October 21.

autumn dress

And here as suitable to the season may be subjoined some lines by a correspondent.

Autumnal Feelings.For the Every-Day Book.The flowers are gone, the trees are bare,There is a chillness in the air,A damp that in the spirit sinks,Till the shudd’ring heart within me shrinks:Cold and slow the clouds roll past,And wat’ry drops come with the blastThat moans, amid the poplars tall,A dirge for the summer’s funeral.Every bird to his home has gone,Save one that loves to sing aloneThe robin;—in yon ruin’d treeHe warbles sweetly, mournfullyHis shrill note comes upon the wind,Like a sound of an unearthly kind;He mourns the loss of his sunny bowers,And the silent haunts of happy hours.There he sits like a desolate thing,With a dabbled breast and a dripping wing,He has seen his latent joys decline,Yet his heart is lighter far than mine;His task is o’er—his duty done,His strong-wing’d race on the wind have gone,He has nothing left to brood upon;He has still the hope of a friendly crumbWhen the wintry snow over earth shall come,And a shelter from the biting wind,And the welcome looks of faces kind.I wander here amid the blast,And a dreary look I backward cast;The best of my years I feel are fled,And I look to the coming time with dreadMy heart in a desert land has been,Where the flower of hope alone was green;And little in life’s decline have ITo expect from kindred’s sympathy.Like the leaves now whirl’d from yonder spray,The dreams I have cherish’d day by day,On the wings of sorrow pass away.Yet I despair not—time will bringTo the plumeless bird a new bright wing,A warmer breeze to the now chill’d flower,And to those who mourn a lighter hour;A gay green leaf to the faded tree,And happier days, I trust, to me.‘Twas best that the weeds of sorrow sprungWith my heart’s few flowers, while yet ’twas young,They can the sooner be destroy’d,And happiness fill their dreary void.S. R. J.

Autumnal Feelings.For the Every-Day Book.

The flowers are gone, the trees are bare,There is a chillness in the air,A damp that in the spirit sinks,Till the shudd’ring heart within me shrinks:Cold and slow the clouds roll past,And wat’ry drops come with the blastThat moans, amid the poplars tall,A dirge for the summer’s funeral.Every bird to his home has gone,Save one that loves to sing aloneThe robin;—in yon ruin’d treeHe warbles sweetly, mournfullyHis shrill note comes upon the wind,Like a sound of an unearthly kind;He mourns the loss of his sunny bowers,And the silent haunts of happy hours.There he sits like a desolate thing,With a dabbled breast and a dripping wing,He has seen his latent joys decline,Yet his heart is lighter far than mine;His task is o’er—his duty done,His strong-wing’d race on the wind have gone,He has nothing left to brood upon;He has still the hope of a friendly crumbWhen the wintry snow over earth shall come,And a shelter from the biting wind,And the welcome looks of faces kind.I wander here amid the blast,And a dreary look I backward cast;The best of my years I feel are fled,And I look to the coming time with dreadMy heart in a desert land has been,Where the flower of hope alone was green;And little in life’s decline have ITo expect from kindred’s sympathy.Like the leaves now whirl’d from yonder spray,The dreams I have cherish’d day by day,On the wings of sorrow pass away.Yet I despair not—time will bringTo the plumeless bird a new bright wing,A warmer breeze to the now chill’d flower,And to those who mourn a lighter hour;A gay green leaf to the faded tree,And happier days, I trust, to me.‘Twas best that the weeds of sorrow sprungWith my heart’s few flowers, while yet ’twas young,They can the sooner be destroy’d,And happiness fill their dreary void.

Every bird to his home has gone,Save one that loves to sing aloneThe robin;—in yon ruin’d treeHe warbles sweetly, mournfullyHis shrill note comes upon the wind,Like a sound of an unearthly kind;He mourns the loss of his sunny bowers,And the silent haunts of happy hours.

