So early as 1521, the council of Osnabur_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

Lottery with wearing articles of merchandise for the prizes. In 1615,

the magistrates of Hamburgh sanctioned a Lottery for building a house

of correction in that city. An engraving is mentioned with the following

title, “Representation of the _Loto Publico_, which was drawn in the

large hall of the council-house at Nuremburg, anno 1715.” This is

supposed to have been the first Lottery in that city. The first Lottery

at Berlin was drawn in July, 1740; it contained 20,000 tickets at five

dollars each; there were 4028 prizes; and the capital one was a house

worth 24,000 dollars.

* * * * *

In 1549, a Lottery was drawn at Amsterdam for the building a church

steeple; and another at Delft in 1595. In the hospital for old men, at

Amsterdam, there is a beautiful painting by Daniel Vinckenbooms, which

represents the drawing of a Lottery in the night time. He was born about

1578, and died in 1629.

* * * * *

In France, whither the Lottery was introduced from Italy, it was set on

foot by merchants, and the only prizes were articles of merchandise:

but, in 1539, Francis I. endeavoured to turn them to his own advantage.

He permitted them under the inspection of certain members of the

government, with a view, as was pretended, of banishing deceptive and

pernicious games of chance; but on condition that he should receive for

every ticket a _teston de dix sols six deniers_. It appears, however,

from a royal order of recommendation, in February, 1541, that this

Lottery was not then completed, and it is not known whether it ever was.

* * * * *

In 1572 and 1588, Louis de Gonzague duc de Nivernois established a

Lottery at Paris, for the purpose of giving marriage portions to poor

virtuous young women on his estates. The prize tickets were inscribed

_Dieu vous a élue_, or, _Dieu vous console_; the former insured to the

young woman who drew it 500 francs on her wedding-day; the latter,

inscribed on the blanks, suggested the hope of better fortune the year

following. No Lottery was ever drawn with so much ceremony and parade.

Pope Sextus V. promised those who promoted it the remission of their

sins: and, before the drawing, which began every year on Palm Sunday,

mass was said.

* * * * *

Ladies of quality were induced by this example to establish similar

Lotteries for the building or repairing of churches or convents, and

other religious or benevolent purposes. Three ladies set on foot a

Lottery with tickets at 40 sous each, for redeeming persons who had

fallen into slavery among the Turks. Some other ladies instituted a

Lottery in behalf of their confessor, who had been made a bishop, that

they might buy him a carriage and horses, with other requisites, to

support his episcopal dignity.

French history records the institution of many Lotteries as the means

employed to make valuable presents to ladies, and other persons of

distinction. It is supposed the largest of the kind was one designed by

cardinal Mazarine, to increase his splendour and popularity among the

courtiers. The tickets were distributed as presents.[496]

* * * * *

Louis XIV., on the days which were not fast days, went to dine at Marly

with madame de Maintenon and other ladies. After dinner, the minister

who wished to converse with him arrived, and when his business was

finished, if they did not walk, he conversed, listened to music, played

at cards, or helped to draw _Lotteries_, the tickets of which cost

nothing, but were all prizes. They were composed of trinkets, jewels,

and silks; but there were never any snuff-boxes, because he could not

endure snuff, or suffer those who used it to approach him.[497]

* * * * *

In the seventeenth century these games of chance grew into Lotteries, in

the proper sense of the word. During a scarcity of money which prevailed

in 1644, Lawrence Tonti came from Naples to Paris, and proposed that

kind of life-rents, or annuities, which are named after him _Tontines_;

though they were used in Italy long before his time. After tedious

disputes, his proposal was rejected; for which, in 1556, he substituted,

with the royal approbation, a large Lottery in order to raise funds for

building a stone bridge and an aqueduct. This Lottery was never

completed, and consequently never drawn; and a wooden bridge was

constructed, instead of that which had been burnt. The first Lottery on

the plan of Tonti was set on foot at Paris in 1660, when the conclusion

of peace, and the marriage of Louis XIV., were celebrated. It was drawn

publicly, under the inspection of the police. The price of each ticket

was a Louis d’or, which at that time was only eleven livres; and the

highest prize was a hundred thousand livres. This was gained by the king

himself, but he would not receive it, and left it to the next Lottery,

in which he had no ticket. In 1661, all private Lotteries were

prohibited under severe penalties, and from that time there were no

other Lotteries than the _Loteries royales_.[498]

* * * * *

The ill-famed Italian or Genoese Lottery in Germany was, as its name

shows, an invention of the Genoese, and arose from the mode in which the

members of the senate were elected; for when that republic existed in a

state of freedom, the names of the eligible candidates were thrown into

a vessel called _seminario_, or, in modern times, into a wheel of

fortune; and during the drawings of them it was customary for people to

lay bets in regard to those who might be successful. That is to say, one

chose the name of two or three _nobili_, for these only could be

elected, and ventured upon them, according to pleasure, a piece of

money; while, on the other hand, the opposite party, or the undertaker

of the bank, who had the means of forming a pretty accurate conjecture

in regard to names that would be drawn, doubled the stakes several

times. Afterwards the state itself undertook the bank for these bets,

which was attended with so much advantage; and the drawing of the names

was performed with great ceremony. The _venerabile_ was exposed, and

high mass was celebrated, at which all the candidates were obliged to be

present.

* * * * *

A member of the senate, named Benedetto Gentile, is said to have first

introduced this Lottery, in the year 1620; and it is added, that the

name of Gentile having never been drawn, the people took it into their

heads that he, and his names, had been carried away by the devil. But at

length, the wheel being taken to pieces in order to be mended, the name,

which by some accident had never been drawn was found concealed in it.

This mode of Lottery is presumed to have been peculiar to the Genoese,

who, for their own benefit established in many continental towns

commissioners, to dispose of tickets, and to pay the prizes to those who

had been fortunate.

* * * * *

These pernicious Lotteries continued till the end of the eighteenth

century, when they were almost every where abolished and forbidden. To

the honour of the Hanoverian government, no _Lotto_ was ever introduced

into it, though many foreigners offered large sums for permission to

cheat the people in this manner. Those who wish to see the prohibitions

issued against the _Lotto_, after making a great part of the people

lazy, indigent, and thievish, may find them in Schlozer’s

Staats-Anzeigen,

Si son exécrable mémoire

Parvient à la postérité,

C’est que le crime, aussi bien que la gloire,

Conduit à l’immortalité.[499]

THE LAST LOTTERY IN ENGLAND.

Elia says, in the “New Monthly Magazine,”--“The true mental epicure

always purchased his ticket early, and postponed inquiry into its fate

to the last possible moment, during the whole of which intervening

period he had an imaginary twenty thousand locked up in his desk--and

was not this well worth all the money? Who would scruple to give twenty

pounds interest for even the ideal enjoyment of as many thousands during

two or three months? ‘_Crede quod habes, et habes_,’ and the usufruct of

such a capital is surely not dear at such a price. Some years ago, a

gentleman in passing along Cheapside saw the figures 1069, of which

number he was the sole proprietor, flaming on the window of a Lottery

office as a capital prize. Somewhat flurried by this discovery, not less

welcome than unexpected, he resolved to walk round St. Paul’s, that he

might consider in what way to communicate the happy tidings to his wife

and family; out upon repassing the shop, he observed that the number was

altered to 10,069; and, upon inquiry, had the mortification to learn

that his ticket was blank, and had only been stuck up in the window by a

mistake of the clerk. This effectually calmed his agitation; but he

always speaks of himself as having once possessed twenty thousand

pounds, and maintains that his ten minutes’ walk round St. Paul’s was

worth ten times the purchase-money of the ticket. A prize thus obtained

has moreover this special advantage;--it is beyond the reach of fate, it

cannot be squandered, bankruptcy cannot lay siege to it, friends cannot

pull it down, nor enemies blow it up; it bears a charmed life, and none

of woman-born can break its integrity, even by the dissipation of a

single fraction. Show me the property in these perilous times that is

equally compact and impregnable. We can no longer become enriched for a

quarter of an hour; we can no longer succeed in such splendid failures;

all our chances of making such a miss have vanished with the Last of the

Lotteries.

“Life will now become a flat, prosaic routine of matter-of-fact; and

sleep itself, erst so prolific of numerical configurations and

mysterious stimulants to Lottery adventure, will be disfurnished of its

figures and figments. People will cease to harp upon the one lucky

number suggested in a dream, and which forms the exception, while they

are scrupulously silent upon the ten thousand falsified dreams which

constitute the rule. Morpheus will stifle Cocker with a handful of

poppies, and our pillows will be no longer haunted by the book of

numbers.

“And who, too, shall maintain the art and mystery of puffing in all its

pristine glory when the Lottery professors shall have abandoned its

cultivation? They were the first, as they will assuredly be the last,

who fully developed the resources of that ingenious art; who cajoled and

decoyed the most suspicious and wary reader into a perusal of their

advertisements, by devices of endless variety and cunning; who baited

their lurking schemes with midnight murders, ghost stories, crim-cons,

bon-mots, balloons, dreadful catastrophes, and every diversity of joy

and sorrow to catch newspaper-gudgeons. Ought not such talents to be

encouraged? Verily, the abolitionists have much to answer for!”

* * * * *

Here, at last, ends the notices respecting the Lottery, of which much

has been said, because of all depraving institutions it had the largest

share in debasing society while it existed: and because, after all,

perhaps, the monster is “only scotched, not killed.”

[429] See vol. i. col. 1486.

[430] Morning Herald, Sept. 3, 1817.

[431] Maitland’s London.

[432] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1778.

[433] Stow, in his Annals.

[434] Ibid.

[435] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1798.

[436] Anderson’s History of Commerce.

[437] Malcolm’s Manners.

[438] “Whereas some give out that they could never receive their books

after they were drawn in the first lottery, the author declares, and

it will be attested, that of seven hundred prizes that were drawn,

there were not six remaining Prizes that suffered with his in the

fire; for the drawing being on the 10th of May, 1665, the office did

then continue open for the delivery of the same (though the contagion

much raged) until the latter end of July following; and opened again,

to attend the delivery, in April, 1666, whither persons repaired daily

for their prizes, and continued open until the fire.”

[439] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[440] Malcolm’s Manners.

[441] Anderson.

[442] Malcolm.

[443] Ibid.

[444] Anderson.

[445] Spectator, No. 191.

[446] Sunday, October 22, 1826.

[447] The Times, November 3, 1826.

[448] Mr. Smeeton in the _Examiner_.

[449] Malcolm.

[450] Smollett.

[451] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[452] Lounger’s Common Place Book.

[453] Smollett.

[454] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[455] Anderson.

[456] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1731.

[457] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[458] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1739.

[459] The Champion, January 10, 1740.

[460] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[461] Ibid.

[462] Maitland. Gentleman’s Magazine.

[463] Universal Magazine.

[464] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[465] Ibid.

[466] Smollett. Gentleman’s Magazine.

[467] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[468] In the Universal Magazine for December.

[469] Universal Magazine.

[470] Memoir of Holland in Universal Magazine.

[471] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[472] Ibid.

[473] Universal Magazine.

[474] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[475] Ibid.

[476] Ibid.

[477] Ibid.

[478] Anderson.

[479] Universal Magazine.

[480] Town and Country Magazine.

[481] Universal Magazine.

[482] Report of Committee of House of Commons on Lotteries, 1808.

[483] Report of Police Committee of House of Commons 1816.

[484] The price of a Sixteenth in the present Lottery.

[485] Communicated by J. J. A. F. from a Calcutta newspaper of Sept.

3, 1818.

[486] Charity and Patriotism.

[487] This and other of the bills quoted are lent by our

correspondent, J. J. A. F. from his Lottery Collections.

[488] See _ante_.

[489] The day the royal assent was given to the last Lottery act.

[490] Baker’s Chronicle.

[491] Mr. Nelson’s History of Islington.

[492] A few interesting Anecdotes, &c. 18mo. 1810.

[493] Beckmann.

[494] Fosbroke, Ency. of Antiquities.

[495] Beckmann.

[496] Ibid.

[497] Private Life of Louis XIV.

[498] Beckmann.

[499] Ibid.

~November 16.~

EXTRAORDINARY LUNAR HALO.

