Chapter XXXIV: Preface (33)

On the twenty-sixth of June, 1752, died cardinal Julius Alberoni. He was born in 1664; his father, a gardener near Parma, who obtained for him a small post in the cathedral where he took priests orders, was enabled by the fortune of war to serve Campistron, the French poet, who was secretary to the duke of Vendome, and who introduced him to that warrior, to whom Alberoni betrayed the granaries of his countrymen. Vendome perceived his talent for political intrigue, and in reward of this treason, appointed him to conduct a correspondence with the princess d’Ursins who governed the affairs of Spain. In quality of agent to the duke of Parma, Alberoni was settled at the Spanish court, and contrived to marry the princess to Philip V. The new queen gave him her confidence, and obtained for him a cardinal’s hat; he was made a grandee of Spain, and became prime minister, in which capacity he endeavoured to excite the Turks against the emperor, attempted the restoration of the pretender to the throne of England, aimed at dispossessing the duke of Orleans from the regency of France, and securing it for Philip V., and by these and other ambitious endeavours, raised a host of enemies against Philip, who could only obtain peace with France and England on condition of banishing Alberoni. He left Spain with immense property in his possession, and with the will of Charles II. by which Philip derived his title to the Spanish monarchy. The document was recovered from him by force, and the pope caused him to be arrested at Geneva for intriguing against the Turks. He went to Rome; the college of cardinals inquired into his conduct, and confined him for a year to the Jesuits’ college, and Clement XII. appointed him legate to Romana, where, at the age of seventy, he plotted the destruction of the little republic of San Marino, and was ludicrously defeated when he imagined brilliant success. Alberoni was baffled in almost every scheme of national aggression. He accumulated great wealth, a universal reputation for political intrigue, and at the age of eighty-seven, died rich and infamous.[229]

THE SEASON.

“Now” in this month, as in the month of July, and as, for example, in June, 1826, “we occasionally have one of those sultry days which make the house too hot to hold us, and force us to seek shelter in the open air, which is hotter;--when the interior of the blacksmith’s shop looks awful, and we expect the foaming porter pot to hiss, as the brawny forger dips his fiery nose into it;--when the birds sit open-mouthed upon the bushes; and the fishes fry in the shallow ponds; and the sheep and cattle congregate together in the shade, and forget to eat;--when pedestrians along dusty roads quarrel with their coats and waistcoats, and cut sticks to carry them across their shoulders; and cottagers’s wives go about their work gown-less; and their daughters are anxious to do the same, but that they have the fear of the vicar before their eyes;--when every thing seen beyond a piece of parched soil quivers through the heated air; and when, finally, a snow-white swan, floating above its own image, upon a piece of clear cool water into which a weeping-willow is dipping its green fingers, is a sight not to be turned from suddenly.”[230]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 60·15.

[228] Miss Plumptre.

[229] General Biographical Dictionary, vol. 1.

[230] Mirror of the Months.

~June 27.~

CHRONOLOGY.

_Fire in Lincoln’s Inn._

On the twenty-seventh of June, 1752, about one in the morning, a fire broke out in Lincoln’s-inn new square, by which No. 10 and 11 were entirely consumed. The chambers of R. Wilbraham, the hon. Edward Harley, hon. Charles York, E. Hoskyns, -- Chomley, Edmund Sawyer, master in chancery, and -- Ansell, Esqs. all in No. 10, with the papers, books, plate, furniture, and wearing apparel were totally destroyed. In the next staircase, No. 11, were Mr. John Sharpe, solicitor to the treasury, and Messrs. Edward Booth, Ambler, Fazakerly, Fellers, and Wilmot. The loss and difficulties in which many families were involved, the titles to whose properties were lodged with the above gentlemen, were not to be computed. Mr. Wilbraham had lately purchased an estate of great value, the title-deeds of which, among other numberless deeds, mortgages, &c. were burnt. His clerk, Mr. Pickering, lost above eleven hundred pounds in money and bank notes of his own and others, and securities for thirty thousand pounds more, also all the title-deeds of lord Leigh’s estate. When the fire was discovered most of the watch were asleep or drunk, and the wife of an upholder in Carey-street, whose husband left his bed to assist the sufferers, hanged herself in his absence.[231]

* * * * *

In 1752, was living at Clee-hall, near Ludlow, in Salop, lady Wadeley at the great age of 105. She had been blind for several years, but at that time could see remarkably well. She was then walking about in perfect health, and cutting a new set of teeth.[232]

* * * * *

THE GRAVE.

Why should the grave be terrible?
Why should it be a word of fear,
Jarring upon the mortal ear?
There repose and silence dwell:
The living hear the funeral knell,
But the dead no funeral knell can hear.
Does the gay flower scorn the grave? the dew
Forget to kiss its turf? the stream
Refuse to bathe it? or the beam
Of moonlight shun the narrow bed,
Where the tired pilgrim rests his head?
No! the moon is there, and smiling too!
And the sweetest song of the morning bird
Is oft in that ancient yew-tree heard;
And there may you see the harebell blue
Bending his light form--gently--proudly,
And listen to the fresh winds, loudly
Playing around yon sod, as gay
As if it were a holiday,
And children freed from durance they.

_Bowring._

FOUND IN THE RIVER THAMES.]

A remarkably fine impression, of which the above is a faithful copy both as to size and device, has been transmitted to the editor of the _Every-Day Book_ by a gentleman, the initials of whose name are J. L., and from him the following account has been obtained.

