Chapter XIII: Preface (12)

Cole, however, may be suspected to have somewhat exaggerated, when he so generalized his description of Dr. Willis, as to affirm that “he had more the appearance of a mumping beggar than of a gentleman.” Miss Talbot, of whom it was said by the duchess of Somerset to lady Luxborough, “she censures nobody, she despises nobody, and whilst her own life is a pattern of goodness, she does not exclaim with bitterness against vice,” seems, in her letter to the lady of quality before cited, to have painted Dr. Willis to the life. She says, “With one of the honestest hearts in the world, he has one of the oddest heads that ever dropped out of the moon. Extremely well versed in coins, he knows hardly any thing of mankind, and you may judge what kind of education such an one is likely to give to four girls, who have had no female directress to polish their behaviour, or any other habitation than a great rambling mansion-house in a country village.”

It must be allowed, notwithstanding, to the credit of Mr. Cole, that she adds, “He is the dirtiest creature in the world;” but then, with such a character from the mouth of a fine lady, the sex and breeding of the affirmant must be taken into the account, especially as she assigns her reasons. “It is quite disagreeable,” she says, “to sit by him at table: yet he makes one suit of clothes serve him at least two years, and then his great coat has been transmitted down, I believe, from generation to generation, ever since Noah.” Thus there may be something on the score of want of fashion in her estimate.

* * * * *

Miss Talbot’s account of Dr. Willis’s daughters is admirable. “Browne distinguishes his four daughters into the _lions_ and the _lambs_. The _lambs_ are very good and very insipid; they were in town about ten days, that ended the beginning of last week; and now the _lions_ have succeeded them, who have a little spirit of rebellion, that makes them infinitely more agreeable than their sober sisters. The _lambs_ went to every church Browne pleased every day; the _lions_ came to St. _James’s_ church on St. _George’s_ day, (which to Browne was downright heresy, for reasons just related.) The _lambs_ thought of no higher entertainment than going to see some collections of shells; the _lions_ would see every thing, and go every where. The _lambs_ dined here one day, were thought good awkward girls, and then were laid out of our thoughts for ever. The _lions_ dined with us on Sunday, and were so extremely diverting, that we spent all yesterday morning, and are engaged to spend all this, in entertaining them, and going to a comedy, that, I think, has no ill-nature in it; for the simplicity of these girls has nothing blameable in it, and the contemplation of such unassisted nature is infinitely amusing. They follow Miss Jenny’s rule, of never being strange in a strange place; yet in them this is not boldness.” Miss Talbot says, she could give “a thousand traits of the _lions_,” but she merely adds, “I wondered to have heard no remarks on the prince and princess; their remarks on every thing else are admirable. As they sat in the drawing-room before dinner, one of them called to Mr. Secker, ‘I wish you would give me a glass of sack!’ The bishop of Oxford (Secker) came in, and one of them broke out very abruptly, ‘But we heard every word of the sermon where we sat; and a very good sermon it was,’ added she, with a decisive nod. The bishop of Gloucester gave them tickets to go to a play; and one of them took great pains to repeat to him, till he heard it, ‘I would not rob you, but I know you are very rich, and can afford it; for I ben’t covetous, indeed I an’t covetous.’ Poor girls! their father will make them go out of town to-morrow, and they begged very hard that we would all join in entreating him to let them stay a fortnight, as their younger sisters have done; but all our entreaties were in vain, and to-morrow the poor _lions_ return to their den in the stage-coach. Indeed, in his birth-day tie-wig he looked so like ‘the father’ in the farce Mrs. Secker was so diverted with, that I wished a thousand times for the invention of Scapin and I would have made no scruple of assuming the character, and inspiring my friends with the laudable spirit of rebellion. I have picked out some of the dullest of their traits to tell you. They pressed us extremely to come and breakfast with them at their lodgings, four inches square, in Chapel-street, at eight o’clock in the morning, and bring a stay-maker and the bishop of Gloucester with us. We put off the engagement till eleven, sent the stay-maker to measure them at nine, and Mrs. Secker and I went and found the ladies quite undressed; so that, instead of taking them to Kensington Gardens, as we promised, we were forced, for want of time, to content ourselves with carrying them round Grosvenor-square into the Ring, where, for want of better amusement, they were fain to fall upon the basket of dirty sweetmeats and cakes that an old woman is always teizing you with there, which they had nearly despatched in a couple of rounds. It were endless to tell you all that has inexpressibly diverted me in their behaviour and conversation.”

* * * * *

Mr. Nichols contents himself with calling Miss Talbot’s letter “a very pleasant one”--it is delightfully pleasant: that its description may not be received in an ill sense, he carefully remarks, that “it would be thought highly satirical in any body else,” but he roguishly affirms that “Dr. Taylor could tell a thousand such stories of Browne Willis and his family;” and then he selects another. “In the summer of 1740, after Mr. Baker’s death, his executor came to take possession of the effects, and lived for some time in his chambers at college. Here Browne Willis waited upon him to see some of the MSS. or books; and after a long visit, to find and examine what he wanted, the old bed-maker of the rooms came in; when the gentleman said, ‘What noise was that I heard just as you opened the door?’ (he had heard the _rustling of silk_)--‘Oh!’ says Browne Willis, ‘it is only one of my daughters that I left on the staircase. This, we may suppose, was a _lamb_, by her patient waiting; else a _lion_ would have been better able to resist any petty rudenesses.’” Afterwards we have another “trait” of the same kind: “Once after long teasing, the young ladies prevailed on him to give them a London jaunt; unluckily the lodgings were (unknown to them) at an undertaker’s, the irregular and late hours of whose business was not very agreeable to the young ladies: but they comforted themselves with the thoughts of the pleasure they should have during their stay in town; when to their great surprise and grief, as soon as they had got their breakfast, the old family coach rumbled to the door, and the father bid them get in, as he had done the business about which he came to town.” Poor girls!

