  And after her came jolly June, array’d
All in green leaves, as he a player were;
Yet in his time he wrought as well as play’d,
That by his plough-irons mote right well appeare.
Upon a crab he rode, that him did bare
With crooked crawling steps an uncouth pase,
And backward-yode, as bargemen wont to fare
Bending their force contrary to their face;
Like that ungracious crew which faines demurest grace.
Spenser. This is the sixth month of the year. According to an old author “unto June the Saxons gave the name of Weyd-monat, because their beasts did then weyd in the meddowes, that is to say, goe to feed there, and hereof a medow is also in the Tutonicke called a weyd, and of weyd we yet retaine our word wade, which we understand of going through watrie places, such as medowes are wont to be.”[159] Another author likewise says, that “weyd is probably derived from weyden (German), to go about as if to pasture;” he further says, they called it Woedmonath, and that woed means “weed”; and that they called it also by the following names: Medemonath, Midsumormonath, and Braeckmonath; thought to be so named from the breaking up of the soil from brÆcan (Saxon), to break: they also named it Lida erra; the word Lida, or litha, signifying in Icelandic, “to move, or pass over,” may imply the sun’s passing its greatest height, and Lida erra consequently mean the first month of the sun’s descent. Lida, it is added, has been deemed to signify smooth-air.[160] Mr. Leigh Hunt observes, in his “Months,” that “the name of June, and indeed that of May, gave rise to various etymologies; but the most probable one derives it from Juno, in honour of whom a festival was celebrated at the beginning of the month.” He says, “it is now complete summer:— ‘Summer is ycomen in,
Loud sing cuckoo;
Groweth seed,
And bloweth mead,
And springeth the weed new.’
“Thus sings the oldest English song extant, in a measure which is its own music.—The temperature of the air, however, is still mild, and in our climate sometimes too chilly; but when the season is fine, this is, perhaps, the most delightful month of the year. The hopes of spring are realized, yet the enjoyment is but commenced: we have all summer before us; the cuckoo’s two notes are now at what may be called their ripest,—deep and loud; so is the hum of the bee; little clouds lie in lumps of silver about the sky, and sometimes fall to complete the growth of the herbage; yet we may now lie down on the grass, or the flowering banks, to read or write; the grasshoppers click about us in the warming verdure; and the fields and hedges are in full blossom with the clover, the still more exquisite bean, the pea, the blue and yellow nightshade, the fox-glove, the mallow, white briony, wild honeysuckle, and the flower of the hip or wild rose, which blushes through all the gradations of delicate red and white. The leaves of the hip, especially the young ones, are as beautiful as those of any garden rose. Towards evening, the bat and the owl venture forth, flitting through the glimmering quiet; and at night, the moon looks silveriest, the sky at once darkest and clearest; and when the nightingale, as well as the other birds have done singing, you may hear the undried brooks of the spring running and panting through their leafy channels. ‘It ceased,’ says the poet, speaking of a sound of heavenly voices about a ship,— It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook,
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
Coleridge. “There is a greater accession of flowers in this month than in any other. In addition to those of the last, the garden sparkles with marygolds, golden-road, larkspur, sun-flowers, amarynths, (which Milton intermingles with sun-beams for his angel’s hair,) lupins, carnations, Chinese pinks, holyhocks, ladies’ slipper, annual stocks, campanulas, or little bells, martagons, periwinkles, wall-flower, snap-dragon, orchis, nasturtium, apocynum, chrysanthemum, cornflower, gladiolus, and convolvulus. The reader who is fond of poetry, and of the Greek fables, and does not happen to be acquainted with professor Martyn’s notes upon Virgil, should here be informed, that the species of red lily, called the martagon or Turk’s-cap, has been proved by that writer, at least to our satisfaction, to be the real ancient hyacinth, into which the youth of that name was turned by Apollo. The hyacinth, commonly so called, has nothing to show for its being the ancient one, which should be of a blood colour, and was said to be inscribed with the Greek exclamation of sorrow AI, AI. Now, we were struck with the sort of literal black marks with which the Turk’s-cap is speckled, and on reading the professor’s notes, and turning to the flower again, we could plainly see, that with some allowance, quite pardonable in a superstition, the marks might now and then fall together, so as to indicate those characters. It is a most beautiful, glowing flower; and shoots gracefully forth in a vase or glass from among white lilies, and the double narcissus:— ??? ?a????e, ?a?e? ta sa ?saata, ?a? p?e?? ?? ??
?aa?e s??? peta???s?.
Moschus. ‘Now tell your story, Hyacinth; and show
Ai Ai the more amidst your sanguine woe.’
“The rural business of this month is made up of two employments, as beautiful to look at as they are useful,—sheep-shearing and hay-making. Something like a holiday is still made of the former, and in the south-west of England, the custom, we believe, is still kept up, of throwing flowers into the streams, an evident relic of paganism; but, altogether, the holiday is but a gleam of the same merry period in the cheap and rural time of our ancestors.”
June 1. St Justin, Martyr, A. D. 167. St. Pamphilus, A. D. 309. St. Caprais, Abbot, A. D. 430. St. Peter, of Pisa, A. D. 1435. St. Wistan, Prince of Mercia, A. D. 849. St. Nicomede. This saint is in the English almanacs of this day; for what reason is unknown. He was an ancient martyr in no way distinguished from others who perished during the persecution under Domitian. Chronology. 1794. Lord Howe’s memorable victory by sea over the French fleet. 1814. A newspaper of this day notices that the Tuesday preceding was observed at Burton, in Dorsetshire, as a great festival, in consequence of the arrival at that place of a vat of Hambro’ yarn, from London, being the first that had come into the town for many years. The inhabitants met the waggon, took out the horse, decorated the vat with ribands, and various emblems of peace, plenty, trade and commerce, and drew the same through the village, preceded by a flag and band of music, amidst the acclamations of thousands, many of whom were regaled with bread, cheese, and strong beer: one loaf (among others) baked for the occasion, claimed the admiration of every one present; its length being six feet three inches, breadth twenty-one inches, depth fourteen inches, and its weight considerably above 100 lbs. To explain the occasion of this rejoicing, it is necessary to state that Burton, as a manufacturing place, had suffered under the privation which was felt more or less throughout the British dominions, by Buonaparte declaring them to be in a state of blockade. By this decree, from the continent of Europe being within his power, he was enabled to injure and derange the industry and commerce of our artisans and merchants to an extent that was not contemplated. They have happily been liberated by an unlooked-for, and wonderful, combination of circumstances; nor so long as good faith and wise dispositions prevail, can they be prevented from arriving to a height of prosperity unparalleled in our annals.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Yellow Rose. Rosa lutea.
Dedicated to St. Justin.
June 2. Sts. Pothinus, Bp. Sanctus, Attalus, Blandina, &c., of Lyons, A. D. 177. Sts. Marcellinus and Peter, A. D. 304. St. Erasmus, or Ermo, or Elmo, A. D. 303. Corpus Christi Day,
and the performance of
Mysteries. This grand festival of the Romish church is held on the Thursday next after Trinity Sunday, in which order it also stands in the church of England calendar, and in the English almanacs. It celebrates the doctrine of transubstantiation. In all Roman catholic countries it is observed with music, lights, flowers strewed in the street, rich tapestries hung upon the walls, and with other demonstrations of rejoicing:[161] this is the usage still. Anciently in this country, as well as abroad, it was the custom to perform plays on this day, representing scripture subjects. From an author before cited, the following verses relating to these manners are extracted:— “Then doth ensue the solemne feast of Corpus Christi Day,
Who then can shewe their wicked use, and fond and foolish play?
The hallowed bread, with worship great, in silver pix they beare
About the church, or in the citie passing here and theare.
His armes that beares the same two of the welthiest men do holde,
And over him a canopey of silke and cloth of golde.
Christe’s passion here derided is, with sundrie maskes and playes,
Faire Ursley, with hir maydens all, doth passe amid the wayes:
And, valiant George, with speare thou killest the dreadfull dragon here,
The Devil’s house is drawne about, wherein there doth appere
A wondrous sort of damned sprites, with foule and fearefull looke,
Great Christopher doth wade and passe with Christ amid the brooke:
Sebastian full of feathred shaftes, the dint of dart doth feele,
There walketh Kathren, with hir sworde in hand, and cruel wheele:
The Challis and the singing Cake with Barbara is led,
And sundrie other pageants playde, in worship of this bred.
* * * * * * * * * * * The common ways with bowes are strawde, and every streete beside,
And to the walles and windowes all are boughes and braunches tide.
The monkes in every place do roame, the nonnes abrode are sent,
The priestes and schoolmen lowd do rore, some use the instrument.
The straunger passing through the streete, upon his knees doe fall:
And earnestly upon this bread, as on his God, doth call.
For why, they counte it for their Lorde, and that he doth not take
The form of flesh, but nature now of breade that we do bake.
A number great of armed men here all this while do stande,
To looke that no disorder be, nor any filching hande:
For all the church-goodes out are brought, which certainly would bee
A bootie good, if every man might have his libertie.”[162]
The Religious Plays performed on Corpus Christi Day, in the times of superstition, were such as were represented at other periods, though with less ceremony. From a volume on the subject, by the editor of the Every-Day-book, he relates so much as may set forth their origin and the nature of the performances. Origin of Religious Plays. A Jewish play, of which fragments are still preserved in Greek iambics, is the first drama known to have been written on a scripture subject. It is taken from Exodus: a performer, in the character of Moses, delivers the prologue in a speech of sixty lines, and his rod is turned into a serpent on the stage. The play is supposed to have been written at the close of the second century, by one Ezekiel, a Jew, as a political spectacle to animate his dispersed brethren with the hopes of a future deliverance from their captivity. The emperor Julian made a law that no Christian should be taught in the heathen schools, or make use of that learning; but there were two men living at that time, who exerted their talents to supply the deficiency of instruction and entertainment that the Christians experienced from Julian’s edict: these were Apollinarius, bishop of Laodicea, and his father, a priest of the same city; they were both scholars, well skilled in oratory and the rules of composition, and of high literary renown. Apollinarius, the elder, a profound philologer, translated the five books of Moses into heroic verse, and in the same manner composed the history of the Israelites to the time of Saul, into a poem of twenty-four books, in imitation of Homer. He also wrote religious odes, and turned particular histories and portions of the Old and New Testament into comedies and tragedies, after the manner of Menander, Euripides, and Pindar. His son the bishop, an eloquent rhetorician, and already an antagonist of Julian’s, anxious that the Christians might not be ignorant of any species of Greek composition, formed the writings of the evangelists, and the works of the apostles, into dialogues, in the manner of Plato. About the same time, Gregory Nazianzen, patriarch and archbishop of Constantinople, one of the fathers of the church, and master to the celebrated Jerome, composed plays from the Old and New Testament, which he substituted for the plays of Sophocles and Euripides at Constantinople, where the old Greek stage had flourished until that time. The ancient Greek tragedy was a religious spectacle; and the sacred dramas of Gregory Nazianzen were formed on the same model; he transformed the choruses into Christian hymns. One only of the archbishop’s plays is extant: it is a tragedy called “Christ’s Passion;” the prologue calls it an imitation of Euripides; the play is preserved in Gregory Nazianzen’s works. The remainder of his dramas have not survived those inimitable compositions over which they triumphed for a time. It is not known whether the religious dramas of the Apollinarii perished so early as some of their other writings, that were ordered to be destroyed for, a crime common in all ages, heresy; but this is certain, that the learning they endeavoured to supply gradually disappeared before the progress of Constantine’s establishment. Suddenly acquiring power, and finally assuming infallibility, observing pagan feasts as religious festivals, consecrating heathen rites into christian solemnities, and transforming the non-observances of primitive simplicity into precedents for gorgeous ceremony, the church blazed with a scorching splendour that withered up the heart of man. Every accession to the dominion of its ecclesiastics over his property and intellect induced self-relaxation and sloth; to the boldness that seized a liberal supply for spiritual support, succeeded the craft that extended it to a boundless revenue for effeminate indulgence. The miraculous powers of the church wonderfully multiplied; but implicit belief in miracles was equivocal, unless the act of faith was accompanied by liberal contributions at the altar. The purchase of pardons for sin, and the worship of the relics exhibited in sumptuous shrines, were effectual ways of warring with the powers of darkness, and the coffers overflowed with contributions. These active hostilities against Satan occasioned him to ascend upon earth, and, to terrify the devout, he often appeared to them in the natural ugliness of his own proper person. When put to flight, by masses and holy water, he took lodgings incog. in the bodies of careless people, nor would he leave a tenement he occupied, till he was forcibly turned out of possession by a priest acquainted with the forms of ejectment. Dislike to clean linen was a peculiar mark of piety, and dirty hermits emitted the odour of sanctity. Though their holinesses were so violently hated by the devil, that he took the trouble to assault and tempt them in the holes of the earth and trunks of old trees where they inhabited, yet it was rewarded with visits to their chosen abodes from all the orders of heaven; and by long familiarity with the powers of the other world, these “tender-nosed saints could detect the presence of invisible angels.” They who turn their backs upon the concerns of life were especial favourites above. A nun reported that Christ opened her side with his corporal hands, took out her heart, and then carefully placing his own in the chasm, left it there and closed the wound, at the same time doing her the honour to wear her shift. Nor did the faithful, who believed the former relation, doubt for an instant that the Virgin descended from heaven to visit the cells of monasteries, and milk her breasts into the mouths of monks. Doubts were effectually removed by burning doubters. All who were privileged to shave the top of the head in a circle, as a token of emancipation from worldly superfluities, were partners in the profitable trade of granting licenses for unmolested existence at the price of unconditional admission. Ecclesiastical policy accomplished its purpose: the human mind was in a delirium; the hierarchy at the summit of its ascendancy. From the complete establishment of the church until within a short time before the reformation, darkness overspread the world, and the great mass of the clergy themselves were in a state of deplorable ignorance. During this period, in order to wean the people from the ancient spectacles, particularly the Bacchanalian and calendary solemnities, religious shows were instituted partaking of the same spirit of licentiousness. To these shows the clergy added the acting of mysteries, or representing the miraculous acts of saints circumstances from apocryphal story, and subjects from the Old and New Testament. There are different opinions as to the religious class by whom they were introduced into Europe, though it seems reasonable to suppose that they were adopted by the Italians in the depth of the dark ages from the spiritual dramas of the Apollinarii, father and son, and Gregory Nazianzen; but, however that may be, there is no room for surprise that all writers concur in attributing the performance of mysteries, or religious plays, to the clergy of the catholic church. As mysteries arose with Gregory Nazianzen, it is not likely that his example as a father of the church should be lost sight of as soon as he had succeeded in destroying the performance of the ancient Greek plays; yet English writers do not appear to have traced sacred representations in a dramatic form until many centuries after Gregory Nazianzen’s death. The first dramatic representation in Italy was a spiritual comedy, performed at Padua in 1243; and there was a company instituted at Rome in 1264, whose chief employment was to represent the sufferings of Christ in Passion week. The rev. Mr. Croft, and the hon. Topham Beauclerc, collected a great number of these Italian plays or mysteries; and at the sale of their libraries, Dr. Burney purchased many of the most ancient, which he speaks of as being evidently much earlier than the discovery of printing, from the gross manner in which the subjects are treated, the coarseness of the dialogue, and the ridiculous situation into which most sacred persons and things are thrown. In 1313, Philip the Fair gave the most sumptuous entertainment at Paris ever remembered in that city. Edward II. and his queen Isabella, crossed over from England with a large retinue of nobility, and partook of the magnificent festivities. The pomp and profusion of the banquettings, the variety of the amusements, and the splendour of the costume were unsurpassed. On each of the eight days the princes and nobles changed their dresses three times; while the people were sometimes entertained with representations of the Glory of the blessed, at other times with the Torments of the damned, and various other spectacles. In 1402, by an edict of Charles VI. dated Dec. 4, the mystery of the conception, passion, and resurrection of Christ, was performed at St. Maur, about five miles from Paris. At the council at Constance, in the year 1417, the English fathers played the mystery of the massacre of the Holy Innocents. The mystery of the passion was performed on the entrance of the kings of France and England at Paris, on December 1. 1420, in the street Kalende, before the palace, upon a raised scaffolding of one hundred paces in length. In the Royal Library of Paris, No. 4350, is Le Mystere de la passion Jesus Christ; Paris, printed by Antoine Verard, 1490, folio. This is a fine copy on vellum with every page richly illuminated, and containing a MS. note in French, purporting to be an extract from an old chronicle, entitled, “Histoire de Metz veritable,” whence it appears that its performance was attended by many foreign lords and ladies whose names are specified, and that there were lanthorns placed in the windows during the whole time of the plays: but the most curious part of the MS. note is, that, “in the year 1437, on the 3rd of July was represented the game or play, de la Passion, N. S. in the plain of Vexmiel, when the park was arranged in a very noble manner, for there were nine ranges of seats in height rising by degrees; all around and behind were great and long seats for the lords and ladies. On the stage was represented the mouth of hell, it is described as having been very well done, for that it opened and shut when the devils required to enter and come out, and had two large eyes of steel.” On the 27th of May, 1509, was performed at Romans, in Dauphiny, before the Cordelier’s church, the Mystery of the Three Dons. In this religious play, which lasted three days, there are emissaries who undertake very long journeys, and must come back before the play can be ended. The scene, besmeared with the blood of the three martyrs, the Dons, is sometimes at Rome, sometimes at Vienna, soon after at Lyons, and at other times in the Alps. The stage constantly represents hell and paradise; and Europe, Asia, and Africa, are cantoned in three towers. Some metaphysical beings are most curiously personified. Dame Silence, for instance, speaks the prologue; Human Succour, Divine Grace, and Divine Comfort, are the supporters of the heroes and heroines of the piece, while hell exhibits monsters and devils, to frighten the audience. They are constantly abusing Proserpine, who is introduced with all the trappings of Tartarean pomp into this performance, where there are no less than ninety-two dramatis personÆ, among whom are the Virgin and God the Father. The story of Le Mystere du Chevalier qui donne sa Femme au Diable, played by ten persons in 1505, is of a dissipated knight reduced by his profligacy to distress and wickedness. In his misfortunes the devil appears, and proposes to make him richer than ever, if he will assign his wife, that the devil may have her in seven years. After some discussion the knight consents, his promise is written out, and he signs it with his blood. The seducer then stipulates that his victim shall deny his God; the knight stoutly resists for a time, but in the end the devil gains his point, and emboldened by success ventures to propose that the knight shall deny the Virgin Mary. This, however, being a still greater sin, he refuses to commit it with the utmost indignity and vehemence, and the devil walks off baffled. At the end of seven years, the promise being due, the devil presents it to the knight, who, considering it a debt of honour, prepares to discharge it immediately. He orders his wife to follow him to a certain spot, but on their way she perceives a church, which after obtaining her husband’s permission she enters, for the purpose of offering her devotion; while thus engaged, the Virgin Mary recollecting the knight’s unsullied allegiance to her, assumes the semblance of his wife, and in that character joins him. The moment that they both appear before the devil, he perceives who he has to deal with, and upbraids the unconscious knight for attempting to deceive him. The knight protests his ignorance and astonishment, which the Virgin corroborates, by telling the devil that it was her own plan, for the rescue of two souls from his power, and she orders him to give up the knight’s promise. He of course obeys so high an authority, and runs off in great terror. The Virgin exhorts the knight to better conduct in future, restores his wife to him, and the piece concludes. In the reign of Francis I., 1541, the performance of a grand mystery of the Acts of the Apostles, was proclaimed with great solemnity, and acted at Paris for many successive days, before the nobility, clergy, and a large assemblage in the Hotel de Flandres. These plays written in French rhyme, by the brothers Greban, were printed in 2 vols, folio, black letter, under letters patent of the king to William Alabat, a merchant of Bourges. The dramatis personÆ, were a multitude of celestial, terrestial, and infernal personages, amounting altogether to four hundred and eighty-five characters. Though the scenes of these plays were chiefly scriptural, yet many were from apocryphal story, and the whole exhibition was a strange mixture of sacred and profane history. Bayle calls the work entitled the Mystere des Actes Apostres, “a very rare and uncommon work.” He obtained the loan of a copy from sir Hans Sloane in England, and largely describes the volume. It is, however, more curious than rare. From the public instruments prefixed to the work, and the circumstances related by Bayle, it is evident that there was much importance attached to these plays; but it cannot so well be conceived from perusing them, as from the remarkable ceremonial of the public proclamation for their performance, concerning which he says nothing, probably from the extreme rarity of the tract, he had not seen it. It ordained, that the proclamation of this play should be made by sound of trumpets, with the city officers and serjeants attending, and directed that the performance should take place “in the hall of the Passion, the accustomed place for rehearsals and repetitions of the Mysteries played in the said city of Paris; which place, being well hung with rich tapestry chairs and forms, is for the reception of all persons of honest and virtuous report, and of all qualities therein assisting, as well as a great number of citizens and merchants, and other persons, as well as clergy and laity, in the presence of the commissaries and officers of justice appointed and deputed to hear the speeches of each personage; and these are to make report, according to the merit of their well doing, as in such case required, concerning which have a gracious reception; and from day to day, every day, so to continue to do, until the perfection of the said Mystery.” It is not necessary to trace these plays abroad; they continue to be represented there to the present hour. At Berlin, 1804 and 5, the grand sacred comedy of “David,” in five acts, with battles and choruses, was performed by the comedians in the National Theatre. Throughout March, April, and May, 1810, the same play was represented at Vienna; and while the Congress was held there in 1815, it was again performed with the utmost possible splendour. The back of the stage, extending into the open air, gradually ascended to a distance sufficient to admit carriages and horses, and to allow the evolutions of at least five hundred Austrian soldiers, infantry and cavalry, who, habited in the characters of Jews and Philistines, carried muskets and carbines, defiled and deployed, charged with the bayonet, let off their fire-arms, and played artillery, to represent the battles described in the Book of Kings. The emperor Alexander of Russia, the king of Prussia, and other monarchs, with their ministers, and the representatives of different courts, at the Congress, attended these plays, which were exhibited at the great theatre (An der Wien) to crowded audiences, at the usual prices of admission. The first trace of theatrical representation in this country is recorded by Matthew Paris, who wrote about 1240, and relates, that Geoffrey, a learned Norman, master of the school of the abbey of Dunstable, composed the play of St. Catharine, which was acted by his scholars. Geoffrey’s performance took place in the year 1110, and he borrowed copes from the sacrist of the neighbouring abbey of St. Albans, to dress his characters. Fitzstephen writing in 1174, says that, “London, for its theatrical exhibitions, has religious plays, either the representations of miracles wrought by holy confessors, or the sufferings of martyrs.” Besides those of Coventry, there are MSS. of the Chester mysteries, ascribed to Ranulph Higden, compiler of the Polychronicon, and a Benedictine monk of that city, where they were performed at the expense of the incorporated trades, with a thousand days of pardon from the pope, and forty days of pardon from the bishop of Chester to all who attended the representation, which is supposed to have been first had in the year 1328. It is related in the Museum MS., of these Chester plays, that the author, “was thrice at Rome before he could obtain leave of the pope to have them in the English tongue.” The subjects of these plays being “from the Old and New Testament,” seem to supply the reasons for the difficulty in obtaining the pope’s consent. Scripture in English had been scrupulously withheld from the people, and the pope probably anticipated, that if they were made acquainted with a portion of it, the remainder would be demanded; while the author of the plays, better acquainted than the pope with the more immediate difficulty of altogether repressing the curiosity that had been excited towards it, conceived, perhaps, that the growing desire might be delayed, by distorted and confusing representations of certain portions. Perhaps such corruptions and absurdities, as are in these plays, seconded by the eloquence of their author, abated the papal fears concerning the appearance of these scriptural interludes in English, and finally obtained the sanction for their performance. It may be supposed, that the Chester plays, written in an early and dark age, would contain a great mass of apocryphal interpolation, and that the Coventry plays, written much later, would contain less; yet the contrary is the fact. Among the Chester mysteries, the “Descent into Hell” is the only one not founded on scripture, and that even has a colourable authority by implication; while among the Coventry mysteries, which were produced ninety years afterwards, there are, besides the “Descent,” no less than eight founded on apocryphal Testament story. This remarkable difference of feature, may probably be accounted for. From the fourth century, when Gregory Nazianzen, and the Apollonarii, turned portions of the bible into tragedies and comedies, the clergy of the continent must have done much in the same way, and with much of apocryphal engraftment; and though “religious plays” prevailed in England, yet scriptural subjects were new to the people, and the Chester mystery-maker of 1328, found these so numerous, as to render recourse to the New Testament Apocrypha unnecessary. But the Coventry mastery-maker of 1416, was under circumstances that would suggest powerful motives to the cunning of a monkish mind for apocryphal adoption. He was likely to conceive that a false glare might obscure the dawnings of the human mind. The rising day of the Reformation had been foretold by the appearance of its “morning star,” in the person of the intrepid Wycliffe, who exercised the right of private judgment in England, a century and a half before Luther taught it as a principle in Germany. It was a period of fearful foreboding to the church. In 1404, Henry IV. held a parliament at Coventry, which, from its desire to compel the clergy to contribute largely to the exigencies of the state, was called the Laymen’s Parliament. The country was in imminent danger; an abundant supply of money was immediately necessary; the church property and income were enormous; the parliament knew that this profusion of ecclesiastical wealth could only have been acquired from the industry of the laity; and they represented that the clergy had been of little service to the king, while the laity had served in his wars with their persons, and by contributions for the same purpose had impoverished their estates. The archbishop of Canterbury said, that if the clergy did not fight in person their tenants fought for them, that their contributions had been in proportion to their property, and that the church had offered prayers and masses day and night for God’s blessing on the king and the army. The speaker, sir John Cheyne, answered, that the prayers of the church were a very slender supply. To this the archbishop replied, that it might easily be seen what would become of the kingdom when such devout addresses were so slighted. The persistence of the archbishop saved the church at that time from the impending storm; but the priests saw that their exactions and their worship were only tolerated. Wycliffe had then been dead about twenty years. After a life wonderfully preserved from the unsparing cruelty of ecclesiastical power, by the protection of Edward III., his memory was affectionately revered, and, as printing had not been discovered, his writings were scarce, and earnestly sought. The good seed of dissent had germinated, and the appearance of dissenters at intervals, was a specimen of the harvest that had not yet come. Nothing more fearfully alarmed the establishment than Wycliffe’s translation of the New Testament into English. All arts were used to suppress it, and to enliven the slumbering attachment of the people to the “good old customs” of the church. There is abundant evidence of studious endeavours to both these ends in the Coventry mysteries. The priests industriously reported, that Wycliffe’s Testament was a false one; that he had distorted the language, and concealed facts. There was no printing press to multiply copies of his book; biblical criticism was scarcely known but by being denounced; the ecclesiastics anathematized scriptural inquiry as damnable heresy from their confessionals and pulpits; and as “the churches served as theatres for holy farces,” the Franciscan friars of Coventry, shortly after the meeting of the Laymen’s Parliament in that city, craftily engrafting stories from the pseudo-gospels upon narratives in the New Testament, composed and performed the plays called the Coventry mysteries. These fraudful productions were calculated to postpone the period of illumination, and to stigmatize, by implication, the labours of Wycliffe. Yet, if the simulation succeeded for a while with the vulgar, it reinvigorated the honest and the persevering; and as the sun breaks forth after a season of cold and darkness, so truth, finally emerging from the gulph of the papal hierarchy, animated the torpid intellect, and cheered the “long abused sight.” But to return. In 1538, Ralph Radcliffe, a scholar and a lover of graceful erudition, wrote plays in Latin and English, which were exhibited by his pupils. Among his comedies, were “Dives and Lazarus,” the “Delivering of Susannah,” “Job’s sufferings,” the “Burning of John Huss,” &c. The scholars of St. Paul’s school in London, were, till a comparatively late period, in great celebrity for their theatrical talent, which it appears was in full exercise upon the mysteries so early as the reign of Richard II.; for in that year, 1378, they presented a petition to his majesty, praying him “to prohibit some unexpert people from presenting the history of the Old and New Testament, to the great prejudice of the said clergy, who have been at great expense in order to represent it publicly at Christmas.” But the more eminent performers of mysteries in London, were the society of parish clerks. On the 18th, 19th, and 20th of July, 1390, they played interludes at the Skinner’s-well, as the usual place of their performance, before king Richard II., his queen, and their court; and at the same place, in 1490, they played the “Creation of the World,” and subjects of the like kind, for eight successive days, to splendid audiences of the nobility and gentry from all parts of England. The parish-clerks’ ancient performances are memorialized in raised letters of iron, upon a pump on the east side of Rag-street, now called Ray-street, beyond the Sessions-house, Clerkenwell. The pump of the Skinner’s-well is let into a low dead wall. On its north side is an earthenware shop; and on the south a humble tenement occupied by a bird-seller, whose cages with their chirping tenants, hang over and around the inscription. The passing admirer of linnets and redpoles, now and then stops awhile to listen to the melody, and refresh his eye with a few green clover turfs, that stand on a low table for sale by the side of the door; while the monument, denoting the histrionic fame of the place, and alluding to the miraculous powers of the water for healing incurable diseases, which formerly attracted multitudes to the spot, remains unobserved beneath its living attractions. The present simplicity of the scene powerfully contrasts with the recollection of its former splendour. The choral chant of the Benedictine nuns accompanying the peal of the deep-toned organ through their cloisters, and the frankincense curling its perfume from priestly censers at the altar, are succeeded by the stunning sounds of numerous quickly-plied hammers, and the smith’s bellows flashing the fires of Mr. Bond’s iron-foundry, erected upon the unrecognised site of the convent. This religious house stood about half-way down the declivity of the hill, which commencing near the church on Clerkenwell-green, terminates at the river Fleet. The prospect then, was uninterrupted by houses, and the people upon the rising grounds could have had an uninterrupted view of the performances at the well. About pistol-shot from thence, on the N. N. E. part of the hill, there was a Bear garden; and scarcely so far from the well, at the bottom of the hill westward, and a little to the north, in the hollow of Air-street, lies Hockley-in the-Hole, where different rude sports, which probably arose with the discontinuance of the parish clerks’ acting, were carried on, within the recollection of persons still living, to the great annoyance of this suburb. The religious guild, or fraternity of Corpus Christi at York, was obliged annually to perform a Corpus Christi play. Drake says, that this ceremony must have been in its time one of the most extraordinary entertainments the city could exhibit. It was acted in that city till the twenty-sixth year of queen Elizabeth, 1584. Corpus Christi day, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was celebrated with similar exhibitions by the incorporated trades. The earliest mention of the performance of mysteries there, is in the ordinary of the coopers for 1426. In 1437, the barbers played the “Baptizing of Christ.” In 1568, the “Offering of Abraham and Isaac” was exhibited by the slaters. About 1578, the Corpus Christi plays were on the decline, and never acted but by a special command of the magistrates of Newcastle. They are spoken of as the general plays of the town of Newcastle, and when thought necessary by the mayor to be set forth and played, the millers were to perform the “Deliverance of Israel;” the house-carpenters, the “Burial of Christ;” the masons, the “Burial of our lady Saint Mary the Virgin.” Between the first and last mentioned periods, there are many minutes in the trades’ books of the acting in different years. In the reign of Henry VII., 1487, that king, in his castle of Winchester, was entertained on a Sunday, while at dinner, with the performance of Christ’s “Descent into Hell,” by the choir boys of Hyde abbey and St. Swithin’s priory, two large monasteries there; and in the same reign, 1489, there were shows and ceremonies, and (religious) plays, exhibited in the palace at Westminster. On the feast of St. Margaret, in 1511, the miracle play of the “Holy Martyr St. George,” was acted on a stage in an open field at Bassingborne, in Cambridgeshire, at which were a minstrel and three waits hired from Cambridge, with a property-man and a painter. It appears from the Earl of Northumberland’s Household-book, (1512,) that the children of his chapel performed mysteries during the twelve days of Christmas, and at Easter, under the direction of his master of the revels. Bishop Percy cites several particulars of the regulated sums payable to “parsones” and others for these performances. The exhibiting scripture dramas on the great festivals entered into the regular establishment, and formed part of the domestic regulations of our ancient nobility; and what is more remarkable, it was as much the business of the chaplain in those days to compose plays for the family, as it is now for him to make sermons. At London, in the year 1556, the “Passion of Christ” was performed at the Grey Friars, before the lord mayor, the privy-council, and many great estates of the realm. In 1577, the same play was performed at the same place, on the day that war was proclaimed in London against France; and in that year, the holiday of St. Olave, the patron of the church in Silver-street, dedicated to that saint, being celebrated with great solemnity, at eight o’clock at night, a play of the “miraculous Life of St. Olave,” was performed for four hours, and concluded with many religious plays. The acting of religious plays experienced interruption during the reign of Elizabeth, and occasionally at other periods. Malone thinks that the last mystery represented in England, was that of “Christ’s Passion,” in the reign of king James I. Prynne relates that it was performed at Ely-house, in Holborn, when Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, lay there, on Good Friday, at night, and that thousands were present. Concerning the Coventry mysteries, Dugdale relates, in his “History of Warwickshire,” published in 1656, that, “Before the suppression of the monasteries, this city was very famous for the pageants that were played therein, upon Corpus Christi day (one of their ancient faires,) which occasioning very great confluence of people thither from far and near, was of no small benefit thereto: which pageants being acted with mighty state and reverence by the Grey Friars, had theatres for the several scenes, very large and high, placed upon wheels, and drawn to all the eminent parts of the city, for the better advantage of spectators, and contained the story of the Old and New Testament, composed in the Old Englishe rithme, as appeareth by an ancient MS. (in Bibl. Cotton. Vesp. D. VIII.) intituled, Ludus Corporis Christi, or Ludus CoventriÆ. ‘I have been told,’ says Dugdale, ‘by some old people, who in their younger years were eye-witnesses of these pageants so acted, that the yearly confluence of people to see that shew was extraordinary great, and yielded no small advantage to this city.’ The celebrity of the performances may be inferred from the rank of the audiences; for, at the festival of Corpus Christi, in 1483, Richard III. visited Coventry to see the plays, and at the same season in 1492, they were attended by Henry VII. and his queen, by whom they were highly commended.” The mysteries were acted at Chester, by the trading companies of the city. “Every company had his pagiante, or parte, which pagiantes were a highe scafolde with two rowmes, a higher and a lower upon four wheeles. In the lower they apparelled themselves, in the higher rowme they played, being all open on the tope, that all behoulders might hear and see them. The places where they played them was in every streete. They begane first at the Abay gates, and when the pagiante was played, it was wheeled to the High-cross before the mayor, and so to every streete; and so every streete had a pagiante playing before them, till all the pagiantes for the daye appointed were played, and when one pagiante was neer ended, worde was broughte from streete to streete, that soe the mighte come in place thereof, excedinge orderlye, and all the streetes had their pagiante afore them, all at one time, playing together, to se which playes was great resorte, and also scafoldes, and stages made in the streetes, in those places where they determined to playe their pagiantes.” In Cornwall they had interludes in the Cornish language from scripture history. These were called the Gnary Miracle plays, and were sometimes performed in the open fields, at the bottom of earthen amphitheatres, the people standing around on the inclined plane, which was usually forty or fifty feet diameter. Two MSS. in the Bodleian Library contains the Cornish plays of the “Deluge,” the “Passion,” and the “Resurrection.” According to Strutt, when mysteries were the only plays, the stage consisted of three platforms, one above another. On the uppermost sat God the Father, surrounded by his angels; on the second, the glorified saints, and on the last and lowest, men who had not yet passed from this life. On one side of the lowest platform was the resemblance of a dark pitchy cavern, from whence issued the appearance of fire and flames; and when it was necessary, the audience was treated with hideous yellings and noises in imitation of the howlings and cries of wretched souls tormented by relentless demons. From this yawning cave the devils themselves constantly ascended to delight, and to instruct the spectators.[163] Cat Worship on Corpus Christi Day. In the middle ages, animals formed as prominent a part in the worship of the time as they had done in the old religion of Egypt. The cat was a very important personage in religious festivals. At Aix, in Provence, on the festival of Corpus Christi, the finest Tom cat of the country, wrapt in swaddling clothes like a child, was exhibited in a magnificent shrine to public admiration. Every knee was bent, every hand strewed flowers or poured incense, and Grimalkin was treated in all respects as the god of the day. But on the festival of St. John, poor Tom’s fate was reversed. A number of the tabby tribe were put into a wicker basket and thrown alive into the midst of an immense fire, kindled in the public square by the bishop and his clergy. Hymns and anthems were sung, and processions were made by the priests and people in honour of the sacrifice.[164]
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Pimpernal. Anagallis arvensis.
