Chapter 51

Summer's pleasures they are gone like to visions every one,And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on.I tried to call them back, but unbidden they are goneFar away from heart and eye and for ever far away.Dear heart, and can it be that such raptures meet decay?I thought them all eternal when by Langley Bush I lay,I thought them joys eternal when I used to shout and playOn its bank at "clink and bandy," "chock" and "taw" and "ducking stone,"Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her ownLike a ruin of the past all alone....John Clare

Summer's pleasures they are gone like to visions every one,

And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on.

I tried to call them back, but unbidden they are gone

Far away from heart and eye and for ever far away.

Dear heart, and can it be that such raptures meet decay?

I thought them all eternal when by Langley Bush I lay,

I thought them joys eternal when I used to shout and play

On its bank at "clink and bandy," "chock" and "taw" and "ducking stone,"

Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her own

Like a ruin of the past all alone....

John Clare

The loveliest and gayest song of praise and sweetness to a "young thing" I have ever seen.

"Ielofler"—gelofer, gelofre, gillofre, gelevor, gillyvor, gillofer, jerefloure, gerraflour—all these are ways of spelling Gillyflower, gelofre coming nearest to its original French:giroflée—meaning spiced like the clove. There were of old, I find, three kinds of gillyflowers: the clove, the stock and the wall. It was the first of these kinds that was meant in the earlier writers by the small clove carnation (or Coronation, because it was made into chaplets or garlands). Its Greek name was dianthus (the flower divine); and its twin-sister is the Pink, so called because its edges are, as it were, picked out, jagged, notched, scalloped. Country names for it are Sweet John, Pagiants, Blunket and Sops-in-Wine, for it spices what it floats in, and used to be candied for a sweetmeat. Blossoming in July, the Gillyflower suggests July-flower, and if Julia is one's sweetheart, it may also be a Julie-flower. So one name may carry many echoes. It has been truly described as a gimp and gallant flower, and, says Parkinson, who wroteParadisus Terrestris, it was the chiefest of account in Tudor gardens. By 1700 indeed there were 360 kinds and four classes of clove gillyflower—the Flake, the Bizarre, the Piquette or picotee (picotéeor pricketed), and the Painted Lady, the last now gone. Its ancestor, the dianthus, seems to have crossed the Channel with the Normans, for it flourishes on the battlements of Falaise, the Conqueror's birthplace, and crowns the walls of many a Norman Castle—Dover, Ludlow, Rochester, Deal—to this day.

must be Piggie's eye, or, from an old word, Twinkle-eye, just as we nowadays call a child or loved-one Goosikins or Pussikins, or Lambkin Pie, or Bunch-of-Roses, or Chickabiddy, or Come-kiss-me-quick.Minionmeans anything small, minikin, delicate, dainty, darling. Look close, for example, at the brown-green florets of a stalk of mignonette.

Many years ago I had the curious pleasure of reading a little book—and one in small print too (Alice Meynell's lovelyFlower of the Mind)—byEnglishglowworm light. The worm was lifting its green beam in the grasses of a cliff by the sea, and shone the clearer the while because it was during an eclipse of the moon. But see No. 93.

... "O wha will shoe my bonny foot?And wha will glove my hand?And wha will lace my middle jimp,Wi' a lang, lang linen band?"O who will kame my yellow hair,With a haw bayberry kame?And wha will be my babe's father,Till Gregory come hame?""Thy father, he will shoe thy foot,Thy brother will glove thy hand,Thy mother will bind thy middle jimpWi' a lang, lang linen band!"Thy sister will kame thy yellow hair,Wi' a haw bayberry kame;The Almighty will be thy babe's father,Till Gregory come hame."...

... "O wha will shoe my bonny foot?And wha will glove my hand?And wha will lace my middle jimp,Wi' a lang, lang linen band?

... "O wha will shoe my bonny foot?

And wha will glove my hand?

And wha will lace my middle jimp,

Wi' a lang, lang linen band?

"O who will kame my yellow hair,With a haw bayberry kame?And wha will be my babe's father,Till Gregory come hame?"

"O who will kame my yellow hair,

With a haw bayberry kame?

And wha will be my babe's father,

Till Gregory come hame?"

"Thy father, he will shoe thy foot,Thy brother will glove thy hand,Thy mother will bind thy middle jimpWi' a lang, lang linen band!

"Thy father, he will shoe thy foot,

Thy brother will glove thy hand,

Thy mother will bind thy middle jimp

Wi' a lang, lang linen band!

"Thy sister will kame thy yellow hair,Wi' a haw bayberry kame;The Almighty will be thy babe's father,Till Gregory come hame."...

"Thy sister will kame thy yellow hair,

Wi' a haw bayberry kame;

The Almighty will be thy babe's father,

Till Gregory come hame."...

"Haw" is an old English word meaning (?) blue or braw, and bayberry is the all-spice tree; so this sad one's yellow hair had for comb an uncommonly charming thing. In another version the comb is of "new silver," and in a third it is a red river kame, which, thinks Mr. Child, may be a corruption of redivory. But giveme(for such hair) the bayberry kind, and let it be haw.

