We had in this village, more than twenty years ago, an idiot boy, whom I
well remember, who, from a child, showed a strong propensity to bees:
they were his food, his amusement, his sole object; and as people of
this cast have seldom more than one point in view, so this lad exerted
all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the winter he dosed away
his time, within his father’s house, by the fire-side, in a kind of
torpid state, seldom departing from the chimney-corner; but in the
summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the fields and on
sunny banks. Honey-bees, humble-bees, and wasps, were his prey, wherever
he found them: he had no apprehensions from their stings, but would
seize them _nudis manibus_, and at once disarm them of their weapons,
and suck their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes he
would fill his bosom between his shirt and his skin with a number of
these captives; and sometimes would confine them in bottles. He was a
very _merops apiaster_, or _bee-bird_, and very injurious to men that
kept bees; for he would slide into their bee-gardens, and, sitting down
before the stools, would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take
the bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the
sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was
making, he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of
what he called _bee-wine_. As he ran about, he used to make a humming
noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing of bees. This lad was lean
and sallow, and of a cadaverous complexion; and, except in his favourite
pursuit, in which he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no manner of
understanding. Had his capacity been better, and directed to the same
object, he had perhaps abated much of our wonder at the feats of a more
modern exhibiter of bees; and we may justly say of him now,
“Thou,
Had thy presiding star propitious shone,
Should’st _Wildman_ be.”
When a tall youth, he was removed from hence to a distant village, where
he died, as I understand, before he arrived at manhood.
* * * * *
[Illustration: ~Poor’s-Box in Cawston Church, Norfolk.~]
Before the Reformation, says Anthony à Wood, “in every church was a poor
man’s box, but I never remembered the use of it; nay, there was one at
great inns, as I remember it was, before the wars.”
Poor-boxes are often mentioned in the twelfth century. At that period
pope Innocent III. extended papal power to an inordinate height;
absolved subjects from allegiance to their sovereigns; raised crusades
throughout Europe for the recovery of the holy sepulchre; laid France
under an interdict; promised paradise to all who would slaughter the
Albigenses; excommunicated John, king of England; and ordered hollow
trunks to be placed in all the churches, to receive alms for the
remission of the sins of the donors.[214]
A communication to the Antiquarian Society, accompanied by drawings of
the poor-boxes on this and the opposite page, briefly describes
them.[215] The common poor-box in the churches appears to have been a
shaft of oak, hollowed out at the top, covered by a hinged lid of iron,
with a slit in it, for the money to fall through into the cavity, and
secured by one or two iron locks.
Perhaps the most curiously constructed of the ancient poor-boxes now
remaining, is that in the church of Cawston, near Aylsham. The church
was built between 1385 and 1414. The poor-box was provided with three
keys, two of which were for the churchwardens, and the third was most
probably for the clergyman, as one of the key-holes is more ornamented
than the others. The most singular part of this box is an inverted iron
cup, for preventing the money from being taken out by means of any
instrument through the holes on the top of the box.
The engravings above represent--1. this poor-box, as it stands on an
octangular stone basement; 2. a perfect view of the lid; 3. another of
the interior, with the manner wherein the cup is suspended for the
security of the money; 4. a section of the box.
In places where the presumed richness of the boxes rendered them liable
to be plundered, they were strongly bound or clamped with iron plates,
as shown in the present engravings.
[Illustration: ~Poor’s-Box in Loddon Church, Norfolk.~]
The church of Loddon, in the south-eastern angle of the county of
Norfolk, about five miles from Bungay, was built about 1495, and
contains a depository of this description, with two separate boxes, each
of them secured by two padlocks: over one of these is a hole in the lid
for the offerings. When a sufficient sum was collected, it was taken out
and placed in the adjoining box in the presence of the two
churchwardens.
Ben Jonson, in his “Masque of the Metamorphosed Gipsies, as it was
thrice presented before king James, 1621, &c.” makes a gipsy tell Tom
Ticklefoot, a rustic musician,--
“On Sundays you rob the poor’s-box with your tabor;
The collectors would do it, you save them a labour.”
Whereunto a countryman answers,
“Faith, but a little: they’ll do it _non-upstant_.”[216]
From this we gather that it was customary at that time to put money in
the parish poor’s-box on Sundays, and that the trustees of the poor were
sometimes suspected of misapplying it.
The neglect of this mode of public contribution is noted in Hogarth’s
marriage scene of the “Rake’s Progress,” by a cobweb covering the
poor’s-box in the church. There is an intimation to the same effect in
one of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays, which further intimates that
poor’s-boxes had posies--
The poor man’s box is there too: if ye find any thing
Besides the posy, and that half rubb’d out too,
For fear it should awaken too much charity,
Give it to pious uses: that is, spend it.
_Spanish Curate_, 1647.
The posies or mottoes on poor’s-boxes were short sentences to incite
benevolence--such as, “He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord,”
&c.
[214] Fosbroke’s Encyclopædia of Antiquities.
[215] This communication from J. A. Repton, Esq., is printed, with
engravings from his drawings, in the “Archæologia,” 1821.
[216] _Non-upstant_, notwithstanding.
* * * * *
~Poetry.~