Dedicated to St. Erasmus. [161] Brand.[162] Naogeorgus, by Googe.[163] Hone on Mysteries.[164] Mill’s Hist. Crusades.
June 3. St. Cecilius, A. D. 211. St. Clotildis, or Clotilda, Queen of France, A. D. 545. St. Coemgen, or Keivin, A. D. 618. St. Lifard, Abbot, about the middle of the 6th Cent. St. Genesis, in French, Genes, Bp. about A. D. 662. Chronology. 1817, June 3, Paris.—Yesterday the ladies of the market of St. Germain, having invited the rector of St. Sulpice to bless their new market-place, that pastor accompanied by the clergy of the parish, repaired there at five o’clock, and sung the hymn, Veni Creator. A procession took place inside the edifice, and the market was formally blessed. The whole concluded with Domine, Salvum fac Regem. The market was to open the next morning.—Moniteur. Hornsey-wood House. A house of entertainment—in a place
So rural, that it almost doth deface
The lovely scene: for like a beauty-spot,
Upon a charming cheek that needs it not,
So Hornsey Tavern seems to me. And yet,
Tho’ nature be forgotten, to forget
The artificial wants of the forgetters,
Is setting up oneself to be their betters.
This is unwise; for they are passing wise,
Who have no eyes for scenery, and despise
Persons like me, who sometimes have sensations
Through too much sight, and fall in contemplations,
Which, as cold waters cramp and drown a swimmer,
Chill and o’erwhelm me. Pleasant is that glimmer,
Whereby trees seem but wood:—The men who know
No qualities but forms and uses, go
Through life for happy people:—they are so.
* Hornsey-wood house is beyond the Sluice-house, from whence anglers and other visitors pass to it through an upland meadow, along a straight gravel-path, angle-wise. It is a good, “plain, brown brick,” respectable, modern, London looking building. Within the entrance to the left, is a light and spacious room of ample accommodation, and of which more care has been taken, than of its fine leather-folding screen in ruins—an unseemly sight for him, who respects old requisites for their former beauty and convenience. This once partook of both, but disuse hath abused and “time hath written strange defeatures” on its face, which in its early days was handsome. It still bears some remains of a spirited painting, spread all over its leaves, to represent the amusements and humours of a fair in the low countries. At the top of a pole, which may have been the village May-pole, is a monkey with a cat on his back; then there is a sturdy bear-ward, in scarlet, with a wooden leg, exhibiting his bruin; an old woman telling fortunes to the rustics; a showman’s drummer on a stage before a booth, beating up for spectators to the performance within, which the show-cloth represents to be a dancer on the tight-rope; a well set-out stall of toys, with a woman displaying their attractions; besides other really interesting “bits” of a crowded scene, depicted by no mean hand, especially a group coming from a church in the distance, apparently a wedding procession, the females well-looking and well dressed, bearing ribbons or scarfs below their waists in festoons. The destruction of this really interesting screen by worse than careless keeping, is to be lamented. This ruin of art is within a ruin of nature. Hornsey-tavern and its grounds have displaced a romantic portion of the wood, the remains of which, however, skirt a large and pleasant piece of water, formed at a considerable expense. Lake of Hornsey-wood House. Lake of Hornsey-wood House. To this water, which is well stored with fish, anglers resort with better prospect of success than to the New River; the walk around it, and the prospect, are very agreeable. The old Hornsey-wood house well became its situation; it was embowered, and seemed a part of the wood. Two sisters, Mrs. Lloyd and Mrs. Collier, kept the house; they were ancient women; large in size, and usually sat before their door, on a seat fixed between two venerable oaks, wherein swarms of bees hived themselves. Here the venerable and cheerful dames tasted many a refreshing cup, with their good-natured customers, and told tales of by-gone days, till, in very old age, one of them passed to her grave, and the other followed in a few months. Each died regretted by the frequenters of the rural dwelling, which was soon afterwards pulled down, and the old oaks felled, to make room for the present roomy and more fashionable building. To those who were acquainted with it in its former rusticity, when it was an unassuming “calm retreat,” it is indeed an altered spot. To produce the alteration, a sum of ten thousand pounds was expended by the present proprietor, and Hornsey-wood tavern is now a well-frequented house. The pleasantness of its situation is a great attraction in fine weather. Chronology. 1802. On the 3d of June, madame Mara, the celebrated singer, took leave of the English public. The Dictionary of Musicians, in recording the performance, observes, that never certainly was such a transcendent exercise of ability as a duet composed to display the mutual accomplishments of madame Mara and Mrs. Billington, which they sung with mutual excitement to the highest pitch of scientific expression. Madame Mara was born at Cassel, in Germany, in 1750. Her paternal name was Schmelling. Her early years were devoted to the study of the violin, which, as a child, she played in England, but quitted that instrument, and became a singer, by the advice of the English ladies, who disliked a “female fiddler.” To this, perhaps, we owe the delight experienced from the various excellencies of the most sublime singer the world ever saw. Her first efforts were in songs of agility, yet her intonation was fixed by the incessant practice of plain notes. To confirm the true foundation of all good singing, by the purest enunciation, and the most precise intonation of the scale, was the study of her life, and the part of her voicing upon which she most valued herself. The late Dr. Arnold saw Mara dance, by way of experiment, and assume the most violent gesticulations, while going up and down the scale; yet such was her power of chest, that the tone was as undisturbed and free as if she had stood in the customary quiet position of the orchestra. The Italians say, that “of the hundred requisites to make a singer, he who has a fine voice has ninety-nine.” Mara had certainly the ninety-nine in one. Her voice was in compass from G to E in altissimo, and all its notes were alike even and strong; but she had the hundredth also in a supereminent degree, in the grandest and most sublime conception. At the early age of twenty-four, when she was at Berlin, in the immaturity of her judgment and her voice, the best critics admitted her to have exceeded Cuzzoni, Faustina, and indeed all those who preceded her. Our age has since seen Billington and Catalani, yet in majesty and truth of expression (a term comprehending the most exalted gifts and requisites of vocal science,) Mara retains her superiority. From her we deduce all that has been learned concerning the great style of singing. The memory of her performance of Handel’s sublime work, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth,’ is immortalized, together with the air itself. Often as we have since heard it, we have never witnessed even an approach to the simple majesty of Mara: it is to this air alone that she owes her highest preeminence; and they who, not having heard her, would picture to themselves a just portraiture of her performance, must image a singer who is fully equal to the truest expression of the inspired words, and the scarcely less inspired music of the loftiest of all possible compositions. She was the child of sensibility: every thing she did was directed to the heart; her tone, in itself pure, sweet, rich, and powerful, took all its various colourings from the passion of the words; and she was not less true to nature and feeling in ‘The Soldier tir’d,’ and in the more exquisite, ‘Hope told a flattering tale,’ than in ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth.’ Her tone, perhaps, was neither so sweet nor so clear as Billington’s, nor so rich and powerful as Catalani’s, but it was the most touching language of the soul. It was on the mastery of the feelings of her audience that Mara set her claims to fame. She left surprise to others, and was wisely content with an apparently, but not really humbler, style; and she thus chose the part of genuine greatness.” Her elocution must be taken rather as universal than as national; for although she passed some time in England when a child, and retained some knowledge of the language, her pronunciation was continually marred by a foreign accent, and those mutilations of our words which are inseparable from the constant use of foreign languages, during a long residence abroad. Notwithstanding this drawback, the impression she made, even upon uneducated persons, always extremely alive to the ridiculous effects of mispronunciation, and upon the unskilled in music, was irresistible. The fire, dignity, and tenderness of her vocal appeal could never be misunderstood; it spoke the language of all nations, for it spoke to the feelings of the human heart. Mrs. Billington, with a modesty becoming her great acquirements, voluntarily declared, that she considered Mara’s execution to be superior to her own in genuine effect, though not in extent, compass, rapidity, and complication. Mara’s divisions always seemed to convey a meaning; they were vocal, not instrumental; they had light and shade, and variety of tone; they relaxed from or increased upon the time, according to the sentiment of which they always appeared to partake: these attributes were always remarkable in her open, true, and liquid shake, which was certainly full of expression. Neither in ornaments, learned and graceful as they were, nor in her cadences, did she ever lose sight of the appropriate characteristics of the sense of melody. She was, by turns, majestic, tender, pathetic, and elegant, but in the one or the other not a note was breathed in vain. She justly held every species of ornamental execution, to be subordinate to the grand end of uniting the effects of sound sense, in their operations upon the feelings of her hearers. True to this spirit, if any one commended the agility of a singer, Mara would ask, “Can she sing six plain notes?” In majesty and simplicity, in grace, tenderness, and pathos, in the loftiest attributes of art, in the elements of the great style, she far transcended all her competitors in the list of fame. She gave to Handel’s compositions their natural grandeur and effect, which is, in our minds, the very highest degree of praise that we can bestow. Handel is heavy, say the musical fashion-mongers of the day. Milton would be heavy beyond endurance, from the mouth of a reader of talents even above mediocrity. The fact is, that to wield such arms, demands the strength of giants. Mara possessed this heaven-gifted strength. It was in the performance of Handel that her finer mind fixed its expression, and called to its aid all the powers of her voice, and all the acquisitions of her science. From the time of her retirement from England, Mara chiefly resided in Russia; yet as the conflagration of Moscow destroyed great part of her property, towards the close of the year 1819, or the beginning of 1820, she returned to London, and determined on presenting herself once more to the judgment of the English public, who had reverenced her name so highly and so long. She, consequently, had a concert at the Opera-house, but her powers were so diminished that it proved unsuccessful. Justice to the channel which supplies these particulars concerning madame Mara requires it to be observed, that they are almost verbatim from a book of great merit and extensive usefulness, The Dictionary of Musicians. Its information obviously results from extensive research concerning the deceased, and personal acquaintance with many of the living individuals whose memoirs it contains. The work has experienced the fate of originality and excellence—it has been pillaged without acknowledgment; and the discovery of an error or two, which the pillagers themselves were too ignorant to detect, have enabled them to abuse it. Although written by scientific hands, it is exempt from the meanness of envy, and honestly renders honour to whom honour is due. It is a book full of facts, with interspersions of anecdote so eloquently related, that it is one of the pleasantest works a lover of literature can take up, and is therefore not only a valuable accession to our biographical collections, but to our stores of amusement.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Rosa de meaux. Rosa provincialis.
Dedicated to St. Cecilius.
June 4. St. Quirinus, Bp. A. D. 304. St. Optatus, Bp. 4th Cent. St. Walter, Abbot, 13th Cent. St. Petroc, or Perreuse, Abbot, 6th Cent. St. Breaca, or Breague. St. Burian. St. Nenooc, or Nennoca, A. D. 467. Chronology. 1738. King George III. born: he began his reign, October 25, 1760, and died, January 29, 1820.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Indian Pink. Dianthus Chinensis.
Dedicated to St. Quirinus.
June 5. St. Boniface, 8th Cent. St. Dorotheus, of Tyre St. Dorotheus, Abbot, 4th Cent. St. Illidius, Bp. 4th Cent. St. Boniface. This saint is in the church of England calendar. His name was Winfred. He was born at Crediton in Devonshire, educated in a Benedictine monastery at Exeter, sent to Friesland as a missionary, became archbishop of Mentz and primate of Germany and Belgium, and obtained the appellation of apostle of the Germans. His conversions were extensive, but many of them were effected by pious frauds; he was murdered in East Friesland by the peasantry, while holding a confirmation, in 755. Chronology. 1814. From a newspaper of June the 5th in that year it appears, that on the preceding Sunday morning, while the sexton of All Saints’ church, at Stamford, was engaged in ringing the bells, two youths, named King and Richards, through mere emulation, ascended the steeple by means of the crotchets, or projecting stones on the outside of that beautiful and lofty spire. The projecting stones on which they stepped in the ascent are twenty-six in number, three feet asunder, and the summit of the spire 152 feet from the ground. In ten or twelve minutes the feat was performed, and the adventurers had safely descended; one of them (Richards) having hung his waistcoat on the weathercock as a memento.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Three-leaved Rose. Rosa Sinica.
Dedicated to St. Boniface.
June 6. St. Norbert, A. D. 1134. St. Philip the Deacon, A. D. 58. St. Gudwall, Bp. 6th Cent. St. Claude, Abp. A. D. 696 or 703. Chronology. 1762. George lord Anson, the circumnavigator of the world, died, at Moor-park, near Rickmansworth, Herts; he was born at Shuckborough, in Staffordshire, in 1700. Abduction. This offence was by no means uncommon in England some years ago. In the London Chronicle for 1762, there is an extract from a letter, dated “Sunday, Highgate, June 6,” from whence it appears, that on that morning, between twelve and one, a postchaise, in which was a lady, was driven through that place very furiously by two postillions, and attended by three persons who had the appearance of gentlemen, from which she cried out, “Murder! save me! Oh, save me!” Her voice subsided from weakness into faint efforts of the same cries of distress; but as there was at that time no possibility of relief, they hastily drove towards Finchley Common. “From another quarter,” says the London Chronicle, “we have undoubted intelligence of the same carriage being seen, and the same outcries heard, as it passed through Islington, with the additional circumstance of the two postillions being in their shirts. Is this outrage to be suffered in England?”
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Common Pink. Dianthus deltoides.
Dedicated to St. Norbert.
June 7. St. Paul, Bp. of Constantinople, A. D. 350, or 351. St. Robert, Abbot, A. D. 1159. St. Colman, Bp. of Dromore, A. D. 610. St. Godeschalc, Prince of the Western Vandals, and his companions. St. Meriadec, Bp. A. D. 1302. Chronology. 1779. William Warburton, bishop of Gloucester, died. He was born at Newark-upon-Trent, in 1698, followed the profession of an attorney, relinquished it for the church, and became an eminently able and learned prelate. His writings are distinguished by genius, but deformed by a haughty and vindictive spirit.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Red Centaury. Chironia centaureum.
Dedicated to St. Paul.
June 8. St. Medard, Bp. 6th Cent. St. Gildard, or Godard, Bp. A. D. 511. St. Maximinus, 1st Cent. St. William, Abp. of York, A. D. 1154. St. Clou, or Clodulphus, Bp. A. D. 696. St. Syra, 7th Cent. Thimble and Pea. On the 8th of June, 1825, a publican in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel was charged at the Public Office, Bow-street, by Mr. John Francis Panchaud, a foreigner, with having, in conjunction with several other persons, defrauded him of a 10l. note, at Ascot Heath race-course, on the Thursday preceding. The alleged fraud, or robbery, was effected by means of an unfair game known among the frequenters of races and fairs by the name of “the thimble rig,” of which J. Smith, the officer, this day gave the following description to Mr. Minshull, in order that the worthy magistrate might perfectly understand the case:—A gang of seven or eight, or more, set up a table, but they all appear strangers to each other, and unconnected with the game, except one who conducts it, and who appears to be the sole proprietor. This master of the ceremonies has three thimbles, and is provided with a number of peas, or pepper-corns. He puts one under each thimble, or perhaps only under one or two, as the case may be. He then offers a bet as to which thimble a pepper-corn is or is not under, and offers at first such a wager as is eagerly taken by those round the table, and he loses. He pays the losings freely, and the other members of this joint-stock company affect to laugh at him, as what they call a “good flat.” Having thus drawn the attention, and probably excited the cupidity of a stranger, who appears to have money, they suffer him to win a stake or two, and get him to increase his bets. When he seems thoroughly in the humour, the master of the table lifts a thimble, under which is a pepper-corn, and turning his head aside to speak to some one, he suffers the corn to roll off; and, seeming to be unconscious of this, he replaces the thimble, and offers bets to any amount that there is a corn underneath that particular thimble. The stranger having seen the corn roll off “with his own eyes,” as the phrase is, chuckles to himself, and eagerly takes the bet; the thimble is removed, and behold!—there is a pepper-corn under it still, the fellow having dexterously slipped another under it when the first rolled off the table. “So that the plain fact is, sir,” continued Smith, “that the stranger, fancying he is taking in the master of the table, cheerfully stakes his money with a dead certainty, as he supposes, of winning, and he finds that he has been taken in himself.” Smith said, he had known instances of gentlemen getting from their carriages, and in a few moments ridding themselves of 20l. or 30l., or perhaps more, and going off wondering at their folly, and looking uncommon silly. It appeared that Mr. Panchaud went up to one of these tables, at which the defendant and many others were playing, and after winning two or three times, the trick above described was commenced. The conductor of the game offered a bet of 5l., and Mr. Panchaud having seen the pepper-corn roll off, took the wager, and put down a 10l. note. In a moment after there was a general hustling, the table was upset, and the whole party speedily disappeared, together with the 10l. note. When the bet was offered, the defendant, who stood next to him, jogged his elbow, and said eagerly, “Bet him, bet him; you must win, the ball is under our feet.” Mr. Panchaud had no doubt, from his whole manner, that the defendant was concerned with the others in the trick. The case stood over for further investigation. It is only mentioned here for the purpose of showing a species of slight of hand continued in our own times to defraud the unwary.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Moneywort. Lysimachia nummularia.
Dedicated to St. Medard. Passion Flower This flower, says the elegant author of the Flora Domestica, derives its name from an idea, that all the instruments of Christ’s passion are represented in it. The above engraving from an ancient print, shows the curious distortion of the flower in those parts whereon the imagination has indulged. The original print bears an inscription to this effect; that nature itself grieves at the crucifixion, as is denoted by the flower representing the five wounds, and the column or pillar of scourging, besides the three nails, the crown of thorns, &c. Most of the passion-flowers are natives of the hottest parts of America. The rose coloured passion-flower is a native of Virginia, and is the species which was first known in Europe. It has since been, in a great measure, superseded by the blue passion-flower, which is hardy enough to flower in the open air, and makes an elegant tapestry for an unsightly wall. The leaves of this, in the autumn, are of the most brilliant crimson; and, when the sun is shining upon them, seem to transport one to the gardens of Pluto.[165]
June 9. Sts. Primus and Felicianus, A. D. 286. St. Columba, or Columkille, A. D. 597. St. Pelagia, A. D. 311. St. Vincent, 3d Cent. St. Richard, Bp. of Andria, 5th Cent. Chronology. 1760. Nicholas Lewes, count Zinzendorf, a native of Saxony, and founder of the religious society called Moravians, died at Chelsea.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Barberry. Barberis vulgaris.
Dedicated to St. Columba.
June 10. St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, A. D. 1093. St. Getulius and companions, 2d Cent. St. Landry, or Landericus, Bp. A. D. 650. B. Henry of Treviso, A. D. 1315. Chronology. 1735. Thomas Hearne, the learned antiquary, died at Oxford: he was born at White Waltham, in Berkshire, in 1680.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Yellow Fleur-de-lis. Iris Pseudacorus.
Dedicated to St. Margaret.
June 11. St. Barnabas, Apostle, 1st Cent. St. Tochumra, of Tochumrach in Ireland. Another St. Tochumra, diocese of Kilmore. St. Barnabas the Apostle. He was of the tribe of Levi, and coadjutor with the apostle Paul for several years. Though denominated an apostle, it seems agreed that he was not entitled to that character; if he were, his extant epistle would have equal claim with the writings of the other apostles to a place among the books in the New Testament. He is said to have been martyred, but of this there is not sufficient evidence. St. Barnabas’ Day. This was a high festival in England formerly. Besides the holy thorn, there grew in the abbey churchyard of Glastonbury, on the north side of St. Joseph’s chapel, a miraculous walnut-tree, which never budded forth before the feast of St. Barnabas, viz. the eleventh of June, and on that very day shot forth leaves, and flourished like its usual species. This tree is gone, and in the place thereof stands a very fine walnut-tree of the common sort. It is strange to say how much this tree was sought after by the credulous; and, though not an uncommon walnut, queen Anne, king James, and many of the nobility of the realm, even when the times of monkish superstition had ceased, gave large sums of money for small cuttings from the original.[166] Midsummer, or nightless days, now begin and continue until the 2d of July.[167] There is still this saying among country people,— “Barnaby Bright, Barnaby Bright,
The longest day and the shortest night.”
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Midsummer Daisy. Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum.
Dedicated to St. Barnabas.
June 12. St. John, Hermit, A. D. 1479. St. Basilides, Quirinus, or Cyrinus, Nabor, and Nazarius. St. Eskill, Bp. St. Onuphrius, Hermit. St. Ternan, Bp. of the Picts. Chronology. 1734. The duke of Berwick, illegitimate son of James II., by Arabella Churchill, sister to the great duke of Marlborough, was killed by a cannon ball, at the siege of Phillipsburgh, in Germany, in the 64th year of his age. He was only excelled in the art of war by the duke of Marlborough himself.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. White Dog Rose. Rosa arvensis.
Dedicated to St. John.
June 13. St. Antony of Padua, A. D. 1231. St. Damhanade. Chronology. 1625. Henrietta Maria, youngest daughter to Henry IV. of France, landed at Dover, and was married to Charles I., at Canterbury, on the same day; her portraits represent her to have been beautiful. She was certainly a woman of ability, but faithless to her unfortunate consort, after whose death on the scaffold she lived in France, and privately married her favourite, the lord Jermyn, a descendant of whom, with that name, is (in 1825,) a grocer in Chiswell-street, and a member of the society of friends. Henrietta Maria, though a Bourbon, was so little regarded in the court of the Bourbons, and reduced to so great extremity, that she was without fuel for her fire-place during the depth of winter, in the palace assigned to her by the French monarch.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Garden Ranunculus. Ranunculus Asiaticus.
