Chapter D: A. M

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CHAPMAN’S “ALL FOOLS.”

_For the Table Book._

In Chapman’s “All Fools,” 1605, (as quoted, by Charles Lamb, in _Table Book_, vol. i. 192,) is the following passage, under the title of “Love’s Panegyric.”--

------- “’tis nature’s second Sun,
Causing a spring of Virtues where he shines;
And as without the Sun, the world’s Great Eye,
All colours, beauties, both of art and nature,
Are given in vain to man; so without Love
All beauties bred in women are in vain,
All virtues born in men lie buried;
For Love _informs_ them as the Sun doth colours,” &c.

Chapman might be acquainted with Italian poets, but at all events the coincidence between the above and the following canzon, by Andrew Navagero, is remarkable. Navagero was the friend of Boscan, the Spanish poet: they became acquainted at Grenada, while Navagero was there ambassador from Venice. Boscan died before 1544; and, as he himself confesses, he learnt the sonnet and other Italian forms of poetry from Navagero.

_Love the Mind’s Sun._

Sweet ladies, to whose lovely faces
Nature gives charms, indeed,
If those ye would exceed
And are desirous, too, of inward graces;

Ye first must ope your hearts’ enclosure,
And give Love entrance there.
Or ye must all despair
Of what ye wish, and bear it with composure.

For as the night than day is duller,
And what is hid by night
Glitters with morning light
In all the rich variety of colour;

So they, whose dark insensate bosoms
Love lights not, ne’er can know
The virtues thence that grow,
Wanting his beams to open virtue’s blossoms.

Our version is made from the original in Dolce’s Collection of _Rime Diverse_, i. 98. It ought to be mentioned, that Boscan’s admission of his obligations to Navagero is to be found in the Introduction to the second book of his works.

_December, 1827._

J. P. C.

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NORWICH MOCK ELECTIONS.

_To the Editor._

Sir,--At Costessy, a small village, three miles on the west side of Norwich, there is an annual mock guild on Whit Tuesday. It takes its name from the annual mayor’s feast at Norwich, being called the _City Guild_. The corporation at Costessy is composed of the poor inhabitants under the patronage of the marquis of Stafford, who has a beautiful seat in this village. On this day a mock mayor is annually elected; he has a proper and appropriate costume, and is attended by a sword-bearer, with a sword of state of wood painted and gilt, two mace-bearers with gilt maces, with a long array of officers, down to the snapdragon of Norwich, of which they have a passable imitation. Their first procession is to the hall, where they are recognised by the noble family who generally support the expenses of the day, and the mock mayor and corporation are liberally regaled from the strong-beer cellar. They then march, preceded by a band of music, to the steward’s house, where the mock solemnities take place, and speeches are made, which, if not remarkable for their eloquence, afford great delight by their absurd attempts at being thought so. The new mayor being invested with the insignia of his office, a bright brass jack-chain about his neck, the procession is again renewed to a large barn at some distance, where the place being decorated with boughs, flowers, and other rural devices, a substantial dinner of roast-beef, plum-pudding, and other good things, with plenty of that strong liquor called at Norwich nogg--the word I have been told is a provincial contraction for “knock me down.”

The village is usually thronged with company from Norwich, and all the rural festivities attendant on country feasts take place. The noble family before mentioned promote the hilarity by their presence and munificence. The elder members of the body corporate continue at the festal board, in imitation of their prototypes in larger corporations, to a late hour; and some of them have been noticed for doing as much credit to the good cheer provided on the occasion, as any alderman at a turtle feast. There is no record of the origin of this institution, as none of the members of the corporation have the gift of reading or writing, but there are traces of it beyond the memory of any person now living, and it has been observed to have increased in splendour of late years.

The fishermen’s guild at Norwich has for some years been kept on the real guild-day. The procession consists of a great number, all fishermen or fishmongers, two of whom are very remarkable. The first is the mayor: the last I saw was a well-looking young man, with his face painted and his hair powdered, profusely adorned with a brass chain, a fishing-rod in his hand, and a very large gold-laced hat; he was supported on the shoulders of several of his brethren in a fishing-boat, in which he stood up and delivered his speech to the surrounding multitude, in a manner that did not disgrace him. The other personage was the king of the ocean. What their conceptions of Neptune were, it is as difficult to conceive as his appearance might be to describe. He was represented by a tall man, habited in a seaman-like manner, his outward robe composed of fishing-nets, a long flowing beard ill accorded with a full-dress court wig, which had formerly been the property of some eminent barrister, but had now changed its element, and from dealing out law on the land, its mystic powers were transferred to the water. In his right hand he carried his trident, the spears of which were formed of three pickled herrings. His Tritons sounded his praise on all kinds of discordant wind instruments, and Æolus blew startling blasts on a cracked French horn. The olfactory nerves of the auditors who were hardy enough to come in close contact with the procession, were assailed by “a very ancient and fish-like smell.” The merriment was rude and very hearty.

