Chapter VI: Preface (5)

He was bishop of Glasgow, with jurisdiction in Wales, and, according to Butler, “favoured with a wonderful gift of miracles.” Bishop Patrick, in his “Devotions of the Romish Church,” says, “St. Kentigern had a singular way of kindling fire, which _I_ could never have hit upon.” Being in haste to light candles for vigils, and some, who bore a spite to him, having put out all the fire in the monastery, he snatched the green bough of an hazel, blessed it, blew upon it, the bough produced a great flame, and he lighted his candles: “whence we may conjecture,” says Patrick, “that tinder-boxes are of a later invention than St. Kentigern’s days.”

THE LAW TERMS.

_Term_ is derived from _Terminus_, the heathen god of boundaries, landmarks, and limits of time. In the early ages of Christianity the whole year was one continued term for hearing and deciding causes; but after the establishment of the Romish church, the daily dispensation of justice was prohibited by canonical authority, that the festivals might be kept holy.

Advent and Christmas occasioned the winter vacation; Lent and Easter the spring; Pentecost the third; and hay-time and harvest, the long vacation between Midsummer and Michaelmas.

Each term is denominated from the festival day immediately preceding its commencement; hence we have the terms of St. Hilary, Easter, the Holy Trinity, and St. Michael.

There are in each term stated days called _dies in banco_, (days in bank,) that is, days of appearance in the court of common bench. They are usually about a week from each other, and have reference to some Romish festival. All original writs are returnable on these days, and they are therefore called the return days.

The first return in every term is, properly speaking, the first day of the term. For instance, the octave of St. Hilary, or the eighth day, inclusive, after the saint’s feast, falls on the 20th of January, because his feast is on the 13th of January. On the 20th, then, the court sits to take _essoigns_, or excuses for non-appearance to the writ; “but,” says Blackstone, “as our ancestors held it beneath the condition of a freeman to appear or to do any thing at the precise time appointed,” the person summoned has three days of grace beyond the day named in the writ, and if he appear on the fourth day inclusive it is sufficient. Therefore at the beginning of each term the court does not sit for despatch of business till the fourth, or the appearance day, which is in Hilary term, for instance, on the 23d of January. In Trinity term it does not sit till the fifth day; because the fourth falls on the great Roman catholic festival of _Corpus Christi_. The first _appearance_ day therefore in each term is called the first day of the term; and the court sits till the _quarto die post_, or appearance day of the last return, or end of the term.

In each term there is one day whereon the courts do not transact business; namely, on Candlemas day, in Hilary term; on Ascension day, in Easter term; on Midsummer day, in Trinity term; and on All Saints’ day, in Michaelmas term. These are termed _Grand_ days in the inns of court; and _Gaudy_ days at the two universities; they are observed as _Collar_ days at the king’s court of St. James’s, for on these days, knights wear the collars of their respective orders.

* * * * *

An old January journal contains a remarkable anecdote relative to the decease of a M. Foscue, one of the farmers-general of the province of Languedoc. He had amassed considerable wealth by means which rendered him an object of universal detestation. One day he was ordered by the government to raise a considerable sum: as an excuse for not complying with the demand, he pleaded extreme poverty; and resolved on hiding his treasure in such a manner as to escape detection. He dug a kind of a cave in his wine-cellar, which he made so large and deep, that he used to go down to it with a ladder; at the entrance of it was a door with a spring lock on it, which on shutting would fasten of itself. He was suddenly missed, and diligent search made after him; ponds were drawn, and every suggestion adopted that could reasonably lead to his discovery, dead or alive. In a short time after, his house was sold; and the purchaser beginning to make some alterations, the workmen discovered a door in the wine-cellar with a key in the lock. On going down they found Foscue lying dead on the ground, with a candlestick near him, but no candle in it. On searching farther, they found the vast wealth that he had amassed. It is supposed, that, when he had entered his cave, the door had by some accident shut after him; and thus being out of the call of any person, he perished for want of food, in the midst of his treasure.

SIGNS OF FOUL WEATHER.