"The first sense of sorrow I ever knew," wrote Richard Steele, "was upon the death of my father, at which time I was not quite five years of age; but was rather amazed at what all the house meant than possessed with a real understanding why nobody was willing to play with me. I remember I went into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a-beating the coffin, and calling, papa; for, I know not how, I had some slight idea that he was locked up there. Mymother catched me in her arms, and transported beyond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me in her embraces; and told me in a flood of tears, 'Papa could not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were going to put him under ground, whence he could never come to us again.'"

The first and third stanzas of this poem were (and are) my particular favourites, and especially the second line in each. Such poems are like wayside pools, or little well-springs of water. It does not matter how many wayfarers come thither to quench their thirst, there is abundance for all.

"But you mustn't imagine," said the old old Harper, "that I harp sad memories on my harp-strings because, being an ancient I am envious of my youth. Far from it. My only grief is that even if mine were the Harp that hung in Tara, I could not express the joy it is to be of years an hundred, and to remember that once I was nought—and all in the same bar."

And for yet another look behind, I cannot leave out this little rhyme from William Allingham, who made one of the happiest of all anthologies, "Nightingale Valley":

Four ducks on a pond,A grass-bank beyond,A blue sky of spring,White clouds on the wing;What a little thingTo remember for years—To remember with tears.

Four ducks on a pond,

A grass-bank beyond,

A blue sky of spring,

White clouds on the wing;

What a little thing

To remember for years—

To remember with tears.

Or, last, this lovely scrap from the Scots—all distance and longing for home:

O Alva hills is bonny,Dalycoutry hills is fair,But to think on the braes of MenstrieIt maks my heart fu' sair.

O Alva hills is bonny,

Dalycoutry hills is fair,

But to think on the braes of Menstrie

It maks my heart fu' sair.

Edward Thomas, who wrote this poem, knew by heart most of the villages, streams, high roads, by-roads, hills, forests, woods and dales of the southern counties of England, and came so to know them by the best of all methods. He walked through them on his feet; and, when so inclined, sat down by the wayside or leaned over a farm or field gate and gazed and mused and day-dreamed. Here is another poem of his:

If I should ever by chance grow richI'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater,And let them all to my elder daughter.The rent I shall ask of her will be onlyEach year's first violets, white and lonely,The first primroses and orchises—She must find them before I do, that is.But if she finds a blossom on furze—Without rent they shall all for ever be hers,Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,Roses, Pyrgo and Lapwater,—I shall give them all to my elder daughter.

If I should ever by chance grow rich

I'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,

Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater,

And let them all to my elder daughter.

The rent I shall ask of her will be only

Each year's first violets, white and lonely,

The first primroses and orchises—

She must find them before I do, that is.

But if she finds a blossom on furze—

Without rent they shall all for ever be hers,

Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,

Roses, Pyrgo and Lapwater,—

I shall give them all to my elder daughter.

Not, of course, to find a blossom on furze or gorse as soon as any sun is in the year's sky, is the rare feat; and if in your wanderings over the hills and far away you should chance on secret hidden-away Pyrgo or Childerditch, sweet with its fragrance, then enquire for the beautiful, happy young Lady of the Manor. As a matter of fact, the scent of the furze-blossom is not exactly sweet, but nutlike and aromatic. This is what Edward Thomas's friend, W. H. Hudson, the great naturalist, wrote about it: "The gorse is most fragrant at noon, when the sun shines brightest and hottest. At such an hour when I approach a thicket of furze, the wind blowing from it, I am always tempted to cast myself down on the grass to lie for an hour drinking in the odour. The effect is to make me languid; to wish to lie till I sleep and live again in dreams in another world, in a vast open-air cathedral where a great festival of ceremony is perpetually in progress, and acolytes, in scores and hundreds with beautiful bright faces, in flame yellow and orange surplices, are ever and ever coming towardme, swinging their censers until I am ready to swoon in that heavenly incense!" ...

It is the gentle custom of gamekeepers to slaughter at sight (though not for food) the little preying beasts and birds of the woodlands—owls, hawks, crows, jays, stoats, weasels, and such like. They then nail up their carcases to a shed side, or to a barn door, or on a field-gate, leaving them to rot in the wind for a warning to their live mates—just as in the old days the precarious English kings spiked the heads of traitors on the turrets of the Tower. Foxes you "hunt" to death.

are, I suppose, the mounds, barrows, tumuli or Fairie Hills, some of them round, some of them long, some of them chambered, beneath which the ancient races of Britain, centuries before the coming of the Saxons and the Danes, buried their dead. So once slept the mummied Pharaohs beneath their enormous Pyramids. Age hangs densely over these solitary mounds, as over the Dolmens and Cromlechs—Stonehenge, the Whispering Knights—and the single gigantic Menhirs—the Tingle Stone, the Whittle Stone, the Bair-down-Man and the demoniac Hoar Stone.

