appropriated to his friends and the select party of the company; care
being taken to prevent improper intrusion.

[Illustration: ~Necton Guild.~]

From the “mayor’s booth,” early on Whit Monday afternoon, the ceremony
of commencing or proclaiming the guild emanates in the following order
of procession:--

  Constable of Necton in a red scarf, with his staff of office.
  Beadles or special constables with staves, two and two.
  Master beadle of the guild, with a halberd.
  Six boys and girls, Maypole dancers, two and two, hand in hand.
  Band of Music.
  Maskers, or morris-dancers, fancifully attired, two and two.
  Pursuivant with a truncheon, habited in a tabard, on which is
  depictured an allegorical representation of the arms of Necton.
  Sword-bearer in grotesque dress, on horseback.
  Standard bearer on horseback.
  THE MAYOR OF THE GUILD,
  On horseback, in full dress suit and purple robes with his chain of
  office.
  Standard bearer on horseback.
  The mayor elect on horseback.
  Standard bearer on horseback.
  Principal tenantry on horseback, two and two.
  Beadles of the guild.
  Maskers or morris-dancers, fancifully attired, two and two.
  Six boys and girls, Maypole dancers, two and two, hand in hand.
  Beadles of the guild.
  Band of music.
  Man bearing a standard.
  Members of Royal Oak Friendly Society, with purple and light blue
  favours in their hats, two and two.
  Members of the Necton Old Club Friendly Society with light blue
  favours in their hats, two and two.

Taking a circuitous route through the field into the park, upon arriving
at the principal entrance to the hall, where the colonel and his friends
are waiting the approach of the procession, the mayor alights, and thus
addresses the patron:--

    “Honourable sir,--
                   “The period now arriv’d,
    In which the tokens of my mayoralty
    Must be resign’d,--I make it my request,
    You should appoint as mayor elect, this year,
    Our worthy friend and colleague, Mr. * * * *
    But in resigning, beg best thanks to give
    For the diversion of our last year’s guild;--
    Hoping the festival will as much this year,
    By weather and kind friends be happy blest.”

To this the colonel replies, “by thanking the mayor for his past
services,--for the good order and regularity observed during the last
festival,--and the pleasure it will afford him to make the new
appointment.”--They then enter the vestibule, where the mayor resigning
his robes and tokens of office, the mayor elect is then invested with
them. After returning to the door, the colonel congratulates the new
mayor on entering his office, &c. to which his worship thus replies:--

    “Honourable sir,--
                      “With pleasure I receive
    Th’ official tokens of my mayoralty,
    Which now in place of our late worthy mayor,
    Alderman * * * * I do most willingly take:
    Be well assured, as much as in me lies,
    I will good rule and order strict maintain,
    That peace and pleasure may together tend
    To make our guild, two days of even mirth
    Hoping all here assembled at the hall,
    Anon will join us in the festive scene,
    And bidding all most welcome to our guild:
    I thus respectful beg to take my leave,
    That I may tend my duties in the field.”--

The procession then returns by the same route and in the same order,
with the exception of the _new_ and the _past_ mayors who have changed
places. The rustic sports then commence;--the master beadle, ringing a
bell, proclaims the sport and the prize, the competitors for which are
desired to “come upon the Maypole-stand.”--The sports usually selected,
are

  Wrestling-matches.
  Foot-races.
  Jingling-matches.
  Jumping in sacks.
  Wheel-barrow races, blindfold.
  Spinning matches.
  Whistling matches.
  Grinning ditto, through a horse-collar.
  Jumping matches.
  &c. &c. &c. &c.

These are occasionally enlivened with Maypole dances, by the boys and
girls of the village, selected and dressed for the occasion, and also by
the maskers or morris-dancers. When the shades of evening prevent the
continuance of these sports, the spacious “mayor’s booth” is then the
object of attraction. Well lighted, and the floor boarded for the
occasion, country dances commence, which are generally kept up with
great spirit and harmony, till the master beadle with his bell announces
the time arrived for closing the booths and canteens, “by order of the
mayor.” A few minutes, and sometimes (by permission) a little longer,
terminates the amusement, which is always concluded, on both evenings,
by the whole company joining in the national anthem of “God save the
king.”

That “Necton guild” is considered as a superior establishment to a
rustic fair, or other merry-making, by the numerous, respectable, and
fashionable companies who generally attend from all parts of the
neighbourhood. Undisturbed by those scenes of intoxication and disorder,
usually prevalent at village fairs, the greatest harmony prevails
throughout, and the superior attention and accommodation afforded by the
patron and directors of the festival, to all classes of well-behaved and
respectable visiters, cannot fail to render “Necton guild,” a popular
and attractive resort of Whitsuntide festivities.

I have attempted a sketch of the Maypole stand, &c. from my own
knowledge, for I have usually rambled to Necton one or two evenings of
each year, since the “guild” was established, and hence I have given you
the particulars from actual observation, though I am indebted to a
friend, who is a diligent and accurate recorder of customs for the
speeches, &c. I must further observe, that the mound of earth I have
endeavoured to represent is permanent in the field, and about three
feet high, though I have erroneously represented it as higher from lack
of eye in drawing, to which indeed I make no pretension. The dancers are
the morris-dancers in grotesque dresses; the men with fanciful figured
print waistcoat and small clothes, decked with bows; and the women in
coloured skirts, trimmed like stage dresses for Spanish girls, with
French toques instead of caps.

I find you have removed the publishing office since I wrote last, but I
hope you do not mean to withdraw yourself from the work. Should you
continue “the soul” of the _Every-Day Book_ “body,” you shall hear from
me again, whenever and as soon as I can.

  K.

  ⁂ _To obviate the possibility of misapprehension in consequence of
  the_ EVERY-DAY BOOK _being published by Messrs._ HUNT _and_ CLARKE, _I
  take this opportunity of observing, that those gentlemen have no other
  concern in the work than that of being its publishers, and that it has
  never ceased from my entire management from the time they undertook
  that service for me on my own solicitation. No one has any share or
  interest in it, or any power of influencing its management, and it
  will continue to be conducted and written by me, as it has been, from
  the first hour of its commencement. I hope that this is a full and
  final answer to every inquiry on the subject._

  _May, 1826._

  W. HONE.

WHITSUN ALES.

It is pleasant to read the notices of these ancient revels in our
topographical histories. One of them gives the following account of a
Cornish merriment.

“For the _church-ale_, two young men of the parish are yerely chosen by
their last foregoers to be wardens, who, dividing the task, make
collection among the parishioners, of whatsoever provision it pleaseth
them voluntarily to bestow. This they employ in brewing, baking, and
other acates, against Whitsuntide, upon which holidays the neighbours
meet at the church house, and there merily feed on their owne victuals,
each contributing some petty portion to the stock, which, by many
smalls, groweth to a meetly greatness; for there is entertayned a kind
of emulation between these wardens, who, by his graciousness in
gathering, and good husbandry in expending, can best advance the
churche’s profit. Besides, the neighbour parishes at those times
lovingly visit one another, and frankly spend their money together. The
afternoons are consumed in such exercises as olde and yonge folk (having
leysure) doe accustomably weare out the time withall. When the feast is
ended, the wardens yeeld in their accounts to the parishioners; and such
money as exceedeth the disbursement is layd up in store, to defray any
extraordinary charges arising in the parish, or imposed on them for the
good of the countrey or the prince’s service; neither of which commonly
gripe so much, but that somewhat stil remayneth to cover the purse’s
bottom.”[183]

Another says, “There were no rates for the poor in my grandfather’s
days; but for Kingston St. Michael (no small parish) the church-ale of
Whitsuntide did the business. In every parish is (or was) a church-house
to which belonged spits, crocks, &c. utensils for dressing provision.
Here the housekeepers met, and were merry, and gave their charity. The
young people were there too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at
butts, &c. the ancients sitting gravely by, and looking on. All things
were civil, and without scandal.”[184]

Mr. Douce tells us, that “At present the Whitsun ales are conducted in
the following manner. Two persons are chosen, previously to the meeting,
to be lord and lady of the ale, who dress as suitably as they can, to
the characters they assume. A large empty barn, or some such building,
is provided for the lord’s hall, and fitted up with seats to accommodate
the company. Here they assemble to dance and regale in the best manner
their circumstances and the place will afford; and each young fellow
treats his girl with a riband or favour. The lord and lady honour the
hall with their presence, attended by the steward, sword-bearer,
purse-bearer, and mace-bearer with their several badges or ensigns of
office. They have likewise a train-bearer or page, and a fool or jester,
drest in a party-coloured jacket, whose ribaldry and gesticulation,
contribute not a little to the entertainment of some part of the
company. The lord’s music, consisting of a pipe and tabor, is employed
to conduct the dance. Some people think this custom is a commemoration
of the ancient Drink-lean, a day of festivity, formerly observed by the
tenants, and vassals of the lord of the fee, within his manor; the
memory of which, on account of the jollity of those meetings, the people
have thus preserved ever since. The glossaries inform us, that this
Drink-lean was a contribution of tenants, towards a potation or ale,
provided to entertain the lord or his steward.”[185]

    At Islington
      A fair they hold,
    Where cakes and ale
      Are to be sold.
    At Highgate, and
      At Holloway
    The like is kept
      Here every day.
    At Totnam Court
      And Kentish Town,
    And all those places
      Up and down.

  _Poor Robin_, 1676.

PEPPARD REVEL.

The “Reading Mercury” of May 24, 1819, contains the following
advertisement:--

“_Peppard Revel_ will be held on Whit Monday, May 31, 1819; and for the
encouragement of young and old gamesters, there will be a good hat to be
played for at cudgels; for the first seven couple that play, the man
that breaks most heads to have the prize; and one shilling and sixpence
will be given to each man that breaks a head, and one shilling to the
man that has his head broke.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 54·35.

  [181] Topographical, &c. Description of Oxfordshire.

  [182] Blount’s Jocular Tenures.

  [183] Carew’s Cornwall.

  [184] Aubrey’s Wiltshire.

  [185] Brand.

~May 16.~

[Illustration: ~His Grace the Duke of Baubleshire,~]

    Among the peers without compeer,
    A noble lord of parliament,
    Upon “his country’s good” intent,
    Through Durham daily took his walk,
    And talk’d, “ye gods, how he would talk!”
    His private riches how immense!
    His public virtue, how intense
    Preeminent of all the great,
    His mighty wisdom ruled the state!
    His claims, to high consideration,
    Brought deeper into debt the nation.
    Was he not, then, a statesman? what,
    Else, could he be?--for I know not.

A REMARKABLE CHARACTER.

On the sixteenth of May, 1796, died in Durham workhouse, at the advanced
age of eighty-five years, the “duke of Baubleshire.” His title was
neither ancestral, nor conferred by creation; but, as Napoleon is said
to have placed the iron crown on his own head, and vowed to maintain it
with his sword, so Thomas French assumed the title of duke of
Baubleshire of his own will, and maintained his nobility throughout
life, by wearing a star of coloured paper, or cloth, on the breast of
his spencer. As a further mark of his quality, he mounted a cockade in
his hat, and several brass curtain rings on his fingers. Thus decorated,
and with a staff in his hand to support his feeble frame, he constantly
tottered through Durham; every street of which ancient city acknowledged
his distinction.

At this time it is difficult to conjecture the origin of Thomas French’s
title. He assumed it with the decline of his understanding, until which
period he had been a labouring man, and supported himself by the work of
his hands. In right of his dukedom, he publicly urged his claims to
immense possessions. It was his constant usage to stop and accost every
one he knew, or could introduce himself to, on points of business,
connected with the Baubleshire estates. Though at no time master of a
shilling, he incessantly complained of having been defrauded of vast
amounts, in cash and bank bills; and parties whom he suspected of these
transactions, he threatened to punish with the utmost rigour of the law.
He seldom saw a goodly horse, or a handsome carriage, without claiming
it, and insisted on his rights so peremptorily and pertinaciously, as to
be exceedingly vexatious to the possessors of the property. He
fearlessly exhibited charges of misappropriation against individuals of
all ranks and conditions. According to his grace’s representations,
every covetable personalty in Durham and its vicinage, had been
clandestinely obtained from Baubleshire; nor did he make any secret of
his intimate and frequent correspondence with the king, on the subject
of raising men for carrying on the war, and other important affairs of
state. He likewise expressed his opinions on other men’s characters and
conduct without reserve; and notwithstanding his abject poverty, his
pointed observations frequently inflicted wounds, for which it would
have been folly to express resentment.

The duke of Baubleshire was occupied with his numerous concerns, till
within three or four days of his death, when he took to his bed; and
over burdened by old age, peaceably lay down with the other departed
dignitaries of the earth. The present portrait and particulars of him
are from a print lithographed at Durham, where he took his title, and
where he still lives in ephemeral fame.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 55·30.

~May 17.~

1826. EMBER WEEK.

Oxford Term begins.

_Remarkable Performance._

On the seventeenth of May, 1817, a respectable farmer of Kirton Lindsey
for a wager of a few pounds, undertook to ride a poney up two pair of
stairs into a chamber of the George Inn, and down again, which he
actually performed before a numerous company, whose astonishment was
heightened by the rider being upwards of eleven stone weight, and his
horse less than thirty. They were weighed after the feat to decide a
wager.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 56·65.

~May 18.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On the eighteenth of May, 1664, the following public advertisement was
issued for the healing of the people by king Charles II.

_Notice._

His sacred majesty having declared it to be his royal will and purpose
to continue the healing of his people for the evil during the month of
May, and then give over till Michalmas next. I am commanded to give
notice thereof, that the people may not come up to the town in the
interim and lose their labour.

  _Newes_, 1664.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 55·32.

~May 19.~

“POOR JOE MOODY!”