* * * * *

The late Rev. John Kynaston, M.A., fellow of Brazen-nose college, who had seen the preceding paragraphs, writes to Mr. Nichols, “Your anecdotes of the _lions_ and the _lambs_ have entertained me prodigiously, as I well knew the grizzly sire of both. Browne Willis was indeed an original. I met with him at Mr. Cartwright’s, at Aynhoe, in Northamptonshire, in 1753, where I was at that time chaplain to the family, and curate of the parish. Browne came here on a visit of a week that summer. He looked for all the world like an old portrait of the era of queen Elizabeth, that had walked down out of its frame. He was, too truly, the very dirty figure Miss Talbot describes him to be; which, with the antiquity of his dress, rendered him infinitely formidable to all the children in the parish. He often called upon me at the parsonage house, when I happened not to dine in the family; having a great, and as it seemed, a very favourite point to carry, which was no less than to persuade me to follow his example, and to turn all my thoughts and studies to _venerable antiquity;_ he deemed _that_ the _summum bonum_, the height of all human felicity. I used to entertain Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright highly, by detailing to them Browne’s arguments to debauch me from the pursuit of polite literature, and such studies as were most agreeable to my turn and taste; and by parcelling out every morning after prayers (we had daily prayers at eleven in the church) the progress Browne had made the day before in the arts of seduction. I amused him with such answers as I thought best suited to his hobby-horse, till I found he was going to leave us; and then, by a stroke or two of spirited raillery, lost his warm heart and his advice for ever. My egging him on served us, however, for a week’s excellent entertainment, amid the dulness and sameness of a country situation. He represented me at parting, to Mr. Cartwright, as one incorrigible, and lost beyond all hopes of recovery to every thing truly valuable in learning, by having unfortunately let slip that I preferred, and feared I ever should prefer, one page of Livy or Tacitus, Sallust or Cæsar, to all the monkish writers, with Bede at the head of them.

-------“quot sunt quotve fuerunt
Aut quotquot aliis erunt in annis.
_Sic explicit Historiola de_ Brownio Willisio!”

* * * * *

An Itinerary of Browne Willis “in search of the _antique_,” must have been excessively amusing. “Among the innumerable stories that are told of him, and the difficulties and rebuffs he met with in his favourite pursuits, the following may suffice as a specimen:--One day he desired his neighbour, Mr. Lowndes, to go with him to one of his tenants, whose old habitation he wanted to view. A coach driving into the farm-yard sufficiently alarmed the family, who betook themselves to close quarters; when Browne Willis, spying a woman at a window, thrust his head out of the coach, and cried out, ‘Woman, I ask if you have got no _arms_ in your house.’ As the transaction happened to be in the rebellion of 1745, when searches for arms were talked of, the woman was still less pleased with her visitor, and began to talk accordingly. When Mr. Lowndes had enjoyed enough of this absurdity, he said, ‘Neighbour, it is rather cold sitting here; if you will let me put my head out, I dare say we shall do our business much better.’ So the late Dr. Newcome, going in his coach through one of the villages near Cambridge, and seeing an old mansion, called out to an old woman, ‘Woman, is this a _religious house_?’ ‘I don’t know what you mean by a religious house,’ retorted the woman; ‘but I believe the house is as honest an house as any of yours at Cambridge.’”

On another occasion, “Riding over Mendip or Chedder, he came to a church under the hill, the steeple just rising above them, and near twenty acres of water belonging to Mr. Cox. He asked a countryman the church’s name--‘Emburrough.’ ‘When was it dedicated?’ ‘Talk English, or don’t talk at all.’ ‘When is the revel or wake?’ The fellow thought, as there was a match at quarter-staff for a hat in the neighbourhood, he intended to make one; and, struck with his mean appearance besides, challenged him in a rude way, and so they parted. This anomalous proposition must have been as embarrassing as the situation presumed in the play, ‘Dr. Pangloss in a tandem, with a terrier between his legs!’”

* * * * *

There is a very characteristic anecdote of Browne Willis, and Humfrey Wanley, a man of singular celebrity, and library keeper to the literary earl of Oxford: it is of Wanley’s own relation in his Diary. “Feb. 9, 1725-6. Mr. Browne Willis came, wanting to peruse one of Holmes’s MSS. marked L, and did so; and also L 2, L 3, and L 4, without finding what he expected. He would have explained to me his design in his intended book about our cathedrals; but I said I was about my lord’s necessary business, and had not leisure to spend upon any matter foreign to that. He wanted the liberty to look over Holmes’s MSS. and indeed over all this library, that he might collect materials for amending his former books, and putting forth new ones. I signified to him that it would be too great a work; and that I, having business appointed me by my lord, which required much despatch, could not in such a case attend upon him. He would have teazed me here this whole afternoon, but I would not suffer him. At length he departed in great anger, and I hope to be rid of him.” It is reported of the lion, that he is scared by the braying of the least noble of the beasts.

