1724. Jan. 5. An extraordinary instance of longevity is contained in a
letter dated the 29th of January, 1724, from M. Hamelbranix, the Dutch
envoy at Vienna, to their high mightinesses the states general, and
published in a Dutch dictionary, “Het Algemeen historisch, geographisch
en genealogisch Woordenboek,” by Luiscius. It relates to an individual
who had attained the extraordinary age of _one hundred and eighty-five_
years.
“Czartan Petrarch, by religion a Greek, was born in the year 1539, and
died on the 5th of January, 1724, at Kofrosch, a village four miles from
Temeswar, on the road leading to Karansebes. He had lived, therefore, a
hundred and eighty-five years. At the time when the Turks took Temeswar
from the Christians, he was employed in keeping his father’s cattle. A
few days before his death he had walked, with the help of a stick, to
the post-house at Kofrosch, to ask charity from the travellers. His eyes
were much inflamed, but he still enjoyed a little sight. His hair and
beard were of a greenish, white colour, like mouldy bread; and he had a
few of his teeth remaining. His son, who was ninety-seven years of age,
declared his father had once been the head taller; that at a great age
he married for the third time; and that he was born in this last
marriage. He was accustomed, agreeably to the rules of his religion, to
observe fast days with great strictness, and never to use any other food
than milk, and certain cakes, called by the Hungarians _kollatschen_,
together with a good glass of brandy, such as is made in the country. He
had descendants in the fifth generation, with whom he sometimes sported,
carrying them in his arms. His son, though ninety-seven, was still fresh
and vigorous. When field marshal count Wallis, the commandant of
Temeswar, heard that this old man was taken sick, he caused a portrait
of him to be painted, and when it was almost finished he expired.”
1808. Early in January, this year, the shaft of death supplied another
case of longevity. At the advanced age of 110 years, died Dennis
Hampson, the blind bard of Maggiligan, of whom an interesting account
has been given by lady Morgan, in “The Wild Irish Girl.” The “Athenæum,”
from whence this notice is extracted, relates, that only a few hours
before his decease he tuned his harp, that he might have it in readiness
to entertain sir H. Bruce’s family, who were expected to pass that way
in a few days, and who were in the habit of stopping to hear his music;
suddenly, however, he felt the approach of death, and calling his family
around him resigned his breath without a struggle, and in perfect
possession of his faculties to the last moment. A kindred spirit
produced the following tribute to the memory of this “aged son of song.”
He was the oldest of the Irish bards.
The fame of the brave shall no longer be sounded,
The last of our bards now sleeps cold in his grave;
Maggiligan rocks, where his lays have resounded,
Frown dark at the ocean, and spurn at the wave.
For, Hampson, no more shall thy soul-touching finger
Steal sweet o’er the strings, and wild melody pour;
No more near thy hut shall the villagers linger,
While strains from thy harp warble soft round the shore.
No more thy harp swells with enraptured emotion,
Thy wild gleams of fancy for ever are fled,
No longer thy minstrelsy charms this rude ocean,
That rolls near the green turf that pillows thy head.
Yet vigour and youth with bright visions had fired thee,
And rose-buds of health have blown deep on thy cheek;
The songs of the sweet bards of Erin inspired thee,
And urged thee to wander like laurels to seek.
Yes, oft hast thou sung of our kings crown’d with glory,
Or, sighing, repeated the lover’s fond lay;
And oft hast thou sung of the bards famed in story,
Whose wild notes of rapture have long past away.
Thy grave shall be screen’d from the blast and the billow,
Around it a fence shall posterity raise;
Erin’s children shall wet with their tears thy cold pillow,
Her youths shall lament thee, and carol thy praise.
* * * * *
This is the eve of the Epiphany, or Twelfth-night eve, and is a night
of preparation in some parts of England for the merriments which, to the
present hour, distinguish Twelfth-day. Dr. Drake mentions that it was a
practice formerly for itinerant minstrels to bear a bowl of spiced-wine
to the houses of the gentry and others, from whom they expected a
hospitable reception, and, calling their bowl a wassail-bowl, to drink
wassail to their entertainers. These merry sounds of mirth and music are
not extinct. There are still places wherein the wandering blower of a
clarionet, and the poor scraper of as poor a fiddle, will this evening
strain their instruments, to charm forth the rustic from his dwelling,
and drink to him from a jug of warm ale, spiced with a race of ginger,
in the hope of a pittance for their melody, and their wish of wassail.
Of the wassail-bowl, much will appear before the reader in the after
pages of this work.
In certain parts of Devonshire, the farmer, attended by his workmen,
with a large pitcher of cider, goes to the orchard this evening; and
there, encircling one of the best bearing trees, they drink the
following toast three times:
“Here’s to thee, old apple-tree, hence thou mayst bud, and
whence thou mayst blow!
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats full! caps full!
Bushel--bushel--sacks full,
And my pockets full too! Huzza!”