The seal itself was drawn by ballast-heavers from the bed of the Thames opposite Queenhithe, in 1809 or 1810, and purchased from them by the late Mr. Bedder, of Basing-lane. He was by profession a bricklayer, but a man of considerable taste, a lover of antiquities, and the possessor of a collection of rare and curious coins in high preservation, which he had accumulated at a considerable expense.

This seal, from the inscription around it, appears to have been an official seal of the port of London. It is of silver, very thick, beautifully executed, and in the finest possible condition. By whom it is now possessed is not known to Mr. J. L., who received the impression from Mr. Bedder himself.

The editor may venture to assert that full justice is done to it in the preceding representation; and as he is unable to give further information, he will be happy to receive and communicate any other particulars respecting the original.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 60·57.

[231] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[232] Ibid.

~June 28.~

A VILLAGE FETE.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_Wisbech, June 24, 1826._

Dear Sir,--The rural village of Wisbech St. Mary, two miles west of this town, has long been famous for its annual exhibition of rustic sports, under the patronage of John Ream, Esq., on whose lawn they are celebrated. The enclosed bill is an outline of the amusements for the present year. Knowing you have a pleasure in recording every thing that has a tendency to keep alive the manners and customs of our ancestors, I send it for insertion in the _Every-Day Book_.

And am,

Dear Sir,

Yours, with very great respect,

J. P.

[COPY.]

* * * * *

“Trembling age, with happy smile,
Youth’s high-mettled Gambols view,
And by fancy warm’d awhile,
Scenes of former bliss renew;
Love repeats his tender tale,
Cheeks responsive learn to glow,
And while Song and Jest prevail,
Nut-brown tankards circling flow.
Wouldst thou wish such joys to share,
Haste then to the Village Fair.”

* * * * *

WISBECH ST. MARY’S
RACES,

_And annual exhibition of Rustic Sports_,
Will this Year be celebrated with the usual Splendour, on
_Wednesday and Thursday, June 28th and 29th, 1826_.

* * * * *

_This Annual Festival_ is now considered as a superior Establishment
to a Country Fair or other Merry-making, by the Numerous Respectable
and Fashionable Assemblage of Company, who regularly attend from all
parts of the Neighbourhood. Undisturbed by those scenes of
intoxication and disorder, so usually prevalent at Village Feasts, the
greatest harmony prevails throughout, and the superior Accommodation
afforded by the Landlord of the WHEEL INN to all classes of
well-behaved and respectable Visiters, cannot fail to render WISBECH
ST. MARY’S RACES popular and attractive; or, in language more
poetical--

“To gild with Joy the Wings of Time.”

The Sports to consist of Horse, Pony, and Donkey Racing;--Wheelbarrow
Racing;--Jumping in Sacks;--Jingling Matches, and Foot Racing; all for

FREE PRIZES.

And to add a greater stimulus to the aspiring PLOUGH BOY, and for the
encouragement of Agriculture in general, the Stewards purpose having

A PLOUGHING MATCH,

When will be given _a Sovereign_ for the best, and a _Half-sovereign_
for the second best Furrow, to be determined by impartial Judges
chosen on the ground. The first Plough to start on Thursday Morning at
Ten o’Clock precisely.

By the Plough _the Poor Weaver_ depends for his bread--
By the Plough we in turn behold the rich mow--
By the Plough all our tables with plenty are spread--
Then who but must wish _Success to the Plough_!

_A full Band is engaged to play loyal and popular Tunes during the
Amusements, which will commence each Evening precisely at Five
o’clock._

There’ll be a sound of revelry by night,
And Saint Mary’s Village will assemble then
Her Maids and Ploughmen: and bright
The lights will shine o’er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily! and when
Music arises with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look love to eyes, which speak again,
And all go merry as a marriage bell.

_Tickets for the Ball to be had at the bar of the Wheel Inn._

(Leach, Printer, Wisbech.)

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 60·85.

~June 29.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On the twenty-ninth of June, 1813, died at his house in St. Alban’s-street, London, Valentine Green, Esq. A.R.S., keeper of the British Institution; greatly respected for his superior talents as a mezzotinto engraver, for the purity and universality of his taste in works of art, for the general urbanity of his manners, and for that invariable benignity of disposition, which, in popular language, is usually styled “goodness of heart.”

Mr. Green, besides his distinguished merit as an artist, acquired considerable reputation as an author, by publishing, in 1796, a valuable work, entitled, “The History and Antiquities of the City and Suburbs of Worcester,” in two quarto volumes; a performance of great research and labour. He was born at Salford, near Chipping-Norton, in Oxfordshire, October 3, 1739.[233]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·70.

[233] Butler’s Chron. Exercises.

~June 30.~

LONDON PORTER.

All the world knows that London is famous for porter; it is not of this porter we speak to-day, but of a personage who derives his quality from the means by which he has attained the honour of doing credit to the corporation. The individual alluded to, was publicly made known by a police report of the thirtieth of June, 1826, viz.--

Mr. Alderman Wood came to the Mansion-house for the purpose of contradicting a statement which appeared in the _Courier_ newspaper, that he had persecuted a poor man, named Brown, and procured his discharge, for sticking up bills against him (Alderman Wood). He thought it worth while not to let such a statement go unanswered; for he never exercised such an influence in the course of his life, and he never heard of such a man until the charge was made in the newspaper. He wished to know whether there really was such a man connected with the Mansion-house establishment.