Dedicated to St. Antony.
June 14. St. Basil, Abp. A. D. 379. Sts. Rufinus and Valerius, 3d Age. St. Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, A. D. 846. St. Docmael, 6th Cent. St. Nennus, or Nehemias, Abbot, A. D. 654. St. Psalmodius, A. D. 630. Chronology. 1645. The battle of Naseby, between the royalists under Charles I., and the parliament troops under Fairfax, was decided this day by the entire rout of the king’s army, and the seizure of all his artillery and ammunition. Among the spoil was the king’s cabinet with his letters, which the parliament afterwards published. Hume says, “they give an advantageous idea both of the king’s genius and morals.” Yet it is a fact, which every person who reads the correspondence must inevitably arrive at, that the king purposed deception, when he professed good faith, and that, as true genius never exists with fraud, these letters do not entitle him to reputation for common honesty, or real ability.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Sweet Basil. Oscimum Basilicum.
Dedicated to St. Basil.
June 15. Sts. Vitus, or Guy, Crescentia, and Modestus, 4th Cent. St. Landelin, Abbot, A. D. 686. B. Bernard, of Menthon, A. D. 1008. St. Vauge, Hermit, A. D. 585. B. Gregory Lewis Barbadigo, Cardinal Bp. A. D. 1697. St. Vitus. This saint was a Sicilian martyr, under Dioclesian. Why the disease called St. Vitus’s dance was so denominated, is not known. Dr. Forster describes it as an affection of the limbs, resulting from nervous irritation, closely connected with a disordered state of the stomach and bowels, and other organs of the abdomen. In papal times, fowls were offered on the festival of this saint, to avert the disease. It is a vulgar belief, that rain on St. Vitus’s day, as on St. Swithin’s day, indicates rain for a certain number of days following. It is related, that after St. Vitus and his companions were martyred, their heads were enclosed in a church wall, and forgotten, so that no one knew where they were, until the church was repaired, when the heads were found, and the church bells began to sound of themselves, which causing inquiry, a writing was found, authenticating the heads; they consequently received due honour, and worked miracles in due form.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Sensitive Plant. Mimosa sensit.
Dedicated to St. Vitus.
CEREMONY OF LAYING
THE
First Stone of the New London-bridge,
ON WEDNESDAY, THE 15th OF JUNE, 1825. London, like famous old Briareus,
With fifty heads and twice told fifty arms,
Laid one strong arm across yon noble flood,
For free communication with each shore;
Hence, though the thews and sinews sink and shrink,
And we so manifold and strong have grown,
That a renewal of the limb for purposes
Of national and private weal be requisite,
It is to be regarded as a friend
That oft hath served us in our utmost need,
With all its strength. Be ye then merciful,
Good citizens, to this our ancient “sib,”
Operate on it tenderly, and keep
Some fragments of it, as memorials
Of its former worth: for our posterity
Will to their ancestors do reverence,
As we, ourselves, do reverence to ours.—
* The present engraving is from the design at the head of the admission tickets, and is exactly of the same form and dimensions; the tickets themselves were large cards of about the size that the present leaf will present when bound in the volume, and cut round the edges. COPY OF THE TICKET. Admit the Bearer
to witness The Ceremony of laying
THE FIRST STONE
of the
New London-bridge,
on Wednesday, the 15th day of June, 1825. (Signed) Heny Woodthorpe, Jun. Clerk of the Committee. N.B. The access is from the present bridge, and the time of admission will be between the hours of twelve and two. No 281.
It has been truly observed of the design for the new bridge, that it is striking for its contrast with the present gothic edifice, whose place it is so soon to supply. It consists but of five elliptical arches, which embrace the whole span of the river, with the exception of a double pier on either side, and between each arch a single pier of corresponding design: the whole is more remarkable for its simplicity than its magnificence; so much, indeed, does the former quality appear to have been consulted, that it has not a single balustrade from beginning to end. New London-bridge is the symbol of an honourable British merchant: it unites plainness with strength and capacity, and will be found to be more expansive and ornamental, the more its uses and purposes are considered.
The following are to be the dimensions of the new bridge:— Centre arch—span, 150 feet; rise, 32 feet; piers, 24 feet. Arches next the centre arch—span, 140 feet; rise, 30 feet; piers 22 feet. Abutment arches—span, 130 feet; rise, 25 feet; abutment, 74 feet. Total width, from water-side to water-side, 690 feet. Length of the bridge, including the abutments, 950 feet; without the abutments, 782 feet. Width of the bridge, from outside to outside of the parapets, 55 feet; carriage-way, 33 feet 4 inches.
“Go and set London-bridge on fire,” said Jack Cade, at least so Shakspeare makes him say, to “the rest” of the insurgents, who, in the reign of Henry VI., came out of Kent, took the city itself, and there raised a standard of revolt against the royal authority. “Sooner said than done, master Cade,” may have been the answer; and now, when we are about to erect a new one, let us “remember the bridge that has carried safe over.” Though its feet were manifold as a centipede’s, and though, in gliding between its legs, as it “doth bestride the Thames,”
some have, ever and anon, passed to the bottom, and craft of men, and craft with goods, so perished, yet the health and wealth of ourselves, and those from whom we sprung, have been increased by safe and uninterrupted intercourse above.
By admission to the entire ceremony of laying the first stone of the new London-bridge, the editor of the Every-Day Book is enabled to give an authentic account of the proceedings from his own close observation; and therefore, collating the narratives in every public journal of the following day, by his own notes, he relates the ceremonial he witnessed, from a chosen situation within the coffer-dam.
At an early hour of the morning the vicinity of the new and old bridges presented an appearance of activity, bustle, and preparation; and every spot that could command even a bird’s-eye view of the scene, was eagerly and early occupied by persons desirous of becoming spectators of the intended spectacle, which, it was confidently expected, would be extremely magnificent and striking; these anticipations were in no way disappointed. So early as twelve o’clock, the avenues leading to the old bridge were filled with individuals, anxious to behold the approaching ceremony, and shortly afterwards the various houses, which form the streets through which the procession was to pass, had their windows graced with numerous parties of well-dressed people. St. Magnus’ on the bridge, St. Saviour’s church in the Borough, Fishmongers’-hall, and the different warehouses in the vicinity, had their roofs covered with spectators; platforms were erected in every nook from whence a sight could be obtained, and several individuals took their seats on the Monument, to catch a bird’s-eye view of the whole proceedings. The buildings, public or private, that at all overlooked the scene, were literally roofed and walled with human figures, clinging to them in all sorts of possible and improbable attitudes. Happy were they who could purchase seats, at from half a crown to fifteen shillings each, for so the charge varied, according to the degree of accommodation afforded. As the day advanced, the multitude increased in the street; the windows of the shops were closed, or otherwise secured, and those of the upper floors became occupied with such of the youth and beauty of the city as has not already repaired to the river: and delightfully occupied they were: and were the sun down, as it was not, it had scarcely been missed—for there— The wharfs on the banks of the river, between London-bridge and Southwark-bridge, were occupied by an immense multitude. Southwark-bridge itself was clustered over like a bee-hive; and the river from thence to London-bridge presented the appearance of an immense dock covered with vessels of various descriptions; or, perhaps, it more closely resembled a vast country fair, so completely was the water concealed by multitudes of boats and barges, and the latter again hidden by thousands of spectators, and canvass awnings, which, with the gay holiday company within, made them not unlike booths and tents, and contributed to strengthen the fanciful similitude. The tops of the houses had many of them also their flags and awnings; and, from the appearance of them and the river, one might almost suppose the dry and level ground altogether deserted, for this aquatic fete, worthy of Venice at her best of times. All the vessels in the pool hoisted their flags top-mast-high, in honour of the occasion, and many of them sent out their boats manned, to increase the bustle and interest of the scene. At eleven o’clock London-bridge was wholly closed, and at the same hour Southwark-bridge was thrown open, free of toll. At each end of London-bridge barriers were formed, and no persons were allowed to pass, unless provided with tickets, and these only were used for the purpose of arriving at the coffer-dam. There was a feeling of awful solemnity at the appearance of this, the greatest thoroughfare of the metropolis, now completely vacated of all its foot-passengers and noisy vehicles.
At one o’clock the lord mayor and sheriffs arrived at Guildhall, the persons engaged in the procession having met at a much earlier hour. The lady mayoress and a select party went to the coffer-dam in the lord mayor’s private state carriage, and arrived at the bridge about half-past two o’clock. The Royal Artillery Company arrived in the court-yard of the Guildhall at two o’clock. The carriages of the members of parliament and other gentlemen, forming part of the procession, mustered in Queen-street and the Old Jewry.
At twelve o’clock, the barrier at the foot of the bridge on the city side of the river was thrown open, and the company, who were provided with tickets for the coffer-dam, were admitted within it, and kept arriving till two o’clock in quick succession. At that time the barriers were again closed, and no person was admitted till the arrival of the chief procession. By one o’clock, however, most of the seats within the coffer-dam were occupied, with the exception of those reserved for the persons connected with the procession. The tickets of admission issued by the committee, consisting of members of the court of common council, were in great request. By their number being judiciously limited, and by other arrangements, there was ample accommodation for all the company. At the bottom of each ticket, there was a notice to signify that the hours of admission were between twelve and two, and not a few of the fortunate holders were extremely punctual in attending at the first mentioned hour, for the purpose of securing the best places. They were admitted at either end of the bridge, and passed on till they came to an opening that had been made in the balustrade, leading to the platform that surrounded the area of the proposed ceremony. This was the coffer-dam formed in the bed of the river, for the building of the first pier, at the Southwark side. The greatest care had been taken to render the dam water-tight, and during the whole of the day, from twelve till six, it was scarcely found necessary to work the steam-engine a single stroke. On passing the aperture in the balustrade, already mentioned, the company immediately arrived on a most extensive platform, from which two staircases divided—the one for the pink tickets, which introduced the possessor to the lowest stage of the works, and the other for the white ones, of less privilege, and which were therefore more numerous. The interior of the works was highly creditable to the committee. Not only were the timbers, whether horizontal or upright, of immense thickness, but they were so securely and judiciously bolted and pinned together, that the liability of any danger or accident was entirely done away with. The very awning which covered the whole coffer-dam, to ensure protection from the sun or rain, had there been any, was raised on a little forest of scaffolding poles, which, any where but by the side of the huge blocks of timber introduced immediately beneath, would have appeared of an unusual stability. In fact, the whole was arranged as securely and as comfortably as though it had been intended to serve the time of all the lord mayors for the next century to come, while on the outside, in the river, every necessary precaution was taken to keep off boats, by stationing officers there for that purpose. With the exception of the lower floor, which, as already mentioned, was only attainable by the possession of pink tickets, and a small portion of the floor next above it, the whole was thrown open without reservation, and the visitors took possession of the unoccupied places they liked best. The entire coffer-dam was ornamented with as much taste and beauty as the purposes for which it was intended would possibly admit. The entrance to the platform from the bridge, was fitted up with crimson drapery, tastefully festooned. The coffer-dam itself was divided into four tiers of galleries, along which several rows of benches, covered with scarlet cloth, were arranged for the benefit of the spectators. It was covered with canvass to keep out the rays of the sun, and from the transverse beams erected to support it, which were decked with rosettes of different colours, were suspended flags and ensigns of various descriptions brought from Woolwich yard; which by the constant motion in which they were kept, created a current of air, which was very refreshing. The floor of the dam, which is 45 feet below the high water mark, was covered, like the galleries, with scarlet cloth, except in that part of it where the first stone was to be laid. The floor is 95 feet in length, and 36 in breadth; is formed of beech planks, four inches in thickness, and rests upon a mass of piles, which are shod at the top with iron, and are crossed by immense beams of solid timber. By two o’clock all the galleries were completely filled with well-dressed company, and an eager impatience for the arrival of the procession was visible in every countenance. The bands of the Horse Guards, red and blue, and also that of the Artillery Company, played different tunes, to render the interval of expectation as little tedious as possible; but, in spite of all their endeavours, a feeling of listlessness appeared to pervade the spectators.—In the mean time the arrangements at Guildhall being completed, the procession moved from the court-yard, in the following order:— A body of the Artillery Company. Band of Music. Marshalmen. Mr. Cope, the City Marshal, mounted, and in the full uniform of his Office. The private carriage of — Saunders, Esq., the Water Bailiff, containing the Water-Bailiff, and Nelson, his Assistant. Carriage containing the Barge-masters. City Watermen bearing Colours. A party of City Watermen without Colours. Carriage containing Messrs. Lewis and Gillman, the Bridge-masters, and the Clerk of the Bridge-house Estate. Another party of the City Watermen. Carriage containing Messrs. Jolliffe and Sir E. Banks, the Contractors for the Building of the New Bridge. Model of the New Bridge. Carriages containing Members of the Royal Society. Carriage containing John Holmes, Esq., the Bailiff of Southwark. Carriage containing the Under-Sheriffs. Carriages containing Thomas Shelton, Esq., Clerk of the Peace for the City of London; W. L. Newman, Esq., the City Solicitor; Timothy Tyrrell, Esq., the Remembrancer; Samuel Collingridge, Esq., and P. W. Crowther, Esq., the Secondaries; J. Boudon, Esq., Clerk of the Chamber; W. Bolland, Esq., and George Bernard, Esq., the Common Pleaders; Henry Woodthorpe, Esq., the Town Clerk; Thomas Denman, Esq., the Common Sergeant; R. Clarke, Esq., the Chamberlain. These Carriages were followed by those of several Members of Parliament. Carriages of Members of the Privy Council. Band of Music and Colours, supported by City Watermen. Members of the Goldsmiths’ (the Lord Mayor’s) Company.[783, 784] Marshalmen. Lord Mayor’s Servants in their State Liveries. Mr. Brown, the City Marshal, mounted on horseback, and in the full uniform of his Office. The Lord Mayor’s State Carriage, drawn by six bay horses, beautifully caparisoned, in which were his Lordship and the Duke of York. The Sheriffs, in their State Carriages. Carriages of several Aldermen who have passed the Chair. Another body of the Royal Artillery Company. The procession moved up Cornhill and down Gracechurch-street, to London-bridge. While awaiting the arrival of the procession, wishes were wafted from many a fair lip, that the lord of the day, as well as of the city, would make his appearance. Small-talk had been exhausted, and the merits of each particular timber canvassed for the hundredth time, when, at about a quarter to three, the lady mayoress made her appearance, and renovated the hopes of the company. They argued that his lordship as a family man, would not be long absent from his lady. The clock tolled three, and no lord mayor had made his appearance. At this critical juncture a small gun made its report; but, except the noise and smoke, it produced nothing. More than an hour elapsed before the eventful moment arrived; a flourish of trumpets in the distance gave hope to many hearts, and finally two six-pounders of the Artillery Company, discharged from the wharf at Old Swan Stairs, at about a quarter-past four o’clock, announced the arrival of the cavalcade. Every one stood up, and in a very few minutes the city watermen, bearing their colours flying, made their appearance at the head of the coffer-dam, and would, if they could, have done the same thing at the bottom of it; but owing to the unaccommodating narrowness of the staircase, they found it inconvenient to convey their flags by the same route that they intended to convey themselves. Necessity, however, has long been celebrated as the mother of invention, and a plan was hit upon to wind the flags over this timber and under that, till after a very serpentine proceeding, they arrived in safety at the bottom. After this had been accomplished, there was a sort of pause, and every body seemed to be thinking of what would come next, when some one in authority hinted, that as the descent of the flags had been performed so dexterously, or for some other reason that did not express itself, they might as easily be conveyed back, so that the company, whose patience, by the bye, was exemplary, were gratified by the ceremony of those poles returning, till the arrival of the expected personages, satisfied every desire. A sweeping train of aldermen were seen winding in their scarlet robes through the mazes of the pink-ticketted staircase, and in a very few minutes a great portion of these dignified elders of the city made their appearance on the floor below, the band above having previously struck up the “Hunter’s Chorus” from Der FreischÜtz. Next in order entered a strong body of the common-councilmen, who had gone to meet the procession on its arrival at the barriers. Independently of those that made their appearance on the lower platform, glimpses of their purple robes with fur-trimmings, were to be caught on every stage of the scaffolding, where many of them had been stationed throughout the day. After these entered the recorder, the common sergeant, the city solicitor, the city clerk, the city chamberlain, and a thousand other city officers, “all gracious in the city’s eyes.” These were followed by the duke of York and the lord mayor, advancing together, the duke being on his lordship’s right hand. His royal highness was dressed in a plain blue coat with star, and wore at his knee the garter. They were received with great cheering, and proceeded immediately up the floor of the platform, till they arrived opposite the place where the first stone was suspended by a tackle, ready to be swung into the place that it is destined to occupy for centuries. Opposite the stone, an elbowed seat had been introduced into the line of bench, so as to afford a marked place for the chief magistrate, without breaking in upon the direct course of the seats. His lordship, who was in his full robes, offered the chair to his royal highness, which was positively declined on his part. The lord mayor therefore seated himself, and was supported on the right by his royal highness, and on the left by Mr. Alderman Wood. The lady mayoress, with her daughters in elegant dresses, sat near his lordship, accompanied by two fine-looking intelligent boys, her sons; near them were the two lovely daughters of lord Suffolk, and many other fashionable and elegantly dressed ladies. In the train which arrived with the lord mayor and his royal highness were the earl of Darnley, lord J. Stewart, the right hon. C. W. Wynn, M. P., sir G. Warrender, M. P., sir I. Coffin, M. P., sir G. Cockburn, M.P., sir R. Wilson, M.P., Mr. T. Wilson, M.P., Mr. W. Williams, M.P., Mr. Davies Gilbert, M.P., Mr. W. Smith, M.P., Mr. Holme Sumner, M.P., with several other persons of distinction, and the common sergeant, the city pleaders, and other city officers. The lord mayor took his station by the side of the stone, attended by four gentlemen of the committee, bearing, one, the glasscut bottle to contain the coins of the present reign, another, an English inscription incrusted in glass, another, the mallet, and another, the level. The sub-chairman of the committee, bearing the golden trowel, took his station on the side of the stone opposite the lord mayor. The engineer, John Rennie, esq., took his place on another side of the stone, and exhibited to the lord mayor the plans and drawings of the bridge. The members of the committee of management, presented to the lord mayor the cut glass bottle which was intended to contain the several coins. The ceremony commenced by the children belonging to the wards’ schools, Candlewick, Bridge, and Dowgate, singing “God save the King.” They were stationed in the highest eastern gallery for that purpose; the effect produced by their voices, stealing through the windings caused by the intervening timbers to the depth below, was very striking and peculiar. The chamberlain delivered to his lordship the several pieces of coin: his lordship put them into the bottle, and deposited the bottle in the place whereon the foundation stone was to be laid. The members of the committee, bearing the English inscription incrusted on glasses, presented it to the lord mayor. His lordship deposited it in the subjacent stone. Mr. Jones, sub-chairman of the Bridge Committee, who attended in purple gowns and with staves, presented the lord mayor, on behalf of the committee, with an elegant silver-gilt trowel, embossed with the combined arms of the “Bridge House Estate and the City of London,” and bearing on the reverse an inscription of the date, and design of its presentation to the right hon. the lord mayor, who was born in the ward, and is a member of the guild wherein the new bridge is situated. This trowel was designed by Mr. John Green, of Ludgate-hill, and executed by Messrs. Green, Ward, and Green, in which firm he is partner. Mr. Jones, on presenting it to the lord mayor, thus addressed his lordship: “My lord, I have the honour to inform you, that the committee of management has appointed your lordship, in your character of lord mayor of London, to lay the first stone of the new London-bridge, and that they have directed me to present to your lordship this trowel as a means of assistance to your lordship in accomplishing that object.” The lord mayor having signified his consent to perform the ceremony, Henry Woodthorpe, esq., the town clerk, who has lately obtained the degree of L. L. D., held the copper plate about to be placed beneath the stone with the following inscription upon it, composed by Dr. Coplestone, master of Oriel-college, Oxford:— Pontis vetvsti
qvvm propter crebras nimis interiectas moles
impedito cvrsv flvminis
navicvlae et rates
non levi saepe iactvra et vitae pericvlo
per angvstas favces
praecipiti aqvarvm impetv ferri solerent
Civitas Londinensis
his incommodis remidivm adhibere volens
et celeberrimi simvl in terris emporii
vtilitatibvs consvlens
regni insvper senatvs avctoritate
ac mvnificentia adivta
pontem
sitv prorsvs novo
amplioribvs spatiis constrvendvm decrev
ea scilicet forma ac magnitvdine
qvae regiae vrbis maiestati
tandem responderet.
Neqve alio magis tempore
tantum opvs inchoandvm dvxit
qvam cvm pacato ferme toto terrarvm orbe
Imperivm Britannicvm
fama opibus mvltitvdine civivm et concordia pollens
principe
item gavderet
artivm favtore ac patrono
cvivs svb avspiciis
novva indies aedificiorvm splendor vrbi accederet.
Primum operis lapidem
posvit
Ioannes Garratt armiger
praetor
xv. die Ivnii
anno regis Georgii Quarti sexto
a. s. m.d.ccc.xxv.
Ioanne Rennie F. R. S. architecto.
Translation. The free course of the river
being obstructed by the numerous piers
of the ancient bridge,
and the passage of boats and vessels
through its narrow channels
being often attended with danger and loss of life
by reason of the force and rapidity of the current,
the City of London,
desirous of providing a remedy for this evil,
and at the same time consulting
the convenience of commerce
in this vast emporium of all nations,
under the sanction and with the liberal aid of
parliament,
resolved to erect a bridge[787, 788]
upon a foundation altogether new,
with arches of wider span,
and of a character corresponding
to the dignity and importance
of this royal city:
nor does any other time seem to be more suitable
for such an undertaking
than when in a period of universal peace
the British empire,
flourishing in glory, wealth, population, and
domestic union,
is governed by a prince,
the patron and encourager of the arts,
under whose auspices
the metropolis has been daily advancing in
elegance and splendour.
The first stone of this work
was laid
by John Garratt, esquire,
lord mayor,
on the 15th day of June,
in the sixth year of king George the Fourth,
and in the year of our Lord
m.d.ccc.xxv.
John Rennie, F. R. S. architect.
Dr. Woodthorpe read the Latin inscription aloud, and the lord mayor, turning to the duke of York, addressed his royal highness and the rest of the company. Lord Mayor’s Speech. “It is unnecessary for me to say much upon the purpose for which we are assembled this day, for its importance to this great commercial city must be evident; but I cannot refrain from offering a few observations, feeling as I do more than ordinary interest in the accomplishment of the undertaking, of which this day’s ceremony is the primary step. I should not consider the present a favourable moment to enter into the chronology or detailed history of the present venerable structure, which is now, from the increased commerce of the country, and the rapid strides made by the sciences in this kingdom, found inadequate to its purposes, but would rather advert to the great advantages which will necessarily result from the execution of this national work. Whether there be taken into consideration, the rapid and consequently dangerous currents arising from the obstructions occasioned by the defects of this ancient edifice, which have proved destructive to human life and to property, or its difficult and incommodious approaches and acclivity, it must be a matter of sincere congratulation that we are living in times when the resources of this highly favoured country are competent to a work of such great public utility. If ever there was a period more suitable than another for embarking in national improvements, it must be the present, governed as we are by a sovereign, patron of the arts, under whose mild and paternal sway (by the blessing of divine providence) we now enjoy profound peace; living under a government by whose enlightened and liberal policy our trade and manufactures are in a flourishing state; represented by a parliament whose acts of munificence shed a lustre upon their proceedings: thus happily situated, it is impossible not to hail such advantages with other feelings than those of gratitude and delight. I cannot conclude these remarks without acknowledging how highly complimentary I feel it to the honourable office I now fill, to view such an auditory as surrounds me, among whom are his majesty’s ministers, several distinguished nobles of the land, the magistrates and commonalty of this ancient and loyal city, and above all, (that which must ever enlighten and give splendour to any scene,) a brilliant assembly of the other sex, all of whom, I feel assured, will concur with me in expressing an earnest wish that the new London-bridge, when completed, may reflect credit upon the architects, prove an ornament to the metropolis, and redound to the honour of its corporation. I offer up a sincere and fervent prayer, that in executing this great work, there may occur no calamity; that in performing that which is most particularly intended as a prevention of future danger, no mischief may occur with the general admiration of the undertaking.” The lord mayor’s address was received with cheers. His lordship then spread the mortar, and the stone was gradually lowered by two men at a windlass. When finally adjusted, the lord mayor struck it on the surface several times with a long-handled mallet, and proceeded to ascertain the accuracy of its position, by placing a level on the top of the east end, and then to the north, west, and south; his lordship passing to each side of the stone for that purpose, and in that order. The city sword and mace were then placed on it crossways; the foundation of the new London-bridge was declared to be laid; the music struck up “God save the King;” and three times three excessive cheers, broke forth from the company; the guns of the honourable Artillery Company, on the Old Swan Wharf, fired a salute by signal, and every face wore smiles of gratulation. Three cheers were afterwards given for the duke of York; three for Old England; and three for the architect, Mr. Rennie. It was observed in the coffer-dam, as a remarkable circumstance, that as the day advanced, a splendid sunbeam, which had penetrated through an accidental space in the awning above, gradually approached towards the stone as the hour for laying it advanced, and during the ceremony, shone upon it with dazzling lustre.
At the conclusion of the proceedings, the lord mayor, with the duke of York, and the other visitors admitted to the floor of the coffer-dam, retired; after which, many of the company in the galleries came down to view the stone, and several of the younger ones were allowed to ascend and walk over it. Some ladies were handed up, and all who were so indulged, departed with the satisfaction of being enabled to relate an achievement honourable to their feelings.
Among the candidates for a place upon the stone, was a gentleman who had witnessed the scene with great interest, and seemed to wait with considerable anxiety for an opportunity of joining in the pleasure of its transient occupants. This gentleman was P. T. W., by which initials he is known to the readers of the Morning Herald, and other journals. The lightness and agility of his person, favoured the enthusiasm of his purpose; he leapt on the stone, and there ———toeing it and heeling it,
With ball-room grace, and merry face,
Kept livelily quadrilling it,
till three cheers from the spectators announced their participation in his merriment; he then tripped off with a graceful bow, amidst the clapping of hands and other testimonials of satisfaction at a performance wholly singular, because unprecedented, unimitated, and inimitable.
The lord mayor gave a grand dinner in the Egyptian-hall, at the Mansion-house, to 376 guests; the duke of York, being engaged to dine with the king, could not attend. The present lord mayor has won his way to the hearts of good livers, by his entertainments, and the court of common council commenced its proceedings on the following day by honourable mention of him for this entertainment especially, and complacently received a notice to do him further honour for the general festivity of his mayoralty.
His lordship’s name is Garratt; he is a tea-dealer. Stow mentions that one of similar name, and a grocer, was commemorated by an epitaph in our lady’s chapel, in the church of St. Saviour’s, Southwark; which church the first pier of the proposed bridge adjoins. He says, Upon a faire stone under the Grocers’ arms, is this inscription:— Garret some cal’d him, but that was too hye, His name is Garrard, who now here doth lye; Weepe not for him since he is gone before To heaven, where Grocers there are many more.[168]
It is supposed that the first bridge of London was built between the years 993 and 1016; it was of wood. There is a vulgar tradition, that the foundation of the old stone bridge was laid upon wool-packs: this report is imagined to have arisen from a tax laid upon wool towards its construction. The first stone-bridge began in 1176, and finished in 1209, was much injured by a fire in the Borough, in 1212, and three thousand people perished. On St. George’s day, 1395, there was a great justing upon it, between David, earl of Crawford, of Scotland, and lord Wells of England. It had a drawbridge for the passage of ships with provisions to Queenhithe, with houses upon it, mostly tenanted by pin and needle-makers: there was a chapel on the bridge, and a tower, whereon the heads of unfortunate partisans were placed: an old map of the city, in 1597, represents a terrible cluster; in 1598, Hentzner the German traveller, counted above thirty poles with heads. Upon this bridge was placed the head of the great chancellor, sir Thomas More, which was blown off the pole into the Thames and found by a waterman, who gave it to his daughter; she kept it during life as a relic, and directed at her death it should be placed in her arms and buried with her. Howel, the author of “Londinopolis,” in a paraphrase of some lines by Sannazarius, has this— Encomium on London-bridge. When Neptune from his billows London spy’d,
Brought proudly thither by a high spring-tide,
As thro’ a floating wood he steer’d along.
And dancing castles cluster’d in a throng;
When he beheld a mighty bridge give law
Unto his surges, and their fury awe;
When such a shelf of cataracts did roar,
As if the Thames with Nile had chang’d her shore;
When he such massy walls, such towers did eye,
Such posts, such irons, upon his back to lye;
When such vast arches he observ’d, that might
Nineteen Rialtos make for depth and height;
When the Cerulean god these things survey’d,
He shook his trident, and, astonish’d, said,
“Let the whole earth now all the wonders count,
This bridge of wonders is the paramount.”
