November 24.

“Come all you Vulcans stout and strong,Unto St. Clem we do belong,I know this house is well preparedWith plenty of money and good strong beer,And we must drink before we part,All for to cheer each merry heart.Come all you Vulcans, strong and stout,Unto St. Clem I pray turn out;For now St. Clem’s going round the town,His coach and six goes merrily round.Huzza,—a,—a.”

After having gone round the town and collected a pretty decent sum, they retire to some public house, where they enjoy as good a supper as the money collected will allow.

R. R.

Convex Wood Sorrel.Oxalis convexula.Dedicated toSt. Clement.

[389]Ribadeneira.[390]Plot’s Staffordshire.

[389]Ribadeneira.

[390]Plot’s Staffordshire.

St. John of the Cross,A. D.1591.St. Chrysogonus.Sts. FloraandMary,A. D.851.St. Cianan, orKenan, Bp. of Duleek, in Ireland,A. D.489.

In the already cited “Mirror of the Months,” there is a feeling account of certain days in the metropolis, at this season, which every one who has sojourned in “that overgrown place” will immediately recognize to be “quite correct.”

“Now the atmosphere of London begins to thicken over head, and assume itsnaturalappearance, preparatory to its becoming, about Christmas time, that ‘palpable obscure,’ which is one of its proudest boasts; and which, among its other merits, may reckon that of engendering those far-famed fogs, of which every body has heard, but to which no one has ever done justice. A London fog, in November, is a thing for which I have a sort of natural affection—to say nothing of an acquired one—the result of a hackney-coach adventure, in which the fair part ofthe fare threw herself into my arms for protection, amidst the pleasing horrors of an overthrow.

“As an affair of mere breath, there is something tangible in a London fog. In the evanescent air of Italy, a man might as well not breathe at all, for any thing he knows of the matter. But in a well-mixed metropolitan fog, there is something substantial and satisfying. You can feel what you breathe, and see it too. It is like breathing water,—as we may suppose the fishes to do. And then the taste of it, when dashed with a due seasoning of seacoal smoke, is far from insipid. It is also meat and drink at the same time: something between egg-flip andomelétte soufflée, but much more digestible than either. Not that I would recommend it medicinally, especially to persons of queasy stomachs, delicate nerves, and afflicted with bile. But for persons of a good robust habit of body, and not dainty withal, (which such, by the by, never are,) there is nothing better in its way. And it wraps you all round like a cloak, too—a patent water-proof one, which no rain ever penetrated. No—I maintain that a real London fog is a thing not to be sneezed at—if you help it.Mem.As many spurious imitations of the above are abroad,—such as Scotch mists, and the like,—which are no less deleterious than disagreeable,—please to ask for the ‘true London particular,’—as manufactured by Thames, Coalgas, Smoke, Steam, & Co. No others are genuine.”

Take one pound of drying (boiled linseed) oil, two ounces of yellow wax, two ounces of spirits of turpentine, and one of Burgundy pitch, melted carefully over a slow fire. With this composition new shoes and boots are to be rubbed in the sun, or at a distance from the fire, with a small bit of sponge, as often as they become dry, until they are fully saturated; the leather then is impervious to wet, the shoes and boots last much longer, acquire softness and pliability, and thus prepared, are the most effectual preservatives against cold.

On the 24th of November, 1735, a butcher near Rumford, in Essex, was rode up to by a woman well mounted on a side saddle, who, to his astonishment, presented a pistol, and demanded his money. In amazement he asked her what she meant, and received his answer from a genteel looking man, who coming to him on horseback, said he was a brute to deny the lady’s request, and enforced this conviction by telling him that if he did not gratify her desire immediately he would shoot him through the head. The butcher could not resist an invitation to be gallant, when supported by such arguments, and he placed six guineas and his watch in her hands.[391]

Starry Stapelia.Stapelia radiata.Dedicated toSt. John of the Cross.

[391]Gentleman’s Magazine.

St. Catharine, 3d Cent.St. Erasmus, orElme.

This saint is in the church of England calendar, and the almanacs. It is doubtful whether she ever existed; yet in mass-books and breviaries, we find her prayed to and honoured by hymns, with stories of her miracles so wonderfully apocryphal that even cardinal Baronius blushes for the threadbare legends. In Alban Butler’s memoirs of this saint, it may be discovered by a scrutinizing eye, that while her popularity seems to force him to relate particulars concerning her, he leaves himself room to disavow them; but this is hardly fair, for the great body of readers of his “Lives of the Saints,” are too confiding to criticise hidden meanings. “From this martyr’s uncommon erudition,” he says, “and the extraordinary spirit of piety by which she sanctified her learning, and the use she made of it, she is chosen, in the schools, the patroness and model of christian philosophers.” According to his authorities she was beheaded under the emperor Maxentius, or Maximinus II. He adds, “She is said first to have been put upon an engine made of four wheels joined together, and stuck with sharp pointed spikes, that when the wheels were moved her body might be torn to pieces.” The acts add, that at the first stirring of the terrible engine, the cords with which the martyr was tied, were broke asunder by the invisible power of an angel, and, the engine falling to pieces by the wheels being separated from one another, she was delivered from that death. Hence, the name of “St. Catharine’s wheel.”