There he sits like a desolate thing,With a dabbled breast and a dripping wing,He has seen his latent joys decline,Yet his heart is lighter far than mine;His task is o’er—his duty done,His strong-wing’d race on the wind have gone,He has nothing left to brood upon;He has still the hope of a friendly crumbWhen the wintry snow over earth shall come,And a shelter from the biting wind,And the welcome looks of faces kind.

I wander here amid the blast,And a dreary look I backward cast;The best of my years I feel are fled,And I look to the coming time with dreadMy heart in a desert land has been,Where the flower of hope alone was green;And little in life’s decline have ITo expect from kindred’s sympathy.Like the leaves now whirl’d from yonder spray,The dreams I have cherish’d day by day,On the wings of sorrow pass away.

Yet I despair not—time will bringTo the plumeless bird a new bright wing,A warmer breeze to the now chill’d flower,And to those who mourn a lighter hour;A gay green leaf to the faded tree,And happier days, I trust, to me.‘Twas best that the weeds of sorrow sprungWith my heart’s few flowers, while yet ’twas young,They can the sooner be destroy’d,And happiness fill their dreary void.

S. R. J.

Mean Temperature 50·77.

[390]The London Magazine.

In a dreadful engagement off Cape Trafalgar, on the 21st of October, 1805, between the English fleet, consisting of twenty-seven sail of the line and four frigates, and the combined fleets of France and Spain, consisting of thirty-three sail and seven frigates, which lasted four hours, twenty sail of the enemy were sunk or destroyed, and the French commander-in-chief, (admiral Villeneuve,) with two Spanish admirals, were made prisoners. The gallant Nelson was wounded about the middle of the action, and died nearly at its close.—“Thus terminated the brilliant career of our peerlessNaval Hero, who was, beyond dispute, preeminent in courage, in a department of the British service where all our countrymen are proverbially courageous: who, to unrivalled courage, united skill equally conspicuous and extraordinary; who, in consequence of these rare endowments, never led on our fleets to battle that he did not conquer; and whose name was a tower of strength to England, and a terror to herfoes.”[391]

Mean Temperature 50·62.

[391]Butler’s Chronological Exercises.

In October, 1735, a child of James and Elizabeth Leesh, of Chester-le-street, in the county of Durham, wasplayed for at cards, at the sign of the Salmon, one game, four shillings against the child, by Henry and John Trotter, Robert Thomson, and Thomas Ellison, which was won by the latter, and delivered to themaccordingly.[392]

Mean Temperature 49·97.

The Roman Station at Pancras.Cæsar’s Camp, called the Brill.

Enlarged illustration(270 kB).

Aformer noticeof some antiquities in this vicinity, seems to have occasioned the subjoined article on similar remains. Its initials will be recognised as those of a correspondent, whose communications have been acceptable, and read with interest.

Sir,—In the ninetieth number of yourEvery-Day Book, (the present volume,col. 1197-1204,) a very interesting article appeared on the subject of the Roman remains near Pentonville, and thinking you may be inclined to acquaint your readers with “Cæsar’s Camp” at St. Pancras, situate near the old church, which are likely in the course of a short time to be entirely destroyed by the rage for improvement in that neighbourhood, I forward you the following particulars.

The only part at present visible is the prætorium of Cæsar, which may be seen in thedrawingthat accompanies this, but the ditch is now nearly filled up. I visited the spot about a week ago, and can therefore vouch for its existence up to that time, but every thing around it begins to bear a very different aspect to what it did about two years back, when my attention was particularly called to the spot from having read Dr. Stukeley’s remarks on the subject. At that time I was able to trace several other vestiges, which are entirely destroyed by the ground having been since dug up for the purpose of making bricks.

The following extracts are taken from the second volume of Dr. Stukeley’s “Itinerary.” Theplanof the camp is taken from the same work. I shall feel pleasure if you will call attention to it, as you have already to the Roman remains at Pentonville.

I am, Sir, yours respectfully,S. G.

October 9, 1826.

