October 8.

music

Playmusic

then, after a pause, they would change to the time of six quavers divided into three quavers and a dotted crotchet, thus:

music

Playmusic

again, after a considerable rest, they would return to common time divided by four semiquavers, one crotchet, four semiquavers and another crotchet, in a bar, thus:

music

Playmusic

always continuing to dance or jump to the same tune for many minutes, and always resting before a change of tune. I once kept a male and a female in one large cage, who performed a peculiar dance together thus; the male jumped sideways, describing a portion of a circle in the air; the female described a portion of a smaller circle concentric with the first, always keeping herself duly under the male, performing her leap precisely in the same time, and grounding her feet in the same moment with him.

While the male moved from A to B, or from B to A, the female moved from C to D, or from D to C, and their eight feet were so critically grounded together, that they gave but one note. I must observe, that this practice of dancing seems to be an expedient to amuse them in their confinement; because, when they are for a time released from their cages, they never dance, but reserve this diversion until they are again immured.”

Mr. Urban’s correspondent continues thus, “no squirrel will lay down what he actually has in his paws, to receive even food which he prefers, but will always eat or hide what he has, before he will accept what is offered to him. Their sagacity in the selection of their food is truly wonderful. I can easily credit what I have been told, that in their winter hoards not one faulty nut is to be found; for I never knew them accept a single nut, when offered to them, which was either decayed or destitute of kernel: some they reject, having only smelt them; but they seem usually to try them by their weight, poising them in their fore-feet. In eating, they hold their food not with their whole fore-feet, but between the inner toes or thumbs. I know not whether any naturalist has observed that their teeth are of a deep orange colour.”

This gentleman, who writes late in the year 1788, proceeds thus, “A squirrel sits by me while I write this, who was born in the spring, 1781, and has been mine near seven years. He is, like Yorick, ‘a whoreson mad fellow—a pestilent knave—a fellow of infinite jest and fancy.’ When he came to me, I had a venerable squirrel, corpulent, and unwieldy with age. The young one agreed well with him from their first introduction, and slept in the same cage with him; but he could never refrain from diverting himself with the old gentleman’s infirmities. It was my custom daily to let them both out on the floor, and then to set the cage on a table, placing a chair near it to help the old squirrel in returning to his home. This was great exercise to the poor old brute; and it was the delight of the young rogue to frustrate his efforts, by suffering him to climb up one bar of the chair, then pursuing him, embracing him round the waist, and pulling him down to the ground; then he would suffer him to reach the second bar, or perhaps the seat of the chair, and afterwards bring him back to the floor as at first. All this was done in sheer fun and frolic, with a look and manner full of inexpressible archness and drollery. The old one could not be seriously angry at it; he never fought or scolded, but gently complained and murmured at his unlucky companion. One day, about an hour after this exercise, the old squirrel was found dead in his cage, his wind and his heart being quite broken by the mischievous wit of his young mess-mate. My present squirrel one day assaulted and bit me without any provocation. To break him of this trick, I pursued him some minutes about the room, stamping and scolding at him, and threatening him with my handkerchief. After this, I continued to let him out daily, but took no notice of him for some months. The coolness was mutual: he neither fled from me, nor attempted to come near me. At length I called him to me: it appeared that he had only waited for me to make the first advance; he threw off his gravity towards me, and ran up on my shoulder. Our reconciliation was cordial and lasting; he has never attempted to bite me since, and there appears no probability of another quarrel between us, though he is every year wonderfully savage and ferocious at the first coming-in of filberts and walnuts. He is frequently suffered to expatiate in my garden; he has never of late attempted to wander beyond it; he always climbs up a very high ash tree, and soonafter returns to his cage, or into the parlour.”

For what this observant writer says ofhares, see the17th dayof the present month.

Indian Chrysanthemum.Chrysanthemum Indicum.Dedicated toSt. Mark, Pope.

St. Bridget,A. D.1373.St. Thais,A. D.348.St. Pelagia, 5th Cent.St. Keyna, 5th or 6th Cent.

Sweet Maudlin.Actillea Ageratum.Dedicated toSt. Bridget.