P. B.

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~Old London Customs.~

_For the Table Book._

PAUL’S WALKERS--HIRED WITNESSES.

In the reigns of James I. and Charles I. a singular custom prevailed of the idle and dissolute part of the community assembling in the naves or other unemployed parts of large churches. The nave of St. Paul’s cathedral bore the name of Paul’s Walk; and so little was the sanctity of the place regarded, that if the description by an old author[517] is not exaggerated, the Royal Exchange at four o’clock does not present a greater scene of confusion. I carry the comparison no farther; the characters assembled in the church appear to have been very different to those composing the respectable assembly alluded to. The author referred to thus describes the place: “The noyse in it is like that of bees. It is the generall mint of all famous lies, which are here like the legends popery first coyn’d and stampt in the church. All inventions are empty’d here and not a few pockets.” “The visitants are all men without exceptions; but the principal inhabitants and possessors are stale knights, and captaines out of service; men of long rapiers and breeches.”

From the following passage in Hudibras[518] I should judge that the circular church in the Temple was the resort of characters of an equally bad description:

“Retain all sorts of witnesses,
That ply i’ th’ Temples, under trees,
Or walk the _round_, with knights o’ th’ posts,
About the cross-legg’d knights, their hosts;
Or wait for customers between
The pillar-rows in Lincoln’s Inn.”

The cross-legged knights, it is almost needless to add, are the effigies of the mailed warriors, which still remain in fine preservation. The “pillar-rows in Lincoln’s Inn,” I apprehend, refer to the crypt, or open vault, beneath Inigo Jones’s chapel in Lincoln’s Inn, originally designed for an ambulatory.[519] It is singular to reflect on the entire change in the public manners within two centuries. If coeval authorities did not exist to prove the fact, who would believe in these days, that, in a civilized country, men were to be found within the very seats of law ready to perjure themselves for hire? or that juries and judges did not treat the practice and the encouraging of it with a prompt and just severity?

ST. THOMAS’S DAY ELECTIONS.

Previous to a court of common council, the members were formerly in the habit of assembling in the great hall of the Guildhall. When the hour of business arrived, one of the officers of the lord mayor’s household summoned them to their own chamber by the noise produced by moving an iron ring swiftly up and down a twisted or crankled bar of the same metal, which was affixed behind the door of the principal entrance to the passage leading to that part of the Guildhall styled, in civic language, the inner chambers. The custom was disused about forty years ago. The iron, I understand, remained until the demolition of the old doorway in the last general repair of the hall, when the giants descended from their stations without hearing the clock strike, and the new doorway was formed in a more convenient place. With the old-fashioned gallery, the invariable appendage to an ancient hall, which, until that period, occupied its proper place over the entrance, was destroyed that terror of idle apprentices, the prison of _Little Ease_. This gallery must be still remembered, as well as its shrill clock in a curious carved case. Its absence is not compensated by the perilous-looking balcony substituted for it on the opposite side, an object too trifling and frivolous for so fine a room as the civic common hall.

E. I. C.

[517] Microcosmographis 1628, cited in Pennant’s London, 5th ed. 8vo.
528.

[518] Part III., Canto III., p. 213. ed. 1684.

[519] Vide a paper by E. J. C. in Gent.’s Mag. vol. xc. p. 1, 589.

* * * * *

A DEFENCE OF SLANG.

_For the Table Book._

“To think like wise men, and to talk like common people,” is a maxim that has long stood its ground. What is the language of “common people?” _slang_--_ergo_, every body ought to talk it. What is _slang_? Many will answer that it consists of words used only by the lowest and most ignorant classes of society, and that to employ them would be most ungenteel. First, then, we must inquire a little what it is to be _genteel_, and this involves the question, what is a _gentleman_? Etymologically, every body knows what is the meaning of the term; and Dekker, the old English play-poet, uses it in this sense, when in one of his best dramas he justly calls our Saviour

“The first _true gentleman_ that ever breathed.”