October, 1758.

Cæsar’s camp was situate where Pancras church is—his prætorium is still very plain—over against the church, in the footpath on the west side of the brook; the vallum and the ditch visible; its breadth from east to west forty paces, its length from north to south sixty paces. When I came attentively to consider the situation of it, and the circumjacent ground, I easily discerned the traces of his whole camp. A great many ditches or divisions of the pastures retain footsteps of the plan of the camp, agreeable to their usual form, as in the plate engraved; and whenever I take a walk thither, I enjoy a visionary scene of the whole camp of Cæsar as described in the plate before us; a scene just as if beheld, and Cæsar present.

His army consisted of forty thousand men. Four legions with his horse. The camp is in length five hundred paces—the thirty paces beyond, for the way between the tents and vallum, (where a vallum is made,) amounts to five hundred and sixty; so that the proportion of length to breadth is as three to two.

This space of ground was sufficient for Cæsar’s army according to Roman discipline, for if he had forty thousand men, a third part of them were upon guard.

The front of the camp is bounded by a spring with a little current of water running from the west, across the Brill, into the Fleet brook. This Brill was the occasion of the road directly from the city, originally going alongside the brook by Bagnigge; the way to Highgate being at first by Copenhagen-house, which is straight road thither from Gray’s-inn-lane.

This camp has the brook running quite through the middle of it: it arises from seven springs on the south side of the hill between Hampstead and Highgate by Caen wood, where it forms several large ponds, passes by here by the name of Fleet, washes the west side of the city of London, and gives name to Fleet-street. This brook was formerly called the river of wells, from the many springs above, which our ancestors called wells; and it may be thought to have been more considerable in former times than at present, for now the major part of its water is carried off in pipes to furnish Kentish-town, Pancras, and Tottenham-court; but even now in great rains the valley is covered over with water. Go a quarter of a mile higher towards Kentish-town and you may have a just notion of its appearance at that place, only with this difference, that it is there broader and deeper from the current of so many years. It must further be considered that the channel of this brook through so many centuries, and by its being made the public north road from London to Highgate, is very much loweredand widened since Cæsar’s time. It was then no sort of embarrassment to the camp, but an admirable convenience for watering, being contained in narrow banks not deep. The breadth and length are made by long tract of time. The ancient road by Copenhagen wanting repair, induced passengers to make this gravelly valley become much larger than in Cæsar’s time. The old division runs along that road between Finsbury and Holborn division, going in a straight line from Gray’s-inn-lane to Highgate: its antiquity is shown in its name—Madan-lane.

The recovery of this noble antiquity will give pleasure to a British antiquary, especially an inhabitant of London, whereof it is a singular glory. It renders the walk over the beautiful fields to the Brill doubly agreeable, when at half a mile distance we can tread in the very steps of the Roman camp master, and of the greatest of the Roman generals.

We need not wonder that the traces of this camp so near the metropolis are so nearly worn out; we may rather wonder that so much is left, when a proper sagacity in these matters may discern them, and be assured that somewhat more than three or four sorry houses are commemorated under the name of the Brill, (now called Brill-place-Terrace;) nor is it unworthy of remark, as an evident confirmation of our system, that all the ditches and fences now upon the ground, have a manifest respect to the principal members of the original plan of the camp.

In this camp Cæsar made the two British kings friends—Casvelham and his nephew Mandubrace.

I judge I have performed my promise in giving an account of this greatest curiosity, so illustrious a monument of the greatest of the Roman generals, which has withstood the waste of time for more than eighteen centuries, and passed unnoticed but half a mile off the metropolis. I shall only add this observation, that when I came to survey this plot of ground to make a map of it by pacing, I found every where even and great numbers, and what I have often formerly observed in Roman works; whence we may safely affirm the Roman camp master laid out his works bypacing.[393]

With the hope that the preceding article may draw attention to the subject, the editor defers remark till he has been favoured with communications from other hands.