On the night of this day in 1823, about half past nine o’clock, Dr. T.

Forster observed a very remarkable and brilliant phenomenon about the

moon. It was a coloured discoid halo, consisting of six several

concentric circles; the nearest to the moon, or the first disk around

her, being dull white, then followed circles of orange, violet, crimson,

green, and vermillion; the latter, or outermost, subtending in its

diameter an angle of above ten degrees. This phenomenon was evidently

produced by a refraction in the white mist of a stratus, which prevailed

through the night, but it varied in its colours, as well as in its

brilliancy, at different times.[500]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 43·00.

WHIMS AND ODDITIES.

The company of odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins in the hollow

of the wild mountain, were not greater objects of wonder to Rip Van

Winkle, than forty original designs by Mr. Hood will be to the reader

who looks for the first time at this gentleman’s “Whims and

Oddities.”[501]

All the world knows, or ought to know, that among persons called

literary there are a few peculiarly _littery_; who master an article

through confusion of head and materials, and, having achieved the

setting of their thoughts and places “to rights,” celebrate the

important victory by the triumph of a short repose. At such a minute,

after my last toilsome adventure in the “Lottery,” sitting in my little

room before the fire, and looking into it with the comfortable knowledge

that the large table behind me was “free from all incumbrances,” I

yearned for a recreative dip into something new, when Mr. Hood’s volume,

in a parcel bearing the superscription of a kind hand, was put into

mine. It came in the very nick; and, as I amused myself, I resolved to

be thenceforth, and therefrom, as agreeable as possible to my readers.

* * * * *

On the title-page of Mr. Hood’s book is this motto, “O Cicero! Cicero!

if to pun be a crime, ’tis a crime I have learned of thee: O Bias! Bias!

if to pun be a crime, by thy example I was biassed!--_Scriblerus._”

The first engraving that opened on me was of

[Illustration: A DREAM.]

In this figure, “a medley of human faces, wherein certain features

belong in common to different visages,--the eyebrow of one, for

instance, forming the mouth of another,”--Mr. Hood has successfully

“tried to typify a common characteristic of dreams; namely, the

entanglement of divers ideas, to the waking mind distinct or

incongruous, but, by the confusion of sleep, inseparably ravelled up,

and knotted into Gordian intricacies. For, as the equivocal feature, in

the emblem, belongs indifferently to either countenance, but is

appropriated by the head that happens to be presently the object of

contemplation; so, in a dream, two separate notions will mutually

involve some convertible incident, that becomes, by turns, a symptom of

both in general, or of either in particular. Thus are begotten the most

extravagant associations of thoughts and images,--unnatural connections,

like those marriages of forbidden relationships, where mothers become

cousins to their own sons or daughters, and quite as bewildering as such

genealogical embarrassments.”

As an illustration of this kind of dream, the author relates a dismal

one, “which originated in the failure of his first and last attempt as a

dramatic writer;” and another, wherein the preliminaries were pleasant,

and the conclusion was whimsical. “It occurred,” says Mr. Hood, “when I

was on the eve of marriage; a season, when, if lovers sleep sparingly,

they dream profusely. A very brief slumber sufficed to carry me in the

night-coach to Bognor. It had been concerted, between Honoria and

myself, that we should pass the honeymoon at some such place upon the

coast. The purpose of my solitary journey was to procure an appropriate

dwelling, and which, we had agreed, should be a little pleasant house,

with an indispensable look out upon the sea. I chose one, accordingly; a

pretty villa, with bow-windows, and a prospect delightfully marine. The

ocean murmur sounded incessantly from the beach. A decent, elderly body,

in decayed sables, undertook, on her part, to promote the comforts of

the occupants by every suitable attention, and, as she assured me, at a

very reasonable rate. So far, the nocturnal faculty had served me truly.

A day-dream could not have proceeded more orderly; but, alas, just here,

when the dwelling was selected, the sea view secured, the rent agreed

upon, when every thing was plausible, consistent, and rational, the

incoherent fancy crept in and confounded all,--by marrying me to the old

woman of the house!”

Because it never happened that Mr. Hood in his dreams fancied himself

deprived of any sense, he was greatly puzzled by this question,--

“_How does a_ BLIND _man dream?_”

“I mean” says Mr. H. “a person with the opaque crystal from his birth.

He is defective in that very faculty which, of all others, is most

active in those night-passages, thence emphatically called Visions. He

has had no acquaintance with external images; and has, therefore, none

of those transparent pictures that, like the slides of a magic-lantern,

pass before the mind’s eye, and are projected by the inward spiritual

light upon the utter blank. His imagination must be like an imperfect

kaleidoscope, totally unfurnished with those parti-coloured fragments,

whereof the complete instrument makes such interminable combinations. It

is difficult to conceive such a man’s dream.

“Is it, a still benighted wandering,--a pitch-dark night progress, made

known to him by the consciousness of the remaining senses? Is he still

pulled through the universal blank, by an invisible power, as it were,

at the nether end of the string?--regaled, sometimes, with celestial

voluntaries, and unknown mysterious fragrances, answering to our more

romantic flights; at other times, with homely voices, and more familiar

odours; here, of rank smelling cheeses, there, of pungent pickles or

aromatic drugs, hinting his progress through a metropolitan street. Does

he over again enjoy the grateful roundness of those substantial

droppings from the invisible passenger,--palpable deposits of an

abstract benevolence,--or, in his nightmares, suffer anew those painful

concussions and corporeal buffetings, from that (to him) obscure evil

principle, the Parish Beadle?

“This question I am happily enabled to resolve, through the information

of the oldest of those blind Tobits that stand in fresco against

Bunhill-wall; the same who made that notable comparison, of scarlet, to

the sound of a trumpet. As I understood him, harmony, with the

gravel-blind, is prismatic as well as chromatic. To use his own

illustration, a wall-eyed man has a _palette_ in his ear as well as in

his mouth. Some stone-blinds, indeed, dull dogs without any _ear_ for

colour, profess to distinguish the different hues and shades by the

touch; but _that_, he said, was a slovenly, uncertain method, and in the

chief article, of paintings, not allowed to be exercised.

“On my expressing some natural surprise at the aptitude of his

celebrated comparison,--a miraculous close likening, to my mind, of the

known to the unknown,--he told me, the instance was nothing, for the

least discriminative among them could distinguish the scarlet colour of

the mail guards’ liveries, by the sound of their horns: but there were

others, so acute their faculty! that they could tell the very features

and complexion of their relatives and familiars, by the mere tone of

their voices. I was much gratified with this explanation; for I confess,

hitherto, I was always extremely puzzled by that narrative in the

‘Tatler,’ of a young gentleman’s behaviour after the operation of

couching, and especially at the wonderful promptness with which he

distinguished his father from his mother,--his mistress from her maid.

But it appears, that the blind are not so blind as they have been

esteemed in the vulgar notion. What they cannot get one way they obtain

in another: they, in fact, realize what the author of Hudibras has

ridiculed as a fiction, for they set up

---------communities of senses,

To chop and change intelligences,

As Rosicrucian Virtuosis

Can _see with ears_--and hear with noses.”

Never having tried opium, and therefore without experience of “such

magnificent visions” as are described by its eloquent historian, “I have

never,” says Mr. Hood, “been buried for ages under pyramids; and yet,

methinks, have suffered agonies as intense as _his_ could be, from the

common-place inflictions. For example, a night spent in the counting of

interminable numbers,--an inquisitorial penance,--everlasting

tedium,--the mind’s treadmill.”

* * * * *

That “the _innocent_--sleep,” is an exceptionable position. What happy

man, with a happy wife by his side, and the first, sweet, restless

plague and pledge of their happiness by hers, has not been awakened to a

sense of his felicity, by a weak, yet shrill and spirit-stirring “la-a,

la-a, la-a, la-a, la-a-a, la-a-a--a,” of some secret sorrow, “for ever

telling, yet untold.”

Happy the man whose only care

A _few_ paternal _achings_ are.

Gentle reader of the Benedictine order! I presume not to anticipate the

pleasure thou wilt derive from contemplating thyself engaged in a

domestic exercise, suited to the occasion,--pacing thy bed-room at “the

heavy middle of the night,” holding the _little_ “innocent”

Fondly lock’d in _duty’s_ arms;

its dear eyes provokingly open to the light of the chamber-lantern;

thine own closed by drowsiness, yet kept unsealed by affection; thy lips

arranged for the piano of carminative sounds--“quivering to the

young-eyed cherubim”--

Oh! slumber my darling

Thy sire is a knight--

--thy “darling” ceasing its “sweet voice,” to offer more decisively by

its looks, “I would out-night you.” Brother Benedict! there is an

engraving of thee, and thine, in the book I speak of, mottoed, “Son of

the sleepless!”

Let me extract another _cut_, seemingly a portrait of the _alarming_

“hope of the family,” after thou hast for some few years tried,

perchance, “the _Locke_ system; which, after all,” according to Mr.

Hood, “is but a _canal_ system for raising the babe-mind to unnatural

levels”--

[Illustration: “My son, sir.”]

* * * * *

At about the age of “My son, sir,” boys seek to satisfy their curiosity,

and gratify their taste. It is the _spelling_-time of young experience,

and they are extremely diligent. Their senses are fresh and undepraved,

and covetous of the simplest pleasures.

Every town in England, and every village, with inhabitants and wealth

sufficient to consume a hogshead of “brown moist” within a reasonable

time, exhibits an empty sugar cask in the open street; it is every

little grocer’s pride, and every poor boy’s delight:--

[Illustration: “O! there’s nothing half so sweet in life!”]

“Gentle reader, read the motto! read the motto!” Look at the engraving;

“_show_ it to your children, and to your children’s children,” and ask

them what they _think_. If you desire an immediate living example to

illustrate professor Malthus’s principle, that “population always comes

up to the mean of subsistence,” set out a sugar cask, and there will be

a swarm of boys about it, from no one knows whither, in ten minutes. The

first takes possession of the inside, and is “monarch of all he

surveys.” Like the throne, it is an envied, and an unquiet possession.

From the emulous, on all sides, he receives vain addresses and

remonstrances, and against their threatening hands is obliged to keep a

sharp look out; but his greatest enemy, and for whom he keeps a sharp

look _over_, is the grocer’s man. A glimpse of that arch-foe “frightens

him from his impropriety” in a twinkling; unless, indeed, from the

nearness of the adversary he fail to escape, when, for certain, his

companions leave him “alone in his glory,” and then he knows for a

truth, that “after sweet comes sour.” The boy there, straddling like the

“Great Harry,” has had his wicked will of the barrel to satiety, and

therefore vacates his place in favour of him of the hat, on whose nether

end “time hath written strange defeatures.” It is not so certain, that

the fine, fat, little fellow, with his hands on the edge of the tub,

and the ends of his toes on the ground, will ascend the side, as that he

who stoops in front is enjoying the choicest pickings of the prize. The

others are mere common feeders, or gluttons, who go for quantity; _he_

is the epicure of the party--

He seeks but little here below

But seeks that little _good_;

and, of foretaste, he takes his place at the bung-hole, where the sugar

crystallizes, and there revels in particles of the finest candies. “I

pity the poor child,” says Mr. Hood, “that is learned in alpha beta, but

ignorant of top and taw”--and I pity every poor child who only knows

that a sugar tub is sweet, and is ignorant of the sweetest of its

sweets. There are as many different pickings in it as there are _cuts_

in a shoulder of mutton, or Mr. Hood’s book. My authority for this

information is an acute, pale-faced, sickly, printer’s boy, an adapt in

lickerish things, who declared the fact the morning after he had been to

see Mr. Mathews, by affirming, with enthusiasm, “I’ve tried it, I’ve

analyzed it, and I know it.”

“Ah! little think the gay, licentious proud,”

who spend their money on bulls-eyes and hard-bake, which are modern

inventions, of the delicacies within a grocer’s plain, upright and

downright, good, old, natural, brown sugar tub--

“O! there’s nothing half so sweet in life.”

Mr. Hood introduces another “sweet pleasure,” with another equally apt

quotation:--

[Illustration: “Tell me, my heart, can this be Love?”]

