Chapter X: Preface (9)

1818. On this day died in London, captain Thomas Morris, aged 74, a man of highly cultivated mind, who was born in its environs, and for whom when young a maternal uncle, of high military rank, procured an ensigncy. He beat for recruits at Bridgewater, and enlisted the affections of a Miss Chubb of that town, whom he married. He was ordered with his regiment to America, where he fought by the side of general Montgomery.

Captain Morris at one time was taken by the Indians, and condemned to the stake; at the instant the women and children were preparing to inflict its tortures, he was recognised by an old sachem, whose life he had formerly saved, and who in grateful return pleaded so powerfully in his behalf, that he was unbound and permitted to return to his friends, who had given him up for lost. He published an affecting narrative of his captivity and sufferings; yet he was so attached to the Indian mode of life, that he used to declare they were the only human beings worthy of the name of MEN. On his return from America to England, he quitted the army and gave himself to literary studies, and the conversation of a few enlightened friends. In the midst of “the feast of reason, and the flow of soul,” he often sighed for the grand imagery of nature, the dashing cataracts of Columbia, the wild murmurs of rivers rolling through mountains, woods, and deserts. Having met with some disappointments which baffled his philosophy, he sought a spot for retirement, and found it in a nursery garden, at Paddington. Here in a small cottage, he compared Pope’s translation of Homer with the original, in which he was assisted by Mr. George Dyer, a gentleman well qualified for so pleasing a task. In this pursuit he passed some years, which he declared were the happiest of his life.

With partiality for the dead languages, he was sensible to the vigour and copiousness of his own: he translated Juvenal into English, and enriched it with many notes, but it was never printed. He published a little poem, entitled “_Quashy_, or the Coal-black Maid,” a pathetic West India story. He lived in the style of a gentleman, and left a handsome sum to his children.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·92.

~February 11.~

CHRONOLOGY.

1763. William Shenstone, the poet, died at his celebrated residence the Leasowes, near Hagley, in Worcestershire. He was born at Hales Owen, Shropshire, in 1714.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·00.

~February 12.~

1826.--_First Sunday in Lent._

The communion service of the church of England for the Sundays in Lent, was extracted from the offices appointed for these Sundays by the missal of Sarum, excepting the collect for the first Sunday, which was composed by the compilers of the liturgy, and also excepting the gospel for the second Sunday.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·37.

~February 13.~

_Valentine’s Eve._

1826. Hilary term ends. Cambridge term begins.

VALENTINE’S EVE AT SWAFFHAM.

_For the Every-Day Book._

At Swaffham in Norfolk it is customary to send valentines on this evening. Watching for a convenient opportunity, the door is slyly opened, and the valentine, attached to an apple or an orange, is thrown in; a loud rap at the door immediately follows, and the offender, taking to his heels, is off instantly. Those in the house, generally knowing for what purpose the announcing rap was made, commence a search for the juvenile billet doux: in this manner, numbers are disposed of by each youth. By way of teasing the person who attends the door, a white oblong square, the size of a letter, is usually chalked on the step of the door, and, should an attempt be made to pick it up, great amusement is thus afforded to some of the urchins, who are generally watching.

K.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·10.

~February 14.~

OLD CANDLEMAS DAY.

_Valentine._

Referring to vol. i. from p. 215 to 230, for information concerning the origin of this festival of lovers, and the manner wherein it is celebrated, a communication is subjoined concerning a custom now observed in Norfolk.

VALENTINE’S DAY AT LYNN.

_For the Every-Day Book._

Independent of the homage paid to St. Valentine on this day at Lynn, (Norfolk,) it is in other respects a red-letter day amongst all classes of its inhabitants, being the commencement of its great annual mart. This mart was granted by a charter of Henry VIII., in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, “to begin on the day next after the feast of the purification of the blessed virgin Mary, and to continue six days next following,” (though now it is generally prolonged to a fortnight.) Since the alteration of the style, in 1752, it has been proclaimed on Valentine’s day. About noon, the mayor and corporation, preceded by a band of music, and attended by twelve decrepit old men, called from their dress “Red coats,” walk in procession to proclaim the mart, concluding by opening the antiquated, and almost obsolete court of “Piepowder.” Like most establishments of this nature, it is no longer attended for the purpose it was first granted, business having yielded to pleasure and amusement. Formerly Lynn mart and Stourbridge (Stirbitch) fair,[61] were the only places where small traders in this and the adjoining counties, supplied themselves with their respective goods. No transactions of this nature now take place, and the only remains to be perceived, are the “mart prices,” still issued by the grocers. Here the thrifty housewives, for twenty miles round, laid in their annual store of soap, starch, &c., and the booth of “Green” from Limehouse, was for three generations the emporium of such articles; but these no longer attend. A great deal of money is however spent, as immense numbers of persons assemble from all parts. Neither is their any lack of incitements to unburthen the pockets: animals of every description, tame and wild, giants and dwarfs, tumblers, jugglers, peep-shows, &c., all unite their attractive powers, in sounds more discordant than those which annoyed the ears of Hogarth’s “enraged musician.”