The following lines were written by an old and particular friend of the erudite individual who receivedthem:—

To Richard Gough, Esq.O tu severi Religio loci!Hail, genius of this littered study!Or tell what name you most delight inFor sure where all the ink is muddy,And no clean margin left to write in,No common deity resides.We see, we feel thy power divine,In every tattered folio’s dust,Each mangled manuscript is thine,And thine the antique helmet’s rust.Nor less observed thy power presidesWhere plundered brasses crowd the floor,Or dog’s-eared drawings burst their bindingHid by Confusion’s puzzling doorBeyond the reach of mortal finding.Than if beneath a costly roofEach moulding edged by golden fillet,The Russian binding, insect proof,Blushed at the foppery of ———Give me, when tired by dust and sun,If rightly I thy name invoke,The bustle of the town to shun,And breathe unvext by city smoke.But, ah! if from these cobwebbed walls,And from this moth-embroidered cushion,Too fretful Fortune rudely calls,Resolved the cares of life to push on—Give me at least to pass my ageAt ease in some book-tapestried cell,Where I may turn the pictured page,Nor start at visitants’ loudbell.[394]

To Richard Gough, Esq.O tu severi Religio loci!

Hail, genius of this littered study!Or tell what name you most delight inFor sure where all the ink is muddy,And no clean margin left to write in,No common deity resides.We see, we feel thy power divine,In every tattered folio’s dust,Each mangled manuscript is thine,And thine the antique helmet’s rust.Nor less observed thy power presidesWhere plundered brasses crowd the floor,Or dog’s-eared drawings burst their bindingHid by Confusion’s puzzling doorBeyond the reach of mortal finding.Than if beneath a costly roofEach moulding edged by golden fillet,The Russian binding, insect proof,Blushed at the foppery of ———Give me, when tired by dust and sun,If rightly I thy name invoke,The bustle of the town to shun,And breathe unvext by city smoke.But, ah! if from these cobwebbed walls,And from this moth-embroidered cushion,Too fretful Fortune rudely calls,Resolved the cares of life to push on—Give me at least to pass my ageAt ease in some book-tapestried cell,Where I may turn the pictured page,Nor start at visitants’ loudbell.[394]

[392]Sykes’s Local Records, p. 79.[393]Dr. Stukeley’s Itinerary.[394]Dr. Porster’s Perennial Calendar.

[392]Sykes’s Local Records, p. 79.

[393]Dr. Stukeley’s Itinerary.

[394]Dr. Porster’s Perennial Calendar.

St. Surin, or St. Severin, which is his proper name, is a saint held in great veneration at Bordeaux; he is considered as one of the great patrons of the town. It was his native place, but he deserted it for a time to go and preach the gospel at Cologne. When he returned, St. Amand, then bishop of Bordeaux, went out with a solemn procession of the clergy to meet him, and, as he had been warned to do in a vision, resigned his bishopric to him, which St. Surin continued to enjoyas long as he lived. St. Amand continued at Bordeaux as a private person; but surviving St. Surin, he was at his death restored to the station from which he had descended with so much gentleness and resignation. It is among the traditions of the church of St. Surin at Bordeaux, that the cemetery belonging to it was “consecrated by Jesus Christ himself, accompanied by seven bishops, who were afterwards canonized, and were the founders of the principal churches inAquitaine.”[395]

On an oval marble in Egham church, Surrey, are the following lines written by David Garrick, to the memory of the Reverend Mr. Thomas Beighton who was vicar of that church forty-five years, and died on the 23d of October, 1771, aged 73.

Epitaph.Near half an age, with every good man’s praise,Among his flock the shepherd passed his days;The friend, the comfort, of the sick and poor,Want never knock’d unheeded at his door.Oft when his duty call’d, disease and painStrove to confine him, but they strove in vain.All mourn his death: his virtues long they try’d:They knew not how they lov’d him till he died.Peculiar blessings did his life attend:He had no foe, andCamdenwas his friend.