These were utterly ancient and unintelligible marvels even when the monk Ranulph Higden wrote hisPolychroniconin 1352: The second wonder, he says, is at Stonehenge beside Salisbury. There great stones marvellously huge, be a-reared up on high, as it were gates, so that there seemeth gates to be set up upon other gates. Nevertheless it is not clearly known nor perceived how and to what end they be so a-reared up, and "so wonderlych yhonged." And yet, they are but as falling apple-blossom compared with the age of the world and the antiquity of the Universe:

1st Gravedigger.Come my spade; there is no ancient Gentlemen but Gardiners, Ditchers and Grave-makers; they hold upAdam's profession.2nd Gravedigger.Was he a Gentleman?1st Gravedigger.He was the first that ever bore Armes.Hamlet.

1st Gravedigger.Come my spade; there is no ancient Gentlemen but Gardiners, Ditchers and Grave-makers; they hold upAdam's profession.

2nd Gravedigger.Was he a Gentleman?

1st Gravedigger.He was the first that ever bore Armes.Hamlet.

1st Gravedigger.He was the first that ever bore Armes.

Hamlet.

—and here is as romantic and tragic a tale of two friends:

O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,They war twa bonnie lasses;They biggit a bower on yon Burn-brae,And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.They theekit it o'er wi' rashes green,They theekit it o'er wi' heather;But the pest cam' frae the burrows-town,And slew them baith thegither.They thought to lye in Methven kirkyard,Amang their noble kin;But they maun lye in Stronach haugh,To biek forenent the sin.O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,They war twa bonnie lasses;They biggit a bower on yon Burn-brae,And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.

O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,They war twa bonnie lasses;They biggit a bower on yon Burn-brae,And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.

O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,

They war twa bonnie lasses;

They biggit a bower on yon Burn-brae,

And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.

They theekit it o'er wi' rashes green,They theekit it o'er wi' heather;But the pest cam' frae the burrows-town,And slew them baith thegither.

They theekit it o'er wi' rashes green,

They theekit it o'er wi' heather;

But the pest cam' frae the burrows-town,

And slew them baith thegither.

They thought to lye in Methven kirkyard,Amang their noble kin;But they maun lye in Stronach haugh,To biek forenent the sin.

They thought to lye in Methven kirkyard,

Amang their noble kin;

But they maun lye in Stronach haugh,

To biek forenent the sin.

O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,They war twa bonnie lasses;They biggit a bower on yon Burn-brae,And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.

O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,

They war twa bonnie lasses;

They biggit a bower on yon Burn-brae,

And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.

Biggitandtheekitmeans builded and thatched; and the twelfth line is "to bask beneath the sun."

A tragic tale is hidden, rather than told, in this old Scottish ballad. It resembles a half ruinous house in a desolate country, dense green with briar and bramble, echoing with wild voices—its memories gone. Mr. Nahum's picture for it was of a figure in a woman's bright clothes and scarlet hood, but with what looked to me like the head of his own skeleton deep within the hood. And on a stone nearby sat a little winged boy.

... And there was a wind in the night as they fared onward, a wind in the mid-air, playing from out the clouds. And presently after, the twain descended into the valley, the one traveller's foot stumbling as he went, against the writhen roots that jutted from between the stones of the path they followed. And it seemed that the voice of one unseen cried, Lo! And the traveller looked up from out of the valley of hisjourney, and, behold, a wan moon gleamed between the ravelled clouds; and the face of his companion showed for that instant clear against the sky in the shadow of its cloak. And it was the face of a nobleman; renowned for his patience; courteous and cold; whose name is Death....

This is yet another singing-game rhyme. When London was nothing but a cluster of beehive huts in the hill clearings of the great Forest of Middlesex above the marshes and the Thames, there can have been no bridge. Theremayhave been a bridge, it seems, inA.D.44, eighty-seven years after the death of Caesar; and for centuries there was certainly a ferry, Audery the Shipwight being one of its ferrymen, his oars the shape of shovels, and his boat like a young moon on her back.

The rhyme appears to refer to the wooden bridge built in 994 at Southwark, which was destroyed in 1008 by King Olaf, the Saint of Norway, to whose glory four London churches are dedicated. Olaf had become the ally of Ethelred (the Unready), and to defeat the Danes who had captured the city he first screened his fighting ships with frameworks of osier for the protection of his men, who then rowed them up to the Bridge against the tide. They wapped and bound huge ropes or hawsers round its timber piers, swept down with the slack with the tide, and so brought the Bridge to ruin.

The first stone bridge, in building from 1196 to 1208, was partially destroyed by fire four years afterwards. A picture of the entrancing re-built Bridge of Elizabeth's time, with its chapel, its many-storied gabled houses, its haberdashers', goldsmiths' and booksellers' shops, its cut-waters or starlings and many narrow arches, its gate-house with the spiked heads atop, its drawbridge and pillory, and that strange timber mansion, with not a nail in its wood, called Nonesuch, where perhaps lived the Lord Mayor—all this may be gloated over in any old seventeenth-century map of London. (John Visscher's of 1616 shows a windmill in the Strand!) So narrow were those high arches, and so vehemently flowed the tides beneath them, that even at ebb it was dangerous for a novice to shoot them in a boat. But between Windsor and Gravesend it is said there were forty thousand watermen and wherrymen in Shakespeare's day, yelling "Eastward Ho!", or "Westward Ho!" for passengers. The Bridge was the glory of London; as the Thames it spanned was its main thoroughfare. Fire was its chief enemy; the Great Fire in 1616 and that in 1633, after which it long continued to be used though dark, dismal and dangerous. The present monster of granite, over which the people of London stream to and fro throughout the day, like ants at the flighting, was built thirty yards west of the old one and began to span the river in 1832.