The year 1796 proved particularly unfortunate to some of the inhabitants of Marshland who visited the mart. On the evening of February 23, eleven persons, returning from the day’s visit, were drowned by the upsetting of a ferryboat; and on the preceding day a man from Tilney, going to see the wild beasts, and putting his hand to the lion’s mouth, had his arm greatly lacerated, and narrowly escaped being torn to pieces.

In the early part of the last century, an old building, which, before the reformation, had been a hall belonging to the guild of St. George, after being applied to various uses, was fitted up as a theatre, (and by a curious coincidence, where formerly had doubtless been exhibited, as was customary at the guild feasts, religious mysteries and pageants of the catholic age, again was exhibited the mysteries and pageants of the protestant age,) during the mart and a few weeks afterwards; but with no great success, as appears by an anecdote related of the celebrated George Alexander Stevens. Having in his youthful days performed here with a strolling company, who shared amongst them the receipts of the house, after several nights’ performance to nearly empty benches, while performing the part of Lorenzo, in Shakspeare’s “Merchant of Venice,” he thus facetiously parodied the speech of Lorenzo to Jessica, in the fifth act, as applicable to his distressed circumstances:

“Oh Jessica! in such a night as this we came to town,
And since that night we’ve shar’d but half a crown;
Let you and I then bid these folks good night,
For if we longer stay, they’ll starve us quite.”

This neglect of the drama is not, however, to be attributed to the visitors or the inhabitants at the present day, a very elegant and commodious theatre having been erected in 1814, at a considerable expense, in another part of the town. But even here, a fatality attends our catholic ancestors, indicative of the instability of all sublunary affairs. The theatre has been erected on the site of the cloisters and cemetery of the grey friars’ monastery, the tall, slender tower of which is still standing near, and is the only one remaining out of ten monasteries found in Lynn at the dissolution; where, but for the lustful rapacity of that tyrannical “defender of the faith,” Henry VIII., this sacred asylum of our departed ancestors would not have been profaned, nor their mouldering particles disturbed, by a building as opposite to the one originally erected, as darkness is to light. Thus time, instead of consecrating, so entirely obliterates our veneration for the things of yesterday, that the reflecting mind cannot forbear to exclaim with the moralist of old,--“_Sic transit gloria mundi._”

K.

Aged 74, A. D. 1824.]

“Here’s David’s likeness for his book,
All those who buy may at it look,
As he is in his present state,
Now printed from a copper-plate.”

These lines are beneath the portrait from whence the above engraving is taken. It is a very faithful likeness of David Love, only a little too erect:--not quite enough of the stoop of the old man of 76 in it,--but it is a face and a figure which will be recognised by thousands in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. The race of the old minstrels has been long extinct;--that of the ballad-singers is fast following it--yet David is both one and the other. He is a bard and a caroller,--a wight who has wandered over as many hills and dales as any of the minstrels and troubadours of old;--a man who has sung, when he had cause enough for crying--who has seen many ups and downs, and has seldom failed to put his trials and hardships into rhyme. He is the poet of poverty and patience--teaching experience. He has seen the

“huts where poor men lie”

all his life; yet he has never ceased to chant as he proceeded on his painful pilgrimage, like the “nightingale with a thorn in her breast.” It is true, he does not carry his harp to accompany his strains, but he carries his life, “The Life, Adventures, and Experience of David Love, written by Himself. Fifth edition:” and well doth it deserve both its title and sale. A curious, eventful story of a poor man’s it is. First he is a poor parent-deserted lad; then he has wormed himself into good service, and afterwards into a coal-pit, where he breaks his bones and almost crushes out life; then he is a traveller, a shopkeeper, a soldier fighting against the Highland rebels; he falls in love, gets into wedlock and a workhouse, is never in despair, and never out of trouble; with a heart so buoyant, that, like a cork on a boisterous flood, however he might be plunged into the depths, he is sure to rise again to the surface, and in all places and cases still pours out his rhymes--pictures of scenes around him, strange cabins and strange groups, love verses, acrostics, hymns, &c.

“I have composed many rhymes,
On various subjects, and the times,
And call’d the trials of prisoners’ crimes
The cash to bring;
When old I grew, composed hymns,
And them did sing.”

So David sped, and so he speeds now in his 77th year, only that his travels have left him finally fixed at Nottingham. His wars and his loves have vanished; his circle of action has annually become more and more contracted; till, at length, the town includes the whole field of his perambulations, and even that is almost more than his tottering frame can traverse. Yet there he is! and the stranger who visits Nottingham will be almost sure to see him, as represented in the print, crossing the market-place, with a parcel of loose papers in his hand;--a rhyming account of the last Goose Fair, a flood, an execution, or _one_ of David’s own marriages,--for be it known to thee, gentle reader, that David _Love_ has been a true son of the family of the _Loves_. He has not sung his amatory lays for naught; he has captivated the hearts of no less than three damsels, and he has various and memorable experience in wives.

David, like many of our modern geniuses, is a Scotchman. He tells us that he was born near Edinburgh, but the precise place he affects not to know. The fact is, he is not very strong in his faith that, as he has tasted the sweets of a parish, he cannot be removed, and thinks it best to keep his birth-place secret: but the spot is Torriburn, on the Forth, the Scotch Highgate. David “has been to mair toons na Torriburn,” as the Scotch say, when they intimate that they are not to be gulled.