Thus has commenced, under the most favourable auspices, a structure which is calculated to secure from danger the domestic commerce of the port of London. That such a work has not long since been executed, is attributable more to the financial difficulties under which the corporation of London has been labouring for the last quarter of a century, than to any doubts of its being either expedient or necessary. A similar design to that which is now in course of execution, was in contemplation more than thirty years ago; and we believe that many of the first architects of the day sent in plans for the removal of the old bridge, and the construction of a new bridge in its place. A want of funds to complete such an undertaking compelled the projectors of it, to abandon it for a time; but the improved condition of the finances of the corporation, the increasing commerce of the city of London with the internal parts of the country, the growing prosperity of the nation at large, and we may also add, a more general conviction derived from longer experience, that the present bridge was a nuisance which deserved to be abated, induced them to resume it, and to resume it with a zeal proportionate to the magnitude of the object which they had in view. Application was made to parliament for the grant of a sum of money to a purpose which, when considered with regard either to local or to national interests, was of great importance. That application was met with a spirit of liberality which conferred as much honour upon the party who received, as upon the party who gave, the bounty. The first results of it were beheld in the operations of to-day; the further results are in the bosom of time; but from the spirit with which the work has been commenced, we have no doubt but they will tend no less to the benefit, than the glory, of the citizens of London.[169] There is something peculiarly imposing and impressive in ceremonies of this description, as they are usually conducted, and we certainly do not recollect any previous spectacle of a similar nature, which can be said to have surpassed in general interest, grandeur of purpose, or splendid effect, than that just recorded. It is at all times agreeable to a philosophical mind, and an understanding which busies itself, not only with the surface and present state of things, but also with their substance and remote tendencies, to contemplate the exercise of human power, and the triumphs of human ingenuity, whether developed in physical or mental efforts, in the pursuit of objects which comprehend a mixture of both. And perhaps, it is in a good degree attributable to this secret impulse of our nature, which operates in some degree upon all, however silent and imperceptible in its operation, that the mass of mankind are accustomed to take such an eager interest in ceremonials like the present. It is true, that show, and preparation, and bustle, and the excitement consequent upon these, are the immediate and apparent motives; but it does not therefore follow that the other reasons are inefficient, or that because they are less prominent and apparent, they are therefore inoperative. The erection of a bridge, without reference to the immediate object or the extent of its design, is per se a triumph of art over nature—a conquering of one of these obstacles, which the latter, even in her most bountiful and propitious designs, delights to present to man, as if for the purpose of calling his powers into exercise, and affording him the quantity of excitement necessary to the happiness of a sentient being. But if we do not entertain these sentiments, and give them utterance in so many words, we nevertheless feel and act upon them. We delight to attend spectacles like the present, where the first germ of a stupendous work is to be prepared. We look round on the complicated apparatus, and the seemingly discordant and unorganized beams and blocks of wood and granite, and then we think of the simple structure, the harmonious and complete whole to which these confused elements will give birth. Such a structure is pregnant with a multitude of almost indefinable thoughts and anticipations. We bethink ourselves of the stream of human life, which, some five years hence, will flow over the new London-bridge as thickly, and almost with as little cessation, as the waters of the Thames below: and then we reflect upon the tide of hopes and fears which that human stream will carry in its bosom! One of our first reflections will necessarily be of its adaptation to trade and commerce, of which it will then constitute a new and immense conduit. Trade, and science, and learning, and war, (Providence long avert it!) will at various periods pass across it. Next we consider what will be the immediate and individual destiny of the structure:—is it to moulder away after the lapse of many ages, under the slow but effectual influence of time, or to suffer dilapidation suddenly from the operation of some natural convulsion? Will it fall before the wrath or wilfulness of man, or is it to be displaced by new improvements and discoveries, in like manner as its old and many-arched neighbour makes way for it—and as that once superseded its narrower and shop-covered predecessor? These are questions which the imaginative man may ask himself; but who is to answer? However, even the man of business may be well excused in indulging some speculations such as these, upon the occasion of the erection of a structure, which is to constitute a new artery to and fro in the mighty heart of London—a fresh vein through which that commerce, which is the life-blood of our national prosperity and greatness will have to flow.[170]
This is one of those public occurrences which may be considered as an event in a man’s life, and an epoch in the city’s history—a sort of station in one’s worldly journey, from which we measure our distances and dates. To witness the manner and the moment, in which is laid the first single resting stone of a grand national structure—the very origin of the existence of a massive and magnificent pile, which will require years to complete, and ages to destroy, has an elevating and sublime effect on the mind. Great public works are the truest signs of a nation’s prosperity and power; originally its grandest ornaments, and ultimately the strongest proofs of its existence. Its religion, language, arts, sciences, government, and history, may be swept into nothingness; but yet its national buildings will remain entire through the lapse of successive ages—after their very founders are forgotten—after their local history has become a mere matter of conjecture. The columns of Palmyra stand over the ashes of their framers, in a desert as well of history as of sand. The palaces of imperial Rome are still existing, though her religion, her very language, is dead; and the history of the man-wrought miracles of Egypt, had been looked at but as the very dreamings of philosophy long before Napoleon said to his Egyptian army—“From the summits of these pyramids, forty centuries are looking down upon you.” Of all public edifices, a bridge is the most necessary, the most generally and frequently useful—open at all hours and to all persons. It was probably the very first public building. Some conjecture, that the first hint of it was taken from an uprooted tree lying across a narrow current. What a difference between that first natural bridge, and the perfection of pontifical architecture—the vast, solid, and splendid Waterloo—the monumentum si quÆras of John Rennie. We feel pleasure in learning, that the new London-bridge has been designed by the same distinguished architect. It falls to the lot of the son to consummate the plans of the father—we hope with equal success, and with similar benefits, as well to the conductor as to the public. Old London-bridge, for which the new one is intended as a more commodious substitute, was the first that connected the Surrey and Middlesex banks. It was built originally of wood, about 800 years ago, and rebuilt of stone in the reign of king John, 1209, just two years after the chief civic officer assumed the name of mayor. Until the middle of the last century, it was crowded with houses, which made it very inconvenient to the passengers. The narrowness and inequality of its arches, have caused it to be compared to “a thick wall, pierced with small uneven holes, through which the water, dammed up by this clumsy fabric, rushes, or rather leaps, with a velocity extremely dangerous to boats and barges.” Of its nineteen arches, none except the centre, which was formed by throwing two into one, is more than twenty feet wide. This is but the width of each of the piers of Waterloo-bridge. It is the most crowded thoroughfare in London, and, in this point, exceeds Charing-cross, which, according to Dr. Johnson, was overflowed by the full tide of human existence. It has been calculated, that there daily pass over London-bridge 90,000 foot passengers; 800 waggons; 300 carts and drays; 1,300 coaches; 500 gigs and tax carts; and 800 saddle horses. The importance of this great point of communication, and the necessity of rendering it adequate to the purposes of its construction, are proved, by the numbers to whom it affords a daily passage at present, and, still more, by the probable increase of the numbers hereafter. The present bridge having been for some years considered destitute of the proper facilities of transition for passengers as well as for vessels, an Act of Parliament, passed in 1823, for building a new one, on a scale and plan equal to the other modern improvements of the metropolis. The first pile of the works was driven on the west side of the present bridge, in March, 1824, and the first coffer-dam having been lately finished, the ceremony of laying the first stone of the new bridge, has been happily and auspiciously completed.[171] Mrs. Barbauld. The decease of this literary and excellent lady in the spring of 1825, occasioned a friend to the Every-Day Book to transmit the following fugitive poem for insertion. It is not collected in any of the works published by Mrs. Barbauld during her lifetime; this, and the rectitude of spirit in the production itself, may justify its being recorded within these pages. To her honoured Friends
of the families of
Martineau and Taylor
These lines are inscribed
By their affectionate
A. L. Barbauld
On the Death
OF
MRS. MARTINEAU. Ye who around this venerated bier
In pious anguish pour the tender tear,
Mourn not!—Tis Virtue’s triumph, Nature’s doom,
When honoured Age, slow bending to the tomb,
Earth’s vain enjoyments past, her transient woes,
Tastes the long sabbath of well-earned repose.
No blossom here, in vernal beauty shed,
No lover lies, warm from the nuptial bed;
Here rests the full of days,—each task fulfilled,
Each wish accomplished, and each passion stilled.
You raised her languid head, caught her last breath,
And cheered with looks of love the couch of death.
Yet mourn!—for sweet the filial sorrows flow,
When fond affection prompts the gush of woe;
No bitter drop, ’midst Nature’s kind relief,
Sheds gall into the fountain of your grief;
No tears you shed for patient love abused,
And counsel scorned, and kind restraints refused.
Not yours the pang the conscious bosom wrings,
When late remorse inflicts her fruitless stings.
Living you honoured her, you mourn for, dead;
Her God you worship, and her path you tread.
Your sighs shall aid reflection’s serious hour,
And cherished virtues bless the kindly shower:
On the loved theme your lips unblamed shall dwell;
Your lives, more eloquent, her worth shall tell.
—Long may that worth, fair Virtue’s heritage,
From race to race descend, from age to age!
Still purer with transmitted lustre shine
The treasured birthright of the spreading line!
For me, as o’er the frequent grave I bend,
And pensive down the vale of years descend;
Companions, Parents, Kindred called to mourn,
Dropt from my side, or from my bosom torn;
A boding voice, methinks, in Fancy’s ear
Speaks from the tomb, and cries “Thy friends are here!”
Summer Evening’s Adventure in Wales. Mr. Proger of Werndee, riding in the evening from Monmouth, with a friend who was on a visit to him, heavy rain came on, and they turned their horses a little out of the road towards Perthyer. “My cousin Powell,” said Mr. Proger, “will, I am sure, be ready to give us a night’s lodging.” At Perthyer all was still; the family were abed. Mr. Proger shouted aloud under his cousin Powell’s chamber-window. Mr. Powell soon heard him; and putting his head out, inquired, “In the name of wonder what means all this noise? Who is there?” “It is only your cousin Proger of Werndee, who is come to your hospitable door for shelter from the inclemency of the weather; and hopes you will be so kind as to give him, and a friend of his, a night’s lodging.” “What is it you, cousin Proger? You, and your friend shall be instantly admitted; but upon one condition, namely, that you will admit now, and never hereafter dispute, that I am the head of your family.” “What was that you said?” replied Mr. Proger. “Why, I say, that if you expect to pass the night in my house, you must admit that I am the head of your family.” “No, sir, I never will admit that—were it to rain swords and daggers, I would ride through them this night to Werndee, sooner than let down the consequence of my family by submitting to such an ignominious condition. Come up, Bald! come up!” “Stop a moment, cousin Proger; have you not often admitted, that the first earl of Pembroke (of the name of Herbert) was a younger son of Perthyer; and will you set yourself up above the earls of Pembroke?” “True it is I must give place to the earl of Pembroke, because he is a peer of the realm; but still, though a peer, he is of the youngest branch of my family, being descended from the fourth son of Werndee, who was your ancestor, and settled at Perthyer, whereas I am descended from the eldest son. Indeed, my cousin Jones of Lanarth is of a branch of the family elder than you are; and yet he never disputes my being the head of the family.” “Well, cousin Proger, I have nothing more to say: good night to you.”—“Stop a moment, Mr. Powell,” cried the stranger, “you see how it pours; do let me in at least; I will not dispute with you about our families.” “Pray, sir, what is your name, and where do you come from?” “My name is so and so; and I come from such a county.” “A Saxon of course; it would indeed be very curious, sir, were I to dispute with a Saxon about family. No, sir, you must suffer for the obstinacy of your friend, so good night to you both.”[172] [168] Stow’s Survey, 1633, page 886.[169] The Times.[170] British Press.[171] New Times.[172] Williams’s Monmouth. App. 168.
June 16. Sts. Quirius, or Cyr and Julitta, Martyrs, A. D. 304. St. John Francis Regis, A. D. 1640. Sts. Ferreolus, or Fargeau, and Ferrutius, A. D. 211 or 212. St. Aurelian, Abp. A. D. 552. Chronology. 1722. John Churchill, the great duke of Marlborough, died at Windsor-lodge, in a state of idiocy. He was son of sir Winston Churchill, an English historian, and born at Ashe, in Devonshire, 1650. At twelve years of age he became page to the duke of York, afterwards James II.; at sixteen he entered the guards, and distinguished himself under Turenne. He was called the handsome Englishman, married Miss Jennings, (the celebrated duchess of Marlborough,) obtained distinguished rank and offices, suppressed the duke of Monmouth’s rebellion, and served king James with apparent fidelity in the wane of his fortune, while he faithlessly made court to the prince of Orange. His great military achievements, under king William and queen Anne, were rewarded by munificent public grants, and a public funeral in Westminster-abbey.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Moss Privince Rose. Rosa muscosa.
Dedicated to St. Julitta.
CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Dear Sir, A great deal has been lately attempted, by men of feeling minds, to prevent wanton cruelty towards animals; which (unhappily even in this enlightened age,) is but too prevalent. The lower class of persons, to whom the care of the horse is intrusted, frequently possess less sense than those noble animals, which groan under their tyranny; we constantly find ignorant farriers, who think that a cure can only be effected, by most violent and painful remedies. It is to these brutal men, that the lameness of so many horses may be attributed; for, not understanding the beautiful and singular construction of the interior of a horse’s foot, by cutting away the hoof they contract the foot, and gradually prevent the elasticity so necessary: thus by repeated shoeing, the foot is cramped, as much so, as a man’s who would attempt to walk in a shoe considerably too tight for him. Lameness ensues, and these farriers pronounce the seat of lameness any where but where it actually exists; then comes firing and blistering, and every possible torture, and the poor animal lamed for life, long before his time, is consigned to the lowest drudgery, and subsequently to the dogs. The inhuman rate at which horses are driven in stage coaches, conduces greatly to mortality; this consumption of animal life is, in some instances, one in three annually. Soame Jenyns, whose works are well known, and who was himself a man of the finest feelings, in a paper On Cruelty to Animals, adverts to the disciples of Pythagoras, who held that the souls of men, and all other animals, existed in a state of perpetual transmigration, and that when by death they were dislodged from one corporeal habitation, they were immediately reinstated in another, happier or more miserable, according to their behaviour in the former. Soame Jenyns favours this doctrine of transmigration, “first, from its justice; secondly, from its utility; and lastly, from the difficulty we lie under to account for the sufferings of many innocent creatures without it.” He says, “If we look around us, we cannot but observe a great and wretched variety of this kind; numberless animals subjected by their own natures to many miseries, and by our cruelties to many more, incapable of crimes, and consequently incapable of deserving them, called into being, as far as we can discover, only to be miserable for the service or diversion of others less meritorious than themselves, without any possibility of preventing, deserving, or receiving recompense for their unhappy lot, if their whole existence is comprehended in the narrow and wretched circle of their present life.” He then proceeds to observe, that “the theory here inculcated, removes all these difficulties, and reconciles all these seemingly unjust dispensations, with the strictest justice. It informs us, that their sufferings may by no means be understood, but as the just punishments of their former behaviour, in a state, where by means of their vices, they may have escaped them. It teaches us, that the pursued and persecuted fox, was once probably some crafty and rapacious minister, who had purchased by his ill acquired wealth, that safety, which he cannot now procure by his flight; that the bull, baited with all the cruelties that human ingenuity, or human malevolence can invent, was once some relentless tyrant, who had inflicted all the tortures which he endures; that the poor bird, blinded, imprisoned, and at last starved to death in a cage, may have been some unforgiving creditor; and the widowed turtle, pining away life for the loss of her mate, some fashionable wife, rejoicing at the death of her husband, which her own ill-usage had occasioned. Never can the delicious repast of roasted lobsters excite my appetite, whilst the ideas of the tortures in which those innocent creatures have expired present themselves to my imagination. But when I consider that they must have once probably been Spaniards at Mexico, or Dutchmen at Amboyna, I fall to, with a good stomach and a good conscience. Never can I repose myself with satisfaction in a post chaise, whilst I look upon the starved, foundered, accelerated, and excoriated animals which draw it, as mere horses, condemned to such unmerited torments for my convenience, but I reflect, they must have undoubtedly existed in the fathers of the holy inquisition. I very well know that these sentiments will be treated as ludicrous by many of my readers, but they are in themselves just and serious, and carry with them the strongest probability of their truth. So strong is it, that I cannot but hope it will have some good effect on the conduct of those polite people, who are too sagacious, learned, and courageous to be kept in awe by the threats of hell and damnation; and I exhort every fine lady to consider, how wretched will be her condition, if after twenty or thirty years spent at cards, in elegant rooms, kept warm by good fires and soft carpets, she should at last be obliged to change places with one of her coach horses; and every fine gentleman to reflect, how much more wretched would be his, if after wasting his estate, his health, and his life in extravagance, indolence, and luxury, he should again revive in the situation of one of his creditors.” Besides Jenyns’s suppositions, allow me to notice the crimping of fish, the skinning of eels alive, the whipping of pigs to death, to make them tender, the boiling of live crabs, having first put them in cold water to make them lively; together with the preference given to hunted hares, on account of their delicacy of muscles, softened by worry and exertion. These are but too common instances of a barbarous taste. At this season of enjoyment and leisure, when we derive pleasure from contemplating the beautiful forms and appearances of nature, and are grateful for annual abundance, let us reflect on the criminal heedlessness wherewith we allow our appetites and pleasures to be indulged, by needless sufferings in the animals we subdue to our wants and whims. While we endeavour to inculcate kindness in our children towards one another, let us teach them kindness to the meanest of created beings. I know that the Every-Day Book widely circulates in families; the humane sentiments that pervade it, must therefore have considerable influence, and for this reason I select it as a channel for conveying a humane suggestion. I am, dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,
J. B.
THE SEASON. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Sir, The perusal of your remarks on the season and the winds, in the Every-Day Book, page 707, reminded me of some lines I wrote at Ramsgate. If you know Wellington-crescent, where they were composed, you know a very pretty place, for either summer or winter residence. I am, Sir, &c. June 6, 1825. J. S. THE EAST WIND. A summer sun in brightness glows,
But, ah! the blighting east wind blows,
And weighs the spirit down!
All smiling is th’ enlivening ray,
That tips with silvery tinge the spray,
O’er ocean’s bosom thrown!
Yet, all inviting though it seems,
And tempts one forth to court its beams
I tremblingly retire:
For I am one who hate and dread
That eastern blast, and oft have fled
Its pestilences dire!
But the young shoots that round me rise
And make me old,—(though still unwise)
Feel no such fear as I
Brimful of joy they venture forth
Wind blowing west, south, east, or north,
If cloudless be the sky!
They tripping lightly o’er the path,
To them yet free from grief or scath,
Press on—and onward still,
With brow unwrinkled yet by care,
With spirit buoyant as the air—
They breathe at freedom’s will.
Where shipwreck’d seamen oft deplore
The loss of all their scanty store,
They rove at ebb of tide
In quest of shells, or various weed,
That, from the bed of ocean freed,
Their anxious search abide.
Proud and elated with their prize,
(All eagerness with sparkling eyes,)
The treasures home are brought
To me, who plunged in gloom the while.
At home have watch’d the sea bird’s guile:—
Or, in a sea of thought,
Have sent my spirit forth to find
Fit food for an immortal mind,
Else of itself the prey!
And in th’ abstraction of that mood.
Full oft I’ve realized the good,
We boast not every day.
Sometimes tho’, with a courage bold,
As ever faced the arctic’s cold,
I pace the Colonnade;[173]
And then am soon compelled to beat,
And seek a cowardly retreat,
Within the parlour’s shade!
Sometimes the place,[174] warm shelter’d close,
Where Sharwood’s decorated house,
From roof to step all flowers,
Shines forth as Flora’s temple, where
Dominion falls to sea and air;—
Napoleonic powers!
There, snugly shelter’d from the blast,
My eyes right pensively I cast
Where famed sir Williams’s bark
Lies moor’d, awaiting the time when
That Noah of citizens again
Shall venture on such ark!
But, ah! still round the corner creeps,
That treach’rous wind! and still it sweeps
Too clean the path I tread:
Arm’d as with numerous needle points,
Its painful searchings pierce my joints,
And then capsize my head!
So home again full trot I speed,
As, after wound, the warrior’s steed;
And sit me down, and sigh
O’er the hard-hearted fate of those
Who feel like me these east-wind woes
That brain and marrow try!
Again upon the sea I look,
Of nature that exhaustless book
With endless wonder fraught:—
How oft upon that sea I’ve gazed,
Whose world of waters has amazed
Man—social or untaught.
And, spite of all that some may say,
It is the place from day to day,
Whereon the soul can dwell!
My soul enkindles at the sight
Of such accumulated might;
And loves such grandeur well!
J. S.
June 17. Sts. Nicandeo and Marcian, about A. D. 303. St. Botulph, Abbot, A. D. 655. St. Avitus, or Avy, A. D. 530. St. Molingus, or Dairchilla, Bp. A. D. 697. St. Prior, Hermit, 4th Cent. St. Alban. This saint, the proto-martyr of Britain, is in the church of England calendar and almanacs on this day, but he stands in the Romish calendar, on the 22d of the month. St. Alban was born at Verulam, in Hertfordshire, in the third century, and went to Rome, where he served seven years as a soldier under Dioclesian. He afterwards returned to England, became a Christian, and suffered martyrdom in 303, during the dreadful persecution raised by Dioclesian. Several miracles are said by Bede to have been wrought at his martyrdom.[175] The fame of Alban, recorded as it was by Bede, made a deep impression on the minds of the superstitious. “The Ecclesiastical History” of that author, was published in 731; and in the year 795, Offa, king of the Mercians, built a monastery to the honour of Alban, on the place where he had suffered, then called by the Anglo-Saxons, Holmhurst, but since, in honour of the martyr, named St. Alban’s. The town built near the abbey still retains the latter appellation; and the abbey-church is even yet in existence, having, at the suppression of the monasteries by Henry the Eighth, been purchased by a rich clothier of the name of Stump, for 400l., and converted by him into a parochial church, for the use of the inhabitants. In the year 1257, some workmen repairing this ancient church, found the remains of some sheets of lead, containing relics, with a thick plate of lead over them, upon which was cut the following inscription:— “In hoc Mausoleo inventum est Venerabile corpus Sancti Albani, Proto Martyris Anglorum.”[176]
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Monkey Flower. Mimulus luteus.
Dedicated to St. Nicandeo.
June 18. Sts. Marcus and Marcellianus, A. D. 286. St. Marina, 8th. Cent. St. Elizabeth of Sconage, Abbess, A. D. 1165. St. Amand, Bp. of Bourdeaux. Chronology. 1815. The battle of Waterloo, which terminated the personal power of Napoleon, was fought on this day. BATTLE OF WATERLOO There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men.
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Did ye not hear it?—No; ’twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o’er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying fleet—
But, hark!—that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, nearer, deadlier than before.
Arm! arm! it is!—it is—the cannon’s opening roar!
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne’er might be repeated: who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon nights so sweet such awful morn could rise?
And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused by the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips—“The foe! they come! they come!”
And wild, and high, the “Cameron’s gathering rose!”
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! but with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years,
And Evan’s, Donald’s fame rings in each clansman’s ears.
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature’s tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves,
Over the unreturning brave,—alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass
Of living valour, rolling on the foe
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay;
The midnight brought the signal sound of strife,
The morn the marshalling in arms,—the day
Battle’s magnificently-stern array!
The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent
The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse,—friend,—foe,—in one red burial blent!
Byron. On the 18th of June, 1817, the Strand-bridge, a noble structure, erected at the expense of private individuals, was opened for the public accommodation, under the denomination of Waterloo-bridge, with military and other ceremonies. “Buy a Broom?” These poor “Buy-a-Broom” girls exactly dress now,
As Hollar etch’d such girls two cent’ries ago;
All formal and stiff, with legs, only, at ease—
Yet, pray, judge for yourself; and don’t, if you please,
Like Matthews’s “Chyle,” in his Monolo-Play,
Cry “The Ev’ry-Day Book is quite right, I dare say;”
But ask for the print, at old print shops, (they’ll show it,)
And look at it, “with your own eyes,” and you’ll “know it.”
*
These girls are Flemings. They come to England from the Netherlands in the spring, and take their departure with the summer. They have only one low, shrill, twittering note, “Buy a broom?” sometimes varying into the singular plural, “Buy a brooms?” It is a domestic cry; two or three go together, and utter it in company with each other; not in concert, nor to a neighbourhood, and scarcely louder than will attract the notice of an inmate seen at a parlour window, or an open street-door, or a lady or two passing in the street. Their hair is tightened up in front, and at the sides, and behind, and the ends brought together, and so secured, or skewered, at the top of the head, as if it were constricted by a tourniquet: the little close cap, not larger than an infant’s, seems to be put on and tied down by strings fastened beneath the chin, merely as a concealment of the machinery. Without a single inflexion of the body, and for any thing that appears to the contrary, it may be incased in tin. From the waist, the form abruptly and boldly bows out like a large beehive, or an arch of carpentry, built downward from above the hips, for the purpose of opening and distending the enormous petticoat into numerous plaits and folds, and thereby allowing the legs to walk without incumbrance. Their figures are exactly miniatured in an unpainted penny doll of turnery ware, made all round, before and behind, and sold in the toyshops for the amusement of infancy. These Flemish girls are of low stature, with features as formal and old fashioned as their dress. Their gait and manner answer to both. They carry their brooms, not under the left arm, but upon it, as they would children, upright between the arm and the side, with the heads in front of the shoulder. One, and one only, of the brooms is invariably held in the right hand, and this is elevated with the sharp cry “Buy a broom?” or “Buy a brooms?” to any one likely to become a purchaser, till it is either bought or wholly declined. The sale of their brooms is the sole purpose for which they cross the seas to us; and they suffer nothing to divert them from their avocation. A broom girl’s countenance, so wearisomely indicates unwearied attention to the “main chance,” and is so inflexibly solemn, that you doubt whether she ever did or can smile; yet when she does, you are astonished that she does not always: her face does not relax by degrees, but breaks suddenly into an arch laugh. This appearance may be extorted by a joke, while driving a bargain, but not afterwards: she assumes it, perhaps, as a sort of “turn” to hasten the “business transaction;” for when that is concluded, the intercourse ends immediately. Neither lingering nor loitering, they keep constantly walking on, and looking out for customers. They seldom speak to each other; nor when their brooms are disposed of, do they stop and rejoice upon it as an end to their labours; but go homewards reflectively, with the hand every now and then dipping into the pocket of the huge petticoat, and remaining there for a while, as if counting the receipts of the day while they walk, and reckoning what the before accumulated riches will total to, with the new addition. They seem influenced by this admonition, “get all you can, and keep all you get.” Rather late in an autumn afternoon, in Battersea-fields, I saw one of these girls by herself; she was seated, with her brooms on her lap, in a bit of scenery, which, from Weirotter’s etchings and other prints, I have always fancied resembled a view in the Low Countries: it is an old windmill, near the “Red-house,” with some low buildings among willows, on the bank of the Thames, thrown up to keep the river from overflowing a marshy flat. To my imagination, she was fixed to that spot in a reverie on her “vader-land.[177]” She gazed on the strait line of stunted trees, as if it were the line of beauty; and from the motion of her lips, and the enthusiasm of her look, I deemed she was reciting a passage from a poet of her native country. Elevation of feeling, in one of these poor girls, was hardly to be looked for; and yet I know not why I should have excluded it, as not appertaining to their character, except from their seeming intentness on thrift alone. They are cleanly, frugal, and no wasters of time; and that they are capable of sentiment, I state on the authority of my imagining concerning this poor girl; whereon, too, I pledge myself not to have been mistaken, for the language of the heart is universal—and hers discoursed to mine; though from the situation wherein I stood, she saw me not. I was not, nor could I be, in love with her—I was in love with human nature. The “brooms” are one entire piece of wood; the sweeping part being slivered from the handle, and the shavings neatly turned over and bound round into the form of a besom. They are bought to dust curtains and hangings with; but good housewives have another use for them; one of them dipt in fair water, sprinkles the dried clothes in the laundry, for the process of ironing, infinitely better than the hand; it distributes the water more equally and more quickly. “Buy a Broom?!!” There is a print with this inscription. It is a caricature representation of Mr. Brougham, with his barrister’s wig, in the dress of a broom girl, and for its likeness of that gentleman, and the play on his name, it is amazingly popular; especially since he contended for a man’s right to his own personal appearance, in the case of Abernethy v. The Lancet, before the chancellor. Mr. Brougham’s good-humoured allusion to his own countenance, was taken by the auditors in court, to relate particularly to his portrait in this print, called “Buy a Broom?” It is certainly as good as “The Great Bell of Lincoln’s-inn,” and two or three other prints of gentlemen eminent at the chancery-bar, sketched and etched, apparently, by the same happy hand at a thorough likeness.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Horned Poppy. Chelidonium glaucum.