* * * * *

The Rev. Mr. Gibberd performed the “last offices” at the funeral of his friend Dr. Willis, who parted from life “without the usual agonies of death.” This gentleman says, “He breathed almost his last with the most earnest and ardent wishes for my prosperity: ‘Ah! Mr. Gibberd, God bless you for ever, Mr. Gibberd!’ were almost the last words of my dying friend.” Mr. Gibberd’s character of him may close these notices. “He was strictly religious, without any mixture of superstition or enthusiasm. The honour of God was his prime view in almost every action of his life. He was a constant frequenter of the church, and never absented himself from the holy communion; and as to the reverence he had for places more immediately set apart for religious duties, it is needless to mention what his many public works, in building, repairing, and beautifying churches, are standing evidences of. In the time of health he called his family together every evening, and, besides his private devotions in the morning, he always retired into his closet in the afternoon at about four or five o’clock. In his intercourse with men, he was in every respect, as far as I could judge, very upright. He was a good landlord, and scarce ever raised his rents; and that his servants, likewise, have no reason to complain of their master, is evident from the long time they generally lived with him. He had many valuable and good friends, whose kindness he always acknowledged. And though, perhaps, he might have some dispute, with a few people, the reason of which it would be disagreeable to enter into, yet it is with great satisfaction that I can affirm that he was perfectly reconciled with every one. He was, with regard to himself, peculiarly sober and temperate; and he has often told me, that he denied himself many things, that he might bestow them better. Indeed, he appeared to me to have no greater regard to money than as it furnished him with an opportunity of doing good. He supplied yearly three charity schools at Whaddon, Bletchley, and Fenny-Stratford: and besides what he constantly gave at Christmas, he was never backward in relieving his poor neighbours with both wine and money when they were sick, or in any kind of distress.” Thus, then, may end the few memorials that have been thrown together regarding an estimable though eccentric gentleman “of the old school.” If he did not adorn society by his “manners,” he enriched our stores of knowledge, and posterity have justly conferred on his memory a reputation for antiquarian attainments which few can hope to acquire, because few have the industry to cultivate so thorough an intimacy with the venerable objects of their acquaintance.

* * * * *

An “antiquary” is usually alarming. Those who are not acquainted with him personally, imagine that he is necessarily dull, tasteless, and passionless. Yet this conception might be dissipated by reference to the memoirs of the eminent departed, or by courting the society of the distinguished living. A citation in the notice of Grose[77] tells us that

“society droops for the loss of his jest:”

that antiquary’s facetiousness enlivened the dullest company, and with the convivial he was the most jovial. Pennant’s numerous works bear internal evidence of his pleasant mindedness. Jacob Bryant, “famous for his extensive learning, erudition,” and profound investigations concerning “Heathen Mythology,” and the situation and siege of “Troy,” was one of the mildest and most amiable beings: his society was coveted by youth and age, until the termination of his life, in his eighty-ninth year. Among the illustrious lovers of classic or black letter lore, were the witty and humorous George Steevens, the editor of Shakspeare; Dr. Richard Farmer, the learned author of the masterly “Essay on the Genius and Learning of Shakspeare,” is renowned by the few who remember him for the ease and variety of his conversation; Samuel Paterson, the celebrated bibliopolist, was full of anecdote and drollery; and the placid and intelligent Isaac Reed, the discriminating editor of “the immortal bard of Avon,” graced every circle wherein he moved. It might seem to assume an intimacy which the editor of this work does not pretend to, were he to mention instances of social excellence among the prying investigators of antiquity yet alive: one, however, he cannot forbear to name--the venerable octogenarian John Nichols, esq. F.S.A. of whom he only knows, in common with all who have read or heard of him, as an example of cheerfulness and amenity during a life of unwearied perseverance in antiquarian researches, and the formation of multiform collections, which have added more to general information, and created a greater number of inquirers on such subjects, than the united labours of his early contemporaries.

Still it is not to be denied, that seclusion, wholly employed on the foundations of the dead, and the manners of other times, has a tendency to unfit _such_ devotees for easy converse, when they seek to recreate by adventuring into the world. Early-acquired and long-continued severity of study, whether of the learned languages, or antiquities, or science, or nature, if it exclude other intimacies, is unfavourable to personal appearance and estimation. The _mere_ scholar, the _mere_ mathematician, and the _mere_ antiquary, easily obtain reputations for eccentricity; but there are numerous individuals of profound abstraction, and erudite inquiry, who cultivate the understanding, or the imagination, or the heart, who are, in manner, so little different from others, that they are scarcely suspected by the unknown and the self-sufficient of being better or wiser than themselves. Hence, “in company,” the individual whom all the world agrees to look on as “The Great Unknown,” may be scarcely thought of, as “The Antiquary”--the “President of the Royal Society” pass for “quite a lady’s man”--and ELIA be only regarded as “a gentleman that loves a joke!”

NATURE AND ART.

“_Buy my images!_”

“Art improves nature,” is an old proverb which our forefathers adopted without reflection, and obstinately adhered to as lovers of consistency. The capacity and meshes of their brain were too small to hold many great truths, but they caught a great number of little errors, and this was one. They bequeathed it to “their children and their children’s children,” who inherited it till they threw away the wisdom of their ancestors with their wigs; left off hair powder; and are now leaving off the sitting in hot club rooms, for the sake of sleep, and exercise in the fresh air. There seems to be a general insurrection against the unnatural improvement of nature. We let ourselves and our trees grow out of artificial forms, and no longer sit in artificial arbours, with entrances like that of the cavern at Blackheath hill, or, as we may even still see them, if we pay a last visit to the dying beds of a few old tea-gardens. We know more than those who lived before us, and if we are not happier, we are on the way to be so. Wisdom is happiness: but “he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.” Knowledge is not wisdom; it is only the rough material of wisdom. It must be shaped by reflection and judgment, before it can be constructed into an edifice fitting for the mind to dwell in, and take up its rest. This, as our old discoursers used to say, “brings us to our subject.”