St. Dionysius, Bp. of Paris, and others,A. D.272.St. Domninus,A. D.304.St. Guislain,A. D.681.St. Lewis Bertrand,A. D.1581.

This is the patron saint of France, and his name stands in our almanacs and in the church of England calendar, as well as in the Romish calendar.

St. Denys.

St. Denys had his head cut off, he did not care for that,He took it up and carried it two miles without his hat.

“The times have been that when the brains were out the man would die;” they were “the times!” Yet, even in those times, except “the Anthrophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders,” men, whose heads grewupontheir shoulders, wore them in that situation during their natural lives until by accident a head was taken off, and then infallibly “the man would die.” But the extraordinary persons called “saints,” were exempt from ordinary fatality: could all their sayings be recorded, we might probably find it was as usual for a decapitated saint to ask, “Won’t you give me my head?” before he walked to be buried, as for an old citizen to call, “Boy, bring me my wig,” before he walked to club.

St. Denys was beheaded with some other martyrs in the neighbourhood of Paris. “They beheaded them,” says the reverend father Ribadeneira, “in that mountain which is at present calledMons Martyrum(Montmartre), the mountain of the martyrs, in memory and honour of them; but after they had martyred them, there happened a wonderful miracle. The body of St. Denys rose upon its feet, and took its own head up in its hands, as if he had triumphed and carried in it the crown and token of its victories. The angels of heaven went accompanying the saint, singing hymns choir-wise, with a celestial harmony and concert, and ended with these words, ‘gloria tibi, Domine alleluia;’ and the saint went with his head in his hands about two miles, till he met with a good woman called Catula, who came out of her house; and the body of St. Denys going to her, it put the head in her hands.” Perhaps this is as great a miracle as any he wrought in his life; yet those which he wrought after his death “were innumerable.” Ribadeneira adds one in favour of pope Stephen, who “fell sick, and was given over by the doctors in the very monastery of St. Denys, which is near Paris; where he had a revelation, and he saw the princes of the apostles, St. Peter, and St. Paul, and St. Denys, who lovingly touched him and gave him perfect health, and this happened in the year of our Lord, 704, upon the 28th of July; and in gratitude for this favour he gave great privileges to that church of St. Denys, and carried with him to Rome certain relics of his holy body, and built a monastery in his honour.”

It appears from an anecdote related by an eminent French physician, that it was believed of St. Denys that he kissed his head while he carried it; and it is equally marvellous that a man was so mad as not to believe it true. The circumstance is thus related:

“A famous watchmaker of Paris, infatuated for a long time with the chimera of perpetual motion, became violently insane, from the overwhelming terror which the storms of the revolution excited. The derangement of his reason was marked with a singular trait. He was persuaded that he had lost his head on the scaffold, and that it was put in a heap with those of many other victims: but that the judges, by a rather too late retraction of their cruel decree, had ordered the heads to be resumed, and to be rejoined to their respective bodies; and he conceived that, by a curious kind of mistake, he had the head of one of his companions placed on his shoulders. He was admitted into the Bicétre, where he was continually complaining of his misfortune, and lamenting the fine teeth and wholesome breath which he had exchanged for those of very different qualities. In a little time, the hopes of discovering the perpetual motion returned; and he was rather encouraged than restrained in his endeavours to effect his object. When he conceived that he had accomplished it, and was in an ecstasy of joy, the sudden confusion of a failure removed his inclination even to resume the subject. He was still, however, possessed with the idea that his head was not his own: but from this notion he was diverted by a repartee made to him, when he happened to be defending the possibility of the miracle of St. Denys, who, it is said, was in the habit of walking with his head between his hands, and in that position continually kissing it. ‘What a fool you are to believe such a story,’ it was replied, with a burst of laughter; ‘How could St. Denys kiss his head? was it with his heels?’ This unanswerable and unexpected retort struck and confounded the madman so much, that it prevented him from saying any thing farther on the subject; he again betook himself to business, and entirely regained his intellects.”[344]