Epitaph.

Near half an age, with every good man’s praise,Among his flock the shepherd passed his days;The friend, the comfort, of the sick and poor,Want never knock’d unheeded at his door.Oft when his duty call’d, disease and painStrove to confine him, but they strove in vain.All mourn his death: his virtues long they try’d:They knew not how they lov’d him till he died.Peculiar blessings did his life attend:He had no foe, andCamdenwas his friend.

Mean Temperature 48·00.

[395]Miss Plumptre.

For the Every-Day Book.

“Vat’s thetime, Villiam?”“Kevarter arterseven.”

The “Mirror of the Months” seems to reflect every object to the reader’s eye; but not having read more of that work than by extract, in theEvery-Day Book, I think an addendum,par hazard, may not be without truth and interest.

Rise early,—be abroad,—and after you have inspired sufficient fog to keep you coughing all day, you will see Jewboys and girls with their fathers and mothers veering forth from the purlieus of Houndsditch with sweetmeats, “ten a penny!” which information is sung, or said, ten thousand times before sunset. Now Irishmen, (except there be a fight in Copenhagen fields,) and women, are hurrying to and from mass, and the poorest creatures sit near the chapels, with all their own infants, and those of others, to excite pity, and call down the morning smile of charity.—Now newsboys come along the Strand with damp sheets of intelligence folded under their arms in a greasy, dirty piece of thick (once) brown paper, or a suitable envelope of leather. Now water-cress women, or rather girls, with chubby babies hanging on one arm, and a flat basket suspended from the shoulder by a strap, stand at their station-post, near the pump, at a corner of thestreet.[396]Now mechanics in aprons, with unshorn, unwashed faces, take their birds, dogs, and pipes, towards the fields, which, with difficulty, they find. Now the foot and horse-guards are preparing for parade in the parks—coaches are being loaded by passengers, dressed for “a few miles out of town”—the doors of liquor-shops are in motion—prayers at St. Paul’s and Westminster are responded by choristers,—crowds of the lower orders create discord by the interference of the officious street-keeper—and the “Angel” and “Elephant and Castle” are surrounded by jaunty company, arriving and departing with horses reeking before the short- and long-stage coaches.—Now the pious missionary drops religious tracts in the local stands of hackney coachmen, and paths leading to the metropolis.—Now nuts and walnuts slip-shelled are heaped in a basket with some dozens of the finest cracked, placed at the top, as specimens of the whole:—bullace, bilberries, sliced cocoa-nuts, apples, pears, damsons, blackberries, and oranges are glossed and piled for sale soimposingly, that no eye can escape them.—Now fruiterers’ and druggists’ windows, like six days’ mourning, are half shuttered.—Now the basket and bell pass your house with muffins andcrumpets.[397]—Placards are hung from newsvenders’, at whose taking appearances, gossips stand to learn the fate of empires, during the lapse of hebdomadal warfare.—Now beggars carry the broom, and the great thoroughfares are in motion, and geese and game are sent to the rich, and the poor cheapen at the daring butcher’s shop, for a scrag of mutton to keep company in the pot with the carrots and turnips.—Now the Israelites’ little sheds are clothed with apparel, near which “a Jew’s eye” is watching to catch the wants of the necessitous that purchase at second-hand.—Now eels are sold in sand at the bridges, and steam-boats loiter about wharfs and stairs to take up stray people for Richmond and the Eel-pie house.—The pedestrian advocate now unbags his sticks and spreads them in array against a quiet, but public wall.—Chesnuts are just coming in, and biscuits and cordials are handed amongst the coldstreams relieving guard at Old Palace Yard, where the bands play favourite pieces enclosed by ranks and files of military men, and crowds of all classes and orders.—Now the bells are chiming for church,—dissenters and methodists are hastening to worship—baker’s counters are being covered with laden dishes and platters—quakers are silently seated in their meetings,—and a few sailors are surveying the stupendous dome of St. Paul’s, under which the cathedral service is performing on the inside of closed iron gates.—Now the beadle searches public-houses with the blinds let down.—Now winter patterns, great coats, tippets, muffs, cloaks and pelisses are worn, and many a thinly-clad carmelite shivers along the streets. With many variations, the “Sunday Morning” passes away; and then artizans are returning from their rustication, and servants are waiting with cloths on their arms for the treasures of the oven—people are seeking home from divine worship with appetites and purple noses—‘beer’ is echoed in every circle,—andpost meridianassumes new features, as gravities and gaieties, in proportion to the weather, influence the cosmopolitan thermometer.