After sustaining many characters in the drama of life whilst yet very young, a schoolmaster among the rest, he fairly flung himself and his genius upon the world, and rambled from place to place in Scotland, calling around him all the young ears and love-darting eyes by his original ballads. It was a dangerous life, and David did not escape scatheless.

“At length so very bold I grew,
My songs exposed to public view,
And crowds of people round me drew,
_I was so funny_;
From side to side I nimbly flew
To catch the money.”

And he caught not only money, but matrimony,--and such a wife! alas! for poor David!

“As she always will rule the roast,
I’d better be tied to a post,
And whipped to death,
Than with her tongue to be so tossed,
And bear her wrath.
She called me both rogue and fool,
And over me she strove to rule;
I sat on the repenting stool--
There tears I shed;
Sad my complaint, I said, O dool!
That e’er I wed.”

The next step evidently enough was enlisting, which he did into the duke of Buccleugh’s regiment; where, he says, he distinguished himself by writing a song in compliment of the regiment and its noble commander, concluding with,

“Now, at the last, what do you think
Of the author, David Love?”

And whenever the duke and the officers saw him, they were sure to point, and say, “What do you think of the author, David Love?” These seem to have been David’s golden days. Not only--

“One hand the pen, and one the sword did wield,”

but he was also an actor of plays for the amusement of the officers. However, his discharge came, and adventures crowded thickly upon him. He traversed England in all directions, married a second and a third time, figured away in London and Edinburgh, and finally in Nottingham, with ballads and rhymes of his own composing; saw the inside of a prison, was all but hanged for his suspicious and nomadic poverty, and after all, by his own showing, is now to be classed with the most favoured of mortals:--

“I am now 76 years of age, and I both see and hear as well as I did thirty years ago. My wife is aged about fifty, and has been the space of a year in tolerable health. She works hard at her silk-wheel, to assist me; is an excellent housewife; gossips none: cleanly in cooking, famous at washing, good at sewing, marking, and mending her own and children’s clothes. For making markets none can equal her. Consults me in every thing, to find if I think it right, before she proceeds to buy provisions, or clothes; strives to please me in every thing; and always studies my welfare, rejoicing when I am in health, grieved when I am pained or uneasy. She is my tender nurse to nourish me, my skilful doctress to administer relief when I am in sickness or in pain; in short, a better wife a poor man never had.”

Truly, David, I think so too! A happy man art thou to be possessed of such an incomparable helpmate; and still happier that, unlike many a prouder bard, thou art sensible of thy blessings.

To show that although our minstrel often invokes the muse to paltry subjects for paltry gains, yet he can sometimes soar into a higher region, I give the following:--

THE CHILD’S DREAM.

_The substance thereof being founded on fact_

I’ll tell you who I saw last night,
As I lay sleeping on my bed;
A shining creature all in light,
To me she seemed a heavenly maid.

I meet her tripping o’er the dew,
Fine as a queen of May, mamma;
She saw, she smiled, she to me flew,
And bade me come away, mamma.

I looked, I loved, I blushed awhile,
Oh! how could I say no, mamma?
She spoke so sweet, so sweet did smile,
I was obliged to go, mamma.

For love my tender heart beguiled,
I felt unusual flames, mamma;
My inward fancy turned so wild,
So very strange my dream, mamma.

Indeed I was, I know not how,
Oh had you only been with me;
Such wonders opened to my view,
As few but holy angels see.

Methought we wandered in a grove,
All green with pleasant fields, mamma;
In joyful measures on we move,
As music rapture yields, mamma.

She took me in her snow-white hand,
Then led me through the air, mamma.
Far higher above sea and land,
Than ever eagles were, mamma.

The sea and land, with all their store,
Of rivers, woods, and lofty hills,
Indeed they did appear no more
Than little streams or purling rills.

I sought my dear papa’s estate,
But found it not at all, mamma;
The world in whole seemed not so great
As half a cannon-ball, mamma.

We saw the sun but like a star,
The moon was like a mustard seed;
Like Elias in his fiery car,
All glorious winged with light’ning speed.

Swift as our thoughts, oh joyful day.
We glanced through all the boundless spheres;
Their music sounding all the way,
Heaven sweetly rushing in our ears,

Now opens, and all we saw before
Were lost entirely to our view;
The former things are now no more,
To us all things appeared new.

No death is there, nor sorrow there,
E’er to disturb the heavenly bliss,
For death, sin, hell, and sorrow are,
Entirely lost in the abyss.

With wintry storms the ground ne’er pines
Clothed in eternal bloom, mamma;
For there the sun of glory shines,
And all the just with him, mamma.

I saw my sister Anna there,
A virgin in her youthful prime;
More than on earth her features fair,
And like the holy angels’ fine.

_Her robe was all a flowing stream
Of silver dipt in light_, mamma,
But ah! it ’woke me from my dream,
It shone so strong and bright, mamma.

With this specimen of David’s poetical faculties, I leave him to the kind consideration of the well disposed.

_January, 1826._

M. T.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 37·42.

[61] In 1510, a suit at law took place between Lynn and Cambridge
respecting the toll of Stirbitch fair; the precise ground of the
dispute and the termination are not stated.

