Chapter II: The Horse Eclipse (3)

Going to a rout, where he had not been invited, or rather, perhaps, where the host wished to mortify him, and attempted it, he turned placidly round to him, and, with a happy mixture of indifference and surprise, asked him his _name_. “Johnson,” was the answer. “Jauhnson,” said Brummell, recollecting, and pretending to feel for a card; “Oh, the name, I remember, was Thaun-son (Thompson;) and Jauhnson and Thaunson, you know, Jauhnson and Thaunson, are really so much the same kind of thing!”

A beggar petitioned him for charity “even if it was only a farthing.”--“Fellow,” said Mr. Brummell, softening the disdain of the appellation in the gentleness of his tone, “I don’t know the coin.”

Having thought himself invited to somebody’s country seat, and being given to understand, after one night’s lodging, that he was in error, he told an unconscious friend in town who asked him what sort of a place it was, that it was an “exceedingly good place for stopping one night in.”

Speaking lightly of a man, and wishing to convey his maximum of contemptuous feeling about him, he said, “He is a fellow, now, that would send his plate up twice for soup.”

It was his opinion, that port, and not porter, should be taken with cheese. “A gentleman,” said he, “never _malts_ with his cheese, he always _ports_.”

It being supposed that he once failed in a matrimonial speculation, somebody condoled with him; upon which he smiled, with an air of better knowledge on that point, and said, with a sort of indifferent feel of his neckcloth, “Why, sir, the truth is, I had great reluctance in cutting the connection; but what could I do? (Here he looked deploring and conclusive.) Sir, I discovered that the wretch positively ate cabbage.”

Upon receiving some affront from an illustrious personage, he said that it was “rather too good. By gad, I have half a mind to cut the young one, and bring old G--e into fashion.”

When he went visiting, he is reported to have taken with him an elaborate dressing apparatus, including a silver basin; “For,” said he, “it is impossible to spit in clay.”

On being asked by a friend, during an unseasonable summer, if he had ever seen such a one? “Yes,” replied B. “last winter.”

On a reference being made to him as to what sum would be sufficient to meet the annual expenditure for clothes, he said, “that with a moderate degree of prudence and economy, he thought it might be managed for eight hundred per annum.”

He told a friend that he was reforming his way of life, “For instance,” said he, “I sup early; I take a-a-little lobster, an apricot puff, or so, and some burnt champaigne, about twelve; and my man gets me to bed by three.”[194]

[194] Literary Pocket Book.

Vol. I.--22.

_Friday, May, -- 1827._

I had appointed this morning with my friend W. for a visit to the gallery of paintings at Dulwich College; and he was to obtain from a printseller an admission ticket, and bring it with him. He came furnished with the ticket, but as the ticket provided that the public were not to be admitted on a Friday, our seeing the pictures was out of the question. Neither of us, however, was in a humour to be disappointed of a holiday; we therefore set out in the direction we had intended. A coachman hailed us from the box of a Dulwich stage; we gave him an assenting nod, and mounted the roof: and after a brisk drive through Walworth and Camberwell, which are now no other way distinguishable from the metropolis, than by the irregular forms and sizes of the houses, and the bits of sickly grass and bottle-green poplars that further diversify them, we attained to the sight of the first out-of-town looking trees and verdure on the ascent towards Herne-hill. Here we began to feel “another air;” and during the calm drive down the hill into Dulwich--the prettiest of all the village entrances in the environs of London--we had glimpses, between the elms and sycamores, of pleasant lawns And blooming gardens, with bursts of the fine distances. The calm of the scene was heightened by the note of the cuckoo: it was no “note of fear” to us--we remembered our good wives surrounded by their families; they had greeted our departure with smiles, and hopes that the day would be pleasant, and that we should enjoy ourselves;--the mother and the children rejoiced in “father’s holiday” as a day of happiness to them, because it would make him happier.

Leaving Dulwich College on our right, with an useless regret, that, by our mistake as to the day, the picture-gallery was closed to us, we indulged in a passing remark on the discrepancies of the building--the hall and west wing of the Elizabethan age; the east wing in the Vanbrugh style; and the gallery differing from each. Alighting, just beyond, at the end of the old road, and crossing to the new one in the same line, we diligently perused an awful notice from the parochial authorities against offenders, and acquainted ourselves with the rewards for apprehending them. The board seemed to be a standing argument in behalf of reading and writing, in opposition to some of the respectable inhabitants of Dulwich, who consider ignorance the exclusive property of labourers and servants, which they cannot be deprived of without injury to their morals.

Ascending the hill, and leaving on the left hand a large house, newly built by a rich timber-merchant, with young plantations that require years of growth before they can attain sufficient strength to defend the mansion from the winds, we reached the summit of the hill, and found a direction-post that pointed us to a choice of several roads. We strolled into one leading to Penge Common through enclosed woodlands. Our ears were charmed by throngs of sweet singing birds; we were in a cathedral of the feathered tribes, where “every denomination” chanted rapturous praises and thanksgivings; the verger-robins twittered as they accompanied us with their full sparkling eyes and bright liveried breasts.--

Chiefs of the choir, and highest in the heavens,
As emulous to join the angels’ songs,
Were soaring larks; and some had dared so far
They seem’d like atoms sailing in the light;
Their voices and themselves were scarce discern’d
Above their comrades, who, in lower air
Hung buoyant, brooding melody, that fell
Streaming, and gushing, on our thirsty ears.
In this celestial chancel we remain’d
To reverence these creatures’ loud Te Deum--
A holy office of their simple natures
To Him--the great Creator and Preserver--
Whom they instinctively adored.