A willing record is given to the memory of an unfortunate young man, in
the language of an intelligent correspondent.

_For the Every-Day Book._

Poor Joe Moody lived in Ballingdon, a village in Essex; he was an idiot,
a good, simple-hearted creature. The character of his infirmity was
childishness; he would play at marbles, spin his top, run his hoop, and
join the little boys in the village, with whom he was a great favourite,
in all their sports. As a boy he was rational, but when he assumed the
man, which he would now and then do, the poor fellow was a sad picture
of misery. He would sit upon the steps of an old house, and ask if you
did not hear the thunder; then he would start as if to restrain the fury
of a horse, and he would suddenly become mild again, and say, “I have
seen her grave!” and he would weep like a child for hours. The story of
his early life I have heard my father thus relate:--

“When I went to school with Joe Moody, he was a fine fellow, and
remarkable for his good temper and lively disposition; he could run from
us all, and was one of the best cricketers in the town. After he had
left school he became acquainted with Harriet F----; she was a very
lovely girl, young and amiable, and had been sought by more than one
respectable farmer in the neighbourhood; but Joe was preferred by her,
and by her parents. I need not say how endeared to each other they were;
the sequel shows it too plainly. In a few days they were to have been
made happy; friends were invited to the wedding, and a rich old aunt was
to be of the party. Joe proposed that Harriet and himself should go and
fetch this old lady; a mark of respect which was readily agreed to. With
hopes high, and hearts of gaiety, the young folks set off on a fine
summer’s morning, with feelings which only youth and love can know. Who
can say this shall be a day of happiness? They had scarcely lost sight
of home when the sky became overcast, and in a few minutes a dreadful
storm burst over their heads. The thunder and lightning were terrific,
and the high spirited horse became unmanageable. Poor Joe endeavoured to
restrain its fury, but in vain; it left the track of the road; the hood
of the chaise struck against the projecting branch of a tree, and both
were thrown out with extreme violence to the earth. Joe soon recovered,
and his first care was his Harriet--she was a corpse at his feet! Poor
Joe spoke not for some weeks; and the first return of imperfect sense,
was shown by his swimming a little cork boat which he found.”

This humour was encouraged, and often his melancholy weeping mood was
turned by a kind proposition to play a game at marbles. He would come to
my father’s house sometimes, and borrow a penny to buy marbles, a string
for a kite, or some trifling toy. He never had his hair cut: it was very
black and glossy; and used to curl and hang about his shoulders like the
hair of Charles II., whom he resembled somewhat in the face. Joe went
regularly to church, and as regularly to the grave of his Harriet. In
rainy or tempestuous weather, he would sit upon the steps of the door
where he first met her, and ask of passing strangers whether they had
seen her. He had a fine voice and taste for singing, with which he would
sometimes amuse himself, but it generally led him to melancholy. Joe
feared but one person in the village, a Mr. S----, who once beat him at
school in a boyish fight.

I went to Ballingdon last summer, and asked for Joe: an old man told me
he died suddenly on seeing a horse run away--he showed me his grave.

  W. DOOWRUH.

  _May, 1826._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 55·70.

~May 20.~

REMARKABLE FUNERAL.

On the twentieth of May, 1736, the body of Samuel Baldwin, Esq. was, in
compliance with an injunction in his will, immersed, _sans ceremonie_,
in the sea at Lymington, Hants. His motive for this extraordinary mode
of interment was, to prevent his wife from “dancing over his grave,”
which this modern Xantippe had frequently threatened to do in case she
survived him.

SCOTCH SUPERSTITIONS IN MAY.

  _To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--A desultory sketch of the more prominent features, on the darker
side of Scotch character, if deemed worthy of insertion, is at your
service.

Researches into ancient usages, the way of leading life, and the customs
and superstitious belief, which gave tinge and sway to those who
peopled the world before us, are often ridiculed as frivolous by casual
observers. But the events of centuries past have become classic from
their associations with many of our own. Such observers are apt to
forget that much in our present manners is as certainly derived from the
popular opinions of past ages, as the heaving of the ocean is caused by
the submarine ground swell.

Neither the thoughts nor the actions of men, are to be compared or
measured by an unvarying standard of consistency or reason. The passions
are the real, though unsteady and eccentric guides of our motions; of
these, fear is the most predominant; and in its hour of operation, has
the most commanding power. Why is it, that a man in a state of inebriety
will be little the worse for bruises which would cost the same man
sober, his life? It is not the alcohol that gives life its tenacity, but
it is the consequent absence of fear which prevents imaginary, being
added to real dangers. Like love, it feeds its own flame. In all ages,
when earthly objects have ceased to terrify, men have conjured up
phantoms for their minds’ excitation, which, when reason told them, were
false, because invisible to the senses, they clothed with superhuman
attributes; still, however, taking advantage of every incident their
fancy misrepresented, to prove, at least, their material effects. Such
is witchcraft; which in Scotland, not many years ago, was as generally
believed in as Christianity, and which many, who have been excluded from
the polish of society, believe in still. Those who ventured to impugn
the doctrine, were held to be what the mob did not understand, but what
they believed to be something of extraordinary iniquity--“PAPISTS.”

The month of May has always been deemed peculiarly favourable for
supernatural appearances. No one will marry in May: but on the first
morning of that month, maidens rise early to gather May-dew, which they
throw over their shoulder in order to propitiate fate in allotting them
a good husband. If they can succeed by the way in catching a snail by
the horns, and throwing it over their shoulder, it is an omen of good
luck; and if it is placed on a slate, then likewise it will describe by
its turning, the initials of their future husband’s name.

Anciently, the month of May was ushered in with many solemn rites, and
the first day had the name of “Beltane.” The “Beltane time” was a season
of boisterous mirth and riotous festivity. There is still a fair at the
town of Peebles, which goes by the name of the Beltane fair. Our king,
James I., says,

    “At Beltane quhar ilk bodie bownis
      To Peblis to the play,
    To hear ye sing and ye soundis
      The solace suth to say.”

The mob elected a “king and queen of May,” and dressed them
fantastically to preside over their ceremonies. There were also peculiar
games, and “Clerks’ Plays,” with which the multitude amused themselves
at this season.

Among other superstitious observances for which May is reckoned
favourable, there is a custom of visiting certain wells, which were
believed to possess a charm, for “curing of sick people,” during that
month. In 1628, a number of persons were brought before the Kirk Session
of Falkirk, accused of going to Christ’s well on the Sundays of May, to
seek their health, and the whole being found guilty were sentenced to
repent “in linens” three several sabbaths. “And it is statute and
ordained that if any person, or persons, be found superstitiously and
idolatrously, after this, to have passed in pilgrimage to Christ’s well,
on the Sundays of May to seek their health, they shall repent in _sacco_
(sackcloth) and linen three several sabbaths, and pay twenty lib (Scots)
_toties quoties_, for ilk fault; and if they cannot pay it, the baillies
shall be recommended to put them in ward, and to be fed on bread and
water for aught days.”[186] They were obliged, for the preservation of
the charm, to keep strict silence on the way, to and from the well, and
not to allow the vessel in which the water was, to touch the ground.

In 1657, a mob of parishioners were summoned to the session, for
believing in the powers of the well of Airth, a village about six miles
north of Falkirk, on the banks of the Forth, and the whole were
sentenced to be publicly rebuked for the sin.--“Feb. 3, 1757, Session
convenit. Compeared Bessie Thomson, who declairit scho went to the well
at Airth, and that schoe left money thairat, and after the can was
fillat with water, they keepit it from touching the ground till they cam
hom.” “February 24.--Compeired Robert Fuird who declared he went to the
well of Airth, and spoke nothing als he went, and that Margrat Walker
went with him, and schoe said ye beleif about the well, and left money
and ane napkin at the well, and all was done at her injunction.”
“Compeared Bessie Thomson declarit schoe fetchit hom water from the said
well and luit it not touch the ground in homcoming, spoke not as sha
went, said the beleif at it, left money and ane napkin thair; and all
was done at Margrat Walker’s command,” “Compeired Margrat Walker who
denyit yat scho was at yat well befoir and yat scho gave my directions.”
“March 10. Compeared Margrat Forsyth being demandit if scho went to the
well of Airth, to fetch water thairfrom, spok not by ye waye, luit it
not touch ye ground in homcoming? if scho said ye belief? left money and
ane napkin at it? Answered affirmatively in every poynt, and yat Nans
Brugh directit yem, and yat they had bread at ye well, with them, and
yat Nans Burg said shoe wald not be affrayit to goe to yat well at
midnight hir alon.” “Compeired Nans Burg, denyit yat ever scho had bein
at yat well befoir.” “Compeired Ro^{t} Squir confest he went to yat well
at Airth, fetchit hom water untouiching ye ground, left money and said
ye beleif at it.” “March 17. Compeired Ro^{t} Cochran, declairit, he
went to the well at Airth and ane other well, bot did neither say ye
beleif, nor leave money.” “Compeired Grissal Hutchin, declairit scho
commandit the lasses yat went to yat well, say ye beleif, but dischargit
hir dochter.” “March 21. Compeired Robert Ffuird who declairit yat
Margrat Walker went to ye well of Airth to fetch water to Robert Cowie,
and when schoe com thair, scho laid down money in Gods name, and ane
napkin in Ro^{t} Cowie’s name.” “Compeired Jonet Robison who declairit
yat when scho was seik, Jean Mathieson com to hir and told hir, that the
water of the well of Airth was guid for seik people, and yat the said
Jean hir guid sister desyrit hir fetch sum of it to hir guid man as he
was seik, bot scho durst never tell him.” These people were all
“publicly admonishit for superstitious carriage.” Yet within these few
years, a farmer and his servant were known to travel fifty miles for the
purpose of bringing water from a charmed well in the Highlands to cure
their sick cattle.

The records contain some curious notices concerning witchcraft, which
are all certified to “my lord’s court,” the baronial juridical
conservator of the public peace; but, if we may judge from the
re-appearance of the parties, none, much to the laird of Callander’s
honour, ever were punished. I may afterwards give some of these for the
amusement of the readers of the _Every-Day Book_, who will likewise find
in the “Scots’ Magazine” for March, 1814, an account of trials for
witchcraft at Borroustaunness, which ended in six poor creatures’
condemnation on the twenty-third of December, 1679, to “be wirried at a
steak till they be dead, and then to have their bodies burnt to ashes!”

The reputed consequences of the _blink of an ill-ee_, are either death,
or some horrible debility; for which there are some preventitives, such
as rolling a red silk thread round the finger or the neck, or keeping a
slip of rowntree (mountain ash) in the bonnet; and last, not least,
there is a “gruel, thick and slab,” which is reckoned efficacious in
averting “Skaith.” At this day, even in the twenty-sixth year of the
nineteenth century, an old woman in Falkirk earns a comfortable
livelihood by the sale of “_Skaith Saw_.”

  I am, Sir, &c.

  ROBERT KIER

  _Falkirk, May 16, 1826._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 55·42.

  [186] Session Records, June 12, 1628.

~May 21.~

1826. TRINITY SUNDAY.

For usages on this day, see vol. i. p. 722.

THE SEASON.

It is observed by Dr. Forster in the “Perennial Calendar,” that the sky
is generally serene, and the weather mild and agreeable, about this
time. A cloudy day, however, frequently happens, and is sometimes
succeeded by a day’s rain; but we have noticed frequently, that an
overcast sky, when not too obscure, is the best for viewing flowers, and
at this time of year often sets off the splendid Vernal Flora to great
advantage.

_Song to Summer._

    Hail, rural goddess of delight!
    I woo thy smiles from morn till night;
    Now no more rude Eurus blows
    O’er mountains of congealed snows;
    But thy faire handmaid lovely Maie
    Treads the fresh lawns, and leads the waie.
    Now, at Flora’s earlie call,
    The meadows greene and vallies all
    Pour forth their variegated flowers,
    To regale the sportive hours.
    Hence then let me fly the crowde
    Of busy men, and seke the woode,
    With some Dryad of the grove,
    By shades of elm and oak to rove,
    Till some sequestered spot we find,
    There, on violet bank reclined,
    We fly the day-star’s burning heate,
    Which cannot reach our green retreate;
    While Zephyr, with light whispering breeze,
    Softly dances in the trees;
    And, upon his muskie wing,
    Doth a thousand odours bring
    From the blooming mead below,
    Where cowslips sweet and daisies blow;
    And from out her grassie bed
    The harebell hangs her nodding head;
    Hard bye, some purling stream beside,
    Where limpid waters gently glide,
    Iris shows her painted woof
    Of variegated hues, windproof;
    And with water lillies there,
    The nymphs and naids braid the haire;
    And from out their leafie haunt,
    The birdes most melodious chant.
    Then, sweet nymph, at eventide,
    Let us roam the broke beside,
    While the lovelorn nightingale
    Sadlie sings the woods ymel,
    Till the bittern’s booming note
    O’er the sounding mashes flote,
    And the ominous owls do crie,
    While luckless bats are flitting bye;
    Then before the midnight houre,
    When ghostlie sprites and pizgies coure,
    We will betake us to our cot,
    And be it there, O sleep, our lot,
    To rest in balmie slumberings,
    Till the next cock his matin rings.

CHRONOLOGY.

  _To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--As the anniversary of that day, on which the greatest
mathematician of his time was removed from this transitory world, is
fast approaching, I hasten to send you a brief memorial, selected from
various local works, of that truly original and eccentric genius. I also
enclose a fac-simile of his hand writing, which was presented to me by a
very obliging friend, Robert Surtees, of Mainsforth, Esq., F. S. A.,
and author of a very splendid and elaborate “History of the County
Palatinate of Durham.”

  Your’s truly,

  JOHN SYKES

  _Newcastle, Tyne, April 25, 1826._

[Illustration: W. Emerson

Hurworth

Oct. 1. 1771.]