St. Catharine and the Emperor Maxentius.From a stained glass Window in West Wickham Church, Kent, 1825.

The Catharine-wheel, a sign in the Borough, and at other inns and public houses, and the Catharine-wheel in fireworks, testify this saint’s notoriety in England. Besides pictures and engravings representing her pretended marriage with Christ, others, which are more numerous, represent her with her wheel. She was, in common with other papal saints, also painted in churches, and there is still a very fine, though somewhat mutilated, painting of her, on the glass window in the chancel of the church of West Wickham, a village delightfully situated in Kent, between Bromley and Croydon. The editor of theEvery-Day Bookwent thither, and took a tracing from the window itself, and now presents anengravingfrom that tracing, under the expectation that, as an ornament, it may be acceptable to all, and, as perpetuating a relic of antiquity, be still more acceptable to a few. The figure under St. Catharine’s feet is the tyrant Maxentius. In this church there are other fine and perfect remains of the beautifully painted glass which anciently adorned it. A coach leaves the Ship, at Charing-cross, every afternoon for the Swan, at West Wickham, which is kept by Mr. Crittel, who can give a visiter a good bed, good cheer, and good information, and if need be, put a good horse into a good stable. A short and pleasant walk of a mile to the church the next morning will be gratifying in many ways. The village is one of the most retired and agreeable spots in the vicinity of the metropolis. It is not yet deformed by building speculations.

Old Barnaby Googe, from Naogeorgus, says—

“What should I tell what sophisters on Cathrins day devise?Or else the superstitious toyes that maisters exercise.”

Anciently women and girls in Ireland kept a fast every Wednesday and Saturday throughout the year, and some of them also onSt. Catharine’sday; nor would they omit it though it happened on their birthday, or they were ever so ill. The reason given for it was that the girls might get good husbands, and the women better ones, either by the death, desertion, or reformation of their living ones.[392]

St. Catharine was esteemed the saint and patroness of spinsters, and her holiday observed by young women meeting on this day, and making merry together, which they call “Cathar’ning.”[393]Something of this still remains in remote parts of England.

Our correspondent R. R. (in November, 1825,) says, “On the 25th of November, St. Catharine’s day, a man dressed in woman’s clothes, with a large wheel by his side, to represent St. Catharine, was brought out of the royal arsenal at Woolwich, (by the workmen of that place,) about six o’clock in the evening, seated in a large wooden chair, and carried by men round the town, with attendants, &c. similar to St. Clement’s. They stopped at different houses, where they used to recite a speech; but this ceremony has been discontinued these last eight or nine years.”

Much might be said and contemplated in addition to the notice already taken of the demolition of the church of St. Catharine’s, near the Tower. Its destruction has commenced, is proceeding, and will be completed in a short time. The surrender of this edifice will, in the end, become a precedent for a spoliation imagined by very few on the day when he utters this foreboding.

25th of November, 1825.

Sweet Butter-bur.Tussilago fragrans.Dedicated toSt. Catharine.

[392]Camden Brit.[393]La Motte on Poetry and Painting, 1790, 12mo.

[392]Camden Brit.

[393]La Motte on Poetry and Painting, 1790, 12mo.

St. Peter, Martyr, Bp. of Alexandria,A. D.311.St. Nicon, surnamedMetanoite,A. D.998.St. Sylvester Gozzolini,A. D.1267.St. Conrad, Bp. of Constance,A. D.976.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Sir,

I do not remember to have seen in your book, “whereevery-daywe turn the leaf to read,” any notice of a custom, which is not only very prevalent, but which is, also, most harmless in its nature and endearing in its tendency—promotes in its practice goodwill and good humour—and, not unfrequently, with those who view the “future i’ th’ instant,” love itself. Among the many new moon customs, such as looking through a new silk handkerchief to ascertain the number of your lovers, feeling for money in your pocket, to see if you will have a lucky month, &c.; I know of none so pleasant, or, to my thinking, so rational, as that of claiming theFIRST KISS FOR A PAIR OF NEW GLOVES! The person, in a company, male or female, who first gets a glimpse of the new moon, immediately kisses some member of the company, and pronounces with a triumphant chuckle, “Aha! Jane, (or as the name may be,) there’s a pair of gloves forme!” By this means a pleasant interruption is often given to a tedious tale, or uninteresting debate, and a new subject starts, in which all may join with greater or less avidity. How happy is some modest youth, should the blushing and ingenuous girl, whom he has secretly “singled from the world,” have laid him under the penalty of a pair of new gloves, by that soft phrase and that first delicious kiss—how fruitful are his sweet anticipations of that golden time—

“When life is all one dream of love and flowers.”