St. Denys, as the great patron of France,is highly distinguished. “France,” says bishop Patrick, “glories in the relics of this saint; yet Baronius tells us, that Ratisbonne in Germany has long contested with them about it, and show his body there; and pope Leo IX. set out a declaration determining that the true body of St Denys was entire at Ratisbonne, wanting only the little finger of his right hand, yet they of Paris ceased not their pretences to it, so that here are two bodies venerated of the same individual saint; and both of them are mistaken if they of Prague have not been cheated, among whose numerous relics I find the arm of St. Denys, the apostle of Paris, reckoned.” The bishop concludes by extracting part of a Latin service, in honour of St. Denys, from the “Roman Missal,”[345]wherein the prominent miracle before alluded to is celebrated in the following words, thus rendered by the bishop into English.—

He fell indeed, but presently arose,The breathless body finds both feet and way,He takes his head in hand, and forward goes,Till the directing angels bid him stay.Well may the church triumphantly proclaimThis martyr’s death, and never dying fame.

Several devotional books contain prints representing St. Denys walking with his head in his hands. One of them, entitled “Le Tableau de la Croix, represente dans les Ceremonies de la Ste.Messe,” consists of a hundred engravings by J. Collin,[346]and from one of them the “lively portraiture” of the saint prefixed to this article is taken.

Milky Agaric.Agaricus lactiflorus.Dedicated toSt. Denis.

[344]Pinel on Insanity.[345]Paris, 1520, folio.[346]Imp. a Paris, 4to.

[344]Pinel on Insanity.

[345]Paris, 1520, folio.

[346]Imp. a Paris, 4to.

St. Francis Borgia,A. D.1572.St. Paulinus, Abp. of York,A. D.644.St. Johnof Bridlington,A. D.1379.

1825.Oxford and Cambridge Terms begin on this day.

AUTUMN.There is a fearful spirit busy now.Already have the elements unfurledTheir banners: the great sea-wave is upcurled:The cloud comes: the fierce winds begin to blowAbout, and blindly on their errands go;And quickly will the pale red leaves be hurledFrom their dry boughs, and all the forest worldStripped of its pride, be like a desert show.I love that moaning music which I hearIn the bleak gusts of autumn, for the soulSeems gathering tidings from another sphere,And, in sublime mysterious sympathy,Man’s bounding spirit ebbs and swells more high,Accordant to the billow’s loftier roll.[347]

AUTUMN.

There is a fearful spirit busy now.Already have the elements unfurledTheir banners: the great sea-wave is upcurled:The cloud comes: the fierce winds begin to blowAbout, and blindly on their errands go;And quickly will the pale red leaves be hurledFrom their dry boughs, and all the forest worldStripped of its pride, be like a desert show.I love that moaning music which I hearIn the bleak gusts of autumn, for the soulSeems gathering tidings from another sphere,And, in sublime mysterious sympathy,Man’s bounding spirit ebbs and swells more high,Accordant to the billow’s loftier roll.[347]

Cape Acetris.Velthemia Viridifolia.Dedicated toSt. Francis Borgia.

[347]Literary Pocket Book

Sts. Tarachus,Probus, andAndronicus,A. D.304.St. Gummar, orGomar,A. D.774.St. Ethelburge, orEdilburge,A. D.664.St. Canicus, orKenny, Abbot in Ireland,A. D.599.

In ancient times, on the festival of this saint, furmity was “an usual dish.”[348]

On this day it was a custom in Hertfordshire for young men to assemble in the fields and choose a leader, whom theywere obliged to follow through ponds and ditches, “over brake and briar.” Every person they met was taken up by the arms and bumped, or swung against another. Each publican furnished a gallon of ale and plum-cake, which was consumed in the open air. This was a septennial custom and calledganging-day.[349]

Holly.Ilex aquifolium.Dedicated toSt. Ethelburge.

[348]Fesbroke’s Ency. of Antiq.[349]Brand.

[348]Fesbroke’s Ency. of Antiq.

[349]Brand.

St. Wilfrid, Bp. of York,A. D.709.

