the priest in troublous times: a cell covered by a trap-door in the
staircase, and just large enough to contain one person, a small table, and
a stool; whilst a loop-hole in the wall admitted an apology for light and
air. Of heir-looms, there are at Sawston Hall, plenty of curious old
pictures and engravings, books, missals, a real relic of chivalry, (light,
well-poised, and made of the true lance-wood,) a tilting lance; Queen
Mary's bed, and her pincushion; and a singular glass water-jug, made in
the reign of Queen Anne, which, when the present proprietor of Sawston
took possession of his inheritance, had been laid up for seventy years; it
is now, we believe, off the superannuated list, and sees daily service.
We have only space briefly to allude to the tradition, which, sketched at
length in the valuable periodical to which we have referred our readers,
induced us to supply the present illustrative account. The Princess Mary
fleeing from the persecutions of the heads of the Protestant party, was
entertained and lodged for a night by Sir John Huddleston, of Sawston. The
hall was in consequence besieged by an immense mob from Cambridge, fired,
and nearly destroyed; Mary and her host with difficulty escaped, (she
disguised as a market-woman,) and as queen, she rebuilt Sawston with the
stones of Cambridge Castle.
M.L.B.
* * * * *
MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.
* * * * *
CHINESE CITIES.
(_For the Mirror_.)
The cities of China are generally of a square form, surrounded with lofty
walls, having projecting towers at regular intervals, and are usually
encompassed by a ditch, either dry or full of water. Distributed through
the streets and squares, or situated in the vicinity of the principal
gates, are round, hexagonal or octagonal towers, of various heights,
triumphal arches, beautiful temples dedicated to idols, and monuments
erected in honour of those who have rendered important services to the
nation, or the people; and lastly some public buildings more remarkable
for extent than magnificence.
The squares are large, the streets long and of different breadths, the
houses have, for the most part, but a ground floor, and rarely exceed one
story. The shops are varnished, and ornamented with silk and porcelain.
Before each door is fixed a painted and gilded board, seven or eight feet
high, supported on a pedestal, and having inscribed on it three large
characters chosen by the merchant for the sign of his shop, to distinguish
it from all others. To these are often added a list of the articles to be
disposed of, and the name of the seller. Under all, conspicuous for their
size, are the characters _"Pou-Hou,"_ (no cheating here.)
G.L.S.
* * * * *
FIGS
(_For the Mirror_.)
Figs have, from the earliest times, been reckoned among the delights of
the palate. Shaphan the scribe, who made for the use of the young king
Josiah, that compendium of the law of Moses, which is called Deuteronomy,
enumerates among the praises of his country, that it was a land of figs.
The Athenians valued figs at least as highly as the Jews. Alexis called
figs a "a food for the gods." Pausanias says, that the Athenian Phytalus
was rewarded by Ceres, for his hospitality, with the gift of the first fig
tree. Some foreign guest, no doubt, transmitted to him the plant, which he
introduced into Attica. It succeeded so well there, that Uthanaeus brings
forward Lynceus and Antiphones, vaunting the figs of Attica as the best on
earth. Horapollo, or rather his commentator Bolzani, says, that when the
master of the house is going a journey, he hangs out a broom of fig boughs
for good luck. Our forefathers preferred a broom of birch; as if, in the
master's absence, it was well to remember the rod.
A taste for figs marked the progress of refinement in the Roman empire. In
Cato's time, but six sorts of figs were known; in Pliny's, twenty-nine.
The sexual system of plants, seems first to have been observed in the fig
tree; whose artificial impregnation is taught by Pliny, under the name of
caprification.
In modern times, the esteem for figs has been still more widely diffused.
When Charles the Fifth visited Holland, in 1540, a Dutch merchant sent him
a plate of figs, as the greatest delicacy which Ziriksee could offer.
H.B.A.
* * * * *
ALNWICK FREEMEN.
Alnwick, in Northumberland, is remarkable for the peculiar manner of
making freemen. Those to be made free, or as the saying is, _to leap
well_, assemble in the market place early on St. Mark's day on horseback,
with every man a sword by his side, dressed in white, all with white night
caps, attended by four chamberlains mounted and armed in the same manner.