Dekker’s greatest contemporary, in reference to certain qualities he attributes to “man’s deadliest enemy,” tells us, though we are not bound to take his word for it, unless we like it,

“The Prince of Darkness is a _gentleman_;”

in which he follows the opinion long before expressed by the Italian poet Pulci, in his _Morgante Maggiore_, (canto xxv. st. 161.)

_Che_ gentilezza _è bene anche in inferno._

Pulci seems so pleased with this discovery, (if it be one,) that he repeats it in nearly the same words (in the following canto, st. 83.)

_Non creder ne lo inferno anche fra noi_
Gentilezza _non sia._

The old bone-shoveller in _Hamlet_ maintains that your only real and thorough gentlemen are your “gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers;” so that, after all, the authorities on this point are various and contradictory. If it be objected that _slang_ (otherwise sometimes called _flash_) is employed very much by boxers and prize-fighters, teachers and practisers of “the noble science of self-defence,” one answer may be supplied by a quotation from Aristotle, which shows that he himself was well skilled in the art, and he gives instructions how important it is to hit straight instead of round, following up the blow by the weight of the body. His words upon this subject are quoted (with a very different purpose certainly) in the last number of the _Edinburgh Review_, (p. 279.) So that we need only refer to them. Another “old Grecian” might be instanced in favour of the use of _slang_, and even of incorrect grammar; for every scholar knows (and we know it who are no scholars) that Aristophanes in the first scene of his comedy, named in English _The Clouds_, makes his hero talk bad Greek, and employ language peculiar to the stable: the scholiasts assert that Phidippides ought to have said, even in his sleep, ω Φιλε αδιχεις instead of Φιλων αδιχεις, which he uses. However, we are perhaps growing too learned, although it will be found in the end, (if not already in the beginning,) that this is a learned article, and ought perhaps to have been sent for publication in the _Classical Journal_.

What we seek to establish is this:--_that the language of the ignorant is the language of the learned_; or in less apparently paradoxical terms, that what is considered _slang_ and unfit for “ears polite,” is in fact a language derived from the purest and most recondite sources. What is the chief recommendation of lady Morgan’s new novel?--for what do ladies of fashion and education chiefly admire it? Because the authoress takes such pains to show that she is acquainted with French, Italian, and even Latin, and introduces so many apt and inapt quotations. What is the principal advantage of modern conversation? That our “home-keeping youths” have no longer “homely wits,” and that they interlard their talk with scraps and words from continental tongues. Now if we can show that _slang_ is compounded, in a great degree, of words derived from German, French, Italian, and Latin, shall we not establish that what is at present the language of the ignorant is in fact the language of the learned, and ought to be the language employed by all gentlemen pretending to education, and of all ladies pretending to blue-stocking attainments? We proceed to do so by a selection of a few of the principal words which are considered _slang_ or _flash_, of which we shall show the etymology.

_Blowin_--“an unfortunate girl,” in the language of the police-offices. This is a very old word in English, and it is derived from _blühen_, German, to bloom or blossom. Some may think that it comes from the German adjective _blau_. The Germans speak of a _blue-eye_, as we talk of a _black-eye_, and every body is aware that _blowins_ are frequently thus ornamented.

_To fib_--a term in boxing. It means, to clasp an antagonist round the neck with one arm, and to punish him with the other hand. It is from the Italian _fibbia_, a _clasp_ or buckle. The Italian verb _affibiare_ is used by Casti precisely in this sense:--_Gli affibia un gran ceffon._ (Nov. xliii. st. 65.)

_Fogle_--a handkerchief--properly and strictly a handkerchief with a bird’s eye pattern upon it. From the German _vogel_, a bird.

_Gam_--the leg. Liston has introduced this word upon the stage, when in Lubin Log he tells old Brown that he is “stiffish about the _gams_.” We have it either from the French _jambe_, or the Italian _gamba_.

_Leary_--cunning or wary. Correctly it ought to be written _lehry_. The derivation of it is the German _lehre_, learning or warning. The authorities for this word are not older than the time of James I.

_Max_--gin. Evidently from the Latin _maximus_, in reference to the strength and goodness of the liquor.

_To nim_--to take, snatch, or seize. It is used by Chaucer--“well of English undefiled.” It is derived from the Saxon _niman_, whence also the German _nehmen_, to take. We have it in the every-day adjective, _nimble_. The name of the corporal in Shakspeare’s _Henry V._ ought to be spelled _Nim_, and not _Nym_, (as the commentators ignorantly give it,) from his furtive propensity.

