[346]Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar.
[346]Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar.
Swallows and martins are still very numerous, the general migration not having begun. They roost in immense numbers on buildings, round about which martins fly some times in such quantities as almost to darken the air with their plumes. Sparrows, linnets, various finches, and also plovers, are now seen about in flocks, according to an annual habit, prevalent among many kinds of birds, of assembling together inautumn.[347]
The accompanying stanzas applicable to the season, are extracted from an original poem, entitled “The Libertine of the Emerald Isle,” which will, probably, be published early in the next year.
Autumn.For the Every-Day Book.The leaves are falling, and the hollow breezeAt ev’ning tide sweeps mournfully along,Making sad music, such as minor keysDevelope in a melancholy song:The meadows, too, are losing by degreesTheir green habiliments—and now amongThe various works of nature there appearsA gen’ral gloom, prophetic of the year’sApproaching dissolution:—but to meThese sombre traits are pregnant with delight,And yield my soul more true felicityThan words can justly picture:—they inviteMy mind to contemplation—they agreeWith my heart’s bias, and at once exciteThose feelings, both of love and admiration,Which make this world a glorious revelation!Hence—not unfrequently when all is still,And Cynthia walks serenely through the sky,Silv’ring the groves and ev’ry neighb’ring hill,I sit and ponder on the years gone by:This is the time when reason has her fillOf this world’s good and evil, when the eyeOf contemplation takes a boundless rangeOf spheres that never vacillate or change!Sweet Autumn! thou’rt surrounded with the charmsOf reason, and philosophy, and truth,And ev’ry “sound reflection” that disarmsThis life of half its terrors:—in our youthWe feel no sense of danger, and the qualmsOf conscience seldom trouble us forsooth,Because the splendour of its reign destroysWhatever checks our sublunary joys?But thou art far too rigid and severeTo let these errors triumph for a day,Or suffer folly, in her mad career,To sweep our reas’ning faculties away!Thou pointest out the fun’ral of the year,The summer’s wreck and palpable decay,Stamping a “moral lesson” on the mind,To awe, restrain, and meliorate mankind!But men are callous to thy warning voice,And pass thee by, regardless of thy worth,Making a false and perishable choiceOf all the fleeting pleasures of the earth:They love gross riot, turbulence, and noise,The Bacchanalian’s ebriating mirth,And when the autumn of their lives creeps on,Their wit has vanish’d, and their strength is gone!But had they been observant of thy pow’rs,And ponder’d o’er thy ruin and decay,They might have well applied them to those hoursWhich nothing, for an instant, can delay;But whilst health, strength, and competence are our’s,And youth is basking in the summer’s ray,Life’s autumn scenes reluctantly are view’d,And folly’s visions joyously pursued!B. W. R.
Autumn.For the Every-Day Book.
The leaves are falling, and the hollow breezeAt ev’ning tide sweeps mournfully along,Making sad music, such as minor keysDevelope in a melancholy song:The meadows, too, are losing by degreesTheir green habiliments—and now amongThe various works of nature there appearsA gen’ral gloom, prophetic of the year’sApproaching dissolution:—but to meThese sombre traits are pregnant with delight,And yield my soul more true felicityThan words can justly picture:—they inviteMy mind to contemplation—they agreeWith my heart’s bias, and at once exciteThose feelings, both of love and admiration,Which make this world a glorious revelation!Hence—not unfrequently when all is still,And Cynthia walks serenely through the sky,Silv’ring the groves and ev’ry neighb’ring hill,I sit and ponder on the years gone by:This is the time when reason has her fillOf this world’s good and evil, when the eyeOf contemplation takes a boundless rangeOf spheres that never vacillate or change!Sweet Autumn! thou’rt surrounded with the charmsOf reason, and philosophy, and truth,And ev’ry “sound reflection” that disarmsThis life of half its terrors:—in our youthWe feel no sense of danger, and the qualmsOf conscience seldom trouble us forsooth,Because the splendour of its reign destroysWhatever checks our sublunary joys?But thou art far too rigid and severeTo let these errors triumph for a day,Or suffer folly, in her mad career,To sweep our reas’ning faculties away!Thou pointest out the fun’ral of the year,The summer’s wreck and palpable decay,Stamping a “moral lesson” on the mind,To awe, restrain, and meliorate mankind!But men are callous to thy warning voice,And pass thee by, regardless of thy worth,Making a false and perishable choiceOf all the fleeting pleasures of the earth:They love gross riot, turbulence, and noise,The Bacchanalian’s ebriating mirth,And when the autumn of their lives creeps on,Their wit has vanish’d, and their strength is gone!But had they been observant of thy pow’rs,And ponder’d o’er thy ruin and decay,They might have well applied them to those hoursWhich nothing, for an instant, can delay;But whilst health, strength, and competence are our’s,And youth is basking in the summer’s ray,Life’s autumn scenes reluctantly are view’d,And folly’s visions joyously pursued!