London, thou art of townesA per se[211]Soveraign of cities, seemliest in sight,Of high renoun, riches and royaltie;Of lordis, barons, and many a goodly knyght;Of most delectable lusty ladies bright;Of famous prelatis, in habitis clericall;Of merchauntis full of substaunce and of myght:London, thou art the flow'r of Cities all.Strong be thy wallis that about thee standis;Wise be the people that within thee dwellis;Fresh is thy ryver with his lusty strandis;Blith be thy chirches, wele sownyng be thy bellis;Rich be thy merchauntis in substaunce that excellis;Fair be their wives, right lovesom, white and small;Clere be thy virgyns, lusty under kellis[212]!London, thou art the flow'r of Cities all....William Dunbar

London, thou art of townesA per se[211]

Soveraign of cities, seemliest in sight,

Of high renoun, riches and royaltie;

Of lordis, barons, and many a goodly knyght;

Of most delectable lusty ladies bright;

Of famous prelatis, in habitis clericall;

Of merchauntis full of substaunce and of myght:

London, thou art the flow'r of Cities all.

Strong be thy wallis that about thee standis;Wise be the people that within thee dwellis;Fresh is thy ryver with his lusty strandis;Blith be thy chirches, wele sownyng be thy bellis;Rich be thy merchauntis in substaunce that excellis;Fair be their wives, right lovesom, white and small;Clere be thy virgyns, lusty under kellis[212]!London, thou art the flow'r of Cities all....William Dunbar

Strong be thy wallis that about thee standis;

Wise be the people that within thee dwellis;

Fresh is thy ryver with his lusty strandis;

Blith be thy chirches, wele sownyng be thy bellis;

Rich be thy merchauntis in substaunce that excellis;

Fair be their wives, right lovesom, white and small;

Clere be thy virgyns, lusty under kellis[212]!

London, thou art the flow'r of Cities all....

William Dunbar

The subject being good victuals, here is the "Bill of Fare at the Christening of Mr. Constable's Child, Rector of Cockley Cley, in Norfolk, January 2, 1682."

"A whole hog's head souc'd with carrots in the mouth, and pendants in the ears, with guilded oranges thick sett.2 Oxscheekes stewed with 6 marrow bones.A leg of Veal larded with 6 pullets.A leg of Mutton with 6 rabbits.A chine of bief, chine of venison, chine of mutton, chine of veal, chine of pork, supported by 4 men.A Venison Pasty.A great minced pye, with 12 small ones about it.A gelt fat turkey with 6 capons.A bustard with 6 pluver.A pheasant with 6 woodcock.A great dish of tarts made all of sweetmeats.A Westphalia hamm with 6 tongues.A Jowle of Sturgeon.A great chargrof all sorts of sweetmeats with wine, and all sorts of liquors answerable."

"A whole hog's head souc'd with carrots in the mouth, and pendants in the ears, with guilded oranges thick sett.

2 Oxscheekes stewed with 6 marrow bones.

A leg of Veal larded with 6 pullets.

A leg of Mutton with 6 rabbits.

A chine of bief, chine of venison, chine of mutton, chine of veal, chine of pork, supported by 4 men.

A Venison Pasty.

A great minced pye, with 12 small ones about it.

A gelt fat turkey with 6 capons.

A bustard with 6 pluver.

A pheasant with 6 woodcock.

A great dish of tarts made all of sweetmeats.

A Westphalia hamm with 6 tongues.

A Jowle of Sturgeon.

A great chargrof all sorts of sweetmeats with wine, and all sorts of liquors answerable."

And here is another from that inexhaustible Tom Tiddler's ground,Rustic Speech and Folklorefor the "funeral meats" of a farmer who died near Whitby in 1760: "Besides what was distributed to 1,000 poor people who had 6d. each in money, there was consumed

For me the "great dish of tarts," the "guilded oranges" and "the great charger of sweetmeats"! But after all, fine fat feasts such as these are but a Town Mouse's crumb of Wedding Cake compared to Mac Conglinnes' Vision in No. 73, which is from the Gaelic of 1100/1200a.d., as translated by Kuno Meyer.Bragget, line 33, appears to have been a concoction or decoction of ale, honey, sugar and spice, of which last ambrosial ingredients (according to the old rhyme) are made little girls.

reallygoodale, that is, before beer was made "so mortal small," 133 years before tea-leaves came from China (to be boiled and the decoction stored in a barrel); 140 before the first coffee-house in London; and even, one might be tempted to add, before milk came from the cow, for as late as 1512 the two young sons of the fifth earl of Northumberland, Lord Percy aged eleven (who afterwards loved Anne Boleyn), and his younger brother, Maister Thomas Percy, were allowed for"braikfaste" even on "Fysch," or fast Days: "Half a Loif of houshold Brede, a Manchet, a Dysch of Butter, a Pece of Saltfish, a Dysch of Sproits or iii White Herrynge," and aPotell of Bere,i.e.two quarts or Eight mugfuls.

