From the book at Rigi, in Switzerland.
Nine weary up-hill miles we sped
The setting sun to see;
Sulky and grim he went to bed.
Sulky and grim went we.
Seven sleepless hours we past, and then,
The rising sun to see,
Sulky and grim we rose again.
Sulky and grim rose he.
[41] Boaden’s Life of Mrs. Siddons.
[Illustration: ~Antiquarian Hall,~ ALIAS ~Will. Will-be-so, of Lynn,~]
A goose-herd in the fen-lands; next, he
Be-doctor’d Norfolk cows; much vext, he
Turn’d bookseller, and poetaster,
And was a tolerable master
Of title-pages, but his rhymes
Were shocking, at the best of times.
However, he was very honest,
And now, poor fellow, he is--“_non est_.”
*
_For the Table Book._
WILLIAM HALL, or as he used to style himself, “Antiquarian Hall,” “Will.
Will-be-so,” and “Low-Fen-Bill-Hall,” or, as he was more generally
termed by the public, “Old Hall,” died at Lynn, in Norfolk, on the 24th
of January, 1825. From some curious autobiographical sketches in rhyme,
published by himself, in the decline of life, it appears that he was
born on June 1, O.S. 1748, at Willow Booth, a small island in the fens
of Lincolnshire, near Heckington Ease, in the parish of South Kyme.
“Kyme, God knows.
Where no corn grows,
Nothing but a little hay;
And the water comes,
And takes it all away.”
His ancestors on the father’s side were all “fen slodgers,” having lived
there for many generations; his mother was
----------“a half Yorkshire
The other half was Heckington,
Vulgar a place as and one.”
When about four years old, he narrowly escaped drowning; for, in his own
words, he
------“overstretching took a slip,
And popp’d beneath a merchant’s ship;[42]
No soul at hand but me and mother;
Nor could I call for one or other.”
She, however, at the hazard of her own life, succeeded in saving her
son’s. At eleven years old, he went to school, in Brothertoft chapel,
for about six months, in which time he derived all the education he ever
received. His love of reading was so great, that as soon as he could
manage a gunning-boat, he used to employ his Sundays either in seeking
for water-birds’ eggs, or to
---------“_shouve_ the boat
A catching fish, to make a groat,
And sometimes with a snare or hook;
Well, what was’t for?--to buy a book,
Propensity so in him lay.”
Before he arrived at man’s estate, he lost his mother, and soon
afterwards his father married again. Will. himself, on arriving at
man’s estate, married “Suke Holmes,” and became a “gozzard,” or
gooseherd; that is, a keeper and breeder of geese, for which the fens
were, at that time, famous throughout the kingdom, supplying the London
markets with fowls, and the warehouses with feathers and quills. In
these parts, the small feathers are plucked from the live geese five
times a year, at Lady-tide, Midsummer, Lammas, Michaelmas, and
Martinmas, and the larger feathers and quills are pulled twice. Goslings
even are not spared, for it is thought that early plucking tends to
increase the succeeding feathers. It is said that the mere plucking
hurts the fowl very little, as the owners are careful not to pull until
the feathers are ripe: those plucked after the geese are dead, are
affirmed not to be so good. The number of geese kept by Will. must have
been very great, for his “brood geese,” alone, required five coombs of
corn for daily consumption.
The inundations to which the fens were then liable, from breaches, or
overflowing of the banks, overwhelmed him with difficulties, and ruined
his prospects.
“The poor old geese away were floated,
Till some high lands got lit’rally coated;
Nor did most peasants think it duty
Them to preserve, but made their booty;
And those who were ‘not worth a goose,’
On other people’s liv’d profuse.”
After many vicissitudes and changes of residence, he settled at
Marshland, in Norfolk, where his wife practised phlebotomy and
midwifery, while he officiated as an auctioneeer, cowleech, &c. &c.
Indeed he appeared to have been almost bred to the doctoring profession,
for his own mother was
--------“a good cow-doctor,
And always doctor’d all her own,
Being cowleech both in flesh and bone.”