The leaves are falling, and the hollow breezeAt ev’ning tide sweeps mournfully along,Making sad music, such as minor keysDevelope in a melancholy song:The meadows, too, are losing by degreesTheir green habiliments—and now amongThe various works of nature there appearsA gen’ral gloom, prophetic of the year’s
Approaching dissolution:—but to meThese sombre traits are pregnant with delight,And yield my soul more true felicityThan words can justly picture:—they inviteMy mind to contemplation—they agreeWith my heart’s bias, and at once exciteThose feelings, both of love and admiration,Which make this world a glorious revelation!
Hence—not unfrequently when all is still,And Cynthia walks serenely through the sky,Silv’ring the groves and ev’ry neighb’ring hill,I sit and ponder on the years gone by:This is the time when reason has her fillOf this world’s good and evil, when the eyeOf contemplation takes a boundless rangeOf spheres that never vacillate or change!
Sweet Autumn! thou’rt surrounded with the charmsOf reason, and philosophy, and truth,And ev’ry “sound reflection” that disarmsThis life of half its terrors:—in our youthWe feel no sense of danger, and the qualmsOf conscience seldom trouble us forsooth,Because the splendour of its reign destroysWhatever checks our sublunary joys?
But thou art far too rigid and severeTo let these errors triumph for a day,Or suffer folly, in her mad career,To sweep our reas’ning faculties away!Thou pointest out the fun’ral of the year,The summer’s wreck and palpable decay,Stamping a “moral lesson” on the mind,To awe, restrain, and meliorate mankind!
But men are callous to thy warning voice,And pass thee by, regardless of thy worth,Making a false and perishable choiceOf all the fleeting pleasures of the earth:They love gross riot, turbulence, and noise,The Bacchanalian’s ebriating mirth,And when the autumn of their lives creeps on,Their wit has vanish’d, and their strength is gone!
But had they been observant of thy pow’rs,And ponder’d o’er thy ruin and decay,They might have well applied them to those hoursWhich nothing, for an instant, can delay;But whilst health, strength, and competence are our’s,And youth is basking in the summer’s ray,Life’s autumn scenes reluctantly are view’d,And folly’s visions joyously pursued!
B. W. R.
Mean Temperature 58·02.
[347]Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar.
[347]Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar.
This saint, to whom and his companions a festival is celebrated by the Romish church on this day, received a similar honour in England. They are said to have been officers in the Theban legion, which refused to sacrifice to the gods on their march into Gaul, and were, therefore, ordered to be decimated by Maximian. Every tenth man was accordingly put to death, and on their continued resistance, a second decimation ordered, and Maurice and his companions encouraged them, and the whole legion consisting of six thousand six hundred men, well armed, being no way intimidated to idolatry by cruelty, were slaughtered by the rest of the army, and relics of their bodies were gathered and preserved, and workedmiracles.[348]
For the Every-Day Book.
The village of Threekingham, in the county of Lincoln, was known by the name of Laundon, previous to this day,A. D.870, when a battle was fought between the English and Danes, of which Ingulphus, a monk of Crowland abbey, has left the following account.