Hence they proceed with music to a large, dirty pool, called _Freeman's
Well_, where they dismount, and draw up in a body, and then rush through
the mud as fast as they can. As the water is generally very foul, they
come out in a dirty condition; but after taking a dram, they put on dry
clothes, remount their horses, and ride full gallop round the confines of
the town, when they return, sword in hand, and are met by women decorated
with ribands, bells, &c. ringing and dancing. These are called _timber
vasts_. The houses of the new freemen are, on this day, distinguished by
a holly bush, as a signal for their friends to assemble and make merry.
This ridiculous ceremony is attributed to King John, who being mired in
the well, as a punishment for not mending the road, made the above custom
a part of the charter of the town.
H.B.A.
* * * * *
THE ANECDOTE GALLERY.
* * * * *
DOCTOR PARR.
How many a fine mind has been lost to mankind by the want of some
propitious accident, to lead it to a proper channel; to prevent its
current from "turning awry and losing the name of action!" We know not
whether the story of Newton's apple be true, but it may serve for an
illustration, and if that apple had not fallen, where would have been his
Principia? If the Lady Egerton had not missed her way in a wood, Milton
might have spent the time in which he wrote "Comus," in writing "Accidence
of Grammar;" and if Ellwood, the quaker, had not asked him what he could
say on "Paradise Regained," that beautiful poem (so greatly underrated)
would have been lost to us.
Samuel Parr was born at Harrow-on-the-Hill, June 15 (o.s.) 1747. He was
the son of Samuel Parr, a surgeon and apothecary of that place, and
through him immediately descended from several considerable scholars, and
remotely (as one of his biographers, Mr. Field, asserts) from Sir W. Parr,
who lived in the reign of Edward IV., and whose granddaughter was Queen
Catharine Parr, of famous memory. It does not appear from Parr's writings
(as far as we remember) that he laid claim to this high ancestry; yet the
name of Catharine, which he gave to one of his daughters, may be imagined
to imply as much. His mother, whose maiden name was Mignard, was of the
family of the celebrated painter. It was the accident of Parr's birthplace
that, probably, laid the foundation of his fame, for to the school of his
native village, then one of the most flourishing in England, he was sent
in his sixth year; whilst, under other circumstances, it is likely that
he would have been condemned to an ordinary education and his father's
business. So many seeds is Nature constantly and secretly scattering, in
order that one may fall upon a spot that shall foster it into a a plant.
In his boyhood, he is described by his sister, Mrs. Bowyear, as studious
after his kind, delighting in Mother Goose and the Seven Champions, and
not partaking much in the sports usual to such an age. He had a very
early inclination for the church, and the elements of that taste for
ecclesiastical pomp, which distinguished him in after life, appeared when
he was not more than nine or ten years old. He would put on one of his
father's shirts for a surplice, (till Mr. Sanders, the vicar, supplied
him, as Hannah did his namesake, with a little gown and cassock;) he would
then read the church service to his sister and cousins, after they had
been duly summoned by a bell tied to the banisters; preach them a sermon,
which his congregation was apt to think, in those days, somewhat of the
longest; and even, in spite of his father's remonstrances, would bury a
bird or a kitten (Parr had always a great fondness for animals) with the
rites of Christian burial. Samuel was his mother's darling; she indulged
all his whims, consulted his appetite, and provided hot suppers for him
almost from his cradle. He was her only son, and was at this time very
fair and well-favoured. Providence, however, foreseeing that at all events
vanity was to be a large ingredient in Parr's composition, sent him,
in its mercy, a fit of small-pox; and, with the same intent, perhaps,
deprived him of a parent, who was killing her son's character by kindness.
Parr never was a boy, says, somewhere, his friend and school-fellow, Dr.
Bennet. When he was about nine years old, Dr. Allen saw him sitting on the
churchyard gate at Harrow, with great gravity, whilst his school-fellows
were all at play. "Sam. why don't you play with the others?" cried Allen.