This figure of “THE POPULAR CUPID,” Mr. Hood copied, “by permission,

from a lady’s Valentine;” and he says, “in the romantic mythology it is

the image of the divinity of Love.” He inquires, “Is this he, that, in

the mind’s eye of the poetess, drifts adown the Ganges--

Pillow’d in a lotus flow’r,

Gather’d in a summer hour,

Floats _he_ o’er the mountain wave,

Which would be a tall ship’s grave?

--Does Belinda believe that such a substantial Sagittarius lies ambushed

in her perilous blue eye?--I can believe in his dwelling alone in the

heart--seeing that he must occupy it to repletion: in his

constancy--because he looks sedentary, and not apt to roam: that he is

given to melt--from his great pinguitude: that he burneth with a

flame--for so all fat burneth: and hath languishings--like other bodies

of his tonnage: that he sighs--from his size. I dispute not his kneeling

at ladies’ feet--since it is the posture of elephants--nor his promise,

that the homage shall remain eternal. I doubt not of his dying--being of

a corpulent habit, and a short neck: of his blindness--with that

inflated pig’s cheek. But, for his lodging in Belinda’s blue eye, my

whole faith is heretic--for she hath never a _sty_ in it.”

Mr. Hood, doubtless, desires that the world should know his “Whims and

Oddities” through his own work; its notice here, therefore, while it

affords a winter evening’s half hour entertainment, is not to mar his

hopes. But it is impossible to close its merry-making leaves without

shadowing forth a little more of the volume.

It ought to be observed, that the prints just presented are from

engravings in Mr. Hood’s book, of which there are forty drawn by his own

pencil; and, that he attaches a motto to each, so antithetical, as to

constitute the volume a pocket portfolio of designs to excite

risibility. For example:--

He tells a story of his “Aunt Shakerly,” a lady of enormous bulk, who

placed Mr. Hood’s baby cousin in the nursing-chair while she took in the

news, and then, in her eagerness to read the accidents and offences,

unthinkingly sat, with the gravity of a coroner’s inquest, in the

aforesaid chair, and thereby unconsciously suppressed “an article of

intelligence”--an occurrence which there is little reason to doubt

appeared among the “horribles,” in the favourite department of her

paper, the next morning. The engraving that pictures this is mottoed,

“THE SPOILED CHILD!”

Mr. Hood institutes “A Complaint against Greatness,” through “an unhappy

candidate for the show at Sadler’s repository,” described in the

following item of the catalogue--“The reverend Mr. Farmer, a four years’

old Durham ox, fed by himself, upon oil-cake and mangel-wurzel.” The

complainant, however, says, “I resemble that worthy agricultural vicar

only in my fat living.”

This being the season when these condemned animals come up from the

country to the metropolis, it seems a fit time to hear the complainant’s

description of his journey. “Wearisome and painful was my pilgrim-like

progress to this place, by short and tremulous steppings--like the

digit’s march upon a dial. My owner, jealous of my fat, procured a

crippled drover, with a withered limb, for my conductor; but even _he_

hurried me beyond my breath. The drawling hearse left me labouring

behind; the ponderous fly-waggon passed me like a bird upon the road, so

tediously slow is my pace. It just sufficeth, oh, ye thrice happy

oysters! that have no locomotive faculty at all, to distinguish that I

am not at rest. Wherever the grass grew by the way-side, how it tempted

my natural longings--the cool brook flowed at my very foot, but this

short, thick neck forbade me to eat or drink; nothing but my redundant

dewlap is likely ever to graze on the ground!--If stalls and troughs

were not extant, I must perish. Nature has given to the elephant a long,

flexible tube, or trunk, so that he can feed his mouth, as it were, by

his nose: but is man able to furnish me with such an implement? Or would

he not still withhold it, lest I should prefer the green herb, my

natural, delicious diet, and reject his rank, unsavoury

condiments?--What beast, with free will, but would repair to the sweet

meadow for its pasture”--

Verily, it is humane thus to lecture man from the mouth of an animal,

whose species is annually deformed for butcherly pride, and the loathing

of the table--“to see the prize-steak loaded with that rank, yellow

abomination, might wean a man from carnivorous habits for ever.” The

supplicant for our compassion adds, in behalf of himself and his

dumb-fellow creatures, “It may seem presumption in a brute to question

the human wisdom; but truly, I can perceive no beneficial ends worthy to

be set off against our sufferings. There must be, methinks, a nearer

(and a better) way of augmenting the perquisites of the kitchen-wench

and the fire-man.” There is an admirable cut of the over-fed petitioner,

breathing “O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!” The figure of

the crippled drover is excellent.

Mr. Hood devises a romantic adventure that befel a herd of these animals

of the common class, and a little wooden, white-painted house on four

wheels, to which a sedentary citizen and his wife had retired to spend

their days, “impaled” by the wayside on Hounslow-heath, where--

Having had some quarters of school breeding,

They turn’d themselves, like other folks, to reading;

But setting out where others nigh have done,

And being ripen’d in the seventh stage,

The childhood of old age,

Began as other children have begun,--

Not with the pastorals of Mr. Pope,

Or Bard of Hope,

Or Paley, ethical, or learned Porson,--

But spelt, on sabbaths, in St. Mark, or John,

And then relax’d themselves with Whittington,

Or Valentine and Orson--

But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con,

And being easily melted, in their dotage,

Slobber’d,--and kept

Reading,--and wept

Over the White Cat, in their wooden cottage.

Thus reading on--the longer

They read, of course, their childish faith grew stronger

In gnomes, and hags, and elves, and giant grim,--

If talking trees and birds reveal’d to him,

She saw the flight of fairyland’s fly-waggons,

And magic-fishes swim

In puddle ponds, and took old crows for dragons,--

Both were quite drunk from the enchanted flaggons;

When as it fell upon a summer’s day.

As the old man sat a feeding

On the old babe-reading,

Beside his open street-and-parlour door,

A hideous roar

Proclaim’d a drove of beasts was coming by the way.

Long-horned, and short, of many a different breed,

Tall, tawny brutes, from famous Lincoln-levels,

Or Durham feed;

With some of those unquiet, black, dwarf devils,

From nether side of Tweed,

Or Firth of Forth;

Looking half wild with joy to leave the North,--

With dusty hides, all mobbing on together,--

When,--whether from a fly’s malicious comment

Upon his tender flank, from which he shrank;

Or whether

Only in some enthusiastic moment,--

However, one brown monster, in a frisk,

Giving his tail a perpendicular whisk,

Kick’d out a passage thro’ the beastly rabble;

And after a pas seul,--or, if you will, a

Horn-pipe, before the basket-maker’s villa,

Leapt o’er the tiny pale,--

Back’d his beef-steaks against the wooden gable,

And thrust his brawny bell-rope of a tail

Right o’er the page,

Wherein the sage

Just then was spelling some romantic fable.

The old man, half a scholar, half a dunce,

Could not peruse, who could?--two tales at once;

And being huff’d

At what he knew was none of Riquet’s tuft;

Bang’d-to the door,

But most unluckily enclosed a morsel

Of the intruding tail, and all the tassel:--

The monster gave a roar,

And bolting off with speed, increased by pain,

The little house became a coach once more,

And, like Macheath, “took to the road” again!

When this happened the old man’s wife was absent,

Getting up some household herbs for supper,

Thoughtful of Cinderella, in the tale,

And quaintly wondering _how_ magic shifts

Could o’er a common pumpkin so prevail,

To turn it to a coach;

nor did she turn round, till house and spouse had turned a corner out of

sight.

The change was quite amazing;

It made her senses stagger for a minute,

The riddle’s explication seem’d to harden;

But soon her superannuated _nous_

Explained the horrid mystery;--and raising

Her hand to heaven, with the cabbage in it,

On which she meant to sup,--

“Well! this _is_ fairy work! I’ll bet a farden,

Little prince Silverwings has ketch’d me up,

And set me down in some one else’s garden!”

Here ends the “fairy tale” of Hounslow-heath.

* * * * *

“She is far from the land!” is a motto to an engraving of a _land_ lady,

frightened by voyaging in a Thames wherry, opposite St. Paul’s. Her

after alarms at sea are concluded pleasantly:--

“We were off Flamborough-head. A heavy swell, the consequence of some

recent storm to the eastward, was rolling right before the wind upon the

land:--and, once under the shadow of the bluff promontory, we should

lose all the advantage of a saving westerly breeze. Even the seamen

looked anxious: but the passengers, (save one,) were in despair. They

were, already, bones of contention, in their own misgivings, to the

myriads of cormorants and waterfowl inhabiting that stupendous cliff.

Miss Oliver alone was sanguine. She was all nods, and becks, and

wreathed smiles; her cheeriness increased in proportion with our

dreariness. Even the dismal pitching of the vessel could not disturb her

unseasonable levity;--it was like a lightening before death--but, at

length, the mystery was explained. She had springs of comfort that we

knew not of. Not brandy, for that we shared in common; nor

supplications, for those we had all applied to; but her ears, being

jealously vigilant of whatever passed between the mariners, she had

overheard from the captain,--and it had all the sound, to her, of a

comfortable promise,--that ‘if the wind held, we should certainly _go on

shore_.’”

* * * * *

The popular ballad of “Sally Brown and Ben the Carpenter,” which first

appeared in the “London Magazine,” is inserted in this volume. “I have

never been vainer of any verses,” says Mr. Hood, “than of my part in the

following ballad. The lamented Emery, drest as Tom Tug, sang it at his

last mortal benefit at Covent-garden; and, ever since, it has been a

great favourite with the watermen of the Thames, who time their oars to

it, as the wherrymen of Venice time theirs to the lines of Tasso. With

the watermen, it went naturally to Vauxhall: and, over land, to

Sadler’s-wells. The guards, not the mail coach but the life guards,

picked it out from a fluttering hundred of others, all going to one air,

against the dead wall at Knightsbridge. Cheap printers of Shoe-lane and

Cow-cross, (all pirates!) disputed about the copyright, and published

their own editions; and, in the mean time, the authors, to have made

bread of their song, (it was poor old Homer’s hard ancient case!) must

have sung it about the streets. Such is the lot of literature! the

profits of ‘Sally Brown’ were divided by the ballad-mongers: it has

cost, but has never brought me, a halfpenny.”

* * * * *

A “Recipe for Civilisation,” in Hudibrastic lines, is waggishly

ascribed to the “pen of Dr. Kitchiner--as if, in the ingredients of

versification, he had been assisted by his _Butler_.” It is accompanied

by a whimsical whole length of “the Cook’s Oracle,” adjusting musical

notes on the bars of a gridiron, a ludicrous allusion to the

good-humoured Doctor’s diversified attainments in science and

popularity.

* * * * *

From an odd poem, attributed to an odd personage, “The Last Man,” two

verses are selected, as an example of feelings which the punning on the

title-page seemed to have proscribed:--

I’ve buried my babies one by one,

And dug the deep hole for Joan,

And cover’d the faces of kith and kin,

And felt the old church-yard stone

Go cold to my heart, full many a time,

But I never felt so lone.

For the lion and Adam were company,

And the tiger him beguiled;

But the simple kine are foes to my life,

And the household brutes are wild.

If the veriest cur would lick my hand

I could love it like a child!

* * * * *

Mr. Hood’s pen essays “WALTON REDIVIVUS: _A New River Eclogue_.”

“[Piscator is fishing--near the sir Hugh Middleton’s Head, without

either basket or can. Viator cometh up to him, with an angling-rod and a

bottle.]”

It is prefaced by a citation “_From a Letter of C. Lamb_,” in these

words:--“My old New River has presented no extraordinary novelties

lately. But there Hope sits, day after day, speculating on traditionary

gudgeons. I think she hath taken the fisheries. I now know the reasons

why our forefathers were denominated East and West Angles. Yet is there

no lack of spawn, for I wash my hands in fishets that come through the

pump, every morning, thick as motelings--little things that perish

untimely, and never taste the brook.”

To face this “Eclogue” there is a motto, “My banks they are furnished,”

beneath a whole length figure, _so_ like “poor Jemmy Whittle!”--only not

looking so good natured.

* * * * *

“Love me, love my dog,” is a fearful _cut_--Mr. Hood’s step-mother, and

her precious “Bijou”--with a story, and a tail-piece--“O list unto my

tale of woe,”--unnaturally natural.