William Emerson was born at Hurworth, a pleasant village, about three
miles from Darlington, in the county of Durham, on the 14th of May,
1701. The preceptor of his early years was his own father, of whom he
learned writing and arithmetic, and probably the rudiments of Latin.
After having studied mathematics with much ardour under able masters, at
Newcastle and York, he returned to Hurworth, and again benefited by the
knowledge of his father, who was a tolerable master of the mathematics.
Some degree of Emerson’s celebrity may be attributed to the treatment
which he received from Dr. Johnson, rector of Hurworth, whose niece he
had married. The doctor had engaged to give five hundred pounds to his
niece, who lived with him, as a marriage portion; but when reminded of
the promise, he choose to forget that it had been made, and treated our
young mathematician as a person beneath his notice.

The pecuniary disappointment Emerson (who had an independent spirit, and
whose patrimony though not large, was equal to all his wants) would
easily have surmounted, but the contemptuous treatment stung him to the
soul. He immediately went home, packed up his wife’s clothes, and sent
them to the doctor, saying, that he would scorn to be beholden to such a
fellow for a single rag; vowing at the same time that he would be
revenged, and prove himself to be the _better man of the two_. His first
publication, however, did not meet with immediate encouragement, and
most probably his other works would never have appeared, at least in the
author’s lifetime, if Edward Montague, Esq., his great admirer and
friend, had not procured him the patronage of Mr. John Nourse,
bookseller and optician, who being himself skilled in the more abstruse
sciences, immediately engaged Emerson to furnish a regular course of
mathematics for the use of students, and in the summer of 1763, Emerson
made a journey to London, to settle and fulfil the agreement.

His devotion to the philosophy of sir Isaac Newton was so uncommonly
strong, that every oppugner of this great man was treated by Emerson as
dull, blind, bigotted, prejudiced, or mad, and the fire and impetuosity
of his temper would on these occasions betray him into language far
distant from the strictness of mathematical demonstration. Mr. E. was in
person something below the common size, but firm, compact, well made,
very active and strong. He had a good open expressive countenance, with
a ruddy complexion, a keen and penetrating eye, and an ardour and
eagerness of look that was very demonstrative of the texture of his
mind. His dress was grotesque frequently; sometimes mean and shabby. A
very few hats served him through the whole course of his life; and when
he purchased one (or indeed any other article of dress) it was perfectly
indifferent to him whether the form or fashion of it was of the day, or
of half a century before. One of these hats of immense superficies, had,
by length of time, lost its elasticity, and its brim began to droop in
such a manner as to prevent his being able to view the objects before
him in a direct line. This was not to be endured by an optician; he
therefore took a pair of sheers, and cut it off by the body of the hat,
leaving a little to the front, which he dexterously rounded into the
resemblance of the nib of a jockey’s cap. His wigs were made of brown,
or of a dirty flaxen coloured hair, which at first appeared bushy and
tortuous behind, but which grew pendulous through age, till at length it
became quite straight, having probably never undergone the operation of
the comb; and either through the original mal-formation of the wig, or
from a custom he had of frequently thrusting his hand beneath it, the
back part of his head and wig seldom came into very close contact. His
coat or more properly jacket, or waistcoat with sleeves to it, which he
commonly wore without any other waistcoat, was of drab colour; his linen
was more calculated for warmth and duration than show, being spun and
bleached by his wife, and woven at Hurworth. In cold weather he had a
custom of wearing his shirt with the wrong side before, and buttoned
behind the neck, yet this was not an affectation of singularity, (for
Emerson had no affectation, though his customs and manners were
singular,) he had a reason for it; he seldom buttoned more than two or
three buttons of his waistcoat, leaving all the rest open; in wind,
rain, or snow, therefore, he must have found the aperture at the breast
inconvenient if his shirt had been put on in the usual manner. When he
grew aged, in cold weather, he used to wear what he called
_shin-covers_: these were pieces of old sacking, tied with strings above
the knee, and depending down to the shoe, in order to prevent his legs
from being scorched when he sat too near the fire. This singularity of
dress and figure, together with his character for profound learning, and
knowledge more than human, occasioned the illiterate and ignorant to
consider him as a cunning man, or necromancer, and various stories have
been related of his skill in the _black art_. He affected an appearance
of infidelity on religious matters, and was an example to the vulgar,
not a little reprehensible. His diet was as simple and plain as his
dress, and his meals gave little interruption either to his studies,
employments, or amusements. He catered for himself, and pretty
constantly went to Darlington, to make his own markets; yet, when he had
provided all the necessary articles, he not unfrequently neglected to
return home for a day or two, seating himself contentedly in some public
house, where he could procure good ale and company, and passing the
hours in various topics of conversation. His style of conversation was
generally abrupt and blunt, and often vulgar and ungrammatical. This
occasioned a supposition, that his prefaces were not written by himself,
an opinion that was one day mentioned to him, and the disparity of his
conversation and writing pointed out as the reason. After a momentary
pause, he exclaimed, with some indignation, “A pack of fools! who would
write my prefaces but myself.” Mr. Emerson often tried to practise the
effect of his mathematical speculations, by constructing a variety of
instruments, mathematical, mechanical, and musical, on a small scale. He
made a spinning-wheel for his wife, which is represented in his book of
mechanics. He was well skilled in the science of music, the theory of
sounds, and the various scales both ancient and modern. He was a great
contributor to the “Lady’s Diary,” under the signature of “Merones,” and
for many years unknown, until a transposition of letters discovered his
name.[187] During the greater part of his life, his health had been
strong and uninterrupted; but as he advanced into the vale of years,
internal complaints allowed him but little intermission of pain, and at
length deprived him of breath on the twenty-first of May, 1782, aged
eighty-one years and one week. He was buried in the churchyard of his
native village where he died. About a twelvemonth before his decease, he
was prevailed on after much importunity, to sit for his portrait, which
was taken by Mr. Sykes, for his friend Mr. Cloudsley of Darlington,
surgeon. It is said to be a most striking likeness.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 55·32.

  [187]

      “Beneath the shelter of the silent elm,
    His native elm (to sapience still a friend)
    MERONES loves, and meditates beneath
    The verdure of thy leaves: see there
    How silently he sits! and lost in thought,
    Weighs in his mind some great design! revolves
    He now his _Subtile Fluxions_? or displays
    By truest signs the _Sphere’s Projection_ wide?
    Wide as thy sphere, Merones, be thy fame.”

  See a poem on the old Elm at Hurworth, in _Gent. Mag._ for May, 1756.

~May 22.~

SOPS AND ALE.

At East-Bourn, in “a descriptive account of that village in the county
of Sussex,” there is mention of a very singular custom having prevailed
for many years under the denomination of “Sops and Ale.” It was
productive of much mirth and good humour, being conducted as follows:
the senior bachelor in the place was elected by the inhabitants,
steward, and to him was delivered a damask napkin, a large wooden bowl,
twelve wooden trenchers, twelve wooden knives and forks, two wooden
candlesticks, and two wooden cups for the reception of sugar; and on the
Saturday fortnight the steward attended at the church-door, with a white
wand in his hand, and gave notice that sops and ale would be given that
evening at such a place. Immediately after any lady, or respectable
farmer or tradesman’s wife became mother of a child, the steward called
at the house, and begged permission for “sops and ale;” which was always
granted, and conducted in the following order:--Three tables were placed
in some convenient room; one of which was covered with the above napkin,
and had a china bowl and plates, with silver handled knives and forks
placed on it; and in the bowl were put biscuits sopped with wine, and
sweetened with fine sugar. The second table was also covered with a
cloth, with china, or other earthern plates, and a bowl with beer sops,
sweetened with fine sugar, and decent knives and forks. The third table
was placed without any cloth; and on it were put the wooden bowl,
knives, forks, and trenchers, as before described, with the candlesticks
and sugar cups; and in the bowl were beer sops, sweetened with the
coarsest sugar. As soon as the evening service was over, having had
previous notice from the steward, the company assembled, and were placed
in the following order:--those persons whose wives were mothers of
twins, were placed at the upper or first table; those whose wives had a
child or children, at the second table; and such persons as were
married, and had no children, together with the old bachelors, were
placed at the third table, which was styled _the bachelors’ table_,
under which title the gentlemen who sat at it, were addressed for that
evening, and the gentlemen at the first table were styled _benchers_.
Proper toasts were given, adapted for the occasion, and the company
always broke up at eight o’clock, generally very cheerful and
good-humoured.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 54·87.

~May 23.~

CHRONOLOGY.

This is the anniversary of one of the great duke of Marlborough’s most
celebrated engagements, the battle of Ramilles, a place near Namur in
the Netherlands, where, on this day, in the year 1706, he gained a
memorable victory over the French. It was in this battle that colonel
Gardiner, then an ensign in the nineteenth year of his age, received a
shot in his mouth, from a musket ball, which, without destroying any of
his teeth, or touching the fore part of his tongue, went through his
neck, and came out about an inch and a half on the left side of the
vertebræ. He felt no pain, but dropped soon after, and lay all night
among his dying companions; he recovered in an almost miraculous manner,
and became, from a most profligate youth, a character eminent for
piety.[188]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 55·57.

  [188] Butler’s Chronological Exercises.

~May 24.~

JACK KETCH AND NEWGATE.

On this day, in 1736, five felons in Newgate were to have been executed;
but the prison was so insecure, that, during the night, one of them
“took up a board and got out of his cell, and made his escape.” The
other four were taken to Tyburn and suffered their sentence; and Jack
Ketch “on his return from doing his duty at Tyburn, robbed a woman of
three shillings and sixpence.”[189]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 56·42.

  [189] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~May 25.~

CORPUS CHRISTI DAY.

On Corpus Christi day, at about a quarter before one o’clock at noon,
the worshipful company of skinners (attended by a number of boys which
they have in Christ’s Hospital school, and girls strewing herbs before
them) walk in procession from their hall on Dowgate-hill, to the church
of St. Antholin’s, in Watling-street, to hear service. This custom has
been observed time out of mind.

This notice is communicated by one of the company.

For other customs on this festival, see vol. i. p. 742 to 758.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·52.

~May 26.~

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 59·35.

~May 27.~

ADDISON’S LIBRARY.

1799. On this and the three following days, the library of the
celebrated Addison was sold by auction by Messrs. Leigh and Sotheby, at
their house in York-street, Covent-garden. The books were brought from
Bilton, where Addison had resided, near Rugby, in Warwickshire, and
under Mr. Leigh’s hammer produced 456_l._ 2_s._ 9_d._

There is a portrait of Mr. Leigh, who is since dead, from a drawing by
Mr. Behnes.

Mr. Leigh dissolved partnership with Mr. Sotheby, his son supplied his
father’s place, and the business was carried on in the Strand. On Mr.
Leigh’s death, his surviving partner continued it, as he still does,
near the same spot in Waterloo-place, whither he removed in consequence
of the premises being required for other purposes. This establishment is
the oldest of the kind in London: under Mr. Sotheby’s management its
ancient reputation is supported: his sales are of the highest
respectability, and attended by the best collectors. Mr. Sotheby sold
the matchless _niellos_ and other prints of sir Mark Sykes. For
collections of that nature, and for libraries, his arrangements are of a
most superior order. One of the greatest treats to a lover of literature
is a lounge at Mr. Sotheby’s during one of his sales.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·50.

~May 28.~

FEMALE ORDER OF MERIT.

The journals of this day, in 1736, announce that mademoiselle Salle, a
famous dancer at Paris, who valued herself highly on her reputation,
instituted an order there, of which she was president, by the name of
“the Indifferents.” Both sexes were indiscriminately admitted after a
nice scrutiny into their qualifications. They had rites, which no one
was to disclose. The badge of the order was a ribbon striped, black,
white, and yellow, and the device something like an icicle. They took an
oath to fight against love, and if any of the members were particular in
their regards, they were excluded the order with ignominy.[190]

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·90.

  [190] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~May 29.~

K. CHARLES II. RESTORATION.

For customs on this day, see vol. i. p. 711 to 722.

This anniversary is an opportunity for introducing the following curious
view.

[Illustration: ~Boscobel House,~

WHERE CHARLES II. WAS CONCEALED AFTER THE BATTLE OF WORCESTER.]

This engraving, from a rare print of great value, represents
Boscobel-house, in the state it was when Charles II. and colonel Carlos
took refuge there. They remained in the house till they became alarmed
for their safety.

Dr Stukely mentions the straits to which Charles was reduced during his
concealment at this place. “Not far from Boscobel-house, just by a
horse track passing through the wood, stood the royal oak, into which
the king and his companion, colonel Carlos, climbed by means of the
henroost ladder, when they judged it no longer safe to stay in the
house; the family reaching them victuals with the nuthook. The tree is
now enclosed in with a brick wall, the inside whereof is covered with
laurel, of which we may say, as Ovid did of that before the Augustine
palace, ‘mediamque tuebere quercum.’ Close by its side grows a young
thriving plant from one of its acorns. Over the door of the enclosure, I
took this inscription in marble:--

  ‘Felicissimam arborem quam in asylum potentissimi Regis Caroli II.
  Deus O. M. per quem reges regnant hic crescere voluit, tam in
  perpetuam rei tantae memoriam quam specimen firmae in reges fidei,
  muro cinctam posteris commendant Basilius et Jana Fitzherbert.

  ‘Quercus amica Jovi.’”

[Illustration: ~Boscobel House, 1800.~]

The situation of the house in the above year, is shown by the annexed
engraving, from a view of it at that period.

At a small distance from Boscobel is Whiteladies, so called from having
been a nunnery of white or Cistercian nuns, extensive ruins of which
remain.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·37.

~May 30.~

CLERKENWELL, IN 1730.