_Pal_--a companion. It is perhaps going too far to fetch this word from the Persian _palaker_, a comrade. It rather originates in the famous story told by Boccacio, Chaucer, Dryden, &c. &c. of the friendship of Palamon and Arcyte; _pal_ being only a familiar abbreviation of Palamon, to denote an intimate friend.

_To prig_--to rob or steal. It is doubtful whether this word be originally Spanish or Italian. _Preguntar_ in Spanish is to _demand_, and robbing on the highway is demanding money or life. _Priega_ in Italian is a petition--a mode of committing theft without personal violence. In English the word _to prig_ is now applied chiefly to picking pockets, owing to the degeneracy of modern rogues: a _prig_ is a pick-pocket.

_Sappy_--foolish, weak. Clearly from the Latin _sapio_--_lucus à non lucendo_.

_Seedy_--shabby--worn out: a term used to indicate the decayed condition of one who has seen better days: it refers principally to the state of his apparel: thus a coat which has once been handsome, when it is old is called _seedy_, and the wearer is said to look _seedy_. It is only a corruption of the French _ci-devant_--formerly; with an ellipsis of the last syllable. It has no reference to running to _seed_, as is commonly supposed.

_Spoony_--silly or stupid--is used both as a substantive and as an adjective. Some have conjectured that it owes its origin to the _wooden spoon_ at Cambridge, the lowest honour conferred by that university, the individual gaining it being entitled to no other, rather from his dulness than his ignorance. Its etymology is in fact to be found in the Italian word _saponé_, soap; and it is a well-known phrase that “a stupid fellow wants his brains washing with _soap_-suds.”

_Spree_--fun, joke--is from the French _esprit_, as every body must be aware in an instant.

_Togs_--dress--from the Latin _toga_, the robe worn by Roman citizens. _Toggery_ means properly a great coat, but it is also used generally for the apparel.

We might go through the whole vocabulary in the same way, and prove that some terms are even derived from the Hebrew, through the medium of the Jews; but the preceding “elegant extracts” will be sufficient. It is to be regretted that the Rev. J. H. Todd has been so hasty in publishing his second edition of _Johnson’s Dictionary_, or he might, and no doubt would, after what we have said, include many words not now to be found there, and which we contend are the chief ornaments of our vernacular. Perhaps it would be worth his while to add a supplement, and we shall be happy to render him any assistance.

_December, 1827._

PHILOLOGUS.

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DIVINATION BY FLOWERS.

_To the Editor._

Sir,--There is a love custom still observed in the village of Sutton Bangor, Wilts--Two flowers that have not blossomed are paired, and put by themselves--as many pairs as there are sweethearts in the neighbourhood, and tall and short as the respective sweethearts are. The initials of their names are attached to the stamens, and they are ranged in order in a hayloft or stable, in perfect secrecy, except to those who manage and watch their ominous growth. If, after ten days, any flower twines the other, it is settled as a match; if any flower turns a contrary way, it indicates a want of affection; if any flower blossoms, it denotes early offspring; if any flower dies suddenly, it is a token of the party’s death; if any flower wears a downcast appearance, sickness is indicated. True it is that flowers, from their very nature, assume all these positions; and in the situation described, their influence upon villagers is considerable. I was once a party interested, now

I am

A FLOWERBUD.

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WALTHAM, ESSEX.

_To the Editor._

Sir,--The following epitaph is upon a plain gravestone in the church-yard of Waltham Abbey. Having some point, it may perhaps be acceptable for the _Table Book_. I was told that the memory of the worthy curate is still held in great esteem by the inhabitants of that place.

REV. ISAAC COLNETT,

Fifteen years curate of this Parish,

Died March 1, 1801--Aged 43 years.

Shall pride a heap of sculptured marble raise,
Some worthless, unmourn’d, titled fool to praise,
And shall we not by one poor gravestone show
Where pious, worthy Colnett sleeps below?

Surely common decency, if they are deficient in antiquarian feeling, should induce the inhabitants of Waltham Cross to take some measures, if not to restore, at least to preserve from further decay and dilapidation the remains of that beautiful monument of conjugal affection, the cross erected by Edward I. It is now in a sad disgraceful state.

I am, &c.

Z.