"Hores," or heres, meanshairs—cow's or dairymaid's. Butter is less hairy nowadays, though on the other hand we have margarine.

I thought perhaps "Godes good" referred to a "podinge" for Saturdays—a hodge-podge of the scraps and pieces left over through the week; but I find it is really an old phrase for yeast.

"I' sooth a Feast of Fats" (from the Irish of the twelfth century) like that dream of the rats in the "Pied Piper of Hamelin" as they scuttled to their doom in the cold Weser. For a feast ofsweetsthere is Porphyrio's in the "Eve of St. Agnes:

"And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,In blanchèd linen, smooth, and lavendered,While he from forth the closet brought a heapOf candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;With jellies soother than the creamy curd,And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;Manna and dates, in argosy transferredFrom Fez; and spicèd dainties, every one,From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.These delicates he heaped with glowing handOn golden dishes and in baskets brightOf wreathèd silver: sumptuous they standIn the retirèd quiet of the night,Filling the chilly room with perfume light...."

"And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,

In blanchèd linen, smooth, and lavendered,

While he from forth the closet brought a heap

Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;

With jellies soother than the creamy curd,

And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;

Manna and dates, in argosy transferred

From Fez; and spicèd dainties, every one,

From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.

These delicates he heaped with glowing handOn golden dishes and in baskets brightOf wreathèd silver: sumptuous they standIn the retirèd quiet of the night,Filling the chilly room with perfume light...."

These delicates he heaped with glowing hand

On golden dishes and in baskets bright

Of wreathèd silver: sumptuous they stand

In the retirèd quiet of the night,

Filling the chilly room with perfume light...."

For a banquet of enchantment there is Lamia's, and of magical fruits, poor Laura's in "Goblin Market"; Romeo too went feasting with the Capulets—but only his eyes; so too Macbeth, buthiseyes betrayed him. Bottom in his ass's ears asked only for a munch of your good dry oats, a handfull of pease, and a bottle of hay, then fell asleep before even Queen Titania could magick them up for him. As for the poor Babes, blackberries and dewberries weretheirlast supper. These arebut a few of scores of banqueting delights in poetry—but to include them all would need such a larder as Jack peeped into when he sat supping in the Giant's kitchen.

This fragment is a patchwork of the half-forgotten. "Pigeon holes" was a ball-game, played on the green, with wooden arches and little chambers as in a dovecot—a kind of open-air bagatelle. "Stool-ball" was popular with Nancies and Franceses on Shrove Tuesday. Barley-break was in Scotland a kind of "I spy," played in a stackyard, and in England a sort of "French and English," in three marked spaces or compartments, the middle one of which was called hell. And here—while we are on the subject of old and gallant pastimes—is a brief exposition of our noble and National Game of Cricket in itsearlydays. It comes from a book with the queer title, "A Nosegay for the Trouble of Culling; or, Sports of Childhood":

"Cricket is a game universally played in England, not by boys only, for men of all ranks pique themselves on playing it with skill. In Mary-le-bone parish there is a celebrated cricket ground much frequented by noblemen and gentlemen.

The wicket consists of two pieces of wood fixed upright and kept together by another piece which is laid across the top and is called a bail; if either of these pieces of wood be thrown down by the ball the person so hitting them becomes the winner.

The ball used in this game is stuffed exceedingly hard. Many windows and valuable looking-glasses have been broken by playing cricket in a room."

It was in a cricket match in the summer of 1775, when no less than three "balls" had rolled in between a Mr. Small's two stumps without stirring the bail, that it was decided to add stump iii.

As for "tansy" (line 5), here is a recipe for it (to go with the sillabub on p. 506): "Take 15 eggs, and 6 of the whites; beat them very well; then put in some sugar, and a little sack; beat them again, and put about a pint or a little more of cream; then beat them again; then put in the juice of spinage or of primrose leaves to make it green. Then put in some more sugar, if it be not sweet enough; then beat it again a little, and so let it stand till you fry it, when the first course is in. Thenfry it with a little sweet butter. It must be stirred and fryed very tender. When it is fryed enough, then put it in a dish, and strew some sugar upon it, and serve it in."

And, according to Sir Thomas Overbury (who dipped his pen in nectar as well as ink),"A Fair and Happy Milk-maid," is "a country wench, that is so far from making herself beautiful by art, that one look of hers is able to put all facephysic out of countenance....