“_Buy my images!_” or, “Pye m’imaitches,” was, and is, a “London cry,” by Italian lads carrying boards on their heads, with plaster figures for sale. “In _my_ time,” one of these “images” (it usually occupied a corner of the board) was a “Polly”--

This representative of the most “popular” of “all the winged inhabitants of air,” might have been taken for the likeness of some species between an owl and the booby-bird; but then the wings and back were coloured with a lively green, and the under part had yellow streaks, and the beak was of a red colour, and any colour did for the eyes, if they were larger than they ought to have been. “In _my_ time” too, there was an “image” of a “fine bow pot,” consisting of half a dozen green shapes like halbert tops for “make believe” leaves, spreading like a half opened fan, from a knot “that was not,” inasmuch as it was delicately concealed by a tawny coloured ball called an orange, which pretended to rest on a clumsy clump of yellowed plaster as on the mouth of a jar--the whole looking as unlike a nosegay in water as possible. Then, too, there was a sort of obelisk with irregular projections and curves; the top, being smaller than the bottom, was marked out with paint into a sort of face, and, by the device of divers colours, it was bonnetted, armed, waisted, and petticoated--this was called a “fine lady.” A lengthened mass became by colourable show, “a dog”--like ingenuity might have tortured it into a devil. The feline race were of two shapes and in three sizes; the middle one--like physic in a bottle, “when taken, to be well shaken,” moved its chalk head, to the wonder and delight of all urchins, until they informed themselves of its “springs of action,” at the price of “only a penny,” and, by breaking it, discovered that the nodding knob achieved its un-cat-like motion, by being hung with a piece of wire to the interior of its hollow body. The lesser cat was not so _very_ small, considering its price--“a farthing:”--I speak of when battered button tops represented that plentiful “coin of the realm.” Then there was the largest

The present representation favours the image too much. Neither this engraving, nor that of the “parrot,” is sufficiently like--the artist says he “could not draw it bad enough:” what an abominable deficiency is the want of “an eye”--heigho! Then there were so many things, that were not likenesses of any thing of which they were “images,” and so many years and cares have rolled over my head and heart, that I have not recollection or time enough for their description. They are all gone, or going--“going out” or “gone out” for ever! Personal remembrance is the frail and only memorial of the existence of some of these “ornaments” of the humble abodes of former times.

The masterpieces on the board of the “image-man,” were “a pair,”--at that time “matchless.” They linger yet, at the extreme corners of a few mantle-pieces, with probably a “sampler” between, and, over that, a couple of feathers from Juno’s bird, gracefully adjusted into a St. Andrew’s cross--their two gorgeous eyes giving out “beautiful colours,” to the beautiful eyes of innocent children. The “images,” spoken of as still in being, are of the colossal height of eighteen inches, more or less: they personate the “human form divine,” and were designed, perhaps, by Hayman, but their moulds are so worn that the casts are unfeatured, and they barely retain their bodily semblance. They are always painted black, save that a scroll on each, which depends from a kind of altar, is left white. One of the inscriptions says,

“Into the heaven of heavens I have presumed, &c.”

and all, except the owners, admire the presumption. The “effigy” looks as if the man had been up the chimney, and, instead of having “drawn empyrean air,” had taken a glass too much of Hodges’s “Imperial,” and wrapped himself in the soot-bag to conceal his indulgence and his person--this is “Milton.” The other, in like sables, points to his inscription, beginning,

“The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, &c.”

is an “insubstantial pageant” of “the immortal Shakspeare,”

“cheated of feature by dissembling nature,”

through the operation of time.

“Such were the forms that o’er th’ _incrusted souls_
Of our forefathers scatter’d _fond delight_.”

Price, and Alison, and Knight, have generalized “taste” for high-life; while those of the larger circle have acquired “taste” from manifold representations and vehicles of instruction, and comprehend the outlines, if they do not take in the details of natural objects. This is manifested by the almost universal disuse of the “images” described. With the inhabitants of every district in the metropolis, agreeable forms are now absolute requisites, and the demand has induced their supply. There are, perhaps, as many casts from the Medicean Venus, Apollo Belvidere, Antinous, the Gladiator, and other beauties of ancient sculpture, within the parish of St. George, in the East, as in the parish of St. George, Hanover-square. They are reposited over the fire-places, or on the tables, of neighbourhoods, wherein the uncouth cat, and the barbarous parrot were, even “in _my_ time,” desirable “images.” The moulds of the greater number of these deformities, are probably destroyed. It was with difficulty that the “cat” could be obtained for the preceding column, and an “image” of the “parrot” was not procurable from an “image-man.” Invention has been resorted to for the gratification of popular desire: two plaster casts of children, published in the autumn of 1825, have met with unparalleled sale. To record the period of their origin they are represented in the annexed engraving, and, perhaps, they may be so perpetuated when the casts themselves shall have disappeared, in favour of others more elegant.