The Lord Mayor said, he believed there was such a man, not belonging to the Mansion-house, but to the Mansion-house porter. The fact was, that their porter, like the porter to the “Castle of Indolence,” had become so exceedingly fat, that he had employed a valet to do the only work which there was for him to do--namely, to sweep the gateway. This valet was the aforesaid Brown, in whom the liberty of the subject, and the constitution, was alleged to have been violated. How, or why, he had quitted the Mansion-house, the porter alone could tell.

The porter was then sent for, and he waddled into the justice-room. In answer to his lordship’s inquiries, he stated that he had employed Brown at half-a-crown per week, to sweep the door and do other work for him.

The LORD MAYOR.--When did he absent himself from his duty?--The porter replied, it was about three weeks ago.

The LORD MAYOR.--Did you discharge him from his office on constitutional grounds, or for acting against Mr. Alderman Wood?

The PORTER.--Bless your worship, no: I can’t tell why he went off.

Alderman Wood professed himself satisfied with this contradiction: he thought the affair unworthy of farther attention. He had been challenged to prove his statement respecting the bills, and he had proved it.[234]

* * * * *

From this description of the “initial” to the Mansion-house, he seemed “a fit and proper person” to be taken by a “limner,” and represented, by the art of the engraver, to the readers of the _Every-Day Book_. An artist every way qualified was verbally instructed to view him; but instead of transmitting his “faithful portrait,” he sent a letter, of which the following is a

COPY.

_To Mr. Hone._

Dear Sir,--I went this morning to the Mansion-house and had an interview with the porter, but _that_ porter was very different to what I expected to have found. Instead of a very fat lazy fellow, fatted by indolence, I found a short active little man, about five feet high, not fat, nor lean, but _a comfortable size_, dressed in black, powdered hair, and top boots, pleasing and easy in his manners, and such a one that every one would suppose would get an inferior person to do his dirty work. There is nothing extraordinary in him to be remarkable, therefore I made no sketch of him; but proceeded to Limehouse on a little business, and from thence home, and feel so excessively tired that I send this scrawl, hoping you will excuse me coming myself.

Yours respectfully,

---- ----

Between this gentleman’s “view of the _subject_,” and the preceding “report,” there is a palpable difference; where the mistake lies, it is not in the power of the editor to determine. The letter-writer himself is “of a comfortable size,” and is almost liable to the suspicion of having seen the porter of the Mansion-house, from the opposite passage of the Mansion-house tavern, as through an inverted telescope. The lord mayor’s alleged comparison of the porter at his own gate, with the porter of the “Castle of Indolence,” may justify an extract of the stanzas wherein “_that_ porter,” and “his man,” are described.

Wak’d by the crowd, slow from his bench arose
A comely full spread porter, swoln with sleep:
His calm, broad, thoughtless aspect, breath’d repose
And in sweet torpour he was plunged deep,
Nor could himself from ceaseless yawning keep;
While o’er his eyes the drowsy liquor ran,
Thro’ which his half-wak’d soul would faintly peep--
Then taking his black staff, he call’d his man,
And rous’d himself as much as rouse himself he can.

The lad leap’d lightly at his master’s call:
He was, to weet, a little rogueish page,
Save sleep and play who minded naught at all,
Like most the untaught striplings of the age.
This boy he kept each band to disengage,
Garters and buckles, task for him unfit,
But ill becoming his grave personage,
And which his portly paunch would not permit,
So this same limber page to all performed it.

Meantime the master-porter wide display’d
Great store of caps, of slippers, and of gowns;
Wherewith he those that enter’d in array’d.
Loose, as the breeze that plays along the downs,
And waves the summer-woods when evening frowns,
O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein,
But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,
And heightens ease with grace, this done, right fain
Sir porter sat him down, and turned to sleep again.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·40.

[234] The Times, July 1, 1826.

Our saxon fathers did full rightly call
This month of July “Hay-monath,” when all
The verdure of the full clothed fields we mow,
And turn, and rake, and carry off; and so
We build it up, in large and solid mows.
If it be good, as every body knows,
To “make hay while the sun shines,” we should choose
Right “times for all things,” and no time abuse.

*

In July we have full summer. The “Mirror of the Months” presents its various influences on the open face of nature. “The rye is yellow, and almost ripe for the sickle. The wheat and barley are of a dull green, from their swelling ears being alone visible, as they bow before every breeze that blows over them. The oats are whitening apace, and quiver, each individual grain on its light stem, as they hang like rain-drops in the air. Looked on separately, and at a distance, these three now wear a somewhat dull and monotonous hue, when growing in great spaces; but these will be intersected, in all directions, by patches of the brilliant emerald which now begins to spring afresh on the late-mown meadows; by the golden yellow of the rye, in some cases cut, and standing in sheaves; by the rich dark green of the turnip-fields; and still more brilliantly by sweeps, here and there, of the bright yellow charlock, the scarlet corn-poppy, and the blue succory, which, like perverse beauties, scatter the stray gifts of their charms in proportion as the soil cannot afford to support the expenses attendant on them.”

On the high downs, “all the little molehills are purple with the flowers of the wild thyme, which exhales its rich aromatic odour as you press it with your feet; and among it the elegant blue heath-bell is nodding its half-dependent head from its almost invisible stem,--its perpetual motion, at the slightest breath of air, giving it the look of a living thing hovering on invisible wings just above the ground. Every here and there, too, we meet with little patches of dark green heaths, hung all over with their clusters of exquisitely wrought filigree flowers, endless in the variety of their forms, but all of the most curiously delicate fabric, and all, in their minute beauty, unparalleled by the proudest occupiers of the parterre. This is the singular family of plants that, when cultivated in pots, and trained to form heads on separate stems, give one the idea of the forest trees of a Lilliputian people.” Here, too, are the “innumerable little thread-like spikes that now rise from out the level turf, with scarcely perceptible seed-heads at top, and keep the otherwise dead flat perpetually alive, by bending and twinkling beneath the sun and breeze.”

