Here’s your master’s good health_The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 2 (of 3) or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac

So drink off your beer;

I wish all things may prosper,

Whate’er he takes in hand;

We are all his servants,

And are all at his command.

So drink, boys, drink,

And see you do not spill;

For if you do,

You shall drink two,

For ’tis your master’s will.

_Another Health Drinking._

Behold, and see, his glass is full,

At which he’ll take a hearty pull,

He takes it out with such long wind,

That he’ll not leave one drop behind.

Behold and see what he can do,

He has not put it in his shoe;

He has not drank one drop in vain,

He’ll slake his thirst, then drink again.

Here’s a health unto my brother John,

It’s more than time that we were gone;

But drink your fill, and stand your ground,

This health is called the plough-boys round.

To this may be added the following.

_A Health Drinking._

There was a man from London came,

With a rum-bum-bum-bare-larum;

Drink up your glass for that’s the game,

And say ne’er a word, except--Mum.

The great object is to start something which will catch some unguarded

reply in lieu of saying “Mum,” when the party so unguardedly replying,

is fined to drink two glasses.

For the beginning of Harvest there is this

_Harvest Song._

Now Lammas comes in,

Our harvest begin,

We have done our endeavours to get the corn in;

We reap and we mow

And we stoutly blow

And cut down the corn

That did sweetly grow.

The poor old man

That can hardly stand,

Gets up in the morning, and do all he can,

Gets up, &c.

I hope God will reward

Such old harvest man.

But the man who is lazy

And will not come on,

He slights his good master

And likewise his men;

We’ll pay him his wages

And send him gone,

For why should we keep

Such a lazy drone.

Now harvest is over

We’ll make a great noise,

Our master, he says,

You are welcome, brave boys;

We’ll broach the old beer,

And we’ll knock along,

And now we will sing an old harvest song.

I shall be happy if this will afford the readers of the _Every-Day Book_

any information concerning the harvest customs of this county.

I am, Sir, &c.

~G. H. I.~

* * * * *

A valuable correspondent transmits a particular account of his country

custom, which will be read with pleasure.

DEVON.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--As the harvest has now become very general, I am reminded of a

circumstance, which I think worthy of communicating to you. After the

wheat is all cut, on most farms in the north of Devon, the harvest

people have a custom of “crying the neck.” I believe that this practice

is seldom omitted on any large farm in that part of the country. It is

done in this way. An old man, or some one else well acquainted with the

ceremonies used on the occasion, (when the labourers are reaping the

last field of wheat,) goes round to the shocks and sheaves, and picks

out a little bundle of all the best ears he can find; this bundle he

ties up very neat and trim, and plats and arranges the straws very

tastefully. This is called “the neck” of wheat, or wheaten-ears. After

the field is cut out, and the pitcher once more circulated, the reapers,

binders, and the women, stand round in a circle. The person with “the

neck” stands in the centre, grasping it with both his hands. He first

stoops and holds it near the ground, and all the men forming the ring,

take off their hats, stooping and holding them with both hands towards

the ground. They then all begin at once in a very prolonged and

harmonious tone to cry “the neck!” at the same time slowly raising

themselves upright, and elevating their arms and hats above their heads;

the person with “the neck” also raising it on high. This is done three

times. They then change their cry to “wee yen!”--“way yen!”--which they

sound in the same prolonged and slow manner as before, with singular

harmony and effect, three times. This last cry is accompanied by the

same movements of the body and arms as in crying “the neck.” I know

nothing of vocal music, but I think I may convey some idea of the sound,

by giving you the following notes in gamut.

[Music: _Very Slow._

We yen! We yen!]

Let these notes be played on a flute with perfect _crescendos_ and

_diminuendoes_, and perhaps some notion of this wild sounding cry may be

formed. Well, after having thus repeated “the neck” three times, and

“wee yen” or “way yen” as often, they all burst out into a kind of loud

and joyous laugh, flinging up their hats and caps into the air, capering

about and perhaps kissing the girls. One of them then gets “the neck,”

and runs as hard as he can down to the farm-house, where the dairy-maid,

or one of the young female domestics, stands at the door prepared with a

pail of water. If he who holds “the neck” can manage to get into the

house, in any way unseen, or openly, by any other way than the door at

which the girl stands with the pail of water, then he may lawfully kiss

her; but, if otherwise, he is regularly soused with the contents of the

bucket. On a fine still autumn evening, the “crying of the neck” has a

wonderful effect at a distance, far finer than that of the Turkish

muezzin, which lord Byron eulogizes so much, and which he says is

preferable to all the bells in Christendom. I have once or twice heard

upwards of twenty men cry it, and sometimes joined by an equal number of

female voices. About three years back, on some high grounds, where our

people were harvesting, I heard six or seven “necks” cried in one night,

although I know that some of them were four miles off. They are heard

through the quiet evening air, at a considerable distance sometimes. But

I think that the practice is beginning to decline of late, and many

farmers and their men do not care about keeping up this old custom. I

shall always patronise it myself, because I take it in the light of a

thanksgiving. By the by, I was about to conclude, without endeavouring

to explain the meaning of the words, “we yen!” I had long taken them for

Saxon, as the people of Devon are the true Saxon breed. But I think that

I am wrong. I asked an old fellow about it the other day, and he is the

only man who ever gave me a satisfactory explanation. He says, that the

object of crying “the neck” is to give the surrounding country notice of

the _end_ of harvest, and that they mean by “we yen!” _we have ended_.

It may more probably mean “we end,” which the uncouth and provincial

pronunciation has corrupted into “we yen!”

I am, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

_July, 1826._

R. A. R.

P. S. In the above hastily written account, I should have mentioned that

“the neck” is generally hung up in the farm-house, where it remains

sometimes three or four years. I have written “we yen,” because I have

always heard it so pronounced; they may articulate it differently in

other parts of the country.

ESSEX.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--As harvest has began in various counties, I beg leave to give you

a description of what is called the “harvest supper,” in Essex, at the

conclusion of the harvest.

After the conclusion of the harvest, a supper is provided, consisting of

roast beef and plum pudding, with plenty of strong ale, with which all

the men who have been employed in getting in the corn regale themselves.

At the beginning of the supper, the following is sung by the whole of

them at the supper.

Here’s a health to our master,

The lord of the feast,

God bless his endeavours,

And send him increase;

May prosper his crops, boys,

That we may reap another year,

Here’s your master’s good health, boys,

Come, drink off your beer.

After supper the following:--

Now harvest is ended and supper is past,

Here’s our mistress’s good health, boys,

Come, drink a full glass;

For she is a good woman, she provides us good cheer,

Here’s your mistress’s good health, boys,

Come, drink off your beer.

The night is generally spent with great mirth, and the merry-makers

seldom disperse till “Bright Phœbus has mounted his chariot of day.”

I am, &c.

AN ESSEX MAN AND SUBSCRIBER.

* * * * *

It is the advice of the most popular of our old writers on husbandry,

that--

In harvest time, harvest folke,

servants and all,

Should make, altogether,

good cheere in the hall:

And fill out the black bole,

of bleith to their song,

And let them be merry

all harvest time long.

Once ended thy harvest,

let none be beguilde,

Please such as did please thee,

man, woman, and child.

Thus doing, with alway

such help as they can,

Thou winnest the praise

of the labouring man.

_Tusser._

“Tusser Redivivus” says, “This, the poor labourer thinks, crowns all; a

good supper must be provided, and every one that did any thing towards

the Inning must now have some reward, as ribbons, laces, rows of pins to

boys and girls, if never so small, for their encouragement, and, to be

sure, plumb-pudding. The men must now have some better than best drink,

which, with a little tobacco and their screaming for their _largesses_,

their business will soon be done.”

_Harvest Goose._

For all this good feasting,

yet art thou not loose,

Til Ploughman thou givest

his _harvest home goose_;

Though goose goe in stubble,

I passe not for that,

Let goose have a goose,

be she lean, be she fat.

_Tusser._

Whereon “Tusser Redivivus” notes, that “the goose is forfeited, if they

overthrow during harvest.” A MS. note on a copy of Brand’s

“Antiquities,” lent to the editor, cites from Boys’s “Sandwich,” an item

“35 Hen. VIII. Spent when we ete our harvyst goose iij^{s}. vi^{d}. and

the goose x^{d}.”

In France under Henry IV. it is cited by Mr. Brand from Seward, that

“after the harvest, the peasants fixed upon some holiday to meet

together and have a little regale, (by them called the _harvest

gosling_,) to which they invited not only each other, but even their

masters, who pleased them very much when they condescended to partake of

it.”

* * * * *

According to information derived by Mr. Brand, it was formerly the

custom at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, for each farmer to drive furiously

home with the last load of his corn, while the people ran after him with

bowls full of water in order to throw on it; and this usage was

accompanied with great shouting.

HARVEST-HOME.

Who has not seen the cheerful harvest-home,

Enliv’ning the scorch’d field, and greeting gay

The slow decline of Autumn. All around

The yellow sheaves, catching the burning beam,

Glow, golden lustre; and the trembling stem

Of the slim oat, or azure corn-flow’r,

Waves on hedge-rows shady. From the hill

The day-breeze softly steals with downward wing,

And lightly passes, whisp’ring the soft sounds

Which moan the death of Summer. Glowing scene!

Nature’s long holiday! Luxuriant, rich,

In her proud progeny, she smiling marks

Their graces, now mature, and wonder-fraught!

Hail! season exquisite!--and hail, ye sons

Of rural toil!--ye blooming daughters!--ye

Who, in the lap of hardy labour rear’d,

Enjoy the mind unspotted! Up the plain,

Or on the side-long hill, or in the glen,

Where the rich farm, or scatter’d hamlet, shows

The neighbourhood of peace ye still are found,

A merry and an artless throng, whose souls

Beam thro’ untutor’d glances. When the dawn

Unfolds its sunny lustre, and the dew

Silvers the out-stretch’d landscape, labour’s sons

Rise, ever healthful,--ever cheerily,

From sweet and soothing rest; for fev’rish dreams

Visit not lowly pallets! All the day

They toil in the fierce beams of fervid noon--

But toil without repining! The blithe song

Joining the woodland melodies afar,

Fling its rude cadence in fantastic sport

On Echo’s airy wing! the pond’rous load

Follows the weary team: the narrow lane

Bears on its thick-wove hedge the scatter’d corn,

Hanging in scanty fragments, which the thorn

Purloin’d from the broad waggon.

To the brook

That ripples, shallow, down the valley’s slope,

The herds slow measure their unvaried way;--

The flocks along the heath are dimly seen

By the faint torch of ev’ning, whose red eye

Closes in tearful silence. Now the air

Is rich in fragrance! fragrance exquisite!

Of new-mown hay, of wild thyme dewy wash’d,

And gales ambrosial, which, with cooling breath,

Ruffle the lake’s grey surface. All around

The thin mist rises, and the busy tones

Of airy people, borne on viewless wings,

Break the short pause of nature. From the plain

The rustic throngs come cheerly, their loud din

Augments to mingling clamour. Sportive hinds,

Happy! more happy than the lords ye serve!--

How lustily your sons endure the hour

Of wintry desolation; and how fair

Your blooming daughters greet the op’ning dawn

Of love-inspiring spring!

Hail! harvest-home!

To thee, the muse of nature pours the song,

By instinct taught to warble! Instinct pure,

Sacred, and grateful, to that pow’r ador’d,

Which warms the sensate being, and reveals

The soul, self-evident, beyond the dreams

Of visionary sceptics! Scene sublime!

Where the rich earth presents her golden treasures;

Where balmy breathings whisper to the heart

Delights unspeakable! Where seas and skies,

And hills and vallies, colours, odours, dews,

Diversify the work of nature’s God!