~February 15.~

1826. _Ember Week._

Ember weeks are those in which the Ember days fall. A variety of explanations have been given of the word _Ember_, but Nelson prefers Dr. Marechal’s, “who derives it from the Saxon word importing, _a circuit_ or _course_; so that these fasts being not occasional, but returning every year in certain courses, may properly be said to be Ember days, because fasts in course.” The Ember days are the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the first Sunday in Lent, and after the 13th of December. It is enjoined by the xxxi. canon of the church, “that deacons and ministers be ordained, or made, but only on the Sundays immediately following these Ember feasts.”[62]

* * * * *

1731. Their majesties king George II. and the queen, being desirous of seeing “the noble art of printing,” a printing press and cases were put up at St. James’s palace on the 15th of February, and the duke (of York) wrought at one of the cases, to compose for the press a little book of his own writing, called “The Laws of Dodge-Hare.” The two youngest princes, likewise, composed their names, &c., under the direction of Mr. S. Palmer, a printer, and author of the “History of Printing,” which preceded Mr. Ames’s more able work.[63]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·22.

[62] Audley’s Companion to the Almanac.

[63] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~February 16.~

CHRONOLOGY.

A question was carried in the house of commons for building a bridge over the Thames, from Palace-yard to the Surrey side. During the debate, that river overflowed its banks by reason of a strong spring tide; the water was higher than ever known before, and rose above two feet in Westminster-hall, where the courts being sitting, the judges, &c. were obliged to be carried out. The water came into all the cellars and ground rooms near the river on both sides, and flowed through the streets of Wapping and Southwark, as its proper channel; a general inundation covered all the marshes and lowlands in Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire, and some thousands of cattle were destroyed, with several of their owners in endeavouring to save them. The tide being brought in by a strong wind at N. W. was the highest in Lincolnshire of any for 135 years past. Seventeen breaches were made, about sunrise, in the banks of the river between Spalding and Wisbech, with several between Wisbech and Lynn, and irreparable damage done; some graziers having lost all their cattle. At Clay, in Norfolk, waters came over the great beach, almost demolished the town, and left nine feet of water in the marshes. At Gold Ongar, Essex, Mr. Cooper, and four of his servants, were drowned in endeavouring to save some sheep, the sea wall giving way of a sudden. The little isles of Candy and Foulness, on the coast of Essex, were quite under water; not a hoof was saved thereon, and the inhabitants were taken from the upper part of their houses into boats. The particular damages may be better conceived than related.[64]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·90.

[64] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~February 17.~

_Sittings after Term._

On the day after the expiration of every term, the courts of law continue to sit at Westminster, and try causes; and some judges come into London at the same time, for the same purpose. These sittings are called the “sittings after term,” and during these periods, suits, arising out of clashing claims of important interests, are usually decided by the verdicts of special juries, and other litigations are disposed of.

* * * * *

The origin and progress of every possible action, in a court of law, are succinctly portrayed by “the Tree of Common Law”--an engraving in vol. i. p. 234. It stands there for “ornament and use;”--there are plenty of books to explain technical terms, and show the practice of the courts; any uninformed person, therefore, may easily obtain further information as to the modes; and any respectable attorney will advise an inquirer, who states all the particulars of his case, concerning the costs of attempting to sue or defend, and the chances of success. After proceeding so far, it will be requisite to pause, and then, as paramount to the legal advice, common sense should weigh consequences well, before giving “instructions to sue,” or “defend,” in

---------- that wide and pathless maze
Where law and custom, truth and fiction,
Craft, justice, strife, and contradiction,
With every blessing of confusion,
Quirk, error, quibble, and delusion,
Are all, if rightly understood,
Like jarring ministers of state,
’Mid anger, jealousy, and hate,
In friendly coalition joined,
To harmonize and bless mankind.

To some “whimsical miscellanies,” subjoined at the place aforesaid, can be added or annexed, more or many others, of the same or the like kind. The realities of law may be relieved by the pleasures of imagination, and the heaviness of the “present sittings” be enlivened by a _reported_ case, in the words of the reporter, (_Stevens’s Lect._) premising, however, that he first publicly stated, with his head in his wig, and with a nosegay in his hand,

“Law is--law,--law is law, and as, in such and so forth, and hereby, and aforesaid, provided always, nevertheless, notwithstanding. Law is like a country dance, people are led up and down in it till they are tired. Law is like a book of surgery, there are a great many terrible cases in it. It is also like physic, they that take least of it are best off. Law is like a homely gentlewoman, very well to follow. Law is also like a scolding wife, very bad when it follows us. Law is like a new fashion, people are bewitched to get into it; it is also like bad weather, most people are glad when they get out of it.” The same learned authority observes, that the case before referred to, and hereafter immediately stated, came before him, that is to say,

_Bullum_ v. _Boatum._
_Boatum_ v. _Bullum._

There were two farmers, farmer A and farmer B. Farmer A was seized or possessed of a bull; farmer B was seized or possessed of a ferry-boat. Now the owner of the ferry-boat, having made his boat fast to a post on shore, with a piece of hay, twisted rope fashion, or as we say, _vulgo vocato_, a hay-band. After he had made his boat fast to a post on shore, as it was very natural for a hungry man to do, he went _up town_ to dinner; farmer A’s bull, as it was very natural for a hungry bull to do, came _down town_ to look for a dinner; and the bull observing, discovering, seeing, and spying out, some turnips in the bottom of the ferry-boat the bull scrambled into the ferry-boat--he eat up the turnips, and to make an end of his meal, he fell to work upon the hay-band. The boat being eaten from its moorings, floated down the river, with the bull in it: it struck against a rock--beat a hole in the bottom of the boat, and tossed the bull overboard. Thereupon the owner of the bull brought his action against the boat, for running away with the bull, and the owner of the boat brought his action against the bull for running away with the boat.