In the green lanes “we shall find the ground beneath our feet, the hedges that enclose us on either side, and the dry banks and damp ditches beneath them, clothed in a beautiful variety of flowers that we have not yet had an opportunity of noticing. In the hedge-rows (which are now grown into impervious walls of many-coloured and many-shaped leaves, from the fine filigree-work of the white-thorn, to the large, coarse, round leaves of the hazel) we shall find the most remarkable of these, winding up intricately among the crowded branches, and shooting out their flowers here and there, among other leaves than their own, or hanging themselves into festoons and fringes on the outside, by unseen tendrils. Most conspicuous among the first of these is the great bind-weed, thrusting out its elegantly-formed snow-white flowers, but carefully concealing its leaves and stem in the thick of the shrubs which yield it support. Nearer to the ground, and more exposed, we shall meet with a handsome relative of the above, the common red and white wild convolvolus; while all along the face of the hedge, clinging to it lightly, the various coloured vetches, and the enchanter’s night-shade, hang their flowers into the open air; the first exquisitely fashioned, with wings like the pea, only smaller; and the other elaborate in its construction and even beautiful, with its rich purple petals turned back to expose a centre of deep yellow; but still, with all its beauty, not without a strange and sinister look, which at once points it out as a poison-flower. It is this which afterwards turns to those bunches of scarlet berries which hang so temptingly in autumn, just within the reach of little children, and which it requires all the eloquence of their grandmothers to prevent them from tasting. In the midst of these, and above them all, the woodbine now hangs out its flowers more profusely than ever, and rivals in sweetness all the other field scents of this month.

“On the bank from which the hedgerow rises, and on _this_ side of the now nearly dry water-channel beneath, fringing the border of the green path on which we are walking, a most rich variety of field-flowers will also now be found. We dare not stay to notice the half of them, because their beauties, though even more exquisite than those hitherto described, are of that unobtrusive nature that you must stoop to pick them up, and must come to an actual commune with them, before they can be even seen distinctly; which is more than our desultory and fugitive gaze will permit,--the plan of our walk only allowing us to pay the passing homage of a word to those objects that _will_ not be overlooked. Many of the exquisite little flowers, now alluded to generally, look, as they lie among their low leaves, only like minute morsels of many-coloured glass scattered upon the green ground--scarlet, and sapphire, and rose, and purple, and white, and azure, and golden. But pick them up, and bring them towards the eye, and you will find them pencilled with a thousand dainty devices, and elaborated into the most exquisite forms and fancies, fit to be strung into necklaces for fairy Titania, or set in broaches and bracelets for the neatest-handed of her nymphs.

“But there are many others that come into bloom this month, some of which we cannot pass unnoticed if we would. Conspicuous among them are the centaury, with its elegant cluster of small, pink, star-like flowers; the ladies’ bedstraw, with its rich yellow tufts; the meadow-sweet--sweetest of all the sweetners of the meadows; the wood betony, lifting up its handsome head of rose-coloured blossoms; and, still in full perfection, and towering up from among the low groundlings that usually surround it, the stately fox-glove.

“Among the other plants that now become conspicuous, the wild teasal must not be forgotten, if it be only on account of the use that one of the summer’s prettiest denizens sometimes makes of it. The wild teasal (which now puts on as much the appearance of a flower as its rugged nature will let it) is that species of thistle which shoots up a strong serrated stem, straight as an arrow, and beset on all sides by hard sharp-pointed thorns, and bearing on its summit a hollow egg-shaped head, also covered at all points with the same armour of threatening thorns--as hard, as thickly set, and as sharp as a porcupine’s quills. Often within this fortress, impregnable to birds, bees, and even to mischievous boys themselves, that beautiful moth which flutters about so gaily during the first weeks of summer, on snow-white wings spotted all over with black and yellow, takes up its final abode,--retiring thither when weary of its desultory wanderings, and after having prepared for the perpetuation of its ephemeral race, sleeping itself to death, to the rocking lullaby of the breeze.

“Now, too, if we pass near some gently lapsing water, we may chance to meet with the splendid flowers of the great water lily, floating on the surface of the stream like some fairy vessel at anchor, and making visible, as it ripples by it, the elsewhere imperceptible current. Nothing can be more elegant than each of the three different states under which this flower now appears; the first, while it lies unopened among its undulating leaves, like the halcyon’s egg within its floating nest; next, when its snowy petals are but half expanded, and you are almost tempted to wonder what beautiful bird it is that has just taken its flight from such a sweet birth-place; and lastly, when the whole flower floats confessed, and spreading wide upon the water its pointed petals, offers its whole heart to the enamoured sun. There is I know not what of awful in the beauty of this flower. It is, to all other flowers, what Mrs. Siddons is to all other women.”[235]

[235] Mirror of the Months.

~July 1.~

COCKLETOP.