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FULBOURN, CAMBRIDGE.

ALL SAINTS’ AND ST. VIGOR’S BELLS.

_To the Editor._

On a visit to a friend at Fulbourn we strolled to the site whereon All Saints’ church formerly stood, and his portfolio furnished me with the subjoined memoranda, which by your fostering care may be preserved.

I am, sir, &c.

_Cambridge, May, 1826._

T. N.

TRINITY SUNDAY, 1766.

This morning at five o’clock the steeple of All Saints’ church fell down. An act of parliament passed the 22d May, 1775, to unite the service in St. Vigor’s church, and to enable the vicar and churchwardens to sell the materials and the bells, towards repairing the church of St. Vigor’s--the amount was 150_l._ 0_s._ 6_d._ The two broken bells were sold towards the expenses; the other three, with the two of St. Vigor’s, and the saints’ bell, were new cast by E. Arnold at St. Neot’s Hunt’s, and six new bells were put up on the 9th of May, 1776. The subscription amounted to 141_l._; the bells cost 262_l._ 2_s._ 3_d._; the frames 45_l._, the six new ropes 1_l._ 15_s._; making together the sum of 308_l._ 17_s._ 3_d._

The poor inhabitants were so attached to the old bells, that they frequently watched them in the evening, lest they should be carried away and sold; for the broken bells lay among the ruins of All Saints’ church. At last their fears subsiding, they neglected their watching, and the churchwardens set a waggon in Monk’s barn, (hard by,) and carried away two of them in the night, delivering them to the Cambridge waggon for St. Neot’s, and returning before morning, which occasioned the following

_Ballad._

There are some farmers in Fulbourn town,
They have lately sold what was not their own;
They have sold the bells, likewise the church,
And cheat the poor of twice as much.
And O! you Fulbourn farmers O!

Some estate there was left, all for the poor,
They have robb’d them of half, and something more,
Such dirty tricks will go hard on their sides.
For the d--l will have them, and singe their hides.
And O! you Fulbourn farmers O!

Before the bells they could be sold,
They were forc’d to swear, as we’ve been told,
They forswore themselves--then they cried.
For this, my boys, we shall be tried.
And O! you Fulbourn farmers O!

There is old Twig, and young Twig--the whining dissenter,
Says one to the other, this night we will venture;
And says little Gibble-Gabble, I long for to go.
But first I will call my neighbour Swing-toe:
And O! you Fulbourn farmers O!

In the dead of the night this thievish crew
Broke into the church, as other thieves do,
For to steal the bells and sell them all,
May the d--l take such churchwardens all;
And O! you Fulbourn farmers O!

This ballad is said to have been the production of one William Rolfe, a labourer. It was probably written soon after the act passed. The new peal was brought home on the 9th of May, 1776, so that it was not a year from the passing of the act to the casting of the bells.

After the bill had been perused by counsel, Mr. Edward Hancock, the rector’s churchwarden, conducted it through both houses of parliament without the expense of a solicitor; sir John Cotton, one of the members for the county, forwarding it in the different stages through the House of Commons. So earnest were the populace about the bells, (when they were satisfied they were to have a new peal of six,) that after they were loaded they drew them a furlong or more before the horses were put to the waggon. The tenor was cast in _G_ sharp, or old _A_. Mr. Edmund Andrews Salisbury rode on the great bell, when it was drawn up within the steeple, and his was the first death this bell was rung for; he was buried 8th July, 1776. The motto on this bell is--

“I to the church the living call--
And to the grave I summon all.”

Mr. Charles Dawson was the author of the complete peal of _Plain Bob_, called “_The Fulbourn Surprise_” with 154 bobs, and two singles, and 720 changes. The peal was opened December 7, 1789.

* * * * *

ST. THOMAS’S DAY.

MR. DAY’S SHORT DAY.

Mr. Thomas Day, of D----t, Wilts, used, when living, to give his workmen on St. Thomas’s Day a holiday, a short pint of his ale, an ounce of short-cut tobacco, and a short pipe, in remembrance of his name. “For,” said he,--in a couplet decidedly his own,--

“Look round the village where ye may;
Day is the shortest day, to-day.”

PUCERON.

* * * * *

A PAGE FROM MY NOTE BOOK.

_For the Table Book._

ELECTION BRIBERY.