At trial of these causes, Bullum _v._ Boatum, Boatum _v._ Bullum, the counsel for the bull began with saying,

“_My lord_, and you, _gentlemen of the jury_,

“We are counsel in this cause for the bull. We are indicted for running away with the boat. Now, my lord, we have heard of running horses, but never of running bulls before. Now, my lord, the bull could no more run away with the boat than a man in a coach may be said to run away with the horses; therefore, my lord, how can we punish what is not punishable? How can we eat what is not eatable? Or how can we drink what is not drinkable? Or, as the law says, how can we think on what is not thinkable? Therefore, my lord, as we are counsel in this cause for the bull, if the jury should bring the bull in guilty, the jury would be guilty of a bull.”

The counsel for the boat affirmed, that the bull should be nonsuited, because the declaration did not specify of what colour he was; for thus wisely, and thus learnedly spoke the counsel: “My lord, if the bull was of no colour, he must be of some colour; and if he was not of any colour, of what colour could the bull be?” I overruled this objection myself (says the reporter) by observing the bull was a white bull, and that white is no colour: besides, as I told my brethren, they should not trouble their heads to talk of colour in the law, for the law can colour any thing. The causes went to reference, and by the award, both bull and boat were acquitted, it being proved that the tide of the river carried them both away. According to the legal maxim, there cannot be a wrong without a remedy; I therefore advised a fresh case to be laid before me, and was of opinion, that as the tide of the river carried both bull and boat away, both bull and boat had a right of action against the water-bailiff.

Upon this opinion an action was commenced, and this point of law arose, how, whether, when, and whereby, or by whom, the facts could be proved on oath, as the boat was not _compos mentis_. The evidence point was settled by Boatum’s attorney, who declared that for his client he would swear any thing.

At the trial, the water-bailiff’s charter was read, from the original record in true law Latin, to support an averment in the declaration that the plaintiffs were carried away either by the tide of flood, or the tide of ebb. The water-bailiffs charter stated of him and of the river, whereof or wherein he thereby claimed jurisdiction, as follows:--_Aquæ bailiffi est magistratus in choisi, sapor omnibus, fishibus, qui habuerunt finnos et scalos, claws, shells, et talos, qui swimmare in freshibus, vel saltibus, riveris, lakos, pondis, canalibus et well boats, sive oysteri, prawni, whitini, shrimpi, turbutus solus_; that is, _not turbots alone, but turbots and soals_ both together. Hereupon arose a nicety of law; for the law is as nice as a new-laid egg, and not to be understood by addle-headed people. Bullum and Boatum mentioned both ebb and flood, to avoid quibbling; but it being proved, that they were carried away neither by the tide of flood, nor by the tide of ebb, but exactly upon the top of high water, they were nonsuited; and thereupon, upon their paying all costs, they were allowed, by the court, to begin again, _de novo_.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 37·82.

~February 18.~

_Revivification of Trees._

Mr. Arthur Aikin, in his “Natural History of the Year,” narrates the first vital function in trees on the conclusion of winter. This is the _ascent of the sap_ after the frost is moderated, and the earth sufficiently thawed. The absorbent vessels composing the _inner bark_ reach to the extremity of the fibres of the roots, and thus, through the roots, imbibe water, which, mixing there with a quantity of saccharine matter, forms _sap_, and is from thence abundantly distributed through the trunk and branches to every individual bud. The birch tree in spring, on being tapped, yields its sap, which is fermented into wine. The palm tree in the tropics of the same season yields its sap by the same method, which is made into palm wine, and the sap of the sugar maple in North America being boiled, yields the maple sugar.

“This great accession of nourishment (the _sap_) causes the bud to swell, to break through its covering, and to spread into blossoms, or lengthen into a shoot bearing leaves. This is the _first_ process, and, properly speaking, is all that belongs to the _springing_ or _elongation_ of trees; and in many plants, that is, all those which are annual or deciduous, there is no other process; the plant absorbs juices from the earth, and in proportion to the quantity of these juices increases in size: it expands its blossoms, perfects its fruit, and when the ground is incapable by drought or frost of yielding any more moisture, or when the vessels of the plant are not able to draw it up, the plant perishes. But in _trees_, though the beginning and end of the first process is exactly similar to what takes places in vegetables, yet there is a second process, which at the same time that it adds to their bulk, enables them to endure and go on increasing through a long series of years.