The “common people” have become uncommon;
A few remain, just here and there, the rest
Are polish’d and refined: child, man, and woman,
All, imitate the manners of the best;
Picking up, sometimes, good things from their betters,
As they have done from them. Then they have books;
As ’twas design’d they should, when taught their letters;
And nature’s self befriends their very looks:
And all this must, and all this ought to be--
The only use of eyes, I know of, is--to _see_.

*

Height of each 16 inches and a half.]

When these agreeable figures first appeared, the price obtained for them was four shillings. As the sale slackened they were sold for three shillings; now, in March, 1826, the pair may be bought for two shillings, or eighteen pence. The consequence of this cheapness is, that there is scarcely a house without them.

There can be no doubt that society is improving in every direction. As I hinted before, we have a great deal to learn, and something to unlearn. It is in many respects untrue, that “art improves nature;” while in many important respects it is certain, that “nature improves art.”

_The Brothers._

There are things in nature which the human voice can scarcely trust itself to relate; which art never can represent, and the pen can only feebly describe. Such a scene occurred at Lyons, in the year 1794.

The place of confinement to which those were hurried, who had been condemned to suffer by the revolutionary tribunal, was called “the Cave of Death.” A boy not fifteen years of age was sent thither. He had been one of the foremost in a _sortie_ made during the siege, and for this was doomed to perish. His little brother, scarcely six years old, who had been accustomed to visit him at his former prison, no longer finding him there, came and called at the iron grate of the vault. His brother heard him, and came to the grate: the poor infant passed his little hands between the vast bars to embrace him, while the elder raising himself on the points of his feet could just reach to kiss them. “My dear brother,” said the child, “art thou going to die, and shall I see thee no more? why didn’t you tell them that you are not yet fifteen?”--“I did, brother, I said all that I could say, but they would hear nothing. Carry a kiss to my mother, and try to comfort her; nothing grieves me but that I leave her ill; but don’t tell her yet, that I am going to die.” The child was drowned in tears, his little heart seemed ready to burst:--“Good-by, brother,” he repeated again and again; “but I’m afraid you didn’t say that you are not yet fifteen.”--He was at length so suffocated with sobs that he could speak no more, and went away. Every one who passed by, seeing his distress, asked him what was the matter. “’Tis the wicked men that make me cry,” said he; “they are going to kill my brother who is so good, and who is not yet fifteen.”

With any being of a human form,
Who, reading such a narrative as this
Could be unshaken to the inmost soul,
I would not share a roof, nor sit, nor stand,
Nor converse hold, by word, or look, or pen.
Well, Reader! thou hast read--hast thou no tears?
If thou wert stranger to the tale till now,
And weep’st not--go! I dare not, will not, know thee
Thy manner may be gentle, but thy heart
Is ripe for cruelty--Go hence, I say!

[76] Chambaud.

[77] Vol. i. p. 658.

~March 7.~

_The Season._

The earth has now several productions for our gratification, if we stoop to gather and examine them. Young botanists should commence their inquiries before the season pours in its abundance. They who are admirers of natural beauties, may daily discover objects of delightful regard in the little peeping plants which escape the eye, unless their first appearance is narrowly looked for.

_The Primrose._

Welcome, pale Primrose! starting up between
Dead matted leaves of ash and oak, that strew
The every lawn, the wood, and spinney through,
’Mid creeping moss and ivy’s darker green;
How much thy presence beautifies the ground:
How sweet thy modest, unaffected pride
Glows on the sunny bank, and wood’s warm side.
And when thy fairy flowers, in groups, are found,
The schoolboy roams enchantedly along,
Plucking the fairest with a rude delight:
While the meek shepherd stops his simple song,
To gaze a moment on the pleasing sight;
O’erjoy’d to see the flowers that truly bring
The welcome news of sweet returning spring!

_Clare._

It is remarked by the lady of the “Flora Domestica,” that “this little flower, in itself so fair, shows yet fairer from the early season of its appearance; peeping forth even from the retreating snows of winter: it forms a happy shade of union between the delicate snowdrop and the flaming crocus, which also venture forth in the very dawn of spring.” The elegant authoress observes further: “There are many varieties of the primrose, so called, (the polyanthus and auricular, though bearing other names, are likewise varieties,) but the most common are the sulphur-coloured and the lilac. The lilac primrose does not equal the other in beauty: we do not often find it wild; it is chiefly known to us as a garden-flower. It is indeed the sulphur-coloured primrose which we particularly understand by that name: it is _the_ primrose: it is this which we associate with the cowslips and the meadows: it is this which shines like an earth-star from the grass by the brook side, lighting the hand to pluck it. We do indeed give the name of primrose to the lilac flower, but we do this in courtesy: we feel that it is not the primrose of our youth; not the primrose with which we have played at bo-peep in the woods; not the irresistible primrose which has so often lured our young feet into the wet grass, and procured us coughs and chidings. There is a sentiment in flowers: there are flowers we cannot look upon, or even hear named, without recurring to something that has an interest in our hearts; such are the primrose, the cowslip, the May-flower, the daisy, &c. &c.” The poets have not neglected to pay due honours to this sweet spring-flower, which unites in itself such delicacy of form, colour, and fragrance; they give it a forlorn and pensive character. The poems of Clare are as thickly strewn with primroses as the woods themselves; the two following passages are from “The Village Minstrel.”

“O, who can speak his joys when spring’s young morn
From wood and pasture opened on his view,
When tender green buds blush upon the thorn,
And the first primrose dips its leaves in dew.

