_Islington._
Vol. I.--13.
[Illustration: ~Shepherd’s Well, Hampstead.~]
The verdant lawns which rise above the rill
Are not unworthy Virgil’s past’ral song.
On the west side of Hampstead, in the middle of one of the pleasant
meadows called Shepherd’s fields, at the left-hand of the footpath going
from Belsize-house towards the church, this arch, embedded above and
around by the green turf, forms a conduit-head to a beautiful spring:
the specific gravity of the fluid, which yields several tuns a day, is
little more than that of distilled water. Hampstead abounds in other
springs, but they are mostly impregnated with mineral substances. The
water of “Shepherd’s well,” therefore, is in continual request, and
those who cannot otherwise conveniently obtain it, are supplied through
a few of the villagers, who make a scanty living by carrying it to
houses for a penny a pail-full. There is no carriage-way to the spot,
and these poor things have much hard work for a very little money.
I first knew this spring in my childhood, when domiciled with a
relation, who then occupied Belsize-house, by being allowed to go with
Jeff the under-gardener, whose duty it was to fetch water from the
spring. As I accompanied _him_, so a tame magpie accompanied _me_: Jeff
slouched on with his pails and yoke, and my ardour to precede was
restrained by fear of some ill happening to Mag if I did not look after
the rogue. He was a wayward bird, the first to follow wherever I went,
but always according to his own fashion; he never put forth his speed
till he found himself a long way behind, so that Jeff always led the
van, and Mag always brought up the rear, making up for long lagging by
long hopping. On one occasion, however, as soon as we got out of the
side-door from the out-house yard into Belsize-lane, Mag bounded across
the road, and over the wicket along the meadows, with quick and long
hops, throwing “side-long looks behind,” as if deriding my inability to
keep up with him, till he reached the well: there we both waited for
Jeff, who for once was last, and, on whose arrival, the bird took his
station on the crown of the arch, looking alternately down to the well
and up at Jeff. It was a sultry day in a season of drought, and, to
Jeff’s surprise, the water was not easily within reach; while he was
making efforts with the bucket, Mag seemed deeply interested in the
experiment, and flitted about with tiresome assiduity. In a moment Jeff
rose in a rage, execrated poor Mag, and vowed cruel vengeance on him. On
our way home the bird preceded, and Jeff, to my continual alarm in
behalf of Mag, several times stopped, and threw stones at him with great
violence. It was not till we were housed, that the man’s anger was
sufficiently appeased to let him acquaint me with its cause: and then I
learned that Mag was a “wicked bird,” who knew of the low water before
he set out, and was delighted with the mischief. From that day, Jeff
hated him, and tried to maim him: the creature’s sagacity in eluding his
brutal intent, he imputed to diabolical knowledge; and, while my
estimation of Jeff as a good-natured fellow was considerably shaken, I
acquired a secret fear of poor Mag. This was my first acquaintance with
the superstitious and dangerous feelings of ignorance.
The water of Shepherd’s well is remarkable for not being subject to
freeze. There is another spring sometimes resorted to near Kilburn, but
this and the ponds in the Vale of Health are the ordinary sources of
public supply to Hampstead. The chief inconvenience of habitations in
this delightful village is the inadequate distribution of good water.
Occasional visitants, for the sake of health, frequently sustain
considerable injury by the insalubrity of private springs, and charge
upon the fluid they breathe the mischiefs they derive from the fluid
they drink. The localities of the place afford almost every variety of
aspect and temperature that invalids require: and a constant sufficiency
of wholesome water might be easily obtained by a few simple
arrangements.
*
_March 19, 1827._
* * * * *
~Garrick Plays.~
No. X.
[From the “Fair Maid of the Exchange,” a Comedy, by Thomas Heywood,
1637.]
_Cripple offers to fit Frank Golding with ready made Love Epistles._
_Frank._ Of thy own writing?
_Crip._ My own, I assure you, Sir.
_Frank._ Faith, thou hast robb’d some sonnet-book or other.
And now would’st make me think they are thy own.
_Crip._ Why, think’st thou that I cannot write a Letter,
Ditty, or Sonnet, with judicial phrase,
As pretty, pleasing, and pathetical,
As the best Ovid-imitating dunce
In the whole town?
_Frank._ I think thou can’st not.
_Crip._ Yea, I’ll swear I cannot.
Yet, Sirrah, I could coney-catch the world,
Make myself famous for a sudden wit,
And be admired for my dexterity,
Were I disposed.
_Frank._ I prithee, how?