“The _second_ process begins soon after the first, in this way. At the base of the footstalk of each leaf a small bud is gradually formed; but the absorbent vessels of the leaf having exhausted themselves in the formation of the bud, are unable to bring it nearer to maturity: in this state it exactly resembles a seed, containing within it the rudiments of vegetation, but destitute of absorbent vessels to nourish and evolve the embryo. Being surrounded, however, by sap, like a seed in moist earth, it is in a proper situation for growing; the influence of the sun sets in motion the juices of the bud and of the seed, and the first operation in both of them is to send down roots a certain depth into the ground for the purpose of obtaining the necessary moisture. The bud accordingly shoots down its roots upon the inner bark of the tree, till they reach the part covered by the earth. Winter now arriving, the cold and defect of moisture, owing to the clogged condition of the absorbent vessels, cause the fruit and leaves to fall, so that, except the provision of buds with roots, the remainder of the tree, like an annual plant, is entirely dead: the leaves, the flowers, and fruit are gone, and what was the inner bark, is no longer organized, while the roots of the buds form a new inner bark; and thus the buds with their roots contain all that remains alive of the whole tree. It is owing to this annual renovation of the _inner bark_, that the tree increases in bulk; and a new coating being added every year, we are hence furnished with an easy and exact method of ascertaining the age of a tree by counting the number of concentric circles of which the trunk is composed. A tree, therefore, properly speaking, is rather a congeries of a multitude of annual plants, than a perennial individual.

“The sap in trees always rises as soon as the frost is abated, that when the stimulus of the warm weather in the early spring acts upon the bud, there should be at hand a supply of food for its nourishment; and if by any means the sap is prevented from ascending at the proper time, the tree infallibly perishes. Of this a remarkable instance occurred in London, during the spring succeeding the hard winter of the year 1794. The snow and ice collecting in the streets so as to become very inconvenient, they were cleared, and many cartloads were placed in the vacant quarters of _Moorfields_; several of these heaps of snow and frozen rubbish were piled round some of the elm-trees that grow there. At the return of spring, those of the trees that were not surrounded with the snow expanded their leaves as usual, while the others, being still girt with a large frozen mass, continued quite bare; for the fact was, the absorbents in the lower part of the stem, and the earth in which the trees stood, were still exposed to a freezing cold. In some weeks, however, the snow was thawed, but the greater number of the trees were dead, and those few that did produce any leaves were very sickly, and continued in a languishing state all summer, and then died.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 37·92.

~February 19.~

1826.--_Second Sunday in Lent._

_The First Bird’s Nest in Spring._

Of all our native birds, none begins to build so soon as the raven: by the latter end of this month it has generally laid its eggs and begun to sit. The following anecdote, illustrative of its attachment to its nest, is related by Mr. White in his “Natural History of Selborne.” “In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle of the stem. On this a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such a series of years, that the oak was distinguished by the name of the _raven-tree_. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry; the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted out so much in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazardous. So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of _February_, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle and mallet, the tree nodded to its fall, but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest; and though her parental affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs, which brought her dead to the ground.”[65]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 38·37.

[65] Aikin’s Nat. Hist. of the Year.

~February 20.~

_The ways of the Season._

The roads now are usually _heavy_, that is, the thaws have so entirely liberated the water in the earth, that the subsoil, which had been expanded by the action of the frost, becomes loosened, and, yielding mud to the surface, increases the draught of carriages. Now, therefore, the commissioners and agents who execute their duty have full employment, and the highways afford employment to a large number of persons who are destitute of their customary labour, or unfit for other work.

And is it you’d be riding, by Blackwater to Fermoy?
You’ll be accommodated, to your heart’s content and joy,
There’s not a beast, nor car, but what’s beautiful and easy;
And then the pleasant road--bad’s the luck but it’ll please ye!

_MS. Ballad._

Mr. Crofton Croker’s “Researches in the South of Ireland,” besides accounts of scenery and architectural remains, and illustrations of popular manners and superstition, conveys a very good idea of the roads and the methods of travelling in that part of the sister kingdom. The usual conveyance is called a car; its wheels are either a solid block rounded to the desired size, or they are formed of three pieces of wood clamped together. The wheels are fixed to a massive wooden axletree; this supports the shafts, which are as commonly constructed on the outside as on the inside of the wheels. In one of these machines Mr. Croker, with a lady and gentleman who accompanied him on his tour, took their seats. The car and horse were precisely of that description and condition in the engraving. Mr. W. H. Brooke painted a picture of this gentleman’s party, from whence he has obligingly made the drawing for the present purpose; the only alteration is in the travellers, for whom he has substituted a family on their removal from one cabin to another.

This, which is the common Irish car, is used throughout the province of Leinster, the midland counties, and some parts of the north. The country, or farmer’s car always has the wheels on the outside of the shafts, with a balustrade or upright railing fixed from the shaft to the side bars, which rise diagonally from them; this sort of enclosure is also at the back. This car is open at top for the convenience of carrying hay, corn, vegetables, tubs, packages, and turf, which is generally placed in wicker baskets, called a “kish;” two or four of these placed side by side occupy the entire body. The car, with the wheels between the shafts, is used for like purposes, but has the additional honour of being rendered a family conveyance, by cart ropes intertwisted or crossing each other from the top bars, whereon a ticking, stuffed with straw, and a quilt or coverlid, form a cushion for the comfort of the travellers. The car is the common, and indeed the only, mode of carrying coals in the city of Dublin to the houses of the consumers: from six to nine sacks, making about half a ton, lie very snugly across the bars. Of course, as a family conveyance, it is only in use among the poorest class in the country.