Now come the long evenings with devices for amusing them. In the intervals of recreation there is “work to do.” This word “work” is significant of an employment which astonishes men, and seems never to tire the fingers of their industrious helpmates and daughters; except that, with an expression which we are at a loss to take for either jest or earnest, because it partakes of each, they now and then exclaim, “women’s work is never done!” The assertion is not exactly the fact, but it is not a great way from it. What “man of woman born” ever considered the quantity of stitches in a shirt without fear that a general mutiny among females might leave him “without a shirt to his back?” Cannot an ingenious spinner devise a seamless shirt, with its gussets, and wristbands, and collar, and selvages as durable as hemming? The immense work in a shirt is concealed, and yet happily every “better half” prides herself on thinking that she could never do too much towards making good shirts for her “good man.” Is it not in his power to relieve her from some of this labour? Can he not form himself and friends into a “society of hearts and manufactures,” and get shirts made, as well as washed, by machinery and steam? These inquiries are occasioned by the following

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Sir,

I assure you theEvery-Day Bookis a great favourite among the ladies; and therefore, I send for your insertion a calculation, furnished me by a maiden aunt, of the number of stitches in a plain shirt she made for her grandfather.

Cottenham,Near Cambridge,Sept. 1825.

Wavy Fleabane.Inula undulata.Dedicated toSt. Wilfred.

St. Edward, King and Confessor,A. D.1066.Sts. Faustus,Januarius, andMartialis,A. D.304.Seven Friar Minors, Martyrs,A. D.1221.St. Colman,A. D., 1012.St. Gerald, Count of Aurillac, or Orilhac,A. D.909.

This, in the church of England calendar and almanacs, denotes the day to be a festival to the memory of the removal of his bones or relics, as they are called by the Roman church, from whence the festival is derived.

On the 13th of October, 1754, died atStebbing in Essex, Mr. Jacob Powell. He weighed nearly forty stone, or five hundred and sixty pounds. His body was above five yards in circumference, and his limbs were in proportion. He had sixteen men to carry him to his grave.[350]

Smooth Helenium.Helenium autumnale.Dedicated toSt. Edward.

[350]Gentleman’s Magazine.

St. Calixtus, orCallistus, Pope,A. D.222.St. Donatian, Bp.A. D.389.St. Burckard, 1st Bp. of Wurtsburg,A. D.752.St. Dominic, surnamedLoricatus,A. D.1060.

The year is now declining; “the sear, the yellow leaf” falls, and “dies in October.” There is a moral in every thing to moralizing minds; these indications of wear on the face of the earth, induce moralities on the use and abuse of time.

The Hare and Tortoise.In days of yore, when Time was young,When birds convers’d as well as sung,When use of speech was not confin’dMerely to brutes of human kind,A forward hare, of swiftness vain,The genius of the neighb’ring plain,Would oft deride the drudging crowd:For geniuses are ever proud.He’d boast, his flight ’twere vain to follow,For dog and horse he’d beat them hollow;Nay, if he put forth all his strength,Outstrip his brethren half a length.A tortoise heard his vain oration,And vented thus his indignation:“Oh puss! it bodes thee dire disgrace,When I defy thee to the race.Come, ’tis a match, nay, no denial,I’ll lay my shell upon the trial.”’Twas done and done, all fair, a bet,Judges prepar’d, and distance set.The scamp’ring hare outstript the wind,The creeping tortoise lagg’d behind,And scarce had pass’d a single pole,When puss had almost reach’d the goal.“Friend tortoise,” quoth the jeering hare,“Your burthen’s more than you can bear,To help your speed it were as wellThat I should ease you of your shell:Jog on a little faster, pr’ythee,I’ll take a nap, and then be with thee.”So said, so done, and safely sure,For say, what conquest more secure?Whene’er he walk’d (that’s all that’s in it)He could o’ertake him in a minute.The tortoise heard his taunting jeer,But still resolv’d to persevere,Still drawl’d along, as who should say,I’ll win, like Fabius, by delay;On to the goal securely crept,While puss unknowing soundly slept.The bets were won, the hare awoke,When thus the victor tortoise spoke:“Puss, tho’ I own thy quicker parts,Things are not always done by starts,You may deride my awkward pace,But slow and steady wins the race.”Lloyd.

The Hare and Tortoise.