"She doth not, with lying long abed, spoil both her complexion and conditions, ... she rises, therefore, with chanticleer, her dame's cock, and at night makes the lamb her curfew. In milking a cow, and straining the teats through her fingers, it seems that so sweet a milk-press makes the milk the whiter or sweeter; for never came almond glove or aromatic ointment on her palm to taint it. The golden ears of corn fall and kiss her feet when she reaps them, as if they wish to be bound and led prisoners by the same hand that felled them. Her breath is her own which scents all the year long of June, like a new made haycock. She makes her hand hard with labour, and her heart soft with pity: and when winter evenings fall early (sitting at her merry wheel), she sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune. She doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not suffer her to do ill, being her mind is to do well.... She dares go alone and unfold sheep in the night, and fears no manner of ill, because she means none: yet to say truth, she is never alone, for she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones....

"Thus lives she, and all her care is she may die in the springtime, to have store of flowers stuck upon her winding-sheet."

Cypresse (according to a memorandum from one of Mr. Nahum's books) is the fine cobweblike stuff we now call crape. Peaking-stickes, or poking-sticks, were gophering irons for frilling out linen, flounces, etc., etc., and not, as one might guess, curling tongs (since a pointed beard, and the V of hair on the forehead, used to be called peaks). A quoife or coif is a lady's head-dress, such as is still worn by nuns; while as for "maskes for faces," fine ladies in Shakespeare's day customarily worethem (as old pictures show) when they went to see his plays. Masks were useful too in disguising the faces of his players, when—as was the custom in the London theatres up to 1629—boys took women's parts; and in the streets eyes gleamed out of the holes in them, wornthenfor keeping the skin fair, untanned, and unfreckled, as Julia says of herself in Shakespeare'sTwo Gentlemen of Verona:

But since she did neglect her looking-glasse,And threw her Sun-expelling masque away,The ayre hath starved the roses in her cheekes,And pinched the lily-tincture of her face....

But since she did neglect her looking-glasse,

And threw her Sun-expelling masque away,

The ayre hath starved the roses in her cheekes,

And pinched the lily-tincture of her face....

In this—the earliest known letter of Shelley's—he too asks for a fairing—the kickshaws and gewgaws sold in the booths of a fair—and a toothsome one; though I haven't yet been able to discover what he meant by "hunting nuts":

(Horsham).Monday, July 18, 1803.Dear Kate,We have proposed a day at the pond next Wednesday; and if you will come to-morrow morning I would be much obliged to you; and if you could any how bring Tom over to stay all night, I would thank you. We are to have a cold dinner over at the pond, and come home to eat a bit of roast chicken and peas at about nine o'clock. Mama depends upon your bringing Tom over to-morrow, and if you don't we shall be very much disappointed.Tell the bearer not to forget to bring me a fairing—which is some ginger-bread, sweetmeat, hunting-nuts, and a pocket book. Now I end.I amnot,Your obedient servant,P. B. Shelley

(Horsham).

Monday, July 18, 1803.

Dear Kate,

We have proposed a day at the pond next Wednesday; and if you will come to-morrow morning I would be much obliged to you; and if you could any how bring Tom over to stay all night, I would thank you. We are to have a cold dinner over at the pond, and come home to eat a bit of roast chicken and peas at about nine o'clock. Mama depends upon your bringing Tom over to-morrow, and if you don't we shall be very much disappointed.

Tell the bearer not to forget to bring me a fairing—which is some ginger-bread, sweetmeat, hunting-nuts, and a pocket book. Now I end.

I amnot,

Your obedient servant,

P. B. Shelley

Even before Mr. Nahum's tower-room, I loved the "bonny brown hair" of this poem. Was it squirrel brown, or chestnut, or hazelnut, or autumn-beech, or heather-brown, or walnut, or old hay colour, or undappled-fawn, or dark lichen, or velvet brown, or marigold or pansy or wallflower-brown—or yet another?—every one of which would look charming beneath the rim of a round blue-ribanded "little straw hat."

To an eye looking down, the steeple of Widdecombe Church rises in the midst of Dartmoor like a lovely needle of ivory; and hidden beneath the turf around it lie, waiting, the bones of Tom Pearse, Bill Brewer ... Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

—and they were of England (Somerset), though to judge from this old ballad they may have padded it down from the Highlands:

There cam' Seven Egyptians on a day,And wow, but they sang bonny!And they sang sae sweet, and sae very complete,Down cam' Earl Cassilis' lady.She cam' tripping adown the stair,And a' her maids before her;As soon as they saw her weel-faur'd faceThey cast the glamourie owre her;They gave to her the nutmeg,And they gave to her the ginger;And she gave to them a far better thing,The seven gold rings off her finger.

There cam' Seven Egyptians on a day,And wow, but they sang bonny!And they sang sae sweet, and sae very complete,Down cam' Earl Cassilis' lady.

There cam' Seven Egyptians on a day,

And wow, but they sang bonny!

And they sang sae sweet, and sae very complete,

Down cam' Earl Cassilis' lady.