This day, in 1730, being the anniversary of the birth-day of the
princesses Amelia and Caroline, Mr. Cook, a publican, discharged
twenty-one guns in salute of their royal highnesses as they passed his
door, “to drink the water at the wells by the New River Head in the
parish of St. James, Clerkenwell.” It appears that “almost every day for
the latter part of that month, there was so great a concourse of the
nobility and gentry, that the proprietor took about thirty pounds in a
morning.”[191] Clerkenwell, therefore, in 1730, was so fashionable as to
be the resort of the court for recreation. At that time it had green
lanes and bowling-alleys to delight the gentry, and attract the citizens
of the metropolis. It is now, in 1826, covered with houses, and without
a single public place of reputable entertainment; not even a
bowling-green.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 58·72.

  [191] Gentleman’s Magazine

~May 31.~

DEATH OF AN ELEPHANT.

With the destruction of the elephant belonging to Mr. Cross, at Exeter
Change, described in the present volume, may be paralleled the
destruction of another on this day in the year 1820. The particulars are
related in the “London Magazine” of April 1, 1826; they seem to have
been translated from a “Notice sur l’Elephant mort a Geneve le 31 Mai
dernier,” in the “_Almanach Historique, nommé Messager Boiteux_ pour
l’An de grace, 1821,” which has been sent to the editor of the
_Every-Day Book_ for the purpose of enabling him to lay the annexed
engraving before the readers of London, from a print in that “Almanac,”
which is printed in quarto “á Vevey, chez Freres Lœrtscher.”

In May, 1820, for about a fortnight a fine Bengal elephant (Elephas
Indicus, Cuvier--Elephas Maximus, Linn.) had been exhibited at Geneva.
The elephants of this species are taller than those of Africa. They have
an elevated cranium, which has two protuberances on its summit; the
frontal bone is rather concave, and the head proportionably longer;
their tusks are smaller than those of the African elephant. The animal
in question had but one; he had lost the other by some accident. He was
nine feet high, and of a dark-brown colour, he was ten years old, and
had been bought in London six years before. Mademoiselle Garnier, (the
niece of his proprietor,) to whom he was much attached, always travelled
with him. She was the proprietor of an elephant which had broken loose
at Venice a few years previously, and was killed by a cannon-shot, after
it had committed considerable ravages in that city.

The present elephant was of a much gentler character, and had excited a
general interest during its stay in Geneva, by its docility and
intelligence; it performed all the usual tricks which are taught these
animals, with a promptitude of obedience, a dexterity, and almost a
grace, which were quite remarkable. Whenever mademoiselle Garnier
witnessed his exercises, her presence seemed to call forth all these
qualities to an extraordinary degree. According to her statement he was
so familiar and social that he had more than once appeared on the stage
at Lille, Antwerp, &c. playing the principal part in a procession, and
seeming proud to carry the lady who acted the princess, before whom he
would kneel to take her on his back. So far from being frightened at the
lights, the music, and the noise of the house, he seemed delighted to
take a part in the ceremony.

Accustomed to liberty, and much as he loved it, he yet endured
confinement with patience, and when his keeper came to fasten him up
for the night, he used to stretch out his foot to receive the iron ring
by which he was chained till morning, to a post deeply fixed in the
earth. Unlike these animals in England, he did not travel in a cage, but
was led from one town to another by night; he had three drivers, his
keeper, properly so called, and two others, one of whom had always
inspired him with more fear than attachment.

During the latter part of his stay at Geneva he had exhibited symptoms
of excitement and restlessness, arising from two causes--the one, the
frequent discharges of musketry from the soldiers who were exercised
near his habitation, at which he was greatly irritated; the other, the
paroxysms to which these animals are subject for several weeks in the
spring. Nevertheless, he had never disobeyed nor menaced his keepers.

His departure was fixed for the 31st of May. He left Geneva at midnight,
the gates and drawbridges having been opened for that purpose by
permission of the syndic of the guard, the magistrate at the head of the
military police. He was driven by his keeper and his two assistants, who
carried a lantern. Mademoiselle Garnier was to follow in the morning. He
made no difficulty in crossing the drawbridge, and took the road to
Switzerland apparently in high spirits. But about a quarter of a league
from the town he appeared out of humour with the keeper, and disposed to
attack him. The man ran away towards the city; the elephant pursued him
up to the gate, which the officer on guard opened, on his own
responsibility, wisely calculating that it would be more easy to secure
him within the town than without it, and that he might do immense
mischief on the high roads, especially as it was the market-day at
Geneva. He re-entered the town without hesitation, pursuing, rather than
following his keeper and guides, between whom and himself all influence,
whether of attachment or of fear, seemed at an end. From this moment he
was his own master.

He walked for some time in the place de Saint Gervais, appearing to
enjoy his liberty and the beauty of the night. He lay down for a few
minutes on a heap of sand, prepared for some repairs in the pavement,
and played with the stones collected for the same purpose. Perceiving
one of his guides, who was watching him from the entrance of one of the
bridges over the Rhone, he ran at him, and would have attacked him, and
probably done him some serious injury, if he had not escaped.

Mademoiselle Garnier having been informed of what had passed, hastened
to the spot, and trusting to the attachment he had always shown for her,
went up to him with great courage, with some dainties of which he was
particularly fond, and speaking to him with gentleness and confidence,
led him into a place enclosed with walls near the barrack he had
inhabited, into which he could not be induced to return. This place,
called the Bastion d’Hollande, adjoined a shed containing caissoons,
waggons, and gun-carriages; there were also cannon-balls piled up in an
adjoining yard. Being left alone, and the gate shut upon him, he amused
himself with trying his strength and skill upon every thing within his
reach; he raised several caissoons and threw them on their sides, and
seemed pleased at turning the wheels; he took up the balls with his
trunk, and tossed them in the air, and ran about with a vivacity which
might have been ascribed either to gaiety or to irritation.

At two in the morning, the syndic of the guard being informed of the
circumstance, went to the spot to consult on the measures to be taken.
Mademoiselle Garnier in a state of the utmost distress and agitation,
entreated that the elephant might be killed in the most speedy and
certain way possible. The syndic, sharing in the general feeling of
interest the noble and gentle creature had excited in the town, opposed
her desire. He represented that the animal was now in a place of
security against all danger, whether to the public or himself; and that
as his present state of irritation was, in its very nature, transient,
and would soon yield to a proper regimen; but mademoiselle Garnier
remembered the occurrences at Venice, and felt the whole weight and
responsibility of the management of the animal was on herself alone; for
the keeper and guides had decidedly refused to attend upon him again,
and she persisted in her demand. The magistrate would not give his
consent until it was put into writing and signed.

From that moment arrangements were made for destroying him. The chemists
were laid under contribution for drugs, while two breaches were made in
the wall, at each of which a four-pounder was placed, which was to be
the _ratio ultima_ if the poison failed.

M. Mayor, eminent as a surgeon, and for his learning in natural history,
and one of the directors of the museum, had taken great delight in
visiting the elephant during his stay, and the animal had evinced a
particular affection for him. This induced the magistrate to request M.
Mayor to administer the poison. M. Mayor, after mixing about three
ounces of prussic acid with about ten ounces of brandy, which was the
animal’s favourite liquor, called him by his name to one of the
breaches. The elephant came immediately, seized the bottle with his
trunk, and swallowed the liquor at one draught, as if it had been his
usual drink. This poison, the operation of which, even in the smallest
doses, is usually tremendously rapid, did not appear to produce any
sensible effect on him; he walked backwards with a firm step to the
middle of the enclosure, where he lay down for some moments. It was
thought that the poison was beginning to act, but he soon rose again,
and began to play with the caissoons, and to walk about in the courtyard
of the arsenal. M. Mayor, presuming that the prussic acid which had been
kept some time had lost its strength, prepared three boluses of an ounce
of arsenic each, mixed with honey and sugar. The elephant came again at
his call, and took them all from his hand. At the expiration of a
quarter of an hour, he did not appear at all affected by them. A fresh
dose was then offered him; he took it, smelt at it for some minutes,
then threw it to a distance, and began again to play all sorts of
tricks. Sometimes he came to the breach, and, twining his trunk round
the mouth of the cannon, pushed it back as if he had some indistinct
notion of the danger which threatened him.

It was five in the morning when the first dose of poison was
administered; an hour had elapsed, and no symptom of its internal action
appeared. Meanwhile the market time drew near, the space around the
walls was rapidly filling with inquisitive spectators, and the order was
given to fire. The gunner seized the moment in which the elephant, who
had advanced to the breach, was retiring, and presented his side. The
mouth of the cannon almost touched him. The ball entered near the ear
behind the right eye, came out behind the left ear, went through a thick
partition on the opposite side of the enclosure, and spent itself
against a wall. The animal stood still for two or three seconds then
tottered, and fell on his side without convulsion or movement.

[Illustration: ~Death of the Elephant at Geneva, May 31, 1820.~]

The above engraving, from that in the foreign almanac already mentioned,
represents the manner wherein his death was effected.

The event circulated through the town with the rapidity of lightning.
“They have killed the elephant!” “What had the noble creature done? he
was so good, so gentle, so amiable!” “What a pity!” The people ran with
one accord to the spot, to satisfy themselves with a nearer view. The
eagerness was so great that the authorities were obliged to take steps
for keeping order in the crowd, and a small sum of money was demanded
from each for the benefit of the proprietor. The same evening, by
arrangements entered into with mademoiselle Garnier, for securing the
remains of the animal for the museum, the surgeons proceeded to open the
body, which they continued to dissect for several successive days. The
operations were executed by M. Mayor, the chevalier Bourdet, a
naturalist and traveller, and M. Vichet, an eminent pupil of the
veterinary surgeon of Alfort. They took an exact measurement of the
animal. They traced its silhouette on the wall; and made separate casts
of its head, and the two feet of one side. All the principal viscera,
except the liver, which decomposed too rapidly, and the brain, which was
shattered by the ball, were carefully removed and preserved in a
solution of oxygenated muriate of mercury. The spleen was six feet long.
The muscular or fleshy parts, as the season would not allow of their
slow dissection, were taken away rather by the hatchet than the
bistoury. They were given to the public, who were extremely eager and
anxious to eat elephant’s flesh, and much tempted by its excellent
appearance, dressed as it was with every variety of sauce. They seemed
perfectly regardless of the poison, which indeed had not time to
develope itself in the muscular system. Three or four hundred persons
ate of it without injury, excepting one or two individuals, who brought
on a fit of indigestion by indulging to excess. The osseous carcass was
put into a state of maceration previous to re-composing the skeleton, in
order to its deposit in the museum of natural history. The interest
taken in that establishment was so strong, that the large sum required
to secure possession of the entire carcass, was raised by subscription
in a few days. The skin was found too thick to be tanned by the ordinary
process, and as the epidermis began to detach itself naturally, it was
carefully separated from the dermis, which it was not essential to
preserve entire. The epidermis retained its proper consistency, in order
to be supplied by a well-known process in covering the artificial
carcass, constructed under the direction of Messrs. Mayor and Bourdet.

If mademoiselle Garnier had not succeeded in enticing the animal to the
place where his destruction was effected, the mischief he might have
occasioned by remaining at large, till the inhabitants of Geneva had
risen from their beds to their daily occupations, can scarcely be
imagined; especially as it was on a market-day, when the city is usually
thronged with country people, and most persons are necessarily out of
doors.

_May Custom at Buckingham._

RINGING THE OLD BAILIFF OUT.

  _To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--On this day, unusual bustle set the town of Buckingham alive. It
was the festive consecration of the first Sunday after May-day. Having
taken care of my horse and left the inn, I heard a band of music
approaching the church, which is a cheerful edifice, standing on an
eminence with a painted glass window. The bells rung merrily, and the
sunshine gave lustre to the surrounding country, beautified by light and
shade. The main street was presently lined with townspeople and
villagers. My inquiries as to the cause of this “busy hum of men” were
soon satisfied by the cry that, “They’re ringing the old bailiff out!”
As the musicians (not of the opera band, nor of the Hanover rooms,) came
nearer with the accumulating procession, I with difficulty learned the
theme of their endeavours to be Weber’s “Hark! follow!” I never heard
any thing surpass this murder of melody. Had Weber been present, he
would not have regretted he had given the MS. of Der Freischütz, to
discharge a trifling debt, which I am informed was really the case. Such
discord, however, worked no “incantation” here. All faces smiled, all
hearts appeared glad. The cavalcade moved in pairs. First two small
children in white with garlands, then, behind them, two, a size larger;
then others, increasing in growth and tallness, till six wreathed
maidens and their swains moved onwards, dancing and shaking their curly
locks in sportive glee around the Maypole, decorated in the habiliments
of nature’s sweetest and choicest spring flowers and boughs. Dolls of
various dresses were placed in the midst, as though they looked out of
bowers for the arrival of kindred playfellows. Then came his worship,
the bailiff, a sir John Falstaff-like sort of person, swelling with
pleasurable consequence; the shining mace borne on the shoulder
intimated his dignity. What a happy day of honour, of triumph, and
greatness to him! Then followed the leading men of the town, the
burgesses in their corporate robes and nosegays. Their friends paraded
aside in their Sunday clothes, like “ladies of olden days” and “squires
of high degree.” Favours and flags played on the fresh air, inviting
rural enjoyment. Many rosy-faced damosels in their “best bibs and
tuckers” illustrated the time by appearing at the windows; infants were
held up to behold, and the aged crept to the doors, to take a glimpse of
what they might not live to see repeated. As the procession arrived at
the churchyard gate, soldiers were arranged in line, preparing to meet
and unite in the gaiety of the day. It is thus pleasant to view the
military and civil powers, peacefully ornamenting the general harmony of
the season. The subordinates and illustrators of this annual custom,
opened a passage at the church door, and the bailiff led the way into
his seat. The bells rested their metal tongues, and the music ceased
awhile. People of all descriptions, in all directions, hurried to their
respective pews, with accommodating civility to strangers. The curate
opened his book and his duties, the clerk unsheathed his spectacles,
confined his nostrils, and the service was reverently performed, with a
suitable discourse and decent melody. After this was ended, the bailiff
and his friends returned in like order as they came, perambulating the
precincts of the town. Then the glory of all true Britons, was
manifested by the clatter of knives and forks, at the favourite depôt
for provisions, and genuine hilarity closed the “ringing out of the old
bailiff,” and the ringing in of the new one.