_Mrs. Robinson._

* * * * *

It was formerly the custom in the parish of Longforgan, in the county of

Perth North Britain, to give what was called _a maiden feast_. “Upon the

finishing of the harvest the last handful of corn reaped in the field

was called _the maiden_. This was generally contrived to fall into the

hands of one of the finest girls in the field, and was dressed up with

ribands, and brought home in triumph with the music of fiddles or

bagpipes. A good dinner was given to the whole band, and the evening

spent in joviality and dancing, while the fortunate lass who took the

_maiden_ was the queen of the feast; after which this handful of corn

was dressed out generally in the form of a cross, and hung up with the

date of the year, in some conspicuous part of the house. This custom is

now entirely done away, and in its room each shearer is given sixpence

and a loaf of bread. However, some farmers, when all their corns are

brought in, give their servants a dinner and a jovial evening, by way

of harvest-home.”[323]

* * * * *

The festival of the in-gathering in Scotland, is poetically described by

the elegant author of the “British Georgics.”

THE KIRN.

_Harvest Home._

The fields are swept, a tranquil silence reigns,

And pause of rural labour, far and near.

Deep is the morning’s hush; from grange to grange

Responsive cock-crows, in the distance heard,

Distinct as if at hand, soothe the pleased ear;

And oft, at intervals, the flail, remote,

Sends faintly through the air its deafened sound.

Bright now the shortening day, and blythe its close,

When to the _Kirn_ the neighbours, old and young,

Come dropping in to share the well-earned feast.

The smith aside his ponderous sledge has thrown,

Raked up his fire, and cooled the hissing brand

His sluice the miller shuts; and from the barn

The threshers hie, to don their Sunday coats.

Simply adorned, with ribands, blue and pink,

Bound round their braided hair, the lasses trip

To grace the feast, which now is smoking ranged

On tables of all shape, and size, and height,

Joined awkwardly, yet to the crowded guests

A seemly joyous show, all loaded well:

But chief, at the board-head, the haggis round

Attracts all eyes, and even the goodman’s grace

Prunes of its wonted length. With eager knife,

The quivering globe he then prepares to broach;

While for her gown some ancient matron quakes,

Her gown of silken woof, all figured thick

With roses white, far larger than the life,

On azure ground,--her grannam’s wedding garb,

Old as that year when Sheriffmuir was fought.

Old tales are told, and well-known jests abound,

Which laughter meets half way as ancient friends,

Nor, like the worldling, spurns because thread bare.

When ended the repast, and board and bench

Vanish like thought, by many hands removed,

Up strikes the fiddle; quick upon the floor

The youths lead out the half-reluctant maids,

Bashful at first, and darning through the reels

With timid steps, till, by the music cheered,

With free and airy step, they bound along,

Then deftly wheel, and to their partner’s face,

Turning this side, now that, with varying step.

Sometimes two ancient couples o’er the floor,

Skim through a reel, and think of youthful years.

Meanwhile the frothing bickers,[324] soon as filled,

Are drained, and to the gauntress[325] oft return,

Where gossips sit, unmindful of the dance.

Salubrious beverage! Were thy sterling worth

But duly prized, no more the alembic vast

Would, like some dire volcano, vomit forth

Its floods of liquid fire, and far and wide

Lay waste the land; no more the fruitful boon

Of twice ten shrievedoms, into poison turned,

Would taint the very life blood of the poor,

Shrivelling their heart-strings like a burning scroll.

_Grahame._

In the island of Minorca, “Their harvests are generally gathered by the

middle of June; and, as the corn ripens, a number of boys and girls

station themselves at the edges of the fields, and on the tops of the

fence-walls, to fright away the small birds with their shouts and cries.

This puts one in mind of Virgil’s precept in the first book of his

‘Georgics,’

‘Et sonitu terrebis aves,’----

and was a custom, I doubt not, among the Roman farmers, from whom the

ancient Minorquins learned it. They also use for the same purpose, a

split reed, which makes a horrid rattling, as they shake it with their

hands.”

* * * * *

In Northamptonshire, “within the liberty of Warkworth is Ashe Meadow,

divided amongst the neighbouring parishes, and famed for the following

customs observed in the mowing of it. The meadow is divided into fifteen

portions, answering to fifteen lots, which are pieces of wood cut off

from an arrow, and marked according to the landmarks in the field. To

each lot are allowed eight mowers, amounting to one hundred and twenty

in the whole. On the Saturday sevennight after midsummer-day, these

portions are laid out by six persons, of whom two are chosen from

Warkworth, two from Overthorp, one from Grimsbury, and one from

Nethercote. These are called field-men, and have an entertainment

provided for them upon the day of laying out the meadow, at the

appointment of the lord of the manor. As soon as the meadow is measured,

the man who provides the feast, attended by the hay-ward of Warkworth,

brings into the field three gallons of ale. After this the meadow is

run, as they term it, or trod, to distinguish the lots; and, when this

is over, the hay-ward brings into the field a rump of beef, six penny

loaves, and three gallons of ale, and is allowed a certain portion of

hay in return, though not of equal value with his provision. This

hay-ward and the master of the feast have the name of crocus-men. In

running the field each man hath a boy allowed to assist him. On Monday

morning lots are drawn, consisting some of eight swaths and others of

four. Of these the first and last carry the garlands. The two first lots

are of four swaths, and whilst these are mowing, the mowers go double;

and, as soon as these are finished, the following orders are read

aloud:--‘Oyez, Oyez, Oyez, I charge you, under God, and in his majesty’s

name, that you keep the king’s peace in the lord of the manor’s behalf,

according to the orders and customs of this meadow. No man or men shall

go before the two garlands; if you do, you shall pay your penny, or

deliver your scythe at the first demand, and this so often as you shall

transgress. No man, or men, shall mow above eight swaths over their

lots, before they lay down their scythes and go to breakfast. No man, or

men, shall mow any farther than Monksholm-brook, but leave their scythes

there, and go to dinner; according to the custom and manner of this

manor. God save the king!’ The dinner, provided by the lord of the

manor’s tenant, consists of three cheesecakes, three cakes, and a

new-milk cheese. The cakes and cheesecakes are of the size of a

winnowing-sieve; and the person who brings them is to have three gallons

of ale. The master of the feast is paid in hay, and is farther allowed

to turn all his cows into the meadow on Saturday morning till eleven

o’clock; that by this means giving the more milk the cakes may be made

the bigger. Other like customs are observed in the mowing of other

meadows in this parish.”[326]

* * * * *

Harvest time is as delightful to look on to us, who are mere spectators

of it, as it was in the golden age, when the gatherers and the rejoicers

were one. Now, therefore, as then, the fields are all alive with figures

and groups, that seem, in the eye of the artist, to be made for

pictures--pictures that he can see but one fault in; (which fault, by

the by, constitutes their only beauty in the eye of the farmer;) namely,

that they will not stand still a moment, for him to paint them. He must

therefore be content, as we are, to keep them as studies in the

storehouse of his memory.

Here are a few of those studies, which he may practise upon till

doomsday, and will not then be able to produce half the effect from them

that will arise spontaneously on the imagination, at the mere mention of

the simplest words which can describe them:--The sunburnt reapers,

entering the field leisurely at early morning, with their reaphooks

resting on their right shoulders, and their beer-kegs swinging to their

left hands, while they pause for a while to look about them before they

begin their work.--The same, when they are scattered over the field:

some stooping to the ground over the prostrate corn, others lifting up

the heavy sheaves and supporting them against one another, while the

rest are plying their busy sickles, before which the brave crop seems to

retreat reluctantly, like a half-defeated army.--Again, the same

collected together into one group, and resting to refresh themselves,

while the lightening keg passes from one to another silently, and the

rude clasp-knife lifts the coarse meal to the ruddy lips.--Lastly, the

piled-up wain, moving along heavily among the lessening sheaves, and

swaying from side to side as it moves; while a few, whose share of the

work is already done, lie about here and there in the shade, and watch

the near completion of it.[327]

KENTISH HOP PICKING.

Who first may fill

The bellying bin, and cleanest cull the hops.

Nor ought retards, unless invited out

By Sol’s declining, and the evening’s calm,

Leander leads Lætitia to the scene

Of shade and fragrance--Then th’ exulting band

Of pickers, male and female, seize the fair

Reluctant, and with boisterous force and brute,

By cries unmov’d, they bury her in the bin.

Nor does the youth escape--him too they seize,

And in such posture place as best may serve

To hide his charmer’s blushes. Then with shouts

They rend the echoing air, and from them both

(So custom has ordain’d) a _largess_ claim.

_Smart._

[314] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[315] Bateman’s Doome.

[316] Kirby and Spence’s Entomology.

[317] From “Ornithologia; or the Birds, a Poem, _with an introduction,

to their natural history, and copious notes_, by _James Jennings,

author of Observations on the Dialects of the West of England,” &c.

&c._ This work has been for some time ready for the press, but its

appearance is delayed in consequence of the depressed state of trade.

[318] The hot wells are, unfortunately, too often the last resort of

the consumptive.

[319] A promising youth who died some years since at Berbice.

[320] Literary Panorama, 1807.

[321] Brand’s Popular Antiquities.

[322] A large stone, or earthen pitcher.

[323] Statistical Account of Scotland.

[324] Beakers.

[325] Wooden frames on which beer casks are set.--_Johnson._

[326] Bridges’ Northamptonshire.

[327] Mirror of the Months.

[Illustration: SEPTEMBER.]

The harvest-men ring Summer out

With thankful song, and joyous shout;

And, when September comes, they hail

The Autumn with the flapping flail.

This besides being named “gerst-monat” by the Anglo-Saxons,[328] they

also called _haligemonath_, or the “holy-month,” from an ancient

festival held at this season of the year. A Saxon menology, or register

of the months, (in Wanley’s addition to Hickes,) mentions it under that

denomination, and gives its derivation in words which are thus literally

translated “_haligemonath_--for that our forefathers, the while they

heathens were, on this month celebrated their _devil-gild_.” To inquire

concerning an exposition which appears so much at variance with this old

name, is less requisite than to take a calm survey of the month itself.

* * * * *

I at my window sit, and see

Autumn his russet fingers lay

On every leaf of every tree;

I call, but summer will not stay.

She flies, the boasting goddess flies,

And, pointing where espaliers shoot,

Deserve my parting gift, she cries,

I take the leaves, but not the fruit.

Still, at this season--

The rainbow comes and goes,

The moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare;

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;--

But yet we know, where’er we go,

That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

“I am sorry to mention it,” says the author of the _Mirror of the

Months_, “but the truth must be told even in a matter of age. The year

then is on the wane. It is ‘declining into the vale’ of months. It has

reached ‘a certain age.’--It has reached the summit of the hill, and is

not only looking, but descending, into the valley below. But, unlike

that into which the life of man declines, _this_ is not a vale of tears;

still less does it, like that, lead to that inevitable bourne, the

kingdom of the grave. For though it may be called (I hope without the

semblance of profanation) ‘the valley of the _shadow_ of death,’ yet of

death itself it knows nothing. No--the year steps onward towards its

temporary decay, if not so rejoicingly, even more majestically and

gracefully, than it does towards its revivification. And if September is

not so bright with promise, and so buoyant with hope, as May, it is even

more embued with that spirit of serene repose, in which the only true,

because the only continuous enjoyment consists. Spring ‘never _is_, but

always _to be_ blest;’ but September is the month of consummations--the

fulfiller of all promises--the fruition of all hopes--the era of all

completeness.

“The sunsets of September in this country are perhaps unrivalled, for

their infinite variety, and their indescribable beauty. Those of more

southern countries may, perhaps, match or even surpass them, for a

certain glowing and unbroken intensity. But for gorgeous variety of form

and colour, exquisite delicacy of tint and pencilling, and a certain

placid sweetness and tenderness of general effect, which frequently

arises out of a union of the two latter, there is nothing to be seen

like what we can show in England at this season of the year. If a

painter, who was capable of doing it to the utmost perfection, were to

dare depict on canvas one out of twenty of the sunsets that we

frequently have during this month, he would be laughed at for his pains.