_Munden._--_Farren._

July 1, 1826.--Mr. Farren appeared in the part of _Old Cockletop_, in O’Keefe’s farce of _Modern Antiques_, at the Haymarket theatre. This will be recollected as a crack character of Munden’s; and it was one which he had hit so happily, that it became almost impossible for any other actor to play it very successfully after him. There was a sort of elfin antic--a kind of immateriality about the crotchets of Munden in _Cockletop_. His brain seemed to have no more substance in it than the web of a spider; and he looked dried up in body and mind, almost to a transparency; he might have stood in a window and not been in the way--you could see the light through him. Farren is the bitterest old rascal on the stage. He looks, and moves always, as if he had a blister (that wanted fresh dressing) behind each ear; but he does not touch the entirely withered, crazy-brained, semi-bedlamite old rogue, in the way that Munden did. Munden contrived to give all the weakness possible to extreme age in _Cockletop_, without exciting an iota of compassion. All that there was of him was dry bones and wickedness. You could not help seeing that he would be particularly comical under the torture; and you could not feel the slightest compunction in ordering that he should undergo it. There never was any thing like his walking up and down Drury-lane stage in astonishment, and concluding he must be “at next door,” when he returns home from his journey, and finds all his servants in mourning! And the cloak that he wore too! And the appendage that he called his “stormcap!” He looked like a large ape’s skin stuffed with hay, ready to hang up in an apothecary’s shop! You ran over all the old fools that you knew, one after the other, to recollect somebody like him, but could not succeed! Farren plays _Foresight_ as well as Munden; and he plays _Cockletop_ very successfully; but it is hardly possible for one eminent actor to follow another in _trifling_ characters, where the first has made a hit rather by his own inventions than by any thing which the author has set down for him. Munden’s dancing in the ghost-scene with the servants, and his conclusion--striking an attitude, with the fingers of one hand open like a bunch of radish, as the fiddler, used to keep the audience in convulsions for two minutes. Farren avoided this trick, probably lest he should be charged with imitation; but acknowledged talent like his may use a latitude: he has originality enough to warrant his at least not avoiding the device which has been used by any actor, purely because it has been used by somebody else before him. Some passages that he gave were quite as good as Munden. In the scene where he fancies himself taken ill, the pit was in two minds to get up and cheer. He made a face like a bear troubled suddenly with symptoms of internal commotion! one who had eaten a bee-hive for the sake of the honey, and began to have inward misgivings that there must have been bees mixed up along with it. And Farren possesses the gift too--a most valuable one in playing to an English audience--of exhibiting the suffering without exciting the smallest sympathy! Whenever there is any thing the matter with him, you hope he’ll get worse with all your soul; and, if he were drowning--with _that_ face!--he must die:--you could not, if you were to die yourself, take one step, for laughing, to save him.[236]

_July._

The sun comes on apace, and thro’ the signs
Travels unwearied; as he hotter grows,
Above, the herbage, and beneath, the mines,
Own his warm influence, while his axle glows;
The flaming lion meets him on the way,
Proud to receive the flaming god of day.

In fullest bloom the damask rose is seen,
Carnations boast their variegated die,
The fields of corn display a vivid green,
And cherries with the crimson orient vie,
The hop in blossom climbs the lofty pole,
Nor dreads the lightning, tho’ the thunders roll.

The wealth of Flora like the rainbow shows,
Blending her various hues of light and shade,
How many tints would emulate the rose,
Or imitate the lily’s bright parade!
The flowers of topaz and of sapphire vie
With all the richest tinctures of the sky.

The vegetable world is all alive,
Green grows the gooseberry on its bush of thorn,
The infant bees now swarm around the hive,
And the sweet bean perfumes the lap of morn,
Millions of embryos take the wing to fly,
The young inherit, and the old ones die.

’Tis summer all--convey me to the bower,
The bower of myrtle form’d by Myra’s skill,
There let me waste away the noontide hour,
Fann’d by the breezes from yon cooling rill,
By Myra’s side reclin’d, the burning ray
Shall be as grateful as the cool of day.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 61·07.

[236] The Times, July 3, 1826.

~July 2.~

_Will Wimble._

On the second of July, 1741, died at Dublin, Mr. Thomas Morecroft, “a baronet’s younger son, the person mentioned by the ‘Spectator’ in the character of _Will Wimble_.”

This notice is from the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for 1741, as also is the following:--

On the same day, in the same year, the earl of Halifax married Miss Dunck, with a fortune of one hundred thousand pounds. It appears that, “according to the will of Mr. Dunck, this lady was to marry none but an honest tradesman, who was to take the name of Dunck; for which reason his lordship took the freedom of the sadlers’ company, exercised the trade, and added the name to his own.”

(_For the Every-Day Book._)

A SHORTE AND SWEETE SONNETT ON THE SUBTILTIE OF LOVE

BY CORNELIUS MAY.

_From “the Seven Starres of Witte.”_

You cannot barre love oute
Father, mother and you alle,
For marke mee he’s a crafty boy,
And his limbes are very smalle;
He’s lighter than the thistle downe,
He’s fleeter than the dove,
His voice is like the nightingale;
And oh! beware of love!

For love can masquerade
When the wisest doe not see;
He has gone to many a blessed sainte
Like a virgin devotee;
He has stolen thro’ the convent grate,
A painted butterfly,
And I’ve seene in many a mantle’s fold
His twinkling roguish eye.

He’ll come doe what you will;
The Pope cannot keepe him oute;
And of late he’s learnt such evill waies
You must hold his oathe in doute:
From the lawyers he has learned
Like Judas to betraye;
From the monkes to live like martyred saintes
Yet cast their soules awaye.

He has beene at courte soe long
That he weares the courtier’s smile;
For every maid he has a lure,
For every man a wile;
Philosophers and alchymistes
Your idle toile give o’er,
Young love is wiser than ye alle
And teaches ten times more.