The Danes entered England in the year 879, and wintered at York; and in the year 880 proceeded to the parts of Lindsey, in Lincolnshire, where they commenced their destructive depredations by laying waste the abbey of Bardney. In the month of September in the latter year, earl Algar, with two of his seneschals, (Wibert, owner of Wiberton, and Leofric, owner of Leverton,) attended by the men of Holland (Lincolnshire), Toly, a monk (formerly a soldier), with two hundred men belonging to Crowland abbey, and three hundred from Deeping, Langtoft, and Boston, Morcar, lord of Bourn, with his powerful family, and Osgot, sheriff of Lincolnshire, with the forces of the county, being five hundred more, mustered in Kesteven, on the day of St. Maurice, and fought with the Danes, over whom they obtained considerable advantage, killing three of their kings and many of their private soldiers, and pursued the rest to their very camp, until night obliged them to separate. In the same night several princes and earls of the Danes, with their followers, who had been out in search of plunder, came to the assistance of their countrymen; by the report of which many of the English were so dismayed that they took to flight. Those, however, who had resolution to face the enemy in the morning, went to prayers, and were marshalled for battle.Among the latter was Toly with his five hundred men in the right wing, with Morcar and his followers to support them; and Osgot the sheriff, with his five hundred men, and with the stout knight, Harding de Riehall, and the men of Stamford. The Danes, after having buried the three kings whom they had lost the day before, at a place there called Laundon, but since, from that circumstance, calledThree-king-ham, marched out into the field. The battle began, and the English, though much inferior in numbers, kept their ground the greater part of the day with steadiness and resolution, until the Danes feigning a flight, were rashly pursued without attention to order. The Danes then took advantage of the confusion of the English, returned to the charge, and made their opponents pay dearly for their temerity; in fine, the Danes were completely victorious. In this battle, earl Algar, the monk Toly, and many other valiant men, were slain on the part of the English; after which the Danes proceeded to the destruction of the abbeys of Crowland, Thorney, Ramsey and Hamstede (Peterborough) and many other places in the neighbourhood.—Thus far is from Ingulphus the monk.
A fair, said to have arisen from the above circumstance, is annually held atThree-king-ham, on a remarkable piece of ground, calledStow Green Hill, reported to be the spot whereon the battle was principally contested, and Domesday-book in some degree corroborates the statement; for in the Conqueror’s time,A. D.1080, when that survey was taken, we find that there was then a fair held here, which yielded forty shillings, accounted for to Gilbert de Gand, lord of Foldingham. This fair, however, is not held now in the month of September, but commences on the 15th of June, and continues till the fourth of July, and was very probably changed in the fifty-second year of the reign of king Henry III., who according to Tanner’s “Notitia Monastica,” granted a charter for a fair at this place to the monastery of Sempringham.
Sleafordensis.
September 8, 1826.
Mean Temperature 57·70.
[348]Butler.
[348]Butler.
For the Every-Day Book.
To cultivate pleasant associations, may well be deemed a part and parcel of the philosophy of life. Now that spring, that sweet season redolent of flowers and buds hath passed away, and summer mellowing into autumn, has well nigh fallen into the “sere the yellow leaf,”wein “populous city pent,” gladly revert to those social enjoyments peculiar to a great metropolis, and among which stand conspicuous, the amusements of the acted drama.
The opening of the winter theatres may be reckoned as one of the principalfastiof cockney land, an epoch which distinctly marks the commencement of a winter in London. How changed from the auspicious season, when the bright sun glancing into our gloomy retreats, tantalizes us with visions of the breathing sweets of nature, and when we in our very dreams “babbled of green fields,”—to the period when even the thronged and dirty streets are endurable, as we wend our way perchance through a fog, (a London particular,) towards the crowded and gaily lighted theatre, by contrast made more brilliant.
“My first play” forms an era to most young persons, and is generally cherished among our more agreeable juvenile reminiscences: but the subject has been recently expatiated upon so delightfully and in so genial a spirit byElia, as almost to make further comment “a wasteful and ridiculous excess.” I well remember the vast and splendid area of old Drury-lane theatre, where the mysterious green curtain portico, to that curious microcosm the stage, first met my youthful gaze. The performances were, the “Stranger” and “Blue Beard,” both then in the very bloom of their popularity: and whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the moral tendency of the first, all must allow that never piece was more effective in the representation, when aided by the unrivalled talents of Kemble, and Mrs. Siddons, at that time in the zenith of their powers. I confess, that to my unsophisticated boyish feelings, subdued by the cunning of the scene, it seemed quite natural, that the sufferings of bitter remorse and repentance should suffice to ensure the pity and forgiveness of outraged society.—Happy age, when the generous impulses of ournature are not yet blunted by the stern experience of after life!
This brings me to record a remarkable and disastrous event in theatrical annals, and one which in a great measure suggested the present communication. It was my fortune to be present at thelastperformances ever given on the boards of Old Drury—and which took place on Thursday evening the 23rd of February, 1809—when was acted for the first, and as it proved, the last time, a new opera composed by Bishop, called the “Circassian Bride.” The next night this magnificent theatre was a pile of burning ruins. The awful grandeur of the conflagration defies description, but to enlarge upon a circumstance so comparatively recent would be purely gratuitous; it was, however, an event which might be truly said, “to eclipse the harmless gaiety of nations,”—for the metropolis then presented the unprecedented spectacle of the national drama without a home,—the two sister theatres both prostrate in the dust!