Dedicated to St. Marina.
June 19. Sts. Gervasius and Protasius. St. Boniface, Abp., Apostle of Russia, A. D. 1009. St. Juliana Falconieri, A. D. 1340. St. Die, or Deodatus, Bp. A. D. 679 or 680. Chronology. 1215. Magna Charta was signed, on compulsion, by king John, at Runnymead, near Windsor. 1820. Sir Joseph Banks, president of the royal society, died, aged 77. The Summer Midnight. The breeze of night has sunk to rest,
Upon the river’s tranquil breast,
And every bird has sought her nest,
Where silent is her minstrelsy;
The queen of heaven is sailing high,
A pale bark on the azure sky,
Where not a breath is heard to sigh—
So deep the soft tranquillity.
Forgotten now the heat of day
That on the burning waters lay,
The noon of night her mantle gray,
Spreads, from the sun’s high blazonry;
But glittering in that gentle night
There gleams a line of silvery light,
As tremulous on the shores of white
It hovers sweet and playfully.
At peace the distant shallop rides;
Not as when dashing o’er her sides
The roaring bay’s unruly tides
Were beating round her gloriously;
But every sail is furl’d and still,
Silent the seaman’s whistle shrill,
While dreamy slumbers seem to thrill
With parted hours of ecstacy.
Stars of the many spangled heaven!
Faintly this night your beams are given,
Tho’ proudly where your hosts are driven
Ye rear your dazzling galaxy;
Since far and wide a softer hue
Is spread across the plains of blue,
Where in bright chorus ever true
For ever swells your harmony.
O! for some sadly dying note
Upon this silent hour to float,
Where from the bustling world remote,
The lyre might wake its melody;
One feeble strain is all can swell
From mine almost deserted shell,
In mournful accents yet to tell
That slumbers not its minstrelsy.
There is an hour of deep repose
That yet upon my heart shall close,
When all that nature dreads and knows
Shall burst upon me wond’rously;
O may, I then awake for ever
My harp to rapture’s high endeavour,
And as from earth’s vain scene I sever,
Be lost in Immortality!
FLORAL DIRECTORY. La Julienne de Nuit. Hesperis tristis.
Dedicated to St. Juliana.
June 20. St. Silverius, Pope, A. D. 538. St. Gobian, Priest and Martyr, about 656. St. Idaburga, or Edburge. St. Bain, Bp. of Terouanne (now St. Omer,) and Abbot, about A. D. 711. Translation of Edward. This day is so distinguished in the church of England calendar. Edward was the king of the West Saxons, murdered by order of Elfrida. He had not only an anniversary on the 18th of March, in commemoration of his sufferings, or rather of the silly and absurd miracles alleged to have been wrought at his tomb; but he was even honoured by our weak forefathers with another festival on the 20th of June, in each year, in remembrance of the removal, or translation, as it is termed, of his relics at Wareham, where they were inhumed, to the minster at Salisbury, three years after his decease. It is observed by Mr. Brady, on the translation of St. Edward, as follows:— “At the period this solemn act of absurd pomp took place, all Europe was plunged in a state of profound ignorance and mental darkness; no marvel, therefore, that great importance should have been attached to such superstitious usage; but for what reason our reformers chose to keep up a recollection of that folly, cannot readily be ascertained. “Of the origin of translations of this kind, much has been written; and if we are to credit the assertions of those monkish writers, whose works are yet found in catholic countries, though they have themselves long passed to the silent tomb, we must believe not only that they had their source from a principle of devotion, but that peculiar advantages accrued to those who encouraged their increase. In the year 359, the emperor Constantius, out of a presumed and, perhaps, not inconsistent respect, caused the remains of St. Andrew and St. Luke to be removed from their ancient place of interment to the temple of the twelve apostles, at Constantinople; and from that example, the practice of searching for the bodies of saints and martyrs increased so rapidly, that in the year 386, we find almost the whole of the devotees engaged in that pursuit. Relics, of course, speedily became of considerable value; and as they were all alleged to possess peculiar virtues, no expense or labour were spared to provide such treasures for every public religious foundation. Hence translations innumerable took place of the decayed members of persons reputed saints; and where the entire bodies could not be collected, the pious contented themselves with possessing such parts alone as ‘Providence chose to bless them with.’ Without these sacred relics, no establishments could expect to thrive; and so provident had the persons been who laboured in their collection, that not a single religious house but could produce one or more of those invaluable remains; though, unless we are to believe that most relics, like the holy cross itself, possessed the power of self-augmentation, we must either admit, that some of our circumspect forefathers were imposed upon, or that St. John the Baptist had more heads than that of which he was so cruelly deprived, as well as several of their favourite saints having each kindly afforded them two or three skeletons of their precious bodies; circumstances that frequently occurred, ‘because,’ says Father John Ferand, of Anecy, ‘God was pleased so to multiply and re-produce them, for the devotion of the faithful!’ “Of the number of these relics that have been preserved, it is useless to attempt a description, nor, indeed, could they be detailed in many volumes; yet it may gratify curiosity to afford some brief account of such as, in addition to the heads of St. John the Baptist, were held in the greatest repute, were it for no other reason than to show how the ignorance and credulity of the commonalty have, in former ages, been imposed upon, viz.:— “A finger of St. Andrew; “A finger of St. John the Baptist; “The thumb of St. Thomas; “A tooth of our Lord; “A rib of our Lord, or, as it is profanely styled, of the Verbum caro factum, the word made flesh; “The hem of our Lord’s garment, which cured the diseased woman; “The seamless coat of our Lord; “A tear which our Lord shed over Lazarus; it was preserved by an angel, who gave it in a phial to Mary Magdalene; “Two handkerchiefs, on which are impressions of our Saviour’s face; the one sent by our Lord himself as a present to Agbarus, prince of Edessa; the other given at the time of his crucifixion to a holy woman, named Veronica; “The rod of Moses, with which he performed his miracles; “A lock of hair of Mary Magdalene’s; “A hem of Joseph’s garment; “A feather of the Holy Ghost; “A finger of the Holy Ghost; “A feather of the angel Gabriel; “A finger of a cherubim; “The water-pots used at the marriage in Galilee; “The slippers of the antediluvian Enoch; “The face of a seraphim, with only part of the nose; “The ‘snout’ of a seraphim, thought to have belonged to the preceding; “The coal that broiled St. Lawrence; “The square buckler, lined with ‘red velvet,’ and the short sword of St. Michael; “A phial of the ‘sweat of St. Michael,’ when he contended with Satan; “Some of the rays of the star that appeared to the Magi; with innumerable others, not quite consistent with decency to be here described. “The miracles wrought by these and other such precious remains, have been enlarged upon by writers, whose testimony, aided by the protecting care of the inquisition, no one durst openly dispute who was not of the ‘holy brotherhood;’ although it would appear, by the confessions of some of those respectable persons, that ‘instances have occurred of their failure,’ but that they always ‘recovered their virtue, when,’ as Galbert, a monk of Marchiennes, informs us, ‘they were flogged with rods, &c.!’”[178]
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Doubtful Poppy. Papaver dubium.
Dedicated to St. Silverius.
June 21. St. Aloysius, or Lewis Gonzaga, A. D. 1591. St. Ralph, Abp. of Bourges, A. D. 866. St. Meen, in Latin, Mevennus, also Melanus, Abbot in Britanny, about A. D. 617. St. Aaron, Abbot in Britanny, 6th Cent. St. Eusebius, Bp. of Samosata, A. D. 379 or 380. St. Leufredus, in French, Leufroi, Abbot, A. D. 738. Summer Morning and Evening. The glowing morning, crown’d with youthful roses,
Bursts on the world in virgin sweetness smiling,
And as she treads, the waking flowers expand,
Shaking their dewy tresses. Nature’s choir
Of untaught minstrels blend their various powers
In one grand anthem, emulous to salute
Th’ approaching king of day, and vernal Hope
Jocund trips forth to meet the healthful breeze,
To mark th’ expanding bud, the kindling sky,
And join the general pÆan.
While, like a matron, who has long since done
With the gay scenes of life, whose children all
Have sunk before her on the lap of earth—
Upon whose mild expressive face the sun
Has left a smile that tells of former joys—
Grey Eve glides on in pensive silence musing.
As the mind triumphs o’er the sinking frame,
So as her form decays, her starry beams
Shed brightening lustre, till on night’s still bosom
Serene she sinks, and breathes her peaceful last,
While on the rising breeze sad melodies,
Sweet as the notes that soothe the dying pillow,
When angel-music calls the saint to heaven,
Come gently floating: ’tis the requiem
Chaunted by Philomel for day departed.
Ado.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Viper’s Buglos. Echium vulgare.
Dedicated to St. Aloysius. Summer. Now cometh welcome Summer with great strength,
Joyously smiling in high lustihood,
Conferring on us days of longest length,
For rest or labour, in town, field, or wood;
Offering, to our gathering, richest stores
Of varied herbage, corn, cool fruits, and flowers,
As forth they rise from Nature’s open pores,
To fill our homesteads, and to deck our bowers;
Inviting us to renovate our health
By recreation; or, by ready hand,
And calculating thought, t’ improve our wealth:
And so, invigorating all the land,
And all the tenantry of earth or flood,
Cometh the plenteous Summer—full of good.
* “How beautiful is summer,” says the elegant author of Sylvan Sketches, a volume that may be regarded as a sequel to the Flora Domestica, from the hand of the same lady.—“How beautiful is summer! the trees are heavy with fruit and foliage; the sun is bright and cheering in the morning; the shade of broad and leafy boughs is refreshing at noon; and the calm breezes of the evening whisper gently through the leaves, which reflect the liquid light of the moon when she is seen— ———— “lifting her silver rim
Above a cloud, and with a gradual swim
Coming into the blue with all her light.”
On page 337 of the present work, there is the spring dress of our ancestors in the fourteenth century, from an illumination in a manuscript copied by Strutt. From the same illumination, their summer dress in that age is here represented. summer dress LONGEST DAY. No day is disadvantageous to an agreeable thought or two upon “Time;” and the present, being the longest day, is selected for submitting to perusal a very pleasant little apologue from a miscellany addressed to the young. The object of the writer was evidently to do good, and it is hoped that its insertion here, in furtherance of the purpose, may not be less pleasing to the editor who first introduced it to the public eye, than it will be found by the readers of the Every-Day Book. This is the tale. THE DISCONTENTED PENDULUM. An old clock, that had stood for fifty years in a farmer’s kitchen, without giving its owner any cause of complaint, early one summer’s morning, before the family was stirring, suddenly stopped. Upon this, the dial-plate (if we may credit the fable,) changed countenance with alarm; the hands made a vain effort to continue their course; the wheels remained motionless with surprise; the weights hung speechless; each member felt disposed to lay the blame on the others. At length the dial instituted a formal inquiry as to the cause of the stagnation, when hands, wheels, weights, with one voice protested their innocence. But now a faint tick was heard below from the pendulum, who thus spoke:— “I confess myself to be the sole cause of the present stoppage; and I am willing, for the general satisfaction, to assign my reasons. The truth is, that I am tired of ticking.” Upon hearing this, the old clock became so enraged, that it was on the very point of striking. “Lazy wire!” exclaimed the dial-plate, holding up its hands.—“Very good,” replied the pendulum: “it is vastly easy for you, Mistress Dial, who have always, as every body knows, set yourself up above me,—it is vastly easy for you, I say, to accuse other people of laziness! You, who have had nothing to do all the days of your life but to stare people in the face, and to amuse yourself with watching all that goes on in the kitchen! Think, I beseech you, how you would like to be shut up for life in this dark closet, and to wag backwards and forwards, year after year, and do.”—“As to that,” said the dial, “Is there not a window in your house, on purpose for you to look through?” “For all that,” resumed the pendulum, “it is very dark here: and, although there is a window, I dare not stop, even for an instant, to look out at it. Besides, I am really tired of my way of life; and, if you wish, I’ll tell you how I took this disgust at my employment. I happened this morning to be calculating how many times I should have to tick in the course only of the next twenty-four hours: perhaps some of you above there can give me the exact sum.” The minute hand, being quick at figures, presently replied, “Eighty-six thousand four hundred times.” “Exactly so,” replied the pendulum; “well, I appeal to you all, if the very thought of this was not enough to fatigue one; and when I began to multiply the strokes of one day by those of months and years, really it is no wonder if I felt discouraged at the prospect; so, after a great deal of reasoning and hesitation, thinks I to myself, I’ll stop.” The dial could scarcely keep its countenance during this harangue; but, resuming its gravity, thus replied:— “Dear Mr. Pendulum, I am really astonished that such a useful, industrious person as yourself should have been overcome by this sudden notion. It is true you have done a great deal of work in your time; so have we all, and are likely to do; which, although it may fatigue us to think of, the question is, whether it will fatigue us to do. Would you now do me the favour to give about half a dozen strokes, to illustrate my argument?” The pendulum complied, and ticked six times at its usual pace.—“Now,” resumed the dial, “may I be allowed to inquire, if that exertion was at all fatiguing or disagreeable to you?” “Not in the least,” replied the pendulum; “it is not of six strokes that I complain, nor of sixty, but of millions.” “Very good,” replied the dial; “but recollect, that though you may think of a million strokes in an instant, you are required to execute but one; and that, however often you may hereafter have to swing, a moment will always be given you to swing in.” “That consideration staggers me, I confess,” said the pendulum. “Then I hope,” resumed the dial-plate, “we shall all immediately return to our duty; for the maids will lie in bed till noon, if we stand idling thus.” Upon this the weights, who had never been accused of light conduct, used all their influence in urging him to proceed; when, as with one consent, the wheels began to turn, the hand began to move, the pendulum began to swing, and, to its credit, ticked as loud as ever; while a red beam of the rising sun, that streamed through a hole in the kitchen shutter, shining full upon the dial-plate, it brightened up as if nothing had been the matter. When the farmer came down to breakfast that morning, upon looking at the clock, he declared that his watch had gained half-an-hour in the night.
A celebrated modern writer says, “take care of the minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves.” This is an admirable remark, and might be very seasonably recollected when we begin to be “weary in well-doing,” from the thought of having much to do. The present moment is all we have to do with in any sense; the past is irrecoverable; the future is uncertain; nor is it fair to burthen one moment with the weight of the next. Sufficient unto the moment is the trouble thereof. If we had to walk a hundred miles, we should still have to set but one step at a time, and this process continued would infallibly bring us to our journey’s end. Fatigue generally begins, and is always increased, by calculating in a minute the exertion of hours. Thus, in looking forward to future life, let us recollect that we have not to sustain all its toil, to endure all its sufferings, or encounter all its crosses at once. One moment comes laden with its own little burthens, then flies, and is succeeded by another no heavier than the last; if one could be borne, so can another, and another. Even in looking forward to a single day, the spirit may sometimes faint from an anticipation of the duties, the labours, the trials to temper and patience that may be expected. Now, this is unjustly laying the burthen of many thousand moments upon one. Let any one resolve always to do right now, leaving then to do as it can; and if he were to live to the age of Methusalem, he would never do wrong. But the common error is to resolve to act right after breakfast, or after dinner, or to-morrow morning, or next time; but now, just now, this once, we must go on the same as ever. It is easy, for instance, for the most ill-tempered person to resolve, that the next time he is provoked he will not let his temper overcome him; but the victory would be to subdue temper on the present provocation. If, without taking up the burthen of the future, we would always make the single effort at the present moment, while there would, at any time, be very little to do, yet, by this simple process continued, every thing would at last be done. It seems easier to do right to-morrow than to-day, merely because we forget, that when to-morrow comes, then will be now. Thus life passes with many, in resolutions for the future, which the present never fulfils. It is not thus with those, who, “by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, honour, and immortality:” day by day, minute by minute, they execute the appointed task to which the requisite measure of time and strength is proportioned: and thus, having worked while it was called day, they at length rest from their labours, and their “works follow them.” Let us then, “whatever our hands find to do, do it with all our might, recollecting that now is the proper and accepted time.”[179]
June 22. St. Paulinus, Bp. of Nola, A. D. 431. St. Alban, Proto-Martyr of Britain, A. D. 303. American Newspapers. The following singular advertisement, appeared in the “Connecticut Courant,” of June 2, 1784. Take Notice, Debtors
For Newspapers to the Subscriber. This is the last time of asking in this way; all those who settle their accounts by the 18th of June, instant, will have the thanks of their humble servant; and those that neglect, will find their accounts in the hands of some person, who will collect them in a more fashionable way, but more expensive. James Johnson.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Canterbury Bells. Campanula Medium.
Dedicated to St. Paulinus.
June 23. St. Etheldreda, or Audry, A. D. 679. St. Mary of Oignies, A. D. 1213. Midsummer—The Bonfire. This engraving represents a rejoicing formerly common to this season; it is from a French print, inscribed “Le Feu de St. Jean Mariette ex.” The summer solstice has been celebrated throughout all ages by the lighting up of fires, and hence on “St. John’s eve,” or the vigil of the festival of St. John the Baptist, there have been popular ceremonials of this kind from the earliest times of the Romish church to the present. Before, however, particularizing any of these celebrations, it may be worth while to notice the following practice, which is still maintained. Midsummer Eve, in Ireland. At Stoole, near Downpatrick, in the north of Ireland, there is a ceremony commencing at twelve o’clock at night on every Midsummer-eve.—Its sacred mount is consecrated to St. Patrick: the plain contains three wells, to which the most extraordinary virtues are attributed. Here and there are heaps of stones, around some of which appear great numbers of people running with as much speed as possible; around others, crowds of worshippers kneel with bare legs and feet as an indispensable part of the penance. The men, without coats, with handkerchiefs on their heads instead of hats, having gone seven times round each heap, kiss the ground, cross themselves, and proceed to the hill; here they ascend on their bare knees, by a path so steep and rugged that it would be difficult to walk up: many hold their hands clasped at the back of their necks, and several carry large stones on their heads. Having repeated this ceremony seven times, they go to what is called St. Patrick’s chair, which are two great flat stones fixed upright in the hill; here they cross and bless themselves as they step in between these stones, and while repeating prayers, an old man, seated for the purpose, turns them round on their feet three times, for which he is paid; the devotee then goes to conclude his penance at a pile of stones named the altar. While this busy scene of superstition is continued by the multitude, the wells, and streams issuing from them, are thronged by crowds of halt, maimed, and blind, pressing to wash away their infirmities with water consecrated by their patron saint; and so powerful is the impression of its efficacy on their minds, that many of those who go to be healed, and who are not totally blind, or altogether crippled, really believe for a time that they are by means of its miraculous virtues perfectly restored. These effects of a heated imagination are received as unquestionable miracles, and are propagated with abundant exaggeration.[180] The annual resort of the ignorant portion of our Roman Catholic countrymen, was never so numerously attended as it has been during the late anniversary of this festival, in 1825. The extent of the number of strangers from very remote parts of the country was unprecedented. The usual ablutions, penances, and miraculous results, were performed, and attested by the devotees, who experienced some disappointment in not having the accustomed arch-officiater to consummate the observances by thrice revolving the votary in the chair of St. Patrick. This deprivation, it is said, marks the sense of a dignitary of the church respecting this annual ceremony.[181] Ancient Custom of
SETTING THE WATCH IN LONDON
on St. John’s Eve. The curfew-bell, commanded by William Conquerour to be nightly rung at eight of the clock, as a warning, or command, that all people should then put out their fires and lights, was continued throughout the realm till the time of Henry the First, when Stow says, that it followed, “by reason of warres within the realme, that many men gave themselves to robbery and murders in the night.” Stow then recites from an ancient chronicler, Roger Hoveden, that in the yeare 1175, during the time of a council held at Nottingham, a brother of the earle Ferrers, was “in the night privily slaine at London, and thrown out of his inne into the durty street; when the king understood thereof he sware that he would be revenged on the citizens. It was then a common practice in this city, that a hundred or more in a company, young and old, would make nightly invasions upon houses of the wealthy, to the intent to rob them; and if they found any man stirring in the city within the night, that were not of their crue, they would presently murder him: insomuch, that when night was come, no man durst adventure to walk in the streets. When this had continued long, it fortuned, that a crue of young and wealthy citizens assembling together in the night, assaulted a stone house of a certaine rich man, and breaking through the wall, the good man of that house having prepared himself with other in a corner, when hee perceived one of the theeves, named Andrew Bucquint, to lead the way, with a burning brand in the one hand, and a pot of coles in the other, which hee assaied to kindle with the brand, he flew upon him, and smote off his right hand, and then with a loud voyce cryed ‘theeves.’ At the hearing whereof, the theeves took their flight, all saving he that had lost his hand, whom the good man (in the next morning) delivered to Richard de Lucie, the king’s justice. This theefe, upon warrant of his life, appeached his confederates, of whom many were taken, and many were fled. Among the rest that were apprehended, a certaine citizen of great countenance, credit, and wealth, named John Senex, who for as much he could not acquit himselfe by the water-doome (as that law was then tearmed) hee offered to the king five hundred pounds of silver for his life. But forasmuch as he was condemned by judgement of the water, the king would not take the offer, but commanded him to be hanged on the gallowes, which was done, and then the city became more quiet for a long time after.” It appears that the city of London was subject to these disorders till 1253, when Henry III. commanded watches to be kept in the cities, and borough towns, for the preservation of the peace; and this king further ordained “that if any man chanced to be robbed, or by any means damnified, by any theefe or robber, he to whom the charge of keeping that county, city, or borough, chiefly appertained, where the robbery was done, should competently restore the losse.” This origin of the present nightly watch in London was preceded by other popular customs, or they rather, it may be said, assisted in its formation. “In the months of June and July, on the vigils of festivall dayes, and on the same festivall dayes in the evenings, after the sun-setting, there were usually made bone-fires in the streets, every man bestowing wood or labour towards them. The wealthier sort also before their doores, neere to the said bone-fires, would set out tables on the vigils, furnished with sweete bread, and good drinke, and on the festivall dayes with meats and drinkes plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours and passengers also to sit, and be merry with them in great familiarity, praysing God for his benefits bestowed on them. These were called bone-fires, as well of amity amongst neighbours, that being before at controversie, were there by the labour of others reconciled, and made of bitter enemies, loving friends; as also for the vertue that a great fire hath, to purge the infection of the ayre. “On the vigil of St. John Baptist, and on Sts. Peter and Paul the apostles, every man’s doore being shaddowed with greene birch, long fennel, St. John’s wort, orpin, white lilies, and such like, garnished upon with garlands of beautifull flowers, had also lamps of glasse, with oyle burning in them all the night; some hung out branches of iron curiously wrought, containing hundreds of lamps lighted at once, which made a goodly shew, namely in new Fish-street, Thames-street, &c. “Then had ye, besides the standing watches, all in bright harnesse, in every ward and street of this city and suburbs, a marching watch, that passed through the principall streets thereof, to wit, from the little conduit by Paul’s gate, through West Cheape, by the Stocks, through Cornehill, by Leadenhall to Aldgate, then backe down Fen-church-street, by Grasse-church, about Grasse-church conduit, and up Grasse-church-street into Cornhill, and through it into West Cheape again, and so broke up. “The whole way ordered for this marching watch, extended to three thousand two hundred taylors’ yards of assize; for the furniture whereof with lights, there were appointed seven hundred cressets, five hundred of them being found by the companies, the other two hundred by the chamber of London. Besides the which lights, every constable in London, in number more than two hundred and forty, had his cresset: the charge of every cresset was in light two shillings foure pence, and every cresset had two men, one to beare or hold it, another to beare a bag with light, and to serve it: so that the poore men pertaining to the cressets, taking wages, (besides that every one had a strawen hat, with a badge painted, and his breakfast in the morning,) amounted in number to almost two thousand. “The marching watch contained in number two thousand men, part of them being old souldiers, of skill to bee captaines, lieutenants, serjeants, corporals, &c. wifflers, drummers, and fifes, standard and ensigne-bearers, sword-players, trumpeters on horsebacke, demilaunces on great horses, gunners with hand-guns, or halfe hakes, archers in cotes of white fustian, signed on the breste and backe with the armes of the city, their bowes bent in their hands, with sheafes of arrowes by their sides, pike-men in bright corslets, burganets, &c., holbards, the like billmen in almaine rivets, and aperns of mayle in great number. “There were also divers pageants, and morris dancers attendant on the setting of this marching watch. The constables, were divided into two parties; one halfe consisting of one hundred and twenty, were appointed on St. John’s eve, the other halfe on St. Peter’s eve.” They were “in bright harnesse, some over-gilt, and every one a jornet of scarlet thereupon and a chaine of gold, his hench-man following him, his minstrels before him, and his cresset light passing by him.” In the procession were “the waytes of the city, the maiors officers, for his guard before him, all in a livery of wosted, or say jackets, party coloured; the maior himselfe well mounted on horseback, the sword-bearer before him in faire armour, well mounted also, the maiors foot-men, and the like torch-bearers about him; hench-men twaine, upon great stirring horses following him. The sheriffes watches came one after the other in like order, but not so large in number as the maiors: for whereas the maior had, besides his giant, three pageants, each of the sheriffes had, besides their giants, but two pageants; each their morris-dance, and one hench-man, their officers in jackets of wosted, or say, party-coloured, differing from the maiors, and each from other, but having harnessed men a great many, &c. This Midsummer watch was thus accustomed yeerely, time out of minde, untill the yeere 1539, the thirty-first of Henry the Eighth, in which yeere, on the eighth of May, a great muster was made by the citizens at the Miles end, all in bright harnesse, with coats of white silke or cloth, and chaines of gold, in three great battels, to the number of fifteen thousand, which passed thorow London to Westminster, and so through the sanctuary, and round about the parke of St. James, and returned home thorow Oldborne.” In that year, 1539, king Henry VIII. forbid this muster of armed men, and prohibited the marching watch altogether, and it was disused “til the yeere 1548.” When sir John Gresham, then lord mayor, revived the marching watch, both on the eve of St. John the baptist, and of St. Peter the apostle, and set it forth, in order as before had been accustomed; “which watch was also beautified by the number of more than three hundred demilances and light-horsemen, prepared by the citizens to be sent into Scotland, for the rescue of the town of Haddington.” After that time the marching watch again fell into disuse; yet, in the year 1585, “a booke was drawne by a grave citizen, (John Mountgomery,) and by him dedicated to sir Tho. Pullison, then l. maior, and his brethren the aldermen, containing the manner and order of a marching watch in the citie, upon the evens accustomed; in commendation whereof, namely, in times of peace to be used, he hath words to this effect: ‘The artificers of sundry sorts were thereby well set aworke, none but rich men charged, poor men helped, old souldiers, trumpeters, drummers, fifes, and engine-bearers, with such like men meet for the prince’s service, kept in use, wherein the safety and defence of every common-weale consisteth. Armour and weapons being yeerely occupied in this wise, the citizens had of their owne readily prepared for any neede, whereas, by intermission hereof, armorers are out of worke, souldiers out of use, weapons overgrowne with foulnesse, few or none good being provided,’” &c. Notwithstanding these plausible grounds, the practice was discontinued. There can be little doubt that so great an array of armed citizens, was not only viewed with distrust by the government, but had become of so great charge to the corporation, that it was found mutually convenient to substitute a less expensive and less warlike body to watch and ward the city’s safety. The splendour wherein it was annually set forth was, however, a goodly sight, and attracted the curiosity of royalty itself, for we find that on St. John’s eve, in 1510, king Henry VIII. came to the King’s-head, in Cheap, in the livery of a yeoman of the guard, with a halbert on his shoulder, and there, in that disguise, beheld the watch till it had passed, and was so gratified with the show, that “on St. Peter’s night next following, he and the queen came royally riding to the sayd place, and there, with their nobles, beheld the watch of the city, and returned in the morning.”[182] In 1519, Christern, king of Denmark, and his queen, being then in England, were conducted to the King’s-head, in Cheap, there to see the watch. On taking leave of the old London watch, on St. John’s eve, a remark or two may be made respecting their lights. The Cresset. Concerning the cressets or lights of the watch, this may be observed by way of explanation. The cresset light was formed of a wreathed rope smeared with pitch, and placed in a cage of iron, like a trivet suspended on pivots, in a kind of fork; or it was a light from combustibles, in a hollow pan. It was rendered portable by being placed on a pole, and so carried from place to place. Mr. Douce, in his “Illustrations of Shakspeare,” gives the following four representations from old prints and drawings of CRESSETS. Lamps in the Old Streets,
AND ALSO CARRIED BY THE
Marching Watch of London. Mr. Douce imagines the word cresset to have been derived from the French word croiset, a cruet or earthen pot. When the cresset light was stationary it served as a beacon, or answered the purpose of a fixed lamp, and in this way our ancestors illuminated or lighted up their streets. There is a volume of sermons, by Samuel Ward, printed 1617-24, with a wood-cut frontispiece, representing two of these fixed cressets or street-lamps, with verses between them, in relation to his name and character, as a faithful watchman. In the first lines old Ward is addressed thus:— “Watch Ward, and keepe thy Garments tight,
For I come thiefe-like at Midnight.”