And the reason is, that people judge of pictures by pictures. They

compare Hobbima with Ruysdael, and Ruysdael with Wynants, and Wynants

with Wouvermans, and Wouvermans with Potter, and Potter with Cuyp; and

then they think the affair can proceed no farther. And the chances are,

that if you were to show one of the sunsets in question to a

thorough-paced connoisseur in this department of fine art, he would

reply, that it was very beautiful, to be sure, but that he must beg to

doubt whether it was _natural_, for he had never seen one like it in any

of the old masters!”

* * * * *

In the “Poetical Calendar” there is the following address “to Mr.

Hayman,” probably Francis Hayman, the painter of Vauxhall-gardens, who

is known to us all, through early editions of several of our good

authors, “with copper-plates, designed by Mr. Hayman.”

AN AUTUMNAL ODE.

Yet once more, glorious God of day,

While beams thine orb serene,

O let me warbling court thy stay

To gild the fading scene!

Thy rays invigorate the spring,

Bright summer to perfection bring,

The cold inclemency of winter cheer,

And make th’ autumnal months the mildest of the year.

Ere yet the russet foliage fall

I’ll climb the mountain’s brow,

My friend, my Hayman, at thy call,

To view the scene below:

How sweetly pleasing to behold

Forests of vegetable gold!

How mix’d the many chequer’d shades between

The tawny, mellowing hue, and the gay vivid green!

How splendid all the sky! how still!

How mild the dying gale!

How soft the whispers of the rill,

That winds along the vale!

So tranquil nature’s works appear,

It seems the sabbath of the year:

As if, the summer’s labour past, she chose

This season’s sober calm for blandishing repose.

Such is of well-spent life the time,

When busy days are past;

Man, verging gradual from his prime,

Meets sacred peace at last:

His flowery spring of pleasures o’er,

And summer’s full-bloom pride no more,

He gains pacific autumn, mild and bland,

And dauntless braves the stroke of winter’s palsied hand.

For yet a while, a little while,

Involv’d in wintry gloom,

And lo! another spring shall smile,

A spring eternal bloom:

Then shall he shine, a glorious guest,

In the bright mansions of the blest,

Where due rewards on virtue are bestow’d,

And reap’d the golden fruits of what his autumn sow’d.

* * * * *

It is remarked by the gentleman-usher of the year, that “the fruit

garden is one scene of tempting profusion.

“Against the wall, the grapes have put on that transparent look which

indicates their complete ripeness, and have dressed their cheeks in that

delicate bloom which enables them to bear away the bell of beauty from

all their rivals. The peaches and nectarines have become fragrant, and

the whole wall where they hang is ‘musical with bees.’ Along the

espaliers, the rosy-cheeked apples look out from among their leaves,

like laughing children peeping at each other through screens of foliage;

and the young standards bend their straggling boughs to the earth with

the weight of their produce.

“Let us not forget to add, that there is _one_ part of London which is

never out of season, and is never more _in_ season than now.

Covent-garden market is still the garden of gardens; and as there is not

a month in all the year in which it does not contrive to belie something

or other that has been said in the foregoing pages, as to the particular

season of certain flowers, fruits, &c., so now it offers the flowers and

the fruits of every season united. How it becomes possessed of all

these, I shall not pretend to say: but thus much I am bound to add by

way of information,--that those ladies and gentlemen who have

country-houses in the neighbourhood of Clapham-common or

Camberwell-grove, may now have the pleasure of eating the best fruit out

of their own gardens--provided they choose to pay the price of it in

Covent-garden market.”[329]

* * * * *

The observer of nature, where nature can alone be fully enjoyed, will

perceive, that, in this month, “among the birds, we have something like

a renewal of the spring melodies. In particular, the thrush and

blackbird, who have been silent for several weeks, recommence their

songs,--bidding good bye to the summer, in the same subdued tone in

which they hailed her approach--wood-owls hoot louder than ever; and the

lambs bleat shrilly from the hill-side to their neglectful dams; and the

thresher’s flail is heard from the unseen barn; and the plough-boy’s

whistle comes through the silent air from the distant upland; and snakes

leave their last year’s skins in the brakes--literally creeping out at

their own mouths; and acorns drop in showers from the oaks, at every

wind that blows; and hazel-nuts ask to be plucked, so invitingly do they

look forth from their green dwellings; and, lastly, the evenings close

in too quickly upon the walks to which their serene beauty invites us,

and the mornings get chilly, misty, and damp.”

Finally, “another singular sight belonging to this period, is the

occasional showers of gossamer that fall from the upper regions of the

air, and cover every thing like a veil of woven silver. You may see them

descending through the sunshine, and glittering and flickering in it,

like rays of another kind of light. Or if you are in time to observe

them before the sun has dried the dew from off them in the early

morning, they look like robes of fairy tissue-work, gemmed with

innumerable jewels.”[330]

* * * * *

SEPTEMBER.

_An Ode._

Farewell the pomp of Flora! vivid scene!

Welcome sage Autumn, to invert the year--

Farewell to summer’s eye-delighted green!

Her verdure fades--autumnal blasts are near.

The silky wardrobe now is laid aside,

With all the rich regalia of her pride.

And must we bid sweet Philomel adieu?

She that was wont to charm us in the grove?

Must Nature’s livery wear a sadder hue,

And a dark canopy be stretch’d above?

Yes--for September mounts his ebon throne,

And the smooth foliage of the plain is gone.

Libra, to weigh the harvest’s pearly store,

The golden balance poizes now on high,

The calm serenity of Zephyr o’er,

Sol’s glittering legions to th’ equator fly,

At the same hour he shows his orient head,

And, warn’d by Thetis, sinks in Ocean’s bed.

Adieu! ye damask roses, which remind

The maiden fair-one, how her charms decay;

Ye rising blasts, oh! leave some mark behind,

Some small memorial of the sweets of May;

Ah! no--the ruthless season will not hear,

Nor spare one glory of the ruddy year.

No more the waste of music sung so late

From every bush, green orchestre of love,

For now their winds the birds of passage wait,

And bid a last farewell to every grove;

While those, whom shepherd-swains the sleepers call,

Choose their recess in some sequester’d wall.

Yet still shall sage September boast his pride,

Some birds shall chant, some gayer flowers shall blow,

Nor is the season wholly unallied

To purple bloom; the haler fruits shall grow,

The stronger plants, such as enjoy the cold,

And wear a livelier grace by being old.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 63·69.

[328] See vol. i. p. 1147.

[329] Mirror of the Months.

[330] Ibid.

~September 1.~

GILES.

This popular patron of the London district, which furnishes the

“Mornings at Bow-street” with a large portion of amusement, is spoken of

in vol. i. col. 1149.

* * * * *

Until this day partridges are protected by act of parliament from those

who are “privileged to kill.”

_Application for a License._

In the shooting season of 1821, a fashionably dressed young man applied

to sir Robert Baker for a license to kill--not _game_, but _thieves_.

This curious application was made in the most serious and business-like

manner imaginable. “Can I be permitted to speak a few words to you,

sir?” said the applicant. “Certainly, sir,” replied sir Robert. “Then I

wish to ask you, sir, whether, if I am attacked by thieves in the

streets or roads, I should be justified in using fire-arms against them,

and putting them to death?” Sir Robert Baker replied, that every man had

a right to defend himself from robbers in the best manner he could; but

at the same time he would not be justified in using fire-arms, except in

cases of the utmost extremity. “Oh! I am very much obliged to you, sir;

and I can be furnished at this office with a license to carry arms for

that purpose?” The answer, of course, was given in the negative, though

not without a good deal of surprise at such a question, and the inquirer

bowed and withdrew.

* * * * *

THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER.

Here the rude clamour of the sportsman’s joy,

The gun fast-thundering, and the winded horn,

Would tempt the muse to sing the _rural game_:

How, in his mid-career, the spaniel struck,

Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose,

Out-stretched, and finely sensible, _draws_ full,

Fearful, and cautious, on the latent prey;

As in the sun the circling covey bask

Their varied plumes, and watchful every way

Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye.

Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat

Their idle wings, entangled more and more:

Nor on the surges of the boundless air,

Though borne triumphant, are they safe; the gun,

Glanc’d just, and sudden, from the fowler’s eye,

O’ertakes their sounding pinions; and again,

Immediate brings them from the towering wing,

Dead to the ground: or drives them wide-dispers’d,

Wounded, and wheeling various, down the wind.

These are not subjects for the peaceful muse,

Nor will she stain with such her spotless song;

Then most delighted, when she social sees

The whole mix’d animal creation round

Alive, and happy. ’Tis not joy to her,

This falsely-cheerful barbarous game of death

This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth

Awakes impatient, with the gleaming morn;

When beasts of prey retire, that all night long,

Urg’d by necessity, had rang’d the dark,

As if their conscious ravage shunn’d the light,

Asham’d. Not so the steady tyrant man,

Who with the thoughtless insolence of power

Inflam’d, beyond the most infuriate wrath

Of the worst monster that e’er roam’d the waste,

For sport alone pursues the cruel chase,

Amid the beamings of the gentle days.

Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage,

For hunger kindles you, and lawless want;

But lavish fed, in nature’s bounty roll’d,

To joy at anguish, and delight in blood,

Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.

So sings the muse of “The Seasons” on the one side; on the other, we

have “the lay of the last minstrel” in praise of “Fowling,” the “rev.

John Vincent, B. A. curate of Constantine, Cornwall,” whose “passion for

rural sports, and the beauties of nature,” gave birth to “a poem where

nature and sport were to be the only features of the picture,” and

wherein he thus describes.

Full of th’ expected sport my heart beats high,

And with impatient step I haste to reach

The stubbles, where the scatter’d ears afford

A sweet repast to the yet heedless game.

How my brave dogs o’er the broad furrows bound,

Quart’ring their ground exactly. Ah! that point

Answers my eager hopes, and fills my breast

With joy unspeakable. How close they lie!

Whilst to the spot with steady pace I tend.

Now from the ground with noisy wing they burst,

And dart away. My victim singled out,

In his aërial course falls short, nor skims

Th’ adjoining hedge o’er which the rest unhurt

Have pass’d. Now let us from that lofty hedge

Survey with heedful eye the country round;

That we may bend our course once more to meet

The scatter’d covey: for no marker waits

Upon my steps, though hill and valley here,

With shrubby copse, and far extended brake

Of high-grown furze, alternate rise around.

Inviting is the view,--far to the right

In rows of dusky green, potatoes stretch,

With turnips mingled of a livelier hue.

Towards the vale, fenc’d by the prickly furze

That down the hill irregularly slopes,

Upwards they seem’d to fly; nor is their flight

Long at this early season. Let us beat,

With diligence and speed restrain’d, the ground,

Making each circuit good.

Near yonder hedge-row where high grass and ferns

The secret hollow shade, my pointers stand.

How beautiful they look! with outstretch’d tails,

With heads immovable and eyes fast fix’d,

One fore-leg rais’d and bent, the other firm,

Advancing forward, presses on the ground!

Convolv’d and flutt’ring on the blood stain’d earth,

The partridge lies:--thus one by one they fall,

Save what with happier fate escape untouch’d,

And o’er the open fields with rapid speed

To the close shelt’ring covert wing their way.

When to the hedge-rows thus the birds repair,

Most certain is our sport; but oft in brakes

So deep they lie, that far above our head

The waving branches close, and vex’d we hear

The startled covey one by one make off.

Now may we visit some remoter ground;

My eager wishes are insatiate yet,

And end but with the sun.

Yet happy he,

Who ere the noontide beams inflame the skies,

Has bagg’d the spoil; with lighter step he treads,

Nor faints so fast beneath the scorching ray.

The morning hours well spent, should mighty toil

Require some respite, he content can seek

Th’ o’er-arching shade, or to the friendly farm

Betake him, where with hospitable hand

His simple host brings forth the grateful draught

Of honest home-brew’d beer, or cider cool.