Annexed is a copy of theplay-bill, which at this distance of time, may perhaps be valued as an interesting relic, illustrative of dramatic history.J. H.
NEVER ACTED.Theatre Royal, Drury-lane.
This presentThursday, February 23,1809.
Their Majesties Servants will perform aNew Opera, in Three Acts, called the
CIRCASSIAN BRIDE.
With New Scenery, Dresses, and Decorations.
TheOvertureandMusicentirely new,composed by Mr.Bishop.
CIRCASSIANS.Alexis, Mr.Braham,Rhindax, Mr.De Camp,Demetrio, Mr.Marshall,Basil, Mr.Ray,Officers, Mr.Gibbon, Mr.Miller,Chief Priest, Mr.Maddocks,Erminia, MissLyon.
ENGLISH.Ben Blunt, Mr.Bannister,Tom Taffrel, Mr.Smith,Rachael, Mrs.Mountain.
TARTARS.Usberg, (the Khan,) Mr. J.Smith,Barak, Mr.Mathews,Kerim, Mr.Fisher, Hassan, Mr.Cooke,Slaves, Messrs.Webb,Evans,Chatterley,Anna, Mrs.Bland.
TheDANCEbyMesds.Green,Twamley,Davis,H. and F.Dennet.
Chorus of Circassians, Tartars, &c.By Messrs. Danby, Cook, Evans, Caulfield,Bond, Dibble, Jones,Mesds. Stokes, Chatterley, Menage,Maddocks, Wells, Butler.The New Scenes designed byMr.Greenwood,And executed by him, Mr.Banks, andAssistants.The Dresses and Decorations, byMr.Johnston,and executed by him, Mr.BanksandMr.Underwood.The Female Dresses designed and executedby MissRein.Books of the Songs to be had in theTheatre.
To which will be added the Farce of
FORTUNE’S FROLIC.
Robin Roughhead, Mr.Mathews,Rattle, Mr.Palmer, Nancy MissLacyMargery, Mrs.Sparks,Dolly, Mrs.Harlowe.
Places for the Boxes to be taken of Mr.Spring, at the Box-Office, Russel-street.
No money to be returned.
Vivant Rex et Regina!(Lowndes and Hobbs,Printers, Marquis-court, Drury-lane.)
“Elia.”-Why should J. H. pop on me with his mention ofElia, just as I was about to write “an article?” Write!—it’s impossible. I have turned to “My First Play”—I cannot get it out my head: the reader must take the consequence of my inability, and of the fault of J. H., and read what I shall never approach to, in writing, were I to “grind my quill these hundredyears”——
At the north end of Cross-court there yet stands a portal, of some architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving at present for an entrance to a printing-office. This old door-way, if you are young, reader, you may not know was the identical pit entrance to Old Drury—Garrick’s Drury—all of itthat is left. I never pass it without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring to the evening when I passed through it to seemy first play. The afternoon had been wet, and the condition of our going (the elder folks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beating heart did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of which I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation! I seem to remember the last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it.
We went with orders, which my godfather F. had sent us. He kept the oil shop (now Davies’s) at the corner of Featherstone-building, in Holborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty in speech, and had pretensions above his rank. He associated in those days with John Palmer, the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy; if John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow somewhat of his manner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by, Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn, that young Brinsley brought his first wife on her elopement with him from a boarding school at Bath—the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over a quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmonious charge.—From either of these connections, it may be inferred that my godfather could command an order for the then Drury-lane theatre at pleasure—and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets, in Brinsley’s easy autograph, I have heard him say was the sole remuneration which he had received for many years’ nightly illumination of the orchestra, and various avenues of that theatre—and he was content that it should be so. The honour of Sheridan’s familiarity—or supposed familiarity—was better to my godfather than money.
F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen; grandiloquent, yet courteous. His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was Ciceronian. He had two Latin words almost constantly in his mouth, (how odd sounds Latin from an oilman’s lips!) which my better knowledge since, has enabled me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been soundedvice versâ—but in those young years they impressed me with more awe than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro—in his own peculiar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, or anglicized, into something likeverse verse. By an imposing manner, and the help of these distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was little) to the highest parochial honours which St. Andrew’s has to bestow.