The _hollow winds_ begin to blow;
The _clouds look black_, the _glass is low_;
The _soot falls down_, the _spaniels sleep_;
And _spiders_ from their _cobwebs peep_.
Last night the _sun_ went _pale to bed_;
The _moon_ in _halos_ hid her head.
The boding shepherd heaves a sigh,
For, see, a _rainbow_ spans the sky.
The _walls are damp_, the _ditches smell_,
_Clos’d_ is the pink-ey’d _pimpernel_.
Hark! how the _chairs_ and _tables_ crack,
_Old Betty’s joints_ are on the rack:
Her _corns_ with _shooting pains_ torment her,
And to her bed untimely send her.
Loud _quack the ducks_, the _sea fowl cry_,
The _distant hills_ are _looking nigh_.
How restless are the _snorting swine_!
The _busy flies_ disturb the _kine_.
_Low_ o’er the _grass_ the _swallow wings_
The _cricket_ too, how _sharp he sings_!
_Puss_ on the hearth, with _velvet paws_,
Sits _wiping_ o’er her _whisker’d jaws_.
The _smoke_ from _chimneys right ascends_
Then spreading, _back to earth it bends_.
The _wind_ unsteady _veers around_,
Or settling in the _South is found_.
Through the clear stream the _fishes rise_,
And _nimbly catch_ the incautious _flies_.
The _glow-worms_ num’rous, clear and bright,
_Illum’d_ the _dewy hill_ last night.
At dusk the squalid _toad_ was seen,
Like _quadruped_, stalk o’er the green.
The _whirling wind_ the dust obeys,
And in the _rapid eddy_ plays.
The _frog_ has chang’d his _yellow vest_,
And in a _russet coat_ is drest.
The _sky is green_, the air is still.
The _mellow_ blackbird’s voice is shrill.
The _dog_, so alter’d is his taste,
Quits mutton-bones, on _grass_ to feast.
Behold the _rooks_, how odd their flight
They imitate the _gliding kite_,
And seem _precipitate to fall_,
As if they felt the piercing ball.
The _tender colts on back do lie_,
Nor heed the traveller passing by.
In _fiery red_ the _sun_ doth _rise_,
Then _wades through clouds_ to mount the skies.
’Twill _surely rain_, we see’t with sorrow,
No _working in the fields to-morrow_.

_Darwin._

~January 14.~

OXFORD LENT TERM _begins_.

_St. Hilary._ _St. Felix._ _Sts. Isaias and Sabbas._ _St.
Barbasceminus_, _&c._

St. Felix of Nola, an exorcist, and afterwards a priest, was, according to Butler and Ribadeneira, a great miraculist. He lived under Decius, in 250; being fettered and dungeoned in a cell, covered with potsherds and broken glass, a resplendent angel, seen by the saint alone, because to him only was he sent, freed him of his chains and guided him to a mountain, where bishop Maximus, aged and frozen, lay for dead, whom Felix recovered by praying; for, straightway, he saw a bramble bear a bunch of grapes, with the juice whereof he recovered the bishop, and taking him on his back carried him home to his diocese. Being pursued by pagans, he fled to some ruins and crept through a hole in the wall, which spiders closed with their webs before the pagans got up to it, and there lay for six months miraculously supported. According to the Legend, his body, for ages after his death, distilled a liquor that cured diseases.

CHRONOLOGY.

In January, 1784, died suddenly in Macclesfield-street, Soho, aged 79, Sam. Crisp, esq., a relation of the celebrated sir Nicholas Crisp. There was a remarkable singularity in the character of this gentleman. He was a bachelor, had been formerly a broker in ’Change-alley, and many years since had retired from business, with an easy competency. His daily amusement, for fourteen years before, was going from London to Greenwich, and immediately returning from thence, in the stage; for which he paid regularly £27 a year. He was a good-humoured, obliging, and facetious companion, always paying a particular attention, and a profusion of compliments, to the ladies, especially to those who were agreeable. He was perpetually projecting some little schemes for the benefit of the public, or, to use his own favourite maxim, pro bono publico; he was the institutor of the Lactarium in St. George’s Fields, and selected the Latin mottoes for the facetious Mrs. Henniver, who got a little fortune there. He projected the mile and half stones round London; and teased the printers of newspapers into the plan of letter-boxes. He was remarkably humane and benevolent, and, without the least ostentation, performed many generous and charitable actions, which would have dignified a more ample fortune.

THE WINTER ROBIN.

A suppliant to your window comes,
Who trusts your faith, and fears no guile:
He claims admittance for your crumbs,
And reads his passport in your smile.

For cold and cheerless is the day,
And he has sought the hedges round;
No berry hangs upon the spray,
Nor worm, nor ant-egg, can be found.

Secure his suit will be preferred,
No fears his slender feet deter;
For sacred is the household bird
That wears the scarlet stomacher.

_Charlotte Smith._

~January 15.~

_St. Paul_, the first Hermit. _St. Maurus._ _St. Main._ _St. John_,
Calybite. _St. Isidore._ _St. Bonitus._ _St. Ita_, or _Mida._ _St.
Paul_, A. D. 342.