How joyful is an amiable sister, if, by this species of initiation, she has been enabled to re-conciliate the vagrant affections of some estranged brother: and even where love and sisterly feelings are out of the question, viewed as an interchange of common (common!) friendship, between the sexes, how felicitous is it in effect and operation! Should you, Mr. Editor, be of opinion with me, respecting this no longer “tyrant custom,” you may, possibly, by printing this letter be productive of much good humour, and a pair of new gloves.

I am,Your constant and approving reader,W. G. T.

Newcastle-on-Tyne.

P. S. I cannot write the name of the town where I reside, without feeling a strong inducement to say one word of him, who has been so pleasantly immortalized by yourself, and the inimitable being who wrote so affectingly of “Rosamund Gray,” and the “Old Familiar Faces”—I mean poor Starkey. I was born, and have lived all my life (not a long one), in the town where he terminated his humble career, and gave another name to the neglected and unpitied list of those, who seem chiefly to have entered the world for the purpose of swelling

“The short and simple annals of the poor,”

and my earliest recollections are haunted by his meagre care-worn form;—many a time have I shrunk from the shaking of his stick, and the imperious “dem your bluds,” which he bestowed with uncommon celerity on the defenceless heads of his young and unthinking sources of annoyance, as they assailed him from the corners which he was accustomed to pass. But the captain was a humble man, and these “moods of the mind” were seldom indulged in, save when he was returning, brim-full of brief and intemperate importance, from the Black Horse, in Pilgrim-street, the tap-room of which was the scene of many a learned disputation with the “unwashed artificers” of the evening, and in which the captain was always proportionably brilliant to the number ofgillshe had drank. On these occasions, in his efforts to silence the sons of toil, he did not scruple to use his Latin—and, in such instances, appeal was impossible, and victory sure. Among several anecdotes, I am in possession of two, which you, his most celebrious biographer, may not think unworthy of recording. On one evening, when he was returning from a carousal, furnished by the generosity of friends, or his own indiscretion—for the captain despised to-morrow as much asany man, and was fully convinced of the propriety of the apophthegm, “sufficient unto the day is its own evil”—he found the gate of the Freemen’s Hospital, where he resided, closed, and no one in a better condition for exclaiming with Dr. Beattie,

“Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb!”

than himself. What was to be done? To fly over was impossible—and he was much too deep in the scale of intoxication to dream of scaling the wall. A party of young bucks, “ripe for fun,” fresh from their sacrifices at the shrine of “the reeling goddess with the zoneless waist,” came up the street; to these, hat in hand, did the captain prefer his petition to be assisted over, and they, with a thoughtlessness hardly to be excused by their condition, took him up, and threw him completely on to the grass plot on the other side. The veteran scrambled to his legs, and, for the wall was notveryhigh on the inside, returned them thanks in his best manner for their timely assistance, utterly forgetful that it might have proved most disastrous both to himself and them. The second, and with which I must conclude a postscript which has already far outgrown the letter, was less harmless and equally illustrative of the man. He had gone, with another eleemosynary worthy, on some gratulatory occasion, to the hall of one of the members for the town, and the butler who was well aware of the object of his guests, treated them handsomely in his refectory to cold beef and good ale. He was accidentally called away, and the two friends were left alone. Alas! for the temptations which continually beset us! The “expedition of” the captain’s “violent love outran the pauser, reason:” he suggested, and both adopted, the expedient of secreting a slice or two of the member’s beef, to make more substantial the repast of the evening. Starkey’s share was deposited in his hat. The man in office returned, pressed his visiters afresh, “and still the circling cup was drained,” until the home-brewed had made considerable innovations, and the travellers thought it fitting to depart. The captain’s habitual politeness was an overmatch for his cunning: whilst he was yet at the door, casting his “last lingering looks behind,” he must needs take off his hat to give more effect to the fervour of his farewell—when—“out upon ’t”—the beef fell as flat on his oration, as did the hat of corporal Trim on the floor in the scene of his eloquence. Starkey was dumb-founded, his associate was in agonies, and the butler was convulsed with the most “side-splitting” laughter. The captain, like other great men, has not fallen “unsung.” Hearken to Gilchrist, one of the “bards of the Tyne,” who thus sings in his apotheosis of Benjamin Starkey:—

“His game is up, his pipe is out, an’ fairly laid his craw,His fame ’ill blaw about just like coal dust at Shiney-Raw.He surely was a joker rare—what times there’d been for a’ the nation,Had he but lived to be a mayor, the glory o’ wor corporation!“Whack, &c.”