She cam' tripping adown the stair,And a' her maids before her;As soon as they saw her weel-faur'd faceThey cast the glamourie owre her;

She cam' tripping adown the stair,

And a' her maids before her;

As soon as they saw her weel-faur'd face

They cast the glamourie owre her;

They gave to her the nutmeg,And they gave to her the ginger;And she gave to them a far better thing,The seven gold rings off her finger.

They gave to her the nutmeg,

And they gave to her the ginger;

And she gave to them a far better thing,

The seven gold rings off her finger.

There was a small black cobbled-up book entitledGlamouriein a red leather case in Thrae, but, alas, it was in a writing I could not easily decipher. On the fly-leaf was scrawled "H.B.", and beneath it was the following:

See, with eyes shut.Look seldom behind thee.In secret of selfshipFree thee, not bind thee.Mark but a flower:'Tis of Eden. A flyShall sound thee a hornWooing Paradise nigh.Think close. Unto loveGive thy heart's steed the rein;So—course the World over:Then homeward again.

See, with eyes shut.

Look seldom behind thee.

In secret of selfship

Free thee, not bind thee.

Mark but a flower:

'Tis of Eden. A fly

Shall sound thee a horn

Wooing Paradise nigh.

Think close. Unto love

Give thy heart's steed the rein;

So—course the World over:

Then homeward again.

There was a robber met a robberOn a rig of beans;Says a robber to a robber,"Can a robber tell a robberWhat a robber means?"

There was a robber met a robber

On a rig of beans;

Says a robber to a robber,

"Can a robber tell a robber

What a robber means?"

And if not; why not? I had never seen this scrap of jingle until Mr. Ralph Hodgson gave it me. And the following version of an old game rhyme (with its rare "wood") first met my eye by the kindness of another friend, Mrs. Lyon:

"My Mother said that I never shouldPlay with the gypsies in the wood,The wood was dark; the grass was green;In came Sally with a tambourine.I went to the sea—no ship to get across;I paid ten shillings for a blind white horse;I up on his back and was off in a crack,Sally, tell my Mother I shall never come back."

"My Mother said that I never shouldPlay with the gypsies in the wood,The wood was dark; the grass was green;In came Sally with a tambourine.

"My Mother said that I never should

Play with the gypsies in the wood,

The wood was dark; the grass was green;

In came Sally with a tambourine.

I went to the sea—no ship to get across;I paid ten shillings for a blind white horse;I up on his back and was off in a crack,Sally, tell my Mother I shall never come back."

I went to the sea—no ship to get across;

I paid ten shillings for a blind white horse;

I up on his back and was off in a crack,

Sally, tell my Mother I shall never come back."

This lament for matchless Robin Hood, who should shine in a far better place than between "Beggars" and "Gilderoy," is the only rhyme about him in this collection. The fact is, try as I might, I could not make up my mind which I liked best of his old greenwood ballads in Mr. Nahum's book. The oldest and best were all in formidable spelling, the most of them were long, and maybe I was at last a little lazy. They are all to be found in Professor Child. And if leaving out the merry outlaw will persuade anyone to get and readEnglish and Scottish Ballads, I shall have omitted him to good purpose.

A pretty song about a monstrously ugly scoundrel, though handsome of feature. Gilderoy was a highwayman, sparing for his prey neither man nor woman, and if there were "roses" on his shoes, they were blood-red. At last fifty armed avengers surrounded his house at night and set on. He killed eight of them before he was captured; which, if true, was bonnie fighting. Nevertheless, such a villain he was that he was hanged,without trial, on a gibbet thirty feet high, and the bones of him (despite the last stanza of the ballad) dangled in chains forty feet above Leith Walk in Edinburgh for fifty years afterwards.

In bounding health, it is said, a dog's nose and a woman's elbow are always cold. The reason for which is explained in a legend (referred to in Mrs. Wright'sRustic Speech and Folk Lore). It seems that in the midst of its forty days' riding on the Flood, the Ark one black night sprung a little leak. Father Noah having forgotten to bring his carpenter's bag on board, was at his wits' end to plug the hole in its timbers. In the beam of his rushlight he looked and he looked and he looked; and still the water came rilling in and in. His dog, Shafet, was of course standing by, head on one side, carefully watching his master. And Noah, by good chance, at last casting his eye in his direction, seized the faithful creature and, thrusting his nose into the leak, for a while stopped the flow. But Noah, a merciful man, and partial to animals, quickly perceived that in a few minutes poor Shafet would perish of suffocation, and as, by this time, his wife had descended into the fo'c'sle to see what he was about, he released his dog's nose, and, instead of it, stuffed in her charming elbow.Q.E.D.

But not all dogs are as ready—as Launce inThe Two Gentlemen of Veronaknew:

"Launce: 'Nay, 'twill bee this howre ere I have done weeping. All the kinde of theLaunces, have this very fault: I have received my proportion, like the prodigious Sonne, and am going with SirProtheusto the Imperialls Court: I thinkeCrabmy dog, be the sowrest natured dogge that lives: My Mother weeping: my Father wayling: my Sister crying: our Maid howling: our Catte wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexitie, yet did not this cruell-heartedCurreshedde one teare: he is a stone, a very pibble stone, and has no more pitty in him then a dogge!"