*, *, P.

Mean Temperature 48·47.

[396]This is the only month in the year in which water-cresses are without spawn.[397]In Bath, beforeSally Lunnswere so fashionable, (theiroriginI shall shortly acquaint you with)muffinswere cried with a song,beginning—“Don’t you know the muffin man?Don’t you know his name?And don’t you know the muffin-manThat lives in Bridewell-lane? &c.”I reply, yes, I did know him, and a facetious little short fellow he was, with a face as pocked as his crumpets; but his civility gained him friends and competence,—virtue’s just reward.

[396]This is the only month in the year in which water-cresses are without spawn.

[397]In Bath, beforeSally Lunnswere so fashionable, (theiroriginI shall shortly acquaint you with)muffinswere cried with a song,beginning—

“Don’t you know the muffin man?Don’t you know his name?And don’t you know the muffin-manThat lives in Bridewell-lane? &c.”

I reply, yes, I did know him, and a facetious little short fellow he was, with a face as pocked as his crumpets; but his civility gained him friends and competence,—virtue’s just reward.

On this, the festival day of St. Crispin, enough has been alreadysaid[398]to show that it is the great holyday of the numerous brotherhood of cordwainers. The latter name they derive from their working in Spanish leather manufactured at Cordovan; their cordovan-ing has softened down into cordwaining.

The business of a shoemaker is of great antiquity. The instrument for cleaning hides, the shoemaker’s bristles added to the yarn, and his knife, were as early as the twelfth century. He was accustomed to hawk his goods, and it is conjectured that there was a separate trade for annexing thesoles.[399]The Romans in classical times, wore cork soles in their shoes to secure the feet from water, especially in winter; and as high heels were not then introduced, the Roman ladies who wished to appear taller than they had been formed by nature, put plenty of cork underthem.[400]The streets of Rome in the time of Domitian were blocked up by cobblers’ stalls, which he therefore caused to be removed. In the middle ages shoes were cleaned by washing with a sponge; and oil, soap, and grease, were the substitutes for blacking. Buckles were worn in shoes in the fourteenth century. In an Irish abbey a human skeleton was found with marks of buckles on the shoes. In England they became fashionable many years before the reign of queen Mary; the labouring people wore them of copper; other persons had them of silver, or copper-gilt; not long after shoe-roses camein.[401]Buckles revived before the revolution of 1689, remained fashionabletill after the French revolution in 1789; and finally became extinct before the close of the eighteenth century.

In Robert Hegg’s “Legend of St. Cuthbert,” reprinted at the end of Mr. Dixon’s “Historical and Descriptive View of the city of Durham and its Environs,” we are told of St. Goodrick, that “in his younger age he was a pedlar, and carried his moveable shop from fair to fair upon his back,” and used to visit Lindisfarne, “much delighting to heare the monkes tell wonders of St. Cuthbert; which soe enflamed his devotion, that he undertooke a pilgrimage to the holy sepulchre; and by the advice of St. Cuthbert in a dreame, repayred againe to the holy land, and washing his feete in Jordan, there left hisshoes, with a vow to goe barefoot all his life after.”

Mean Temperature 47·87.

[398]See vol. i. col. 1395.[399]Fosbroke’s Ency. of Antiquities.[400]Beckmann.[401]Fosbroke.

[398]See vol. i. col. 1395.