W. G. T.

Linear Wood Sorrel.Oxalis linearis.Dedicated toSt. Conrad.

St. Maximus, Bp. of Riez,A. D.460.St. James, surnamedIntercisus,A. D.421.St. Maharsapor,A. D.421.St. Virgil, Bp. of Saltzburg,A. D.784.St. Secundin, orSeachnal, Bp. of Dunsaghlin, in Meath,A. D.447.

InLittle Wild-streetchapel, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a sermon is annually preached on this day in commemoration of the “Great Storm” in 1703.

This fearful tempest was preceded by a strong west wind, which set in about the middle of the month; and every day, and almost every hour, increased in force untilthe 24th, when it blew furiously, occasioned much alarm, and some damage was sustained. On the 25th, and through the night following, it continued with unusual violence. On the morning of Friday, the 26th, it raged so fearfully that only few people had courage to venture abroad. Towards evening it rose still higher; the night setting in with excessive darkness added general horror to the scene, and prevented any from seeking security abroad from their homes, had that been possible. The extraordinary power of the wind created a noise, hoarse and dreadful, like thunder, which carried terror to every ear, and appalled every heart. There were also appearances in the heavens that resembled lightning. “The air,” says a writer at the time, “was full of meteors and fiery vapours; yet,” he adds, “I am of opinion, that there was really no lightning, in the common acceptation of the term; for the clouds, that flew with such violence through the air, were not to my observation such as are usually freighted with thunder and lightning; the hurries nature was then in do not consist with the system of thunder.” Some imagined the tempest was accompanied with an earthquake. “Horror and confusion seized upon all, whether on shore or at sea; no pen can describe it, no tongue can express it, no thought can conceive it, unless theirs who were in the extremity of it; and who being touched with a due sense of the sparing mercy of their Maker, retain the deep impressions of his goodness upon their minds though the danger be past. To venture abroad was to rush into instant death, and to stay within afforded no other prospect than that of being buried under the ruins of a falling habitation. Some in their distraction did the former, and met death in the streets; others the latter, and in their own houses received their final doom.” One hundred and twenty-three persons were killed by the falling of dwellings; amongst these were the bishop of Bath and Wells (Dr. Richard Kidder) and his lady, by the fall of part of the episcopal palace of Wells; and lady Penelope Nicholas, sister to the bishop of London, at Horsley, in Sussex. Those who perished in the waters, in the floods of the Severn and the Thames, on the coast of Holland, and in ships blown away and never heard of afterwards, are computed to have amounted to eight thousand.

All ranks and degrees were affected by this amazing tempest, for every family that had any thing to lose lost something: land, houses, churches, corn, trees, rivers, all were disturbed or damaged by its fury; small buildings were for the most part wholly swept away, “as chaff before the wind.” Above eight hundred dwelling-houses were laid in ruins. Few of those that resisted escaped from being unroofed, which is clear from the prodigious increase in the price of tiles, which rose from twenty-one shillings to six pounds the thousand. About two thousand stacks of chimnies were blown down in and about London. When the day broke the houses were mostly stripped, and appeared like so many skeletons. The consternation was so great that trade and business were suspended, for the first occupation of the mind was so to repair the houses that families might be preserved from the inclemency of the weather in the rigorous season. The streets were covered with brickbats, broken tiles, signs, bulks, and penthouses.

The lead which covered one hundred churches, and many public buildings, was rolled up, and hurled in prodigious quantities to distances almost incredible; spires and turrets of many others were thrown down. Innumerable stacks of corn and hay were blown away, or so torn and scattered as to receive great damage.

Multitudes of cattle were lost. In one level in Gloucestershire, on the banks of the Severn, fifteen thousand sheep were drowned. Innumerable trees were torn up by the roots; one writer says, that he himself numbered seventeen thousand in part of the county of Kent alone, and that, tired with counting, he left off reckoning.

The damage in the city of London, only, was computed at near two millions sterling. At Bristol, it was about two hundred thousand pounds. In the whole, it was supposed that the loss was greater than that produced by the great fire of London, 1666, which was estimated at four millions.

The greater part of the navy was at sea, and if the storm had not been at its height at full flood, and in a spring-tide, the loss might have been nearly fatal to the nation. It was so considerable, that fifteen or sixteen men of war were cast away, and more than two thousand seamen perished. Few merchantmen werelost; for most of those that were driven to sea were safe. Rear-admiral Beaumont with a squadron then lying in the Downs, perished with his own and several other ships on the Goodwin Sands.