* * * * *

“And while he pluck’d the primrose in its pride,
He ponder’d o’er its bloom ’twixt joy and pain;
And a rude sonnet in its praise he tried,
Where nature’s simple way the aid of art supplied.”

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 39·54.

~March 8.~

At this season there is a sweetness in the fresh and open air, which never “comes to town.” Residents in cities, therefore, must seek it at some distance from their abodes; and those who cannot, may derive some pleasure from a sonnet, by the rural bard quoted just now.

_Approach of Spring._

Sweet are the omens of approaching Spring
When gay the elder sprouts her winged leaves
When tootling robins carol-welcomes sing,
And sparrows chelp glad tidings from the eaves.
What lovely prospects wait each wakening hour,
When each new day some novelty displays,
How sweet the sun-beam melts the crocus flower,
Whose borrow’d pride shines dizen’d in his rays:
Sweet, new-laid hedges flush their tender greens:
Sweet peep the arum-leaves their shelter screens:
Ah! sweet is all that I’m denied to share:
Want’s painful hindrance sticks me to her stall;--
But still Hope’s smiles unpoint the thorns of Care
Since Heaven’s eternal spring is free from all!

_Clare._

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·05.

~March 9.~

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 40·15.

~As he laid dead at Exeter Change.~]

In the position he liked best
He seem’d to drop, to sudden rest;
Nor bow’d his neck, but still a sense
Retain’d of his magnificence;
For, as he fell, he raised his head
And held it, as in life, when dead.

VISIT TO MR. CROSS, PROPRIETOR OF THE ELEPHANT.

The most remarkable incident in the metropolis, since “the panic” in the neighbourhood of the Royal Exchange, in January, 1826, was the death of the celebrated elephant at Exeter Change, in March of the same year; not that it is attempted to insinuate comparison between these events, as to their nature or consequences, but it may fairly be observed, that each produced what is commonly called “a sensation” in town and country, and that each originated in peculiar excitement.

Wishing to record the death of the elephant in this work, and to relate only what is true, I resorted to Mr. Cross, whose menagerie has sustained a bereavement that can only be supplied, if it ever can be supplied, at a vast expense, and after a long lapse of time. On explaining my wish and purpose, Mr. Cross readily assented to furnish me with the information I desired, and communicated the following particulars. I committed them to paper during my interviews, and after digesting them into order, submitted the whole to his revision. Except as to mere language and occasional illustrations, the narrative is, in fact, the narrative of Mr. Cross. It differs in many essential respects from other accounts, but it only so differs, because every statement is accurately related from Mr. Cross’s lips. Circumstances which occurred during his temporary absence at the critical moment, were supplied to me in his presence by Mr. Tyler, the gentleman who arranged and cooperated with Mr. Herring, during the exigency that rendered the destruction of the elephant imperative.

The first owner of the lordly animal, now no more, was Mr. Harris, proprietor of Covent-garden theatre. He purchased it in July, 1810, for nine hundred guineas on its arrival in England, aboard the Astel, Captain Hay, and the elephant “came out” as a public performer the same year, in the procession of a grand pantomime, called “Harlequin Padmanaba.” Mrs. Henry Johnstone was his graceful rider, and he was “played up to” by the celebrated columbine, Mrs. Parker, whose husband had a joint interest with Mr. Harris in the new performer. During his “engagement” at this theatre, Mr. Polito “signed articles” with Messrs. Harris and Parker for his further “appearance in public” at the Royal Menagerie, Exeter Change. On the death of Mr. Polito, in 1814, Mr. Cross, who for twenty years had been superintendent of the concern, became its purchaser, and the elephant, thus transferred, remained with Mr. Cross till the termination of his life. From his “last farewell” to the public at Covent-garden theatre, he was stationary at the menagerie, from whence he was never removed, and, consequently, he was never exhibited at any other place.

On the elephant’s first arrival from India he had two keepers; these accompanied him to Exeter Change, and to their controul he implicitly submitted, until the death of one of them, within the first year after Mr. Cross’s proprietorship, when the animal’s increasing bulk and strength rendered it necessary to enlarge his den, or rather to construct a new one. The bars of the old one were not thicker than a man’s arm. With Mr. Harrison, the carpenter, who built his new den, and with whom he had formed a previous intimacy, he was remarkably docile, and accommodated himself to his wishes in every respect. He was occasionally troublesome to his builder from love of play, but the prick of a gimblet was an intimation he obeyed, till a desire for fresh frolic prompted him to further interference, and then a renewal of the hint, or some trifling eatable from the carpenter’s pocket, abated the interruption. In this way they went on together till the work was completed, and while the elephant retained his senses, he was happy in every opportunity that afforded him the society of his friend Harrison. The den thus erected will be particularized presently: it was that wherein he remained till his death.

About six years ago this elephant indicated an excitement which is natural to the species, and which prevails every year for a short season. At the period now spoken of, his keeper having gone into his den to exhibit him, the animal refused obedience; on striking him with a slight cane, as usual, the elephant violently threw him down: another keeper seeing the danger, tossed a pitchfork to his comrade, which the animal threw aside like a straw. A person then ran to alarm Mr. Cross, who hurried down stairs, and catching up a shovel, struck the animal violently on the head, and suddenly seizing the prostrated man, dragged him from the den, and saved his life.