A gate in the road was opened to us by a poor woman, who had seen our approach from her road-side dwelling; she had the care of collecting the toll from horsemen and carriage-drivers--we were _foot_-passengers, and credited our tailors for the civility. At a few yards beyond this turnpike we stopped to read a dictatorial intimation:--“All trespassers on these woods will be prosecuted, and the constables have orders to take them into custody.” I am not sure that there is a “physiognomy of hand-writing,” but I am a believer in the physiognomy of style, and the features of this bespoke a Buonaparte of the hundred who had partaken of the carvings under an enclosure-act. No part was fenced off from the common road, and the land had been open to all till spoliation deprived the commoners of their ancient right, and annexed the common soil to a neighbouring domain. Whose it now is, by law, I know not, nor inquired. I look around, and cottages have disappeared, and there are villas instead; and the workhouses are enlarged, and, instead of labour, tread-mills are provided. According to a political economist of ancient times, “There is much food in the tillage of the poor;” and “He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.” To whom of old was it said, “The spoil of the poor is in your houses?”

We lingered on our way, and passed a bridge over the canal, towards a well-looking public-house, called “the Old Crooked Billet.” Before the door is, what is called, a “sign,” which, according to modern usage, is a sign-post, with a sign-board without a sign, inscribed with the name of what the sign had been. Formerly this was a little ale-house, and to denote its use to the traveller, the landlord availed himself of one of the large old trees then before the door, and hung upon the lowest of its fine spreading branches not the “sign” of the billet, but a real “crooked billet:” this was the origin of “the Old Crooked Billet” on (what _was_) Penge Common. We had set out late and loitered, and after a brief reconnoitre entered the house in search of refreshment. The landlord and his family were at dinner in a commodious, respectable bar. He rose to us like “a giant refreshed,” and stood before us a good-humoured “Boniface”--every inch a man--who had attained to strength and fair proportion, by virtue of the ease and content wherein he lived. We found from his notable dame that we could have eggs and bacon, and spinach put into the pot from the garden, in a few minutes; nothing could have been suggested more suitable to our inclination, and we had the pleasure of being smiled into a comfortable parlour, with a bow-window view of the common. The time necessary for the preparation of our meal afforded leisure to observe the hostel. W. went out to pencil the exterior in his sketch-book. Except for the situation, and the broad, good-humoured, country face of our landlord, we might have imagined ourselves in town; and this was the only uncomfortable feeling we had. The sign-board on the other side of the road revealed the name of our entertainer--“R. Harding,” and the parlour mantlepiece told that he was a “Dealer in Foreign Wines, Segars, &c.” This inscription, written in clerk-like German text, framed and glazed, was transportation against my will, to the place from whence I came. Our attention was diverted by the rolling up of a gig, espied afar off by “mine host,” who waited at the door with an eye to business, and his hands in the pockets of his jean jacket. The driver, a thin, sharp-featured, pock-faced man, about forty, alighted with as much appearance of kindly disposition as he could bring his features to assume, and begged the favour of an order for “a capital article.” His presented card was received with a drop of the landlord’s countenance, and a shake of the head. The solicitor--and he looked as keenly as a Chancery-lane one--was a London Capillaire-maker; he urged “a single bottle;” the landlord pleaded his usage of sugar and demurred, nor could he be urged on to trial. Our repast brought in, and finished with a glass of country brewed and a segar, W. completed his sketch, and we paid a moderate charge, and departed with “the Old Crooked Billet” as exhibited in the engraving. The house affords as “good accommodation for man and horse” as can be found in any retired spot so near London. Our stroll to it was delightful. We withdrew along the pleasant road to the village of Beckenham. Its white pointed spire, embowered in trees, had frequently caught our sight in the course of the day, and we desired to obtain a near view of a church that heightened the cheerful character of the landscape. It will form another article--perhaps two.

*

* * * * *

~Witchcraft.~

THE MOUNTAIN ASH.

_To the Editor._

_Witherslack, near Milnthorpe,
Westmoreland._

Sir,--I think you have not celebrated in the _Every-Day Book_ the virtues of the mountain ash, or as it is called in the northern counties, the _Wiggen Tree_.--Its _anti-witching_ properties are there held in very high esteem. No witch will come near it; and it is believed that the smallest twig, which might cross the path of one of these communers with the powers of darkness, would as effectually stop her career, however wild it might be, or however intent she might be on the business of evil, as did the “key-stane” of the bridge of Doon stop the fiendish crew, that pursued poor Tam O’Shanter and his luckless mare Maggie.

You are well aware that there are few places, especially in the country, in which one of these agents of the devil, ycleped “witches,” does not reside. She may always be known by her extreme penury and ugliness. There is generally also a protuberance of flesh on some part of the neck or jaw, by which it is known that she has sold herself to the father of lies. She has usually a large black cat, of which she is prodigiously fond, and takes special care. Some shrewdly suspect this to be the “old gentleman” himself. She is very envious, and frequently makes malicious prognostications of evil, which subsequent events but too faithfully verify. She must therefore, with all these qualifications, be the authoress of every mishap, which cannot more reasonably be accounted for. For example, should the “auld witch” call at any farmhouse during the operation of churning, and be suffered to depart without a sop being thrown to her, in the shape of a small print of butter, you will be sure to have many a weary hour of labour the next time you churn, before butter can be obtained. And, therefore, to prevent the old beldam introducing herself into the churn, the churn-staff must be made of the “_Wiggen_ Tree,” and you will be effectually freed from her further interference in that case. The cattle in the stables and cow-houses, if she takes a spite against you, are frequently found, or dreaded to be found, (for many an instance of such things is recorded on undoubted testimony,) in a morning, tied together, standing on their heads, the cows milked, and every other mischievous prank played, which a malicious fiend could invent: and therefore to prevent all these dire ills, the shafts of the forks, and all other utensils used in those places, must be made of the all-powerful “Wiggen.” She frequently does the same mischief in places far remote on the same night; and although old and crippled, and showing “all the variety of wretchedness” by day, at night she mounts her broomstick, and wings her airy course to the moon, if need be. All honest people, who have a due regard to undisturbed slumbers during the night, when all the world knows that

Church-yards yawn,
And hell itself breathes forth contagion to the world,

take special care to have a branch of this never-failing antidote to witchery at their bed heads. This has been the practice of my mother ever since I can remember; she also carries a hare’s foot in her pocket, to guard against all attacks in that quarter by day. You will think that these precautions are very uncalled for, perhaps, at this time of day, but such we have been in our generations, and such to a considerable extent we _now are_, and therefore pray do record us.