The ships lost by the storm were estimated at three hundred. In the river Thames, only four ships remained between London-bridge and Limehouse, the rest being driven below, and lying there miserably beating against one another. Five hundred wherries, three hundred ship-boats, and one hundred lighters and barges were entirely lost; and a much greater number received considerable damage. The wind blew from the western seas, which preventing many ships from putting to sea, and driving others into harbour, occasioned great numbers to escape destruction.

The Eddystone lighthouse near Plymouth was precipitated in the surrounding ocean, and with it Mr. Winstanley, the ingenious architect, by whom it was contrived, and the people who were with him.—“Having been frequently told that the edifice was too slight to withstand the fury of the winds and waves, he was accustomed to reply contemptuously, that he only wished to be in it when a storm should happen. Unfortunately his desire was gratified. Signals of distress were made, but in so tremendous a sea no vessel could live, or would venture to put off for their relief.”[394]

The amazing strength and rapidity of the wind, are evidenced by the following well authenticated circumstances. Near Shaftesbury a stone of near four hundred pounds weight, which had lain for some years fixed in the ground, fenced by a bank with a low stone wall upon it, was lifted up by the wind, and carried into a hollow way, distant at least seven yards from the place. This is mentioned in a sermon preached by Dr. Samuel Stennett, in 1788. Dr. Andrew Gifford in a sermon preached at Little Wylde-street, on the 27th of November, 1734, says that “in a country town, a large stable was at once removed off its foundation and instantly carried quite across the highway, over the heads of five horses and the man that was then feeding them, without hurting any one of them, or removing the rack and manger, both of which remained for a considerable time to the admiration of every beholder.” Dr. Gifford in the same sermon, gives an account of “several remarkable deliverances.” One of the most remarkable instances of this kind occurred at a house in the Strand, in which were no less than fourteen persons: “Four of them fell with a great part of the house, &c. three stories, and several two; and though buried in the ruins, were taken out unhurt: of these, three were children; one that lay by itself, in a little bed near its nurse; another in a cradle; and the third was found hanging (as it were wrap’d up) in some curtains that hitch’d by the way; neither of whom received the least damage. In another place, as a minister was crossing a court near his house, a stone from the top of a chimney upwards of one hundred and forty pounds weight, fell close to his heels, and cut between his footsteps four inches deep into the ground. Soon after, upon drawing in his arm, which he had held out on some occasion, another stone of near the same weight and size, brush’d by his elbow, and fell close to his foot, which must necessarily, in the eye of reason, have killed him, had it fallen while it was extended.” In the Poultry, where two boys were lying in a garret, a huge stack of chimnies fell in, which making its way through that and all the other floors to the cellar, it was followed by the bed with the boys asleep in it, who first awaked in that gloomy place of confusion without the least hurt.

So awful a visitation produced serious impressions on the government, and a day of fasting and humiliation was appointed by authority. The introductory part of the proclamation, issued by queen Anne for that purpose, claims attention from its solemn import.

“Whereas, by the late most terrible and dreadful Storms of Wind, with which it hath pleased Almighty God to afflict the greatest part of this our Kingdom, on Friday and Saturday, the Twenty-Sixth and Twenty-Seventh days of November last, some of our Ships of War, and many Ships of our loving Subjects have been destroyed and lost at Sea, and great numbers of our subjects, serving on board the same have perished, and many houses and other buildings of our good Subjects have been either wholly thrown down and demolished, or very much damnified and defaced, and thereby several persons have been killed, and many Stacks of Corn and Hay thrown down and scatteredabroad, to the great damage and impoverishment of many others, especially the poorer sort, and great numbers of Timber and other Trees have by the said Storm been torn up by the roots in many parts of this our Kingdom: a Calamity of this sort so dreadful and astonishing, that the like hath not been seen or felt in the memory of any person living in this our Kingdom, and which loudly calls for the deepest and most solemn humiliation of us and our people: therefore out of a deep and pious sense of what we and all our people have suffered by the said dreadful Wind and Storms, (which we most humbly acknowledge to be a token of the divine displeasure, and that it was the infinite Mercy of God that we and our people were not thereby wholly destroyed,) We have Resolved, and do hereby command, that a General Public Fast be observed,” &c.

This public fast was accordingly observed, throughout England, on the nineteenth of January following, with great seriousness and devotion by all orders and denominations. The protestant dissenters, notwithstanding their objections to the interference of the civil magistrate in matters of religion, deeming this to be an occasion wherein they might unite with their countrymen in openly bewailing the general calamity, rendered the supplication universal, by opening their places of worship, and every church and meeting-house was crowded.

“It may not be generally known, that a Mr.Joseph Taylor, having experienced a merciful preservation, during the ‘Great Storm,’ in 1703; and, being at that period, a member of the (Baptist) church, meeting in Little Wild-street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, instituted an annual sermon, to perpetuate the recollection of that affecting occurrence; leaving, in trust, a small sum to be thus annually expended.”