Whereto Ward answers the injunction, to watch, in the lines following:— “All-seeing, never-slumbering Lord;
Be thou my Watch, Ile be thy Ward.”
Ward’s “lamp, or beacon,” is transferred from his frontispiece to the next column, in order to show wherein our ancient standing lamps differed from the present. An Old Beacon,
OR
Standing Lamp. It will be seen from this engraving that the person, whose business it was to “watch” and trim the lamp, did not ascend for that purpose by a ladder, as the gas-lighters do our gas-lamps, or as the lamp-lighter did the oil-lamps which they superseded, but by climbing the pole, hand and foot, by means of the projections on each side. St. John’s Eve Watch at Nottingham. The practice of setting the watch, at Nottingham, on St. John’s eve, was maintained until the reign of Charles I., the manner whereof is thus described:— “In Nottingham, by an ancient custom, they keep yearly a general watch every Midsummer eve at night, to which every inhabitant of any ability sets forth a man, as well voluntaries as those who are charged with arms, with such munition as they have; some pikes, some muskets, calivers, or other guns, some partisans, holberts, and such as have armour send their servants in their armour. The number of these are yearly almost two hundred, who, at sun-setting, meet on the Row, the most open part of the town, where the mayor’s serjeant at mace gives them an oath, the tenor whereof followeth, in these words: “They shall well and truly keep this town till to-morrow at the sun-rising; you shall come into no house without license, or cause reasonable. Of all manner of casualties, of fire, of crying of children, you shall due warning make to the parties, as the case shall require you. You shall due search make of all manner of affrays, bloud-sheds, outcrys, and of all other things that be suspected,” &c. Which done, they all march in orderly array through the principal parts of the town, and then they are sorted into several companies, and designed to several parts of the town, where they are to keep the watch until the sun dismiss them in the morning. In this business the fashion is for every watchman to wear a garland, made in the fashion of a crown imperial, bedeck’d with flowers of various kinds, some natural, some artificial, bought and kept for that purpose; as also ribbans, jewels, and, for the better garnishing whereof, the townsmen use the day before to ransack the gardens of all the gentlemen within six or seven miles about Nottingham, besides what the town itself affords them, their greatest ambition being to outdo one another in the bravery of their garlands.”[183] So pleasant a sight must have been reluctantly parted with; and accordingly in another place we find that this Midsummer show was held at a much later period than at Nottingham, and with more pageantry in the procession. St. John’s Eve Watch at Chester. The annual setting of the watch on St. John’s eve, in the city of Chester, was an affair of great moment. By an ordinance of the mayor, aldermen, and common councilmen of that corporation, dated in the year 1564, and preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, a pageant which is expressly said to be “according to ancient custom,” is ordained to consist of four giants, one unicorn, one dromedary, one camel, one luce, one dragon, and six hobby-horses with other figures. By another MS. in the same library it is said, that Henry Hardware, Esq., the mayor, in 1599, caused the giants in the Midsummer show to be broken, “and not to goe the devil in his feathers;” and it appears that he caused a man in complete armour to go in their stead: but in the year 1601, John Ratclyffe, beer-brewer, being mayor, set out the giants and Midsummer show as of old it was wont to be kept. In the time of the commonwealth the show was discontinued, and the giants with the beasts were destroyed. At the restoration of Charles II., the citizens of Chester replaced their pageant, and caused all things to be made new, because the old models were broken. According to the computation, the four great giants were to cost five pounds a-piece, at the least, and the four men to carry them were to have two shillings and six-pence each; the materials for constructing them were to be hoops of various sizes, deal boards, nails, pasteboard, scaleboard, paper of various sorts, buckram, size-cloth, and old sheets for their body-sleeves and shirts, which were to be coloured; also tinsel, tinfoil, gold and silver leaf, and colours of various kinds, with glue and paste in abundance. The provision of a pair of old sheets to cover the “father and mother giants,” and three yards of buckram for the mother’s and daughter’s hoods, seems to prove that three of these monstrous pasteboard figures represented females. A desire to preserve them may be inferred from an entry in the bill of charges:—“For arsnick to put into the paste, to save the giants from being eaten by the rats, one shilling and four-pence.” There was an item in the estimate—“For the new making the city mount, called the maior’s mount, as auntiently it was, and for hireing of bays for the same, and a man to carry it, three pounds six shillings and eight-pence.” Twenty-pence was paid to a joiner for cutting pasteboard into several images for the “merchant’s mount,” which being made, “as it aunciently was with a ship to turn round,” cost four pounds, including the hiring of the “bays,” and five men to carry it. The charge for the ship, and new dressing it, was five shillings. Strutt, who sets forth these particulars, conjectures, that the ship was probably made with pasteboard, that material seeming, to him, to have been a principle article in the manufacturing of both these movable mountains. The ship was turned, he says, by means of a swivel, attached to an iron handle underneath the frame; the “bays” was to hang round the bottom of the frames to the ground, and so conceal the bearers. Then there was a new “elephant and castell, and a cupid,” with his bows and arrows, “suitable to it;” the castle was covered with tin foil, and the cupid with skins, so as to appear to be naked, and the charge for these, with two men to carry them, was one pound sixteen shillings and eight-pence. The “four beastes called the unicorne, the antelop, the flower-de-luce (?) and the camell,” cost one pound sixteen shillings and four-pence each, and eight men were paid sixteen shillings to carry them. Four boys for carrying the four hobby-horses, had four shillings, and the hobby-horses cost six shillings and eight-pence each. The charge for the new dragon, with six naked boys to beat at it, was one pound sixteen shillings. Six morris-dancers, with a pipe and tabret, had twenty shillings; and “hance-staves, garlands, and balls, for the attendants upon the mayor and sheriffs cost one pound nineteen shillings.”[184] These preparations it will be remembered were for the setting forth of the Midsummer-watch at Chester, so late as the reign of Charles II. After relating these particulars, Mr. Strutt aptly observes, that exhibitions of this kind for the diversions of the populace, are well described in a few lines from a dramatic piece, entitled “A pleasant and stately Morall of the Three Lordes of London:”— —— “Let nothing that’s magnifical,
Or that may tend to London’s graceful state,
Be unperformed, as showes and solemne feastes,
Watches in armour, triumphes, cresset lights,
Bonefires, belles, and peales of ordinaunce
And pleasure. See that plaies be published,
Mai-games and maskes, with mirthe and minstrelsie,
Pageants and school-feastes, beares and puppet-plaies.”
Somersetshire Custom. In the parishes of Congresbury and Puxton, are two large pieces of common land, called East and West Dolemoors, (from the Saxon dal, which signifies a share or portion,) which are divided into single acres, each bearing a peculiar and different mark cut in the turf; such as a horn, four oxen and a mare, two oxen and a mare, a pole-axe, cross, dung-fork, oven, duck’s-nest, hand-reel, and hare’s-tail. On the Saturday before Old-Midsummer, several proprietors of estates in the parishes of Congresbury, Puxton, and Week St. Lawrence, or their tenants, assemble on the commons. A number of apples are previously prepared, marked in the same manner with the before-mentioned acres, which are distributed by a young lad to each of the commoners from a bag or hat. At the close of the distribution each person repairs to his allotment, as his apple directs him, and takes possession for the ensuing year. An adjournment then takes place to the house of the overseer of Dolemoors, (an officer annually elected from the tenants,) where four acres, reserved for the purpose of paying expenses, are let by inch of candle, and the remainder of the day is spent in that sociability and hearty mirth so congenial to the soul of a Somersetshire yeoman.[185]
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Our Lady’s Slipper. Cypripedium Calceolus.
Dedicated to St. Etheldreda.
June 24. Nativity of St. John the Baptist. The Martyrs of Rome under Nero, A. D. 64. St. Bartholomew. Midsummer-day. Nativity of St. John the Baptist. At Oxford on this day there was lately a remarkable custom, mentioned by the Rev. W. Jones of Nayland, in his “Life of Bishop Horne,” affixed to the bishop’s works. He says, “a letter of July the 25th, 1755, informed me that Mr. Horne according to an established custom at Magdalen-college in Oxford, had begun to preach before the university on the day of St. John the baptist. For the preaching of this annual sermon, a permanent pulpit of stone is inserted into a corner of the first quadrangle; and, so long as the stone pulpit was in use, (of which I have been a witness,) the quadrangle was furnished round the sides with a large fence of green boughs, that the preaching might more nearly resemble that of John the baptist in the wilderness; and a pleasant sight it was: but for many years the custom has been discontinued, and the assembly have thought it safer to take shelter under the roof of the chapel.” Pulpits. Without descanting at this time on the manifold construction of the pulpit, it may be allowable, perhaps, to observe, that the ambo, or first pulpit, was an elevation consisting of two flights of stairs; on the higher was read the gospel, on the lower the epistle. The pulpit of the present day is that fixture in the church, or place of worship, occupied by the minister while he delivers his sermon. Thus much is observed for the present, in consequence of the mention of the Oxford pulpit; and for the purpose of introducing the representation of a remarkably beautiful structure of this kind, from a fine engraving by Fessard in 1710. This pulpit is larger than the pulpit of the church of England, and the other Protestant pulpits in our own country. It is a pulpit of the Romish church with a bishop preaching to a congregation of high rank. It is customary for a Roman Catholic prelate to have the ensigns of his prelacy displayed in the pulpit, and hence they are so exhibited in Fessard’s print. This, however, is by no means so large as other pulpits in Romish churches, which are of increased magnitude for the purpose of congregating the clergy, when their occupations at the altar have ceased, before the eye of the congregation; and hence it is common for many of them to sit robed, by the side of the preacher, during the sermon. French Pulpit
FROM A FINE ENGRAVING. An English lady visiting France, who had been mightily impressed by the rites of the Roman Catholic religion, revived there since the restoration of the Bourbons, was induced to attend the Protestant worship, at the chapel of the British ambassador. She says “the splendour of the Romish service, the superb dresses, the chanting, accompanied by beautiful music, the lights, and the other ceremonies, completely overpowered my mind; at last on the Sunday before I left Paris I went to our ambassador’s chapel, just to say that I had been. There was none of the pomp I had been so lately delighted with; the prevailing character of the worship was simplicity; the minister who delivered the sermon was only sufficiently elevated to be seen by the auditors; he preached to a silent and attentive congregation, whose senses had not been previously affected; his discourse was earnest, persuasive, and convincing. I began to perceive the difference between appeals to the feelings and to the understanding, and I came home a better Protestant and I hope a better Christian than when I left England.” Quarter-day. For the Every-Day Book. This is quarter-day!—what a variety of thought and feeling it calls up in the minds of thousands in this great metropolis. How many changes of abode, voluntary and involuntary, for the better and for the worse, are now destined to take place! There is the charm of novelty at least; and when the mind is disposed to be pleased, as it is when the will leads, it inclines to extract gratification from the anticipation of advantages, rather than to be disturbed by any latent doubts which time may or may not realize. Perhaps the removal is to a house of decidedly superior class to the present; and if this step is the consequence of augmented resources, it is the first indication to the world of the happy circumstance. Here, then, is an additional ground of pleasure, not very heroic indeed, but perfectly natural. Experience may have shown us that mere progression in life is not always connected with progression in happiness; and therefore, though we may smile at the simplicity which connects them in idea, yet our recollection of times past, when we ourselves indulged the delusion, precludes us from expressing feelings that we have acquired by experience. The pleasure, if from a shallow source, is at least a present benefit, and a sort of counterpoise to vexations from imaginary causes. It does not seem agreeable to contemplate retrogression; to behold a family descending from their wonted sphere, and becoming the inmates of a humbler dwelling; yet, they who have had the resolution, I may almost say the magnanimity, voluntarily to descend, may reasonably be expected again to rise. They have given proof of the possession of one quality indispensable in such an attempt—that mental decision, by which they have achieved a task, difficult, painful, and to many, impracticable. They have shown, too, their ability to form a correct estimate of the value of the world’s opinion, so far as it is influenced by external appearances, and boldly disregarding its terrors, have wisely resolved to let go that which could not be much longer held. By this determination, besides rescuing themselves from a variety of perpetually recurring embarrassments and annoyances, they have suppressed half the sneers which the malicious had in store for them, had their decline reached its expected crisis, while they have secured the approbation and kind wishes of all the good and considerate. The consciousness of this consoles them for what is past, contents them with the present, and animates their hopes for the future. Now, let us shift the scene a little, and look at quarter-day under another aspect. On this day some may quit, some may remain; all must pay—that can! Alas, that there should be some unable! I pass over the rich, whether landlord or tenant; the effects of quarter-day to them are sufficiently obvious: they feel little or no sensation on its approach or arrival, and when it is over, they feel no alteration in their accustomed necessaries and luxuries. Not so with the poor man; I mean the man who, in whatever station, feels his growing inability to meet the demands periodically and continually making on him. What a day quarter-day is to him! He sees its approach from a distance, tries to be prepared, counts his expected means of being so, finds them short of even his not very sanguine expectations, counts again, but can make no more of them; and while day after day elapses, sees his little stock diminishing. What shall he do? He perhaps knows his landlord to be inexorable; how then shall he satisfy him? Shall he borrow? Alas, of whom? Where dwell the practicers of this precept—“From him that would borrow of thee turn thou not away?” Most of the professors of the religion which enjoins this precept, construe it differently. What shall he do? something must be soon decided on. He sits down to consider. He looks about his neatly-furnished house or apartments, to see what out of his humble possessions, he can convert into money. The faithful wife of his bosom becomes of his council. There is nothing they have, which they did not purchase for some particular, and as they then thought, necessary purpose; how, then, can they spare any thing? they ruminate; they repeat the names of the various articles, they fix on nothing—there is nothing they can part with. They are about so to decide; but their recollection that external resources are now all dried up, obliges them to resume their task, and resolutely determine to do without something, however painful may be the sacrifice. Could we hear the reasons which persons thus situated assign, why this or that article should by no means be parted with, we should be enabled, in some degree, to appreciate their conflicts, and the heart-aches which precede and accompany them. In such inventories much jewellery, diamond rings, or valuable trinkets, are not to be expected. The few that there may be, are probably tokens of affection, either from some deceased relative or dear friend; or not less likely from the husband to the wife, given at their union—“when life and hope were new”—when their minds were so full of felicity, that no room was left for doubts as to its permanence; when every future scene appeared to their glowing imaginations dressed in beauty; when every scheme projected, appeared already crowned with success; when the possibility of contingencies frustrating judicious endeavours, either did not present itself to the mind, or presenting itself, was dismissed as an unwelcome guest, “not having on the wedding garment.” At such a time were those tokens presented, and they are now produced. They serve to recall moments of bliss unalloyed by cares, since become familiar. They were once valued as pledges of affection, and now, when that affection endures in full force and tenderness, they wish that those pledges had no other value than affection confers on them, that so there might be no temptation to sacrifice them to a cruel necessity. Let us, however, suppose some of them selected for disposal, and the money raised to meet the portentous day. Our troubled fellow-creatures breathe again, all dread is for the present banished; joy, temporary, but oh! how sweet after such bitterness, is diffused through their hearts, and gratitude to Providence for tranquillity, even by such means restored, is a pervading feeling. It is, perhaps, prudent at this juncture to leave them, rather than follow on to the end of the next quarter. It may be that, by superior prudence or some unexpected supply, a repetition of the same evil, or the occurrence of a greater is avoided; yet, we all know that evils of the kind in question, are too frequently followed by worse. If a family, owing to the operation of some common cause, such as a rise in the price of provisions, or a partial diminution of income from the depression of business, become embarrassed and with difficulty enabled to pay their rent; the addition of a fit of sickness, the unexpected failure of a debtor, or any other contingency of the sort, (assistance from without not being afforded,) prevents them altogether. The case is then desperate. The power which the law thus permits a landlord to exercise, is one of fearful magnitude, and is certainly admirably calculated to discover the stuff he is made of. Yet, strange as it seems, this power is often enforced in all its rigour, and the merciless enforcers lose not, apparently, a jot of reputation, nor forfeit the esteem of their intimates: so much does familiarity with an oppressive action deaden the perception of its real nature, and so apt are we to forget that owing to the imperfection of human institutions, an action may be legal and cruel at the same time! The common phrase, “So and so have had their goods seized for rent,” often uttered with indifference and heard without emotion, is a phrase pregnant with meaning of the direst import. It means that they—wife, children, and all—who last night sat in a decent room, surrounded by their own furniture, have now not a chair of their own to sit on; that they, who last night could retire to a comfortable bed, after the fatigues and anxieties of the day, have tonight not a bed to lie on—or none but what the doubtful ability or humanity of strangers or relations may supply: it means that sighs and tears are produced, where once smiles and tranquillity existed; or, perhaps, that long cherished hopes of surmounting difficulties, have by one blow been utterly destroyed,—that the stock of expedients long becoming threadbare, is at last quite worn out, and all past efforts rendered of no avail, though some for a time seemed likely to be available. It means that the hollowness of professed friends has been made manifest; that the busy tongue of detraction has found employment; that malice is rejoicing; envy is at a feast; and that the viands are the afflictions of the desolate. Landlord! ponder on these consequences ere you distrain for rent, and let your heart, rather than the law, be the guide of your conduct. The additional money you may receive by distraining may, indeed, add something to the luxuries of your table, but it can hardly fail to diminish your relish. You may, perhaps, by adopting the harsh proceeding, add down to your pillow, but trust not that your sleep will be tranquil or your dreams pleasant. Above all remember the benediction—“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy;” and inspired with the sentiment, and reflecting on the fluctuations which are every day occurring, the poor and humble raised, and the wealthy and apparently secure brought down, you will need no other incitement to fulfil the golden rule of your religion—“Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you.” Sigma.
Concerning the Feast of St. John the Baptist, an author, to whom we are obliged for recollections of preceding customs, gives us information that should be carefully perused in the old versified version:— Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne,
When bonfiers great, with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne;
And yong men round about with maides, doe daunce in every streete,
With garlands wrought of Motherwort, or else with Vervain sweete,
And many other flowres faire, with Violets in their handes,
Whereas they all do fondly thinke, that whosoever standes,
And thorow the flowres beholds the flame, his eyes shall feel no paine.
When thus till night they daunced have, they through the fire amaine,
With striving mindes doe runne, and all their hearbes they cast therein,
And then with wordes devout and prayers they solemnely begin,
Desiring God that all their ills may there consumed bee;
Whereby they thinke through all that yeare from agues to be free.
Some others get a rotten Wheele, all worne and cast aside,
Which covered round about with strawe and tow, they closely hide:
And caryed to some mountaines top, being all with fire light,
They hurle it downe with violence, when darke appears the night:
Resembling much the sunne, that from the Heavens down should fal,
A strange and monstrous sight it seemes, and fearefull to them all:
But they suppose their mischiefes all are likewise throwne to hell,
And that from harmes and daungers now, in safetie here they dwell.[186]
A very ancient “Homily” relates other particulars and superstitions relating to the bonfires on this day:— “In worshyp of Saint Johan the people waked at home, and made three maner of fyres: one was clene bones, and noo woode, and that is called a bone fyre; another is clene woode, and no bones, and that is called a wood fyre, for people to sit and wake thereby; the thirde is made of wode and bones, and it is callyd Saynt Johannys fyre. The first fyre, as a great clerke, Johan Belleth, telleth, he was in a certayne countrey, so in the countrey there was so soo greate hete, the which causid that dragons to go togyther in tokenynge, that Johan dyed in brennynge love and charyte to God and man, and they that dye in charyte shall have part of all good prayers, and they that do not, shall never be saved. Then as these dragons flewe in th’ ayre they shed down to that water froth of ther kynde, and so envenymed the waters, and caused moche people for to take theyr deth thereby, and many dyverse sykenesse. Wyse clerkes knoweth well that dragons hate nothyng more than the stenche of brennynge bones, and therefore they gaderyd as many as they mighte fynde, and brent them; and so with the stenche thereof they drove away the dragons, and so they were brought out of greete dysease. The seconde fyre was made of woode, for that wyll brenne lyght, and wyll be seen farre. For it is the chefe of fyre to be seen farre, and betokennynge that Saynt Johan was a lanterne of lyght to the people. Also the people made blases of fyre for that they shulde be seene farre, and specyally in the nyght, in token of St. Johan’s having been seen from far in the spirit by Jeremiah. The third fyre of bones betokenneth Johan’s martyrdome, for hys bones were brente.”—Brand calls this “a pleasant absurdity;” the justice of the denomination can hardly be disputed. Gebelin observes of these fires, that “they were kindled about midnight on the very moment of the summer solstice, by the greatest part as well of the ancient as of modern nations; and that this fire-lighting was a religious ceremony of the most remote antiquity, which was observed for the prosperity of states and people, and to dispel every kind of evil.” He then proceeds to remark, that “the origin of this fire, which is still retained by so many nations, though enveloped in the mist of antiquity, is very simple: it was a feu de joie, kindled the very moment the year began; for the first of all years, and the most ancient that we know of, began at this month of June. Thence the very name of this month, junior, the youngest, which is renewed; while that of the preceding one is May, major, the ancient. Thus the one was the month of young people, while the other belonged to old men. These feux de joie were accompanied at the same time with vows and sacrifices for the prosperity of the people and the fruits of the earth. They danced also round this fire; for what feast is there without a dance? and the most active leaped over it. Each on departing took away a fire-brand, great or small, and the remains were scattered to the wind, which, at the same time that it dispersed the ashes, was thought to expel every evil. When, after a long train of years, the year ceased to commence at this solstice, still the custom of making these fires at this time was continued by force of habit, and of those superstitious ideas that are annexed to it.” So far remarks Gebelin concerning the universality of the practice. Bourne, a chronicler of old customs, says, “that men and women were accustomed to gather together in the evening by the sea side, or in some certain houses, and there adorn a girl, who was her parent’s first begotten child, after the manner of a bride. Then they feasted, and leaped after the manner of bacchanals, and danced and shouted as they were wont to do on their holidays; after this they poured into a narrow-necked vessel some of the sea water, and put also into it certain things belonging to each of them; then, as if the devil gifted the girl with the faculty of telling future things, they would inquire with a loud voice about the good or evil fortune that should attend them: upon this the girl would take out of the vessel the first thing that came to hand, and show it, and give it to the owner, who, upon receiving it, was so foolish as to imagine himself wiser as to the good or evil fortune that should attend him.” “In Cornwall, particularly,” says Borlase, “the people went with lighted torches, tarred and pitched at the end, and made their perambulations round their fires.” They went “from village to village, carrying their torches before them, and this is certainly the remains of the Druid superstition.” And so in Ireland, according to sir Henry Piers, in Vallancey, “on the eves of St. John the baptist and St. Peter, they always have in every town a bonfire late in the evenings, and carry about bundles of reeds fast tied and fired; these being dry, will last long, and flame better than a torch, and be a pleasing divertive prospect to the distant beholder; a stranger would go near to imagine the whole country was on fire.” Brand cites further, from “The Survey of the South of Ireland,” that—“It is not strange that many Druid remains should still exist; but it is a little extraordinary that some of their customs should still be practised. They annually renew the sacrifices that used to be offered to Apollo, without knowing it. On Midsummer’s eve, every eminence, near which is a habitation, blazes with bonfires; and round these they carry numerous torches, shouting and dancing, which affords a beautiful sight. Though historians had not given us the mythology of the pagan Irish, and though they had not told us expressly that they worshipped Beal, or Bealin, and that this Beal was the sun, and their chief god, it might, nevertheless, be investigated from this custom, which the lapse of so many centuries has not been able to wear away.” Brand goes on to quote from the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” for February 1795, “The Irish have ever been worshippers of fire and of Baal, and are so to this day. This is owing to the Roman Catholics, who have artfully yielded to the superstitions of the natives, in order to gain and keep up an establishment, grafting christianity upon pagan rites. The chief festival in honour of the sun and fire is upon the 21st of June, when the sun arrives at the summer solstice, or rather begins its retrograde motion. I was so fortunate in the summer of 1782, as to have my curiosity gratified by a sight of this ceremony to a very great extent of country. At the house where I was entertained, it was told me that we should see at midnight the most singular sight in Ireland, which was the lighting of fires in honour of the sun. Accordingly, exactly at midnight, the fires began to appear: and taking the advantage of going up to the leads of the house, which had a widely extended view, I saw on a radius of thirty miles, all around, the fires burning on every eminence which the country afforded. I had a farther satisfaction in learning, from undoubted authority, that the people danced round the fires, and at the close went through these fires, and made their sons and daughters, together with their cattle, pass the fire; and the whole was conducted with religious solemnity.”
Mr. Brand notices, that Mr. Douce has a curious French print, entitled “L’este le Feu de la St. Jean;” Mariette ex. In the centre is the fire made of wood piled up very regularly, and having a tree stuck in the midst of it. Young men and women are represented dancing round it hand in hand. Herbs are stuck in their hats and caps, and garlands of the same surround their waists, or are slung across their shoulders. A boy is represented carrying a large bough of a tree. Several spectators are looking on. The following lines are at the bottom:— “Que de Feux brulans dans les airs!
Qu’ils font une douce harmonie!
Redoublons cette mÉlodie
Par nos dances, par nos concerts!”
This “curious French print,” furnished the engraving at page 823, or to speak more correctly, it was executed from one in the possession of the editor of the Every-Day Book.
To enliven the subject a little, we may recur to recent or existing usages at this period of the year. It may be stated then on the authority of Mr. Brand’s collections, that the Eton scholars formerly had bonfires on St. John’s day; that bonfires are still made on Midsummer eve in several villages of Gloucester, and also in the northern parts of England and in Wales; to which Mr. Brand adds, that there was one formerly at Whiteborough, a tumulus on St. Stephen’s down near Launceston, in Cornwall. A large summer pole was fixed in the centre, round which the fuel was heaped up. It had a large bush on the top of it. Round this were parties of wrestlers contending for small prizes. An honest countryman, who had often been present at these merriments, informed Mr. Brand, that at one of them an evil spirit had appeared in the shape of a black dog, since which none could wrestle, even in jest, without receiving hurt: in consequence of which the wrestling was, in a great measure, laid aside. The rustics there believe that giants are buried in these tumuli, and nothing would tempt them to be so sacrilegious as to disturb their bones. In Northumberland, it is customary on this day to dress out stools with a cushion of flowers. A layer of clay is placed on the stool, and therein is stuck, with great regularity, an arrangement of all kinds of flowers, so close as to form a beautiful cushion. These are exhibited at the doors of houses in the villages, and at the ends of streets and cross-lanes of larger towns, where the attendants beg money from passengers, to enable them to have an evening feast and dancing.[187] One of the “Cheap Repository Tracts,” entitled, “Tawney Rachel, or the Fortune-Teller,” said to have been written by Miss Hannah More, relates, among other superstitious practices of Sally Evans, that “she would never go to bed on Midsummer eve, without sticking up in her room the well-known plant called Midsummer Men, as the bending of the leaves to the right, or to the left, would never fail to tell her whether her lover was true or false.” The Midsummer Men were the orpyne plants, which Mr. Brand says is thus elegantly alluded to in the “Cottage Girl,” a poem “written on Midsummer eve, 1786:”— “The rustic maid invokes her swain;
And hails, to pensive damsels dear,
This eve, though direst of the year.
* * * * * “Oft on the shrub she casts her eye,
That spoke her true-love’s secret sigh;
Or else, alas! too plainly told
Her true-love’s faithless heart was cold.”
In the “Connoisseur,” there is mention of divinations on Midsummer eve. “I and my two sisters tried the dumb-cake together: you must know, two must make it, two bake it, two break it, and the third put it under each of their pillows, (but you must not speak a word all the time), and then you will dream of the man you are to have. This we did: and to be sure I did nothing all night but dream of Mr. Blossom. The same night, exactly at twelve o’clock, I sowed hemp-seed in our back-yard, and said to myself,—‘Hemp-seed I sow, hemp-seed I hoe, and he that is my true-love come after me and mow.’ Will you believe me? I looked back, and saw him behind me, as plain as eyes could see him. After that, I took a clean shift and wetted it, and turned it wrong-side out, and hung it to the fire upon the back of a chair; and very likely my sweetheart would have come and turned it right again, (for I heard his step) but I was frightened, and could not help speaking, which broke the charm. I likewise stuck up two Midsummer Men, one for myself and one for him. Now if his had died away, we should never have come together, but I assure you his blowed and turned to mine. Our maid Betty tells me, that if I go backwards, without speaking a word, into the garden upon Midsummer eve, and gather a rose, and keep it in a clean sheet of paper, without looking at it till Christmas-day, it will be as fresh as in June; and if I then stick it in my bosom, he that is to be my husband will come and take it out. My own sister Hetty, who died just before Christmas, stood in the church porch last Midsummer eve, to see all that were to die that year in our parish; and she saw her own apparition.” Gay, in one of his pastorals, says— At eve last Midsummer no sleep I sought,
But to the field a bag of hemp-seed brought:
I scattered round the seed on every side,
And three times, in a trembling accent cried:—
“This hemp-seed with my virgin hand I sow,
Who shall my true love be, the crop shall mow.”