[399]Fosbroke’s Ency. of Antiquities.

[400]Beckmann.

[401]Fosbroke.

On this subject a curious notice is extracted from “the Postman, October 26-28, 1708”—viz.

Advertisement.

The Creditors of King Charles, K. James, and K. William, having found out and discovered sufficient Funds for securing a perpetual Interest for 4 Millions, without burdening the people, clogging the Trade or impairing the Revenue; and all their debts not amounting to near that Sum; the more to strengthen their interest, and to find the greater favour with the Parliament, have agreed that the Army and Transports Debentures and other Parliament Debts may if they please, joyn with them, and it is not expected that any great Debts shall pay any Charge for carrying on this Act, until it be happily accomplished, and no more will be expected afterwards than what shall be readily agreed to before hand, neither shall any be hindered from taking any other measures, if there should be but a suspicion of miscarriage, which is impossible if they Unite their Interest. They continue to meet by the Parliament Stairs in Old Palace-yard, there is a Note on the Door, where daily attendance is given from 10 in the Morning till 7 at Night; if any are not apprehensive of the certainty of the Success, they may come and have full satisfaction, that they may have their Money if they will.

The notice of the battle wherein this illustrious admiral received his death-wound, (on the 21st,) might have been properly accompanied by the following quotation from a work which should be put into the chest of every boy on his going to sea. It is so delightfully written, as to rivet the attention of every reader whether mariner or landsman.

“The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity: men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us; and it seemed as if we had never, till then, known how deeply we loved and reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero—the greatest of our own, and of all former times—was scarcely taken into the account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he performed his part, that the maritime war, after the battle of Trafalgar, was considered at an end: the fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated, but destroyed: new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our shores could again be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him: the general sorrow was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that funeral ceremonies, public monuments, and posthumous rewards, were all which they could now bestow upon him, whom the king, the legislature, and the nation, would alike have delighted to honour; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose presence in every village through which he might have passed would have awakened the church bells, have given schoolboys a holiday, have drawn children from their sports to gaze upon him, and ‘old men from the chimney corner’ to look upon Nelson, ere they died. The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were without joy; for such already was theglory of the British navy, through Nelson’s surpassing genius, that it scarcely seemed to receive any addition from the most signal victory that ever was achieved upon the seas: and the destruction of this mighty fleet, by which all the maritime schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly appeared to add to our security or strength; for while Nelson was living, to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves as secure as now, when they were no longer in existence.—There was reason to suppose, from the appearances upon opening the body, that, in the course of nature, he might have attained, like his father, to a good old age. Yet he cannot be said to have fallen prematurely whose work was done; nor ought he to be lamented, who died so full of honours, and at the height of human fame. The most triumphant death is that of the martyr; the most awful, that of the martyred patriot; the most splendid, that of the hero in the hour of victory: and if the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson’s translation, he could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze ofglory.”[402]

Mean Temperature 48·25.

[402]Southey’s Life of Nelson.

On the 27th of October, 1736, Mr. Robinson a carpenter, and Mr. Medway a bricklayer, contracted to build Fleet-market, by the following midsummer, for3970l.[403]

Mean Temperature 47·50.

[403]Gentleman’s Magazine.

(St. Simon and St. Jude.)

A correspondent says, that about, or before this time, it is the custom at Bedford, now abouts, for boys to cry baked pears in the town with the followingstanza—

“Who knows what I have got?In a pot hot?BakedWardens—all hot!Who knows what I have got?”

Mean Temperature 46·30.