* * * * *

One of the best pieces in the volume is “The Irish Schoolmaster,” who,

from a clay cabin, “the College of Kilreen,” hangs out a board, “with

painted letters red as blood,” announcing “CHILDREN TAKEN IN TO BATE.”

Six babes he sways,--some little and some big,

Divided into classes six;--alsoe,

He keeps a parlour boarder of a pig,

That in the college fareth to and fro,

And picketh up the urchins’ crumbs below

And eke the learned rudiments they scan,

And thus his A, B, C doth wisely know,--

Hereafter to be shown in caravan,

And raise the wonderment of many a learned man.

Alsoe, he schools some tame familiar fowls,

Whereof, above his head, some two or three

Sit darkly squatting, like Minerva’s owls,

But on the branches of no living tree,

And overlook the learned family;

While, sometimes, Partlet, from her gloomy perch,

Drops feather on the nose of Dominie,

Meanwhile, with serious eye, he makes research

In leaves of that sour tree of knowledge--now a birch.

* * * * *

Now, by the creeping shadows of the moon,

The hour is come to lay aside their lore;

The cheerful pedagogue perceives it soon,

And cries, “Begone!” unto the imps,--and four

Snatch their two hats and struggle for the door,

Like ardent spirits vented from a cask,

All blythe and boisterous,--but leave two more,

With Reading made Uneasy for a task,

To weep, whilst all their mates in merry sunshine bask,

Like sportive elfins on the verdant sod,

With tender moss so sleekly overgrown,

That doth not hurt, but kiss, the sole unshod,

So soothely kind is Erin to her own!

And one, at hare and hound, plays all alone,--

For Phelim’s gone to tend his step-dame’s cow;

Ah! Phelim’s step-dame is a canker’d crone!

Whilst other twain play at an Irish row,

And, with shillelah small, break one another’s brow!

But careful Dominie, with ceaseless thrift,

Now changeth ferula for rural hoe;

But, first of all, with tender hand doth shift

His college gown, because of solar glow,

And hangs it on a bush to scare the crow:

Meanwhile, he plants in earth the dappled bean,

Or trains the young potatoes all a-row,

Or plucks the fragrant leek for pottage green,

With that crisp curly herb, call’d Kale in Aberdeen.

And so he wisely spends the fruitful hours,

Linked each to each by labours, like a bee;

Or rules in learning’s hall, or trims her bow’rs;--

Would there were many more such wights as he,

To sway each capital academie

Of Cam and Isis; for, alack! at each

There dwells, I wot, some dronish Dominie,

That does no garden work, nor yet doth teach,

But wears a floury head, and talks in flow’ry speech!

* * * * *

For the entire of the subjects already extracted from, and for many

others not adverted to, even by name, reference should be had to the

work itself. There is one design, however, so excellent a specimen of

Mr. Hood’s clear conception and decisive execution, that merely in

further illustration of his talent it is here introduced.

[Illustration: “Very deaf, indeed.”]

An engraving of Mr. Hood’s admirable “Parish Beadle,” from his “Progress

of Cant,” was inserted in an account of that print on p. 130 of the

present volume of the _Every-Day Book_. Great as was the merit of that

print, in point of wit and humour, and curious as it will always be

regarded for its multiform developement of character, and relationship

to the manners of the age, yet it is largely exceeded, in these

respects, by the volume of “Whims and Oddities.” Possessing the rare

talent, of illustrating what he writes by his own drawings, Mr. Hood is

to be esteemed in a twofold capacity. He has, withall, the remarkable

merit of having acquired his knowledge of art by his own teaching; and,

what augurs well, the praise which the “Progress of Cant” deserved and

obtained, has wholesomely invigorated him to higher mastery. There is a

firmness of execution in the designs to the “Whims and Oddities,”

surprisingly superior to the general manner of his meritorious etching

just mentioned. The book is altogether the most original that the press

of late years has produced; and, luckily, it comes like a seasonable

visiter, to raise shouts of laughter “round about the coal-fire” in cold

weather.

[500] The varieties and causes of these phenomena are described in Dr.

Forster’s “Researches about Atmospheric Phenomena,” 3d edition, p. 98.

[501] “Whims and Oddities, in Prose and Verse; with forty original

designs by Thomas Hood, one of the authors of ‘Odes and Addresses to

Great People,’ and the designer of the Progress of Cant, London,

Relfe, 1826.” 12mo. 10_s._ 6_d._

~November 17.~

HUGH,

_Bishop of Lincoln_.

His name is in the church of England calendar and almanacs on this day,

which was ordained his festival by the Romish church, wherein he is

honoured as a saint.

* * * * *

St. Hugh was born in Burgundy in 1140, educated in a convent, took the

habit of the Chartreuse near Grenoble before he was of age, was ordained

priest, and, at the end of ten years, the procuratorship of the

monastery was intrusted to him. Henry II. of England, confiding in his

prudence and sanctity, induced him to come over and regulate the new

monastery of Carthusians, founded by the king at Witham in

Somersetshire, which was the first of that order established in England.

He was consecrated bishop of Lincoln, 21st September, 1186, exerted his

episcopal authority to restore ecclesiastical discipline, especially

amongst his clergy, and maintained the claims of the church against the

crown itself. In quality of ambassador from king John, he went to France

and negotiated a peace; on his return he was seized with a fever,

presumed to have been occasioned by his abstemiousness, and died at

London, on blessed ashes strewed on the floor, as he directed, in the

form of a cross, on the 17th of November, 1200. His body was embalmed,

and conveyed with great pomp to Lincoln, where it was met by king John

of England and king William of Scotland, with three archbishops,

fourteen bishops, above a hundred abbots, and a great number of earls

and barons. The two kings put their shoulders under the bier as it was

carried into the church.

Alban Butler, from whom these particulars are derived, affirms that

three paralytic persons, and some others, recovered their health at St.

Hugh’s tomb. He further relates, that, during the saint’s life time,

Henry II., being on his way from Normandy to England, in a furious

storm, prayed for mercy, through the merits and intercession of St.

Hugh, whereon a calm ensued, and the voyage was made in safety.

* * * * *

THE UNTOMBED MARINERS.

_An incident really witnessed in the Bay of Biscay._

The waves roll’d long and high

In the fathomless Biscay,

And the rising breeze swept sullen by,

And the day closed heavily.

Our ship was tight and brave,

Well trimm’d and sailing free,

And she flew along on the mountain wave,

An eagle of the sea.

The red cross fluttering yet,

We lower’d the noble sign,

For the bell had struck, it was past sunset,

And the moon began to shine.

Her light was fitful, flung

From a sky of angry gloom,

Thick hurrying clouds o’er the waters hung,

Their hue was of the tomb.

Yet now and then a gleam

Broke through of her silent ray,

And lit around with her soften’d beam

Some spot of that plumbless bay.

O’er the bulwark’s side we heard

The proud ship break the spray,

While her shrouds and sheets by the wild winds stirr’d,

Made music mournfully.

And we talk’d of battles past,

Of shipwreck, rock, and shore,

Of ports where peril or chance had cast

Our sail the wide world o’er.

The watch look’d by the lee,

A shapeless log was seen,

A helmless ship it appear’d to be,

And it lay the waves between.

Oh ’twas a fearful sight

That helpless thing to see,

Swimming mastless and lone at high midnight

A corps on the black, black sea!

There were souls, perchance, on board,

And heaving yet their breath,

Men whose cry, amid their despair, was heard

Not to meet ocean-death.

Our chief on deck up sprung,

We lay too in that hollow deep--

Below, as our voices and trampling rung,

The sleepers sprang from sleep.

The boat we loosed and lower’d,

There were gallant hearts to go,

The dark clouds broke that the moon embower’d,

And her lights shone cheering through.

And we watch’d that little boat

Pull up the mountain wave,

Then sink from view, like a name forgot,

Within an ancient grave.

They go--they climb the hull,

As the waters wash the deck,

They shout, and they hear but the billows dull

Strike on that lonely wreck.

The skeletons of men

Lay blanch’d and marrowless there,

But clothed in their living garb, as when

That ’reft ship was their care.

Lash’d to their planks they lay,

The ropes still round them tied,

Though drifted long leagues in that stormy bay,

Since they hoped, despaired, and died.

Tombless in their decay,

Mid the watery solitude,

Days dawn’d upon them and faded away,

Cold moons their death-sleep view’d.

Their names no trace may tell,

Nor whither their passage bound,

And our seamen leave the desolate hull

With death and darkness round.

They tread their deck again,

And silent hoist their boat--

They think of the fate of the unknown men

Who for years may wildly float.

Those bones, that ocean bier,

They well may sadly see,

For they feel that the gallant ship they steer,

_Their_ sepulchre may be.

There is grief for beauty’s woe,

Laurels strew the hero’s hearse--

Are there none will the generous tear bestow

For those untomb’d mariners![502]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 42·02.

[502] New Monthly Magazine.

~November 18.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 18th of November, 1777, died William Bowyer, an eminent printer

of London, where he was born on the 17th of December, 1699. He had been

always subject to a bilious colic, and for the last ten years of his

life was afflicted with the palsy; yet he retained a remarkable

cheerfulness of disposition, and his faculties, though somewhat

impaired, enabled him to maintain the conversation of his literary

friends, pursue a course of incessant reading, which was his principal

amusement, and correct the learned works, especially the Greek books,

printed at his press. Within a few weeks before his death, he sunk under

his maladies and the progress of decay. His numerous critical writings

afford ample evidence of his ability as a scholar; and as a learned

printer, he had no rival for more than half a century. Of his regard to

religion and morals, both in principle and practice, his whole life bore

unquestionable evidence. His probity was inflexible. The promptitude

with which he relieved every species of distress, and his modesty in

endeavouring to conceal his benefactions, marked the benevolence and

delicacy of his disposition. In the decline of life, and in his

testamentary arrangements, he seems to have been influenced by a regard

to two great objects; one was to repay the benefactions which had been

conferred on his father at a time when he peculiarly needed assistance,

and the other was to be himself a benefactor to the meritorious in his

own profession. By his will, after liberally providing for his only

surviving son, and allotting various private bequests, he appropriated

several sums to “the benefit of printing,” particularly with a view to

the relief of aged printers, compositors or pressmen, and to the

encouragement of the journeyman compositor, whom he particularly

describes, and who is required to be capable of reading and construing

Latin, and, at least, of reading Greek fluently with accents. These

latter bequests he committed to the direction and disposal of the

master, wardens, and assistants of the Company of Stationers.

Mr. Bowyer was buried, agreeably to his own direction, at Low-Layton, in

Essex, and a monument erected, at the expense of his friend, Mr.

Nichols, to his father’s memory and his own, with a Latin inscription

written by himself. There is a bust of him in Stationers’-hall, with an

English inscription annexed, in his own words: and beside it are a

portrait of his father, and another of his patron, Mr. Nelson, all

presented to the Company by Mr. Nichols, who was his apprentice,

partner, and successor; and who has done ample justice to his eminent

predecessor’s memory, by an invaluable series of “Anecdotes” of Mr.

Bowyer, and many celebrated literary characters of the last and present

century, whose persons or writings Mr. Nichols’s professional labours

and varied erudition had acquainted him with.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·82.

~November 19.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On this day in 1703 died, in the Bastille at Paris, an unknown prisoner,

celebrated throughout Europe under the appellation of the _Man with the

Iron Mask_; he had been confined, for state reasons, from the year 1661.

There have been various disquisitions and controversies respecting his

identity, but a recent work seems to have rendered it probable, that he

was an Italian diplomatist who counteracted certain projects of Louis

XIV., and was therefore condemned, by that monarch’s despotism, to

perpetual imprisonment, in an iron mask, for the concealment of his

features.

PLEASANT ILLUSTRATIONS--AND ADDITIONAL NOTICES.

A correspondent is pleased to communicate a series of reminiscences

occasioned by accounts in the first volume. They form two interesting

articles, viz.

MEMORANDA I.

_On Vol. I. of the Every-Day Book._

“Pages attend on books as well as lords.”