  J. R. PRIOR.

With the preceding communication from Mr. Prior, are the following
verses.

_To the Dead Nettle._

    Unlike the rose,
      Thou hast not bards to sing
    Thy merits as thy beauty grows
      ’Neath hedges in the spring.

    Unconscious flower!
      Thy downcast blossom seems
    Like widowed thought in sorrow’s hour
      Away from pleasure’s beams.

    Young feeling’s eye
      Surveys thee in thy vernal bed,
    Protected from the glare of sky,
      By lovely nature fed.

    He, that would learn
      Sermons from thine eternal birth,
    Might safely to the world return
      And triumph over earth.

  J. R. PRIOR.

A MAY-DAY.

  _To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--If you think the following lines worth insertion in your
_Every-Day Book_, you are welcome to them.

  I am, Sir, &c.

  H. M. LANDER.

  _King’s Bench Walk,_

  _Temple._

SONG.

    ’Tis May! ’tis May! the skylarks sing,
    The swallow tribe is on the wing,
    The emerald meads look fresh and gay,
    And smiles the golden orb of day.

    ’Tis May! ’tis May! the voice of love
    Inspiring calls to yonder grove;
    Then let us to the shades repair,
    Where health, and mirth, and music are.

    ’Tis May! ’tis May! air, earth, and flood,
    With life and beauty are endowed:
    Myriads of forms creep, glide, and soar,
    Exultant through the genial hour.

    ’Tis May! ’tis May! why should not man
    Embrace the universal plan,
    Enjoy the seasons as they roll,
    And love while love inspires the soul.

    ’Tis May! ’tis May! the flowers soon fade,
    And voiceless grows the sylvan shade:
    The insects fall mid autumn’s gloom,
    And man is hastening to the tomb.

    ’Tis May! ’tis May! the flowers revive!
    Again the insect revellers live!
    But man’s lost bloom no charms restore,
    His youth once pass’d, returns no more.

~Dulce Domum.~

  _To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

Sir,--It may not, perhaps, be generally known what it was that gave rise
to the writing of the old breaking-up song of “Dulce Domum,” so loudly
and so cheerfully sung by youngsters previous to the vacation; and as an
old custom is involved in it, you may deem both the song and the custom
worthy a place in your _Every-Day Book_. They are subjoined.

  I am, Sir, &c.

  HENRY BRANDON.

  _Leadenhall Street,_

  _May, 1826._

About two hundred and thirty years ago, a scholar of St. Mary’s college
Winchester was, for some offence committed, confined by order of the
master, and it being just previous to the Whitsuntide vacation, was not
permitted to visit his friends, but remained a prisoner at the college,
as report says, tied to a pillar. During this period he composed the
well known “_Dulce domum_,” being the recollections of the pleasures he
was wont to join in, at that season of the year. Grief at the disgrace
and the disappointment he endured, so heavily affected him, that he did
not live to witness the return of his companions, at the end of their
holydays.

In commemoration of the above, annually on the evening preceding the
Whitsun holydays, the master, scholars, and choristers of the above
college, attended by a band of music, walk in procession round the court
of the college and the pillar to which it is alleged the unfortunate
youth was tied, and chant the verses which he composed in his
affliction.

DULCE DOMUM!

      Concinamus, O sodales!
    Eja! quid silemus?
      Nobile canticum!
    Dulce melos, domum!
    Dulce domum, resonemus.

    _Chorus._

        Domum, domum, dulce domum;
        Domum, domum, dulce domum!
        Dulce, dulce, domum!
        Dulce domum, resonemus!

      Appropinquat ecce! felix
        Hora gaudiorum,
      Post grave tedium
      Advenit omnium
        Meta petita laborum.
                         Domum, domum, &c.

      Musa, libros mitte, fessa,
        Mitte pensa dura,
      Mitte negotium
      Jam datur otium,
        Me mea mittito cura.
                         Domum, domum, &c.

      Ridet annus, prata rident;
        Nosque rideamus,
      Jam repetit domum,
      Daulius advena:
        Nosque domum repetamus,
                         Domum, domum, &c.

      Heus! Rogere, fer caballos;
        Eja, nunc eamus.
      Limen amabile
      Matris et oscula,
        Suaviter et repetamus,
                         Domum, domum, &c.

      Concinamus ad Penates,
        Vox et audiatur;
      Phosphore! quid jubar,
      Segnius emicans,
        Gaudia nostra moratur?
                         Domum, domum, &c.

The above was put into an English dress, a copy of which is below:

    Sing a sweet melodious measure,
      Waft enchanting lays around;
    Home! a theme replete with pleasure!
      Home! a grateful theme resound!

    _Chorus._

      Home, sweet home! an ample treasure!
        Home! with every blessing crown’d!
      Home! perpetual source of pleasure!
        Home! a noble strain, resound.

    Lo! the joyful hour advances;
      Happy season of delight!
    Festal songs, and festal dances,
      All our tedious toil requite.
                                    Home, &c.

    Leave, my wearied muse, thy learning,
      Leave thy task, so hard to bear;
    Leave thy labour, ease returning,
      Leave this bosom, O! my care.
                                    Home, &c.

    See the year, the meadow, smiling!
      Let us then a smile display,
    Rural sports, our pain beguiling,
      Rural pastimes call away.
                                  Home, &c.

    Now the swallow seeks her dwelling,
      And no longer roves to roam;
    Her example thus impelling,
      Let us seek our native home.
                                  Home, &c.

    Let our men and steeds assemble,
      Panting for the wide champaign;
    Let the ground beneath us tremble,
      While we scour along the plain.
                                  Home, &c.

    Oh! what raptures, oh! what blisses.
      When we gain the lovely gate!
    Mother’s arms, and mother’s kisses,
      There, our bless’d arrival wait.
                                  Home, &c.

    Greet our household-gods with singing,
      Lend, O Lucifer, thy ray;
    Why should light, so slowly springing,
      All our promis’d joys delay?
                                  Home, &c.

Mr. Brandon’s account of the “procession round the courts of the
college,” and the singing of “Dulce Domum,” is sustained by the rev. Mr.
Brand, who adds, of the song, that “it is no doubt of very remote
antiquity, and that its origin must be traced, not to any ridiculous
tradition, but to the tenderest feelings of human nature.” He refers for
the English verses to the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” for March, 1796, where
they first appeared, and calls them “a spirited translation.” On looking
into that volume, it seems they were written by one of Mr. Urban’s
correspondents, who signs “J. R.” and dates from “New-street,
Hanover-square.” Dr. Milner says, that from “amongst many translations
of this Winchester ode,” the present “appears best to convey the sense,
spirit, and measure, of the original; the former versions were unworthy
of it.” He alleges that the existence of the original can only be traced
up to the distance of about a century; yet its real author, and the
occasion of its composition, are already clouded with fables.[192]

AMERICAN VOCAL MUSIC.

By the favour of a correspondent in North America, we are enabled to
extract from the “Colonial Advocate” of Queenston, the following
interesting article, by a Scotch resident, on the state of melody in the
region he inhabits. It particularly relates to May.

SCOTTISH SONGS.

    “Dear Scotia! o’er the swelling sea
    From childhood’s hopes, from friends, from thee,
    On earth where’er thy offspring roam,
    This day their hearts should wander home.
      Her sons are brave, her daughters fair,
      Her gowan glens no slave can share,
      Then from the feeling never stray,
      That loves the land that’s far away.”

  _Sung by Mr. Maywood, on St. Andrew’s day, in New York._

I have often thought it a pity that there is no feature in which Canada,
and indeed America in general, exhibits more dissimilarity to Scotland,
than in its want of vocal music. On the highland hills, and in the
lowland vallies, of Caledonia, we are delighted with the music of the
feathered choristers, who fill heaven in a May morning with their matin
songs. The shepherd whistles “The Yellow Hair’d Laddie”--the shepherdess
sings “In April when primroses deck the sweet plain”--all nature seems
in harmony. But here all is dulness and monotony,

    “We call on pleasure--and around
    A mocking world repeats the sound!”

Even the emigrant seems to have forgotten his native mountains; and in
the five years in which I have sojourned in America, I have not once
heard “Roslin Castle” sung by a swain on a blithe summer’s day. Here
they are all dull plodding farmers, as devoid of sober melody as the
huge forests which surround them are void of grace and beauty: talk to
them of poetry and music, and they will sit with sad civility, “as
silent as Pygmalion’s wife.”

Now and then you may hear a hoarse raven of an old woodchopper in the
barroom of a filthy tavern, roaring in discordant notes, “Yankee
Doodle:” or, in a church or meeting-house, you may behold fifteen or
twenty men and women picked out of the congregation, stuck up in a
particular part of the house and singing the praises of redeeming love,
with the voices of so many stentors. The affectation they display,
cannot fail to disgust you: the form of godliness is present, but the
power thereof is wanting.

The memory of a native Scotsman retraces back those halcyon days, when
gladness filled the corn-field--when sober mirth and glee crowned the
maiden feast--when the song went merrily round at Yule, to chase away
the winter frosts; and coming to the day of universal rest from labour,
calls to mind the venerable precentor with his well-remembered solemn
tunes, where _old and young_, infancy and advanced age, willingly joined
together in singing his praise--where the fiddle and the flute, the harp
and the organ, were useless--where no set people stood up in a corner,
as if to say, “we, the aristocracy of this congregation, can offer a
sweeter and more acceptable sacrifice than you, with our melodious
voices so much better attuned than yours.”

It may, perhaps, appear irreverend in me, to say a word of sacred music
in an essay intended for Scottish songs; but I thought the contrast
would not be complete without this allusion. A late essayist “On vulgar
prejudices against Literature,” uses a fine argument in favour of native
poetry.

“Let us ask,” says he, “has Britain a greater claim to distinction among
the nations of the world, from any one circumstance, however celebrated
it be in arts and arms, than from its being the birthplace of
Shakspeare? And if the celebration of the anniversary of Waterloo be
held in the farthest settlements of India, so is the anniversary of the
birth of Robert Burns, the pastoral poet of Scotland:--

    “Encamped by Indian rivers wild,
    The soldier, resting on his arms,
    In Burns’s carol sweet recalls
    The scenes that blest him when a child,
    And glows and gladdens at the charms
    Of Scotia’s woods and waterfalls.”

When kingdoms, and states, and cities pass away, what then proves to be
the most imperishable of their records, the most durable of their
glories? Is it not the lay of the poet? the eloquence of the patriot?
the page of the historian? Is it not the genius of the nation, imprinted
on these, the most splendid of its annals, and transmitted, as a legacy,
and a token of its vanished glory, to the after ages of mankind? And
now, when the glories of Greece and Rome are but shadows, does not our
blood stir within us at the recital of their mighty achievements, and of
their majestic thoughts, which, but for the page of the chronicler would
have been long ere now a blank and a vacancy; glory departed without a
trace, or figures traced upon the sand, and washed away by the returns
of the tide:--

    “Oh! who shall lightly say that fame,
    Is nothing but an empty name?
    When, but for those, our mighty dead,
      All ages past a blank would be,
    Sunk in oblivion’s murky bed,
      A desert bare, a shipless sea.

    They are the distant objects seen;
    The lofty marks of what hath been,
    Oh! who shall lightly say that fame
    Is nothing but an empty name?

    Where memory of the mighty dead
      To earth-worn pilgrims’ wistful eye
    The brightest rays of cheering shed,
      That point to immortality.”

The blue hills and mountains, among which Byron first caught the
enthusiasm of song; the green vallies and brown heaths where Scott
learnt to tell of Flodden field, and deeds of other days, in verse,
lasting as the source of the deep Niagara, yet return an echo to the
well-known “Daintie Davie” of Robert Burns.

    As down the burn they took their way,
      And through the flowery dale,
    His cheek to hers he aft did lay,
      And love was aye the tale.

    With “Mary, when shall we return,
      Sic pleasure to renew?”
    Quoth Mary, “Love, I like the burn,
      And aye shall follow you.”

How I should delight to hear such an artless tale sung on the braes of
Queenston, or the green knowes and fertile plains around Ancaster.

I once in Montreal heard a gentleman from little York (a native of
Perthshire) sing “Daintie Davie” in fine style; but it was the old set,
and as it is a very good song, I think the first stanza and chorus may
“drive dull care away” from half a dozen of my readers as well as a good
hit at that silly body, our _sapient_ attorney-general, or a squib at
his forkhead Mr. Solicitor, would have done:--

    “Now rosy May comes in wi’ flowers
    To deck her gay green spreading bowers,
    And now comes in my happy hours,
      To wander wi’ my Davie.

    _Chorus._

    “Meet me on the warlock knowe,
      Daintie Davie, Daintie Davie,
    There I’ll spend the day with you,
      My ain dear Daintie Davie.”

About two years ago, I wrote to a correspondent in Scotland, to send to
Dundas about ten reams of our best Scottish, English, and Irish ballads,
and to avoid any that were exceptionable in point of morality. This
person has since arrived in America; but his ideas on the propriety of
introducing ballads into a new country, I found to be different from
mine--otherwise I had by this time employed several “wights of Homer’s
craft” to disperse the twenty thousand halfpenny songs I then ordered.
It would have, perhaps, sown the seeds of music in our land, and
hundreds of American presses, may be, would have spread abundantly the
pleasing stanzas, until accursed slavery had stopt the strain in the
southern regions of republican tyranny.