Such friendly treatment may each fowler find

Who never violates the farmer’s rights,

Nor with injurious violence, invades

His fields of standing corn. Let us forbear

Such cruel wrong, though on the very verge

Of the high waving field our days should point.

* * * * *

The pen of a country gentleman communicates an account of a remarkable

character created by “love of the _gun_.”

THE LOSCOE MISER.

_For the Every-Day Book._

About sixty years ago, at Loscoe, a small village in Derbyshire, lived

James Woolley, notorious for three things, the very good clocks he made,

his eccentric system of farming, and the very great care he took of his

money. He was, like Elwes and Dancer, an old bachelor, and for the same

reason, it was a favourite maxim with him, and ever upon his lips, that

“fine wives and fine gardens are mighty expensive things:” he

consequently kept at a very respectful distance from both. He had,

indeed, an unconquerable dread of any thing “fine,” or that approached

in any way that awful and ghost-like term “expensive.”

It would seem that Woolley’s avaricious bias, was not, as is generally

the case, his first ruling passion, though a phrenologist, might

entertain a different opinion. “When young,” says Blackner in his

History of Nottinghamshire, “he was partial to shooting; but being

detected at his sport upon the estate of the depraved William Andrew

Horne, Esq. of Butterly (who was executed on the 11th of December, 1759,

at Nottingham, for the murder of a child) and compelled by him to pay

the penalty, he made a vow never to cease from labour, except when

nature compelled him, till he had obtained sufficient property to

justify him in following his favourite sport, without dreading the

frowns of his haughty neighbour. He accordingly fell to work, and

continued at it till he was weary, when he rested, and “to it again,”--a

plan which he pursued without any regard to night or day. He denied

himself the use of an ordinary bed, and of every other comfort, as well

as necessary, except of the meanest kind. But when he had acquired

property to qualify him to carry a gun, he had lost all relish for the

sport; and he continued to labour at clock-making, except when he found

an opportunity of trafficking in land, till he had amassed a

considerable fortune, which he bequeathed to one of his relations. I

believe he died about 1770.”

It must have been a singular spectacle to any one except Woolley’s

neighbours, who were the daily observers of his habits, to have seen a

man worth upwards of 20,000_l._ up at five in the morning brushing away

with his bare feet the dew as he fetched up his cows from the pasture,

his shoes and stockings carefully held under his arm to prevent them

from being injured by the wet; though, by the by, a glance at them would

have satisfied any one they had but little to fear from the dew or any

thing else. A penny loaf boiled in a small piece of linen, made him an

excellent pudding; this with a halfpenny worth of small beer from the

village alehouse was his more than ordinary dinner, and rarely sported

unless on holydays, or when he had a friend or tenant to share the

luxury.

Once in his life Woolley was convicted of liberality. He had at great

labour and expense of time made, what he considered, a clock of

considerable value, and, as it was probably too large for common

purposes, he presented it to the corporation of Nottingham, for the

exchange. In return he was made a freeman of the town. They could not

have conferred on him a greater favour: the honour mattered not--but

election-dinners were things which powerfully appealed through his

stomach to his heart. The first he attended was productive of a

ludicrous incident. His shabby and vagrant appearance nearly excluded

him from the scene of good-eating, and even when the burgesses sat down

to table, no one seemed disposed to accommodate the miserly old

gentleman with a seat. The chairs were quickly filled: having no time to

lose, he crept under the table and thrusting up his head forced himself

violently into one, but not before he had received some heavy blows on

the bare skull.

The most prominent incident in his history, was a ploughing scheme of

his own invention. He had long lamented that he kept horses at a great

expense for the purposes of husbandry. To have kept a saddle-horse would

have been extravagant--and at last fancying he could do without them,

they were sold, and the money carefully laid by. This was a triumph--a

noble saving! The winter passed away, and his hay and corn-stacks stood

undiminished; ploughing time however arrived, and his new plan must be

carried into effect. The plough was drawn from its inglorious

resting-place, and a score men were summoned from the village to supply

the place of horses. At the breakfast-table he was not without fears of

a famine--he could starve himself, but a score of brawny villagers,

hungry, and anticipating a hard day’s work, would eat, and drink too,

and must be satisfied. They soon proceeded to the field, where a long

continued drought had made the ground almost impenetrable; the day

became excessively hot, and the men tugged and puffed to little purpose;

they again ate heartily, and drank more good ale than the old man had

patience to think of; and difficult as it was, to force the share

through the unyielding sward, it was still more difficult to refrain

from laughing out at the grotesque figure their group presented. They

made many wry faces, and more wry furrows, and spoiled with their feet

what they had not ploughed amiss. But this was not all. Had a balloon

been sent up from the field it could scarcely have drawn together more

intruders; he tried, but in vain, to keep them off; they thronged upon

him from all quarters; his gates were all set open or thrown off the

hooks; and the fences broken down in every direction. Woolley perceived

his error; the men, the rope traces, and the plough were sent home in a

hurry, and with some blustering, and many oaths, the trespassers were

got rid of. The fences were mended, and the gates replaced, and having

to his heart’s content gratified his whim, he returned to the

old-fashioned custom of ploughing with horses, until in his brains’

fertility he could discover something better and less “expensive!”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 60·40.

~September 2.~

LONDON BURNT, 1666.

This notice in our almanacs was descriptively illustrated in vol. i.

col. 1150-1165.

BARTHOLOMEW FAIR, 1826.

Another year arrives, and spite of corporation “resolutions,” and

references to “the committee,” and “reports,” and “recommendations,” to

abolish the fair, it is held again. “Now,” says an agreeable observer,

“Now arrives that Saturnalia of nondescript noise and nonconformity,

‘Bartlemy fair;’--when that prince of peace-officers, the lord mayor,

changes his sword of state into a sixpenny trumpet, and becomes the lord

of misrule and the patron of pickpockets; and lady Holland’s name leads

an unlettered mob instead of a lettered one; when Mr. Richardson

maintains, during three whole days and a half, a managerial supremacy

that must be not a little enviable even in the eyes of Mr. Elliston

himself; and Mr. Gyngell holds, during the same period, a scarcely less

distinguished station as the Apollo of servant-maids; when ‘the

incomparable (not to say _eternal_) _young_ Master Saunders’ rides on

horseback to the admiration of all beholders, in the person of his

eldest son; and when all the giants in the land, and the dwarfs too,

make a general muster, and each proves to be, according to the most

correct measurement, at least a foot taller or shorter than any other in

the fair, and in fact, the only one worth seeing,--‘all the rest being

impostors!’ In short, when every booth in the fair combines in itself

the attractions of all the rest, and so perplexes with its irresistible

merit the rapt imagination of the half-holyday schoolboys who have got

but sixpence to spend upon the whole, that they eye the outsides of each

in a state of pleasing despair, till their leave of absence is expired

twice over, and then return home filled with visions of giants and

gingerbread-nuts, and dream all night long of what they have not

seen.”[331]

* * * * *

The almanac day for Bartholomew fair, is on the third of the month,

which this year fell on a Sunday, and it being prescribed that the fair

shall be proclaimed “on or before the third,” proclamation was

accordingly made, and the fair commenced on Saturday the second of

September, 1826. Its appearance on that and subsequent days, proves that

it is going out like the lottery, by force of public opinion; for the

people no longer buy lottery tickets even in “the _last_ lottery,” nor

pay as they used to do at “Bartlemy fair.” There were this year only

three shows at sixpence, and one at twopence; all the rest were “only a

penny.”

The _sixpenny_ shows were, Clarke, with riders and tumblers; Richardson,

with his tragi-comical company, enacting “Paul Pry;” and wicked

Wombwell, with his fellow brutes.

In the _twopenny_ show were four lively little crocodiles about twelve

inches long, hatched from the eggs at Peckham, by steam; two larger

crocodiles; four cages of fierce rattle snakes; and a dwarf lady.

In the _penny_ shows were a glass-blower, sitting at work in a glass

wig, with rows of curls all over, making pretty little teacups at

threepence each, and miniature tobacco pipes for a penny; he was

assisted by a wretched looking female, who was a sword-swallower at the

last figure, and figured in this by placing her feet on hot iron, and

licking a poker nearly red hot with her tongue. In “Brown’s grand

company from Paris,” there were juggling, tight-rope dancing, a learned

horse, and playing on the salt-box with a rolling-pin, to a tune which

is said to be peculiar to the pastime. The other penny shows were nearly

as last year, and silver-haired ladies and dwarfs, more plentiful and

less in demand than learned pigs, who, on that account, drew “good

houses.”

In this year’s fair there was not one “up-and-down,” or “round-about.”

The west side of Giltspur-street was an attractive mart to certain “men

of letters;” for the ground was covered with “relics of literature.” In

the language of my informant, for I did not visit the fair myself, there

was a “path of genius” from St. Sepulchre’s church to Cock-lane. He

mentions that a person, apparently an agent of a religious society, was

anxiously busy in the fair distributing a bill entitled--“Are you

prepared to die?”

ROMAN REMAINS AT PENTONVILLE,

and

THE WHITE CONDUIT.

I am not learned in the history or the science of phrenology, but,

unless I am mistaken, surely in the days of “craniology,” the organ of

“inhabitiveness” was called the organ of “travelling.” Within the last

minute I have felt my head in search of the development. I imagine it

must be very palpable to the scientific, for I not only incline to

wander but to locate. However that may be, I cannot find it myself--for

want, I suppose, of a topographical view of the cranium, and I have not

a copy of Mr. Cruikshank’s “Illustrations of Phrenology” to refer to.

At home, I always sit in the same place if I can make my way to it

without disturbing the children; all of whom, by the by, (I speak of the

younger ones,) are great sticklers for rights of sitting, and urge their

claims on each other with a persistence which takes all my authority to

abate. I have a habit, too, at a friend’s house of always preferring the

seat I dropped into on my first visit; and the same elsewhere. The first

time I went to the Chapter Coffee-house, some five-and-twenty years ago,

I accidentally found myself alone with old Dr. Buchan, in the same box;

it was by the fireplace on the left from Paternoster-row door: poor

Robert Heron presently afterwards entered, and then a troop of the

doctor’s familiars dropped in, one by one; and I sat in the corner, a

stranger to all of them, and therefore a silent auditor of their

pleasant disputations. At my next appearance I forbore from occupying

the same seat, because it would have been an obtrusion on the literary

community; but I got into the adjoining box, and that always, for the

period of my then frequenting the house, was my coveted box. After an

absence of twenty years, I returned to the “Chapter,” and involuntarily

stepped to the old spot; it was pre-occupied; and in the doctor’s box

were other faces, and talkers of other things. I strode away to a

distant part of the room to an inviting vacancy, which, from that

accident, and my propensity, became my desirable sitting place at every

future visit. My strolls abroad are of the same character. I prefer

walking where I walked when novelty was charming; where I can have the

pleasure of recollecting that I formerly felt pleasure--of rising to the

enjoyment of a spirit hovering over the remains it had animated.

One of my oldest, and therefore one of my still-admired walks is by the

way of Islington. I am partial to it, because, when I was eleven years

old, I went every evening from my father’s, near Red Lion-square, to a

lodging in that village “for a consumption,” and returned the following

morning. I thus became acquainted with Canonbury, and the Pied Bull, and

Barnesbury-park, and White Conduit-house; and the intimacy has been kept

up until presumptuous takings in, and enclosures, and new buildings,

have nearly destroyed it. The old site seems like an old friend who has

formed fashionable acquaintanceships, and lost his old heartwarming

smiles in the constraint of a new face.