J. R. P.

Sir,--It is obvious, that he who reads the _Every-Day Book_ will think

of things connected with the contents stated, and wish to append them as

memoranda, for the perusal of those interested in the resuscitations of

old customs and matters of fact. With this impression, I have collected

my stray knowledge, and condensed it in the following compass. The

_pages_ quoted, refer to the _first_ volume. _Ex. g._

122. “Powerful Optical Illusion.” Approaching a lamp in the high road

near town, an object crossed my path; it appeared like a _large crab_,

and, as I drew nearer, ran up the side of a house in the road-way with

great velocity. When I reached the lamp, to my satisfaction, I proved

this appearance to have been caused by a full-sized _spider_, which had

passed the light, and made upwards to its web. Had I not accounted for

this natural circumstance, I should certainly have considered it as a

phenomenon worthy of anxiety.

123. “The Spectre.” A young lady in Bedfordshire, on coming of age, was

promised by her father a present of any thing she chose to accept at his

hand. She said, A skeleton! Her choice was gratified--a skeleton was

sent for from London, and placed in a case in a room accessible to her.

The room has ever since gone by the name of the “_Stranger’s Room_.”

“Have you seen? or will you see, the stranger?” is the question put to

all visitors. The daughter of Herodias seems to have scarcely exceeded

the eccentric taste of this young lady.

136. “St. Agnes’ Eve.” After fasting the whole of the day, upon going to

bed an egg must be filled with salt, and eaten, which occasions a great

thirst. The vessel the female dreams of drinking from, according to

situation and circumstances, denotes who will be her husband.

This charm for the _ague_, on “St. Agnes’ Eve,” is customary to be said

up the chimney, by the eldest female in the family--

“Tremble and go!

First day shiver and burn:

Tremble and quake!

Second day shiver and learn:

Tremble and die!

Third day never return.”

179. “Bears” are seen on the Stock Exchange in human shape, natural ones

are kept by friseurs to supply grease for the hair. The Black Bear in

Piccadilly, Taylor’s Bear in Whitechapel, the White Bear, and the Bear

and Ragged Staff, as a punster would say, are _bear-able_ enough; but, I

reprehend the “Dancing Bears” being led through the streets to perform

antics for money. Two have appeared this month. Each with two monkeys, a

camel, dromedary, and organ. Travellers have told of their sagacity; we

believe them: but, that bears are made to stand upon hot iron, and

undergo the severest discipline before they are fit for public

exhibition, is a truth which harrows the feeling, and makes me wish the

dancing bears unmuzzled, and let loose upon those who have the guidance

of their education. The _ursa major_ of the literary hemisphere, Dr.

Johnson, might have been a match for them.

207. “St. Blase.” He seems to have neglected the protecting the

“Woolcombers.” Since the introduction of machinery, by Arkwright and

others, very little cloth is manufactured by hand. The woolcomber’s

greasy and oily wooden horse, the hobby of his livelihood, with the long

teeth and pair of cards, are rarely seen. When scribblers, carders,

billies, and spinning jennies, came into use, the wheel no longer turned

at the cottage door, but a revolution among the working classes gave

occasion for soldiers to protect the mills--time, however, has ended

this strife with wool, and begun another with cotton.

246. “Pancake Day.” It is a _sine qua non_ at “_Tedbury Mop_,” before a

maid servant is wholly qualified for the farmer’s kitchen, that she make

apple fritters, and toss them without soot, or spoiling the batter.

348. “Sadler’s Wells.” It closed this season (1826) with a real benefit

for Mrs. Fitzwilliam, October 2d. The new feature has been the

horse-racing, in the open air, represented as at Newmarket. Boards were

erected on every side, to conceal the race from the public in general,

and ensure novelty to the play-going folks in particular. To give

publicity to this amusement, the high-mettled racers, with riders, flags

and bugles, in proper costume, paraded the environs daily, and

distributed bills descriptive of cups, plate, bets, and other taking

articles of jockeyship, which took place at evening. The thing did not

take so much money as wished.

364. “St. Patrick’s Day” being my natal day, though not of Erin’s clime,

I never fail dedicating a large _plum pudding_ to his _saintship_; round

my table the “olive branches” spread, and I make this record to

encourage all persons to do the same, in remembrance of _their_ parent’s

solicitude, and the prospective harmony of the young.

402. “Good Friday.” The bun so fashionable, called the _Sally Lunn_,

originated with a young woman of that name in Bath, about thirty years

ago. She first cried them, in a basket with a white cloth over it,

morning and evening. Dalmer, a respectable baker and musician, noticed

her, bought her business, and made a song, and set it to music in behalf

of “Sally Lunn.” This composition became the street favourite, barrows

were made to distribute the nice cakes, Dalmer profited thereby, and

retired; and, to this day, the _Sally Lunn_ cake, not unlike the

hotcross bun in flavour, claims preeminence in all the cities in

England.

422. “Lifting” is a custom practised with hurdles among shepherds, in

the South Downs, at their marriages. The bride and bridegroom are

carried round a flock of sheep; a fleece is put for their seat, and

may-horns, made of the rind of the sycamore tree, are played by boys and

girls. There is another sort of “lifting,” however; I have seen a

tale-bearer in the village tossed in a blanket by the maids, as it is

represented in “Don Giovanni in London,” a scene in the King’s Bench.

I am, Sir,

Your’s sincerely,

JEHOIADA.

MEMORANDA II.

_On Vol. I. of the Every-Day Book._

Franklin says, ‘farthings will amount to pounds:--

So _memorandums_ saved, will books produce.

J. R. P.

~Videlicit.~

507. “The Martin.” It is considered a presage of good, for this bird to

build its nest in the corner of the bedroom-window; and particularly so,

should the first inhabitants return in the season. I know it to be true,

that a pair of martins built their nest in the curtains of a bed

belonging to Mrs. Overton, of Loverrall, Yorkshire. The nest was

suffered to remain unmolested, and access given to it from the air. Six

successive seasons the old birds revisited their chosen spot, brought

forth their young, and enjoyed their peace, till the death of their most

kind benefactress; when a distribution of the furniture taking place, it

dislodged the tenants of the wing, which to each of them was not all

_Mihi Beati Martini_--“My eye, Betty Martin.”

570. “Milkmaids’ garland.” After I had sailed up the river Wye, and

arrived at Chepstow-castle, my attention was arrested by one of the

prettiest processions I remember to have enjoyed. It consisted of

milkmaids dancing and serenading round an old man, whose few gray hairs

were crowned by a wreath of wild flowers; he held a blossomy hawthorn in

his right hand, and bore a staff, with cowslips and bluebells, in his

left. A cow’s horn hung across his shoulders, which he blew on arriving

at a house. The youths and lasses were more than thirty in number. Their

arms, and heads and necks, were surrounded by clusters of lilies of the

valley, and wild roses. Then came an apple-cheeked dame with a

low-crowned, broad-brim hat; she wore spectacles, mittens were drawn up

to her elbows, her waist trim, a woollen apron bound it, her petticoat

short, blue worsted stockings, a high-heeled pair of shoes with silver

buckles, and a broad tongue reposing on each instep. In one hand she

held a brass kettle, newly scoured, it was full of cream; in the other,

a basket of wood strawberries. To whoever came up to her with a saucer

or basin, she gave a portion of her cream and fruit, with the trimmest

curtsey I ever saw made by a dainty milkwoman betwixt earth and sky. She

was “Aunt Nelly,” and her “Bough Bearer,” called “Uncle Ambrose,” was

known for singing a song, “’Twas on one moonshiny night,” which his

defective pronunciation lisped “meaun sheeiney.” Ambrose strummed an

instrument in his turn, partly harp, and partly hirdy-girdy. Six goats,

harnessed in flowers, carried utensils in milking and butter making; and

the farmer of the party rode on a bull, also tastily dressed with the

produce of the fields and hedges. A cheese and a hatchet were suspended

behind him, and he looked proudly as he guided the docile animal to the

public-house, into which the milkmaids and their sweethearts went,

quickened in their motions by the cat-gut, which made stirring sounds up

stairs. The flowery flag was thrust upwardly into the street, facing the

iron bridge; and, getting again into the fisherman’s boat, I sailed and

loitered down the banks of the river, charmed with what I had seen,

felt, and understood. Of the milkmaids, Miss Thomas of Landcote was the

darkest, the neatest, and the tallest--she stood _only_ five feet, ten

inches high.

692. “Kiss in the ring.” The ‘_kissing crust_’ is that part of the loaf

which is slightly burnt, and parted from the next loaf: hungry children

who go home from the baker’s, know best what it is, by the sly bits they

filch from that part denominated the ‘kissing crust.’

807. “Buy a Broom!” Since Bishop harmonised this popular cry, the

Flemish girls cry ‘Buy a _brush_?’ but a greater novelty has arisen in

some of them singing glees, quartets, and quintets in the streets. The

tune is unconcordant, slow, and grave; these warblers walk in a line

down the centre, with their hands crossed before their stomachs. Their

simple attitude, together with their sunny cast, and artless glance,

render them objects of pity; but the pence fall not so plentily to them

as to the real John Bull, straightforward songs of the young weavers

that go about with the model of a loom in work, fixed to the top of a

rod five feet high.

839. “French pulpit.” The pulpit at Union Chapel, Islington, is made of

beautiful grained “Honduras mahogany;” and that of St. Pancras,

New-road, of the farfamed “Fairlop oak.”--Wesley and Whitefield were

contented to emerge in their first career from the hogsheads of a grocer

in Moorfields.

858. “Copenhagen-house.” This year, the Spanish and Italian refugees

have resorted to this house in great numbers, and played many famous

matches at ball. Nothing can be more retired than the garden formed into

bowers for visiters--if the building mania should not recover, age will

give the young plantations beauty, pleasure, and effect. Two new roads

are made near Copenhagen-house; the one, leading from Kentish-town to

Holloway, the other, from the latter to Pentonville. At “the Belvidere”

racket is much played, and archery practised at “White Conduit-house.”

It is gratifying that the labours of the _Every-Day Book_ are _not in

vain_--the “Conduit” spoken of in vol. ii. col. 1203 has undergone

repair; it is hoped, it will be enclosed by the proprietors as one of

the new relics of venerable antiquity.

1435. “Beadles.” The beadle of Camberwell is a lineal descendant of Earl

Withrington, of the same name so celebrated in the battle of Chevy

Chase.

JEHOIADA.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·25.

~November 20.~

Edmund. King and Martyr.[503]

OFFENSIVE BARBERS.

On the 20th of November, 1746, fifty-one barbers were convicted before

the commissioners of excise, and fined in the penalty of twenty pounds

each, for having in their custody hair-powder not made of starch,

contrary to act of parliament; and, on the 27th of the same month,

forty-nine other barbers were convicted of the like offence, and fined

in the same penalty.[504]

ROMAN STATIONS AT PANCRAS AND PENTONVILLE.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--The following observations have been the result of a visit to the

site of the undoubted Roman camp at Pentonville, and the conjectural

remains at St. Pancras. Respecting the former, I have been able to

ascertain, that in the course of the year 1825 a labourer, who was

occupied in digging in the prætorium, turned up a considerable quantity

of arrow heads; and shortly afterwards, another labourer, digging a few

yards to the south of the same spot, for materials to mend a road,

uncovered a pavement of red tiles, about sixteen feet square, each tile

being about an inch and a half thick, and about six inches square; they

were mostly figured, and some had “strange characters upon them:”

unfortunately, the discoverer had neither taste nor curiosity, and they

were consigned to the bottom of a deep road.[505] Respecting the “Brill”

(at Pancras) I have examined the ground, and find that S. G. (p. 1347,)

is incorrect in stating the prætorium was perfect, half of it having

been converted into bricks some months ago; and the brickmakers inform

me, that nothing was found, not even a tile or brass coin. I will

extract a little respecting this camp from a work of some authority,

viz. The Environs of London.

Mr. Lysons, in that work, treats the idea of a camp having been made

near this spot as quite conjectural,[506] and remarks, that Dr.

