
And fair and dreadful spirits; and gay rounds
Of mirth and music; and then mourning weeds;
And tale of hapless love that sweetly wounds
The gentle heart, and its deep fondness feeds;
Lapping it up in dreams of sad delight
From its own weary thoughts, in visions wild and bright:—
Oh! never yet to me the power or will
To match these mighty sorcerers of the soul
Was given; but on the bosom, lone and still,
Of nature cast, I early wont to stroll
Through wood and wild, o’er forest, rock, and hill,
Companionless; without a wish or goal,
Save to discover every shape and voice
Of living thing that there did fearlessly rejoice.
And every day that boyish fancy grew;
And every day those lonely scenes became
Dearer and dearer, and with objects new,
All sweet and peaceful, fed the young spirit’s flame
Then rose each silent woodland to the view,
A glorious theatre of joy! then came
Each sound a burst of music on the air,
That sank into the soul to live for ever there!
Oh, days of glory! when the young soul drank
Delicious wonderment through every sense!
And every tone and tint of beauty sank
Into a heart that ask’d not how, or whence
Came the dear influence; from the dreary blank
Of nothingness sprang forth to an existence
Thrilling and wond’rous; to enjoy—enjoy
The new and glorious blessing—was its sole employ.
To roam abroad amidst the mists, and dews,
And brightness of the early morning sky,
When rose and hawthorn leaves wore tenderest hues:
To watch the mother linnet’s stedfast eye,
Seated upon her nest; or wondering muse
On her eggs’s spots, and bright and delicate dye;
To peep into the magpie’s thorny hall,
Or wren’s green cone in some hoar mossy wall;
To hear of pealing bells the distant charm,
As slow I wended down some lonely dale,
Past many a bleating flock, and many a farm
And solitary hall; and in the vale
To meet of eager hinds a hurrying swarm,
With staves and terriers hastening to assail
Polecat, or badger, in their secret dens,
Or otter lurking in the deep and reedy fens
[1279, 1280]To pass through villages, and catch the hum
Forth bursting from some antiquated school,
Endow’d long since by some old knight, whose tomb
Stood in the church just by; to mark the dool
Of light-hair’d lads that inly rued their doom,
Prison’d in that old place, that with the tool,
Stick-knife or nail, of many a sly offender,
Was carved and figured over, wall, and desk, and window;
To meet in green lanes happy infant bands,
Full of health’s luxury, sauntering and singing,
A childish, wordless melody; with hands
Cowslips, and wind-flowers, and green brook-lime bringing;
Or weaving caps of rushes; or with wands
Guiding their mimic teams; or gaily swinging
On some low sweeping bough, and clinging all
One to the other fast, till, laughing, down they fall;
To sit down by some solitary man,
Hoary with years, and with a sage’s look,
In some wild dell where purest waters ran,
And see him draw forth his black-letter book,
Wond’ring, and wond’ring more, as he began,
On it, and then on many an herb to look,
That he had wander’d wearily and wide,
To pluck from jutting rocks, and woods, and mountain side;
And then, as he would wash his healing roots
In the clear stream, that ever went singing on,
Through banks o’erhung with herbs and flowery shoots,
Leaning as if they loved its gentle tune,
To hear him tell of many a plant that suits
Fresh wound, or fever’d frame; and of the moon
Shedding o’er weed and wort her healing power,
For gifted wights to cull in her ascendant hour;
To lie abroad on nature’s lonely breast,
Amidst the music of a summer’s sky,
Where tall, dark pines the northern bank invest
Of a still lake; and see the long pikes lie
Basking upon the shallows; with dark crest,
And threat’ning pomp, the swan go sailing by;
And many a wild fowl on its breast that shone,
Flickering like liquid silver, in the joyous sun:
The duck, deep poring with his downward head,
Like a buoy floating on the ocean wave;
The Spanish goose, like drops of crystal, shed
The water o’er him, his rich plumes to lave;
The beautiful widgeon, springing upward, spread
His clapping wings; the heron, stalking grave,
Into the stream; the coot and water-hen
Vanish into the flood, then, far off, rise again;
And when warm summer’s holiday was o’er,
And the bright acorns patter’d from the trees
When fires were made, and closed was every door,
And winds were loud, or else a chilling breeze
Came comfortless, driving cold fogs before:
On dismal, shivering evenings, such as these,
To pass by cottage windows, and to see,
Round a bright hearth, sweet faces shining happily;
These were the days of boyhood! Oh! such days
Shall never, never more return again—
When the fresh heart, all witless of the ways,
The sickening, sordid, selfish ways of men,
Danced in creation’s pure and placid blaze,
Making an Eden of the loneliest glen!
Darkness has follow’d fast, and few have been
The rays of sunlight cast upon life’s dreary scene.
For years of lonely thought, in morning-tide
Of life, will make a spirit all unfit
To brook of men the waywardness and pride;
Too proud itself to woo, or to submit;
Scorning, as vile, what all adore beside,
And deeming only glorious the soul lit
With the pure flame of knowledge, and the eye
Filled with the gentle love of the bright earth and sky.
Fancy’s spoil’d child will ever surely be
A thing of nothing in the worldly throng:
Wrapp’d up in dreams that they can never see;
Listening to fairy harp, or spirit’s song,
Where all to them is stillest vacancy:
For ever seeking, as he glides along,
Some kindred heart, that feels as he has felt,
And can read each thought that with him long has dwelt.
But place him midst creation!—let him stand
Where wave and mountain revel in his sight,
Then shall his soul triumphantly expand,
With gathering power, and majesty, and light!
The world beneath him is the temple plann’d
For him to worship in; and, pure and bright,
Heaven’s vault above, the proud eternal dome
Of his Almighty Sire, and his own future home!
With such inspiring fancies, mortal pride
Shrinks into nothing; and all mortal things
He casts, as weeds cast by the ocean tide,
From its embraces; the world’s scorn he flings
Back on itself, disdaining to divide,
With its low cares, that sensitive spirit that brings
Home to his breast all nature’s light and glee,
Holding with sunshine, clouds, and gales, unearthly revelry.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 54·17.
[1281, 1282]
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