In my last Islington walk, I took a survey of the only remains of the

Roman encampment, near Barnesbury-park. This is a quadrangle of about

one hundred and thirty feet, surrounded by a fosse or ditch, about

five-and-twenty feet wide, and twelve feet deep. It is close to the west

side of the present end of the New Road, in a line with Penton-street;

immediately opposite to it, on the east side of the road, is built a row

of houses, at present uninhabited, called Minerva-place. This quadrangle

is supposed to have been the prætorium or head quarters of Suetonius,

when he engaged the British queen, Boadicea, about the year 60. The

conflict was in the eastward valley below, at the back of Pentonville.

Here Boadicea, with her two daughters before her in the same

war-chariot, traversed the plain, haranguing her troops; telling them,

as Tacitus records, “that it was usual to the Britons to war under the

conduct of women,” and inciting them to “vengeance for the oppression of

public liberty, for the stripes inflicted on her person, for the

defilement of her virgin daughters;” declaring “that in that battle they

must remain utterly victorious or utterly perish: such was the firm

purpose of her who was a woman; the men, if they pleased, might still

enjoy life and bondage.” The slaughter was terrible, eighty thousand of

the Britons were left dead on the field; it terminated victoriously for

the Romans, near Gray’s-inn-lane, at the place called “Battle Bridge,”

in commemoration of the event.

[Illustration: ~Pretorium of the Roman Camp near Pentonville.~]

The pencil of the artist has been employed to give a correct and

picturesque representation as it now appears, in September, 1826, of the

last vestige of the Roman power in this suburb. The view is taken from

the north-east angle of the prætorium. Until within a few years the

ground about it was unbroken; and, even now, the quadrangle itself is

surprisingly complete, considering that nearly eighteen centuries have

elapsed since it was formed by the Roman soldiery. In a short time the

spirit of improvement will entirely efface it, and houses and gardens

occupy its site. In the fosse of this station, which is overrun with

sedge and brake, there is so pretty a “bit,” to use an artist’s word,

that I have caused it to be sketched.

[Illustration: ~The Old Well in the Fosse.~]

This may be more pleasantly regarded when the ancient works themselves

have vanished. Within a few yards of the western side of the fosse, and

parallel with it, there is raised a mound or rampart of earth. It is in

its original state and covered with verdure. In fine mornings a stray

valitudinarian or two may be seen pacing its summit. Its western slope

has long been the Sunday resort of Irishmen for the game of foot-ball.

Getting back into the New Road, its street which stands on fields I

rambled in when a boy, leads to “White Conduit-house,” which derives its

name from a building still preserved, I was going to say, but I prefer

to say, still standing.

[Illustration: ~The White Conduit.~]

Mr. Joseph Fussell who resides within sight of this little edifice, and

whose pencil took the Roman general’s station, and the well, also drew

this Conduit; and his neighbour, Mr. Henry White, engraved the three, as

they now present themselves to the reader’s eye.

The view of the “White Conduit” is from the north, or back part, looking

towards Pentonville, with Pancras new church and other buildings in the

distance. It was erected over a head of water that formerly supplied the

Charter-house, and bore a stone in front inscribed “T. S.” the initials

of Sutton, the founder, with his arms, and the date “1641.”[332]

About 1810, the late celebrated Wm. Huntington, S.S., of Providence

chapel, who lived in a handsome house within sight, was at the expense

of clearing the spring for the use of the inhabitants; but, because his

pulpit opinions were obnoxious, some of the neighbouring vulgar threw

loads of soil upon it in the night, which rendered the water impure, and

obstructed its channel, and finally ceasing to flow, the public was

deprived of the kindness he proposed. The building itself was in a very

perfect state at that time, and ought to have been boarded up after the

field it stood in was thrown open. As the new buildings proceeded it was

injured and defaced by idle labourers and boys, from mere wantonness and

reduced to a mere ruin. There was a kind of upper floor or hayloft in

it, which was frequently a shelter to the houseless wanderer. A few

years ago some poor creatures made it a comfortable hostel for the

night, with a little hay. Early in the morning a passing workman

perceived smoke issuing from the crevices, and as he approached heard

loud cries from within. Some mischievous miscreants had set fire to the

fodder beneath the sleepers, and afterwards fastened the door on the

outside: the inmates were scorched by the fire, and probably they would

all have been suffocated in a few minutes, if the place had not been

broken open.

The “White Conduit” at this time merely stands to shame those who had

the power, and neglected to preserve it. To the buildings grown up

around, it might have been rendered a neat ornament, by planting a few

trees and enclosing the whole with an iron railing, and have stood as a

monument of departed worth. This vicinity was anciently full of springs

and stone conduits; the erections have long since gone to decay, and

from their many waters, only one has been preserved, which is

notoriously deficient as a supply to the populous neighbourhood. During

the heats of summer the inhabitants want this common element in the

midst of plenty. The spring in a neighbouring street is frequently

exhausted by three or four o’clock in the afternoon, the handle of the

pump is then padlocked till the next morning, and the grateful and

necessary refreshment of spring-water is not to be obtained without

going miles in search of another pump. It would seem as if the parochial

powers in this quarter were leagued with publicans and sinners, to

compel the thirsty to buy deleterious beer and bowel-disturbing “pop,”

or to swallow the New River water fresh with impurities from the

thousands of people who daily cleanse their foul bodies in the stream,

as it lags along for the use of our kitchens and tea-tables.

“White Conduit-house,” has ceased to be a recreation in the good sense

of the word. Its present denomination is the “Minor Vauxhall,” and its

chief attraction during the passing summer has been Mrs. Bland. She has

still powers, and if their exercise here has been a stay and support to

this sweet melodist, so far the establishment may be deemed respectable.

It is a ground for balloon-flying and skittle-playing, and just

maintains itself above the very lowest, so as to be one of the most

doubtful places of public resort. Recollections of it some years ago are

more in its favour. Its tea-gardens then in summer afternoons, were well

accustomed by tradesmen and their families; they are now comparatively

deserted, and instead, there is, at night, a starveling show of odd

company and coloured lamps, a mock orchestra with mock singing, dancing

in a room which decent persons would prefer to withdraw their young

folks from if they entered, and fire-works “as usual,” which, to say the

truth, are usually very good.

Such is the present state of a vicinage which, “in my time,” was the

pleasantest near spot to the north of London. The meadow of the “White

Conduit” commanded an extensive prospect of the Hampstead and Highgate

hills, over beautiful pastures and hedge-rows which are now built on, or

converted into brick clamps, for the _material_ of irruption on the

remaining glades. The pleasant views are wholly obstructed. In a few

short years, London will distend its enormous bulk to the heights that

overlook its proud city; and, like the locusts of old, devour every

green field, and nothing will be left to me to admire, of all that I

admired.

* * * * *

ELEGY

_Written in Bartlemy Fair, at Five o’clock in the morning, in 1810._

The clock-bell tolls the hour of early day,

The lowing herd their Smithfield penance drie,

The watchman homeward plods his weary way

And leaves the fair--all solitude to me!

Now the first beams of morning glad the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds;

Save when the sheep-dog bays with hoarse affright,

And brutal drovers pen the unwilling folds.

Save that where sheltered, or from wind or shower,

The lock’d-out ’prentice, or frail nymph complain,

Of such as, wandering near their secret bower,

Molest them, sensible in sleep, to pain.

Beneath those ragged tents--that boarded shade,

Which late display’d its stores in tempting heaps;

There, children, dogs, cakes, oysters, all are laid,

There, guardian of the whole, the master sleeps.

The busy call of care-begetting morn,

The well-slept passenger’s unheeding tread;

The showman’s clarion, or the echoing horn,

Too soon must rouse them from their lowly bed.

Perhaps in this neglected booth is laid

Some head volcanic, oft discharging fire!

Hands--that the rod of _magic_ lately sway’d;

Toes--that so nimbly danc’d upon the wire.

Some clown, or pantaloon--the gazers’ jest,

Here, with his train in dirty pageant stood:

Some tired-out posture-master here may rest,

Some conjuring swordsman--guiltless of his blood!

The applause of listening cockneys to command,

The threats of city-marshal to despise;

To give delight to all the grinning band,

And read their merit in spectators’ eyes,

Is still their boast;--nor, haply, theirs alone,

Polito’s lions (though now _dormant_ laid)

And human monsters, shall acquire renown,

The spotted Negro--and the armless maid!

Peace to the youth, who, slumbering at the _Bear_,

Forgets his present lot, his perils past:

Soon will the crowd again be thronging there,

To view the man on wild Sombrero cast.

Careful their booths, from insult to protect,

These furl their tapestry, late erected high;

Nor longer with prodigious pictures deck’d,

They tempt the passing youth’s astonish’d eye.

But when the day calls forth the belles and beaux,

The cunning showmen each device display,

And many a clown the useful notice shows,

To teach ascending strangers--_where to pay_.

Sleep on, ye imps of merriment--sleep on!

In this short respite to your labouring train;

And when this time of annual mirth is gone,

May ye enjoy, in peace, your hard-earned gain![333]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 60·40.

[331] Mirror of the Months.

[332] Nelson’s History of Islington.

[333] The Morning Chronicle, 1810.

~September 3.~

PURTON FAIR, WILTS.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_August 18, 1826._

Dear Sir,--Perhaps you, or some of your readers, may be acquainted with

a small village in the north of Wiltshire, called _Purton_, very

pleasantly situated, and dear to me, from a child; it being the place

where I passed nearly all my boyish days. I went to school there, and

there spent many a pleasant hour which I now think of with sincere

delight; and perhaps you will not object to a few particulars concerning

a fair held there on the first day of May and the third day of September

in every year.

The spot whereon Purton fair is annually celebrated, is a very pleasant

little green called the “close,” or play-ground, belonging to all the

unmarried men in the village. They generally assemble there every

evening after the toils of the day to recreate themselves with a few

pleasant sports. Their favourite game is what they call _backswording_,

in some places called _singlestick_. Some few of the village have the

good fortune to be adepts in that _noble art_, and are held up as beings

of transcendent genius among the rustic admirers of that noted science.

They have one whom they call their umpire, to whom all disputes are

referred, and he always, with the greatest possible impartiality,

decides them.

About six years ago a neighbouring farmer, whose orchard joins the

green, thought that his orchard might be greatly improved. He

accordingly set to work, pulled down the original wall, and built a new

one, not forgetting to take in several feet of the green. The villagers

felt great indignity at the encroachment, and resolved to claim their

rights. They waited till the new wall should be complete, and in the

evening of the same day a party of about forty marched to the spot armed

with great sticks, pickaxes, &c., and very deliberately commenced

breaking down the wall. The owner on being apprised of what was passing,

assembled all his domestics and proceeded to the spot, when a furious

scuffle ensued, and several serious accidents happened. At last,

however, the aggressor finding he could not succeed, proposed a

settlement; he entirely removed the new wall on the following day, and

returned it to the place where the old one stood.

On the morning of the fair, as soon as the day begins to dawn, all is

bustle and confusion throughout the village. Gipsies are first seen with

their donkies approaching the place of rendezvous; then the village

rustics in their clean white Sunday smocks, and the lasses with their

Sunday gowns, caps, and ribands, hasten to the green, and all is mirth

and gaiety.

I cannot pass over a very curious character who used regularly to visit

the fair, and I was told by an ancient inhabitant that he had done so

for several years. He was an old gipsy who had attained to high favour

with all the younkers of the place, from his jocular habits, curious

dress, and the pleasant stories he used to relate. He called himself

“Corey Dyne,” or “Old Corey,” and those are the only names by which he

was known. He was accustomed to place a little hat on the ground, from

the centre of which rose a stick about three feet high, whereon he put

either halfpence or a small painted box, or something equally winning to

the eye of his little customers. There he stood crying, “Now who throws

with poor old Corey--come to Corey--come to Corey Dyne; only a halfpenny

a throw, and only once a year!” A boy who had purchased the right to

throw was placed about three feet from the hat, with a small piece of

wood which he threw at the article on the stick, and if it fell in the

hat, (which by the by it was almost invariably sure to do,) the thrower

lost his money; but if out of the hat, on the ground, the article from

the stick was claimed by the thrower. The good humour of “Old Corey”

generally ensured him plenty of custom. I have oftentimes been a loser

with him, but never a winner. I believe that no one in all Purton knows

from whence he is, although every body is acquainted with him.