I can call to mind the time, as well as if it were yesterday, when I
first heard “The Maid of Lodi:” it was at a Scottish wedding, at
Arthurstone. Sir Ewan, the aged sire of the brave colonel Cameron, who
fell at Waterloo, was present with his lady; and, gentle reader, I think
it was the youthful minister of the next parish who sung, accompanied by
the bride’s youngest sister. It was followed by “Blythe, blythe,” which
I must give the reader from memory. News is scarce this week--the king
of France is dead, and surely the tidings of the next’s coronation will
not arrive in time to fill a paragraph in the “Advocate” for a month to
come--so let us have--

    _Blythe, blythe and merry was she:
      Blythe was she but and ben;
    Blythe by the banks of Ern--
      Blythe in Glenturret glen._

    By Aughtertye grows the aik,
      By Yarrow banks the birken shaw;
    But Phemie was the bonniest lass
      The flowers of Yarrow ever saw.
        Blythe, blythe, &c.

    Her looks were like a flower in May,
      Her smile was like a simmer morn;
    She tripped by the banks of Ern,
      As light’s a bird upon a thorn.
        Blythe, blythe, &c.

    Her bonnie face it was sae maek
      As ony lamb upon a lee:
    The evening sun was ne’er so sweet
      As was the blink o’ Phemie’s e’e
        Blythe, blythe, &c.

    The highland hills I’ve wander’d wide,
      And o’er the lowlands I hae been;
    But Phemie was the bonniest lass
      That ever trode the dewy green
        Blythe, blythe, &c.

A young farmer then gave us “The Lothian Lassie;” and as my recollection
is pretty good, I shall put Canadian Scots girls in the way to mind it
as well as me, by repeating the first stanza: would I could sing it as I
have heard it sung:--

    Last May a braw wooer cam’d down the lang glen,
      And sair wi’ his love he did deave me;
    I said there was naething I hated like men,
      The deuce gae wi’ ’m to believe me, believe me,
      The deuce gae wi’ ’m to believe me.

What a chaste pleasure--what a gladdening influence over the most
stoical mind, any of the following songs yield, when well sung to their
own tunes, by a half dozen young ladies in the parlour, or by a chorus
of bonnie lassies in the kitchen, as the former pursue their sewing and
knitting, and the latter birr their wheels, and stir the sowens in an
evening, in the opulent farmer’s dwelling; or when heard in the most
humble cottage of a Scottish peasant. Well might the farmer’s dog,
Luath, say, “And I for e’en down joy hae barkit wi’ them.”

Let these classes come to Upper Canada to-morrow, and they will tire of
its dulness. Nature’s face is fair enough; but after the traveller
leaves the last faint sounds of the Canadian boatsman’s song, as it dies
on the still waters of the St. Lawrence, music will be done with.--I had
forgotten however, I must now quote the songs alluded to; and I well can
from memory:--

   1. Gloomy winter’s now awa’.

   2. Roy’s wife of Aldivalloch.

   3. Beneath the pretty hawthorn that blooms in the vale.

   4. And she showed him the way for to woo.

   5. I gaed a waefu’ gate yestreen.

   6. John Anderson, my Joe, John, when we were first acquent.

   7. Thy cheek is o’ the rose’s hue,
      My only joe and dearie, O.

   8. Coming o’er the craigs o’ Kyle.

   9. O, lassie, art thou sleeping yet;--and the answer.

  10. There’s nae luck about the house,
      There’s nae luck ava’;
      There’s little pleasure in the house,
      When our gudeman’s awa’.

  11. The sun had gone down o’er the lofty Ben Lomond.

  12. My uncle’s dead--I’ve lands enew.

  13. For lack of gold she’s left me, O.

  14. O’ a the airths the wind can blaw.

  15. When honey-dyed bells o’er the heather was spreading.

  16. Loudon’s bonny woods and braes.

  17. The Highland Laddie.

  18. Upon a simmer’s afternoon.
      Awee afore the sun gaed down.

  19. There’s cauld kail in Aberdeen, the new way.

  20. Mirk and rainy was the night.

  21. My Pattie is a lover gay.

  22. I’m wearin’ awa’, Jean,
      Like sna’ when its thaw, Jean.

  23. Its Logie o’ Buchan, o’ Logie the laird.

  24. With the garb of old Gaul, and the fire of old Rome.

  25. Come under my plaide.

  26. O’ Bessie Bell and Mary Gray.

  27. Ye banks and braes of bonny Doon.

  28. The laird of the drum, a wooing has gone,--
      And awa’ in the morning early:
      And he has spied a weel fa’red May,
      A shearing her father’s barley.

  29. My bonny Lizzie Baillie.

  30. Green grow the rushes, O!

I must have done--I have named so many songs to put my readers in mind
of

    “Auld lang syne;”

and I could add as many more, of truly Scottish origin, that I should
like to see in Canada, as would fill up the “Advocate;” but I must
stop--the politicians would complain. I have heard a few of these well
sung in Canada--the last, a lintie in Queenston braes sings now and
then. Would there were ten thousand such in Upper Canada!

The English version of the following line, is not near so pretty as the
Scots original, which goes thus:--

    “I once was a bachelor, both early and young,
    And I courted a fair maid with a flattering tongue:
    I courted her, I wooed her, I honoured her then,
    And I promised to marry her, but never told her when.
            O, I never told her when,” &c.

With this may be contrasted a verse of sir Walter Scott’s Mary, in “The
Pirate:”--

    “O were there an island,
      Though ever so wild,
    Where woman could smile, and
      No man be beguiled--
    Too tempting a snare
      To poor mortals were given,
    And the hope would fix there,
      That should anchor on heaven.”

This is beguiling on both sides; but the latter stanzas finely express
an idea fit for an oriental paradise.

There is another kind of ballads which, though akin to those I have
named, are in many points essentially different:--and the first of this
class,

    “Duncan Gray came here to woo,”

when sung in chorus, would be almost enough to cause the venerable age
of eighty-eight to shake a foot all over Scotland. A merry party, of
which I was one, once tried “Duncan,” on the Table Rock at Niagara
Falls; and when we came to that line, where the poor neglected lover

    “Spak o’ loupin ower a linn,”

I thought we should have all died with laughing, the scene was so in
unison with the stanza. Moore’s two lovers, who--

             “’thout pistol or dagger, a
    Made a desperate dash down the Falls of Niagara,”

is good; but it is nothing to “Duncan Gray,” sung by half a dozen tenor
voices on the Table Rock.

I mean, when I have leisure, to continue these reminiscences of Scottish
song, and as I at this time must have taxed the patience, and tried the
politeness of my numerous Irish and English readers, I will, in some
future number, leave Ramsay, Burns, Tannahill, and Ferguson--for Chaucer
and Shakspeare, Goldsmith and Moore.

Tannahill has some pieces, scarce excelled by any of our Scottish
poets--he has also a virtue which endears him to me beyond even Robert
Burns. He does not often laud in song the drinking of ardent liquors.
If, as a printer, I were to publish an American edition of Burns, I
think I would leave his songs in praise of Highland whisky out. They
have done much harm in his native land; and to spread them here, would
be like firing a match.

END OF MAY

This month may close with a delightful sonnet, from one of the best
books put forth in recent years for daily use and amusement.

SUMMER.

    Now have young April and the blue eyed May
      Vanished awhile, and lo! the glorious June
      (While nature ripens in his burning noon,)
    Comes like a young inheritor; and gay,
    Altho’ his parent months have passed away;
      But his green crown shall wither, and the tune
      That ushered in his birth be silent soon,
    And in the strength of youth shall he decay.
    What matters this--so long as in the past
      And in the days to come we live, and feel
      The present nothing worth, until it steal
        Away and, like a disappointment, die?
        For Joy, dim child of Hope and Memory,
    Flies ever on before or follows fast.

  _Literary Pocket Book_

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 57·97.

  [192] Milner’s Hist. of Winchester.

[Illustration: JUNE.]

    The shepherds, now, from every walk and steep,
    Where grateful feed attracts the dainty sheep,
    Collect their flocks, and plunge them in the streams
    And cleanse their fleeces in the noontide beams.
    This care perform’d, arrives another care
    To catch them, one by one, their wool to shear:
    Then come the tying, clipping, tarring, bleating;
    The shearers’ final shout, and dance, and eating.
    From hence the old engravers sometimes made
    This lovely month a shearer, at his trade:
    And hence, the symbol to the season true,
    A living hand so traces June to you.

The “Mirror of the Months,” the pleasantest of “the year-books,” except
“The Months” of Mr. Leigh Hunt, tells us that with June,--“Summer is
come--come, but not to stay; at least, not at the commencement of this
month: and how should it, unless we expect that the seasons will be kind
enough to conform to the devices of man, and suffer themselves to be
called by what name and at what period _he_ pleases? He must die and
leave them a legacy (instead of they him) before there will be any show
of justice in this. Till then the beginning of June will continue to be
the latter end of May, by rights; as it was according to the _old
style_. And, among a thousand changes, in what one has the old style
been improved upon by the new? Assuredly not in that of substituting the
_utile_ for the _dulce_, in any eyes but those of almanac-makers. Let
all lovers of spring, therefore, be fully persuaded that, for the first
fortnight in June, they are living in May. We are to bear in mind that
all shall thus be gaining instead of losing, by the impertinence of any
breath, but that of heaven, attempting to force spring into summer, even
in name alone.”

It seems fitting thus to introduce the following passages, and invite
the reader to proceed with the author, and take a bird’s eye view of the
season.

Spring may now be considered as employed in completing her toilet, and,
for the first weeks of this month, putting on those last finishing
touches which an accomplished beauty never trusts to any hand but her
own. In the woods and groves also, she is still clothing some of her
noblest and proudest attendants with their new annual attire. The oak
until now has been nearly bare; and, of whatever age, has been looking
old all the winter and spring, on account of its crumpled branches and
wrinkled rind. Now, of whatever age, it looks young, in virtue of its
new green, lighter than all the rest of the grove. Now, also, the
stately walnut (standing singly or in pairs in the fore-court of ancient
manor-houses, or in the home corner of the pretty park-like paddock at
the back of some modern Italian villa, whose white dome it saw rise
beneath it the other day, and mistakes for a mushroom,) puts forth its
smooth leaves slowly, as “sage grave men” do their thoughts; and which
over-caution reconciles one to the beating it receives in the autumn,
as the best means of at once compassing its present fruit, and making it
bear more; as its said prototypes in animated nature are obliged to have
their brains cudgelled, before any good can be got from them.

These appearances appertain exclusively to the spring. Let us now
(however reluctantly) take a final leave of that lovely and love-making
season, and at once step forward into the glowing presence of
summer--contenting ourselves, however, to touch the hem of her rich
garments, and not attempting to look into her heart, till she lays that
open to us herself next month: for whatever schoolboys calendar-makers
may say to the contrary, Midsummer never happens in England till July.

To saunter, at mid June, beneath the shade of some old forest, situated
in the neighbourhood of a great town, so that paths are worn through it,
and you can make your way with ease in any direction, gives one the idea
of being transferred, by some strange magic, from the surface of the
earth to the bottom of the sea! (I say it gives one this idea; for I
cannot answer for more, in matters of so arbitrary a nature as the
association of ideas.) Over head, and round about, you hear the sighing,
the whispering, or the roaring (as the wind pleases) of a thousand
billows; and looking upwards, you see the light of heaven transmitted
faintly, as if through a mass of green waters. Hither and thither, as
you move along, strange forms flit swiftly about you, which may, for any
thing you can see or hear to the contrary, be exclusive natives of the
new world in which your fancy chooses to find itself: they may be
_fishes_, if that pleases; for they are as mute as such, and glide
through the liquid element as swiftly. Now and then, indeed, one of
larger growth, and less lubricated movements, lumbers up from beside
your path, and cluttering noisily away to a little distance, may chance
to scare for a moment your submarine reverie. Your palate too may
perhaps here step in, and try to persuade you that the cause of
interruption was not a fish but a pheasant. But in fact, if your fancy
is one of those which are disposed to “listen to reason,” it will not be
able to lead you into spots of the above kind without your gun in your
hand,--one report of which will put all fancies to flight in a moment,
as well as every thing else that has wings. To return, therefore, to
our walk,--what do all these strange objects look like, that stand
silently about us in the dim twilight, some spiring straight up, and
tapering as they ascend, till they lose themselves in the green waters
above--some shattered and splintered, leaning against each other for
support, or lying heavily on the floor on which we walk--some half
buried in that floor, as if they had lain dead there for ages, and
become incorporate with it? what do all these seem, but wrecks and
fragments of some mighty vessel, that has sunk down here from above, and
lain weltering and wasting away, till these are all that is left of it!
Even the floor itself on which we stand, and the vegetation it puts
forth, are unlike those of any other portion of the earth’s surface, and
may well recall, by their strange appearance in the half light, the
fancies that have come upon us when we have read or dreamt of those
gifted beings, who, like Ladurlad in Kehama, could walk on the floor of
the sea, without waiting, as the visiters at watering-places are obliged
to do, for the tide to go out.

Stepping forth into the open fields, what a bright pageant of summer
beauty is spread out before us!--Everywhere about our feet flocks of
wild-flowers

    “Do paint the meadow with delight.”