I remain, Sir, &c.

CARLE.

* * * * *

A PARTICULAR DIRECTION.

A few months ago a letter, bearing the following curious superscription, was put into the post-office in Manchester:--“For Mr. Colwell that Keeps the Shop in Back Anderson-st. to Bee Gave to Jack Timlen that Keeps the pigs in his own Sellar in Back Anderson-st. the irish man that has the Large family that bgs the mail from Mr. Colwell and milk to Bolton.”[195]

[195] Bolton Express.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XIX.

[From the “Silver Age,” an Historical Play, by Thomas Heywood, 1613.]

_Proserpine seeking Flowers._

_Pros._ O may these meadows ever barren be,
That yield of flowers no more variety!
Here neither is the White nor Sanguine Rose,
The Strawberry Flower, the Paunce, nor Violet;
Methinks I have too poor a meadow chose:
Going to beg, I am with a Beggar met,
That wants as much as I. I should do ill
To take from them that need.--

* * * * *

_Ceres, after the Rape of her Daughter._

_Cer._ Where is my fair and lovely Proserpine?
Speak, Jove’s fair Daughter, whither art thou stray’d
I’ve sought the meadows, glebes, and new-reap’d fields
Yet cannot find my Child. Her scatter’d flowers,
And garland half-made-up, I have lit upon;
But her I cannot spy. Behold the trace
Of some strange wagon,[196] that hath scorcht the trees,
And singed the grass: these ruts the sun ne’er sear’d.
Where art thou, Love, where art thou, Proserpine?--

_She questions Triton for her Daughter._

_Cer._----thou that on thy shelly trumpet
Summons the sea-god, answer from the depth.
_Trit._ On Neptune’s sea-horse with my concave trump
Thro’ all the abyss I’ve shrill’d thy daughter’s loss.
The channels clothed in waters, the low cities
In which the water-gods and sea-nymphs dwell,
I have perused; sought thro’ whole woods and forests
Of leafless coral, planted in the deeps;
Toss’d up the beds of pearl; rouzed up huge whales,
And stern sea-monsters, from their rocky dens;
Those bottoms, bottomless; shallows and shelves,
And all those currents where th’ earth’s springs break in;
Those plains where Neptune feeds his porpoises,
Sea-morses, seals, and all his cattle else:
Thro’ all our ebbs and tides my trump hath blazed her,
Yet can no cavern shew me Proserpine.

_She questions the Earth._

_Cer._ Fair sister Earth, for all these beauteous fields,
Spread o’er thy breast; for all these fertile crops,
With which my plenty hath enrich’d thy bosom;
For all those rich and pleasant wreaths of grain,
With which so oft thy temples I have crowned;
For all the yearly liveries, and fresh robes,
Upon thy summer beauty I bestow--
Shew me my Child!
_Earth._ Not in revenge, fair Ceres,
That your remorseless ploughs have rak’t my breast,
Nor that your iron-tooth’d harrows print my face
So full of wrinkles; that you dig my sides
For marle and soil, and make me bleed my springs
Thro’ all my open’d veins to weaken me--
Do I conceal your Daughter. I have spread
My arms from sea to sea, look’d o’er my mountains,
Examin’d all my pastures, groves, and plains,
Marshes and wolds, my woods and champain fields,
My dens and caves--and yet, from foot to head,
I have no place on which the Moon[197] doth tread.
_Cer._ Then, Earth, thou’st lost her; and, for Proserpine,
I’ll strike thee with a lasting barrenness.
No more shall plenty crown thy fertile brows;
I’ll break thy ploughs, thy oxen murrain-strike:
With idle agues I’ll consume thy swains;
Sow tares and cockles in thy lands of wheat,
Whose spikes the weed and cooch-grass shall outgrow,
And choke it in the blade. The rotten showers
Shall drown thy seed, which the hot sun shall parch,
Or mildews rot; and what remains, shall be
A prey to ravenous birds.--Oh Proserpine!--
You Gods that dwell above, and you below,
Both of the woods and gardens, rivers, brooks,
Fountains and wells, some one among you all
Shew me her self or grave: to you I call.

_Arethusa riseth._

_Are._ That can the river Arethusa do.
My streams you know, fair Goddess, issue forth
From Tartary by the Tenarian isles:
My head’s in Hell where Stygian Pluto reigns.
There did I see the lovely Proserpine,
Whom Pluto hath rapt hence; behold her girdle,
Which on her way dropt from her lovely waist,
And scatter’d in my streams.--Fair Queen, adieu!
Crown you my banks with flowers, as I tell true.

* * * * *

[From the “Golden Age,” an Historical Play, by the same Author, 1611.]