"Do not you know, sir," said he, with vast solemnity, "that I am to be a
parson?" And Parr himself used to tell of Sir W. Jones, another of his
school-fellows, that as they were one day walking together near Harrow,
Jones suddenly stopped short, and, looking hard at him, cried out, "Parr,
if you should have the good luck to live forty years, you may stand a
chance of overtaking your face." Between Bennet, Parr, and Jones, the
closest intimacy was formed; and though occasionally tried, it continued
to the last. Sir W. Jones, indeed, was soon carried, by the tide of
events, far away from the other two, and Dr. Bennet quickly shot a-head
of poor Parr in the race of life, and rose to the Irish bench.
These three challenged one another to trials of skill in the imitation of
popular authors--they wrote and acted a play together--they got up mock
councils, and harangues, and combats, after the manner of the classical
heroes of antiquity, and under their names--till, at the age of fourteen,
Parr being now at the head of the school, was removed from it and placed
in his father's shop.
The doctor must have found in the course of his practice, that there
are some pills which will not go down--and this was one. Parr began to
criticize the Latin of his father's prescriptions, instead of "making
the mixture;" and was not prepared for that kind of Greek with which old
Fuller's doctor was imbued, who, on being asked why it was called a
_Hectic_ fever, "Because," saith he, "of an _hecking_ cough which ever
attendeth that disease." Accordingly, Parr having in vain tried to
reconcile himself to the "uttering of mortal drugs" for three years, was
at length suffered to follow his own devices, and in 1765, was admitted of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Dr. Farmer was at that time tutor. Of this
proficient in black letter (he was one of the earliest, and perhaps _the_
cleverest, of his tribe) we are told by Archdeacon Butler, in a note, that
he was a man of such singular indolence, as to neglect sending in the
young men's accounts, and is supposed to have burnt large sums of money,
by putting into the fire unopened letters, which contained remittances,
conveyed remonstrances, and required answers.
At college Parr remained about fourteen months, when his resources were
cut off by the sudden death of his father. On balancing his accounts,
three pounds seventeen shillings appeared to be all his worldly wealth;
and it has been asserted by one of the many persons who have contributed
their quota to the memorabilia of Parr, that had he been aware beforehand
of possessing so considerable a sum, he would have continued longer in
an university which he quitted with a heavy heart, and which he was ever
proud to acknowledge as his literary nursing-mother. It is melancholy
to reflect on the numbers of young men who squander the opportunities
afforded them at Cambridge, and Oxford, without a thought; "casting the
pearl away, like the Aethiop," while, at the very moment, many are the sons
of genius and poverty, who, with Parr, are struggling in vain to hold fast
their chance of the learning, and the rewards of learning, to be gained
there, and which would be to them instead of house and land. Thus were
Parr's hopes again nipped in the bud, and those years, (the most valuable
of all, perhaps, for the formation of character,) the latter years of
school and college life, were to him a blank. Meanwhile Dr. Sumner, then
master of Harrow, offered him the situation of his first assistant. With
this Parr closed; he took deacon's orders in 1769; and five years passed
away, as usefully and happily spent as any which he lived to see. It was
while he was under-master of Harrow that he lost his cousin, Frank Parr,
then a recently elected Fellow of King's College. Parr loved him as a
brother; and, though himself receiving a salary of only fifty pounds a
year, and, as he says, and as may be well believed, "then very poor,"
he cheerfully undertook for Frank, by way of making his death-bed more
comfortable, the payment of all his Cambridge debts, which proved to be
two hundred and twenty-three pounds; a promise which, it is needless to
say, he faithfully kept, besides settling an annuity of five pounds upon
his mother.