In the furrowed landThe toilsome and patient oxen stand.Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,With their dilated nostrils spread,They silently inhaleThe clover-scented gale,And the vapours that ariseFrom the well-watered and smoking soil.For this rest in the furrow after toilTheir large and lustrous eyesSeem to thank the Lord,More than man's spoken word.H. W. Longfellow

In the furrowed landThe toilsome and patient oxen stand.Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,With their dilated nostrils spread,

In the furrowed land

The toilsome and patient oxen stand.

Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,

With their dilated nostrils spread,

They silently inhaleThe clover-scented gale,And the vapours that ariseFrom the well-watered and smoking soil.

They silently inhale

The clover-scented gale,

And the vapours that arise

From the well-watered and smoking soil.

For this rest in the furrow after toilTheir large and lustrous eyesSeem to thank the Lord,More than man's spoken word.H. W. Longfellow

For this rest in the furrow after toil

Their large and lustrous eyes

Seem to thank the Lord,

More than man's spoken word.

H. W. Longfellow

Messalina's monkey was, I should fancy, of the kind called a marmoset, "blacke and greene." "Their agilitie and manner of doing is admirable, for that they seeme to have reason and discourse to go upon trees, wherein they seeme to imitate birds." There are so few of these far fair cousins of ours in poetry that I cannot forbear adding a note of Mr. Nahum's from Sir John Maundeville'sTravels.

" ... From that City, (that is to say Cassay—the City of Heaven), men go by Water, solacing and disporting themselves, till they come to an Abbey of Monks—that is fast by—that be good religious men after their Faith and Law. In that Abbey is a great Garden and a fair, where be many Trees of diverse manner of Fruits. And in this Garden, is a little Hill, full of delectable Trees. In that Hill and in that Garden be many divers Beasts, as of Apes, Marmosets, Baboons, and many other divers Beasts. And every day, when the Monks of this Abbey have eaten, the Almoner has the remnants carried forth into the Garden, and he smiteth on the Garden Gate with a Clicket of Silver that he holdeth in his hand, and anon all the Beasts of the Hill and of divers places of the Garden, come out, a 3000 or a 4000 of them; they approach as if they were poor men come a-begging; and the Almoner's servants give them the remnants, in fair Vessels of Silver, clean over gilt. And when they have eaten, the Monk smiteth eftsoons on the Garden Gate with the Clicket; and then anon all the Beasts return again to their places that they came from. And they say that these Beasts be Souls of worthy men, that resemble in likeness the Beasts that be fair: and therefore they give them meat for the love of God."

And here is another of these creatures—"a sleepy fly that rubs its hands," in Mr. Hardy's words—William Blake's:

Little Fly,Thy summer's playMy thoughtless handHas brushed away.Am not IA fly like thee?Or art not thouA man like me?For I dance,And drink, and sing,Till some blind handShall brush my wing.If thought is lifeAnd strength and breath,And the wantOf thought is death;Then am IA happy fly,If I liveOr if I die.

Little Fly,Thy summer's playMy thoughtless handHas brushed away.

Little Fly,

Thy summer's play

My thoughtless hand

Has brushed away.

Am not IA fly like thee?Or art not thouA man like me?

Am not I

A fly like thee?

Or art not thou

A man like me?

For I dance,And drink, and sing,Till some blind handShall brush my wing.

For I dance,

And drink, and sing,

Till some blind hand

Shall brush my wing.

If thought is lifeAnd strength and breath,And the wantOf thought is death;

If thought is life

And strength and breath,

And the want

Of thought is death;

Then am IA happy fly,If I liveOr if I die.

Then am I

A happy fly,

If I live

Or if I die.

But the Happy Fly is nowadays gone so dismally out of favour that it would perhaps be prudent to draw attention from him to Lovelace's "Grasshopper":

O thou that swing'st upon the waving hairOf some well-fillèd oaten beard,Drunk every night with a delicious tearDropt thee from heaven, where thou wert reared!The joys of earth and air are thine entire,That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;And when thy poppy works, thou dost retireTo thy carved acorn-bed to lie.Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom'st then,Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams,And all these merry days mak'st merry men,Thyself, and melancholy streams.

O thou that swing'st upon the waving hairOf some well-fillèd oaten beard,Drunk every night with a delicious tearDropt thee from heaven, where thou wert reared!

O thou that swing'st upon the waving hair

Of some well-fillèd oaten beard,

Drunk every night with a delicious tear

Dropt thee from heaven, where thou wert reared!

The joys of earth and air are thine entire,That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;And when thy poppy works, thou dost retireTo thy carved acorn-bed to lie.

The joys of earth and air are thine entire,

That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;

And when thy poppy works, thou dost retire

To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.

Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom'st then,Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams,And all these merry days mak'st merry men,Thyself, and melancholy streams.

Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom'st then,

Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams,

And all these merry days mak'st merry men,

Thyself, and melancholy streams.

There is an old dialect children's rhyme about these lightlike shimmeringstinglessinsects:

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