Strong barres and boltes are vaine
To keepe the urchin in,
For while the goaler turned the keye
He would trapp him in his gin.
You neede not hope by maile of proofe
To shun his cruell darte,
For he’ll change himselfe to a shirt of maile
And lye nexte to your hearte.

More scathfull than an evill eye,
Than ghost or grammerie,
Not seventy times seven holy priestes
Could laye him in the sea.
Then father mother cease to chide
I’ll doe the best I maye,
And when I see young love coming
I’ll up and run awaye.

On the second day of July, 1744, is recorded the birth of a son to Mr. Arthur Bulkeley.

The child’s baptism is remarkable from these circumstances. The infant’s godfathers, by proxy, were Edward Downes, of Worth, in Cheshire, Esq. his great-great-great-great uncle; Dr. Ashton, master of Jesus-college, Cambridge, and his brother, Mr. Joseph Ashton, of Surrey-street, in the Strand, his great-great-great uncles. His godmothers by their proxies were, Mrs. Elizabeth Wood, of Barnsley, Yorkshire, his great-great-great-great aunt; Mrs. Jane Wainwright, of Middlewood-hall, Yorkshire, his great-great grandmother; and Mrs. Dorothy Green, of the same place, his great grandmother. It was observed of Mrs. Wainwright, who was then eighty-nine years of age, that she could properly say, “Rise, daughter, go to thy daughter; for thy daughter’s daughter has a son.”

Mrs. Wainwright was sister to Dr. Ashton and his brother mentioned above, whose father and mother were twice married, “first before a justice of peace by Cromwell’s law, and afterwards, as it was common, by a parson; they lived sixty-four years together, and during the first fifty years in one house, at Bradway, in Derbyshire, where, though they had twelve children and six servants in family, they never buried one.”[237]

* * * * *

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 62·12.

[237] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~July 3.~

Dog days begin.

“ALL--FOR A PENNY!”

On the third of July, 1751, William Dellicot was convicted at the quarter-sessions for Salisbury, of petty larceny, for stealing one penny; whereby his effects, consisting of bank-notes to the amount of 180_l._, and twenty guineas in money, were forfeited to the bishop, as lord of the manor; but his lordship humanely ordered 100_l._ of the money to be put to interest for the benefit of the wretch’s daughter; 20_l._ to be given to his aged father, and the remainder to be returned to the delinquent himself.[238]

THE REGENT’S PARK.

A correspondent’s muse records an accommodation, which may be extended to other resorts, with the certainty of producing much satisfaction in wearied pedestrians.

CONGRATULATORY VERSES TO THE NEW SEATS IN THE REGENT’S-PARK, 1826 _versus_ CHAIRS.

I covet not the funeral chair
Th’ Orlean maid was burnt in, when
Enthusiasts’ voices rent the air
To clasp their Joan of Arc again.

I, learned Busby’s chair, chuse not,[239]
Nor of a boat in stormy seas,
Nor on a bridge--the stony lot
Of travellers not afraid to freeze.

I covet not the chair of state,
Nor that St. Peter’s papal race
Exalted for Pope Joan the great,
But seek and find an easier place.

To halls and abbeys knights repaired,
And barons to their chairs retired;
The goblet, glove, and shield, were reared,
As war and love their cause inspired.

Saint Edward’s chair the minster keeps,
An antique chair the dutchess bears;[240]
The invalid--he hardly sleeps,
Though poled through Bath in easy chairs.[241]

The chairs St. James’s-park contains,
The chairs at Kew and Kensington,
Have rested weary hearts and brains
That charmed the town, now still and gone.

I covet not the chair of guilt
Macbeth upbraided for its ghost;
Nor Gay’s, on which much ink was spilt,
When he wrote fables for his host.

What of Dan Lambert’s?--Oberon’s chair?
Bunyan’s at Bedford?--Johnson’s seat?
Chaucer’s at Woodstock?--Bloomfield’s bare?
Waxed, lasting, ended, and complete.[242]

Though without back, and sides, and arms,
Thou, REGENT’S SEAT! art doubly dear!
Nature appears in youthful charms
For all that muse and travel here.

Canal, church, spire, and Primrose hill,
With fowl and beast and chary sound,
Invite the thought to peace, for still
Thou, like a friend, art faithful found.

A seat, then, patience seems to teach,
Untired the weary limbs it bears;
To all that can its comforts reach,
It succours through the round of years.

Whatever hand, or name, is writ
In pencil on thy painted face;
Let not one word of ribald wit
Produce a blush, or man disgrace.

“BUSBY’S CHAIR.”

Talking of this--a word or two on “_Sedes Busbeiana_.”

The humorous representation of “Dr. Busby’s chair,” (on p. 34 of this volume,) personifying the several parts of grammar, as well as some of a schoolmaster’s _more serious_ occupation, said to have been from an original by sir Peter Lely, is ascertained by the editor to have been a mere _bagatelle_ performance of a young man some five-and-twenty years ago. It was engraved and published for Messrs. Laurie and Whittle, in Fleet-street, took greatly with the public, and had “a considerable run.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 60·30.

[238] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[239] Vide _Every-Day Book_, No. 54, vol. ii.

[240] Sedan chairs were first introduced into England in 1634. The
first was used by the duke of Buckingham, to the indignation of the
people, who exclaimed, _that he was employing his fellow creatures to
do the service of beasts_.