In days of yore, when Time was young,When birds convers’d as well as sung,When use of speech was not confin’dMerely to brutes of human kind,A forward hare, of swiftness vain,The genius of the neighb’ring plain,Would oft deride the drudging crowd:For geniuses are ever proud.He’d boast, his flight ’twere vain to follow,For dog and horse he’d beat them hollow;Nay, if he put forth all his strength,Outstrip his brethren half a length.A tortoise heard his vain oration,And vented thus his indignation:“Oh puss! it bodes thee dire disgrace,When I defy thee to the race.Come, ’tis a match, nay, no denial,I’ll lay my shell upon the trial.”’Twas done and done, all fair, a bet,Judges prepar’d, and distance set.The scamp’ring hare outstript the wind,The creeping tortoise lagg’d behind,And scarce had pass’d a single pole,When puss had almost reach’d the goal.“Friend tortoise,” quoth the jeering hare,“Your burthen’s more than you can bear,To help your speed it were as wellThat I should ease you of your shell:Jog on a little faster, pr’ythee,I’ll take a nap, and then be with thee.”So said, so done, and safely sure,For say, what conquest more secure?Whene’er he walk’d (that’s all that’s in it)He could o’ertake him in a minute.The tortoise heard his taunting jeer,But still resolv’d to persevere,Still drawl’d along, as who should say,I’ll win, like Fabius, by delay;On to the goal securely crept,While puss unknowing soundly slept.The bets were won, the hare awoke,When thus the victor tortoise spoke:“Puss, tho’ I own thy quicker parts,Things are not always done by starts,You may deride my awkward pace,But slow and steady wins the race.”

A tortoise heard his vain oration,And vented thus his indignation:“Oh puss! it bodes thee dire disgrace,When I defy thee to the race.Come, ’tis a match, nay, no denial,I’ll lay my shell upon the trial.”’Twas done and done, all fair, a bet,Judges prepar’d, and distance set.

The scamp’ring hare outstript the wind,The creeping tortoise lagg’d behind,And scarce had pass’d a single pole,When puss had almost reach’d the goal.“Friend tortoise,” quoth the jeering hare,“Your burthen’s more than you can bear,To help your speed it were as wellThat I should ease you of your shell:Jog on a little faster, pr’ythee,I’ll take a nap, and then be with thee.”So said, so done, and safely sure,For say, what conquest more secure?Whene’er he walk’d (that’s all that’s in it)He could o’ertake him in a minute.

The tortoise heard his taunting jeer,But still resolv’d to persevere,Still drawl’d along, as who should say,I’ll win, like Fabius, by delay;On to the goal securely crept,While puss unknowing soundly slept.

The bets were won, the hare awoke,When thus the victor tortoise spoke:“Puss, tho’ I own thy quicker parts,Things are not always done by starts,You may deride my awkward pace,But slow and steady wins the race.”

Lloyd.

Indian Fleabane.Inula Indica.Dedicated toSt. Calixtus.

St. Teresa, Virgin,A. D.1582.St. Tecla, Abbess.St. Hospicius, orHospis,A. D.580.

A contemporary kalendarian[351]appears to be an early smoker and a keen sportsman. He says, “From having constantly amused ourselves with our pipe early in the morning, we have discovered and are enabled to point out an almost infallible method of judging of good scent. When the tobacco smoke seems to hang lazily in the air, scarcely sinking or rising, or moving from the place where it is emitted from the pipe, producing at the same time a strong smell, which lasts some time in the same place after the smoke is apparently dispersed, we may on that day be sure that the scent will lay well. We have seldom known this rule to deceive; but it must be remembered that the state of the air will sometimes change in the course of the day, and that the scent will drop all of a sudden, and thus throw the hounds all out, and break off the chase abruptly. For as Sommerville says:—

Thus on on the airDepend the hunter’s hopes. When ruddy streaksAt eve forebode a blustering stormy day,Or lowering clouds blacken the mountain’s brow,When nipping frosts, and the keen biting blastsOf the dry parching east, menace the treesWith tender blossoms teeming, kindly spareThy sleeping pack, in their warm beds of strawLow sinking at their ease; listless they shrinkInto some dark recess, nor hear thy voiceThought oft invoked; or haply if thy callRouse up the slumbering tribe, with heavy eyesGlazed, lifeless, dull, downward they drop their tailsInverted; high on their bent backs erectTheir pointed bristles stare, or ’mong the tuftsOf ranker weeds, each stomach-healing plantCurious they crop, sick, spiritless, forlorn.These inauspicious days, on other caresEmploy thy precious hours.”