The above announcement is prefixed to a sermon preached in the before-mentioned chapel, in the year 1821, by the rev. George Pritchard. The annual sermon at that place has been regularly preached, but Mr. Pritchard’s is the last printed one. It has an appendix of “remarkable facts, which could not so conveniently be introduced into the discourse.” The rev. Robert Winter, A. M. (now D.D.) preached the sermon of 1798, which was the last published one preceding Mr. Pritchard’s.

Mr. Joseph Taylor was a bookseller in Paternoster-row. He left 40l.for the purpose mentioned, to which the church added 5l., and purchased 50l.three per cent. consols, which is now standing in the name of three trustees, who pay the minister.

The following is a copy of the notice, printed and distributed in the year 1825.

“GREAT STORM.On Sunday Evening, November 27, 1825,THEAnnual SermonIn commemoration of the Great Storm in 1703,WILL BE PREACHEDIn Little Wild Street Chapel,LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS,By theRev. Thomas Griffin,Of Prescot Street

“A collection will be made after the service for the support of the Evening Lecture, which was commenced at the beginning of the present year, and will be continued every Sunday evening, to which the inhabitants of Wild-street, and its vicinity, are earnestly solicited to attend.

“Service commences at half-past six o’clock.”

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Mr Editor,

I am, no doubt, with many others, obliged by the information contained in yourEvery-Day Book, especially in giving the etymology and origin of things of old and present practices.

But being a dabbler in etymology myself, I was disappointed in finding none for the present season of the year, autumn; and as many of our names ofplaces were, no doubt, given by our Saxon ancestors, we in the north retain more of that language, and consequently more familiar with the names of places than you in England.

Perhaps there is not one hundred persons in Langbourn ward know any meaning to the two words by which the ward is called; but to any child in Scotland the words are significant.

Will you then allow me to give you my etymology of the seasons?

Spring makes itself familiar to almost every one; but summer, or as we would say in Scotland, means an addition, or “sum-more,” or “some-mere;” viz. if a person was not satisfied with his portion of victuals, he would say “I want sum-mere.”

And does not this correspond with the season, which in all the plants and fruits of the field and garden, is getting “sum-mere” every day, until the months of August and September, when according to the order and appointment of the great Lawgiver, they are brought to perfection, and gathered in?

Then comes the present season, autumn, or as we would in the north say, “ae-tum,” or “all-empty,” which is the present state of the gardens, trees, and fields; they are “ae-tum.”

The last season brings with it its own name by itseffects, “wind-tere.”

If these observations will add any thing to your fund of information, it will not diminish that of

Your humble servant,A North Britain.

PS.—Observe, they pronounce the A in Scotland as in France, Aa.

November16, 1825.

Lupinleaved Wood Sorrel.Oxalis lupinifolia.Dedicated toSt. Virgil.

[394]Belsham’s Hist. of G. Britain.

St. Stephen the Younger,A. D.764.St. James of La Marea, of Ancona,A. D.476.

[Michaelmas Term ends.]

An invitation to a private view of the “Rath,” or state carriage of the king of Ava, or emperor of the Burmans, at the Egyptian-hall, Piccadilly, gave the editor of theEvery-Day Bookan opportunity of inspecting it, on Friday, the 18th of November, previous to its public exhibition; and having been accompanied by an artist, for whom he obtained permission to make a drawing of the splendid vehicle, he is enabled to present the accompanyingengraving.

TheTimes, in speaking of it, remarks, that “The Burmese artists have produced a very formidable rival to that gorgeous piece of lumber, the lord mayor’s coach. It is not indeed quite so heavy, nor quite so glassy as that moving monument of metropolitan magnificence; but it is not inferior to it in glitter and in gilding, and is far superior in the splendour of the gems and rubies which adorn it. It differs from the metropolitan carriage in having no seats in the interior, and no place for either sword-bearer, chaplain, or any other inferior officer. The reason of this is, that whenever the ‘golden monarch’ vouchsafes to show himself to his subjects, who with true legitimate loyalty worship him as an emanation from the deity, he orders his throne to be removed into it, and sits thereon, the sole object of their awe and admiration.”

TheBritish Presswell observes, that “Independent of the splendour of this magnificent vehicle, its appearance in this country at the present moment is attended with much additional and extrinsic interest. It is the first specimen of the progress of the arts in a country of the very existence of which we appeared to be oblivious, till recent and extraordinary events recalled it to our notice. The map of Asia alone reminded us that an immense portion of the vast tract of country lying between China and our Indian possessions, and constituting the eastern peninsula of India, was designated by the name of the Burmah empire. But so little did we know of the people, or the country they inhabited, that geographers were not agreed upon the orthography of the name. The attack upon Chittagong at length aroused our attention to the concerns of this warlike people, when one of the first intimations we received of their existence was the threat, after they had expelled us from India, to invade England. Our soldiers found themselves engaged in a contest different from any they had before experienced in that part of the world, and with a people who, to the impetuous bravery of savages, added all the artifices of civilized warfare. We had to do with an enemy of whose history and resources we knew absolutely nothing. On those heads our information is still but scanty. It is the information which ‘the Rath,’ or imperial carriage, affords respecting the state of the mechanical arts among the Burmese, that we consider particularly curious and interesting.”