I straight looked back, and, if my eyes speak truth,
With his keen scythe behind me came the youth.
It is also a popular superstition that any unmarried woman fasting on Midsummer eve, and at midnight laying a clean cloth, with bread, cheese, and ale, and sitting down as if going to eat, the street-door being left open, the person whom she is afterwards to marry will come into the room and drink to her by bowing; and after filling the glass will leave it on the table, and, making another bow, retire.[188] So also the ignorant believe that any person fasting on Midsummer eve, and sitting in the church porch, will, at midnight, see the spirits of the persons of that parish who will die that year, come and knock at the church door, in the order and succession in which they will die. In the “Cottage Girl,” before referred to, the gathering the rose on Midsummer eve and wearing it, is noticed as one of the modes by which a lass seeks to divine the sincerity of her suitor’s vows:— The moss-rose that, at fall of dew,
(Ere Eve its duskier curtain drew,)
Was freshly gather’d from its stem,
She values as the ruby gem;
And, guarded from the piercing air,
With all an anxious lover’s care,
She bids it, for her shepherd’s sake,
Await the new-year’s frolic wake—
When, faded, in its alter’d hue
She reads—the rustic is untrue!
But, if it leaves the crimson paint,
Her sick’ning hopes no longer faint.
The rose upon her bosom worn,
She meets him at the peep of morn;
And lo! her lips with kisses prest,
He plucks it from her panting breast.
In “Time’s Telescope,” there is cited the following literal version of a beautiful ballad which has been sung for many centuries by the maidens, on the banks of the Guadalquivir in Spain, when they go forth to gather flowers on the morning of the festival of St John the baptist:— Spanish Ballad. Come forth, come forth, my maidens, ’tis the day of good St. John,
It is the Baptist’s morning that breaks the hills upon;
And let us all go forth together, while the blessed day is new,
To dress with flowers the snow-white wether, ere the sun has dried the dew.
Come forth, come forth, &c.
Come forth, come forth, my maidens, the hedgerows all are green,
And the little birds are singing the opening leaves between;
And let us all go forth together, to gather trefoil by the stream,
Ere the face of Guadalquivir glows beneath the strengthening beam.
Come, forth, come forth, &c.
Come forth, come forth, my maidens, and slumber not away
The blessed, blessed morning of John the Baptist’s day;
There’s trefoil on the meadow, and lilies on the lee,
And hawthorn blossoms on the bush, which you must pluck with me.
Come forth, come forth, &c.
Come forth, come forth, my maidens, the air is calm and cool,
And the violet blue far down ye’ll view, reflected in the pool;
The violets and the roses, and the jasmines all together,
We’ll bind in garlands on the brow of the strong and lovely wether.
Come forth, come forth, &c.
Come forth, come forth, my maidens, we’ll gather myrtle boughs,
And we all shall learn, from the dews of the fern, if our lads will keep their vows
If the wether be still, as we dance on the hill, and the dew hangs sweet on the flowers,
Then we’ll kiss off the dew, for our lovers are true, and the Baptist’s blessing is ours.
Come forth, come forth, &c.
Come forth, come forth, my maidens, ’tis the day of good St. John,
It is the Baptist’s morning that breaks the hills upon;
And let us all go forth together, while the blessed day is new,
To dress with flowers the snow-white wether, ere the sun has dried the dew.
Come forth, come forth, &c.
There are too many obvious traces of the fact to doubt its truth, that the making of bonfires, and the leaping through them, are vestiges of the ancient worship of the heathen god Bal; and therefore, it is, with propriety, that the editor of “Times’s Telescope,” adduces a recent occurrence from Hitchin’s “History of Cornwall,” as a probable remnant of pagan superstition in that county. He presumes that the vulgar notion which gave rise to it, was derived from the druidical sacrifices of beasts. “An ignorant old farmer in Cornwall, having met with some severe losses in his cattle, about the year 1800, was much afflicted with his misfortunes. To stop the growing evil, he applied to the farriers in his neighbourhood, but unfortunately he applied in vain. The malady still continuing, and all remedies failing, he thought it necessary to have recourse to some extraordinary measure. Accordingly, on consulting with some of his neighbours, equally ignorant with himself, and evidently not less barbarous, they recalled to their recollections a tale, which tradition had handed down from remote antiquity, that the calamity would not cease until he had actually burned alive the finest calf which he had upon his farm; but that, when this sacrifice was made, the murrain would afflict his cattle no more. The old farmer, influenced by this counsel, resolved immediately on reducing it to practice; that, by making the detestable experiment, he might secure an advantage, which the whisperers of tradition, and the advice of his neighbours, had conspired to assure him would follow. He accordingly called several of his friends together, on an appointed day, and having lighted a large fire, brought forth his best calf; and, without ceremony or remorse, pushed it into the flames. The innocent victim, on feeling the intolerable heat, endeavoured to escape; but this was in vain. The barbarians that surrounded the fire were armed with pitchforks, or pikes, as in Cornwall they are generally called; and, as the burning victim endeavoured to escape from death, with these instruments of cruelty the wretches pushed back the tortured animal into the flames. In this state, amidst the wounds of pitchforks, the shouts of unfeeling ignorance and cruelty, and the corrosion of flames, the dying victim poured out its expiring groan, and was consumed to ashes. It is scarcely possible to reflect on this instance of superstitious barbarity, without tracing a kind of resemblance between it, and the ancient sacrifices of the Druids. This calf was sacrificed to fortune, or good luck, to avert impending calamity, and to ensure future prosperity, and was selected by the farmer as the finest among his herd.” Every intelligent native of Cornwall will perceive, that this extract from the history of his county, is here made for the purpose of shaming the brutally ignorant, if it be possible, into humanity. To conclude the present notices rather pleasantly, a little poem is subjoined, which shows that the superstition respecting the St. John’s wort is not confined to England; it is a version of some lines transcribed from a German almanac:— The St. John’s Wort. The young maid stole through the cottage door,
And blushed as she sought the plant of pow’r;—
“Thou silver glow-worm, O lend me thy light,
I must gather the mystic St. John’s-wort to-night.
The wonderful herb, whose leaf will decide
If the coming year shall make me a bride.”
And the glow-worm came
With its silvery flame,
And sparkled and shone
Thro’ the night of St. John,
And soon has the young maid her love-knot tied.
With noiseless tread
To her chamber she sped,
Where the spectral moon her white beams shed:—
“Bloom here—bloom here, thou plant of pow’r,
To deck the young bride in her bridal hour!”
But it drooped its head that plant of power,
And died the mute death of the voiceless flower
And a withered wreath on the ground it lay,
More meet for a burial than bridal day.
And when a year was past away,
All pale on her bier the young maid lay
And the glow-worm came
With its silvery flame,
And sparkled and shone
Thro’ the night of St. John,
And they closed the cold grave o’er the maid’s cold clay.
It would be easy, and perhaps more agreeable to the editor than to his readers, to accumulate many other notices concerning the usages on this day; let it suffice, however, that we know enough to be assured, that knowledge is engendering good sense, and that the superstitions of our ancestors will in no long time have passed away for ever. Be it the business of their posterity to hasten their decay.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. St. John’s Wort. Hypericum Pulchrum.
Nativity of St. John.
June 25. St. Prosper, A. D. 463. St. Maximus, Bp. A. D. 465. St. William of Monte-Vergine, A. D. 1142. St. Adelbert, A. D. 740. St. Moloc, Bp. 7th Cent. Sts. Agoard and Aglibert, A. D. 400. Chronology. 1314. The battle of Bannockburn which secured the independence of Scotland, and fixed Robert Bruce on the throne of that kingdom, was fought on this day between the Scots under that chieftain, and the English under Edward II. Franking of Newspapers. By a recent regulation it is not necessary to put the name of a member of either house of parliament on the cover; the address of the party to whom it is sent, with the ends of the paper left open as usual, will be sufficient to ensure its delivery. This is a praiseworthy accommodation to common sense. The old fiction was almost universally known to be one, and yet it is only a few years ago, that a member of parliament received a humble letter of apology, coupled with a request from one of his constituents, that he might be allowed to use the name of his representative in directing a newspaper. To the ingenuous, pretences seem realities.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Sweet Williams. Dianthus barbatus.
Dedicated to St. William.
June 26. St. John and Paul, Martyrs about A. D. 362. St. Maxentius, Abbot, A. D. 515. St. Vigilius, Bp. A. D. 400, or 405. St. Babolen. St. Anthelm, Bp. of Bellay, A. D. 1178. Raingarda, Widow, A. D. 1135.
Chronology. On the 26th of June, 1541, Francis Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, was assassinated. He was born at Truxillo, in Spain; his birth was illegitimate, and in his youth he was a keeper of hogs. Becoming a soldier, he went to America, and settled at Punama, where he projected the prosecution of discoveries to the eastward of that settlement. By means of an expedition, which he solicited, and was intrusted to command from the court of Spain, he entered Peru when the empire was divided by a civil war between Huascar the legitimate monarch, and Atahualpa his half brother. Pretending succour to Atahualpa, he was permitted to penetrate twelve days’ journey into the country, and received as an ally by Atahualpa, whose confidence he rewarded by suddenly attacking him, and making him prisoner. The exaction of an immense ransom for this king’s release; the shameful breach of faith, by which he was held in captivity after his ransom was paid; his brutal murder under the infamous mockery of a trial; the horrible frauds by which he was inveigled to die in the profession of the christian faith, without being able to comprehend its tenets; and the superaddition of other acts of perfidy and cruelty, will render the name of Pizarro infamous so long as it exists. His assassination was effected by the friends of Almagro, his original associate, with whom he had quarelled, and whom he caused to be executed when he got him into his power. Copenhagen-house In olden times, so high a rise
Was, perhaps, a Tor or beacon ground
And lit, or ’larm’d, the country round,
For pleasure, or against surprise
There is a cobler’s stall in London that I go out of my way to look at whenever I pass its vicinity, because it was the seat of an honest old man who patched my shoes and my mind, when I was a boy. I involuntarily reverence the spot; and if I find myself in Red Lion-square, I, with a like affection, look between the iron railings of its enclosure, because, at the same age, from my mother’s window, I watched the taking down of the obelisk, stone by stone, that stood in the centre, and impatiently awaited the discovery of the body of Oliver Cromwell, which, according to local legend, was certainly buried there in secrecy by night. It is true that Oliver’s bones were not found; but then “every body” believed that “the workmen did not dig deep enough.” Among these believers was my friend, the cobbler, who, though no metaphysician, was given to ruminate on “causation.” He imputed the nonpersistence of the diggers to “private reasons of state,” which his awfully mysterious look imported he had fathomed, but dared not reveal. From ignorance of wisdom, I venerated the wisdom of ignorance; and though I now know better, I respect the old man’s memory. He allowed me, though a child, to sit on the frame of his little pushed-back window; and I obtained so much of his good-will and confidence, that he lent me a folio of fragments from Caxton’s “Polychronicon,” and Pynson’s “Shepherd’s Kalendar,” which he kept in the drawer of his seat, with “St. Hugh’s bones,” the instruments of his “gentle craft.” This black-letter lore, with its wood-cuts, created in me a desire to be acquainted with our old authors, and a love for engravings, which I have indulged without satiety. It is impossible that I should be without fond recollections of the spots wherein I received these early impressions. From still earlier impressions, I have like recollection of the meadows on the Highgate side of Copenhagen-house. I often rambled in them in summer-time, when I was a boy, to frolic in the new-mown hay, or explore the wonders of the hedges, and listen to the songs of the birds. Certain indistinct apprehensions of danger arose in me from the rude noises of the visitors at Copenhagen-house itself, and I scarcely ventured near enough to observe more than that it had drinking-benches outside, and boisterous company within. I first entered the place in the present month of June, 1825, and the few particulars I could collect concerning it, as an old place of public entertainment, may be acceptable to many who recollect its former notoriety. Speculators are building up to it, and if they continue with their present speed, it will in a few years be hidden by their operations.
Copenhagen-house stands alone in the fields north of the metropolis, between Maiden-lane, the old road to Highgate on the west, and the very ancient north road, or bridle-way, called Hagbush-lane, on the east; on this latter side it is nearly in a line with Cornwall-place, Holloway. Its name is said to have been derived from a Danish prince, or a Danish ambassador, having resided in it during a great plague in London; another representation is, that in the beginning of the seventeenth century, it was opened under its present name by a Dane, as a place of resort for his countrymen. “Coopen-Hagen” is the name given to it in the map in Camden’s “Britannia,” published in 1695.[189] It is situated in the parish of Islington, in the manor of St. John of Jerusalem, in the rental of which manor, dated the 25th of February, 1624, its name does not occur;[190] it is therefore probable from thence, and from the appearance of the oldest part of the present edifice, that it was not then built.
It is certain that Copenhagen-house has been licensed for the sale of beer, and wine, and spirits, upwards of a century; and for such refreshments, and as a tea-house, with a garden and grounds for skittles and Dutch pins, it has been greatly resorted to by Londoners. No house of the kind commands so extensive and uninterrupted a view of the metropolis and the immense western suburb, with the heights of Hampstead and Highgate, and the rich intervening meadows. Those nearest to London are now rapidly destroying for their brick-earth, and being covered with houses; though from Copenhagen-street, which is built on the green lane from White Conduit-house, there is a way to the footpath leading to Copenhagen-house, from the row of handsome cottages called Barnesbury-park. The latter buildings are in the manor of Berners, or Bernersbury, otherwise Barnesbury; the name being derived from the Berners’ family,[191] of whom the most distinguished individual was John Bourchier, the last lord Berners, and “the fifth writer in order of time among the nobility.” He was author of “a comedy usually acted in the great church of Calais after vespers,” of which town he held the command by appointment of king Henry VIII.;[192] he also translated several works, and particularly “Froissart’s Cronycles, oute of Frenche into our maternale Englysshe tongue.” West of Barnesbury-park, and close to the footpath from thence to Copenhagen-house, are the supposed remains of a Roman encampment. It is a square of about one hundred and twenty feet, surrounded by a ditch, with a high embankment or breast work to the west. This is presumed to have been a position occupied by Suetonius, the Roman general, when he destroyed eighty thousand of the Britons under Boadicea, in a memorable engagement presumed to have been fought from this place in the fields of Pentonville, and terminating in the plain at Battle-bridge, from whence that place is said to have been so named.
From Battle-bridge up Maiden-lane, and from Barnesbury-park, there are still footways to Copenhagen-house, which, from standing alone on an eminence, is visible from every open spot for many miles round. To the original edifice is attached a building at the west end, with a large parlour below for drinking and smoking, and beyond it is a billiard-room; above is a large tea-room. The engraving represents its present appearance, from a drawing made for that purpose. About the year 1770, this house was kept by a person named Harrington; at his decease the business was continued by his widow, wherein she was assisted for several years by a young woman who came from Shropshire. This female assistant afterwards married a person named Tomes, and kept the Adam and Eve at Islington; she is now a widow; and from her information the editor of the Every-Day Book gathers, that at the time of the London riots in the year 1780, a body of the rioters passed Copenhagen-house on their way to attack the seat of lord Mansfield, at Caen-wood: happily, they did not sack Copenhagen; but Mrs. Harrington and her maid were so alarmed, that they despatched a man to justice Hyde, who sent a party of soldiers to garrison this important place, where they remained till the riots were quelled. From this spot the view of the nightly conflagrations in the metropolis must have been terrific. Mrs. Tomes says, she saw nine large fires at one time. On new-year’s day previous to this, the house was broken into after the family had retired to rest. The burglars forced the kitchen window, and mistaking the salt-box in the chimney corner for a man’s head, fired a ball through it. They then ran up stairs with a dark-lantern, tied the man and the woman servant, burst the lower pannel of Mrs. Harrington’s room-door, while she secreted fifty pounds between her bed and the mattress, and three of them rushed to her bedside, armed with a cutlass, crowbar, and pistol, while a fourth remained on the watch outside. They demanded her money; and as she denied that she had any, they wrenched her drawers open with the crowbar, refusing to use the keys she offered to them. In these they found about ten pounds belonging to her daughter, a little child, whom they threatened to murder unless she ceased crying, while they packed up all the plate, linen, and clothes, which they carried off. They then went to the cellar, set all the ale-barrels running, broke the necks off the wine-bottles, spilt the other liquors, and slashed a round of beef with their cutlasses. From this wanton spoil they reserved sufficient to carouse with in the kitchen, where they ate, drank, and sung, till they resolved to “pinch the old woman, and make her find more money.” On this, they all ran up stairs again, where she still lay in bed, and by their threats and violence soon obtained from her a disclosure of the hidden fifty pounds. This rather appeared to enrage than pacify them, and they seriously proposed cutting her throat for the deception; but that crime was not perpetrated, and they departed with their plunder. Rewards were offered, by government and the parish of Islington, for the apprehension of the felons: in May following, one of them, named Clarkson, was discovered, and hopes of mercy tendered to him if he would discover his accomplices. This man was a watch-maker in Clerkenwell, the other three were tradesmen; his information led to their discovery; they were tried and executed, and Clarkson was pardoned; though, some time afterwards, he, also, suffered death, for obtaining a box of plate from the White-horse, in Fetter-lane, upon pretence that it had been sent thither by mistake. The robbery at Copenhagen-house, was so far fortunate to Mrs. Harrington, that she obtained a subscription considerably more in amount than the value of the money and property she had lost. Mr. Leader, the coachmaker, in Long-acre, who was her landlord, remitted to her a year’s rent of the premises, which at that time was 30l. The notoriety of the robbery increased the visitors to the house, and Mr. Leader built the additional rooms to the old house, instead of a wooden room, to accommodate the new influx of custom; and soon afterwards the house was celebrated for fives-playing. This last addition was almost accidental. “I made the first fives-ball,” says Mrs. Tomes, “that was ever thrown up against Copenhagen-house. One Hickman, a butcher at Highgate, a countryman of mine, ‘used’ the house, and seeing me ‘country,’ we talked about our country sports, and amongst the rest fives; I told him we’d have a game some day: I laid down the stone in the ground myself, and, against he came again, made a ball. I struck the ball the first blow and he gave it the second, and so we played; and as there was company they liked the sport, and it got talked of. This was the beginning of the fives-play, which has since become so famous at Copenhagen-house.”
A word or two on ball-play. Fives was our old hand-tennis, and is a very ancient game. In the fourteenth century there was a game at ball, where a line, called the cord, was traced upon the wall, below which the stroke was faulty. Some of the players were on foot; others had the two hands tied together, or played in a hollow cask.[193] Hand-ball was before the days of Homer. He introduces the princess Corcyra, daughter of Alcinous, king of Phoeacia, amusing herself, with her maidens, at hand-ball:— It is related of St. Cuthbert, who lived in the seventh century, that “whan he was viii yere old, as he played at the ball with other chyldren, sodeynly there stode amonge them a fayre yonge chylde,” who admonished Cuthbert against “vayne playes,” and seeing Cuthbert take no heed, he fell down, wept sore and wrung his hands; “and than Cuthbert and the other chyldren lefte their playe and comforted hym; and than sodeynly he vanyshed away; and than he knewe veryly that it was an angel; and, fro than forth on, he lefte all such vayne playes, and never used them more.”[195] Ball-play was formerly played at Easter in churches, and statutes passed to regulate the size of the ball. The ceremony was as follows: the ball being received, the dean, or his representative, began an antiphone, or chant, suited to Easter-day; then taking the ball in his left hand, he commenced a dance to the tune, others of the clergy dancing round, hand in hand. At intervals the ball was handed or tossed by the dean to each of the choristers, the organ playing according to the dance and sport: at the conclusion of the anthem and dance, they went and took refreshment. It was the privilege of the lord, or his locum tenens, to throw the ball, and even the archbishop did it.[196] The French palm-play consisted in receiving the ball and driving it back again with the palm of the hand. Anciently they played with the naked hand, then with a glove, which, in some instances, was lined; afterwards they bound cords and tendons round their hands, to make the ball rebound more forcibly; and hence, says St. Foix, the racket derived its origin. In the reign of Charles V., palm-play, which, Strutt says, may properly enough be denominated hand-tennis, or fives, was exceedingly fashionable in France, being played by the nobility for large sums of money; and when they had lost all that they had about them, they would sometimes pledge a part of their wearing apparel rather than give up the game. The duke of Bourbon having lost sixty francs at palm-play with M. William de Lyon, and M. Guy de la Trimouille, and not having money enough to pay them, gave his girdle as a pledge for the remainder. A damsel, named Margot, who resided at Paris in 1424, played at hand-tennis with the palm, and also with the back of her hand, better than any man; and what is most surprising, says St. Foix, at that time the game was played with the naked hand, or at least with a double glove. Hand-tennis still continues to be played, though under a different name, and probably a different modification of the game: it is now called fives, which denomination, perhaps, it might receive from having five competitors in it, as the succeeding passage shews: When queen Elizabeth was entertained at Elvetham, in Hampshire, by the earl of Hertford, “after dinner about three o’clock, ten of his lordship’s servants, all Somersetshire men, in a square greene court before her majesties windowe, did hang up lines, squaring out the forme of a tennis court, and making a cross line in the middle; in this square they, being stripped out of their dublets, played five to five with hand-ball at bord and cord as they tearme it, to the great liking of her highness.”[197]
Fives-playing at Copenhagen-house, is recorded in a memoir of Cavanagh, the famous fives-player, by Mr. Hazlitt. It first appeared in the Examiner of February 17, 1819, and is subjoined, with the omission of a passage or two, not essentially connected with the subject. DEATH OF JOHN CAVANAGH. ——“And is old Double dead? See, see, he drew a good bow; and dead! he shot a fine shoot. John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead! he would have clapt in the clout at twelve score, and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a man’s heart good to see.” Died at his house in Burbage-street, St. Giles’s, John Cavanagh, the famous hand fives-player. When a person dies, who does any one thing better than any one else in the world, which so many others are trying to do well, it leaves a gap in society. It is not likely that any one will now see the game of fives played in its perfection for many years to come—for Cavanagh is dead, and has not left his peer behind him. It may be said that there are things of more importance than striking a ball against a wall—there are things indeed that make more noise and do as little good, such as making war and peace, making speeches and answering them, making verses and blotting them, making money and throwing it away. But the game of fives is what no one despises who has ever played at it. It is the finest exercise for the body, and the best relaxation for the mind. The Roman poet said that “Care mounted behind the horseman, and stuck to his skirts.” But this remark would not have applied to the fives-player. He who takes to playing at fives is twice young. He feels neither the past nor future “in the instant.” Debts, taxes, “domestic treason, foreign levy, nothing can touch him further.” He has no other wish, no other thought, from the moment the game begins, but that of striking the ball, of placing it, of making it! This Cavanagh was sure to do. Whenever he touched the ball, there was an end of the chase. His eye was certain, his hand fatal, his presence of mind complete. He could do what he pleased, and he always knew exactly what to do. He saw the whole game, and played it; took instant advantage of his adversary’s weakness, and recovered balls, as if by a miracle and from sudden thought, that every one gave for lost. He had equal power and skill, quickness and judgment. He could either outwit his antagonist by finesse, or beat him by main strength. Sometimes, when he seemed preparing to send the ball with the full swing of his arm, he would, by a slight turn of his wrist, drop it within an inch of the line. In general, the ball came from his hand, as if from a racket, in a strait horizontal line; so that it was in vain to attempt to overtake or stop it. As it was said of a great orator, that he never was at a loss for a word, and for the properest word, so Cavanagh always could tell the degree of force necessary to be given to a ball, and the precise direction in which it should be sent. He did his work with the greatest ease; never took more pains than was necessary, and while others were fagging themselves to death, was as cool and collected as if he had just entered the court. His style of play was as remarkable as his power of execution. He had no affectation, no trifling. He did not throw away the game to show off an attitude, or try an experiment. He was a fine, sensible, manly player, who did what he could, but that was more than any one else could even affect to do. He was the best up-hill player in the world; even when his adversary was fourteen, he would play on the same or better, and as he never flung away the game through carelessness and conceit, he never gave it up through laziness or want of heart. The only peculiarity of his play was that he never volleyed, but let the balls hop; but if they rose an inch from the ground, he never missed having them. There was not only no body equal, but nobody second to him. It is supposed that he could give any other player half the game, or beat them with his left hand. His service was tremendous. He once played Woodward and Meredith together (two of the best players in England) in the Fives-court, St. Martin’s-street, and made seven and twenty aces following by services alone—a thing unheard of. He another time played Peru, who was considered a first-rate fives-player, a match of the best out of five games, and in the three first games, which of course decided the match, Peru got only one ace. Cavanagh was an Irishman by birth, and a house-painter by profession. He had once laid aside his working-dress, and walked up, in his smartest clothes, to the Rosemary Branch to have an afternoon’s pleasure. A person accosted him, and asked him if he would have a game. So they agreed to play for half-a-crown a game, and a bottle of cider. The first game began—it was seven, eight, ten, thirteen, fourteen, all. Cavanagh won it. The next was the same. They played on and each game was hardly contested. “There,” said the unconscious fives-player, “there was a stroke that Cavanagh could not take: I never played better in my life, and yet I can’t win a game. I don’t know how it is.” However, they played on, Cavanagh winning every game, and the bye-standers drinking the cider and laughing all the time. In the twelfth game, when Cavanagh was only four, and the stranger thirteen, a person came in, and said, “What are you here, Cavanagh!” The words were no sooner pronounced than the astonished player let the ball drop from his hand, and saying, “What! have I been breaking my heart all this time to beat Cavanagh?” refused to make another effort. “And yet, I give you my word,” said Cavanagh, telling the story with some triumph, “I played all the while with my clenched fist.” He used frequently to play matches at Copenhagen-house for wagers and dinners. The wall against which they play is the same that supports the kitchen-chimney, and when the wall resounded louder than usual, the cooks exclaimed, “Those are the Irishman’s balls,” and the joints trembled on the spit! Goldsmith consoled himself that there were places where he too was admired: and Cavanagh was the admiration of all the fives-courts where he ever played. Mr. Powell, when he played matches in the court in St. Martin’s-street, used to fill his gallery at half-a-crown a head, with amateurs and admirers of talent in whatever department it is shown. He could not have shown himself in any ground in England, but he would have been immediately surrounded with inquisitive gazers, trying to find out in what part of his frame his unrivalled skill lay. He was a young fellow of sense, humour, and courage. He once had a quarrel with a waterman at Hungerford-stairs, and they say, “served him out” in great style. In a word, there are hundreds at this day, who cannot mention his name without admiration, as the best fives-player that perhaps ever lived (the greatest excellence of which they have any notion)—and the noisy shout of the ring happily stood him instead of the unheard voice of posterity. The only person who seems to have excelled as much in another way as Cavanagh did in his, was the late John Davies, the racket-player. It was remarked of him that he did not seem to follow the ball, but the ball seemed to follow him. Give him a foot of wall, and he was sure to make the ball. The four best racket-players of that day were Jack Spines, Jem Harding, Armitage, and Church. Davies could give any one of these two hands a time, that is, half the game, and each of these at their best, could give the best player now in London the same odds. Such are the gradations in all exertions of human skill and art. He once played four capital players together, and beat them. He was also a first-rate tennis-player, and an excellent fives-player. In the Fleet or King’s Bench, he would have stood against Powell, who was reckoned the best open-ground player of his time. This last-mentioned player is at present the keeper of the Fives-court, and we might recommend to him for a motto over his door,—“Who enters here, forgets himself, his country, and his friends.” And the best of it is, that by the calculation of the odds, none of the three are worth remembering! Cavanagh died from the bursting of a blood-vessel, which prevented him from playing for the last two or three years. This, he was often heard to say, he thought hard upon him. He was fast recovering, however, when he was suddenly carried off to the regret of all who knew him. Jack Cavanagh was a zealous Catholic, and could not be persuaded to eat meat on a Friday, the day on which he died. We have paid this willing tribute to his memory. “Let no rude hand deface it,
And his forlorn ‘Hic Jacet.’”