The first instance that occurs of this practice was so early as 13 Eliz., when one Thomas Longe (being a simple man of small capacity to serve in parliament) acknowledged that he had given the returning officer and others of the borough for which he was chosen FOUR POUNDS, to be returned member, and was for that premium elected. But for this offence the borough was amerced, the member was removed, and the officer was fined and imprisoned.--4 _Inst._ 23. _Hale of Parl._ 112. _Com. Journ._ 10 and 11 May, 1571.

WONDER-WORKING PRECEDENTS.

“Unless,” said vice chancellor Leach, (11th March, 1826, in Mendizabal _v._ Machado,) “_Unless I am bound hand and foot_ by precedents, _I will not follow_ such a practice.”

MEM.

Blackstone, speaking of apprenticeships, says, “They are useful to the commonwealth, by employing _of_ youth, and _learning_ them to be _early_ industrious.”

The same author says, “These payments (alluding to first fruits) were only due if the heir was of full age, but if _he_ was under the age of twenty-one _being a male_, or fourteen being a _female_, the lord was entitled to the wardship of the heir, and was called the guardian in chivalry.”--_Comm._ book ii. c. 5. p. 67.

DOWER.

The seisin of the husband, for a _transitory instant only_, when the same act which gives him the estate conveys it also out of him again, (as where, by a fine, land is granted to a man, and he immediately renders it back by the same fine,) such a seisin will not entitle the wife to dower: for the land was merely _in transitu_, and never rested in the husband, the grant and render being one continued act. But if the land abides in him for the interval of but a _single moment_, it seems that the wife shall be endowed thereof.--_Black. Comm._ book ii. c. 8. p. 132.

The author adds in a note: “This doctrine was extended very far by a jury in Wales, where the father and son were both hanged in one cart, but the son was supposed to have survived the father, _by appearing to struggle longest_; whereby he became seised of an estate in fee by survivorship, in consequence of which seisin his widow had a verdict for her dower.”--_Cro. Eliz._ 503.[520]

AN UNINTENTIONAL IMITATION EXTEMPORE _of the 196th and 7th stanzas of the 2d canto of Don Juan_.

A mother bending o’er her child in prayer.
An arm outstretch’d to save a conquer’d foe.
The daughter’s bosom to the father’s lips laid bare.
The Horatii when they woo’d the blow
That say’d a nation’s blood, a young girl fair
Tending a dying husband’s bed of woe,
Are beautiful; but, oh, nor dead nor living.
Is aught so beautiful as woman wrong’d forgiving.

For there she is, the being who hath leant
In lone confiding love and weakness all
On us--whose unreproaching heart is rent
By our deed; yet on our cheek but fall
A tear, or be a sigh but spent.
She sinks upon the breast whence sprang the gall
That bitter’d her heart’s blood, and there caressing.
For pain and misery accords a blessing.----

_Note for the Editor._--“An unintentional imitation” may sound something like a solecism, although a very little reflection will prove it to be far otherwise. I had been reading Don Juan till I had it by heart, and nightly spouted to the moon Julia’s letter and the invocation to the isles of Greece. I had a love fracas; a reconciliation, as one of the two alternative natural consequences, took place, and the foregoing were part of some propitiatory measures that effected it. At the time of writing them I had no more idea of imitating Byron, than has my Lord Chief Justice Best, in his charge to the jury in a newspaper cause, or crim. con. I wrote them rapidly, scarcely lifting my pen till they were finished, and certainly without bestowing a word or thought on any thing, except the image I pursued; but my mind had received a deep impression from my late reading, and my thoughts assumed the form they did from it, unknown to me. Some months afterwards, I was reciting the passage from Byron alluded to; I had heard something like it; I repeated it: I was more struck; I rack’d my brain and my lady’s letter-box, and made this discovery.

J. J. K.

[520] On a similar taking by the contingency of drowning, Fearne, the
elegant writer on “Contingent Remainders,” has an admirable
argument--a masterpiece of eloquent reasoning.--EDIT.

* * * * *

~Original Poetry.~

_For the Table Book._

CHRISTMAS.

Old Christmas comes again, and with him brings,
Although his visits are in times austere,
Not only recollections of good things.
But beareth in his hands substantial cheer:
Though short and dark the day, and long the night.
His joyous coming makes all faces bright.

And when you make your doors and windows fast.
And to your happy cheerful hearth retire,
A paradise is yours, safe from the blast,
In the fair circle gathering round the fire;
Whilst these, with social converse, books, and wine.
Make Winter’s ragged front almost divine!