He is dead, and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for my first orders (little wondrous talismans!—slight keys, and insignificant to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabian paradises!) and moreover, that by his testamentary beneficence I came into possession of the only landed property which I could ever call my own—situate near the road-way village of pleasant Puckeridge, in Hertfordshire. When I journied down to take possession, and planted foot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended upon me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger paces over my allotment of three quarters of an acre, with its commodious mansion in the midst with the feeling of an English freeholder, that all betwixt sky and centre was my own. The estate has passed into more prudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian can restore it.
In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who abolished them!—with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at the door—not that which is left—but between that and an inner door in shelter—O when shall I be such an expectant again;—with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable playhouse accompaniment in those days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical fruiteresses then was, “Chase some oranges, chase some numparels, chase a bill of the play;”—chaseprochuse. But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed—the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to “Troilus and Cressida,” in Rowe’s “Shakspeare”—the tent scene with Diomede—and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a measure the feeling of that evening.—The boxes at that time, full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and the pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed) resembling—a homely fancy—but I judged it to be sugar-candy—yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy!—Theorchestra lights at length arose, those “fair Auroras!” Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again—and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time. The curtain drew up—I was not past six years old—and the play was Artaxerxes!
I had dabbled a little in the Universal History—the ancient part of it—and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for I understood not its import—but I heard the word Darius, and I was in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not players. I was in Persepolis for the time; and the burning idol of their devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was awe-struck, and believed those significations to be something more than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such pleasure has since visited me but in dreams.—Harlequin’s Invasion followed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistrates into reverend beldams seemed to me a piece of grave historic justice, and the tailor carrying his own head to be as sober a verity as the legend of St. Denys.
The next play to which I was taken was the “Lady of the Manor,” of which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, called “Lun’s Ghost”—a satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead—but to my apprehension (too sincere for satire) “Lun” was as remote a piece of antiquity as “Lud”—the father of a line of Harlequins—transmitting his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of white patch-work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead.
My third play followed in quick succession. It was the “Way of the World.” I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge; for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of good lady Wishfort affected me like some solemn tragic passion. “Robinson Crusoe” followed; in which Crusoe, man Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic as in the story.—The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have clean passed out of my head. I believe, I no more laughed at them, than at the same age I should have been disposed to laugh at the grotesque Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old round church (my church) of the Templars.
I saw these plays in the season 1781-2, when I was from six to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for at school all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! At the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated nothing. I felt all, loved all, wonderedall—
Was nourished, I could not tell how.—
Was nourished, I could not tell how.—
Was nourished, I could not tell how.—
I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. The same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reference, was gone!—The green curtain was no longer a veil, drawn between two worlds, the unfolding of which was to bring back past ages, to present “a royal ghost,”—but a certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The lights—the orchestra lights—came up a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter’s bell—which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many centuries—of six short twelvemonths—had wrought in me. Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreasonable expectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotions with which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearance to me of Mrs. Siddons in “Isabella.” Comparison and retrospection soon yielded to the present attraction of the scene; andthe theatre became to me, upon a new stock, the most delightful of recreations.
After this robbery of “Elia,” my conscience forces me to declare that I wish every reader would save me from the shame of further temptation to transgress, by ordering “Elia” into his collection. There is no volume in our language so full of beauty, truth, and feeling, as the volume of “Elia.” I am convinced that every person who has not seen it, and may take the hint, will thank me for acquainting him with a work which he cannot look into without pleasure, nor lay down without regret. It is a delicious book.
On this day it is a custom to exercise the largest bell of one of our country churches, in the manner described in the following communication.
For the Every-Day Book.
The 23d of September has obtained in Sherborne, Dorset, the name of “tolling-day,” in commemoration of the death of John Lord Digby, baron Digby of Sherborne, and earl of Bristol, in the yearMDCXCVIII. and in conformity with the following wish expressed in a codicil annexed to his lordship’s will.