There was a large show on the place, at which the rustics were wont to

gaze with surprise and admiration. The chief object of their wonder was

our “punch.” They could not form the slightest idea how little wooden

figures could talk and dance about; they supposed that there must be

some life in them. I well remember that I once undertook to set them

right, but was laughed at and derided me for my presumption and boast of

_superior knowledge_.

There was also another very merry fellow who frequented the fair by the

name of “Mr. Merryman.” He obtained great celebrity by giving various

imitations of birds, &c., which he would very readily do after

collecting a sufficient sum “to clear his pipe,” as he used to say. He

then began with the nightingale, which he imitated very successfully,

then followed the blackbird--linnet--goldfinch--robin--geese and ducks

on a rainy morning--turkies, &c. &c. Then, perhaps, after collecting

some more money “to clear his pipe,” he would imitate a jackass, or a

cow. His excellent imitation of the crow of a cock strongly affected the

risible muscles of his auditors.

The amusements last till near midnight, when the rustics, being

exhilarated with the effects of good strong Wiltshire ale, generally

part after a few glorious battles.

The next day several champions enter the field to contest the right to

several prizes, which are laid out in the following order:--

1st. A new smock.

2nd. A new hat with a blue cockade.

3rd. An inferior hat with a white cockade.

4th. A still inferior hat without a cockade.

A stage is erected on the green, and at five o’clock the sport

commences; and a very celebrated personage, whom they call their

_umpshire_, (umpire,) stands high above the rest to award the prizes.

The candidates are generally selected from the best players at

singlestick, and on this occasion they use their utmost skill and

ingenuity, and are highly applauded by the surrounding spectators. I

must not forget to remark that on this grand, and to them, interesting

day, the inhabitants of Purton do not combat against each other.

No--believe me, sir, they are better acquainted with the laws of

chivalry. Purton produces four candidates, and a small village

adjoining, called Stretton, sends forth four more. These candidates are

representatives of the villages to which they respectively belong, and

they who lose have to pay all the expenses of the day; but it is to the

credit of the sons of Purton I record, that for seven successive years

their candidates have been returned the victors. The contest generally

lasts two hours, and, after that, the ceremony of chairing the

representatives takes place, which is thus performed:--Four chairs made

with the boughs of trees are in waiting, and the conquerors are placed

therein and carried through the village with every possible

demonstration of joy, the inhabitants shouting “Purton for ever! huzza!

my boys, huzza!” and waving boughs over their triumphant candidates.

After the chairing they adjourn to the village public-house, and spend

the remainder of the evening as before.

The third day is likewise a day of bustle and confusion. All repair to a

small common, called the cricket ground, and a grand match takes place

between the Purton club and the Stretton club; there are about twenty

candidates of a side. The vanquished parties pay a shilling each to

defray the expense of a cold collation, which is previously provided in

a pleasant little copse adjoining the cricket-ground, and the remainder

of the day is spent convivially.

I remember hearing the landlord of the public-house at Purton, (which is

situated on one side of the green,) observe to a villager, that during

the three days’ merriment he had sold six thousand gallons of strong

beer and ale; the man of course doubted him, and afterwards very

sarcastically remarked to me, “It’s just as asy, measter, for he to zay

zix thousand gallons as dree thousand!” Does not this, good Mr. Editor,

show a little genuine Purton wit?

I have now, my dear sir, finished, and have endeavoured to describe

three pleasant days spent in an innocent and happy manner; and if I have

succeeded in affording you any service, or your readers any amusement, I

am amply rewarded. Allow me to add I feel such an affection for old

Purton, that should I at any time in my life visit Wiltshire, I would

travel twenty miles out of my road to ramble once more in the haunts of

my boyhood.

Believe me, my dear Sir,

Yours very sincerely,

_August, 18, 1826._

C. T.

* * * * *

P.S. Since writing the above I have received a letter from a very

particular friend who went to Purton school five years, to whom I

applied for a few extra particulars respecting the fair, &c., and he

thus writes, “Dear C. You seem to think that with the name I still

retain all the characteristics and predilections of a _hodge_; and

therefore you seek to me for information respecting the

backsword-playing, fair, &c. Know that as to the first, it is (and has

been for the last two years) entirely done away with, as the principal

‘farmers’ in the place ‘_done_’ like it, and so don’t suffer it. As to

the fair, where lads and lasses meet in their best gowns, and ribands,

and clean smocks, you must know, most assuredly, more of it than I do,

as I seldom troubled about it. You must bear in mind that this fair is

exactly the same as that held in the month of May, but as no notice has

been taken of it by Mr. Hone in either of his volumes, I suppose it very

little matters whether your description is of the fair held in May or

September.”

I have to lament, my dear sir, the discontinuance of the ancient custom

of backswording at Purton village; but so long as they keep up their

fairs, the other loss will not be so much felt.

C. T.

* * * * *

_August 30, 1826._

I forgot to mention in my particulars of Purton-fair, that Old Corey,

and the other _celebrated_ worthies, only come to the September fair, as

the May fair is disregarded by them, it being a fair principally for the

sale of cattle, &c. and the September fair is entirely devoted to

pleasure. Perhaps you can introduce this small piece of intelligence,

together with the following doggrel song written for the occasion.

C. T.

TO THE WORTHY AND RESPECTABLE INHABITANTS OF PURTON,

_This_ SONG _is most respectfully inscribed_,

_By their ever true and devoted humble servant_,

CHARLES TOMLINSON.

=SONG.=

PURTON FAIR.

Come, neighbours, listen, I’ll sing you a song,

Which, I assure you, will not keep you long;

I’ll sing a good song about old Purton fair,

For that is the place, lads, to drive away care.

The damsels all meet full of mirth and of glee,

And they are as happy as happy can be;

Such worth, and such beauty, fairs seldom display,

And sorrow is banished on this happy day.

There’s the brave lads of Purton at backsword so clever,

Who were ne’er known to flinch, but victorious ever;

The poor boys of Stretton are basted away,

For Purton’s fam’d youths ever carry the day.

’Tis “Old Corey Dyne,” who wisely declares,

Stretton’s lads must be beaten at all Purton’s fairs;

They can’t match our courage, then, huzza! my boys,

To still conquering Purton let’s kick up a noise.

“Old Corey’s” the merriest blade in the fair,

What he tells us is true, so, prithee, don’t stare;

“Remember poor Corey, come, pray have a throw,

’Tis _but_ once a year, as you very well know.”

_But_--here ends my song, so let’s haste to the green,

’Tis as pretty a spot as ever was seen;

And if you are sad or surrounded with care,

Haste quickly! haste quickly! to OLD PURTON FAIR.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·07.

~September 4.~

HOW TO KEEP APPLES.

Gather them dry, and put them with clean straw, or clean chaff, into

casks; cover them up close, and put them into a cool dry cellar. Fruit

will keep perfectly good a twelvemonth in this manner.

_How to mark your fruit._

Let the cultivator of choice fruit cut in paper the initial letters of

his name, or any other mark he likes; and just before his peaches,

nectarines, &c. begin to be coloured, stick such letters or mark with

gum-water on that side of the fruit which is next the sun. That part of

the rind which is under the paper will remain green, in the exact form

of the mark, and and so the fruit be known wheresoever found, for the

mark cannot be obliterated.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 59·92.

~September 5.~

OLD BARTHOLOMEW.

This day has been so marked in our almanacs since the new style.

THE SEASON.

We may expect very pleasant weather during this month. For whether the

summer has been cold, warm, or showery, September, in all latitudes

lying between 45 and 55 degrees north, produces, on an average, the

finest and pleasantest weather of the year: as we get farther south the

pleasantest temperature is found in October; more northward than 55

degrees the chills of autumn are already arrived, and we must look for

temperature to August.[334]

* * * * *

THE GYMNASIUM.

_For the Every-Day Book._

Hæc opera atque hæ sunt generosi Principis artes.

Juv. Sat. 8. L. 224.

Let cricket, tennis, fives, and ball,

The active to amusement call;

Let sportsmen through the fields at morn

Discharge the gun and sound the horn,--

Gymnastic sport shall fill my hours,

Renew my strength and tone my powers.

I learn to climb, to walk and run,

I make defence, and dangers shun;

Now quick, now slow, now poised on high,

I stand in air and vault the sky;

The sailor’s skill, the soldier’s part,

I compass by Gymnastic art.

All life’s concerns require that health

Should be secured to gather wealth;

That limb and muscle, nerve and vein,

Should vigorous force and motion gain:--

Seek the Gymnasium,--try the plan,

And be the strong and graceful man.

The Olympic games, of Grecian birth,

Gave many a youth athletic worth;

Hence Romans shone;--hence Britons fought,

The Picts and Vandals influence caught;

The lance, the spear, and arrow flew,

And prove what deeds Gymnastics do.

With ease the horseman learns to ride

And keep his hobby in his pride;

Bloodless the feats are here pursued,

And vanquished contests are renewed.

Hey for Gymnastics!--’tis the rage

Both with the simple and the sage.

Clias, and Voelker as the chief,

Each makes his charge and gives relief;

Each points his pupils to the goal,

And, more than Parry, gains the pole:--

Up and be trim!--the sport is fine,--

Fling down the gauntlet,--mount the line.

Caleidoscopes were once the taste,--

Velocipedes were rode for haste,--

Those fed the eye with pleasing views,

These ran the streets and tithed their dues;

Thrown to the shade like fashions past,

Gymnastics reign, for they are last.

Nature with art is like a tower,

Strong in defence in every hour;

Nature with art can nearly climb

The Alp and Appenine of time;

Make life more lasting, life more bold,

By true Gymnastic skill controlled.

J. R. PRIOR.

_Sept. 1826._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 60·35.

[334] Perennial Calendar.

~September 6.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 6th of September, 1734, died in France, the Sieur Michael

Tourant, aged ninety-eight, of whom it is said he never eat salt, and

had none of the infirmities of old age.[335]

A TOTAL ECLIPSE IN CALIGRAPHY.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--As a subscriber to your highly entertaining work, I take the

liberty of sending you the following.

In the first volume of the _Every-Day Book_, page 1086, I found an

account of some small writing, executed by Peter Bales, which Mr.

D’Israeli presumed to have been the whole bible written so small, that

it might be put in an English walnut no bigger than a hen’s egg. “The

nut holdeth the book; there are as many leaves in this little book as in

the great bible, and as much written in one of the little leaves, as a

great leaf of the bible.”--There is likewise an account in the same

pages of the “Iliad” having been written so small that it might be put

in a nut-shell; which is nothing near so much as the above.

I have lately seen written within the compass of a new penny piece, with

the naked eye, and with a common clarified pen, the lord’s prayer, the

creed, the ten commandments, the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth,

eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth collects after Trinity,

the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c., the name of the writer, place

of abode, nearest market town, county, day of the month and date of the

year, all in words at length, and with the whole of the capital letters

and stops belonging thereto, the commandments being all numbered. It was

written by, and is in the possession of, Mr. John Parker of Wingerworth,

near Chesterfield, Derbyshire: the writing bears date September 10,

1823. This piece of writing, I find, upon calculation, to be

considerably smaller than either of the before-mentioned pieces. My

calculation is as follows:--

A moderate sized egg will hold a book one inch and three quarters by one

inch and three-eighths. Bibles have from about sixty to eighty lines in

a column; I have not seen more. In this ingenious display of fine

penmanship, there are eighty lines in one inch, and two half-eighths of

an inch, which in one inch and three quarters, (the length of the

bible,) is one hundred and six lines, which would contain one-third more

matter than the bibles with eighty lines in a column; and one line of

this writing, one inch and two-half eighths of an inch in length, (which

is the sixteenth of an inch less in bread than the small bible,) is

equal to two lines from one column of the great bible--for example.