The Rath, or Burmese Imperial State Carriage;Captured, in September, 1825, at Tavoy, a sea-port in the Burmese Empire

Before more minute description it may be remarked, that the eye is chiefly struck by the fretted golden roof, rising step by step from the square oblong body of the carriage, like an ascending pile of rich shrine-work. “It consists of seven stages, diminishing in the most skilful and beautiful proportions towards the top. The carving is highly beautiful, and the whole structure is set thick with stones and gems of considerable value. These add little to the effect when seen from below, but ascending the gallery of the hall, the spectator observes them, relieved by the yellow ground of the gilding, and sparkling beneath him like dew-drops in a field of cowslips. Their presence in so elevated a situation well serve to explain the accuracy of finish preserved throughout, even in the nicest and most minute portions of the work. Gilt metal bells, with large heart-shaped chrystal drops attached to them, surround the lower stages of the pagoda, and, when the carriage is put in motion, emit a soft and pleasing sound.”[395]The apex of the roof is a pinnacle, called thetee, elevated on a pedestal. Theteeis an emblem of royalty. It is formed of movable belts, or coronals, of gold, wherein are set large amethysts of a greenish or purple colour: its summit is a small banner, or vane, of crystal.

The length of the carriage itself is thirteen feet seven inches; or, if taken from the extremity of the pole, twenty-eight feet five inches. Its width is six feet nine inches, and its height, to the summit of thetee, is nineteen feet two inches. The carriage body is five feet seven inches in length, by four feet six inches in width, and its height, taken from the interior, is five feet eight inches. The four wheels are of uniform height, are remarkable for their lightness and elegance, and the peculiar mode by which the spokes are secured, and measure only four feet two inches: the spokes richly silvered, are of a very hard wood, called in the east,iron wood: the felloes are cased in brass, and the caps to the naves elegantly designed of bell metal. The pole, also of iron wood, is heavy and massive; it was destined to be attached to elephants by which the vehicle was intended to be drawn upon all grand or state occasions. The extremity of the pole is surmounted by the head and fore part of a dragon, a figure of idolatrous worship in the east; this ornament is boldly executed, and richly gilt and ornamented; the scales being composed of a curiously colouredtalc. The other parts of the carriage are the wood of the orientalsassafrastree, which combines strength with lightness, and emits a grateful odour; and being hard and elastic, is easily worked, and peculiarly fitted for carving. The body of the carriage is composed of twelve panels, three on each face or front, and these are subdivided into small squares of the clear and nearly transparent horn of the rhinoceros and buffalo, and other animals of eastern idolatry. These squares are set in broad gilt frames, studded at every angle with raised silvered glass mirrors: the higher part of these panels has a range of rich small looking-glasses, intended to reflect the gilding of the upper, or pagoda stages.

The whole body is set in, or supported by four wreathed dragon-like figures, fantastically entwined to answer the purposes of pillars to the pagoda roof, and carved and ornamented in a style of vigour and correctness that would do credit to a European designer: the scaly or body part are oftalc, and the eyes of pale ruby stones.

The interior roof is latticed with small looking-glasses studded with mirrors as on the outside panels: the bottom or flooring of the body is of matted cane, covered with crimson cloth, edged with gold lace, and the under or frame part of the carriage is of matted cane in panels.

The upper part of each face of the body is composed of sash glasses, set in broad gilt frames, to draw up and let down after the European fashion, but without case or lining to protect the glass from fracture when down; the catches to secure them when up are simple and curious, and the strings of these glasses are wove crimson cotton. On the frames of the glasses is much writing in the Burmese character,but the language being utterly unknown in this country, cannot be deciphered; it is supposed to be adulatory sentences to the “golden monarch” seated within.

The body is staid by braces of leather; the springs, which are of iron, richly gilt, differ not from the present fashionable C spring, and allow the carriage an easy and agreeable motion. The steps merely hook on to the outside: it is presumed they were destined to be carried by an attendant; they are light and elegantly formed of gilt metal, with cane threads.

A few years previous to the rupture which placed this carriage in the possession of the British, the governor-general of India, having heard that his Burmese majesty was rathercurious in his carriages, one was sent to him some few years since, by our governor-general, but it failed in exciting his admiration—he said it was not so handsome as his own. Its having lamps rather pleased him, but he ridiculed other parts of it, particularly, that a portion so exposed to being soiled as the steps, should be foldedand put up within side.

