Mouse Ear. _Hieracium Pilosella._
Dedicated to _St. Eric_.
~May 19.~
_St. Peter Celestine_, Pope, A. D. 1296. _St. Pudentiana._ _St.
Dunstan_; Abp. of Canterbury, A. D. 988.
_St. Dunstan._
He was born at Glastonbury, of which monastery he became abbot, and died
archbishop of Canterbury in 988.[146]
The legend of St. Dunstan relates many miracles of him, the most popular
of which is to this effect; that St. Dunstan, as the fact really was,
became expert in goldsmith’s work; it then gives as a story, that while
he was busied in making a chalice, the devil annoyed him by his personal
appearance, and tempted him; whereupon St. Dunstan suddenly seized the
fiend by the nose with a pair of iron tongs, burning hot, and so held
him while he roared and cried till the night was far spent.
[Illustration: ~St. Dunstan and the Devil.~]
There is an engraved portrait of St. Dunstan thus detaining the devil in
bondage, with these lines, or lines to that effect beneath; they are
quoted from memory:--
St. Dunstan, as the story goes,
Once pull’d the devil by the nose
With red-hot tongs, which made him roar,
That he was heard three miles or more.
On lord mayor’s day, in 1687, the pageants of sir John Shorter, knt. as
lord mayor, were very splendid. He was of the company of goldsmiths,
who, at their own expense, provided one of the pageants representing
this miracle of St. Dunstan. It must have been of amazing size, for it
was a “Hieroglyphic of the Company,” consisting of a spacious laboratory
or workhouse, containing several conveniences and distinct apartments,
for the different operators and artificers, with forges, anvils,
hammers, and all instruments proper for the mystery of the goldsmiths.
In the middle of the frontispiece, on a rich golden chair of state, sat
ST. DUNSTAN, the ancient patron and tutelar guardian of the company. He
was attired, to express his prelatical dignity and canonization, in a
robe of fine lawn, with a cope over it of shining cloth of gold reaching
to the ground. He wore a golden mitre beset with precious stones, and
bore in his left hand a golden crosier, and in his right a pair of
goldsmith’s tongs. Behind him were Orpheus and Amphion playing on
melodious instruments; standing more forward were the cham of Tartary,
and the grand sultan, who, being “conquered by the christian harmony,
seemed to sue for reconcilement.” At the steps of the prelatical throne
were a goldsmith’s forge and furnace, with fire, crucibles, and gold,
and a workman blowing the bellows. On each side was a large press of
gold and silver plate. Towards the front were shops of artificers and
jewellers all at work, with anvils, hammers, and instruments for
enamelling, beating out gold and silver plate; on a step below St.
Dunstan, sat an assay-master, with his trial-balance and implements.
There were two apartments for the processes of disgrossing, flatting,
and drawing gold and silver wire, and the fining, melting, smelting,
refining, and separating of gold and silver, both by fire and water.
Another apartment contained a forge, with miners in canvass breeches,
red waistcoats and red caps, bearing spades, pickaxes, twibbles, and
crows for sinking shafts and making adits. The lord mayor, having
approached and viewed the curiosity of the pageant, was addressed in