In 1771, when Parr was in his twenty-fifth year, Dr. Sumner was suddenly
carried off by apoplexy. Parr now became a candidate for the head
mastership of Harrow, founding his claims on being born in the town,
educated at the school, and for some years one of the assistants. The
governors, however, preferred Dr. Benjamin Heath, an antagonist by whom
it was no disgrace to be beaten, and whose personal merit Parr himself
allowed to justify their choice. A rebellion among the boys, many of whom
took Parr's part, ensued; and in an evil hour he threw up his situation
of assistant, and withdrew to Stanmore, a village a very few miles from
Harrow. Here he was followed by forty of the young rebels, and with this
stock in trade he proceeded to set up a school on his own account. This,
Dr. Johnstone thinks, was the crisis of Parr's life. The die had turned
up against him, and the disappointment, with its immediate consequences,
gave a complexion to his future fortunes, character, and comfort. He had
already mounted a full-bottomed wig when he stood for Harrow, anxious, as
it should seem, to give his face a still further chance of keeping its
start. He now began to ride on a black saddle, and bore in his hand a long
wand with an ivory head, like a crosier in high prelatical pomp. His
neighbours, who wondered what it could all mean, had scarcely time to
identify him with his pontificals, before they saw him stalking along the
street in a dirty, striped dressing-gown. A wife was all that was now
wanted to complete the establishment at Stanmore, and accordingly Miss
Jane Marsingale, a lady of an ancient Yorkshire family, was provided for
him, (Parr, like Hooker, appears to have courted by proxy, and with about
the same success,) and so Stanmore was set a going as the rival of Harrow.
These were fearful odds, and it came to pass, that in spite of "Attic
symposia," and groves of Academus, and the enacting of a Greek play, and
the perpetual recitation of the fragment in praise of Harmodius and
Aristogeiton, the establishment at Stanmore declined, and at the end of
five years, Parr was not sorry to accept the mastership of an endowed
school at Colchester. To Colchester, therefore, he removed with his wife
and a daughter in the spring of 1777. Here he took priest's orders at the
hands of Bishop Lowth, and found society congenial to him in Dr. Foster,
a kindred whig, and in Thomas Twining, a kindred scholar.
* * * * *
YOUNG NAPOLEON
This poor boy, whose destiny has suffered so remarkable a change, appears
to have been a child of great promise, both for intelligence and goodness
of heart. The anecdotes concerning him are of the most pleasing kind. From
the time that he knew how to speak, he became, like most children, a great
questioner. He loved, above every thing, to watch the people walking in
the garden and in the court of the Tuileries, over which his windows
looked. There was always a crowd of people assembled there to see him.
Having remarked that many of the persons who entered the palace, had rolls
of paper under their arms, he desired to know of his _gouvernante_ what
that meant. He was told that they were unfortunate people, who came to ask
some favour of his papa. From this moment he shouted and wept whenever he
saw a petition pass, and was not to be satisfied till it was brought to
him; and he never failed to present himself, every day at breakfast, all
those which he had collected in the course of the day before. It may be
easily supposed, that when this practice was known to the public, the
child was never at a loss for petitions.
He saw one day under his windows a woman in mourning who held by the hand
a little boy about four years old, also in mourning. This little fellow
had in his hand a petition which he held up from a distance to the young
prince. The boy would know why this poor, little one was clothed all in
black. His governess answered that it was, no doubt, because his papa
was dead. He manifested a strong desire to talk with the child.--Madame
Montesquieu, who seized every occasion of developing his sensibility,
consented, and gave an order that he should be brought in with his mother.
She was a widow whose husband had been killed in the last campaign, and
finding herself without resources, had petitioned the emperor for a
pension. The young Napoleon took the petition and promised to deliver it
to his papa. The next morning he made up his ordinary packet of petitions,
but the one in which he took a particular interest he kept separate, and
after putting the mass into the hands of the emperor according to custom;
"Papa," said he, "here is the petition of a very unfortunate little boy;
you are the cause of his father's dying, and now he has nothing. Give him
a pension, I beg." Napoleon took up his son and embraced him tenderly,
gave him the pension, which he antedated, and caused the patent to be made
out in the course of the day.--_Translated from the French.--Westminster
Review._
* * * * *
AN ESKDALE ANECDOTE.
_Extract of a Letter from the Ettrick Shepherd._
I chanced to be on a weeks' visit to a kind friend, a farmer in
Eskdale-muir, who thought meet to have a party every day at dinner, and
mostly the same party. Our libations were certainly carried rather to
an extremity, but our merriment corresponded therewith. There was one
morning, indeed, that several of the gentlemen were considerably hurt, and
there were marks of blood on the plaster, but no one could tell what had
happened. It appeared that there had been a quarrel, but none of us knew
what about, or who it was that fought.