_Sibilla, the Wife of Saturn, is by him enjoined to slay the new-born Jupiter. None can do it for his smiles._

_Sibilla. Vesta. Nurse._

_Sib._ Mother, of all that ever mothers were
Most wretched! Kiss thy sweet babe ere he die,
That hath life only lent to suffer death.
Sweet Lad, I would thy father saw thee smile.
Thy beauty, and thy pretty infancy,
Would mollify his heart, were’t hew’d from flint,
Or carved with iron tools from Corsic rock.
Thou laugh’st to think thou must be kill’d in jest.
Oh! if thou needs must die, I’ll be thy murtheress,
And kill thee with my kisses, pretty knave.--
And can’st thou laugh to see thy mother weep?
Or art thou in thy chearful smiles so free,
In scorn of thy rude father’s tyranny?
I’ll kiss thee ere I kill thee: for my life
The Lad so smiles, I cannot hold the knife.
_Vest._ Then give him me; I am his Grandmother,
And I will kill him gently: this sad office
Belongs to me, as to the next of kin.
_Sib._ _For heaven’s sake, when you kill him, hurt him not._
_Vest._ Come, little knave, prepare your naked throat
I have not heart to give thee many wounds,
My kindness is to take thy life at once.
Now--
Alack, my pretty Grandchild, smilest thou still?
I have lust to kiss, but have no heart to kill.
_Nurse._ You may be careless of the King’s command
But it concerns me; and I love my life
More than I do a Stripling’s. Give him me,
I’ll make him sure; a sharp weapon lend,
I’ll quickly bring the Youngster to his end.--
Alack, my pretty knave, ’twere more than sin
With a sharp knife to touch thy tender skin.
O Madam, he’s so full of angel grace,
I cannot strike, he smiles so in my face.
_Sib._ I’ll wink, and strike; come, once more reach him hither;
For die he must, so Saturn hath decreed:
’Las, for a world I would not see him bleed.
_Vest._ Ne shall he do. But swear me secrecy;
The Babe shall live, and we be dangerless.

C. L.

[196] The car of Dis.

[197] Proserpine; who was also Luna in Heaven, Diana on Earth.

* * * * *

THE FIRST BUTTERFLY.

One of the superstitions prevailing in Devonshire is, that any individual neglecting to kill the first butterfly he may see for the season will have ill-luck throughout the year. The following recent example is given by a young lady:--“The other Sunday, as we were walking to church, we met a man running at full speed, with his hat in one hand, and a stick in the other. As he passed us, he exclaimed, ‘I sha’n’t hat’en now, I b’lieve.’ He did not give us time to inquire what he was so eagerly pursuing; but we presently overtook an old man, whom we knew to be his father, and who being very infirm, at upwards of seventy, generally hobbled about by the aid of two sticks. Addressing me, he observed, ‘My _zin_ a took away wan a’ my sticks, miss, wan’t be ebble to kill’n now, though, I b’lieve.’ ‘Kill what?’ said I. ‘Why, ’tis a butterfly, miss, the _furst_ hee’th a zeed for the year; and they zay that a body will have cruel bad luck if a ditn’en kill a _furst_ a zeeth.’”[198]

[198] Dorset Chronicle, May, 1825.

* * * * *

KING JAMES I. AT DURHAM.

_To the Editor._

Sir,--If you think the subjoined worthy of a place in your _Table Book_, I shall feel glad to see it. I believe it has never been in print; it is copied from an entry in one of the old corporation books.

Yours, very truly,

M. J.

_Durham, May, 1827._

THE MANNER OF THE KINGES MAJESTY COMING TO THE CITTIE OF DURHAM, ANNO
DOM. 1617, AS FOLLOWETH.

Upon Good Friday, being the 18th of April, 1617, Mr. Heaborne, one of his majesties gentlemen ushers spoke to George Walton, Maior, that it was his majesties pleasure to come in state unto the cittie, and that it were fitting that the maior and aldermen should be ready upon the next daie following, being Satturdaie, to give their attendance upon his majestie in some convenient place within the cittie; and the said maior to have his _foot-cloth horse_ their ready to attend, which likewise was done upon Elvet Bridge, near the tower thereof, being new rayled, within the rayles of wood then made for that purpose: at which time his said majesties said gentleman usher standing by the said maior and aldermen till his majesties coming, when there was a speech delivered by the said maior to his majestie, together with the maces and staffe; and at time fitting in the same speech so made, a silver bowle gilt, with a cover, was presented by the said maior to his majestie, which appeares as followeth:--

“Most gracious soveraigne. What unspeakable joy is this your highness presents unto us, your loving subjects; our tongues are not able to utter, nor our meanes to shew you welcome. Your gracious majestie, at your happie cominge hither with much peace and plentie found this cittie inabled, with divers liberties and priveledges, all sovering pittie and power spiritual and temporal being in yourself, gave unto us the same againe; and afterwards, of your gracious bountie, confirmed them under your great seal of England. We humbly beseech your majestie continue your favours towards this cittie; and in token of our love and loyaltie, crave the acceptance of this myte, and we shall be readie to the uttermost expence of our dearest bloud, to defend you and your royal progeny here on earth, as with our prayers to God to blesse you and all yours in all eternitie.”

After which speech the maior was called by his majesties gentleman usher to take his horse, and to ride before his majestie; immediate upon which commandment made by his majesties gentleman usher, there was at the same place, about forty yards distance, certayne verses spoken by an apprentice of this cittie to his majestie, as followeth: after which, the maior was placed in rank next the sword, and so rode forward, carring the citties mace, to the church.