Sweet Sultan.Centaurea moschi.Dedicated toSt. Teresa.

[351]Dr. Forster.

St. Gall, Abbot,A. D.646.St. Lullus, orLullon, Abp.,A. D.787.St. Mummolin, orMommolin, Bp.A. D.665.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Sir,

Ascension-day, whereon there is a remarkable annual custom in maintenance of a tenure, has passed, but as it originated from a circumstance on the 16th of October, you can introduce it on that day, and it will probably be informing as well as amusing to the majority of readers. The narrative is derived from a tract formerly published at Whitby. I am, &c.

Wentana Civis.

On this day in the fifth year of the reign of king Henry II. after the conquest of England, (1140,) by William, duke of Normandy, the lord ofUglebarnby, then called William de Bruce, the lord of Snaynton, called Ralph de Percy, and a gentleman freeholder called Allotson, did meet to hunt the wild boar, in a certain wood or desert, called Eskdale side; the wood or place did belong to the abbot of the monastery of Whitby in Yorkshire, who was then called Sedman, and abbot of the said place.

Then, the aforesaid gentlemen did meet with their hounds and boar-staves in the place aforesaid, and there found a great wild boar; and the hounds did run him very hard, near the chapel and hermitage of Eskdale side, where there was a monk of Whitby, who was an hermit; and the boar being so hard pursued, took in at the chapel door, and there laid him down, and died immediately, and the hermit shut the hounds out of the chapel, and kept himself at his meditation and prayers; the hounds standing at bay without, the gentlemen in the thick of the wood, put behind their game, in following the cry of the hounds, came to the hermitage and found the hounds round the chapel; then came the gentlemen to the door of the chapel, and called on the hermit, who did open the door, and then they got forth, and within lay the boar dead, for which the gentlemen, in a fury, because their hounds were put out of their game, run at the hermit with their boar-staves, whereof he died; then the gentlemen knowing, and perceiving that he was in peril of death, took sanctuary at Scarborough; but at that time, the abbot, being in great favour with the king, did remove them out of the sanctuary, whereby they became in danger of the law, and not privileged, but like to have the severity of the law, which was death. But the hermit being a holy man, and being very sick and at the point of death, sent for the abbot, and desired him to send for the gentlemen, who had wounded him to death; so doing, the gentlemen came, and the hermit being sick, said, “I am sureto die of these wounds:” but the abbot answered, “They shall die for it,” but the hermit said, “Not so, for I will freely forgive them my death, if they are content to be enjoined this penalty (penance) for the safeguard of their souls;” the gentlemen being there present, bid him enjoin what he would, so he saved their lives: then said the hermit, “you and yours shall hold your land of the abbot of Whitby, and his successors in this manner: that uponAscension-day Even, you or some of you shall come to the wood ofStrayheads, which is in Eskdale side, and the same (Ascension-day) at sun rising, and there shall the officer of the abbot blow his horn, to the intent that you may know how to find him, and deliver unto you William de Bruce, ten stakes, eleven street stowers, and eleven yadders, to be cut with a knife of a penny price; and you Ralph de Percy, shall take one and twenty of each sort, to be cut in the same manner; and you Allotson, shall take nine of each sort to be cut as aforesaid, and to be taken on your backs, and carried to the town of Whitby, and to be there before nine o’clock of the same day before mentioned; and at the hour of nine o’clock, if it be full sea, to cease their service, as long as till it be low water, and at nine o’clock of the same day, each of you shall set your stakes at the brim of the water, each stake a yard from another, and so yadder them with your yadders, and to stake them on each side, with street stowers, that they stand three tides, without removing by the force of the water; each of you shall make at that hour in every year, except it be full sea at that hour, which when it shall happen to come to pass, the service shall cease: you shall do this to remember that you did slay me; and that you may the better call to God for mercy, repent yourselves, and do good works. The officer of Eskdale side, shall blow,Out on you! out on you! out on you!for this heinous crime of yours. If you or your successors refuse this service, so long as it shall not be a full sea, at the hour aforesaid, you or your’s shall forfeit all your land to the abbot or his successors; this I do entreat, that you may have your lives, and goods for this service, and you to promise by your parts in heaven, that it shall be done by you and your successors, as it is aforesaid:” and then the abbot said, “I grant all that you have said, and will confirm it by the faith of an honest man.” Then the hermit said, “My soul longeth for the Lord, and I as freely forgive these gentlemen my death, as Christ forgave the thief upon the cross;” and in the presence of the abbot and the rest, he said moreover these words, “In manus tuas, Domine commendo spiritum meum, à vinculis enim mortis redimisti me, Domine veritatis,” (Into thy hands O Lord I recommend my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me from the bonds of death O Lord of Truth,) and the abbot and the rest said “Amen,” and so yielded up the ghost the eighth day of December, upon whose soul God have mercy. Anno Domini, 1160.[352]