“Item, I give and bequeath out of my said estate to the parish church, the yearly sum of ten pounds, to be paid by my successors, lords of the said manor for the time being, at and upon, or within forty days after, the feast days of St. Michael the archangel, and of the annunciation of our blessed lady St. Mary the virgin, by equal portions yearly and for ever, and to be employed and bestowed by the churchwardens of the said parish for the time being, with the consent of the lord of the said manor for the time being, in keeping in good repair the chancel, and towards the reparations of the rest of the said church, yearly and for ever; provided that my successors, the lord or lords of the said manor for the time being, shall have and enjoy a convenient pew, or seat, in the said chancel for himself and family for ever; and provided that the said churchwardens for the time being, shall cause the largest bell in the tower of the said church, to be tolled six full hours, that is to say, from five to nine of the clock in the forenoon, and from twelve o’clock till two in the afternoon, on that day of the said month whereon it shall be my lot to depart this life, every year and for ever; otherwise this gift of ten pounds per annum shall determine and be void.”
This custom is annually observed, but not to the extent above intended, the tolling of the bell being limited to two hours instead of six. It begins to toll at six o’clock and continues till seven in the morning, when six men, who toll the bell for church service, repair to the mansion of the present earl Digby, with two large stone jars, which are there filled with some of his lordship’s strong beer, and, with a quantity of bread and cheese, taken to the church by the tollers and equally divided amongst them, together with a small remuneration in money paid by the churchwardens as a compensation for their labour. At twelve o’clock the bell is again tolled till one, and in the evening divine service is performed at the church, and a lecture suited to the occasion delivered from the pulpit; for which lecture or sermon the vicar is paid thirty pounds, provided by the will of the above donor.
R. T.
Who has not heard of “Bow Bells?” Who that has heard them does not feel an interest in their sounds, or in the recollection of them? The editor is preparing an article on “Bow Bells,” and for that purpose particularly desires communications. Accounts relative to their present or former state, or any facts or anecdotes respecting them at any time, are earnestly solicited from every reader as soon as possible.
Mean Temperature 56·02.
In the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” for September, 1775, Mr. Clayton, a wealthy farmer of Berkshire, is related to have died at the extraordinary age of a hundred and fifteen years, and retained his faculties to the last; he is further remarkable, for having rented one farm ninety years. An occupancy of so great duration, by one individual, is perhaps unequalled in the history of landlord and tenant.
Mean Temperature 55·40.
There is an exhilarating effect in the sea-air and coast scenery, which inland views or atmosphere, however fine, fail to communicate.
On the 25th of September, 1825, a gentleman and lady came out of one of the hotels near the Steyne, and after taking a fair start, set off running round the Steyne. They both ran very swiftly, but the young lady bounded forward with the agility of the chamois and the fleetness of the deer, and returned to the spot from whence they started a considerable distance before the gentleman. She appeared much pleased with her victory. There were but few persons on the Steyne at the time, but those who were there, expressed their admiration at the swiftness of this secondAtalanta.[349]
In Mr. Hazlitt’s “Notes of a Journey through France and Italy,” he mentions the place from whence he sailed for thecontinent:—
“Brighton stands facing the sea, on the bare cliffs, with glazed windows to reflect the glaring sun, and black pitchy bricks shining like the scales of fishes. The town is however gay with the influx of London visiters—happy as the conscious abode of its sovereign! Every thing here appears in motion—coming or going. People at a watering-place may be compared to the flies of a summer; or to fashionable dresses, or suits of clothes, walking about the streets. The only idea you gain is, of finery and motion. The road between London and Brighton, presents some very charming scenery; Reigate is a prettier English country-town than is to be found anywhere—out of England! As we entered Brighton in the evening, a Frenchman was playing and singing to a guitar.—The genius of the south had come out to meet us.”
When Mr. Hazlitt arrived at Brighton, it was in the full season. He says, “A lad offered to conduct us to an inn. ‘Did he think there was room?’ He was sure of it. ‘Did he belong to the inn?’ ‘No,’ he was from London. In fact, he was a young gentleman from town, who had been stopping some time at the White-horse hotel, and who wished to employ his spare time (when he was not riding out on a blood-horse) in serving the house, and relieving the perplexities of his fellow-travellers. No one but a Londoner would volunteer his assistance in this way. Amiable land ofCockayne, happy in itself, and in making others happy! Blest exuberance of self-satisfaction, that overflows upon others! Delightful impertinence, that is forward to oblige them!”