Isaiah. Chap. XXIV.--Two lines of verse 20, the bible having

seventy-nine lines in a column:--

“and the transgression thereof shall be heavy

upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again.”

Ezekiel, Chap. XXX.--Two lines of verse 12, the bible having sixty-three

lines in a column:--

“and I will make the Land waste, and all that

is therein, by the hand of strangers.”

One line of Mr. Parker’s writing being part of the seventh collect after

Trinity:--

“good things; graft in our hearts the love of thy

name, increase in us true religion, now”--

Another line being part of the ninth and tenth commandments:--

“false witness against thy neighbour. 10.--Thou

shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house.”--

Mr. Parker very obligingly submits his writing to the inspection of the

curious, and would execute one similar for a proper reward. If this

account should be thought worthy of a place in your “_Every-Day Book_,”

I shall feel much obliged by its insertion, and will endeavour to send

you something amusing respecting the customs, pastimes, and amusements

of this part of Derbyshire.

I am, Sir,

Your well-wisher

And obedient servant,

JOHN FRANCIS BROWNE.

_Lings, near Chesterfield,_

_August, 30, 1826._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 59·17.

[335] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~September 7.~

ENURCHUS.

For this saint, in the church of England calendar, see vol. i. col.

1253.

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 7th of September, 1772, a most astonishing rain fell at Inverary,

in Scotland, by which the rivers rose to such a height, as to carry

every thing along with the current that stood in the way. Even trees

that had braved the floods for more than one hundred years, were torn up

by the roots and carried down the stream. Numbers of bridges were swept

away, and the military roads rendered impassable. All the duke of

Argyle’s cascades, bridges, and bulwarks, were destroyed at his fine

palace, in that neighbourhood.[336]

[Illustration: ~Baron Brown, the Durham Poet.~]

A Latin line beneath his name

May lift along the laureate’s fame,

As on a crutch, and make it go

For half an age, for all to know

That there was one, in our time,

Who thought mere folly not a crime;

And, though he scorn’d to be a scorner

And offer Brown to Poets Corner,

Imagined it a fit proceeding

To give his life--let who will sneer at

It--“PALMAM QUI MERUIT FERAT.”

MR. JOHN SYKES, bookseller, Johnson’s-head, Newcastle, in the “Local

Records, or Historical Register of Remarkable Events,” which, in 1824,

he compiled into a very interesting octavo volume, inserts the death,

with some account of the “life, character, and behaviour,” of the

self-celebrated poet-laureate of Durham, whose portrait adorns this

page. He has not been registered here under the day of his decease

according to Mr. Syke’s obit, but it is not fitting as regards this

work, that Brown should die for ever, and therefore, from a gentleman

who knew him, the reader will please to accept the following

MEMOIR OF JAMES BROWN.

_For the Every-Day Book._

This curious personage was well known for a long series of years to the

inhabitants of Northumberland and Durham, and we believe few men have

figured on the stage of the world more remarkable for their

peculiarities and eccentricities.

Of the early part of James Brown’s life little is known that can be

depended upon, but the compiler of the present article has heard him

assert that he was born at Berwick-on-Tweed; if this be the case it is

probable he left that town at a very early age, as in his speech none of

the provincialisms of the lower order of inhabitants of Berwick could be

observed, and had he resided there for any length of time, he must have

imperceptibly imbibed the vulgar dialect. Certain, however, it is, that

when a young man he resided in that “_fashionable_” part of

Newcastle-upon-Tyne called “the Side,” where he kept a rag-shop, and was

in the habit of attending the fairs in the neighbourhood with clothes

ready-made for sale. During his residence in Newcastle his first wife

died; of this person he always spoke in terms of affection, and was

known long after her death, to shed tears on her being alluded to. In

all probability it was owing to his loss of her that his mind became

disturbed, and from an industrious tradesman he became a fanatic. A few

years after her decease he married a Miss Richardson, of Durham, a

respectable though a very eccentric character, and who survived him a

year. This lady being possessed of a theatre, and some other little

property in Durham, he removed to that city to reside.

When Brown first devoted himself to the muses is uncertain, but about

thirty-three years ago, he lived in Newcastle, styled himself the

poet-laureate of that place, and published a poem explanatory of a

chapter in the Apocalypse, which was “adorned” with a hideous engraving

of a beast with ten horns. Of this plate he always spoke in terms of

rapture. We have heard that it was designed by the bard; but as Mr. B.,

though a poet, never laid any claim to the character of an artist, it is

our belief that he had no hand in its manufacture, but that it was the

work of some of those waggish friends who deceived him by their tricks,

and rendered his life a pleasure. Their ingenious fictions prevented his

dwelling on scenes by which his existence might have been embittered,

and it is but justice to his numerous hoaxers to assert, that without

their pecuniary assistance he would have often been in want of common

necessaries. Though credulous he was honest; though poor he was

possessed of many virtues; and while they laughed at the fancies of the

visionary, they respected the man. Brown once indulged a gentleman in

Durham with a sight of the drawing above alluded to, and on a loud laugh

at what the poet esteemed the very perfection of terrific sublimity,

Brown told him “he was no christian, or he would not deride a scriptural

drawing _which the angel Gabriel had approved_!”

Brown’s poesy was chiefly of a serious nature, (at least it was intended

to be so,) levity and satire were not his _forte_. Like Dante, his

imagination was gloomy--he delighted to describe the torments of

hell--the rattling of the chains, and the screams of the damned; the

mount of Sisyphus was his Parnassus, the Styx was his Helicon, and the

pale forms that flit by Lethe’s billows, the muses that inspired his

lay. His poems consisted chiefly of visions, prophecies, and rhapsodies,

suggested by some part of the sacred volume of the contents of which he

had an astonishing recollection. When he was at the advanced age of

ninety-two it was almost impossible to quote any passage of scripture to

him without his remembering the book, chapter, and frequently the verse

from whence it was taken. Of his poetry (though in his favourite city he

has left many imitators) we cannot say any thing in praise; it had

“neither rhyme nor reason,” it was such as a madman would inscribe on

the walls of his cell. His song, like that of the witches in Thalaba,

was “an unintelligible song” to all but the writer, on whose mind in

reading it, to use the words of one of the sweetest of our modern poets,

“meaning flashed like strong inspiration.” The only two lines in his

works that have any thing like meaning in them are--

“When men let Satan rule their heart

They do act the devil’s part.”

Our author’s last, and as he esteemed it, his best work--his _monumentum

ære perennius_, was a pamphlet published in Newcastle in 1820, by

Preston and Heaton, at the reasonable price of one shilling; for, unlike

his brother bards, Mr. Brown never published in an expensive form. He

was convinced that merit would not lie hid though concealed in a

pamphlet, but like Terence’s beauty, _diu latere non potest_, and that

nonsense, though printed in quarto with the types of a Davison, would be

still unnoticed and neglected. On his once being shown the quarto

edition of the “White Doe,” and told that he ought to publish in a

similar manner, his answer was that “none but the _devil’s_ poets needed

fine clothes!” The pamphlet above alluded to was entitled “Poems on

Military Battles, Naval Victories, and other important subjects, the

most extraordinary ever penned, a Thunderbolt shot from a Lion’s Bow at

Satan’s Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Devil and the Kingdom of this World

reserving themselves in darkness for the great and terrible Day of the

Lord, as Jude, the servant of God, declareth: By JAMES BROWN, P. L.”

This singular work was decorated with a whole length portrait of the

author treading on the “devil’s books,” and blowing a trumpet to alarm

sinners; it was, as we have heard him say, the work of a junior pupil of

the ingenious Mr. Bewick.

During the contest for Durham, in 1820, a number of copies of an

election squib, written by a humble individual connected with a northern

newspaper, and entitled “A Sublime Epistle, Poetic and Politic, by James

Brown, P. L.” was sent him for distribution; these, after printing an

explanatory address on the back of the title, wherein he called himself

S. S. L. D., the “Slayer of Seven Legions of Devils,” and disowned the

authorship, he turned to his own emolument by selling at sixpence a

copy.

In religious affairs Brown was extremely superstitious; he believed in

every mad fanatic who broached opinions contrary to reason and sense.

The wilder the theory, the more congenial to his mind. He was

successively a believer in Wesley, Messrs. Buchan, Huntington, Imanuel

Swedenburg, and Joanna Southcote; had he lived a little longer he would

probably have been “a ranter.” He was a great reader, and what he read

he remembered. The bible, of which he had a very old and curious pocket

edition in black letter, was his favourite work; next to that he

esteemed Alban Butler’s wonderful lives of the saints, to every relation

of which he gave implicit credit, though, strange to tell, he was in his

conversation always violent against the idolatries of the catholic

church.

When Brown was a follower of Mr. Buchan, he used to relate that he

fasted forty days and forty nights, and it is to this subject that

veterinary doctor Marshall, of Durham, his legitimate successor,

alludes in the following lines of an elegy he wrote on the death of his

brother poet and friend:--

“He fasted forty days and nights

When Mr. Buchan put to rights

The wicked, for a wonder;

And not so much, it has been thought,

As weigh’d the button on his coat,

He took to keep sin under.”

So said a Bion worthy of such an Adonis! but other accounts differ. If

we may credit Mr. Sykes, the respectable author of “Local Records,”

Marshall erred in supposing that the poet, camelion-like, lived on air

for “forty days and forty nights.” Mr. Sykes relates that in answer to a

question he put to him as to how he contrived for so long a time to

sustain the cravings of nature, Brown replied, that “they (he and the

rest of the party of fasters) only set on to the fire a great pot, in

which they boiled water, and then stirred into it oatmeal, and supped

_that_!”

Brown was very susceptible of flattery, and all his life long constantly

received letters in rhyme, purporting to come from Walter Scott, Byron,

Shelley, Southey, Wilson, and other great poets; with communications in

prose from the king of England, the emperor of Morocco, the sultan of

Persia, &c. All of these he believed to be genuine, and was in the habit

of showing as curiosities to his friends, who were frequently the real

authors, and laughed in their sleeves at his credulity.

In 1821, Brown received a large parchment, signed G. R., attested by

Messrs. Canning and Peel, to which was suspended a large unmeaning seal,

which he believed to be the great seal of Great Britain. This document

purported to be a patent of nobility, creating him “baron Durham, of

Durham, in the county palatine of Durham.” It recited that this title

was conferred on him in consequence of a translation of his works having

been the means of converting the Mogul empire! From that moment he

assumed the name and style of “baron Brown,” and had a wooden box made

for the preservation of his patent.

Of the poetic pieces which Brown was in the habit of receiving, many

were close imitations of the authors whose names were affixed to them,

and evinced that the writers were capable of better things. One “from

Mr. Coleridge,” was a respectable burlesque of the “Ancient Mariner,”

and began:--

It is a lion’s trumpeter,

And he stoppeth one of three.

Another, “from Mr. Wilson,” commenced thus:--

Poetic dreams float round me now,

My spirit where art thou?

Oh! art thou watching the moonbeams smile

On the groves of palm in an Indian isle;

Or dost thou hang over the lovely main

And list to the boatswain’s boisterous strain;

Or dost thou sail on sylphid wings

Through liquid fields of air,

Or, riding on the clouds afar,

Dost thou gaze on the beams of the evening star

So beautiful and so fair.

O no! O no! sweet spirit of mine

Thou art entering a holy strain divine

A strain which is so sweet,

Oh, one might think ’twas a fairy thing,

A thing of love and blessedness,

Singing in holy tenderness,

A lay of peaceful quietness,

Within a fairy street!

But _ah! ’tis_ BROWN, &c. &c.

A piece “from Walter Scott” opened with:--

The heath-cock shrill his clarion blew

Among the heights of Benvenue,

And fast the sportive echo flew,

Adown Glenavin’s vale.