N. B. This service is still annually performed.

Yarrow.Achillæ multifolium.Dedicated toSt. Gall.

[352]Blount by Beckwith.

St. Hedwiges, orAvoice, duchess of Poland,A. D.1243,St. Anstrudis, orAnstru,A. D.688.St. Andrewof Crete,A. D.761.

She was daughter of Annas, king of the East Angles, and born about 630, at Ixning, formerly a town of note on the western border of Suffolk, next Cambridgeshire. At Coldingham Abbey, Yorkshire, she took the veil under Ebba, daughter of king Ethelfrida, an abbess, afterwards celebrated for having saved herself and her nuns from the outrage of the Danes by mutilating their faces; the brutal invaders enclosed them in their convent and destroyed them by fire.

Notwithstanding Etheldreda’s vow to remain a nun, she was twice forced by her parents to marry, and yet maintained her vow; hence she is styled, in the Romish breviaries, “twice a widow and always a virgin.” On the death of her first husband Tonbert, a nobleman of the East Angles, the isle of Ely became her sole property by jointure, and she founded a convent, and the convent church there; and for their maintenance endowed them with the whole island. She married her second husband Egfrid, king of Northumberland, on the death of Tonbert, in 671, but persisted in her vow, and died abbess of her convent on the 23d of June, 679. On the 17th of October, sixteen years afterwards, her relics were translated, and therefore on this day her festival is commemorated. In 870, the Danes made a descent on the isle of Ely, destroyed the convent and slaughtered the inhabitants. By abbreviation her name became corrupted to Auldrey and Audrey.[353]

As at the annual fair in the isle of Ely, called St. Audrey’s fair, “much ordinary but showy lace was usually sold to the country lasses, St. Audrey’s lace soon became proverbial, and from that causeTaudry, a corruption of St. Audrey, was established as a common expression to denote not only lace, but any other part of female dress, which was much more gaudy in appearance than warranted by its real quality and value.” This is the assertion of Mr. Brady, in his “Clavis Calendaria,” who, for aught that appears to the contrary, gives the derivation of the word as his own conjecture, but Mr. Archdeacon Nares, in his admirable “Glossary,” shows the meaning to have been derived from Harpsfield, “an old English historian,” who refers to the appellation, and “makes St. Audrey die of a swelling in her throat, which she considered as a particular judgment, for having been in her youth much addicted to wearing fine necklaces.” There is not now any grounds to doubt thattawdrycomes from St. Audrey. It was so derived in Dr. Johnson’s “Dictionary” before Mr. Todd’s edition. Dr. Ash deemed the word of “uncertain etymology.”