Stukely’s imagination, in the pursuit of a favourite hypothesis, would

sometimes enable him to see more than other antiquaries; leaving the

language of conjecture, the Dr. points out the disposition of the

troops, and the station of each general’s tent, with as much confidence

as if he had himself been in the camp. Here was Cæsar’s prætorium; here

was stationed Mandubrace, king of London;[507] here were the quarters

of M. Crassus, the quæstor; here was Cominus; there the Gaulish princes,

&c. &c. It is but justice to Dr. Stukely’s memory to mention, that this

account of Cæsar’s camp was not printed in his life-time. As he withheld

it from the public, it is probable he was convinced that his imagination

had carried him too far, on this subject. Dr. S. remarks, that the

vallum thrown up in the civil war was in the fields next the duke of

Bedford’s: he adds, that it was levelled after the Restoration, and that

scarcely a trace of it was (when he wrote) visible, notwithstanding

Cæsar’s camp remained in so perfect a state after an interval of 1800

years. Mr. Lysons does not suppose, that the entrenchment at the _Brill_

was thrown up by the Londoners in 1642, since the name denotes something

more ancient;[508] but it certainly appears, by the diurnals published

at the time, that entrenchments and ramparts were thrown up in the

fields near Pancras-church, during the civil war. He thinks it not

improbable, that the moated areas, above-mentioned, near the church,

were the sites of the vicarage and rectory-house, which are mentioned in

a survey of the parish of Pancras _circa_ 1251.[509] This is certainly

the most probable conclusion, and far superior to the wild chimeras of

the learned doctor.

I will conclude this slight, and, I am aware, imperfect view of the

various opinions, for and against, by observing, that I resided in

Somers-town and its neighbourhood for a considerable period; I carefully

watched every excavation made for sewers, foundations for houses,

chapels, &c., but I never heard of any discoveries having been made. The

place lies too low to have even been frequented by the Romans, more

especially when the violence of the river of Wells is considered, which

must have descended from the hills like a torrent, and have flooded the

whole of the neighbourhood of Somers-town, Battle-bridge, &c.

I am, Sir, yours, &c.

T. A.

_Oct. 24, 1826._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 41·12.

[503] See vol. i. col. 1493.

[504] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[505] On visiting this camp, I searched for the “Old Well in the

Fosse;” judge my surprise, when I found a modern circular frame of

wood sunk in the fosse to collect clear water for the use of

bricklayers, &c. this is a specimen of artists “pretty bits.”

[506] _Alias_--coinages of their own fancy.

[507] The idea is ridiculous, that the prætorium of the Roman general

should be placed in a swampy, low situation, while such an

advantageous position on the high ground, on which St. Pancras-church

stands, is given to a native prince; another circumstance is against

the doctor’s hypothesis, that this was a Roman camp, viz. a running

stream through it.

[508] Dr. Stukely derives it from Bury Hill; but the lowness of the

situation refutes such an etymology.

[509] View of London, vol. iii. p. 343-344.

~November 21.~

ÆROSTATION.

Messieurs Montgolfier, two brothers, paper-makers at Annonay in the

department of Ardeche, in 1782 discovered the use of rarefied air in

floating balloons; and on the 21st of November, 1783, the marquis

d’Arlandes and M. Pilatre Rosier made the first _unconfined_ aërial

voyage in a machine called a “Montgolfier,” in honour of the inventors,

to distinguish it from balloons made with inflammable air.[510]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·27.

[510] Butler’s Chronological Exercises.

~November 22.~

CECILIA.[511]

Towards the latter end of the seventeenth century, an entertainment was

instituted, on the 22d of November, in commemoration of her, by many of

the first rank in the kingdom; which was continued annually for a

considerable time. A splendid entertainment was provided at

Stationers’-hall, which was constantly preceded by a performance of

vocal and instrumental music, by the most capital performers. This feast

is represented by Mr. Motteux, in 1691, as “one of the genteelest in the

world; there are no formalities nor gatherings like as at others, and

the appearance there is splendid.” The words, which were always an

encomium on their patroness, were set by Purcell, Blow, and others of

the greatest eminence; and it became the fashion for writers of all

ranks to celebrate saint Cecilia. Besides the odes to her by Dryden, and

Pope, Addison, and Yalden, employed their talents on this subject. We

have also odes to saint Cecilia by Shadwell, D’Urfey, and some still

more indifferent poets. It appears by Mr. Motteux, that there were in

1691 “admirable concerts in Charles-street and York-buildings.”

On the anniversary of St. Cecilia, in 1697, a sermon was preached at

St. Bride’s church by Dr. Brady, which he published under the title of

“Church Music Vindicated.” The last account discovered by Mr. Nichols,

of any entertainment to her memory at Stationers’-hall, is in Mr.

Hughes’s ode in 1703. The festivity appears to have been also celebrated

at Oxford, and to have been continued there longer. There are two odes

to St. Cecilia; one, in 1707, composed by Mr. Purcell, the other, in

1708, by Dr. Blow, “both performed at St. Mary-hall, in Oxon, by Mr.

Saunders and Mr. Court, assisted by the best voices and bands.” Mr.

Addison’s ode was performed there in 1699; and he has “a song,” without

date, on the same occasion.[512]

CECILIAN SOCIETY.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

The “Cecilian Society,” established in 1785 by a few individuals, has

continued, to the present day, to meet once a week for rehearsal, and

once a fortnight for the public performance of vocal and instrumental

music, chiefly sacred, by Handel, occasionally relieved by popular

modern composition.

This society has been the school of eminent composers and performers:

such as Barthelomon, Everett, Purkis, Banner, Busby, Griffin, Russel,

Miss Bolton, Jacobs, Miss Gray, and many others; among whom are the

brothers, the Mr. Nightingales, so highly esteemed in the musical world

for their professional talent, and irreproachable demeanour.

The venerable president, Mr. Z. Vincent, is one of the old school of

harmonists, and a man of letters. His heart and soul are identified in

Handel’s oratorios, and his judgment continues unimpaired. A Mr. Edwards

is another instance of attachment to the society, he having been a

member upwards of twenty years. The great “unity” that has prevailed,

and still prevails, in this society, is an example worthy of a niche in

the _Every-Day Book_. Their present performances are held at the “Albion

Hall,” Moorfields, and well attended by the issue of “tickets.” In

honour of this day, a grand miscellaneous concert is annually performed;

many celebrated professionals attend, and the lovers of harmony never

fail of having a high treat.

ASTRONOMICAL.

On the 22nd of November the sun enters Sagittarius.

According to an old magical MS. of the fourteenth century, an aspect of

“Sagittary” seems to have dominion over dogs. “_When you wish to enter

where there are dogs; that they may not hinder you_, make a tin image

of a dog, whose head is erected towards his tail, under the first face

of _Sagittary_, and say over it, ‘I bind all dogs by this image, that

they do not raise their heads or bark;’ and _enter where you

please_.”[513]

[Illustration: ~“Ben”--“the Old General”--of Nottingham.~]

Commander of some forces there,

And intimate with Mr. Mayor.

Benjamin Mayo is believed to be the proper name of the “General,” his

other appellations he derived from having been the ringleader of the

boys, from his youth to the present time, on all occasions for which

they assemble together in the town of Nottingham.

In order “to secure the boundaries of the town, a certain number of

respectable characters, annually appointed, form what is called the

_Middleton_, _Mickleton_, or _Leet Jury_, and circumambulate them twice

a year, with the coroner at their head; it is also the duty of this jury

to break down all obstructions in old roads, to fine those persons who

may have made such encroachments as do not immediately obstruct a public

road, and to present all nuisances at the quarter sessions.”[514] At the

Easter and Michaelmas quarter sessions, the day for these duties is

always appointed to be the Monday se’nnight following; and hence it is

called _Middleton Monday_. The name of “Middleton is said to be retained

from lord Middleton,” who is steward of the Peveril Court, which has now

no jurisdiction in Nottingham, it being a town-county. The origin of

these matters, however, is of little consequence in an account of the

“General;” they are only referred to as preparatory to the observation,

that he is a conspicuous personage in the ceremonial of the day.

On “Middleton Monday” all the school-boys in the town expect a holyday;

it is the _juvenile Saturnalia_; and though the “General” is great on

all occasions, he is especially so on “Middleton Monday;” for compared

with him, the mayor, the coroner, and other municipal authorities, are

subordinate officers in the estimation of the youthful tribes.

Previous to the jury commencing their survey, away trots “General,” with

several hundreds of boys at his heels, to secure the sacred and

inviolable right of a holyday. Two or three urchins, with shining,

morning faces, lead the way to their own schoolmaster’s, who, in

violation of the “orders of the day,” is seated amidst the few children

whose parents have refused to grant a holyday, and therefore dare not

“play _travant_.” Some “devoted Decius” in miniature, ventures in, on

the forlorn hope of procuring liberty for the rest. Down drop books,

pens, pencils, to the increasing cry of “Out, out, out.” The

commander-in-chief arrives, amidst the cheers of his enthusiastic and

devoted troops, takes up his position opposite to the door, and commands

the onset. The advanced guard assail the portal with redoubled blows of

their pocket-handkerchiefs, and old rope-ends, knotted into _tommies_,

and the main body throw the missile mud. Ere long, a random stone breaks

some window; this is speedily followed by a second and third crash; out

sallies the master to seize the culprit, his sentinels are overpowered,

the invaders rush in, the besieged are unmercifully belaboured till the

capitulation is completed, but no sooner do they join the “liberating

army,” than a shout of triumph is raised, and the place is abandoned.

The aide-de-camps having reported to “the General,” what other

fortresses hold out, the nearest is attacked in the same way. It often

happens, however, that a parley is demanded, and “the General”

shamelessly receives a bribe to desist. Alas! that one so devoted to the

cause of liberty should be so easily corrupted--twopence will induce the

commander-in-chief to withdraw, with his faithful followers, of fickle

principle, and leave the anxious garrison to the uncontrolled power of

its wily governor.

Upwards of twenty years ago, opposition to “the General” was rare, but

about that period schoolmasters began to learn their strength. One

individual successfully resisted during a three hours’ siege; the house

for years bore marks of the mud with which it was pelted; but ever after

he was triumphant, though frequently at the expense of an oaken staff,

or an ash sapling, broken in repulsing the invaders. After repeated

assaults, “the General” deemed this “hold” impregnable, and desisted

from his attacks.

So many of the disciples of learning being emancipated, or prisoners, as

“the General” can liberate or capture, he sets forward with the

“surveying council,” escorted by his army, to commence the perambulation

of the town. If a projecting scraper endanger the shins of the

burgesses, it is recorded, and the Middleton jury pass on; but the

juvenile admirers of summary and instantaneous justice are for the

immediate removal of the offender. Perhaps the good old dame of the

house “likes not these new regulations,” and takes up a strong position

in its defence, armed with a mop and bucket of water. After a momentous

pause, a hardy champion rushes forward to seize the offensive iron, and

wrench it from its seat; he retires, overwhelmed and half drowned; hero

after hero presses on, and is defeated; till some modern Ajax grapples

with the mop, and making a diversion in favour of the assailants, the

luckless scraper is borne off in triumph.

View “the General” at eleven o’clock, with his forces drawn up in front

of the Castle lodge, demanding admittance into the Castle yard--a

summons always evaded by the distribution of a quantity of cakes and

gingerbread. On “the General’s” word of command the precious sweets are

thrown, one by one, over the gate, and the confusion of a universal

scramble ensues. After the whole is distributed, the popularity of “the

General” rapidly wanes; hundreds are reduced to scores, and scores to

ones--at noon he is

Deserted in his utmost need

By those his former bounty fed.

In memory, however, of his departed greatness, he never deigns to work

for the rest of the day.

Before the approach of “Middleton Monday,” fifty times a day the

important question is put to the General, “When will be _Middleton

Monday_?” Once he said, “I don’t know yet, the mayor ha’n’t ax’d me what

day’ll suit me.” On the following Saturday he answered, “The mayor sent

his respects to know if I’d let it be Middleton Monday next week; and I

sent my respects, and I’d come.”