We must not stay to pluck and particularize them; for most of them have
already had their greeting--let us pass along beside this flourishing
hedge-row. The first novelty of the season that greets us here is
perhaps the sweetest, the freshest, and fairest of all, and the only one
that could supply an adequate substitute for the hawthorn bloom which it
has superseded. Need the eglantine be named? the “sweet-leaved
eglantine;” the “rain-scented eglantine;” eglantine--to which the sun
himself pays homage, by “counting his dewy rosary” on it every morning;
eglantine--which Chaucer, and even Shakspeare--but hold--whatsoever the
poets themselves may insinuate to the contrary, to read poetry in the
presence of nature is a kind of impiety: it is like reading the
commentators on Shakspeare, and skipping the text; for you cannot attend
to both: to say nothing of nature’s book being a _vade mecum_ that can
make “every man his own poet” for the time being; and there is, after
all, no poetry like that which we create for ourselves.

Begging pardon of the eglantine for having permitted any thing--even her
own likeness in the poet’s looking-glass--to turn our attention from her
real self,--look with what infinite grace she scatters her sweet
coronals here and there among her bending branches; or hangs them,
half-concealed, among the heavy blossoms of the woodbine that lifts
itself so boldly above her, after having first clung to _her_ for
support; or permits them to peep out here and there close to the ground,
and almost hidden by the rank weeds below; or holds out a whole archway
of them, swaying backward and forward in the breeze, as if praying of
the passer’s hand to pluck them. Let who will praise the hawthorn--now
it is no more! The wild rose is the queen of forest flowers, if it be
only because she is as unlike a queen as the absence of every thing
courtly can make her.

The woodbine deserves to be held next in favour during this month;
though more on account of its _intellectual_ than its personal beauty.
All the air is faint with its rich sweetness; and the delicate breath of
its lovely rival is lost in the luscious odours which it exhales.

These are the only _scented_ wild flowers that we shall now meet with in
any profusion; for though the violet may still be found by looking for,
its breath has lost much of its spring power. But, if we are content
with mere beauty, this month is perhaps more profuse of it than any
other, even in that department of nature which we are now
examining--namely, the fields and woods.

The woods and groves, and the single forest trees that rise here and
there from out the bounding hedge-rows, are now in full foliage; all,
however, presenting a somewhat sombre, because monotonous, hue, wanting
all the tender newness of the spring, and all the rich variety of the
autumn. And this is the more observable, because the numerous plots of
cultivated land, divided from each other by the hedge-rows, and looking,
at this distance, like beds in a garden divided by box, are nearly all
still invested with the same green mantle; for the wheat, the oats, the
barley, and even the early rye, though now in full flower, have not yet
become tinged with their harvest hues. They are all alike green; and the
only change that can be seen in their appearance is that caused by the
different lights into which each is thrown, as the wind passes over
them. The patches of purple or of white clover that intervene here and
there, and are now in flower, offer striking exceptions to the above,
and at the same time load the air with their sweetness. Nothing ran be
more rich and beautiful in its effect on a distant prospect at this
season, than a great patch of purple clover lying apparently motionless
on a sunny upland, encompassed by a whole sea of green corn, waving and
shifting about it at every breath that blows.

The hitherto full concert of the singing birds is now beginning to
falter, and fall short. We shall do well to make the most of it now; for
in two or three weeks it will almost entirely cease till the autumn. I
mean that it will cease as a full concert; for we shall have single
songsters all through the summer at intervals; and those some of the
sweetest and best. The best of all, indeed, the nightingale, we have now
lost. So that the youths and maidens who now go in pairs to the
wood-side, on warm nights, to listen for its song, (hoping they may
_not_ hear it,) are well content to hear each other’s voice instead.

We have still, however, some of the finest of the second class of
songsters left; for the nightingale, like Catalani, is a class by
itself. The mere chorus-singers of the grove are also beginning to be
silent; so that the _jubilate_ that has been chanting for the last month
is now over. But the Stephenses, the Trees, the Patons, and the Poveys,
are still with us, under the forms of the woodlark, the skylark, the
blackcap, and the goldfinch. And the first-named of these, now that it
no longer fears the rivalry of the unrivalled, not seldom, on warm
nights, sings at intervals all night long, poised at one spot high up in
the soft moonlit air.

We have still another pleasant little singer, the field cricket, whose
clear shrill voice the warm weather has now matured to its full
strength, and who must not be forgotten, though he has but one song to
offer us all his life long, and that one consisting but of one note; for
it is a note of joy, and _will_ not be heard without engendering its
like. You may hear him in wayside banks, where the sun falls hot,
shrilling out his loud cry into the still air all day long, as he sits
at the mouth of his cell; and if you chance to be passing by the same
spot at midnight, you may hear it then too.[193]

Yet by him who holds this “Mirror,” we must not be “charmed” from our
repose, but take the advice of a poet, the contemporary and friend of
Cowper.

    Let us not borrow from the hours of rest,
    For we must steal from morning to repay.
    And who would lose the animated smile
    Of dawning day, for the austere frown of night?
    I grant her well accoutred in her suit
    Of dripping sable, powder’d thick with stars,
    And much applaud her as she passes by
    With a replenish’d horn on either brow!
    But more I love to see awaking day
    Rise with a fluster’d cheek; a careful maid,
    Who fears she has outslept the custom’d hour,
    And leaves her chamber blushing. Hence to rest;
    I will not prattle longer to detain you
    Under the dewy canopy of night.

  _Hurdis._

  [193] Mirror of the Months.

~June 1.~

Ovid assigns the first of June to “Carna,” _the goddess of the hinge_;
who also presided over the vital parts of man, especially the liver and
the heart. Massey, commenting on his taste, cannot divine the
connection between such a power and the patronage of _hinges_. “False
notions,” he says, “in every mode of religion, lead men naturally into
confusion.”

    Carna, the goddess of the hinge, demands
    _The first of June_; upon her power depends
    To open what is shut, what’s shut unbar;
    And whence this power she has, my muse declare
    For length of time has made the thing obscure,
    Fame only tells us that she has that power.
    Helernus’ grove near to the Tiber lies,
    Where still the priests repair to sacrifice;
    From hence a nymph, whose name was Granè, sprung,
    Whom many, unsuccessful, courted long;
    To range the spacious fields, and kill the deer,
    With darts and mangling spears, was all her care;
    She had no quiver, yet so bright she seemed,
    She was by many Phœbus’ sister deemed.

  _Ovid._

  The poet then relates that Janos made this Granè (or Carna) _goddess
  of the hinge_;

    And then a white thorn stick he to her gave,
    By which she ever after power should have,
    To drive by night all om’nous birds away,
    That scream, and o’er our houses hov’ring stray.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 57·05.

~June 2.~

A ROGUE IN GRAIN, _June 2, 1759_.

  _To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

  _Newark, Notts, May 17, 1826._

Sir,--It appears to me that there have been in “old times,” which we
suppose “good times,” rogues in grain. To prove it, I herewith transmit
the copy of an advertisement, from the “Cambridge Journal” of 1759.
Wishing you an increasing sale to your interesting _Every-Day Book_, I
remain, &c.

  BENJAMIN JOHNSON.

ADVERTISEMENT.

WHEREAS I WILLIAM MARGARETS the younger, was, at the last Assizes for
the County of Cambridge, convicted upon an indictment, for an attempt to
raise the price of Corn in Ely-market, upon the 24th day of September,
1757, by offering the sum of Six Shillings a Bushel for Wheat, for which
no more than Five Shillings and Ninepence was demanded; And whereas, on
the earnest solicitation and request of myself and friends, the
prosecutor has been prevailed upon to forbear any further prosecution
against me, on my submitting to make the following satisfaction, viz.
upon my paying the sum of £50 to the poor inhabitants of the town of
Ely; and the further sum of £50 to the poor inhabitants of the town of
Cambridge, to be distributed by the Minister and Church-wardens of the
several parishes in the said town; and the full costs of the
prosecution; and upon my reading this acknowledgment of my offence
publicly, and with a loud voice, in the presence of a Magistrate,
Constable, or other peace officer of the said town of Ely, at the
Market-place there, between the hours of twelve and one o’clock, on a
public market-day, and likewise subscribing and publishing the same in
three of the Evening Papers, printed at London, and in the Cambridge
Journal, on four different days; and I have accordingly paid the two
sums of £50, and Costs; and do hereby confess myself to have been guilty
of the said offence, and testify my sincere and hearty sorrow in having
committed a crime, which, in its consequences, tended so much to
increase the distress of the poor, in the late calamitous scarcity: And
I do hereby most humbly acknowledge the lenity of the prosecutor, and
beg pardon of the public in general, and of the town of Ely in
particular. This paper was read by me at the public Market-place at Ely,
in the presence of Thomas Aungier, Gentleman, chief constable, on the 2d
Day of June, 1759, being a public Market-day there; and is now, as a
further proof of the just sense I have of the heinousness of my crime,
subscribed and published by me

  WILLIAM MARGARETS.

  _Witness_, JAMES DAY,

  Under Sheriff of Cambridgeshire.

LONGEVITY.

On the 2d of June, 1734, John Rousey, of the isle of Distrey, in
Scotland, died at one hundred and thirty-eight years of age. The son who
inherited his estate, was born to him while in his hundredth year.[194]
A similar instance of fatherhood, at this advanced period of life, is
recorded of the “old, old, very old man, Thomas Parr.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 57·85.

  [194] Gentleman’s Magazine.

~June 3.~

CHRONOLOGY.

On this day, in the year 1789, died Paul Egede, a Danish missionary,
who, with his father Hans, visited Greenland, for the conversion of the
natives to christianity, in 1721. Hans was the author of a celebrated
work, published in 1729, on the topography and natural history of that
country. Paul conducted a new edition of his father’s book, and
published a journal of his own residence in Greenland, from 1721 to
1788. He died at the age of eighty-one.[195]

CURIOUS INSCRIPTION, _Discovered by a Traveller_.

Captain Bart, grandson of the renowned Jean Bart, during his stay at
Malta, where he had put in from a cruise in the Mediterranean, met with
a Carmelite, who had been into Persia as a missionary. This person told
him he had availed himself of an opportunity which offered to gratify
his curiosity, by visiting the ruins of the ancient and celebrated
Persepolis. Chance discovered to him a marble, on which were inscribed
some Arabic characters. As he was acquainted with this language, he
translated the inscription into Latin. The following is the
translation:

  +-----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
  |   dicas   |   scis   |  dicit   |   scit   |  audit   | expedit  |
  +-----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
  |  facias   |  potes   |  facit   |  potest  |  facit   |  credit  |
  +-----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
  |  credas   |  audis   |  credit  |  audit   |  credit  |  fieri   |
  |           |          |          |          |          |  potest  |
  +-----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
  | expendas  |  habes   | expendit |  habet   |  petit   |   habet  |
  +-----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
  |  judices  |  vides   | judicat  |  videt   | judicat  |   est    |
  +-----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
  |    non    |   quod   | nam qui  |   quod   |   sæpe   |   quod   |
  |           |  cumque  |          |  cumque  |          |    non   |
  +-----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+

The key is to be obtained thus; the first word of the last line must be
taken and joined to the first word of the first line; then the second
word of the last line to the second word of the first line, and so on to
the end. Afterwards, we must begin again by taking the first word of the
next line, and the following moral precepts will be the result:

1. Non dicas quodcumque scis, nam qui dicit quodcumque scit sæpe audit
quod non expedit.

Do not tell whatever thou knowest, for he who tells whatever he knows,
often hears more than is agreeable.

2. Non facias quodcumque potes, nam qui facit, quodcumque potest sæpe
facit quod non credit.

Do not do whatever thou canst, for he who does whatever he can, often
does more than he imagines.

3. Non credas quodcumque audis, nam qui credit quodcumque audit sæpe
quod non fieri potest.

Do not believe whatever thou hearest, for he who believes whatever he
hears, will often believe what is impossible.

4. Non expendas quodcumque habes, nam qui expendit quodcumque habet sæpe
petit quod non habet.

Do not spend whatever thou hast, for he who spends whatever he has, will
often be compelled to ask for what he has not.

5. Non judices quodcumque vides, nam qui judicat quodcumque videt sæpe
judicat quod non est.

Do not judge on whatever thou seest, for he who judges on whatever he
sees, will often form an erroneous judgment.[196]

JUNE 3, 1611. “THE LADY ARABELLA” ESCAPED FROM HER CONFINEMENT.

  _To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._

  _Kennington, May 23, 1826._

Sir,---Annexed is an original unprinted letter, from the lady Arabella
Seymour, whose misfortunes were of a peculiar kind, and from peculiar
causes; those causes are to be traced to that tyrannic dread that weak
sovereigns always have of any persons approaching their equals, either
in mind, or by family ties. The following notices have been gleaned from
the most authentic sources, viz. Lodge’s “Illustrations of British
History,” “The Biographia Britannica,” &c. The letter is in the Cotton
collection of Manuscripts, in the British Museum, _Vespasian_. F.III.