But the most amusing part of the ploy (and a very amusing part it was)
regarded a half hogshead of ale, that was standing in the lobby to clear
for bottling. On the very first forenoon, our thirst was so excessive,
that the farmer contrived to insert a spigot into this huge cask, and
really such a treasure I think was hardly ever opened to a set of poor
thirsty spirits. Morning, noon, and night, we were running with jugs to
this rich fountain, and handing the delicious beverage about to lips that
glowed with fervour and delight. In a few days, however, it wore so low,
that before any would come, one was always obliged to hold it up behind;
and, finally, it ran dry.
On the very morning after that, the farmer came in with a wild raised
look. "Gentlemen," said he, "get your hats--haste ye--an' let us gang an'
tak a lang wauk, for my mother an' the lasses are on a-scrubbing a whole
floorfu' o' bottles; an' as I cam by, I heard her speaking about getting
the ale bottled the day."
* * * * *
THE SKETCH-BOOK.
* * * * *
CREATING WANTS.
_An old, but a true Story._
I was bred a linen-draper, and went into business with better than
a thousand pounds. I married the daughter of a country tradesman, who
had received a boarding-school education. When I married I had been in
business five years, and was in the way of soon accumulating a fortune.
I was never out of my shop before it was shut up, and was remarked by my
friends as being a steady young man, with a turn for business.
I used to dine in the parlour, where I could have an eye upon the shop;
but my new acquaintances told me this was _extremely ungenteel_; that if I
had no confidence in my men I should get others; that a thief would be a
thief, watch him how I would, and that I was now too forward in the world
to be a slave to the shop.
From being constantly in my shop from seven in the morning till eight in
the evening, I lay in bed till nine, and took a comfortable breakfast
before I made my appearance below. Things, however, went on very well--I
bowed to my best customers, and attended closely to my business while I
was in it, trade went on briskly, and the only effect of this acquaintance
was the necessity of letting our friends see that we were getting above
the world, by selling some of our old-fashioned furniture, and replacing
it with that which was more _genteel_, and introducing wine at dinner when
we had company.
As our business increased, our friends told us it would be _extremely
genteel_ to take a lodging in summer just at the outskirts of the city,
where we might retire in the evening when shop was shut, and return to it
next morning after breakfast; for as we lived in a close part of the town,
fresh air was necessary to our health; and though, before I had this airy
lodging, I breathed very well in town, yet indulging in the fresh air, I
was soon sensible of all the stench and closeness of the metropolis; and I
must own I began to relish a glass of wine after dinner as well when alone
as when in company: I did not find myself the worse in circumstances for
this lodging; but I did not find I grew richer, and we had no money to lay
by.
We soon found out that a lodging so near town was smothered with dust, and
smelt too much of London air, therefore I took a small house we had seen
about five miles from town, near an acquaintance we had made, and thought
it imprudent to sleep from home every night, and that it would be better
for my business to be in town all the week, and go to this house on
Saturday, and continue there until Monday; but one excuse or other often
found me there on Tuesday. Coach-hire backward and forwards, and carriage
of parcels, generally cost us seven or eight shillings a week; and as a
one-horse chaise would be attended with very little more expense, and
removing to a further distance, seeing the expense would be saved by not
having our house full of company on Sunday, which was always the case,
being so near town; besides the exercise would be beneficial, for I was
growing corpulent with good living and idleness. Accordingly we removed
to the distance of fifteen miles from town, into a better house, because
there was a large garden adjoining it, and a field for the horse. It
afforded abundance of fruit, and fruit was good for scorbutic and
plethoric habits, our table would be furnished at less expense, and
fifteen miles was but an hour's ride more than seven miles.
All this was plausible, and I soon found myself under the necessity of
keeping a gardener; so that every cabbage that I before put on my table
for one _penny_ cost me one _shilling_, and I bought my dessert at the
dearest hand; but I was in it--I found myself happy--in a profusion of
fruit, and a blight was little less than death to me.
This new acquired want, now introduced all the expensive modes of having
fruit in spite of either blasts or blights. I built myself a small hot
house, and it was only the addition of a chaldron or two of coals; the
gardener was the same, and we had the pride of putting on our table a
pine-apple occasionally, when our acquaintance were contented with the
exhibition of a melon.