Ben Mayo has ever been “null, void, and of no effect,” except in his

character of “General.” He is a harmless idiot, who, during most of his

life, has been an inmate of St. Peter’s workhouse. He is now nearly

fifty years of age. If erect, he would be under the middle size; his

stature not being more than four feet nine inches. He is very

round-shouldered. His eyes are dark grey, and rather lively; the lower

part of his face is no way remarkable, but his forehead is very high,

and singularly prominent in the middle; his head, which is thinly

covered with hair cut very short, always projected before him in his

shuffling gait, which is rather a run than a walk. His vestment

generally consists of the “hodden grey” uniform of the parish; his shirt

collar, like that of some other public characters, is usually

unbuttoned, and displays his copper-coloured bosom. Grey stockings and

quarter boots complete his equipment, for he never wears a hat. Though

coarse, his dress is generally clean and tidy.

“The General” is constant in his attendance at church, where his

behaviour is serious; and he would on no account be seen about in the

streets on the Sabbath, for, being one of the public characters of the

town, it would be setting a bad example. In politics, he is a staunch

supporter of the powers that be; on such occasions as the king’s

birth-day, and the coronation, Ben is sure to be seen with a bunch of

blue riband to his coat, while at an election, to display his loyalty,

he is dusted with power-blue from the crown of his head to the skirts.

He has, however, no objection to aid “the Jacobin corporation,” as far

as in him lies; and, according to his own account, he is particularly

intimate with the mayor for the time being, whom he allows to be the

first man in the town--himself being second. He is remarkably fond of

peace and with his wand in hand will “charge” it, where there is no fear

of its being broken.

Like other military men, “General” is a favourite with the ladies,

inasmuch as he is known equally to high and low, and makes promises to

all indiscriminately (who please him) that he will marry them “next

Sunday morning;” at the same time, he cautions the favoured fair not to

be later than half past seven, “for fear somebody else should get him.”

The “General’s” usual occupation is to sell the cheap commodities of the

walking stationers, such as dreadful shipwrecks, horrid murders,

calendars of the prisoners, last dying speeches and behaviours, or lists

of the race horses. Sometimes, when the titles of these occur closely,

he makes curious “varieties of literature.” Not long since, he was

calling “A right and true calendar of all the running horses confined in

his majesty’s _gole_, owners’ names, horses’ names, and colours of the

riders, tried, cast, ’quit, and condemned before my lord judge this

’sizes, and how they came in every heat of the three days, with the

sentences of the prisoners.”

About four years ago, at Lenton fair and wakes, which are always at

Whitsuntide, and numerously attended from Nottingham, being only a mile

distant, some wag set “General” to proclaim the Lenton fair. On this

occasion he mounted an enormous cocked hat of straw, and had his wand in

his hand. He jumbled together pigs, gingerbread, baa-lambs, cows, dolls,

horses, ale, fiddling, sheep, &c. in a confused mass; whilst the latter

part of the proclamation, though perfectly true, was very far from being

“quite correct.”

Of the many anecdotes current of “General,” one or two authentic ones

will display the union of shrewdness and simplicity common to persons of

his order of intelligence. On a certain occasion, when public attention

was directed towards the commander-in-chief, one evening in the twilight

Ben began, “Here’s the grand and noble speech as the duke of York made

yesterday.” A person, who had heard nothing of such a speech,

immediately purchased one, and on approaching a window found himself

possessed of a piece of blank paper. “General,” said he, “here’s nothing

on it.” “No, sir, the duke of York said _nowt_.” Being set, at the

workhouse, to turn a wheel, he did so properly enough for about half an

hour, but becoming tired, he immediately began to turn backwards, nor

could he be persuaded to the contrary. A blockhead once tried to make

him quarrel with an idiot lad, as they were employed in sweeping the

street together; “Oh,” said he, “he is a poor soft lad, and beneath _my_

notice.” There is another instance of his dislike of work: having been

set to weed part of the garden, he performed the task by pulling up all

the flowers and herbs, and leaving the weeds growing. He once found a

sixpence, and ran up the street shouting, “Who’s lost sixpence, who’s

lost sixpence?” “It’s mine, General,” said one. “But had your’s a hole

in it?” “Yes,” said he--“But this hasn’t,” rejoined General, and away he

ran. His mode of running is remarkable, inasmuch as one leg is

considerably shorter than the other, which gives his body an up-and-down

motion. One peculiarity is, that when he has any fresh papers to sell he

will never stop to take money till quite out of breath, and arrived at

the extremity of the town.

* * * * *

DAVID LOVE, of whom there is an account in the present volume of the

_Every-Day Book_, p. 226, is still in Nottingham. In May he visited

Hull, but while carolling his wild lays in a place where he was not

known, he was apprehended as a vagrant, and consigned to the tread-mill

for a fortnight.

“Oft from apparent ills our blessings flow.”

David, on his return to Nottingham, favoured us with “three _varra

couras_ poems of David Love’s composing, all about the _trad_ wheel,

where he _warked_ for a fortnight--only a penny.” His numerous admirers

purchased considerably.

Besides the “General” and the “bard” now living, Nottingham has been the

residence of several equally noted personages deceased; such as Tommy

Rippon, Piping Charley, the ventriloquist, &c.; and we have yet amongst

us Jacky Peet, and other memorable characters, whose fame, it is feared,

may not find an honest chronicler.

_Nottingham, Oct. 23, 1826._

~G.~

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·65.

[511] See vol. i. col. 1495.

[512] Nichols’s Sel. Coll. of Poems.

[513] Fosbroke’s British Monachism.

[514] Blackner’s History of Nottingham.

~November 23.~

ST. CLEMENT.[515]

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--In your last year’s volume I see you have taken great notice of

St. Clement, and the customs observed on his day; but I do not see any

mention of a custom which was common in _Worcestershire_, where I was

born. I am entirely ignorant of its origin; yet in my youth I have often

been at its celebration. The custom was as follows:--

On the afternoon of St. Clement’s day, a number of boys collected

together in a body, and went from house to house; and at the door of

each house, one, or sometimes more, would recite, or chaunt, the

following lines--

Catherine and Clement, be here, be here;

Some of your apples, and some of your beer

Some for Peter, and some for Paul,

And some for him that made us all.

Clement was a good old man,

For his sake give us some;

Not of the worst, but some of the best,

And God will send _your soul to rest_.

Some would say,

And God will send _you a good night’s rest_

Sometimes grown men would go in like manner, and, to such, the people of

the house would give ale or cider; but to the boys they gave apples, or,

if they had none to spare, a few halfpence. Having collected a good

store of apples, which they seldom failed to do, the boys repaired to

some one of their houses, where they roasted and ate the apples; and

frequently the old would join the young, and large vessels of ale or

cider would be brought in, and some of the roasted apples thrown hot

into it, and the evening would then be spent with much mirth and

innocent amusement; such as, I sorrow to think, have departed never to

return.

Such, sir, was one of the usages “in my youthful days,” in that part of

the country of which I have spoken. I have had but little intercourse

with it of late years, but I fear these _improved_ times have left but

little spirit or opportunity for the observance of such ways, or the

enjoyment of such felicity. Much has been said of improvement, and the

happy state of the present over times past; but, on striking the

balance, it may be found that the poor have lost much of their solid

comfort, for the little improvement they have obtained.

You, Mr. Editor, have exposed with a masterly hand the superstitions and

monkery of the olden time, for which you have my best thanks, in common,

I believe, with those of nine out of every ten in the nation; but should

a Mr. HONE arise two hundred years hence, I think he would have

something to say upon these _our_ times. I fear, however, I am going

beyond my object, which is not to find fault, but to acquaint you with a

practice which, if worthy a place in your pleasant, instructive, and

highly useful work, I shall be glad to see there memorialed.

I am, &c.

SELITS.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·02.

[515] See vol. i. col. 1497.

~November 24.~

SPECTRES AND APPARITIONS.

In a popular “calendar” there are some observations on this day, which,

as the time for telling “Ghost stories” is come in, seem appropriate.

They are to the effect, that there is an essential difference between

“Ocular Spectres” and “Spectral Illusions.”

_Ocular Spectres_ move with the motion of the eye, whatever may be the

forms of the spectrum on the retina; hence, they are spectra in the eye.

_Spectral Illusions_, or _Ghosts_, seem to move with their own proper

motion, like real persons, and the objects in dreams; hence they are not

in the eye itself or retina, but may arise in the brain.

We know nothing of the particular laws whereby these forms are

regulated, as they occur without the conscious precurrence of the usual

chains of thought, and often represent forms, and combinations of forms,

almost entirely new to us. Some persons only see these spectres once or

twice in their lives, and that only during diseases: others are

continually harassed by them, and often mistake some one consistent

spectre, which frequently comes and converses with them, for their

guardian angel. In proportion, however, as the phantom gains on the

credulity of the patient who beholds it, the latter approximates towards

insanity. According to the disturbance of the brain of the individuals,

the spectres are either horrifying or delightful, and partake of the

character of the patient’s mind, as it is influenced variously by

desire, fear, hope, and so on. We have known instances where the

antiphlogistic measures resorted to with success, have been viewed by

the patient, when recovered, as positive evils, having forcibly torn

from him some perpetual and pleasing illusion.

The late Mr. John Wheeler, prebendary of Westminster, used to relate a

remarkable story of the Abbé Pilori at Florence, who incurred a

tremendous spectral disorder in consequence of a surfeit of mushrooms he

one day ate. These fungi, not digesting, disturbed his brain, and he saw

the frightful and appalling forms of scorpions continually before his

eyes for a length of time.

This brings to our minds yet another observation with regard to spectra.

Persons who are somewhat delirious from fever are apt to give to

half-distinguished forms, in a darkish chamber, the most frightful

imaginary shapes. This is a disorder distinct from that of seeing

phantoms. A. Y. R. a child, being ill of fever, saw some bulbous roots

laying on a table in the room, and conceived them immediately to be

scorpions; nor could any thing convince her of the contrary, and they

consequently were removed out of the room to relieve her terrors.

A familiar instance of deception is exemplified in the false voices

which some persons imagine they hear calling them, faintly in common,

but so as to deceive for a moment. When this false perception of sound

concurs with images of spectral illusion, a formidable imitation of

reality is maintained.[516]

* * * * *

A poetical friend, whose signature will be recollected as having been

attached to “SEA SONNETS,” obligingly communicates a seasonable

effusion of the like order of composition, prefaced by the following

passage from Dr. Buchan:--

“If the power of volition be suspended, persons may dream while they

are awake. Such is the case when, in an evening, looking into the

fire, we let slip the reins of the imagination, and, yielding

implicitly to external objects, a succession of splendid or terrific

imagery is produced by the embers in the grate.”

* * * * *

FIRE-SIDE SONNET.

_For the Every-Day Book._

For very want of thought and occupation

Upon my fire, as broad and high it blaz’d,

In idle and unweeting mood I gaz’d,

And, in that mass of bright and glowing things

Fancy, which in such moments readiest springs,

Soon found materials for imagination:

Within the fire, all listless as I maz’d,

There saw I trees and towers, and hills and plains,

Faces with warm smiles glowing, flocks and swains.

And antic shapes of laughable creation:

And thus the poet’s soul of fire contains

A store of all things bright and glorious! rais’d

By fancy, that daft artizan, to shape

Into fair scenes and forms, that nature’s best may ape.

W. T. M.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·80.

[516] Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar.

~November 25.~

ST. CATHERINE.

For an account of this Saint, see vol. i. col. 1504.

BUBBLES.

In the “Morning Advertiser” of this day, 1807, which year was almost as

much distinguished by joint-stock impositions as the present, there are

two advertisements, which, from their station in the advertising columns

of that paper, have a more remarkable, than if they had been displayed

in its columns of entertainment, viz:

FINAL MEETING of the PUBLIC BLACKING SUBSCRIPTION COMPANY, held at the

Boot in Leather-lane,

ANTHONY VARNISH, Esq. in the Chair, Sir John Blackwell, Knight, being

indisposed.

The Chairman reported that Mr. Timothy Lightfoot, the Treasurer, had

brushed off with the old fund, and that the deputation who had waited on

Mr. Fawcett, the Proprietor of the Brilliant Fluid Blacking, at No. 76,

Houndsditch, could not prevail on him to dispose of his right thereto in

favour of this Company, although they had made him the most liberal

offers.

Resolved, That this Meeting being fully sensible that any attempt to

establish a rival Blacking would totally fail of success, from the high

estimation in which the above popular article is held, and the mishap of

the Treasurer having damped the ardour of the undertaking, that this

design be altogether abandoned.