But louder, louder was the knell,

Of Brown’s Northumbrian penance-bell,[337]

The noise was heard on Norham fell,

And rung through Teviotdale.

These burlesques were chiefly produced by the law and medical students

in Newcastle and Durham, and the young gentlemen of the Catholic College

of Ushaw, near the latter place. As the writer of this sketch was once

congratulating Mr. Brown on his numerous respectable correspondents, the

old man said that he had an acquaintance far superior to any of his

earthly ones, and no less a personage than the angel Gabriel, who, he

stated, brought him letters from Joanna Southcote, and call to carry

back his answers! This “Gabriel” was a young West Indian then residing

in Durham, who used to dress himself in a sheet with goose wings on his

shoulders and visit the poet at night, with letters purporting to be

written to him in heaven by the far-famed prophetess. After “Gabriel”

left Durham, Brown was frequently told of the deception which had been

practised upon him, but he never could be induced to believe that his

nocturnal visiter was any other than the angel himself. “Did I not,” he

once said, “see him clearly fly out at the ceiling!” Brown used to

correspond with some of Joanna’s followers in London, on the subject of

these supposed revelations, and actually found (_credite posteri_)

believers in the genuineness.

Amongst Brown’s strange ideas, one was that he was immortal, and should

never die. Under this delusion when ill he refused all medical

assistance, and it induced him at the age of 90 to sell the little

property which he acquired by marriage, for a paltry guinea a week, to

be paid during the life of himself and Mrs. Brown, and the life of the

survivor. The property he parted from, in consideration of this weekly

stipend, was a leasehold house in Sadler-street, (the theatre having

been pulled down soon after the erection of the present one opposite to

it,) and the house was conveyed to two Durham tradesmen, Robinson

Emmerson and George Stonehouse, by whom the allowance was for some time

regularly paid; but on the latter becoming embarrassed in his

circumstances, the payment was discontinued, and poor Brown and his aged

wife were thrown on the world without a farthing, at a time when bodily

and mental infirmities had rendered them incapable of gaining a

livelihood. Far be it from the writer of this to cast any aspersion on

Messrs. Emmerson and Stonehouse, but it does certainly appear to him

that their conduct to Brown was unkind to say the least of it. After

this calamity Brown became for a few months an inhabitant of a

poor-house, which he subsequently left for a lodging at an obscure inn,

where, on the 11th of July, 1823, he died in a state of misery and

penury at the advanced age of 92; his wife shortly afterwards died in

the poorhouse. They are both interred in the churchyard of St. Oswald.

Such was James Brown the Durham poet, who with all his eccentricities

was an honest, harmless and inoffensive old man. Of his personal

appearance, the excellent portrait which accompanies this memoir from a

drawing by Mr. Terry is an exact resemblance. All who knew him will

bear testimony to its correctness. It is indeed the only one in

existence that gives a correct idea of what he was. The other

representations of him are nothing better than caricatures.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·45.

[336] Annual Register.

[337] Ringing the penance-bell was an expression which frequently

occurred in his writings. As--

We toll’d the devil’s penance-bell,

And warn’d you to keep from hell, &c.

The penance-bell occurs three or four times in each of his several

poems.

~September 8.~

NATIVITY B. V. M.

The legend of this festival retained in the church of England calendar,

is related in vol. i. col. 1274.

CHRONOLOGY.

_Fatal Puppet Play._

_Extract from the Parish Register of Burwell, in Cambridgeshire_, “1727,

September 8. N. B. About nine o’clock in the evening, a most dismal fire

broke out in a barn in which a great number of persons were met together

to see a puppet-show. In the barn there were a great many loads of new

light straw; the barn was thatched with straw, which was very dry, and

the inner roof of the barn was covered with old dry cobwebs; so that the

fire, like lightning, flew round the barn in an instant, and there was

but one small door belonging to the barn, which was close nailed up, and

could not be easily broke open; and when it was opened, the passage was

so narrow, and every body so impatient to escape, that the door was

presently blocked up, and most of those that did escape, which were but

very few, were forced to crawl over the heads and bodies of those that

lay on a heap at the door, and the rest, in number seventy-six, perished

instantly, and two more died of their wounds within two days. The fire

was occasioned by the negligence of a servant, who set a candle and

lantern to, or near, the heap of straw that was in the barn. The

servant’s name was Richard Whitaker, of the parish of Hadstock, in

Essex, near Linton, in Cambridgeshire, who was tried for the fact at the

assizes held at Cambridge, March 27, 1728, but he was acquitted.”[338]

STAINES CHURCH, MIDDLESEX.

_Exhumation._

In a small apartment under the staircase leading to the gallery at the

west end of the church, is presented the singular and undesirable

spectacle of two unburied coffins, containing human bodies. The coffins

are covered with crimson velvet and are otherwise richly embellished.

They are placed beside each other on trestles, and bear respectively the

following inscriptions:--

“JESSIE ASPASIA.

The most excellent and truly beloved

wife of F. W. Campbell, Esq. of Barbreck,

N. B. and of Woodlands in Surrey.

Died in her 28th year,

July 11th, 1812.”

“HENRY E. A. CAULFIELD, ESQ.

Died Sept. 3, 1808.

Aged 29 years.”

As it was necessarily supposed that coffins thus open to inspection

would excite much curiosity, a card is preserved at the sexton’s house,

which states, in addition to the intelligence conveyed by the above

inscriptions, that the deceased lady was daughter of W. T. Caulfield,

Esq. of Rahanduff in Ireland, by Jessie, daughter of James, third lord

Ruthven; and that she bore, with tranquil and exemplary patience, a

fatal disorder produced by grief on the death of her brother, who

removed from a former place of sepulture, now lies beside her in

unburied solemnity.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 57·87.

[338] Lysons.

~September 9.~

THE SEASON.

At this period of the year the fashionable people of unfashionable times

were accustomed to close their sojournments on the coasts, and commence

their inland retreats before they “came to town for _good_.” In this

respect manners are altered. The salubrity of the ocean-breeze is now

courted, and many families, in defiance of gales and storms, spend the

greater part of the winter at the southern watering places. The increase

of this remarkable deviation deserves to be noticed, as a growing

accommodation to the purposes of life.

* * * * *

A literary gentleman on his arrival from viewing the world of waters,

obliges the editor with some original flowings from his pen, so fresh

and beautiful, that they are submitted immediately to the reader’s

enjoyment.

SONNET.

_Written in a Cottage by the Sea-side. Hastings._

Ye, who would flee from the world’s vanities

From cities’ riot, and mankind’s annoy,

Seek this lone cot, and here forget your sighs,

For health and rest are here--guests but too coy.

If the vast ocean, with its boundless space,

Its power omnipotent, and eternal voice,

Wean not thy thoughts from wearying folly’s choice,

And mortal trifling, unto virtue’s grace,

To high intent, pure purpose, and sweet peace,

Leaving of former bitter pangs no trace;--

If each unworthy wish it does not drown,

And free thee from ennui’s unnerving thrall,

Then art thou dead to nature’s warning call,

And fit but for the maddening haunts of town.

_August, 1826._

W. T. M.

SONNET STANZAS.

_On the Sea._

I never gaze upon the mighty sea,

And hear its many voices, but there steals

A host of stirring fancies, vividly

Over my mind; and memory reveals

A thousand wild and wondrous deeds to me;

Of venturous seamen, on their daring keels;

And blood-stain’d pirates, sailing fearlessly;

And lawless smugglers, which each cave conceals;

In his canoe, the savage, roving free;

And all I’ve read of rare and strange, that be

On every shore, o’er which its far wave peals:

With luxuries, in which Imagination reels,

Of bread fruit, palm, banana, cocoa tree,

And thoughts of high emprize, and boundless liberty!

I ne’er upon the ocean gaze, but I

Think of its fearless sons, whose sails, unfurl’d,

So oft have led to Art’s best victory.

Columbus upon unknown waters hurl’d,

Pursuing his sole purpose, firm and high,

The great discovery of another world;

And daring Cook, whose memory’s bepearled

With pity’s tears, from many a wild maid’s eye;

Their Heiva dance, in fancy I espy,

While still the dark chief’s lip in anger curled:

O’er shipwreck’d Crusoe’s lonely fate I sigh,

His self-form’d bark on whelming billows whirled;

And oft, in thought, I hear the Tritons cry,

And see the mermaid train light gliding by.

I never gaze upon the boundless deep,

But still I think upon the glorious brave,

Nelson and Blake, who conquered but to save;

I hear their thunders o’er the billows sweep,

And think of those who perish’d on the wave,

That Britain might a glorious harvest reap!

High hearts and generous, Vain did foemen

Peace to their souls, and sweetly may they sleep,

Entomb’d within the ocean’s lonely cave!

Still many a lovely eye for them shall weep,

Tears, far more precious than the pearls, that keep

Their casket there, or all the sea e’er gave,

To the bold diver’s grasp, whose fearless leap

With wealth enriches, or in death must sleep!

W. T. M.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·55.

~September 10.~

THE RAINBOW.

Behold yon bright, ethereal bow,

With evanescent beauties glow;

The spacious arch streams through the sky,

Decked with each tint of nature’s dye:

Refracted sunbeams, through the shower,

A humid radiance from it pour;

Whilst colour into colour fades,

With blended lights and softening shades.

LUNAR RAINBOW.

On the 10th of September, 1802, a very beautiful lunar rainbow was

observed at Matlock, in Derbyshire, between the hours of eight and nine

in the evening: its effect was singularly pleasing. The colours of these

phenomena are sometimes very well defined; but they have a more tranquil

tone than those which originate in the solar beams. They are not

unfrequent in the vicinity of Matlock, being mentioned by some writers

among the natural curiosities of that delightful spot.

On Saturday evening, September 28, 1822, an extremely interesting iris

of this description was distinctly observed by many persons in the

neighbourhood of Boston, in Lincolnshire. It made its appearance nearly

north, about half-past eight in the evening. This bow of the heavens was

every way complete, the curvature entire, though its span was extensive,

and the altitude of its apex seemed to be about 20 degrees. The darkness

occasioned by some clouds pregnant with rain, in the back ground of this

white arch of beauty, formed a striking contrast, while several stars

in the constellation of Ursa Major, (the great bear,) which were for a

time conspicuous, imparted additional grandeur to the scene.[339]

* * * * *

An observer of a nocturnal rainbow on the 17th of August 1788, relates

its appearance particularly. “On Sunday evening, after two days, on both

of which, particularly the former, there had been a great deal of rain,

together with lightning and thunder, just as the clocks were striking

nine, three and twenty hours after full moon, looking through my window,

I was struck with the appearance of something in the sky which seemed

like a rainbow. Having never seen a rainbow by night, I thought it a

very extraordinary phenomenon, and hastened to a place where there were

no buildings to obstruct my view of the hemisphere. The moon was truly

‘walking in brightness,’ brilliant as she could be, not a cloud was to

be seen near her; and over-against her, toward the northwest, or perhaps

rather more to the north, was a rainbow, a vast arch, perfect in all its

parts, not interrupted or broken as rainbows frequently are, but

unremittedly visible from one horizon to the other. In order to give

some idea of its extent, it is necessary to say, that, as I stood toward

the western extremity of the parish of Stoke Newington, it seemed to

take its rise from the west of Hampstead, and to end, perhaps, in the

river Lea, the eastern boundary of Tottenham; its colour was white,

cloudy, or greyish, but a part of its western leg seemed to exhibit

tints of a faint, sickly green. I continued viewing it for some time,

till it began to rain; and at length the rain increasing, and the sky

growing more hazy, I returned home about a quarter or twenty minutes

past nine, and in ten minutes came out again, but by that time all was

over, the moon was darkened by clouds, and the rainbow of course

vanished.”[340]

The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 2 (of 3) or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac · 第 4 / 16 章