This was the first appearance of those annual paroxysms, wherein the elephant, whether wild or confined, becomes infuriated. At such a period it is customary in India to liberate the elephants and let them run to the forests, whence, on the conclusion of the fit, they usually return to their wonted subjection. Such an experiment being impossible with Mr. Cross, he resorted to pharmacy, and, in the course of fifty-two hours, succeeded in deceiving his patient into the taking of twenty-four pounds of salts, twenty-four pounds of treacle, six ounces of calomel, an ounce and a half of tartar emetic, and six drams of powder of gamboge. To this he added a bottle of croton oil, the most potent cathartic perhaps in existence; of this, a full dram was administered, which alone is sufficient for at least sixty full doses to the human being; yet, though united with the preceding enormous quantity of other medicine, it operated no apparent effect. At this juncture Mr. Nyleve, a native East Indian, and a man of talent, suggested to Mr. Cross the administration of animal oil, as a medicine of efficacy. Six pounds of marrow from beef bones were accordingly placed within his reach, as if it had been left by accident; the liquorish beast, who would probably have refused it had it been tendered him in his food, swallowed the bait. The result justified Mr. Nyleve’s prediction. To my inquiry whether the marrow had not accelerated an operation which would have succeeded the previous administration, Mr. Cross answered, that he believed the beef marrow was the really active medicine, because, after an interval of three weeks, he gave the same quantity wholly unaccompanied, and the same aperient effect followed. He never, however, could repeat the experiment; for the elephant in successive years wholly refused the marrow, however attempted to be disguised, or with whatever it was mixed.

In subsequent years, during these periods of excitement, the paroxysms successively increased in duration; but there was no increase of violence until the present year, when the symptoms became more alarming, and medicine produced no diminution of the animal’s heightened rage. On Sunday, (the 26th of February,) a quarter of a pound of calomel was given to him in gruel. Three grains of this is a dose for a man; and though the entire quantity given to the elephant was more than equal to six hundred of those doses, it failed of producing in him any other effect than extreme suspicion of any food that was tendered to him, if it at all varied in appearance from what he was accustomed to at other times. On Monday morning some warm ale was offered him in a bucket, for the purpose of assisting the operation of the calomel, but he would not touch it till Cartmell, his keeper, drank a portion of the liquor himself, when he readily took it. The fluid did not appear to accelerate the wished-for object; and, in fact, the calomel wholly failed to operate. Though in a state of constant irritation, he remained tolerably quiet throughout Monday and Tuesday, until Wednesday, the 1st of March, when additional medicine became necessary, and Mrs. Cross conceived the thought of giving it to him through some person whom the elephant had not seen, and whom therefore he might regard as a casual visiter, and not suspect. To a certain extent the feint succeeded. She sent some buns to him by a strange lad, in one of which a quantity of calomel had been introduced. He ate each bun from the boy’s hand till that with the calomel was presented; instead of conveying it to his mouth, he instantly dropped the bun, and crushed it with his foot. In this way he was accustomed to treat every thing of food that he disliked.

It was always considered that the elephant’s den was of sufficient strength and magnitude to accommodate, and be proof against any attack he was able to direct against it, even in his most violent displeasure. In the course of the four preceding years the front had sustained many hundred of his powerful lounges, without any part having been substantially injured, or the smallest portion displaced, or rendered rickety in the slightest degree; but on this morning, (Wednesday,) about ten o’clock, he made a tremendous rush at the front, wholly unexcited by provocation, and broke the tenon, or square end at the top of the hinge story-post, to which the gates are hung, from its socket or mortise in the massive cross beam above; and, consequently, the strong iron clamped gates which had hitherto resisted his many furious attacks upon them, lost their security. Mr. Cross was then absent from the menagerie, and, in the urgency of the moment, his friend Mr. Tyler, a gentleman of great coolness and faculty of arrangement, gave orders for a strong massy piece of timber to be placed in front of his den, as a temporary fixture against the broken story-post; and offered every thing he could think of to pamper, and, if possible, to allay the animal’s fury. On Mr. Cross’s arrival he rightly judged, that another such lounge would prostrate the gates; and, as it was known that Mr. Harrison, the carpenter of the den, who formerly possessed great influence over him, had now lost all power of controuling him, it was morally certain, that if any other persons attempted to repair the mischief in an effectual way, their lives would be forfeited. Mr. Cross, under these circumstances of imminent danger, instantly determined to destroy the elephant with all possible despatch, as the only measure he could possibly adopt for his own safety and the safety of the public. Having formed his resolution, he went without a moment’s delay to Mr. Gifford, chemist in the Strand, and requested to be supplied with a potent poison, destitute if possible of taste or smell. Mr. Gifford, sensible of the serious consequences to Mr. Cross in a pecuniary point of view, entreated him to reflect still further, and not to commit an act of which he might hereafter repent. Mr. Cross assured him that whatever irritation he might manifest, proceeded from his own feelings of regard towards the elephant, heightened by a sense of the loss that would ensue upon his purpose being effected; adding, that he had a firm conviction that unless the animal’s death was immediately accomplished, loss of human life must ensue. Mr. Gifford replied, that he had never seen or complied more reluctantly with his wish on any occasion, and he gave him four ounces of arsenic. Mr. Cross declares that on his way back, the conflict of his feelings was so great at that moment, that he imagines no person contemplating murder could endure greater agony. The arsenic was mixed with oats, and a quantity of sugar being added by way of inducement, it was offered to the elephant as his ordinary meal by his keeper. The sagacious animal wholly refused to touch it.