The common car somewhat varies in shape, as will appear from the following figure, also drawn by Mr. Brooke.

It must be added, that though these cars maintain their ground in uncultivated districts, they are quickly disappearing, in the improved parts of Ireland, before the Scotch carts introduced by the agricultural societies.

The Irish “jaunting-car,” the “jingle,” the “noddy,” and a variety of other carriages, which ply for hire in Dublin, are wholly distinct and superior vehicles.

* * * * *

The following interesting narrative, in the words of its author, illustrates the nature of the car, the state of the roads, and the “manners” of the people.

A JAUNT IN A COUNTRY CAR

_From Lismore to Fermoy_

BY T. CROFTON CROKER, ESQ.

Having hired a car at Lismore to take us to Fermoy, and wishing to walk part of the way along the banks of the Blackwater, we desired the driver to meet us at a given point. On arriving there, the man pretended not to have understood we were three in party, and demanded, in consequence, an exorbitant addition to the sum agreed on. Although we were without any other means of conveyance for eight Irish miles, it was resolved not to submit to this imposition, and we accordingly withdrew our luggage and dismissed the car, intending to seek another amongst a few cabins that appeared at a little distance from the road side. A high dispute ensued with the driver, who, of course, was incensed at this proceeding, and endeavoured to enlist in his cause the few straggling peasants that had collected around us; but having taken refuge and placed our trunks in the nearest cabin, ourselves and property became sacred, and the disposition to hostility, which had been at first partially expressed, gradually died away. When we began to make inquiries for a horse and car of any kind to take us into Fermoy, our endeavours were for some time fruitless. One person had a car, but no horse. Another had a car _building_, which, if Dermot Leary were as good as his word, would be finished next week some time, “God willing.” At length we gained intelligence of a horse that was “only two miles off, drawing turf: sure he could be fetched in less than no time.” But then again, “that big car of Thaddy Connor’s was too great a load for him entirely. Sure the _baste_ would never draw the _car_ into Fermoy, let alone their honours and the trunks.” After some further consultation, a car was discovered more adapted to the capabilities of the miserable animal thus called upon to “leave work and carry wood,” and though of the commonest kind we were glad to secure it. By means of our trunks and some straw we formed a kind of lodgment on the car, which, being without springs and on the worst possible of roads, was not exactly a bed of down. The severe contusions we received on precipitating into the numerous cavities, though no joke, caused some laughter; on which the driver turned round with a most facetious expression of countenance, suggesting that “May be the motion did not just agree with the lady, but never fear, she would soon get used to it, and be asleep before we got half way to Fermoy.” This prediction, it will readily be supposed, was not fulfilled; and I believe it was three days before we recovered from the bruises of that journey. It is difficulty to say whether our situation will excite mirth or sympathy in the minds of our readers, but a sketch may do no injury to the description. [In Mr. Croker’s volume an engraving on wood is inserted.]

Many Irish villages boast a post-chaise, the horses for which are not unfrequently taken from the plough, and the chaise itself submitted to a temporary repair before starting, to render it, if the parody of a nautical phrase may be allowed, “road-worthy;” but the defects are never thought of one moment before the chaise is required; and the miseries of posting in Ireland have, with justice, afforded subject for the caricaturist. Tired horses or a break-down are treated by a driver, whose appearance is the very reverse of the smart jockey-like costume of an English postilion, with the utmost resignation, as matters of unavoidable necessity. With a slouched hat--slovenly shoes and stockings--and a long, loose great coat wrapped round him, he sits upon a bar in front of the carriage and urges on his horses by repeated applications of the whip, accompanied with the most singular speeches, and varied by an involuntary burst of his musical talent, whistling a tune adapted to the melancholy pace of the fatigued animals, as he walks slowly beside them up the ascent of every hill.

“Did you give the horses a feed of oats at the village where we stopped to sketch?” inquired one of my fellow-travellers of the driver, who for the last three or four miles had with much exertion urged on the jaded hacks.

“I did not, your honour,” was the reply, “but sure, and they know I promised them a good one at Limerick.”

Nor is this instance of pretended understanding between man and horse singular. Riding once in company with a poor farmer from Cork to Mallow, I advised him to quicken the pace of his steed as the evening was closing in, and the lurid appearance of the sky foreboded a storm.

“Sure then that I would with the greatest pleasure in life for the honour I have out of your company, sir; but I promised the _baste_ to let him walk, and I never belie myself to any one, much less to a poor creature that carries me--for, says the _baste_ to me, I’m tired, as good right I have, and I’ll not go a step faster--and you won’t make me--I scorn it says I, so take your own way.”

A verbatim dialogue on an Irish break-down happily characterises that accident: the scene, a bleak mountain, and the time, the return of the driver with another chaise from the nearest station which afforded one--seven miles distant.

“Is the carriage you have brought us safe?”

(One of the travellers attempts to get in.)

“Oh never fear, sir; wait till I just bail out the water and put a little sop of hay in the bottom--and sure now and ’tis a queer thing that the _ould_ black chaise should play such a trick, and it has gone this road eleven years and never broke down _afore_. But no wonder poor _cratur_, the turnpike people get money enough for mending the roads, and bad luck to the bit of it they mend, but put it all in their pockets.”