The Burmese are yet ignorant of that useful formation of the fore part of the carriage, which enables those of European manufacture to be turned and directed with such facility: the fore part of that now under description, does not admit of a lateral movement of more than four inches, it therefore requires a very extended space in order to bring it completely round.

On a gilt bar before the front of the body, with their heads towards the carriage, stand two Japanese peacocks, a bird which is held sacred by this superstitious people; their figure and plumage are so perfectly represented, as to convey the natural appearance of life; two others to correspond are perched on a bar behind. On the fore part of the frame of the carriage, mounted on a silvered pedestal, in a kneeling position, is thetee-bearer, a small carved image with a lofty golden wand in his hands, surmounted with a small tee, the emblem of sovereignty: he is richly dressed in green velvet, the front laced with jargoon diamonds, with a triple belt round the body, of blue sapphires, emeralds, and jargoon diamonds; his leggings are also embroidered with sapphires. In the front of his cap is a rich cluster of white sapphires encircled with a double star of rubies and emeralds: the cap is likewise thickly studded with the carbuncle, a stone little known to us, but in high estimation with the ancients. Behind the carriage are two figures; their lower limbs are tattooed, as is the custom with the Burmese: from their position, being on one knee, their hands raised and open, and their eyes directed as in the act of firing, they are supposed to have borne a representation of the carbine, or some such fire-arm weapon of defence, indicative of protection.

The pagoda roof constitutes the most beautiful, and is, in short, the onlyimposingornament of the carriage. The gilding is resplendent, and the design and carving of the rich borders which adorn each stage are no less admirable. These borders are studded with amethysts, emeralds, jargoon diamonds, garnets, hyacinths, rubies, tourmalines, and other precious gems, drops of amber and crystal being also interspersed. From every angle ascends a light spiral gilt ornament, enriched with crystals and emeralds.

This pagoda roofing, as well as that of the great imperial palace, and of the state war-boat or barge, bears an exact similitude to the chief sacred temple at Shoemadro. The Burman sovereign, the king of Ava, with every eastern Bhuddish monarch, considers himself sacred, and claims to be worshipped in common with deity itself; so that when enthroned in his palace, or journeying on warlike or pleasurable excursions in his carriage, he becomes an object of idolatry.

The seat or throne for the inside is movable, for the purpose of being taken out and used in council or audience on a journey. It is a low seat of cane-work, richly gilt, folding in the centre, and covered by a velvet cushion. The front is studded with almost every variety of precious stone, disposed and contrasted with the greatest taste and skill. The centre belt is particularly rich in gems, and the rose-like clusters or circles are uniformly composed of what is termed the stones of the orient: viz. pearl, coral, sapphire, cornelian, cat’s-eye, emerald, and ruby. A range of buffalo-horn panels ornament the front and sides of the throne, at each end of which is a recess, for the body of a lion like jos-god figure, called Sing, a mythological lion, very richly carved and gilt; the feet and teeth are of pearl; the bodies are covered with sapphires, hyacinths, emeralds, tourmalines, carbuncles, jargoon diamonds, and rubies; the eyes are of a tri-coloured sapphire. Six smallcarved and gilt figures in a praying or supplicatory attitude, are fixed on each side of the seat of the throne, they may be supposed to be interceding for the mercy or safety of the monarch: their eyes are rubies, their drop ear-rings cornelian, and their hair the light feather of the peacock.

Thechattah, or umbrella, which overshadows the throne, is an emblem or representation of regal authority and power.

It is not to be doubted, that the caparisons of the elephants would equal in splendour the richness of the carriage, but one only of the elephants belonging to the carriage was captured; the caparisons for both are presumed to have escaped with the other animal. It is imagined that the necks of these ponderous beings bore their drivers, with small hooked spears to guide them, and that thecortêgecombined all the great officers of state, priests, and attendants, male and female, besides the imperial body-guard mounted on eighty white elephants.

Among his innumerable titles, the emperor of the Burmans styles himself “king of the white elephant.” Xacca, the founder of Indian idolatry, is affirmed by the Brahmins to have gone through a metampsychosis eighty thousand times, his soul having passed into that number of brutes; that the last was in a white elephant, and that after these changes he was received into the company of the gods, and is now a pagod.

This carriage was taken with the workmen who built it, and all their accounts. From these it appeared, that it had been three years in building, that the gems were supplied from the king’s treasury, or by contribution from the various states, and that the workmen were remunerated by the government. Independent of these items, the expenses were stated in the accounts to have been twenty-five thousand rupees, (three thousand one hundred and twenty-five pounds.) The stones are not less in number than twenty thousand, which its reputed value at Tavoy was a lac of rupees, twelve thousand five hundred pounds.

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