His eyes now glared like lenses of glass reflecting a red and burning light. In order to soothe him, some oranges, to which fruit he had great liking, were repeatedly proffered; but though these were in a pure state, he took them, one after the other, as they were presented to him, and dropping each on the floor of his den instantly squelched it with his foot, and having thus disposed of a few he refused to take another. This utter rejection of food, with amazing increase of fury, heightened Mr. Cross’s alarm. He again went out, and in great agitation procured half an ounce of corrosive sublimate to be mixed in a quantity of conserve of roses, securely tied in a bladder, to prevent, if possible, any scent from the poison, and with some hope that if the animal detected any effluvia through the air-tight skin it would be the odour of roses and sugar, which were substances peculiarly grateful to him. The elephant was accustomed to swallow several things lying about within reach of his proboscis, which, if tendered to him, he would have refused; and this habit suggesting the possibility that he might so dispose of this, which, it was quite certain, if presented would have been rejected, the ball was placed so that he might find it; but the instant he perceived it he seemed to detect the purpose; he hastily seized it, and as hastily letting it fall, violently smashed it with his foot.

The peril was becoming greater every minute. The elephant’s weight was upwards of five tons, and from such an animal’s excessive rage, in a place of insecure confinement, the most terrible consequences were to be feared. Mr. Cross therefore intrusted his friend, Mr. Tyler, to direct and assist the endeavours of the keepers for the controul of the infuriated beast. He then despatched a messenger to his brother-in-law, Mr. Herring, in the New Road, Paddington, a man of determined resolution, and an excellent shot, stating the danger, and requesting him to come to the menagerie. As he arrived without arms, they went together to Mr. Stevens, gunsmith, in High Holborn, for rifles. On their way to him they called at Surgeons-hall, Lincoln’s-Inn Fields, where they hoped to see the skeleton of an elephant, in order to form a judgment of the places through which the shots would be likeliest to reach the vital parts. In this they were disappointed, the college of surgeons not having the skeleton of the animal in its collection; but Mr. Clift, who politely received them, communicated what information he possessed on the subject. Mr. Stevens lent him three rifles, and at his house Mr. Cross left Mr. Herring to get the pieces ready, after instructing him to cooperate with Mr. Tyler, in attempting the destruction of the animal, if it should be absolutely necessary before he returned himself. From thence Mr. Cross hastened to Great Marlborough-street, for the advice of Mr. Joshua Brookes, the eminent anatomist. He found that gentleman in his theatre, delivering a public lecture. Sense of danger deprived Mr. Cross of the attentions due to time and place under ordinary circumstances, and he immediately addressed Mr. Brookes; “Sir, a word with you, if you please, immediately: I have not an instant to lose.” Mr. Brookes concluded his lecture directly and knowing Mr. Cross would not have intruded upon him except from extreme urgency, withdrew with him, and gave him such instructions as the case seemed to require. Mr. Cross, accompanied by one of Mr. Brookes’s pupils, hastened homeward. They were met near the menagerie by Mr. Tyler, who entreated Mr. Cross to run to Somerset-house and obtain military assistance from that place, for that they had been compelled to use the rifles in their own defence, and had put a number of shot in him without being able to get him down. Mr. Brookes’s pupil accompanied Mr. Tyler, to assist him, if possible, while Mr. Cross rapidly proceeded to Somerset-house, where he found a sentry on duty, who did not dare to quit his post, and referred him to the guard-room, where there were only two other privates and a corporal, who, at first, declared his utter inability to lend him either men or arms; but on the earnest entreaties of Mr. Cross for aid, and his repeated representations, that he would be responsible in purse and person, and compensate any consequences that could be incurred by a direliction from the formalities of military duty on so pressing an occasion, the corporal relented, and, with one of the privates, hastened to the menagerie.

Mr. Cross now met Herring, of the public office, Bow-street, to whom he communicated the situation of affairs at Exeter Change, and requested his assistance in obtaining arms. Herring suggested an application to Bow-street for that purpose. It appears that from accident they were not procurable there, and deeming it possible that they might be got at sir W. Congreve’s office, Mr. Cross ran thither, where he was also disappointed. Mr. Brooks, glassman of the Strand, informed Mr. Cross there were small arms in the neighbourhood of Somerset-house; these, on returning to that place, were discovered to be old howitzers, and, therefore, useless. From thence he went on board the police-ship stationed on the Thames, near Waterloo-bridge, expecting to find swivels, and was again disappointed; being informed, however, that swivels were fired during civic processions from Hawes’s soap manufactory, on the Surrey side of the river, near Blackfriars-bridge, he rowed over and obtained a swivel, with a few balls, and the head of a poker, and the assistance of one of Mr. Hawes’s men. The use for either, however, ceased to exist; for they arrived at the menagerie within a few minutes after the conclusion of such a scene as had never been exhibited in that place nor, probably, in any other in this country. The elephant was dead.

To describe the proceedings of Exeter Change, from the time of Mr. Cross’s leaving it, it is necessary to recur to the period of Mr. Herring’s appearance thither, on his return from Mr. Stevens’s, in Holborn, with the three rifles, and one of Mr. Stevens’s assistants. He found that the violence of the elephant had increased every minute from the period of his departure with Mr. Cross, and that at great personal hazard Mr. Tyler, with Cartmell and Newsam, and the other keepers, had prevented him from breaking down the front of the den.