[241] _Query_,--a pun on Charing-cross. _Printer’s devil._

[242] Bloomfield, poor fellow, declared to the writer, that one of his
shop pleasures was that of the shoemaker’s country custom of _waxing_
his customers to the seat of St. Crispin, preparatory to the serving
out the pennyworth of the _oil of strap_.

~July 4.~

TRANSLATION OF ST. MARTIN.

This day is thus noticed as a festival in the church of England calendar and the almanacs, wherein he is honoured with another festival on the eleventh of November.

The word “translation” signifies, in reference to saints, as most readers already know, that their remains were removed from the graves wherein their bodies were deposited, to shrines or other places for devotional purposes.

FOR THE HONOUR OF HACKNEYMEN.

“Give a dog an ill name and hang him”--give hackney-coachmen good characters and you’ll be laughed at: and yet there are civil coachmen in London, and honest ones too. Prejudice against this most useful class of persons is strong, and it is only fair to record an instance of integrity which, after all, is as general, perhaps, among hackneymen, as among those who ride in their coaches.

HONESTY REWARDED.--A circumstance took place on Tuesday, (July 4,
1826,) which cannot be made too generally known among
hackney-coachmen, and persons who use those vehicles.

A gentleman took a coach in St. Paul’s churchyard, about twenty minutes before twelve, and was set down in Westminster exactly at noon. Having transacted his business there, he was proceeding homeward a little before one, when he suddenly missed a bank note for three hundred pounds, which he had in his pocket on entering the coach. He had not observed either the number or date of the note, or the number of the coach. He therefore returned to the bankers in the city, and ascertained the number and date of the note, then proceeded to the bank of England, found that it had not been paid, and took measures to stop its payment, if presented. After some further inquiry, he applied about half-past three, at the hackney-coach office, in Essex-street, in the Strand, and there to his agreeable surprise, he found that the coachman had already brought the note to the commissioners, at whose suggestion the gentleman paid the coachman a reward of fifty pounds. The name of the honest coachman should be known: it is John Newell, the owner and driver of the coach No. 314, and residing in Marylebone-lane.

It should also be known, that persons leaving property in hackney-coaches, may very generally recover it by applying without delay at the office in Essex-street. Since the act of parliament requiring hackney-coachmen to bring such articles to the office came into effect, which is not four years and a half ago, no less than one thousand and fifty-eight articles have been so brought, being of the aggregate value of forty-five thousand pounds, and upwards.[243]

* * * * *

Descend we from the coach, and, leaving the town, take a turn with a respected friend whither he would lead us.

FIELD PATHS.

(_For the Every-Day Book._)

I love our real old English footpaths. I love those rustic and picturesque stiles, opening their pleasant escapes from frequented places, and dusty highways, into the solitudes of nature. It is delightful to catch a glimpse of one on the village green, under the old elder-tree by some ancient cottage, or half hidden by the overhanging boughs of a wood. I love to see the smooth dry track, winding away in easy curves, along some green slope, to the churchyard, to the embosomed cottage, or to the forest grange. It is to me an object of certain inspiration. It seems to invite one from noise and publicity, into the heart of solitude and of rural delights. It beckons the imagination on, through green and whispering corn fields, through the short but verdant pasture; the flowery mowing-grass; the odorous and sunny hayfield; the festivity of harvest; from lovely farm to farm; from village to village; by clear and mossy wells; by tinkling brooks, and deep wood-skirted streams; to crofts, where the daffodil is rejoicing in spring, or meadows, where the large, blue geraneum embellishes the summer wayside; to heaths, with their warm, elastic sward and crimson bells, the chithering of grasshoppers, the foxglove, and the old gnarled oak; in short, to all the solitary haunts, after which the city-pent lover of nature pants, as “the hart panteth after the water-brooks.” What is there so truly English? What is so linked with our rural tastes, our sweetest memories, and our sweetest poetry, as stiles and fieldpaths? Goldsmith, Thomson, and Milton have adorned them with some of their richest wreaths. They have consecrated them to poetry and love. It is along the footpath in secluded fields,--upon the stile in the embowered lane,--where the wild-rose and the honey-suckle are lavishing their beauty and their fragrance, that we delight to picture to ourselves rural lovers, breathing in the dewy sweetness of a summer evening vows still sweeter. It is there, that the poet seated, sends back his soul into the freshness of his youth, amongst attachments since withered by neglect, rendered painful by absence, or broken by death; amongst dreams and aspirations which, even now that they pronounce their own fallacy, are lovely. It is there that he gazes upon the gorgeous sunset,--the evening star following with silvery lamp the fading day, or the moon showering her pale lustre through the balmy night air, with a fancy that kindles and soars into the heavens before him,--there, that we have all felt the charm of woods and green fields, and solitary boughs waving in the golden sunshine, or darkening in the melancholy beauty of evening shadows. Who has not thought how beautiful was the sight of a village congregation pouring out from their old grey church on a summer day, and streaming off through the quiet meadows, in all directions, to their homes? Or who, that has visited Alpine scenery, has not beheld with a poetic feeling, the mountaineers come winding down out of their romantic seclusions on a sabbath morning, pacing the solitary heath-tracks, bounding with elastic step down the fern-clad dells, or along the course of a riotous stream, as cheerful, as picturesque, and yet as solemn as the scenes around them?

Again I say, I love fieldpaths, and stiles of all species,--ay, even the most inaccessible piece of rustic erection ever set up in defiance of age, laziness, and obesity. How many scenes of frolic and merry confusion have I seen at a clumsy stile! What exclamations, and charming blushes, and fine eventual vaulting on the part of the ladies, and what an opportunity does it afford to beaux of exhibiting a variety of gallant and delicate attentions. I consider a rude stile as any thing but an impediment in the course of a rural courtship.