W. M. W.

* * * * *

SONNET.

AN AUTUMNAL MIDNIGHT.

I walk in silence and the starry night;
And travellers with me are leaves alone.
Still onward fluttering, by light breezes blown.
The moon is yet in heaven, but soon her light,
Shed through the silvery clouds and on the dark
Must disappear. No sound I hear save trees
Swayed darkly, like the rush of far-off seas
That climb with murmurs loud the rocky steep.
There wakes no crowing cock, nor watch-dog’s bark.
I look around, as in a placid dream
Existing amidst beauty, and I seem
Relieved from human weakness, and from sleep,
A happy spirit ’neath the boundless heaven,
To whom not Day alone but Night is given!

W. M. W.

* * * * *

SEASONABLE STANZAS.

Winter, with hoary locks and frozen face,
Hath thrown his naked sceptre from his hand;
And he hath mended now his sluggish pace,
Beside the blazing yule-block fire to stand.
His ice-bound visage ’ginneth to expand;
And, for the naked pine-branch which he swayed.
He, smiling, hath a leaf-green sceptre planned;
The ivy and the holly he doth braid,
Beneath whose berries red is many a frolick played.

Now not in vain hath been the blooming spring,
The fruitful summer and the autumn sere;
For jolly Christmas to his board doth bring
The happy fulness of the passed year;
Man’s creeping blood and moody looks to cheer.
With mirthful revel rings each happy dome;
Unfelt within the snows and winds severe;
The tables groan with beef, the tankards foam,
And Winter blandly smiles to cheer the British home.

W. M. W.

* * * * *

~Original Poetry.~

_For the Table Book._

The accompanying lines were written in allusion to that beautiful _Gem of Dagley’s_ which _Mr. Croly_ (page 21 of the vol.) supposes a Diana, and which Tassie’s Catalogue describes as such. I have, however, made bold to address her in her no less popular character of

EURYDICE.

“Ilia quidem dam te fugeret per flumina præceps
Immanem ante pedes hydrum moritura puella
Servantem ripas altâ non vidit in herbâ.”

_Virg._ Georg. IV.

Art can ne’er thine anguish lull,
Maiden passing beautiful!
Strive thou may’st,--’tis all in vain;
Art shall never heal thy pain:
Never may that serpent-sting
Cease thy snow-white foot to wring.
Mourner thou art doom’d to be
Unto all eternity.

Joy shall never soothe thy grief;
Thou must fall as doth the leaf
In thine own deep forest-bower,
Where thy lover, hour by hour,
Hath, with songs of woodland glee.
Like the never-wearied bee.
Fed him on the fond caress
Of thy youth’s fresh loveliness.

Youth!--’tis but a shadow now;--
Never more, lost maid, must thou
Trip it with coy foot across
Leafy brooks and beds of moss;
Never more, with stealthy tread,
Track the wild deer to his bed,
Stealing soft and silently,
Like the lone moon o’er the sea.

Vain thy lover’s whisper’d charm;
Love can never death disarm;
Hush’d the song he oft hath sung,--
Weak his voice, his lyre unstrung.
Think, then, if so hard to heal
Is the anguish thou dost feel.
Think--how bitter is the smart
When that wound is in the heart!

‘ϵ . . .

_Hampstead._

* * * * *

~Notice.~

THE INDEX, &c. _to the present volume of the_ TABLE BOOK will _conclude the work_.

I respectfully bid my readers Farewell!

*

* * * * *

SPORTS AND PASTIMES

OF

THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.

Perhaps I may be excused for noticing the forthcoming octavo edition of “THE SPORTS AND PASTIMES OF ENGLAND,”--a work of very curious research and remarkable information, written and published in quarto by the late MR. JOSEPH STRUTT.

THE OCTAVO EDITION will be printed in a superior manner, on fine paper, with at least 140 Engravings. It will be published in Monthly Parts, price One Shilling each, and each part, on an average, will contain fourteen engravings. Above half of the drawings and engravings are already executed, and other means are taken to secure the punctual appearance of the work. The printer is already engaged on it, and the first part will certainly appear before the first of February.

A COPIOUS INDEX will be prepared, and the work be edited by

_January 1, 1828._

W. HONE.

Vol. II.--55.

INDEXES.

I. GENERAL INDEX.

II. CORRESPONDENTS’ INDEX.

III. INDEX TO THE POETRY.

IV. INDEX TO THE ENGRAVINGS.