_To the Kinges most Excellent Majestie._

“Durham’s old cittie thus salutss our king
With entertainment, she doth homlie bring:
And cannot smyle upon his majestie
With shew of greatness; but humilitie
Makes her express herself in modern guise
Dejected to this north, bare to your eyes.
For the great prelate, which of late adorde
His dignities, and for which we implore
Your highnesse aide to have a continuance--
And so confirmed by your dread ---- arm.
Yet what our royal James did grant herein,
William, our bishoppe, hath oppugnant been;
Small task to sway down smallnesse, where man’s might
Hath greater force than equity or right.
But these are only in your brest included
From your most gracious grant. Therefore we pray,
That the faire sunshine of your brightest daie,
Would smyle upon this cittie with clere beams,
To exhale the tempest off insuing streames.
Suffer not, great prince, our ancient state,
By one fore’d will to be depopulate,
Tis one seeks our undoeing: but to you,
Ten thousand hearts shall pray, and knees shall bowe
And this dull cell of earth wherein we live,
Unto your name immortal prayse shall give.
Confirm our grant, good kinge. Durham’s old cittie
Would be more powerful so it has Jame’s pittie.”

REMARK.

The complaint against the bishop arose from a suit which he had instituted against the corporation in the Exchequer, for taking all the bishop’s privileges and profits of the markets and courts into their own hands, and for driving his officers by violence out of the tollbooth on the 3d of October, (7th of James I.,) and preventing their holding the courts there as usual, as well as for several other similar matters, when judgment was given against the corporation on the 24th of June, (8th of James I.,) 1611.

* * * * *

MARCH OF INTELLECT.

Every intelligent mind of right reflection accords its wishes for general enlightenment. It appears, from a fashionable miscellany, that a late distinguished writer expressed himself to that effect; the following are extracts from the article referred to. They contain, in the sequel, a forcible opinion on the tendency of the present general diffusion of literature.--

CONVERSATIONS OF MATURIN.

Maturin’s opinions of poetry, as of every thing else, were to be inferred rather than gathered. It was very difficult to draw him into literary conversation: like Congreve, he wished to be an author only in his study. Yet he courted the society of men of letters when it was to be had; but would at any time have sacrificed it to dally an hour in the drawing-room, or at the quadrille. Sometimes, however, amongst friends (particularly if he was in a splenetic mood) he freely entered into a discussion upon the living authors of England, and delivered his opinions rapidly, brilliantly, and with effect. On one occasion a conversation of this description took place, in which I had the pleasure of participating. I will recall the substance of it as well as I can. Do not expect from Maturin the turgidity of Boswell’s great man, or the amiable philosophy of Franklin: you will be disappointed if you anticipate any thing profound or speculative from him; for at the best of times he was exceedingly fond of mixing up the frivolity of a fashionable conversazione with the most solid subjects.

I met him in the county of Wicklow on a pedestrian excursion in the autumn; a relaxation he constantly indulged in, particularly at that season of the year. It was in that part of the vale of Avoca, where Moore is said to have composed his celebrated song: a green knoll forms a gradual declivity to the river, which flows through the vale, and in the centre of the knoll there is the trunk of an old oak, cut down to a seat. Upon that venerable trunk, say the peasants, Moore sat when he composed a song that, like the Rans de Vache of the Swiss, will be sung amidst those mountains and valleys as long as they are inhabited. Opposite to that spot I met Maturin, accompanied by a young gentleman carrying a fishing-rod. We were at the distance of thirty miles from Dublin; in the heart of the most beautiful valley in the island; surrounded by associations of history and poetry, with spirits subdued into tranquillity by the Italian skies above, and the peaceful gurgling of the waters below us. Never shall I forget Maturin’s strange appearance amongst those romantic dells. He was dressed in a crazy and affectedly shabby suit of black, that had waxed into a “brilliant polish” by over zeal in the service of its master; he wore no cravat, for the heat obliged him to throw it off, and his delicate neck rising gracefully from his thrice-crested collar, gave him an appearance of great singularity. His raven hair, which he generally wore long, fell down luxuriantly without a breath to agitate it; and his head was crowned with a hat which I could sketch with a pencil, but not with a pen. His gait and manner were in perfect keeping; but his peculiarities excited no surprise in me, for I was accustomed to them. In a short time we were seated on the banks of the Avoca, the stream cooling our feet with its refreshing spray, and the green foliage protecting us from the sun.

“Moore is said to have written his song in this place.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” replied Maturin. “No man ever wrote poetry under a burning sun, or in the moonlight. I have often attempted a retired walk in the country at moonlight, when I had a madrigal in my head, and every gust of wind rang in my ears like the footsteps of a robber. One robber would put to flight a hundred tropes. You feel uneasy in a perfectly secluded place, and cannot collect your mind.”

“But Moore, who is a poet by inspiration, could write in any circumstances?”

“There is no man of the age labours harder than Moore. He is often a month working out the fag-end of an epigram. ’Pon my honour, I would not be such a victim to literature for the reputation of Pope, the greatest man of them all.”

“Don’t you think that every man has his own peculiarity in writing, and can only write under particular excitements, and in a particular way?”

“Certainly. Pope, who ridiculed such a caprice, practised it himself; for he never wrote well but at midnight. Gibbon dictated to his amanuensis, while he walked up and down the room in a terrible passion; Stephens wrote on horseback in a full gallop; Montaigne and Chateaubriand in the fields; Sheridan over a bottle of wine; Molière with his knees in the fire; and lord Bacon in a small room, which he said helped him to condense his thoughts. But Moore, whose peculiarity is retirement, would never come here to write a song he could write better elsewhere, merely because it related to the place.”

“Why omit yourself in the list? you have your own peculiarity.”

“I compose on a long walk; but then the day must neither be too hot, nor cold; it must be reduced to that medium from which you feel no inconvenience one way or the other; and then when I am perfectly free from the city, and experience no annoyance from the weather, my mind becomes lighted by sunshine, and I arrange my plan perfectly to my own satisfaction.”