Resolved, That the character of the Promoters of this Company ought not

to be blackened in public esteem, as there is no direct proof of their

having shared the spoils with the Treasurer.

Signed, by Order of the Meeting,

JACOB BRUSHWELL, Sec.

THE LONDON COMPANY for GENUINE MATCHES.--It having been suggested to

Mr. Parr, Proprietor of the Equitable Office, Holborn-hill, that a

complaint prevails among Servants, owing to the adulteration of

Brimstone, and the badness of Wood, in consequence of which, they

cannot get their Fires lighted in proper time, which obliges many of

their Masters to go to business without their breakfast.

Such imposition having proved very injurious to a number of servants, by

being discharged for neglect of duty, has induced Mr. Parr, in

conjunction with six eminent Timber Merchants, to purchase those

extensive Premises in Gunpowder-alley, near Shoe-lane, formerly occupied

by the Saltpetre Company, for the sole purpose of a Genuine Match

Manufactory.

The Public may be assured that this laudable undertaking is countenanced

by some of the first characters in the United Kingdoms.

The Managers pledge themselves to employ the best work-people, both men,

women, and children, that can be procured, which will amount to 1500

persons and upwards, as they conclude, by the large orders already

received, that a less number will procrastinate the business.

Each Subscriber to have the privilege of recommending two, who are to

bring certificates from the Minister of the Parish where they reside, of

their being sober, honest, and industrious persons.

The Managers further engage to make oath before the Lord Mayor every

three months, that the matches are made of the most prime new yellow

Deal, and also that the Brimstone is without the least adulteration.

Not less than 12 penny bunches can be had.

Any order amounting to 1_l._ will be sent free of expense, to any part

of the town, not exceeding two miles from the Manufactory.

The Capital first intended to be raised is Two Millions, in 50_l._

Shares, 2_l._ per Share to be paid at the time of subscribing, 3_l._

that day month, 4_l._ in six weeks, 5_l._ in two months, and so on

regularly until the whole is subscribed.

Holders of five shares to be on Committees, and holders of ten will

qualify them for Directors.

Although this plan has not been set on foot more than a week, it is

presumed the call for Shares has been equal to a month’s demand for

Shares in any of the late Institutions.

Schemes at large may be had, and Subscriptions received by Mr. Tinder,

Secretary, at the Counting-house, from ten till two; also at his

Residence, near the Turpentine Manufactory, St. John-street-road, from

four to six; likewise by Messrs. Sawyer, Memel, and Tieup, Solicitors,

Knave’s-acre, Westminster.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 41·27.

~November 26.~

THE SEASON.

Autumnal appearances are increasing, and occasional gales of wind and

interchanges of nipping frost hasten the approaching winter. The

following passage seems to allude to the wintry garb of nature:--“The

earth mourneth and languisheth; Lebanon is ashamed and withereth away;

Sharon is like a wilderness; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their

fruits.”--Isaiah, xxiii. 9.

Soon shall we be compelled to exclaim with the poet, in reference to

this, generally speaking, gloomy season,

That time of year thou mayest in me behold,

When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang

On those wild boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined quires, where late the sweet birds sang.

November, however, has its bright as well as its dark side. “It is now,”

observes a pleasing writer, “that the labourer is about to enjoy a

temporary mitigation of the season’s toil. His little store of winter

provision having been hardly earned and safely lodged, his countenance

brightens, and his heart warms, with the anticipation of winter

comforts. As the day shortens and the hours of darkness increase, the

domestic affections are awakened anew by a closer and more lengthened

converse; the father is now once more in the midst of his family; the

child is now once more on the knee of its parent; and she, in whose

comfort his heart is principally interested, is again permitted, by the

privileges of the season, to increase and to participate his happiness.

It is now that the husbandman is repaid for his former risk and

anxiety--that, having waited patiently for the coming harvest, he builds

up his sheaves, loads his waggons, and replenishes his barns.” It is now

that men of study and literary pursuit are admonished of the best season

suited for the pursuits of literature; and the snug fireside in an armed

chair, during a long winter’s evening, with an entertaining book, is a

pleasure by no means to be despised. There is something, too, very

pleasing in the festivals which are now approaching, and which preserve

the recollection of olden time.[517]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 41·52.

[517] Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar.

~November 27.~

A NATIONAL DEATH DAY.

The chapter of an old, black-letter book of wonderful things concludes

with the following amusing paragraph:--

“Here may we also speak of the people, Lucumoria, dwelling among the

hilles, beyond the river Olbis. These men die every year the 27 of

November, which day at Rutheas was dedicated to Saint Gregorie; and in

the next spring following, most commonly at the four and twentieth day

of April, they rise again like frogs.”[518]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·00.

[518] Batman’s Doome.

~November 28.~

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·65.

~November 29.~

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·90.

~November 30.~

ST. ANDREW.

Respecting this Saint, the patron of Scotland, there is a notice in vol.

i. 1537.

THE MODEL LOTTERY.

_For the Every-Day Book._

A Model Lottery is drawn on the 30th of November, at Mr. Oldershaw’s

office, Lower-street, Islington. Several capital prizes are made, the

principal of which is Fonthill Abbey, valued at 5_l._ There are others

less valuable, Islington church, Cannonbury Tower, the Queen’s Head, Sir

William Curtis’s villa, at Southgate,--the house in which Garrick was

born,--many Italian buildings, and a variety to the number of 500. Each

adventurer, by paying three shillings, draws a share which is equal, in

the worst chance, to the deposit. The scheme is contrived by an

ingenious artist and his wife, whose names are Golding. Previously to

the drawing-day, three days are allowed for friendly inspection. It is

laudable to see this Model Lottery patronised by the most respectable

ladies and gentlemen in the vicinity where it takes place. This is the

second year of its existence.

P.S. For Bradenstock, p. 1371, read Bradenstoke; and for Brinkworth, p.

1373, read Bremhill. Dr. Allsop, of Calne, was the gentleman who cut out

the “White Horse at Cheverill,” at which place and time a revel was most

merrily kept.

J. R. P.

CORRECTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS,

_For the Every-Day Book_.

Your correspondent in his account of “Clack Fall Fair,” p. 1371, has

fallen into a few mistakes.

Bradenstoke was not an _abbey_, but a _priory_.

He might have inquired some further particulars of the Golden Image,

said to have been found. In whose possession it now is? It is believed

the circumstance, if true, is not generally known in the neighbourhood.

_Query_, the name of the Carpenter?

The idea of a subterraneous passage from Bradenstoke Priory to Malmsbury

Abbey, a distance of eight or ten miles, intersected by a deep valley,

through which the Avon meanders, is absurd, and can only be conceived as

one of the wild traditions derived from monkish times.

Can your correspondent furnish further particulars of the horrible story

of the boy murdered by his schoolmaster, when and whom?

His account of “Joe Ody’s” exploits may be very correct. He is well

remembered by the elder peasantry.

It is presumed, your correspondent meant to say, that the song was

attributed to _Bowles_ of _Bremhill_, not _Brinkworth_. The Rev. W. L.

Bowles is rector, or vicar, of Bremhill, about five or six miles from

Clack Brinkworth, about the same distance in the opposite direction.

Your correspondent might have noticed the mound called _Clack Mount_.

Perhaps he will favour you with further recollections of the localities

of Clack, and its vicinity.

The remains of a _may-pole_ are visible at Clack; but the pole itself is

believed not to be remembered by any person now living, or, if

remembered, by very old persons only.

A READER.

[Illustration: DECEMBER.]

While I have a home, and can do as I will,

December may rage over ocean and hill,

And batter my door--as he does once a year--

I laugh at his storming, and give him good cheer.

Derry down, &c.

I’ve a trencher and cup, and something to ask

A friend to sit down to--and then a good flask:

The best of all methods, to make Winter smile,

Is living as I do--in old English style.

Derry down, &c.

Now--whoever regards a comfortable fire, in an old-fashioned cottage, as

a pleasant sight, will be pleased by this sketch, as a cheerful

illustration of the dreary season; nor may it be deemed too intrusive,

perhaps, to mention, that the artist who drew and engraved it, is Mr.

SAMUEL WILLIAMS.

In this, the last, month of the year “the beautiful Spring is almost

forgotten in the anticipation of that which is to come. The bright

Summer is no more thought of, than is the glow of the morning sunshine

at night-fall. The rich Autumn only just lingers on the memory, as the

last red rays of its evenings do when they have but just quitted the

eye. And Winter is once more closing its cloud-canopy over all things,

and breathing forth that sleep-compelling breath which is to wrap all in

a temporary oblivion, no less essential to their healthful existence

than is the active vitality which it for a while supersedes.” Yet among

the general appearances of nature there are still many lively spots and

cheering aspects. “The furze flings out its bright yellow flowers upon

the otherwise bare common, like little gleams of sunshine; and the moles

ply their mischievous night-work in the dry meadows; and the green

plover ‘whistles o’er the lea;’ and the snipes haunt the marshy grounds;

and the wagtails twinkle about near the spring-heads; and the larks get

together in companies, and talk to each other, instead of singing to

themselves; and the thrush occasionally puts forth a plaintive note, as

if half afraid of the sound of his own voice; and the hedge-sparrow and

titmouse try to sing; and the robin does sing still, even more

delightfully than he has done during all the rest of the year, because

it now seems as if he sang for us rather than for himself--or rather to

us, for it is still for his supper that he sings, and therefore for

himself.”[519]

* * * * *

The “Poetical Calendar” offers a little poem with some lines descriptive

of the month, which are pleasant to read within doors, while “rude

Boreas” is blustering without:--

DECEMBER.

Last of the months, severest of them all,

Woe to the regions where thy terrors fall!

For lo! the fiery horses of the sun

Thro’ the twelve signs their rapid course have run,

Time, like a serpent, bites his forked tail,

And Winter on a goat bestrides the gale;

Rough blows the north wind near Arcturus’ star,

And sweeps, unrein’d, across the polar bar,

On the world’s confines where the sea bears prowl,

And Greenland whales, like moving islands, roll:

There, on a sledge, the rein-deer drives the swain

To meet his mistress on the frost-bound plain.

Have mercy, Winter!--for we own thy power,

Thy flooding deluge, and thy drenching shower;

Yes--we acknowledge what thy prowess can,

But oh! have pity on the toil of man!

And, tho’ the floods thy adamantine chain

Submissive wear--yet spare the treasur’d grain:

The peasants to thy mercy now resign

The infant seed--their hope, and future mine.

Not always Phœbus bends his vengeful bow,

Oft in mid winter placid breezes blow;

Oft tinctur’d with the bluest transmarine

The fretted canopy of heaven is seen;

Girded with argent lamps, the full-orb’d moon

In mild December emulates the noon;

Tho’ short the respite, if the sapphire blue

Stain the bright lustre with an inky hue;

Then a black wreck of clouds is seen to fly,

In broken shatters, thro’ the frighted sky:

But if fleet Eurus scour the vaulted plain,

Then all the stars propitious shine again.

[519] Mirror of the Months.

~December 1.~

OBESITY.

Mr. Edward Bright, of Maldon, in the county of Essex, who died at

twenty-nine years of age, was an eminent shopkeeper of that town, and

supposed to be, at that time, the largest man living, or that had ever

lived in this island. He weighed six hundred, one quarter, and

twenty-one pounds; and stood about five feet nine inches high; his body

was of an astonishing bulk, and his legs were as large as a middling

man’s body. Though of so great a weight and bulk, he was surprisingly

active.

After Bright’s death, a wager was proposed between Mr. Codd and Mr.

Hants, of Maldon, that five men at the age of twenty-one, then resident

there, could not be buttoned within his waistcoat without breaking a

stitch or straining a button. On the 1st of December, 1750, the wager

was decided at the house of the widow Day, the Black Bull in Maldon,

when five men and two more were buttoned within the waistcoat of the

great personage deceased. There is a half-sheet print, published at the

time, representing the buttoning up of the seven persons, with an

inscription beneath, to the above effect.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 41·10.

~December 2.~

WINTER.

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 10 / 16 章

So early as 1521, the council of Osnaburg, in Germany, established a