_From_ “Poetic Vigils,” _by_ BERNARD BARTON
The flowret’s bloom is faded,
Its glossy leaf grown sere;
The landscape round is shaded
By Winter’s frown austere.
The dew, once sparkling lightly
On grass of freshest green,
In heavier drops unsightly
On matted weeds is seen.
No songs of joy, to gladden,
From leafy woods emerge;
But winds, in tones that sadden,
Breathe Nature’s mournful dirge.
All sights and sounds appealing,
Through merely outward sense,
To joyful thought and feeling,
Seem now departed hence.
But not with such is banished
The bliss that life can lend;
Nor with such things hath vanished
Its truest, noblest end.
The toys that charm, and leave us,
Are fancy’s fleeting elves;
All that should glad, or grieve us,
Exists within ourselves.
Enjoyment’s gentle essence
Is virtue’s godlike dower;
Its most triumphant presence
Illumes the darkest hour.
~January 10.~
_St. William._ _St. Agatho, Pope._ _St. Martian._
_St. William._
This saint, who died in 1207, was archbishop of Bourges, always wore a
hair shirt, never ate flesh meat, when he found himself dying caused his
body to be laid on ashes in his hair shirt, worked miracles after his
death, and had his relics venerated till 1562, when the Hugonots burnt
them without their manifesting miracles at that important crisis. A bone
of his arm is still at Chaalis, and one of his ribs at Paris; so says
Butler, who does not state that either of these remains worked miracles
since the French revolution.
* * * * *
1820. The journals of January relate some particulars of a gentleman
remarkable for the cultivation of an useful quality to an extraordinary
extent. He drew from actual memory, in twenty-two hours, at two
sittings, in the presence of two well-known gentlemen, a correct plan of
the parish of St. James, Westminster, with parts of the parishes of St.
Mary-le-bone, St. Ann, and St. Martin; which plan contained every
square, street, lane, court, alley, market, church, chapel, and all
public buildings, with all stable and other yards, also every
public-house in the parish, and the corners of all streets, with every
minutiæ, as pumps, posts, trees, houses that project and inject,
bow-windows, Carlton-house, St. James’s palace, and the interior of the
markets, without scale or reference to any plan, book, or paper
whatever. He did the same with respect to the parish of St. Andrew,
Holborn, in the presence of four gentlemen, from eight to twelve, one
evening at a tavern; and he also undertook to draw the plan of St.
Giles-in-the-fields, St. Paul’s, Covent-garden, St. Mary-le-strand, St.
Clement’s, and three-fourths of Mary-le-bone, or St. George’s. The plans
before alluded to were drawn in the presence of John Willock, Esq.
Golden-square; Mr. Robinson, of Surrey-road; William Montague, Esq. of
Guildhall; Mr. Allen, vestry clerk of St. Ann’s; John Dawson, Esq. of
Burlington-street; N. Walker, Holborn; and two other gentlemen. He can
tell the corner of any great and leading thoroughfare-street from Hyde
Park-corner, or Oxford-street, to St. Paul’s; or from the New-road to
Westminster abbey; and the trade or profession carried on at such corner
house. He can tell every public shop of business in Piccadilly, which
consists of two hundred and forty-one houses, allowing him only
twenty-four mistakes; he accomplished this in the presence of four
gentlemen, after five o’clock, and proved it before seven in the same
evening. A house being named in any public street, he will name the
trade of the shop, either on the right or left hand of the same, and
whether the door of such house so named is in the centre, or on the
right or left. He can take an inventory, from memory only, of a
gentleman’s house, from the attic to the groundfloor, and afterwards
write it out. He did this at lord Nelson’s, at Merton, and likewise at
the duke of Kent’s, in the presence of two noblemen. He is known by the
appellation of “Memory-corner Thompson.” The plan of his house, called
Priory Frognall, Hampstead, he designed, and built it externally and
internally, without any working-drawing, but carried it up by the eye
only. Yet, though his memory is so accurate in the retention of objects
submitted to the eye, he has little power of recollecting what he
hears. The dialogue of a comedy heard once, or even twice, would, after
an interval of a few days, be entirely new to him.
~January 11.~
_St. Theodosius._ _St. Hyginus._ _St. Egwin._ _St. Salvius._
_St. Theodosius_
This saint visited St. Simeon Stylites on his pillar and had his fortune
told. He ate coarse pulse and wild herbs, never tasted bread for thirty
years, founded a monastery for an unlimited number of monks, dug one
grave large enough to hold the whole community, when he received
strangers, and had not food enough, he prayed for its miraculous
increase and had it multiplied accordingly, prophesied while he was
dying, died in 529, and had his hair shirt begged by a count, who won a
victory with it. He was buried according to Butler, who relates these
particulars, in the cave wherein the three kings of Cologne were said to
have lodged on their way to Bethlehem.