This done, they return to the house, the doors of which they are sure to
find bolted by the females, who, be the weather what it may, are
inexorable to all entreaties to open them till some one has guessed at
what is on the spit, which is generally some nice little thing,
difficult to be hit on, and is the reward of him who first names it. The
doors are then thrown open, and the lucky clodpole receives the tit-bit
as his recompense. Some are so superstitious as to believe, that if they
neglect this custom, the trees will bear no apples that year. To the
preceding particulars, which are related in the Gentleman’s Magazine for
1791, may be added that Brand, on the authority of a Cornishman, relates
it as a custom with the Devonshire people to go after supper into the
orchard, with a large milk-pan full of cider, having roasted apples
pressed into it. “Out of this each person in company takes, what is
called a clayen cup, that is an earthenware cup full of liquor, and
standing under each of the more fruitful apple-trees, passing by those
that are not good bearers, he addresses it in the following words:
‘Health to thee, good apple-tree,
Well to bear, pocket-fulls, hat-fulls,
Peck-fulls, bushel-bag-fulls!’
And then drinking up part of the contents, he throws the rest, with the
fragments of the roasted apples, at the tree. At each cup the company
set up a shout.”
Pennant, in his tour in Scotland, says respecting this custom, that
after they have drank a cheerful glass to their master’s health, with
success to the future harvests, and expressed their good wishes in the
same way, they feast off cakes made of caraways and other seeds soaked
in cider, which they claim as a reward for their past labours in sowing
the grain. “This,” says Pennant, “seems to resemble a custom of the
ancient Danes, who, in their addresses to their rural deities emptied,
on every invocation, a cup in honour of them.”
So also Brand tells us that, in Herefordshire, “at the approach of
evening on the vigil of the twelfth day, the farmers, with their friends
and servants, meet together, and about six o’clock walk out to a field
where wheat is growing. In the highest part of the ground, twelve small
fires and one large one are lighted up. The attendants, headed by the
master of the family, pledge the company in old cider, which circulates
freely on these occasions. A circle is formed round the large fire, when
a general shout and hallooing takes place, which you hear answered from
all the adjacent villages and fields. Sometimes fifty or sixty of these
fires may be all seen at once. This being finished, the company return
home, where the good housewife and her maids are preparing a good
supper. A large cake is always provided, with a hole in the middle.
After supper, the company all attend the bailiff (or head of the oxen)
to the wain-house, where the following particulars are observed. The
master, at the head of his friends, fills the cup, (generally of strong
ale,) and stands opposite the first or finest of the oxen. He then
pledges him in a curious toast: the company follow his example with all
the other oxen, addressing each by his name. This being finished, the
large cake is produced, and, with much ceremony, put on the horn of the
first ox, through the hole above-mentioned. The ox is then tickled, to
make him toss his head: if he throw the cake behind, then it is the
mistress’s perquisite; if before, (in what is termed the boosy,) the
bailiff himself claims the prize. The company then return to the house,
the doors of which they find locked, nor will they be opened till some
joyous songs are sung. On their gaining admittance, a scene of mirth and
jollity ensues, and which lasts the greatest part of the night.”
Mr. Beckwith relates in the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1784, that “near
Leeds, in Yorkshire, when he was a boy, it was customary for many
families, on the twelfth eve of Christmas, to invite their relations,
friends, and neighbours, to their houses, to play at cards, and to
partake of a supper, of which minced pies were an indispensable
ingredient; and after supper was brought in, the wassail cup or wassail
bowl, of which every one partook, by taking with a spoon, out of the
ale, a roasted apple, and eating it, and then drinking the healths of
the company out of the bowl, wishing them a merry Christmas and a happy
new year. (The festival of Christmas used in this part of the country
to hold for twenty days, and some persons extended it to Candlemas.) The
ingredients put into the bowl, viz. ale, sugar, nutmeg, and roasted
apples, were usually called lambs’-wool, and the night on which it is
used to be drunk (generally on the twelfth eve) was commonly called
Wassil eve.” The glossary to the Exmore dialect has “Watsail--a drinking
song on twelfth-day eve, throwing toast to the apple-trees, in order to
have a fruitful year, which seems to be a relic of the heathen sacrifice
to Pomona.”
Brand found it observed in the ancient calendar of the Romish church,
that on the fifth day of January, the eve or vigil of the Epiphany,
there were “kings created or elected by beans;” that the sixth of the
month is called “The Festival of Kings;” and “that this ceremony of
electing kings was continued with feasting for many days.”
Twelfth-night eve or the vigil of the Epiphany is no way observed in
London. There Twelfth-day itself comes with little of the pleasure that
it offered to our forefathers. Such observances have rapidly
disappeared, and the few that remain are still more rapidly declining.
To those who are unacquainted with their origin they afford no
associations to connect the present with former ages; and without such
feelings, the few occasions which enable us to show a hospitable
disposition, or from whence we can obtain unconstrained cheerfulness,
will pass away, and be remembered only as having been.
~January 6.~
_Epiphany._ {Close holiday at all Public offices
{except Stamp, Customs, and Excise.
_St. Melanius._ _St. Peter._ _St. Nilammon._
_St. Peter_ was a disciple of Gregory the Great, the first abbot of St.
Augustine’s monastery at Canterbury, and drowned in 608 while proceeding
on a voyage to France. According to Cressy, the inhabitants buried his
body without knowing any thing about him, till “a heavenly light
appeared every night over his sepulture,” when they held an inquest, and
a count Fumert buried him in the church of Boulogne. From a quotation in
Patrick, it appears that a weasel who gnawed his robe was found dead
upon it for his sauciness.