Those good old _turn-stiles_ too,--can I ever forget them? the hours I have spun round upon them, when a boy; or those in which I have almost laughed myself to death at the remembrance of my village pedagogue’s disaster! Methinks I see him now. The time a sultry day;--the domine a goodly person of some eighteen or twenty stone;--the scene a footpath sentinelled with turn-stiles, one of which held him fast, as in utter amazement at his bulk. Never shall I forget his efforts and agonies to extricate himself, nor his lion-like roars, which brought some labourers to his assistance, who, when they had recovered from their convulsions of laughter, knocked off the top, and let him go. It is long since I saw a turnstile, and I suspect the Falstaffs have cried them down. But, without a jest, stiles and fieldpaths are vanishing every where. There is nothing upon which the advance of wealth and population has made so serious an inroad. As land has increased in value, wastes and heaths have been parcelled out and enclosed, but seldom have footpaths been left. The poet and the naturalist, who before had, perhaps, the greatest _real_ property in them, have had no allotment. They have been totally driven out of the promised land. Nor is this all. Goldsmith complained, in his day, that--

“The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park’s extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;
The robe, that wraps his limbs in silken sloth,
Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth;
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green.”

And it is but too true that “the pressure of contiguous pride” has driven farther and farther, from that day to this, the public from the rich man’s lands. “They make a solitude and call it peace.” Even the quiet and picturesque footpath that led across his lawn, or stole along his wood-side, giving to the poor man, with his burden, a cooler and a nearer cut to the village, is become a nuisance. One would have thought that the rustic labourer with his scythe on his shoulder, or his bill-hook and hedging mittens in his hand, the cottage dame in her black bonnet and scarlet cloak, the bonny village maiden in the sweetness of health and simplicity, or the boy strolling along full of life and curiosity, might have had sufficient interest, in themselves, for a cultivated taste, passing occasionally at a distance across the park or lawn not only to be tolerated, but even to be welcomed as objects agreeably enlivening the stately solitude of the hall. But they have not. And what is more, _they_ are commonly the most jealous of pedestrian trespassers who seldom visit their own estates, but permit the seasons to scatter their charms around their villas and rural possessions without the heart to enjoy, or even the presence to behold them. How often have I myself been arrested in some long-frequented dale, in some spot endeared by its own beauties and the fascinations of memory, by a board, exhibiting, in giant characters, _Stopped by an order of Sessions!_ and denouncing the terms of the law upon trespassers. This is a little too much. I would not be querulous for the poor against the rich. I would not teach them to look with an envious and covetous eye upon their villas, lawns, cattle, and equipage; but when the path of immemorial usage is closed, when the little streak, almost as fine as a mathematical line, along the wealthy man’s ample field, is grudgingly erased, it is impossible not to feel indignation at the pitiful monopoly. Is there no village champion to be found bold enough to put in his protest against these encroachments, to assert this public right--for a right it is, as authentic as that by which the land itself is held, and as clearly acknowledged by the laws? Is there no local “Hampden with dauntless breast” to “withstand the little tyrant of the fields,” and to save our good old fieldpaths? If not, we shall, in a few years, be doomed to the highways and the hedges: to look, like Dives, from a sultry region of turnpikes, into a pleasant one of verdure and foliage which we may not approach. Already the stranger, if he lose his way, is in jeopardy of falling into the horrid fangs of a steel-trap; the botanist enters a wood to gather a flower, and is shot with a spring-gun; death haunts our dells and copses, and the poet complains, in regretful notes, that he--

“Wanders away to field and glen
Far as he may for the gentlemen.”

I am not so much of a poet, and so little of a political economist, as to lament over the progress of population. It is true that I see, with a _poetical_ regret, green fields and beautiful fresh tracts swallowed up in cities; but my joy in the increase of human life and happiness far outbalances that imaginative pain. But it is when I see _unnecessary and arbitrary_ encroachments upon the _rural_ privileges of the public that I grieve. Exactly in the same proportion as our population and commercial habits gain upon us, do we need all possible opportunities to keep alive in us the spirit of nature.

“The world is too much with us, late and soon
Getting and spending; we lay waste our powers,
Little there is in nature that is ours.”

_Wordsworth._

We give ourselves up to the artificial habits and objects of ambition, till we endanger the higher and better feelings and capacities of our being; and it is alone to the united influence of religion, literature, and nature, that we must look for the preservation of our moral nobility. Whenever, therefore, I behold one of our old fieldpaths closed, I regard it as another link in the chain which Mammon is winding around us,--another avenue cut off by which we might fly to the lofty sanctuary of nature for power to withstand him.

H.

BELLS AND BELL RINGING AT BURY ST. EDMUND’S.

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

_Lambeth, July 13, 1826._

My dear Sir,--To your late interesting notices of “Bells” and “Bell-ringing,” the following singular letter, which appears in a Suffolk paper, may be added. I happen to know something of this “jangling;” and when I resided in the town of Bury St. Edmund’s some years back, was compelled to listen to “the most hideous noise” of St. James’s lofty opponents. But “who shall decide when doctors disagree?”--Why, Mr. Editor,--_we_ will. It is a hardship, a cruelty, a usurpation, a “tale of woe.” Listen to St. James’s statement, and then let us raise our bells, and ring a “righte sounde and merie” peal, such as will almost “split the ears of the groundlings.”--

“_To the Editor of the Bury Post._