On looking into the “Mirror of the Months,” we find “a lively portraiture” of the season.—“October is to London what April is to the country; it is the spring of the London summer, when the hopes of the shopkeeper begin to bud forth, and he lays aside the insupportable labour of having nothing to do, for the delightful leisure of preparing to be in a perpetual bustle. During the last month or two he has been strenuously endeavouring to persuade himself that the Steyne at Brighton is as healthy as Bond-street; thepavéof Pall Mall no more picturesque than the Pantiles of Tunbridge Wells; and winning a prize at one-card-loo at Margate, as piquant a process as serving a customer to the same amount of profit. But now that the time is returned when ‘business’ must again be attended to, he discards with contempt all such mischievous heresies, and reembraces the only orthodox faith of a London shopkeeper—that London and his shop are the true ‘beauteous and sublime’ of human life. In fact, ‘now is the winter of his discontent’ (that is to say, what other people call summer) ‘made glorious summer’ by the near approach of winter; and all the wit he is master of is put in requisition, to devise the means of proving that every thing he has offered to ‘his friends the public,’ up to this particular period, has become worse than obsolete. Accordingly, now are those poets of the shopkeepers, the inventors of patterns, ‘perplexed in the extreme; since, unless they can produce a something which shall necessarily supersede all their previous productions, their occupation’s gone.—It is the same with all other caterers for the public taste; even the literary ones. Mr. Elliston, [or his fortunate successor, if one there be,] ‘ever anxious to contribute to the amusement of his liberal patrons, the public,’ is already busied in sowing the seeds of a new tragedy, two operatic romances, three grand romantic melo-dramas, and half a dozen farces, in the fertile soil of those poets whom he employs in each of these departments respectively;while each of the London publishers is projecting a new ‘periodical,’ to appear on the first of January next; that which he started on the first of last January having, of course, died of old age ere this!”

In October, fires have fairly gained possession of their places, and even greet us on coming down to breakfast in the morning. Of all the discomforts of that most comfortless period of the London year which is neither winter nor summer, the most unequivocal is that of its being too cold to be without a fire, and not cold enough to have one. A set of polished fire-irons, standing sentry beside a pile of dead coals imprisoned behind a row of glittering bars, instead of mending the matter, makes it worse; inasmuch as it is better to look into an empty coffin, than to see the dead face of a friend in it. At the season in question, especially in the evening, one feels in a perpetual perplexity, whether to go out or stay at home; sit down or walk about; read, write, cast accounts, or call for the candle and go to bed. But let the fire be lighted, and all uncertainty is at an end, and we (or even one) may do any or all of these with equal satisfaction. In short, light but the fire, and you bring the winter in at once; and what are twenty summers, with all their sunshine (when they are gone,) to one winter, with its indoor sunshine of a sea-coalfire?[404]

Mr. Leigh Hunt, who on the affairs of “The Months” is our first authority, pleasantly inquires—“With our fire before us, and our books on each side, what shall we do? Shall we take out a life of somebody, or a Theocritus, or Dante, or Ariosto, or Montaigne, or Marcus Aurelius, or Horace, or Shakspeare who includes them all? Or shall we read an engraving from Poussin or Raphael? Or shall we sit with tilted chairs, planting our wrists upon our knees, and toasting the up-turned palms of our hands, while we discourse of manners and of man’s heart and hopes, with at least a sincerity, a good intention, and good nature, that shall warrant what we say with the sincere, the good-intentioned, and the good-natured?”—He then agreeably brings us to themantlepiece. “Ah—take care. You see what that old looking saucer is, with a handle to it? It is a venerable piece of earthenware, which may have been worth, to an Athenian, about twopence; but to an author, is worth a great deal more than ever he could—deny for it. And yet he would deny it too. It will fetch his imagination more than ever it fetched potter or penny-maker. Its little shallow circle overflows for him with the milk and honey of a thousand pleasant associations. This is one of the uses of having mantlepieces. You may often see on no very rich mantlepiece a representative body of all the elements, physical and intellectual,—a shell for the sea, a stuffed bird or some feathers for the air, a curious piece of mineral for the earth, a glass of water with some flowers in it for the visible process of creation,—a cast from sculpture for the mind of man;—and underneath all, is the bright and ever-springing fire, running up through them heavenwards, like hope through materiality.”

Mean Temperature 46·02.

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