It is here both in place and season, to quote a passage of remarkably finethought:—
“There is something in being near the sea, like the confines of eternity. It is a new element, a pure abstraction. The mind loves to hover on that which is endless, and for ever the same. People wonder at a steam-boat, the invention of man, managed by man, that makes its liquid path like an iron railway through the sea—I wonder at the sea itself, that vast Leviathan, rolled round the earth, smiling in its sleep, waked into fury, fathomless, boundless, a huge world of water-drops.—Whence is it, whither goes it, is it of eternity or of nothing? Strange ponderous riddle, that we can neither penetrate nor grasp in our comprehension, ebbing and flowing like human life, and swallowing it up in thy remorseless womb,—what art thou? What is there in common between thy life and ours, who gaze at thee? Blind, deaf and old, thou seest not, hearest not, understandest not; neither do we understand, who behold and listen to thee! Great as thou art, unconscious of thy greatness, unwieldy, enormous, preposterous twin-birth of matter, rest in thy dark, unfathomed cave of mystery, mocking human pride and weakness. Still is it given to the mind of man to wonder at thee, to confess its ignorance, and to stand in awe of thy stupendous might and majesty, and of its own being, that can questionthine!”[350]
In Mr. Hazlitt’s “Journey through France and Italy,” there are “thoughtsthat breathe and words that burn.” His conceptions of beauty and grandeur, are at all times simple and vast. His works are pervaded by the results of profound thinking. His sentences have the power of elevating things that are deemed little remarkable, and of lowering those which successive submissions to over praise, have preposterously magnified. Many of the remarks on works of art, in his “Notes of a Journey through France and Italy,” will be wholly new to persons who never reflected on the subjects of his criticism, and will not be openly assented to by others thinking ashedoes, who, for the first time, has ventured to publicly dissent from received notions. If any of his opinions be deemed incorrect, the difference can easily be arbitrated. Taking the originals, whether corporeal or imaginary existences, as the standard, our pure sight and feeling may be relied on as unerring judges of the imitations.
Mean Temperature 54·27.
[349]Brighton paper.[350]Mr. Hazlitt’s Journey.
[349]Brighton paper.
[350]Mr. Hazlitt’s Journey.
For these remembrances in the church of England calendar and almanacs, see vol. i. p. 1324.
Communications of local customs are always received and inserted with satisfaction. It is with peculiar pleasure that the editor submits the following, from a gentleman with respect to whom he has nothing to regret, but that he is not permitted to honour the work, by annexing the name of the respectable writer to the letter.
Paisley, September 21, 1826.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Sir,—Having been a subscriber to yourEvery-Day Bookfrom its first appearance in this town, up to the present time, I reproach myself with neglect, in not having sent you before now, an account of a rather singular custom prevalent here, and, as it should seem, of ancient date.
The river White Cart, on which Paisley stands, although affected by the tide, and navigable to the town for vessels not exceeding fifty tons’ burden, is often remarkably shallow at low water. This is especially the case between the highest and the lowest of three stone bridges, by which the old town or burgh is connected with the new town. In this shallow part of the stream, parties of boys construct, onHallow-eve,—the night when varied superstitions engross most of old Scotia’s peasantry,—circular raised hearths, if I may so term them, of earth or clay; bordered by a low round wall composed of loose stones, sods, &c. Within these enclosures, the boys kindle on their hearths, bonfires, often of considerable size. From the bridges, the appearance of these bonfires, after nightfall, is singular; and attracts, as spectators, many of the grown-up inhabitants of the place. The number and glare of the fires, their tremulous reflection in the surrounding water, the dark moving figures of the boys that group around them, and the shouts and screams set up by the youthful urchins in testimony of enjoyment, might almost make one fancy that the rites and incantations of magic, or of wizardry, were taking place before one’s very eyes. What is the origin of this custom, or how long it has prevailed, I do not know.