“What, the road?”

“_Noe_, your honour, the money.”

To such as can bear with composure and indifference lesser and temporary misfortunes, those attendant on an Irish tour become objects of merriment; the very essence of the innate ingenuity and wit of the people is called out by such evils; and the customary benediction muttered by the peasant on the meeting a traveller, is changed into the whimsical remark or shrewd reply that mock anticipation.

Of late, jingles, as they are termed, have been established between the principal towns. These are carriages on easy springs, calculated to contain six or eight persons. The roof is supported by a slight iron frame capable of being unfixed in fine weather, and the curtains, which may be opened and closed at will, afford complete protection from sun and rain; their rate of travelling is nearly the same as that of the stage-coach, and they are both a cheaper and more agreeable conveyance.

On our way from Cork to Youghall in one of these machines, we were followed by a poor wretch ejaculating the most dreadful oaths and imprecations in Irish. His head was of an uncommonly large and stupid shape, and his idiotic countenance was rendered fierce and wild by a long and bushy red beard. On our driver giving him a piece of bread, for which he had run beside the jingle at least half a mile, he uttered three or four terrific screams, accompanied by some antic and spiteful gestures. I should not remark this circumstance here were it one of less frequent occurrence; but on most of the public roads in the south of Ireland, fools and idiots (melancholy spectacles of humanity!) are permitted to wander at large, and in consequence of this freedom have acquired vicious habits, to the annoyance of every passenger: throwing stones, which they do with great dexterity, is amongst the most dangerous of their practices, and a case is known to me where the wife of a respectable farmer, having been struck on the temple by a stone thrown at her by an idiot, died a few days after. Within my recollection, Cove-lane, one of the most frequented parts of Cork, as leading to the Cove-passage, Carrigaline and Monkstown roads, was the station of one of these idiots, who seldom allowed an unprotected woman to pass without following her, and inflicting the most severe pinches on her back and arms; yet this unfortunate and mischievous being for many years was suffered by the civil power to remain the terror of every female, and that too within view of a public asylum for the reception of such. But to return from this digression.

The charges at inferior towns and villages are extravagant in an inverse proportion to the indifference of their accommodation, and generally exceed those of the first hotels in the metropolis. Our bill at Kilmallock was any thing but moderate, and yet the house, though the best the town afforded, appeared to be one where carmen were oftener lodged than gentry. The landlady stood at the door, and with a low curtsey and a good-humoured smile welcomed us to “the ancient city of Kilmallock;” in the same breath informed us, that she was a gentlewoman born and bred, and that she had a son, “as fine an officer as ever you could set eyes on in a day’s walk, who was a _patriarch_ (a patriot) in South America;” then leading us up a dark and narrow staircase to the apartment we were to occupy, wished to know our names and business, whence we came and where we were going; but left the room on our inquiring, in the first place, what we could have to eat. After waiting a reasonable time our demands were attended to by a barefooted female, who to our anxiety respecting what we could have for supper, replied with perfect confidence, “Just any thing you like, sure!”

“Have you any thing in the house?”

“Indeed and we have not; but it’s likely I might be able to get an egg for ye.”

An examination of the bedrooms will not prove more satisfactory; a glass or soap are luxuries seldom found. Sometimes one coarse and very small towel is provided; at Kilmallock, the measurement of mine was half a yard in length and a quarter in breadth; its complexion, too, evinced that it had assisted in the partial ablutions of many unfastidious persons. Mr. Arthur Young’s constant ejaculation, when he lighted on such quarters in Ireland, usually occurred to my mind, “Preserve me, Fate, from such another!” and I have no doubt he would agree with me, that two very essential requisites in an Irish tour are a stock of linen, and a tolerable partiality for bacon. But travellers, any more than beggars, cannot always be choosers, and those who will not submit with patience to the accidents and inconveniences of a journey, must sit at home and read the road that others travel.

“Who alwaies walkes, on carpet soft and gay,
Knowes not hard hills, nor likes the mountaine way.”[66]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·17.

[66] Mr. Croker’s Researches in the South of Ireland, 1824, 4to. This
gentleman’s excursions were made between the years 1812 and 1822.

~February 21.~

_Seasonable Rules._

On p. 187 there is a “Letter,” delivered to a favourite servant at parting, which deserves to be printed in letters of gold, or, what is better, because it is easier and more useful, it should be imprinted on the memory of every person who reads it. There are sentiments in it as useful to masters and mistresses as their domestics. The following “Rules” may likewise be perused with advantage by both; they are deemed “seasonable,” because, as good-livers say, good things are never out of season.

_Rules for Servants._

I. A good character is valuable to every one, but especially to servants; for it is their bread, and without it they cannot be admitted into any creditable family; and happy it is that the best of characters is in every one’s power to deserve.

II. Engage yourself cautiously, but stay long in your place, for long service shows worth--as quitting a good place through passion, is a folly which is always lamented of too late.

III. Never undertake any place you are not qualified for; for pretending to what you do not understand, exposes yourself, and, what is still worse, deceives them whom you serve.

IV. Preserve your fidelity; for a faithful servant is a jewel, for whom no encouragement can be too great.