Fives-play from the year 1780 was a chief diversion at Copenhagen-house, particularly while Mrs. Harrington remained the landlady. She was careless of all customers, except they came in shoals to drink tea in the gardens and long room up stairs, or to play at fives, skittles, and Dutch pins, and swill and smoke. The house was afterwards kept by a person named Orchard, during whose time the London Corresponding Society, in 1795, held meetings in the adjacent fields.[198] In 1812, it was proposed by a company of projectors to bring sea-water through iron pipes “from the coast of Essex to Copenhagen fields,” and construct baths, which, according to the proposals, would yield twelve and a half per cent. on a capital of 200,000l.; but the subscription was not filled up, though the names of several eminent physicians sanctioned the undertaking, and the project failed.[199] After Orchard’s tenancy, Copenhagen-house was kept by one Tooth, who encouraged brutal sports for the sake of the liquors he sold. On a Sunday morning the fives-ground was filled by bull-dogs and ruffians, who lounged and drank to intoxication; so many as fifty or sixty bull-dogs have been seen tied up to the benches at once, while their masters boozed and made match after match, and went out and fought their dogs before the house, amid the uproar of idlers attracted to the “bad eminence” by its infamy. This scene lasted throughout every Sunday forenoon, and then the mob dispersed, and the vicinity was annoyed by the yells of the dogs and their drunken masters on their return home. There was also a common field, east of the house, wherein bulls were baited; this was called the bull-field. These excesses, although committed at a distance from other habitations, occasioned so much disturbance, that the magistrates, after repeated warnings to Tooth, refused him a license in 1816, and granted it to Mr. Bath, the present landlord, who abated the nuisance by refusing to draw beer or afford refreshment to any one who had a bull-dog at his heels. The bull-field has since been possessed and occupied by a great cow-keeping landlord in the neighbourhood, though by what title he holds it is not known, certainly not by admission to it as waste of the manor. This field is close to the mud cottage hereafter mentioned in Hagbush-lane, an ancient way to Highgate-hill.
Near the spot at which Hagbush-lane comes out into the Holloway-road to Highgate, the great lord Bacon met with the cause of his death, in a way not generally known. He was taking an airing in his coach, on a winter-day, with Dr. Witherborne, a Scotchman, physician to James I., and the snow laying on the ground. It occurred to lord Bacon that flesh might be preserved in snow as well as in salt; resolving to try the experiment, they alighted from the carriage, and going into a poor woman’s cottage at the foot of Highgate-hill, they bought a hen; his lordship helped to stuff the body with snow, which so chilled him that he fell ill, and could not return to his lodgings; he therefore went to the earl of Arundel’s house at Highgate, where a bed was warmed for him with a pan of coals; but the bed not having been lain in for about a year before was damp, and so increased his disorder that in two or three days he died.
It is not to defame so great a man, the greatest of modern times, but merely to illustrate his well-known attachment to particular favourites, that a paper is here for the first time printed. It is a bill of fees to counsel, upon an order made in the court of chancery by lord Bacon, as keeper of the great seal, during the first year he held it. From this it appears that counsel had been retained to argue a demurrer, on the first day of Michaelmas term, 1617; and that the hearing stood over till the following Tuesday, before which day “one of my lord-keeper’s favourites” was retained as other counsel, and, “being one of my lord-keeper’s favourites,” had a double fee for his services. The mention of so extraordinary a fact in a common bill of costs may perhaps justify its rather out-of-the-way introduction in this place. The paper from whence it is here printed, the editor of the Every-Day Book has selected from among other old unpublished manuscripts in his possession, connected with the affairs of sir Philip Hoby, who was ambassador to the emperor of Germany from Henry VIII., and held other offices during that reign. | (COPY.) | | Termino Micalis, 1617. | | To Mr. Bagger of the Iner-Temple, Councellor, the firste day of the Tearme, for attending at the Chancery barr, to mayntain or. demurrer against Sr. Tho. Hoby, by my Lo: Keeper’s order, that daye to attend the Corte, wch. herd noe motions that daye, but deferd it of until Tusday following | xxii. s. | | Uppon Tusdaye following wee had yonge Mr. Tho: Finch, and Mr. Bagger, of our Councell, to attend there to mayntaine the same demurrer, and the cause be cancelled; Upon (which) my Lo: Keeper ordered, that he refferred the cause to be heard before Sr. Charles CesÉr King, one of the docters of the Chancery, to make a reporte unto his Lo: of the Cause, that his Lo: might better consider, whether the demurrer should stand good, or noe:—Mr. Tho: Finch his fee, being one of my Lo: favourites, had | 44s. | | Mr. Bager his Fee | 22s. |
At Copenhagen-house, the eye and the stomach may be satisfied together. A walk to it through the fresh air creates an appetite, and the sight must be allowed some time to take in the surrounding prospect. A seat for an hour or two at the upstairs tea-room windows on a fine day is a luxury. As the clouds intercept the sun’s rays, and as the winds disperse or congregate the London atmosphere, the appearance of the objects it hovers over continually varies. Masses of building in that direction daily stretch out further and further across the fields, so that the metropolis may be imagined a moving billow coming up the heights to drown the country. Behind the house the “Hedge-row elms, o’er hillocks green,”
is exquisitely beautiful, and the fine amphitheatre of wood, from Primrose-hill to Highgate-archway and Hornsey, seems built up to meet the skies. A stroll towards either of these places from Copenhagen-house, is pleasant beyond imagination. Many residents in London to whom walking would be eminently serviceable, cannot “take a walk” without a motive; to such is recommended the “delightful task” of endeavouring to trace Hagbush-lane. Crossing the meadow west of Copenhagen-house, to the north-east corner, there is a mud built cottage in the widest part of Hagbush-lane, as it runs due north from the angle formed by its eastern direction. It stands on the site of one still more rude, at which until destroyed, labouring men and humble wayfarers, attracted by the sequestered and rural beauties of the lane, stopped to recreate. It was just such a scene as Morland would have coveted to sketch, and therefore Mr. Fussell with “an eye for the picturesque,” and with a taste akin to Morland’s, made a drawing of it while it was standing, and placed it on the wood whereon it is engraven, to adorn the next page. Cottage formerly in Hagbush-lane. Cottage formerly in Hagbush-lane.
“Why this cottage, sir, not three miles from London, is as secluded as if it were in the weald of Kent.” This cottage stands no longer: its history is in the “simple annals of the poor.” About seven years ago, an aged and almost decayed labouring man, a native of Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, with his wife and child, lay out every night upon the road side of Hagbush-lane, under what of bough and branch they could creep for shelter, till “winter’s cold” came on, and then he erected this “mud edifice.” He had worked for some great land-holders and owners in Islington, and still jobbed about. Like them, he was, to this extent of building, a speculator; and to eke out his insufficient means, he profited, in his humble abode, by the sale of small beer to stragglers and rustic wayfarers. His cottage stood between the lands of two rich men; not upon the land of either, but partly on the disused road, and partly on the waste of the manor. Deeming him by no means a respectable neighbour for their cattle, they “warned him off;” he, not choosing to be houseless, nor conceiving that their domains could be injured by his little enclosure between the banks of the road, refused to accept this notice, and he remained. For this offence, one of them caused his labourers to level the miserable dwelling to the earth, and the “houseless child of want,” was compelled by this wanton act to apply for his family and himself to be taken into the workhouse. His application was refused, but he received advice to build again, with information that his disturber was not justified in disturbing him. In vain he pleaded incompetent power to resist; the workhouse was shut against him, and he began to build another hut. He had proceeded so far as to keep off the weather in one direction, when wealth again made war upon poverty, and while away from his wife and child, his scarcely half raised hut was pulled down during a heavy rain, and his wife and child left in the lane shelterless. A second application for a home in the workhouse was rejected, with still stronger assurances that he had been illegally disturbed, and with renewed advice to build again. The old man has built for the third time; and on the site of the cottage represented in the engraving, erected another, wherein he dwells, and sells his small beer to people who choose to sit and drink it on the turf seat against the wall of his cottage; it is chiefly in request, however, among the brickmakers in the neighbourhood, and the labourers on the new road, cutting across Hagbush-lane from Holloway to the Kentish-town road, which will ultimately connect the Regent’s-park and the western suburb, with the eastern extremity of this immensely growing metropolis. Though immediately contiguous to Mr. Bath, the landlord of “Copenhagen-house,” he has no way assisted in obstructing this poor creature’s endeavour to get a morsel of bread. For the present he remains unmolested in his almost sequestered nook, and the place and himself are worth seeing, for they are perhaps the nearest specimens to London, of the old country labourer and his dwelling.
From the many intelligent persons a stroller may meet among the thirty thousand inhabitants of Islington, on his way along Hagbush-lane, he will perhaps not find one to answer a question that will occur to him during his walk. “Why is this place called Hagbush-lane?” Before giving satisfaction here to the inquirer, he is informed that, if a Londoner, Hagbush-lane is, or ought to be, to him, the most interesting way that he can find to walk in; and presuming him to be influenced by the feelings and motives that actuate his fellow-citizens to the improvement and adornment of their city, by the making of a new north road, he is informed that Hagbush-lane, though now wholly disused, and in many parts destroyed, was the old, or rather the oldest north road, or ancient bridle-way to and from London, and the northern parts of the kingdom. Now for its name—Hagbush-lane. Hag is the old Saxon word hÆg, which became corrupted into hawgh, and afterwards into haw, and is the name for the berry of the hawthorn; also the Saxon word haga signified a hedge or any enclosure. Hag afterwards signified a bramble, and hence, for instance, the blackberry-bush, or any other bramble, would be properly denominated a hag. Hagbush-lane, therefore, may be taken to signify either Hawthornbush-lane, Bramble-lane, or Hedgebush-lane; more probably the latter. Within recent recollection, Whitcomb-street, near Charing-cross, was called Hedge-lane. Supposing the reader to proceed from the old man’s mud-cottage in a northerly direction, he will find that the widest part of Hagbush-lane reaches, from that spot, to the road now cutting from Holloway. Crossing immediately over the road, he comes again into the lane, which he will there find so narrow as only to admit convenient passage to a man on horseback. This was the general width of the road throughout, and the usual width of all the English roads made in ancient times. They did not travel in carriages, or carry their goods in carts, as we do, but rode on horseback, and conveyed their wares or merchandise in pack-saddles or packages on horses’ backs. They likewise conveyed their money in the same way. In an objection raised in the reign of Elizabeth to a clause in the Hue and Cry bill, then passing through parliament, it was urged, regarding some travellers who had been robbed in open day within the hundred of Beyntesh, in the county of Berks, that “they were clothiers, and yet travailed not withe the great trope of clothiers; they also carried their money openlye in wallets upon their saddles.”[200] The customary width of their roads was either four feet or eight feet. Some parts of Hagbush-lane are much lower than the meadows on each side; and this defect is common to parts of every ancient way, as might be exemplified, were it necessary, with reasons founded on their ignorance of every essential connected with the formation, and perhaps the use, of a road. It is not intended to point out the tortuous directions of Hagbush-lane; for the chief object of this notice is to excite the reader to one of the pleasantest walks he can imagine, and to tax his ingenuity to the discovery of the route the road takes. This, the ancient north road, comes into the present north road, in Upper Holloway, at the foot of Highgate-hill, and went in that direction to Hornsey. From the mud-cottage towards London, it proceeded between Paradise-house, the residence of Mr. Greig, the engraver, and the Adam and Eve public-house, in the Holloway back-road, and by circuitous windings approached London, at the distance of a few feet on the eastern side of the City Arms public-house, in the City-road, and continued towards Old-street, St. Luke’s. It no where communicated with the back-road, leading from Battle-bridge to the top of Highgate-hill, called Maiden-lane. Hagbush-lane is well known to every botanizing perambulator on the west side of London. The wild onion, clowns-wound-wort, wake-robin, and abundance of other simples, lovely in their form, and of high medicinal repute in our old herbals and receipt-books, take root, and seed and flower here in great variety. How long beneath the tall elms and pollard oaks, and the luxuriant beauties on the banks, the infirm may be suffered to seek health, and the healthy to recreate, who shall say? Spoilers are abroad. Through Hagbush-lane every man has a right to ride and walk; in Hagbush-lane no one man has even a shadow of right to an inch as private property. It is a public road, and public property. The trees, as well as the road, are public property; and the very form of the road is public property. Yet bargains and sales have been made, and are said to be now making, under which the trees are cut down and sold, and the public road thrown, bit by bit, into private fields as pasture. Under no conveyance or admission to land by any proprietor, whether freeholder or lord of a manor, can any person legally dispossess the public of a single foot of Hagbush-lane, or obstruct the passage of any individual through it. All the people of London, and indeed all the people of England, have a right in this road as a common highway. Hitherto, among the inhabitants of Islington, many of whom are opulent, and all of whom are the local guardians of the public rights in this road, not one has been found with sufficient public virtue, or rather with enough of common manly spirit, to compel the restoration of public plunder, and in his own defence, and on the behalf of the public, arrest the highway robber. Building, or what may more properly be termed the tumbling up of tumbledown houses, to the north of London, is so rapidly increasing, that in a year or two there will scarcely be a green spot for the resort of the inhabitants. Against covering of private ground in this way, there is no resistance; but against its evil consequences to health, some remedy should be provided by the setting apart of open spaces for the exercise of walking in the fresh air. The preservation of Hagbush-lane therefore is, in this point of view, an object of public importance. Where it has not been thrown into private fields, from whence, however, it is recoverable, it is one of the loveliest of our green lanes; and though persons from the country smile at Londoners when they talk of being “rural” at the distance of a few miles from town, a countryman would find it difficult to name any lane in his own county, more sequestered or of greater beauty. LINES WRITTEN IN HAGBUSH-LANE. A scene like this,
Would woo the care-worn wise
To moralize,
And courting lovers court to tell their bliss.
Had I a cottage here
I’d be content; for where
I have my books
I have old friends,
Whose cheering looks
Make me amends.
For coldnesses in men: and so,
With them departed long ago,
And with wild-flowers and trees
And with the living breeze,
And with the “still small voice”
Within, I would rejoice,
And converse hold, while breath
Held me, and then—come Death!
*
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Blue Sowthistle. Sonchus Coeruleus.
Dedicated to B. Raingarda.
June 27. St. Ladislas I., king of Hungary, A. D. 1095. St. John, of Moutier, 6th Cent. THE SEASON. Mr. Howard, in his work on the weather, is of opinion, that farmers and others, who are particularly interested in being acquainted with the variations in the weather, derive considerable aid from the use of the barometer. He says, “in fact, much less of valuable fodder is spoiled by wet now than in the days of our forefathers. But there is yet room for improvement in the knowledge of our farmers on the subject of the atmosphere. It must be a subject of great satisfaction and confidence to the husbandman, to know, at the beginning of a summer, by the certain evidence of meteorological results on record, that the season, in the ordinary course of things, may be expected to be a dry and warm one; or to find, in a certain period of it, that the average quantity of rain to be expected for the month has already fallen. On the other hand, when there is reason, from the same source of information, to expect much rain, the man who has courage to begin his operations under an unfavourable sky, but with good ground to conclude, from the state of his instruments and his collateral knowledge, that a fair interval is approaching, may often be profiting by his observations; while his cautious neighbour, who waited for the weather to ‘settle,’ may find that he has let the opportunity go by. This superiority, however, is attainable by a very moderate share of application to the subject; and by the keeping of a plain diary of the barometer and raingauge with the hygrometer and the vane under his daily notice.”
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Perforated St. John’s Wort. Hypericum perforatum.
Dedicated to St. John.
June 28. St. IrenÆus, Bp. of Lyons, A. D. 202. St. Leo II., Pope A. D. 683. Sts. Plutarch and others, Martyrs, about A. D. 202. Sts. Potamiana and Basilides, Martyrs. Chronology. 1797. George Keate, F.R.S., died, aged sixty-seven. He was born at Trowbridge in Wilts, educated at Kingston school, called to the bar, abandoned the profession of the law, amused himself with his pen, and wrote several works. His chief production is the account of “Capt. Wilson’s Voyage to the Pelew Islands;” his “Sketches from Nature,” written in the manner of Sterne, are pleasing and popular.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Blue Cornflower. Centaurea Cyanus.
Dedicated to St. IrenÆus.
NOW,
A hot day. Now the rosy- (and lazy-) fingered Aurora, issuing from her saffron house, calls up the moist vapours to surround her, and goes veiled with them as long as she can; till Phoebus, coming forth in his power, looks every thing out of the sky, and holds sharp uninterrupted empire from his throne of beams. Now the mower begins to make his sweeping cuts more slowly, and resorts oftener to the beer. Now the carter sleeps a-top of his load of hay, or plods with double slouch of shoulder, looking out with eyes winking under his shading hat, and with a hitch upward of one side of his mouth. Now the little girl at her grandmother’s cottage-door watches the coaches that go by, with her hand held up over her sunny forehead. Now labourers look well, resting in their white shirts at the doors of rural alehouses. Now an elm is fine there, with a seat under it; and horses drink out of the trough, stretching their yearning necks with loosened collars; and the traveller calls for his glass of ale, having been without one for more than ten minutes; and his horse stands wincing at the flies, giving sharp shivers of his skin, and moving to and fro his ineffectual docked tail; and now Miss Betty Wilson, the host’s daughter, comes streaming forth in a flowered gown and earrings, carrying with four of her beautiful fingers the foaming glass, for which, after the traveller has drank it, she receives with an indifferent eye, looking another way, the lawful two-pence: that is to say, unless the traveller, nodding his ruddy face, pays some gallant compliment to her before he drinks, such as “I’d rather kiss you, my dear, than the tumbler,”—or “I’ll wait for you, my love, if you’ll marry me;” upon which, if the man is good-looking and the lady in good-humour, she smiles and bites her lips, and says “Ah—men can talk fast enough;” upon which the old stage-coachman, who is buckling something near her, before he sets off, says in a hoarse voice, “So can women too for that matter,” and John Boots grins through his ragged red locks, and doats on the repartee all the day after. Now grasshoppers “fry,” as Dryden says. Now cattle stand in water, and ducks are envied. Now boots and shoes, and trees by the road side, are thick with dust; and dogs rolling in it, after issuing out of the water, into which they have been thrown to fetch sticks, come scattering horror among the legs of the spectators. Now a fellow who finds he has three miles further to go in a pair of tight shoes, is in a pretty situation. Now rooms with the sun upon them become intolerable; and the apothecary’s apprentice, with a bitterness beyond aloes, thinks of the pond he used to bathe in at school. Now men with powdered heads (especially if thick) envy those that are unpowdered, and stop to wipe them up hill, with countenances that seem to expostulate with destiny. Now boys assemble round the village pump with a ladle to it, and delight to make a forbidden splash and get wet through the shoes. Now also they make suckers of leather, and bathe all day long in rivers and ponds, and follow the fish into their cool corners, and say millions of “my eyes!” at “tittlebats.” Now the bee, as he hums along, seems to be talking heavily of the heat. Now doors and brick-walls are burning to the hand; and a walled lane, with dust and broken bottles in it, near a brick-field, is a thing not to be thought of. Now a green lane, on the contrary, thick-set with hedge-row elms, and having the noise of a brook “rumbling in pebble-stone,” is one of the pleasantest things in the world. Now youths and damsels walk through hay-fields by chance; and the latter say, “ha’ done then, William;” and the overseer in the next field calls out to “let thic thear hay thear bide;” and the girls persist, merely to plague “such a frumpish old fellow.” Now, in town, gossips talk more than ever to one another, in rooms, in doorways, and out of windows, always beginning the conversation with saying that the heat is overpowering. Now blinds are let down, and doors thrown open, and flannel waistcoats left off, and cold meat preferred to hot, and wonder expressed why tea continues so refreshing, and people delight to sliver lettuces into bowls, and apprentices water doorways with tin-canisters that lay several atoms of dust. Now the water-cart, jumbling along the middle of the streets, and jolting the showers out of its box of water, really does something. Now boys delight to have a waterpipe let out, and set it bubbling away in a tall and frothy volume. Now fruiterers’ shops and dairies look pleasant, and ices are the only things to those who can get them. Now ladies loiter in baths; and people make presents of flowers; and wine is put into ice; and the after-dinner lounger recreates his head with applications of perfumed water out of long-necked bottles. Now the lounger, who cannot resist riding his new horse, feels his boots burn him. Now buckskins are not the lawn of Cos. Now jockies, walking in great coats to lose flesh, curse inwardly. Now five fat people in a stage coach, hate the sixth fat one who is coming in, and think he has no right to be so large. Now clerks in offices do nothing, but drink soda-water and spruce-beer, and read the newspaper. Now the old clothes-man drops his solitary cry more deeply into the areas on the hot and forsaken side of the street; and bakers look vicious; and cooks are aggravated: and the steam of a tavern kitchen catches hold of one like the breath of Tartarus. Now delicate skins are beset with gnats; and boys make their sleeping companion start up, with playing a burning-glass on his hand; and blacksmiths are super-carbonated; and coblers in their stalls almost feel a wish to be transplanted; and butter is too easy to spread; and the dragoons wonder whether the Romans liked their helmets; and old ladies, with their lappets unpinned, walk along in a state of dilapidation; and the servant-maids are afraid they look vulgarly hot; and the author, who has a plate of strawberries brought him, finds that he has come to the end of his writing.—Indicator.
In the “Miscellanies,” published by the Spalding Society of Antiquaries there is a poem of high feeling and strong expression against “man’s cruelty to man:”— Why should mans high aspiring mind
Burn in him, with so proud a breath;
When all his haughty views can find
In this world, yields to death;
The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise,
The rich, the poor, and great, and small,
Are each, but worms anatomys,
To strew, his quiet hall.
Power, may make many earthly gods,
Where gold, and bribery’s guilt, prevails;
But death’s, unwelcome honest odds,
Kicks oer, the unequal scales.
The flatter’d great, may clamours raise
Of Power,—and, their own weakness hide,
But death, shall find unlooked for ways
To end the Farce of pride.—
An arrow, hurtel’d ere so high
From e’en a giant’s sinewy strength,
In time’s untraced eternity,
Goes, but a pigmy length—
Nay, whirring from the tortured string,
With all its pomp, of hurried flight,
Tis, by the Skylarks little wing,
Outmeasured, in its height.
Just so, mans boasted strength, and power,
Shall fade, before deaths lightest stroke;
Laid lower, than the meanest flower—
Whose pride, oertopt the oak.
And he, who like a blighting blast,
Dispeopled worlds, with wars alarms,
Shall be himself destroyed at last,
By poor, despised worms.
Tyrants in vain, their powers secure.
And awe slaves’ murmurs, with a frown;
But unawed death, at last is sure,
To sap the Babels down—
A stone thrown upward, to the skye,
Will quickly meet, the ground agen:
So men-gods, of earths vanity,
Shall drop at last, to men;
And power, and pomp, their all resign
Blood purchased Thrones, and banquet Halls.
Fate, waits to sack ambitions shrine
As bare, as prison walls,
Where, the poor suffering wretch bows down,
To laws, a lawless power hath past;—
And pride, and power, and King, and Clown,
Shall be death’s slaves at last.
Time, the prime minister of death,
There’s nought, can bribe his honest will
He, stops the richest Tyrants breath,
And lays, his mischief still:
Each wicked scheme for power, all stops,
With grandeurs false, and mock display,
As Eve’s shades, from high mountain tops.
Fade with the rest, away.
Death levels all things, in his march,
Nought, can resist his mighty strength;
The Pallace proud,—triumphal arch,
Shall mete, their shadows length:
The rich, the poor, one common bed,
Shall find, in the unhonoured grave,
Where weeds shall crown alike, the head,
Of Tyrant, and of Slave.
Marvel.
June 29. Holiday at the Public Offices, except Excise, Stamp, and Custom. St. Peter, the Apostle. St. Hemma, A. D. 1045. St. Peter. From this apostle the Romish church assumes to derive her authority, and appoints this his anniversary, which she splendidly celebrates. The illuminations at Rome on this day would astonish the apostle were he alive. From the account of a recent traveller, they appear to be more brilliant than an Englishman can well imagine; he witnessed them, and describes them in these words:— “At Ave Maria we drove to the piazza of St. Peter’s. The lighting of the lanternoni, or large paper lanterns, each of which looks like a globe of ethereal fire, had been going on for an hour, and, by the time we arrived there, was nearly completed. As we passed the Ponte San Angelo, the appearance of this magnificent church, glowing in its own brightness—the millions of lights reflected in the calm waters of the Tiber, and mingling with the last golden glow of evening, so as to make the whole building seem covered with burnished gold, had a most striking and magical effect. “Our progress was slow, being much impeded by the long line of carriages before us; but at length we arrived at the piazza of St. Peter’s, and took our station on the right of its farther extremity, so as to lose the deformity of the dark, dingy Vatican palace. The gathering shades of night rendered the illumination every moment more brilliant. The whole of this immense church—its columns, capitals, cornices, and pediments—the beautiful swell of the lofty dome, towering into heaven, the ribs converging into one point at top, surmounted by the lantern of the church, and crowned by the cross,—all were designed in lines of fire; and the vast sweep of the circling colonnades, in every rib, line, mould, cornice, and column, were resplendent in the same beautiful light. “While we were gazing upon it, suddenly a bell chimed. On the cross of fire at the top waved a brilliant light, as if wielded by some celestial hand, and instantly ten thousand globes and stars of vivid fire seemed to roll spontaneously along the building, as if by magic; and self-kindled, it blazed in a moment into one dazzling flood of glory. Fancy herself, in her most sportive mood, could scarcely have conceived so wonderful a spectacle as the instantaneous illumination of this magnificent fabric: the agents by whom it was effected were unseen, and it seemed the work of enchantment. In the first instance, the illuminations had appeared to be complete, and one could not dream that thousands and tens of thousands of lamps were still to be illumined. Their vivid blaze harmonized beautifully with the softer, milder light of the lanternoni; while the brilliant glow of the whole illumination shed a rosy light upon the fountains, whose silver fall, and ever-playing showers, accorded well with the magic of the scene. “Viewed from the TrinitÀ de’ Monti, its effect was unspeakably beautiful: it seemed to be an enchanted palace hung in air, and called up by the wand of some invisible spirit. We did not, however, drive to the TrinitÀ de’ Monti till after the exhibition of the girandola, or great fire-works from the castle of St. Angelo, which commenced by a tremendous explosion that represented the raging eruption of a volcano. Red sheets of fire seemed to blaze upwards into the glowing heavens, and then to pour down their liquid streams upon the earth. This was followed by an incessant and complicated display of every varied device that imagination could figure—one changing into another, and the beauty of the first effaced by that of the last. Hundreds of immense wheels turned round with a velocity that almost seemed as if demons were whirling them, letting fall thousands of hissing dragons, and scorpions, and fiery snakes, whose long convolutions, darting forward as far as the eye could reach in every direction, at length vanished into air. Fountains and jets of fire threw up their blazing cascades into the skies. The whole vault of heaven shone with the vivid fires, and seemed to receive into itself innumerable stars and suns, which, shooting up into it in brightness almost insufferable, vanished, like earth-born hopes. The reflection in the depth of the calm clear waters of the Tiber, was scarcely less beautiful than the spectacle itself; and the whole ended in a tremendous burst of fire, that, while it lasted, almost seemed to threaten conflagration to the world. “The expense of the illumination of St. Peter’s, and of the girandola, when repeated two successive evenings, as they invariably are at the festival of St. Peter, is one thousand crowns; when only exhibited one night they cost seven hundred. Eighty men were employed in the instantaneous illuminations of the lamps, which to us seemed the work of enchantment: they were so posted as to be unseen.”[201]
Dr. Forster, in certain remarks on the excitement of the imagination, cites some “Verses by a modern poet, on an appearance beheld in the clouds,” which may aptly come after the glowing description of the illumination of St. Peter’s:— The appearance, instantaneously disclosed,
Was of a mighty city—boldly say
A wilderness of building, sinking far
And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth
Far sinking into splendour, without end!
Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold,
With alabaster domes and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high
Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright
In avenues disposed; there, towers begirt
With battlements, that on their restless fronts
Bore stars—illumination of all gems!
By earthly nature had the effect been wrought
Upon the dark materials of the storm
Now pacified; on them, and on the coves,
And mountain steeps and summits, whereunto
The vapours had receded—taking there
Their station under a cerulean sky.
Chronology. 363. The emperor Julian died, aged thirty-two. He was denominated the apostate, from having professed Christianity before he ascended the throne, and afterwards relapsing to Paganism. He received his death wound in a battle with the Persians. Dr. Watkins in his “Biographical Dictionary” says, that he was virtuous and modest in his manners, and liberal in his disposition, an enemy to luxury, and averse to public amusements.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Yellow Rattle. Rhinanthus Galli.
Dedicated to St. Peter.
June 30. St. Paul, the Apostle. St. Martial, Bp. of Limoges, 3d Cent. St. Paul. Paul, the apostle, was martyred, according to some accounts, on the 29th of June, in the year, 65; according to others in the month of May, 66.[202] A Romish writer fables that, before he was beheaded, he “loked vp into heuen, markynge his foreheed and his breste with the sygne of the crosse,” although that sign was an after invention; and that, “as soone as the heed was from the body,” it said “Jesus Christus fyfty tymes.”[203] Another pretends from St. Chrysostom, that “from the head of St. Paul when it was cut off there came not one drop of blood, but there ran fountains of milk;” and that “we have by tradition, that the blessed head gave three leaps, and at each of them there sprung up a fountain where the head fell: which fountains remain to this day, and are reverenced with singular devotion by all Christian Catholics.”[204] The fictions of the Romish church, and its devotions to devices, are innumerable.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Yellow Cistus. Cistus Helianthemum.
Dedicated to St. Paul.
|