“From the quantity of works our living poets have given to the public, I would be disposed to say that they write with great facility, and without any nervous whim.”

* * * * *

“But lord Byron--he must write with great ease and rapidity?”

“That I don’t know; I never could finish the perusal of any of his long poems. There is something in them excessively at variance with my notions of poetry. He is too fond of the obsolete; but that I do not quarrel with so much as his system of converting it into a kind of modern antique, by superadding tinsel to gold. It is a sort of mixed mode, neither old nor new, but incessantly hovering between both.”

“What do you think of Childe Harold?”

“I do not know what to think of it, nor can I give you definitively my reasons for disliking his poems generally.”

“You have taken up a prejudice, perhaps, from a passage you have forgotten, and never allowed yourself patience to examine it.”

“Perhaps so; but I am not conscious of a prejudice.”

“No man is.”

* * * * *

“And which of the living poets fulfils your ideal standard of excellence?”

“Crabbe. He is all nature without pomp or parade, and exhibits at times deep pathos and feeling. His characters are certainly homely, and his scenes rather unpoetical; but then he invests his subject with so much genuine tenderness and sweetness, that you care not who are the actors, or in what situations they are placed, but pause to recollect where it was you met something similar in real life. Do you remember the little story ‘Delay is Danger?’ I’ll recite you a few lines describing my favourite scene, an autumn-evening landscape:--

“On the right side the youth a wood survey’d,
With all its dark intensity of shade;
Where the rough wind alone was heard to move,
In this, the pause of nature and of love,
When now the young are rear’d, and when the old,
Lost to the tie, grow negligent and cold--
Far to the left he saw the huts of men
Half hid in mist that hung upon the fen;
Before him swallows, gathering for the sea,
Took their short flights, and twitter’d on the lea
And near the bean-sheaf stood, the harvest done,
And slowly blacken’d in the sickly sun;
All these were sad in nature, or they took
Sadness from him, the likeness of his look,
And of his mind--he ponder’d for a while,
Then met his Fanny with a borrow’d smile.”

“Except Gray’s Elegy, there is scarcely so melancholy and touching a picture in English poetry.”

“And whom do you estimate after Crabbe?”

“I am disposed to say Hogg. His Queen’s Wake is a splendid and impassioned work. I like it for its varieties, and its utter simplicity. What a fine image is this of a devoted vessel suddenly engulfed at sea:

“Some ran to the cords, some kneel’d at the shrine.
But all the wild elements seem’d to combine;
’Twas just but one moment of stir and commotion,
And down went the ship like a bird of the ocean!”

“But do not altogether take me at my word in what I say of Crabbe and Hogg. They have struck the chord of my taste; but they are not, perhaps, the first men of the day. Moore is a writer for whom I feel a strong affection, because he has done that which I would have done if I could: but after him it would be vain to try any thing.”

* * * * *

“Is it your opinion that the swarm of minor poets and writers advance the cause of literature, or that the public taste would be more refined and informed, if those who administered to it were fewer and better?”

“I object to prescribing laws to the republic of letters. It is a free republic, in which every man is entitled to publicity if he chooses it. The effect unquestionably of a swarm of minor poets is the creation of a false taste amongst a certain class; but then that is a class that otherwise would have no taste at all, and it is well to draw their attention to literature by any agency. In the next age their moral culture will improve, and we shall go on gradually diminishing the contagion.”[199]

[199] New Monthly Magazine.

* * * * *

~Old London Cries~, No. II.]

We have here a print of the cherry-woman of a hundred years ago, when cherries were so little grown, that the popular street cry was double the price of the present day. Readers of the _Every-Day Book_ may remember the engraving of the “London barrow-woman,” with her cherry-cry--“round and sound”--the cherry-woman (that _was_) of our own times--the recollection of whose fine person, and melodious voice, must recur to every one who saw and heard her--a real picture to the mind’s eye, discoursing “most excellent music.”

The man blowing a trumpet, “Troop, every one!” was a street seller of hobby-horses--toys for the children of a hundred years ago. He carried them, as represented in the engraving, arranged in a partitioned frame on his shoulder, and to each horse’s head was a small flag with two bills attached. The crier and his ware are wholly extinct. Now-a-days we give a boy the first stick at hand to thrust between his legs as a Bucephalus--the shadow of a shade:--our forefathers were better natured, for they presented him with something of the semblance of the generous animal. Is a horse now less popular with boys than then? or did they, at that time, rather imitate the galloping of the real hobby-horse in the pageants and mummeries that passed along the streets, or pranced in the shows at fairs and on the stage? Be that as it may, this is a pretty plaything for “little master;” and toymakers would find account in reviving the manufacture for the rising generation. They have improved the little girl’s doll, and baby-house: are they ignorant that boys, as soon as they can walk, demand a whip and a horse?

* * * * *

MR. HOBDAY’S GALLERY.

No. 54, PALL-MALL.

In addition to the associations for the exhibition and sale of pictures by living artists, Mr. Hobday opened an establishment on the 21st of May for the same purpose, adjoining the British Institution, This gentleman is known to the public as a respectable portrait painter, with a taste for art entitled to consideration for his present spirited endeavour in its behalf.