The pleasant correspondent of Mr. Urban, whoseaccountof his squirrels is introduced on theseventh dayof the present month, was induced, by Mr. Cowper’s experience in the management of his hares, to procure ahareabout three weeks old. “The little creature,” he says, “at first pined for his dam, and his liberty, and refused food. In a few days I prevailed with him to take some milk from my lips, and this is still his favourite method of drinking. Soon after, observing that he greedily lapped sweet things, I dipped a cabbage-leaf in honey, and thus tempted him to eat the first solid food he ever tasted. I beg leave to add to Mr Cowper’s bill of fare, nuts, walnuts, pears, sweet cakes of all kinds, sea biscuits, sugar, and, above all, apple-pie. Every thing which is hard and crisp seems to be particularly relished.—The iris of the hare is very beautiful; it has the appearance of the gills of a young mushroom, seeming to consist of very delicate fibres, disposed like radii issuing from a common centre. I shall be glad to be informed by any person, skilled in anatomy, whether this structure of the iris be not of use to enable the eye to bear the constant action of the light; as it is a common opinion that this animal sleeps, even in the day-time, with its eyes open. I have observed, likewise, that the fur of the hare is more strongly electrical than the hair of any other animal. If you apply the point of a finger to his side in frosty weather, the hairs are immediately strongly attracted towards it from all points, and closely embrace the finger on every side.”

It should be added from this agreeable writer, as regards thesquirrel, that he was much surprised at the great advantage the little animal derives from his extended tail, which brings his body so nearly to an equipoise with the air, as to render a leap or fall from the greatest height perfectly safe to him. “My squirrel has more than once leaped from the window of the second story, and alighted on stone steps, or on hard gravel, without suffering any inconvenience. But I should be glad to have confirmation, from an eye-witness, of what Mr. Pennant relates on the credit of Linnæus, Klein, Rzaczinski, and Scheffer, viz. that a squirrel sometimes crosses a river on a piece of bark by way of boat, using his tail as a sail. Not less astonishing is the undaunted courage of these little brutes: they seem sometimes resolved to conquer as it were, by reflection and fortitude, their natural instinctive fears. I have often known a squirrel tremble and scream at the first sight of a dog or cat, and yet, within a few minutes, after several abortive attempts, summon resolution enough to march up and smell at the very nose of his gigantic enemy. These approaches he always makes by short abrupt leaps, stamping the ground with his feet as loud as he can; his whole mien and countenance most ridiculously expressive of ancient Pistol’s affected valour and intrepidity.”

Be it remembered, that C. L. comes here and represents his relations; that is to say, on behalf of the recollections, being the next of kin, of him, the said C. L., and of sundry persons who are “aye treading” in the manner of squirrels aforesaid; and thus he saith:—

For the Every-Day Book.

What is gone with the Cages with the climbing Squirrel and bells to them, which were formerly the indispensable appendage to the outside of a Tinman’s shop, and were in fact the only Live Signs? One, we believe, still hangs out on Holborn; but they are fast vanishing with the good old modes of our ancestors. They seem to have been superseded by that still more ingenious refinement of modern humanity—the Tread-mill; in whichhumanSquirrels still perform a similar round of ceaseless, improgressive clambering; which must be nuts to them.

We almost doubt the fact of the teeth of this creature being so purely orange-coloured, as Mr. Urban’s correspondent gives out. One of our old poets—and they were pretty sharp observers of nature—describes them as brown. But perhaps the naturalist referred to meant “of the colour of a Maltese orange,”[354]which is rather more obfuscated than your fruit of Seville, or Saint Michael’s; and may help to reconcile the difference. We cannot speak from observation, but we remember at school getting our fingers into the orangery of one of these little gentry (not having a due caution of the traps set there), and the result proved sourer than lemons. The Author of the Task somewhere speaks of their anger as being “insignificantly fierce,” but we found the demonstration of it on this occasion quite as significant as we desired; and have not been disposed since to look any of these “gift horses” in the mouth. Maiden aunts keep these “small deer” as they do parrots, to bite people’s fingers, on purpose to give them good advice “not to venture so near the cage another time.” As for their “six quavers divided into three quavers and a dotted crotchet,” I suppose, they may go into Jeremy Bentham’s next budget of Fallacies, along with the “melodious and proportionable kinde of musicke,” recorded in your last number of another highly gifted animal.[355]

C. L.

Tenleaved Sunflower.Helianthus decapetalus.Dedicated toSt. Anstrudis.

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