[Illustration: Sr,]

  Though you be almost a stranger to me but onely by sight, yet the good
  opinion I generally heave to be held of your worth, together w^{t} the
  great interest you have in my Lo. of Northamptons favour, makes me
  thus farre presume of your willingnesse to do a poore afflicted
  gentlewoman that good office (if in no other respect yet because I am
  a Christian) as to further me w^{t} your best indeuors to his Lo. that
  it will please him to helpe me out of this great distresse and misery,
  and regaine me his Ma^{ts.} fauor which is my chiefest desire. Whearin
  his Lo. may do a deede acceptable to God and honorable to himselfe,
  and I shall be infinitely bound to his Lo. and beholden to you, who
  now till I receiue some comfort from his Ma^{ty.} rest

  the most sorrowfull

  creatore liuing

  [Illustration: Arabella Seymoure]

Arabella Stuart, whose name is hardly mentioned in history, except with
regard to sir Walter Raleigh’s ridiculous conspiracy, whereby she was to
have been placed on a throne, to which she had neither inclination nor
pretensions, and by means unknown to herself, was the only child of
Charles Stuart, fifth earl of Lennox, (uncle to king James I., and great
grandson of king Henry VII.,) by Elizabeth, daughter of sir William
Cavendish of Hardwick. She was born about the year 1578, and brought up
in privacy, under the care of her grandmother, the old countess of
Lennox, who, for many years, resided in England. Her double relation to
royalty was obnoxious to the jealousy of queen Elizabeth, and the
timidity of king James I., who equally dreaded her having legitimate
issue, and restrained her from allying herself in a suitable manner.
Elizabeth prevented her from marrying Esme Stuart, her kinsman, and heir
to the titles and estates of her family, and afterwards imprisoned her
for listening to some overtures from the son of the earl of
Northumberland. James, by obliging her to reject many splendid offers of
marriage, unwarily encouraged the hopes of inferior pretenders, among
whom, says Mr. Lodge, was the fantastical William Fowler, secretary to
Anne of Denmark. Thus circumscribed, she renewed a connection with
William Seymour, grandson to the earl of Hertford, which, being
discovered in 1609, both parties were summoned to appear before the
privy council, where they received a severe reprimand. This mode of
proceeding produced the very consequence which the king meant to avoid;
for the lady, sensible that her reputation had been wounded by the
inquiry, was in a manner forced into a marriage, which becoming publicly
known, she was committed to close custody, in the house of sir Thomas
Parry, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, at Vauxhall, and her
husband, Mr. Seymour, sent to the Tower. In this state of separation,
however, they concerted means for an escape, which both effected on the
same day, _June 3, 1611_. Seymour got safely to Flanders; but his poor
wife was retaken in Calais roads, and brought back to the former prison
of her husband, the Tower, where the sense of these undeserved
oppressions operating severely on her high spirit, she became a lunatic,
and languished in that wretched state, augmented by the horrors of a
prison, till her death, which occurred on the 27th of September, 1615.
Thus ends the eventful story of poor Arabella, a woman, (if we may
credit her portrait, prefixed to Lodge’s third volume of “Illustrations
of British History,”) of commanding and elegant appearance, and
undoubtedly of a firm and vigorous mind; and it is well observed by that
author, that “had the life of Arabella Stuart been marked by the same
criminal extravagancies, as well as distinguished by similar misfortunes
and persecutions, her character would have stood at least as forward on
the page of history as that of her royal aunt, Mary of Scotland.” The
above letter was, probably, written from the Tower, though, I am sorry
to say, there is neither direction nor superscription, and, therefore,
to whom can be only matter of surmise.

  I am, Sir, &c.

  ~A.~

THE LOVES OF “THE LADY ARABELLA.”

From an article in the “Curiosities of Literature,” illustrations may be
derived to the article of our correspondent ~A.~ “The whole life of this
lady seems to consist of secret history, which, probably, we cannot now
recover:--her name scarcely ever occurs without raising that sort of
interest which accompanies mysterious events.” She is reputed to have
been learned, and of a poetical genius; yet of her poetry there are no
specimens, and her erudition rests on Evelyn’s bare mention of her name
in his list of learned women.

On the death of queen Elizabeth, the pope conceived the notion of
restoring the papacy in England, by uniting the lady Arabella to an
Italian cardinal, of illegitimate descent from our Edward IV. His
holiness presumed if he qualified the cardinal for marriage, by
depriving him from the priesthood, the junction of Arabella’s
relationship to Henry VII., with the churchman’s “natural” pretensions,
might secure the crown! Her attachment to the catholic religion is
doubtful. Perhaps her disposition was rightly estimated by father
Parsons: he imagined “her religion to be as tender, green, and flexible,
as is her age and sex; and to be wrought hereafter, and settled
according to future events and times.” The pope’s plot failed. Winwood
says, “the lady Arabella hath not been found inclinable to popery.” He
wrote after the “future events,” contemplated by Parsons, had “wrought.”

Another project for making the lady Arabella queen was after the
enthronement of James. The conspirators requested her by letter to
address herself to the king of Spain; she laughed at the letter and sent
it to James, who, as regarded her, did not think of it more seriously,
and so failed a second plot, wherein the name of the illustrious Raleigh
was implicated.

In the year 1604, there appears to have been a third design to make her
queen, though not of this country. The earl of Pembroke writes to the
earl of Shrewsbury--“A great ambassador is coming from the king of
Poland, whose chief errand is to demand my lady Arabella in marriage for
his master. So may your princess of the blood grow a great queen.” If
this was the object of the embassy, nothing came of it.

Before the death of queen Elizabeth, the marriage of the lady Arabella
with her kinsman lord Esme Stuart, whom he had created duke of Lennox,
and designed for his heir, was proposed by James himself, but Elizabeth
“forbad the bans” by imprisoning the proposed bride, who was suspected
to have favoured a son of the earl of Northumberland, against whom
Elizabeth again interposed. She had other offers. “To the lady Arabella,
crowns and husbands were like a fairy banquet seen at moonlight, opening
on her sight, impalpable and vanishing at the moment of approach.”

The distresses of this unhappy creature were heightened by her
dependence on the crown. She was the cousin of James, and it was his
narrow policy to constrain her from a match suitable to her rank, or
perhaps to keep her single for life. Her supplies were unequal: at one
time she had a grant of the duty on oats; at length he assigned her a
pension of 1600_l._: but whenever he suspected a natural desire in her
heart she was out of favour. No woman was ever more solicited to the
conjugal state, or seems to have been so little averse to it. “Every
noble youth who sighed for distinction, ambitioned the notice of the
lady Arabella.”

Her renewal of an early attachment to Mr. William Seymour, second son of
lord Beauchamp, and grandson of the earl of Hertford, forms a story
which “for its misery, its pathos, and its terror, even romantic fiction
has not executed.” It was detected, and the lady Arabella and Seymour
were summoned before the privy council, where Seymour was “censured for
seeking to ally himself with the royal blood, although that blood was
running in his own veins.” In his answer, “he conceived that this noble
lady might, without offence, make the choice of any subject within this
kingdom.” He says, “I boldly intruded myself into her ladyship’s
chamber, in the court, on Candlemass day last, at what time I imparted
my desire unto her, which was entertained; but with this caution on
either part, that both of us resolved not to proceed to any final
conclusion without his majesty’s most gracious favour first obtained:
and this was our first meeting.” The lovers gravely promised to suppress
their affections, with what sincerity is not known, for they married
secretly; and in July the lady Arabella was arrested, and confined at
the house of sir Thomas Parry, at Lambeth, and Seymour committed to the
Tower, “for contempt in marrying a lady of the royal family without the
king’s leave.”

Arabella wrote a letter to the king, which was “often read without
offence, nay, it was even commended by his highness, with the applause
of prince and council.” She adverted to her wrongs, and required justice
with a noble fortitude, though in respectful terms. She says, “I do most
heartily lament my hard fortune, that I should offend your majesty the
least, especially in that whereby I have long desired to merit of your
majesty, as appeared before your majesty was my sovereign: and though
_your majesty’s neglect of me_, my good liking to this gentleman that is
my husband, and my fortune, drew me to a contract before I acquainted
your majesty, I humbly beseech your majesty to consider how impossible
it was for me to imagine it could be offensive to your majesty, having
_few days before given me your royal consent to bestow myself on any
subject of your majesty’s_ (which likewise your majesty had done long
since). Besides, never having been either prohibited any, or spoken to
for any, in this land, by your majesty _these seven years_ that I have
lived in your majesty’s house, I could not conceive that your majesty
regarded my marriage at all; whereas if your majesty had vouchsafed to
tell me your mind, and accept the free-will offering of my obedience, I
would not have offended your majesty, of whose gracious goodness I
presume so much, that _if it were now as convenient in a worldly
respect, as malice may make it seem, to separate us, whom God hath
joined_, your majesty would not do evil that good might come thereof,
nor make me, that have the honour to be so near your majesty in blood,
the first precedent that ever was, though our princes may have left some
as little imitable, for so good and gracious a king as your majesty, as
David’s dealing with Uriah.”

She moved the queen, through lady Jane Drummond, to interest James in
her favour. A letter from lady Jane communicates his majesty’s coarse
and conceited reply, and she concludes by frankly telling the captive
wife, “the wisdom of this state, with the example how some of your
quality in the like case has been used, makes me fear that ye shall not
find so easy end to your troubles as ye expect or I wish.”

To lady Drummond’s prophetic intimation, Arabella answers by sending the
queen a pair of gloves “in remembrance of the poor prisoner that wrought
them, in hopes her royal hands will vouchsafe to wear them:” and she
adds, that her case “could be compared to no other she ever heard of,
_resembling no other_.” She contrived to correspond with Seymour, but
their letters were discovered, and the king resolved to change her place
of confinement.

James appointed the bishop of Durham to be his jailor on the occasion.
“Lady Arabella was so subdued at this distant separation, that she gave
way to all the wildness of despair; she fell suddenly ill, and could not
travel but in a litter, and with a physician. In her way to Durham, she
was so greatly disquieted in the first few miles of her uneasy and
troublesome journey, that they would proceed no further than to
Highgate. The physician returned to town to report her state, and
declared that she was assuredly very weak, her pulse dull and
melancholy, and very irregular; her countenance very heavy, pale, and
wan; and though free from fever, he declared her in no case fit for
travel. The king observed, ‘It is enough to make any sound man sick to
be carried in a bed in that manner she is; much more for her _whose
impatient and unquiet spirit heapeth upon herself far greater
indisposition of body than otherwise she would have_.’ His resolution
however was, that ‘she should proceed to Durham, _if he were king_!’ ‘We
answered,’ replied the doctor, ‘that we made no doubt of her
obedience.’--‘Obedience is that required,’ replied the king, ‘which
being performed, I will do more for her than she expected.’” Yet he
consented to her remaining a month at Highgate. As the day of her
departure approached, she appeared resigned. “But Arabella had not,
within, that tranquillity with which she had lulled her keepers. She and
Seymour had concerted a flight, as bold in its plot, and as beautifully
wild, as any recorded in romantic story. The day preceding her
departure, Arabella found it not difficult to persuade a female
attendant to consent that she would suffer her to pay a last visit to
her husband, and to wait for her return at an appointed hour. More
solicitous for the happiness of lovers than for the repose of kings,
this attendant, in utter simplicity, or with generous sympathy, assisted
the lady Arabella in dressing her in one of the most elaborate
disguisings. ‘She drew a pair of large French-fashioned hose or trowsers
over her petticoats; put on a man’s doublet or coat; a peruke, such as
men wore, whose long locks covered her own ringlets; a black hat, a
black cloak, russet boots with red tops, and a rapier by her side,’ Thus
accoutred, the lady Arabella stole out with a gentleman about three
o’clock in the afternoon. She had only proceeded a mile and a half, when
they stopped at a poor inn, where one of her confederates was waiting
with horses, yet she was so sick and faint, that the ostler, who held
her stirrup, observed, that ‘the gentleman could hardly hold out to
London.’ She recruited her spirits by riding; the blood mantled in her
face, and at six o’clock our sick lover reached Blackwall, where a boat
and servants were waiting. The watermen were at first ordered to
Woolwich; there they were desired to push on to Gravesend, then to
Tilbury, where, complaining of fatigue, they landed to refresh; but,
tempted by their freight, they reached Lee. At the break of morn they
discovered a French vessel riding there to receive the lady; but as
Seymour had not yet arrived, Arabella was desirous to lie at anchor for
her lord, conscious that he would not fail to his appointment. If he
indeed had been prevented in his escape, she herself cared not to
preserve the freedom she now possessed; but her attendants, aware of the
danger of being overtaken by a king’s ship, overruled her wishes, and
hoisted sail, which occasioned so fatal a termination to this romantic
adventure. Seymour indeed had escaped from the Tower; he had left his
servant watching at his door to warn all visiters not to disturb his
master, who lay ill with a raging toothache, while Seymour in disguise
stole away alone, following a cart which had just brought wood to his
apartment. He passed the warders; he reached the wharf, and found his
confidential man waiting with a boat, and he arrived at Lee. The time
pressed; the waves were rising; Arabella was not there; but in the
distance he descried a vessel. Hiring a fisherman to take him on board,
to his grief, on hailing it, he discovered that it was not the French
vessel charged with his Arabella; in despair and confusion he found
another ship from Newcastle, which for a good sum altered its course,
and landed him in Flanders.”

On the lady Arabella’s escape, “couriers were despatched swifter than
the winds wafted the unhappy Arabella, and all was hurry in the
seaports. They sent to the Tower to warn the lieutenant to be doubly
vigilant over Seymour, who, to his surprise, discovered that his
prisoner had ceased to be so for several hours. James at first was for
issuing a proclamation in a style so angry and vindictive, that it
required the moderation of Cecil to preserve the dignity while he
concealed the terror of his majesty. By the admiral’s detail of his
impetuous movements, he seemed in pursuit of an enemy’s fleet; for the
courier is urged, and the postmasters are roused by a superscription,
which warned them of the eventful despatch, ‘Haste, haste, post haste!
Haste for your life, your life!’ To these words, in a letter from the
earl of Essex to the lord high admiral at Plymouth, were added the
expressive symbol of _a gallows prepared with a halter_, thus

  +--+--+
  |  |  |
  |  |  |
  |  |  |.”
  |     |

There is no doubt, as is well expressed, that “the union and flight of
these two doves, from their cotes, shook with consternation the grey
owls of the cabinet:” even “prince Henry partook of this cabinet panic.”

Meanwhile “we have left the lady Arabella alone and mournful on the
seas, not praying for favourable gales to convey her away, but still
imploring her attendants to linger for her Seymour; still straining her
sight to the point of the horizon for some speck which might give a hope