In this exhibition there are performances of distinguished merit by several eminent artists. The Upas, or poison-tree of Java, by Mr. Danby, in illustration of the legend in Darwin’s Loves of the Plants, is a fine picture, already known. Another by Mr. Danby--is a wood on the sea-shore, with figures, Ulysses and Nausicaa, from Homer. A Fête Champêtre, by Mr. Stothard, is one of a class of subjects, which its venerable painter has distinguished by his magic pencil; Mr. Edwin Landseer’s Lion disturbed at his repast, a forcible and well-remembered effort of his genius, stands near it. Mr. Charles Landseer’s Merchant, with Slaves and Merchandise, reposing in a Brazilian Rancho; the Entombing of Christ, by Mr. Westall; landscapes, by Messrs. Daniel, Glover, Hoffland, Laporte, Linnell, W. Westall, &c.; pictures by sir W. Beechey, Messrs. Chalon, Kidd, Heaphy, Rigaud, Singleton, Stephanoff, J. Ward, &c., grace the walls of the establishment. Every picture in this gallery is for sale; and, under Mr. Hobday’s management, it promises to be a means of introducing the public to an acquaintance with distinguished works of art still remaining open to the selection of its patrons.

* * * * *

~Topography.~

ORIGINAL NOTICE.

_For the Table Book._

Denton-castle, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and on the north-west side of Otley, was once the seat of the parliament’s general, Fairfax, and came to the present family of Ibbetson by relationship. Prince Rupert in passing by it on his march into Lancashire, in order to assist the king’s troops in that quarter, was about to raze it, but going into the house, he observed the pictures of the Manners and the Villiers, Fairfax’s ancestors, and out of good will towards them he desisted. It, however, was afterwards unfortunately destroyed by the carelessness of a maid servant, who dropping asleep at the time she was picking feathers, the candle fell into the feathers and burnt the house to the ground. In a few years afterwards, it was rebuilt by the father of sir Henry Ibbetson, bart. in the year 1721, and has this remarkable motto in the pediment:--

“Quod nec Jovis ira nec ignis nec poterit ferrum.”

VERSES

To the memory of Denzil Ibbetson, fourth son of sir Henry Ibbetson,
bart., who unfortunately lost his life by an accidental discharge of
his gun when shooting at Cocken, near Durham, the seat of his aunt,
lady Mary Carr, sister of Henry earl of Darlington--1774.

1.

Thy fate, lamented Ibbetson, we were.
With an unfeign’d and sympathetic tear;
Thy virtues, on our mem’ries graven deep,
Recall the painful thought of what was dear.

2.

Yet ’tis not for thy sufferings, but our own,
That heaves the heartfelt melancholy sigh,
That death, which haply cost thee not a groan,
Leaves us to mourn with what we ne’er can vie.

3.

That life, good humour, and that manly sense,
Those ever-pleasing ties, that friendly heart,
Which but unwittingly could give offence,
Disarm’d ev’n Death’s grim tyrant of his dart.

4.

Without one pang or agonizing groan,
Thy soul reliev’d forsook its vile abode,
For joys more worthy of the good alone--
“The bosom of thy Father and thy God.”

* * * * *

PRONUNCIATION.

The difficulty of applying rules to the pronunciation of our language may be illustrated in two lines, where the combination of the letters _ough_, is pronounced in no less than seven different ways, viz. as _o_, _uf_, _of_, _up_, _ow_, _oo_, and _ock_.

Though the tough cough and hiccough plough me through;
O’er life’s dark lough my course I still pursue.

* * * * *

_For the Table Book._

EMIGRATION OF THE ROOKS

FROM

CARLTON GARDENS, 1827.

“I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau,
If birds confabulate or no:--
’Tis certain they were always able,
To hold discourse, at least in fable.”

_Cowper._

The mandate pass’d, the axe applied,
The woodman’s efforts echoed wide;
The toppling elm trees fell around,
And cumbrous ruin strew’d the ground.
The tuneful thrush, whose vernal song
Was earliest heard the boughs among,
Exil’d from grounds, where he was bred,
To some far habitation fled;
Remote from court and courtly strife,
To pass a sober, quiet life.
O’er head the Rooks, in circles flew,
And closer still, and closer drew;
Then perch’d amid the desolation,
In senatorial consultation:
The chairman, far advanc’d in age,
A sapient-looking personage,
Who long the councils of the land
Had sway’d with a tenacious hand;
--For e’en among the feather’d race,
There are, who cling to pow’r and place:--
There wanted not, among the throng,
Those who averr’d, that much too long
He had, within the sable state,
Continued to adjudicate;--
So tardily his judgments came,
They injur’d his judicial fame;
What, though they were unting’d by bribe,
Or fear;--the sad impatient tribe,
Who fed on Hope’s expectancies,
Were ruin’d--by his just decrees!
But to our tale:--the speaker now,
Perch’d on an elm tree’s topmost bough,
Had hush’d the multitude in awe,
You might not hear a single “caw;”
He then in pride of conscious pow’r,
Commenc’d the bus’ness of the hour.
“Ye rooks and daws in senate met;”
He said, and smooth’d his breast of jet:
“What crimes, among our sable band,
Have brought this ruin on our land?
Has murder mark’d our noonday flight?
Or depredation in the night?
Has rook or daw, in thought or word,
Rebell’d against our Sovereign Lord?
No! rather say, our loyalty
Has echo’d oft, from tree to tree!
Have we not, when the cannon’s sound
Gave joyous intimation round,
Of triumph won by land or sea,
Join’d in the general jubilee?
Why, then, ye advocates of _taste_,
Lay ye our habitations waste?
Why level low our rookery,
And blot it out from memory?
Man lacketh not a host of pleas,
To vindicate his cruelties.
‘Improvement’s come!’ ’tis thus they rhyme
‘Upon the rolling car of Time.’[200]--
Yes! come, if blessings they dispense,
With due regard to feeling--sense;
But when they emanate from pride,
And scheme on scheme is multiplied,
To beautify by acts like this,
Their overgrown metropolis,
To please the vitiate taste of men,
They cease to be improvements then.
’Tis not enough, to please the eye,
With terrace walks, and turrets high;
With sloping lawns, and dark arcades;
With cock-boat lakes, and forest glades,
With schoolboy cataracts and jets;
With Turkish mosques and minarets!
Or Lilliputian arches, rich,
Spanning a vegetating ditch!
Improvement opes a nobler field,
Than Grecian plinth and column yield!
’Tis when the streams of treasure flow,
To lighten sorrow,--soften woe;--
Rebuild the structure, ruin raz’d,
Relume the eye, that want hath glaz’d:
And flowing far from revelry,
They cheer the sons of penury,
Who sicken in the breeze of health!
And starve, amid a nation’s wealth!
To chase despair--and bring relief,
For human crime, and human grief!
These are thy triumphs, Virtue! these
Are sparks of heav’n-born sympathies,
That through man’s denser nature shine,
And prove his origin divine!
Oh! may we hope, in Britain’s school,
There are, who, free from sophist rule,
Have learnt not, ’neath Italian skies,
Their native genius to despise;
In whom, amid the bosom’s throes,
The innate love of country glows!
Assembled birds! it is for you
To point the course we must pursue:
Our monarch ne’er could contemplate
Amid the recent change in state,
That we, like other rooks, should be
Exil’d from seats of royalty!
Then let us humbly seek the throne,
And make our common grievance known
His Majesty will ne’er consent,
That this, our sable parliament,
Should thus be driv’n abroad to roam,
And banish’d from our native home.”