_Crip._ Why, thus. There lived a Poet in this town,
(If we may term our modern writers Poets),
Sharp-witted, bitter-tongued; his pen, of steel;
His ink was temper’d with the biting juice
And extracts of the bitterest weeds that grew;
He never wrote but when the elements
Of fire and water tilted in his brain.
This fellow, ready to give up his ghost
To Lucia’s bosom, did bequeath to me
His Library, which was just nothing
But rolls, and scrolls, and bundles of cast wit,
Such as durst never visit Paul’s Church Yard.
Amongst ’em all I lighted on a quire
Or two of paper, fill’d with Songs and Ditties,
And here and there a hungry Epigram;
These I reserve to my own proper use,
And Pater-noster-like have conn’d them all.
I could now, when I am in company,
At ale-house, tavern, or an ordinary,
Upon a theme make an extemporal ditty
(Or one at least should seem extemporal),
Out of the abundance of this Legacy,
That all would judge it, and report it too,
To be the infant of a sudden wit,
And then were I an admirable fellow.
_Frank._ This were a piece of cunning.
_Crip._ I could do more; for I could make enquiry,
Where the best-witted gallants use to dine,
Follow them to the tavern, and there sit
In the next room with a calve’s head and brimstone,
And over-hear their talk, observe their humours,
Collect their jests, put them into a play,
And tire them too with payment to behold
What I have filch’d from them. This I could do
But O for shame that man should so arraign
Their own fee-simple wits for verbal theft!
Yet men there be that have done this and that,
And more by much more than the most of them.[92]
* * * * *
After this Specimen of the pleasanter vein of Heywood, I am tempted to
extract some lines from his “Hierarchie of Angels, 1634;” not strictly
as a Dramatic Poem, but because the passage contains a string of names,
all but that of _Watson_, his contemporary Dramatists. He is complaining
in a mood half serious, half comic, of the disrespect which Poets in his
own times meet with from the world, compared with the honors paid them
by Antiquity. _Then_ they could afford them three or four sonorous
names, and at full length; as to Ovid, the addition of Publius Naso
Sulmensis; to Seneca, that of Lucius Annæas Cordubensis; and the like.
_Now_, says he,
Our modern Poets to that pass are driven,
Those names are curtail’d which they first had given;
And, as we wish’d to have their memories drown’d,
We scarcely can afford them half their sound.
Greene, who had in both Academies ta’en
Degree of Master, yet could never gain
To be call’d more than Robin: who, had he
Profest ought save the Muse, served, and been free
After a sev’n years prenticeship, might have
(With credit too) gone Robert to his grave.
Marlowe, renown’d for his rare art and wit,
Could ne’er attain beyond the name of Kit;
Although his Hero and Leander did
Merit addition rather. Famous Kid
Was call’d but Tom. Tom Watson; though he wrote
Able to make Apollo’s self to dote
Upon his Muse; for all that he could strive,
Yet never could to his full name arrive.
Tom Nash (in his time of no small esteem)
Could not a second syllable redeem.
Excellent Beaumont, in the foremost rank
Of the rarest wits, was never more than Frank.
Mellifluous SHAKSPEARE, whose inchanting quill
Commanded mirth or passion, was but WILL;
And famous Jonson, though his learned pen
Be dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben.
Fletcher, and Webster, of that learned pack
None of the meanest, neither was but Jack;
Decker but Tom; nor May, nor Middleton;
And he’s now but Jack Ford, that once were John.
Possibly our Poet was a little sore, that this contemptuous curtailment
of their Baptismal Names was chiefly exercised upon his Poetical
Brethren of the _Drama_. We hear nothing about Sam Daniel, or Ned
Spenser, in his catalogue. The familiarity of common discourse might
probably take the greater liberties with the Dramatic Poets, as
conceiving of them as more upon a level with the Stage Actors. Or did
their greater publicity, and popularity in consequence, fasten these
diminutives upon them out of a feeling of love and kindness; as we say
Harry the Fifth, rather than Henry, when we would express good will?--as
himself says, in those reviving words put into his mouth by Shakspeare,
where he would comfort and confirm his doubting brothers:
Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
But Harry Harry!
And doubtless Heywood had an indistinct conception of this truth, when
(coming to his own name), with that beautiful _retracting_ which is
natural to one that, not Satirically given, has wandered a little out of
his way into something recriminative, he goes on to say:
Nor speak I this, that any here exprest
Should think themselves less worthy than the rest,
Whose names have their full syllables and sound;
Or that Frank, Kit, or Jack, are the least wound
Unto their fame and merit. I for my part
(Think others what they please) accept that heart,
Which courts my love in most familiar phrase;
And that it takes not from my pains or praise,
If any one to me so bluntly come:
I hold he loves me best that calls me Tom.