The life of St. Paul, the first hermit, is said, by Butler, to have been written by St. Jerome in 365, who received an account of it from St. Anthony and others. According to him, when twenty-two years old, St. Paul fled from the persecution of Decius to a cavern, near which grew a palm-tree, that supplied him with leaves for clothing, and fruit for food, till he was forty-three years of age; after which he was daily fed by a raven till he was ninety, and then died. St. Anthony, in his old age, being tempted by vanity, imagined himself the first hermit, till the contrary was revealed to him in a dream, wherefore, the next morning, he set out in search of St. Paul. “St. Jerome relates from his authors,” says Butler, “that he met a centaur, or creature, not with the nature and properties, but with something of the mixt shape of man and horse; and that this monster, or phantom of the devil, (St. Jerome pretends not to determine which it was,) upon his making the sign of the cross, fled away, after pointing out the way to the saint. Our author (St. Jerome) adds, that St. Anthony soon after met a satyr, who gave him to understand that he was an inhabitant of those deserts, and one of the sort whom the deluded gentiles adored for gods.” Ribadeneira describes this satyr as with writhed nostrils, two little horns on his forehead, and the feet of a goat. After two days’ search, St. Anthony found St. Paul, and a raven brought a loaf, whereupon they took their corporal refection. The next morning, St. Paul told him he was going to die, and bid him fetch a cloak given to St. Anthony by St. Athanasius, and wrap his body in it. St. Anthony then knew, that St. Paul must have been informed of the cloak by revelation, and went forth from the desert to fetch it; but before his return, St. Paul had died, and St. Anthony found two lions digging his grave with their claws, wherein he buried St. Paul, first wrapping him in St. Athanasius’s cloak, and preserving, as a great treasure, St. Paul’s garment, made of palm-tree leaves, stitched together. How St. Jerome, in his conclusion of St. Paul’s life, praises this garment, may be seen in Ribadeneira.

FLOWERS.

A writer, who signs himself “Crito” in the “Truth Teller,” No. 15, introduces us to an honest enthusiast, discoursing to his hearers on the _snow-drop_ of the season, and other offerings from Flora, to the rolling year. “Picture to your imagination, a poor, ‘dirty’ mendicant, of the order of St. Francis, who had long prayed and fasted in his sanctuary, and long laboured in his garden, issuing out on the morning of his first pilgrimage, without money and without provisions, clad in his mantle and hood, ‘like a sad votarist in palmer’s weeds;’ and thus, and in these words, taking leave of the poor flock who lived round his gothic habitation.--‘Fellow-men, I owe you nothing, and I give you all; you neither paid me tithe nor rent, yet I have bestowed on you food and clothing in poverty, medicine in sickness, and spiritual counsel in adversity. That I might do all these things, I have devoted my life in the seclusion of those venerable walls. There I have consulted the sacred books of our church for your spiritual instruction and the good of your souls; to clothe you, I have sold the embroidered garment, and have put on the habit of mendicity. In the intercalary moments of my canonical hours of prayer, I have collected together the treasures of Flora, and gathered from her plants the useful arts of physic, by which you have been benefited. Ever mindful of the useful object of the labour to which I had condemned myself, I have brought together into the garden of this priory, the lily of the valley and the gentian of the mountain, the nymphæa of the lake, and the cliver of the arid bank; in short, I have collected the pilewort, the throatwort, the liverwort, and every other vegetable specific which the kind hand of nature has spread over the globe, and which I have designated by their qualities, and have converted to your use and benefit. Mindful also of the pious festivals which our church prescribes, I have sought to make these charming objects of floral nature, the timepieces of my religious calendar, and the mementos of the hastening period of my mortality. Thus I can light the taper to our Virgin Mother on the blowing of the white snowdrop, which opens its floweret at the time of Candlemas; the lady’s smock and the daffodil remind me of the Annunciation; the blue harebell, of the festival of St. George; the ranunculus, of the Invention of the Cross; the scarlet lychnis, of St. John the Baptist’s day; the white lily, of the Visitation of our Lady; and the virgin’s bower, of her Assumption; and Michaelmas, Martinmas, Holy Rood, and Christmas, have all their appropriate monitors. I learn the time of day from the shutting of the blossoms of the star of Jerusalem and the dandelion, and the hour of the night by the stars.”’

From kind feelings to the benevolence of the Franciscan mendicant’s address, which we may suppose ourselves to have just heard, we illustrate something of his purpose, by annexing the rose, the tulip, and the passion-flower, after an engraving by a catholic artist, who has impressed them with devotional monograms, and symbols of his faith.

RURAL MUSINGS.

_Margaret._--What sports do you use in the forest?--

_Simon._--Not many; some few, as thus:--
To see the sun to bed, and to arise,
Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes,
Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him,
With all his fires and travelling glories round him.
Sometimes the moon on soft night clouds to rest,
Like beauty nestling in a young man’s breast,
And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep
Admiring silence, while those lovers sleep,
Sometimes outstretcht, in very idleness,
Naught doing, saying little, thinking less,
To view the leaves thin dancers upon air,
Go in eddy ground; and small birds, how they fare,
When mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn,
Filch’d from the careless Amalthea’s horn;
And how the woods berries and worms provide
Without their pains, when earth has naught beside
To answer their small wants.