He ceas’d;--a shout of wild applause,
Tumultuous burst, from rooks and daws!
Ne’er yet, had yonder central sun,
Since worlds had in their orbits run,
Beheld upon a spot of earth
So much of simultaneous mirth.
Scarce had the turbulence subsided.
When, as if Fate their joy derided,
The hatchet reach’d with thund’ring stroke
The tree from whence the Chairman spoke.
Alas! the triumph was but brief;
The sound struck awe--like midnight thief--
The senate fled from falling trees,
And stretch’d their pinions to the breeze:
The shrubs behind Spring Garden-place
Receiv’d the emigrated race.
Now far from woodman’s axe, with care
They build, and breed, and nestle there.

T. T.

[200]

Come bright Improvement on the car of Time,
And rule the spacious world from clime to clime.

_Pleasures of Hope_

* * * * *

MUSIC AND ANIMALS.

Bonaventure d’Argonne says, “Doubting the truth of those who say it is natural for us to love music, especially the sounds of instruments, and that beasts are touched with it, I one day, being in the country, endeavoured to determine the point; and, while a man was playing on the trump marine, made my observations on a cat, a dog, a horse, an ass, a hind, cows, small birds, and a cock and hens, who were in a yard, under a window on which I was leaning. I did not perceive that the cat was the least affected; and I even judged, by her air, that she would have given all the instruments in the world for a mouse, sleeping in the sun all the time; the horse stopped short from time to time before the window, lifting his head up now and then, as he was feeding on the grass; the dog continued for above an hour seated on his hind legs, looking steadfastly at the player; the ass did not discover the least indication of his being touched, eating his thistles peaceably; the hind lifted up her large wide ears, and seemed very attentive; the cows slept a little, and after gazing as though they had been acquainted with us, went forward: some birds who were in an aviary, and others on the trees and bushes, almost tore their throats with singing; but the cock, who minded only his hens, and the hens, who were solely employed in scraping on a neighbouring dunghill, did not show in any manner that they took the least pleasure in hearing the trump marine.”

* * * * *

IRISHMEN ON A HOLIDAY.

When they met at a “pattern,” (patron, perhaps,) or merry-making, the lively dance of the girls, and the galloping jig-note of the bagpipes, usually gave place to the clattering of alpeens, and the whoops of onslaught; when one of them sold his pig, or, under Providence, his cow, at the fair, the kicking up of a “scrimmage,” or at least the plunging head foremost into one, was as much matter of course as the long draughts of ale or whiskey that closed his mercantile transaction. At the village hurling-match, the “hurlet,” or crooked stick, with which they struck the ball, often changed its playful utility; nay, at a funeral, the body was scarce laid in the grave, when the voice of petty discord might be heard above the grave’s silence.

These contentions, like all great events, generally arose from very trivial causes. A drunken fellow, for instance, was in a strange public-house; he could not content himself with the new faces near him, so struck at some three, six, or ten, as it might be; and, in course, got soundly drubbed. On his return home he related his case of injury, exhibiting his closed eye, battered mouth, or remnant of nose; enlisting all his relatives, “kith-and-kin;” in fact, all his neighbours who liked “a bit of diversion,” and they generally included the whole male population able to bear arms. At the head of his faction he attended the next fair, or other place of popular resort, where he might expect to meet his foes; the noise of his muster went abroad, or he sent a previous challenge: the opposite party assembled in as much force as possible, never declining the encounter; one or other side was beaten, and tried to avenge its disgrace on the first opportunity; defeat again followed, and again produced like efforts and results; and thus the solemn feud ran through a number of years and several generations.

A wicked, “devil-may-care” fellow, feverish for sport, would, at fair, pattern, or funeral, sometimes smite another without any provocation, merely to create a riot; the standers-by would take different sides, as their taste or connections inclined them; and the fray, thus commencing between two individuals who owed each other no ill-will, embroiled half the assembled concourse. Nay, a youth, in despair that so fine a multitude was likely to separate peaceably, stripped off his heavy outside coat, and trailed it through the puddle, daring any of the lookers on to tread upon it; his defiance was rarely ineffectual; he knocked down, if possible, the invited offender; a general battle ensued, that soon spread like wild-fire, and every “alpeen” was at work in senseless clatter and unimaginable hostility.

The occurrence of the word “alpeen” seems to suggest a description of the weapon of which it is the name, and this can best be given in a piece of biographical anecdote.