Ere I relinquish my pen, allow me to describe to you another singular custom, which obtains in the largest town of England, north of theTrent.[351]No one is better acquainted than, Mr. Hone, are you, with the existence of the wake or feast, still held annually in some of the towns, and nearly all the parochial villages of the midland and northern counties. In many of the larger towns, the traces of the ancient wake are, indeed, nearly worn out, and this is pretty much the case with that particular town, to which reference has just been made, namely, Sheffield; our great national emporium for cutlery, files, edge-tools, and the better kinds of plated goods. Only in a few ancient and primitive families, do roast beef, plum-pudding, and an extra allowance of Yorkshire stingo, gracing, onTrinity Sunday, a large table, begirt with some dozen of happy, and happy-facedtown and country cousins, show, that the venerable head of the family, and his antique dame, have not forgotten Sheffield feast-day. But if the observance of Sheffield feast itself be thus partial, and verging towards disuse, amends is made for the circumstance, in the establishment, and pretty vigorous keeping up of sundry local feasts, held on different days, within the town, or in its suburbs. Besides those of the Wicker and little Sheffield, which are suburban, Broad-lane and Scotland-street, in the town itself, have their respective feasts too. At Little Sheffield and in Broad-lane, the zest of the annual festivity is often heightened by ass-races; foot-races, masculine, for a hat; foot-races, feminine, for a chemise; grinning-matches; and, though less frequently, the humours and rattle of a mountebank and his merry andrew. Occasionally too changes, in imitation of those on the church bells, are rung, by striking with a hammer, or a short piece of steel, on six, eight, or ten long bars each suspended by twine from the roof of a workshop, and the entire set chosen so as to resemble pretty nearly, a ring of bells, both in diversity and in sequence oftone.[352]
Scotland feast, however, in point of interest, bears away the bell from all the other district revels of Sheffield. It is so called from Scotland-street, already mentioned; a long, hilly, and very populous one, situated in the northern part of the town. On the eve of the feast, which is yearly held on the 29th of May, the anniversary of the restoration of our second Charles, parties of the inhabitants repair into the neighbouring country; whence, chiefly however from Walkley-bank, celebrated as Sheffield schoolboys too well know for birch trees, they bring home, at dead of night, or morning’s earliest dawn, from sixteen to twenty well-sized trees, besides a profusion of branches. The trees they instantly plant in two rows; one on each side of the street, just without the kirbstone of the flagged pavement. With the branches, they decorate the doors and windows of houses, the sign-boards of drinking-shops, and so on. By five or six in the morning Scotland-street, which is not very wide, has the appearance of a grove. And soon, from ropes stretched across it, three, four, or five, superbgarlandsdelight the eyes, and dance over the heads of the feast-folk. These garlands are composed of hoops, wreathed round with foliage and flowers, fluttering with variously coloured ribands, rustling withasidew,[353]and gay with silver tankards, pints, watches, &c. Before the door of the principal alehouse, the largest tree is always planted. The sign of this house is, if memory do not deceive me, the royaloak.[354]But be this as it may, certain it is, that duly ensconced among the branches of the said tree, may always be seen the effigy, in small, of king Charles the Second: to commemorate indeed the happy concealment and remarkable escape of the merry monarch, at Boscobel, should seem to be the object of creating asylvanscene at “Scotland feast;” while that of holding the feast itself on the anniversary of his restoration is, there can be little doubt, to celebrate with honour the principal event in the life of him, after whose ancient and peculiar kingdom the street itself is named. To the particulars already given, it needs scarcely be added, that dancing, drinking, and other merry-making are, as a Scotsman would say,rife,[355]at the annual commemoration thus briefly described.
Thanking you for much instruction, as well as entertainment, already derived from your book, and wishing you success from its publication, I remain, Sir,
Your obedient servant,Gulielmus.
In vol. i. col. 1213,arsedineis noticed as having been in use at Bartholomew fair, and Mr. Archdeacon Nares’s supposition is mentioned, thatarsedine,arsadine, ororsden, as it was variously called, was a corruption ofarsenic, or orpiment. The editor then ventured to hazard a different suggestion, and show that the word might be saxon, and expressive of “pigmentsobtained from minerals and metals.” Since then, a note in Mr. Sharp’s remarkably interesting “Dissertation on the Country Mysteries,” seems to favour the notion.
Mr. Sharp says, “At the end of Gent’s ‘History of York, 1730,’ is an advertisement ofnumerousarticles, sold by Hammond, a bookseller of that city, and amongst the rest occurs ‘Assidue or horse-gold,’ the very next article to which, is ‘hobby-horse-bells.’—A dealer in Dutch metal, Michael Oppenheim, 27, Mansell-street, Goodman’s-fields, thus described himself in 1816—‘Importer of bronze powder, Dutch metal, andOr-sedew,’ and upon inquiry respecting the last article, it proved to be that thin yellow metal, generally known by the name oftinsel, much used for ornamenting children’s dolls, hobby-horses, and some toys, as well as manufactured into various showy articles of dress. The word orsedew is evidently a corruption oforipeaui. e.leaf (or skin)gold, afterwardsbrass. The Spaniards call it oropoel, gold-skin, and the Germansflitter-gold.”[356]
Through Mr. Sharp we have, at length, attained to a knowledge of this substance as the truearsedineof our forefathers, and theasidewof the Sheffield merry-makers at present.
Mean Temperature 55·57.