Chapter C: Lamb (3)

_Serpilla._ Thyrsis believes thee dead, and justly may
Within his youthful breast then entertain
New flames of love, and yet therein be free
From the least show of doing injury
To that rich beauty which he thinks extinct,
And happily hath mourn’d for long ago:
But when he shall perceive thee here alive,
His old lost love will then with thee revive.
_Phillis._ That love, Serpilla, which can be removed
With the light breath of an imagined death,
Is but a faint weak love; nor care I much
Whether it live within, or still lie dead.
Ev’n I myself believ’d him long ago
Dead, and enclosed within an earthen urn;
And yet, abhorring any other love,
I only loved that pale-faced beauty still;
And those dry bones, dissolved into dust:
And underneath their ashes kept alive
The lively flames of my still-burning fire.

_Celia, being put to sleep by an ineffectual poison, waking believes herself to be among the dead. The old Shepherd Narete finds her, and re-assures her of her still being alive._

_Shepherd._ Celia, thou talkest idly; call again
Thy wandering senses; thou art yet alive.
And, if thou wilt not credit what I say,
Look up, and see the heavens turning round;
The sun descending down into the west,
Which not long since thou saw’st rise in the east:
Observe, that with the motion of the air
These fading leaves do fall:--
In the infernal region of the deep
The sun doth never rise, nor ever set;
Nor doth a falling leaf there e’er adorn
Those black eternal plants.
Thou still art on the earth ’mongst mortal men,
And still thou livest. I am Narete. These
Are the sweet fields of Scyros. Know’st thou not
The meadow where the fountain springs? this wood?
Enro’s great mountain, and Ormino’s hill;
The hill where thou wert born?

_Thyrsis, upbraided by Phillis for loving another, while he supposed her dead, replies--_

_Thirsis._ O do not turn thy face another way.
Perhaps thou thinkest, by denying thus
That lovely visage to these eyes of mine,
To punish my misdeeds; but think not so.
Look on me still, and mark me what I say,
(For, if thou know’st it not, I’ll tell thee then),
A more severe revenger of thy wrongs
Thou canst not have than those fair eyes of thine,
Which by those shining beams that wound my heart
Punish me more than all the world can do.
What greater pain canst thou inflict on me,
Than still to keep as fire before my face
That lovely beauty, which I have betray’d;
That beauty, I have lost?

NIGHT _breaks off her speech_.[234]

NIGHT.--But stay! for there methinks I see the Sun,
Eternal Painter, now begin to rise,
And limn the heavens in vermilion dye;
And having dipt his pencil, aptly framed,
Already in the colour of the morn,
With various temper he doth mix in one
Darkness and Light: and drawing curiously
Strait golden lines quite thro’ the dusky sky,
A rough draught of the day he seems to yield,
With red and tawny in an azure field.--
Already, by the clattering of their bits,
Their gingling harness, and their neighing sounds.
I hear Eous and fierce Pirous
Come panting on my back; and therefore I
Must fly away. And yet I do not fly,
But follow on my regulated course,
And those eternal Orders I received
From the First Mover of the Universe.

C. L.

[234] In the Prologue.

* * * * *

~The Drama.~

The following communication from “a-matter-of-fact” correspondent, controverts an old dramatist’s authority on an historical point. It should be recollected, however, that poets have large license, and that few playwrights strictly adhere to facts without injury to poetical character and feeling. The letter is curious, and might suggest an amusing parallel in the manner of Plutarch, between the straightforward character and the poetical one.

KING JOHN AND MATILDA.

_To the Editor._

Sir,--Having been in the country during the publication of the first parts of the _Table Book_, I have but now just bought them; and on perusing them, I find in part 1, col. 112 et infrâ, Mr. C. Lamb’s first specimen of the Garrick Plays, called “King John and Matilda;” wherein the said Matilda, the daughter of the _old_ baron Fitzwater[235] is supposed to be poisoned by King John’s order, in a nunnery. She is especially entitled therein as “immaculate”--“Virtue’s white _virgin_,”--and “_maid_ and martyr.” Now, sir, I presume it to be well known, that in the best legends extant of the times of Richard I. and John, this identical Matilda, or Maud Fitzwater, is chronicled as the _chère amie_ and companion of the outlawed Robert Fitzooth, earl of Huntingdon, whom, as “Robin Hood,” she followed as “_Maid_ Marian;” and with whom, on his restoration to his honours by king Richard, (to his earldom and estates,) she intermarried, and became countess of Huntingdon, and was in _every_ respect a wife, though we have no records whether she ever became a mother; and that when by king John the earl was again outlawed, and driven to the wilds of Sherwood forest, his countess also again shared his misfortunes, and a second time took the name of “_Maid_ Marian,” (then rather a misnomer,) as he did that of “_Robin Hood_.”

During the _first_ outlawry of Robin Hood, and while Marian, or more properly Matilda, was yet a _maid_, John (then prince John, Richard being in Palestine) made overtures to the old baron Fitzwalter for his daughter as a mistress, and being refused, and finding she was in the society of Robin Hood and his merry men, attacked them, and a bloody fray ensued; during which, John and Matilda (in the _male_ costume of forest green) met, and fought: John required her to yield, and she as resolutely desired him, in a reproachful taunt, to _win_ her first; and so stoutly did she belabour him, as the rest of the foresters did his party also, that he was constrained to yield, and to withdraw from a contest in which nothing was to be got but blows.

We hear nothing more of any attempts of John’s to molest her or her party till after the death of Richard, and his own accession to the throne, when he spitefully ousted the earl and countess from their honours and possessions, and confiscated all to his own use; and thus this unfortunate pair, as I have above stated, were again constrained to quit the castle for the forest.

But it is certain, that long before John became king, Matilda, alias Maud, alias Marian, had ceased to be a maid; and we have no account of any attempts whatsoever made by _king_ John upon or against the quondam Matilda Fitzwalter, afterwards alternately Maid Marian and countess of Huntingdon. Indeed all the legends of Robin Hood’s life present “Maid Marian” as having lived with him unmolested by any such attempts during the whole of his _second outlawry_, and as having survived Robin’s tragical end; though of _her_ subsequent fate they are all silent, expressing themselves indeed ignorant of what was her destiny. Certainly she may then have retired into a nunnery, but at all events not as Matilda Fitzwalter; for she had been legally married and formally acknowledged by Richard I. as countess of Huntingdon; and as she spent the last part of her fellowship with her husband in Sherwood forest under her romantic forest appellation, it is scarcely probable that she would resume her title on entering into a nunnery. I would presume, therefore, that however and wherever she ended her days, it must have been under the cognomen of “_Maid_ Marian.” And as her husband lived for some years in the forest after the accession of John, I should think it scarcely likely that after such a great lapse of time, and after the change which had taken place in Matilda both as regards her worldly station and age, and I should presume person, (from such a continued exposure to the air and weather,) John should renew any attempt upon her. I should therefore feel exceedingly gratified if either yourself or Mr. C. Lamb could adduce any historical facts to reconcile all these discrepancies, and to show how the facts, as supposed in the play of “King John and Matilda,” could, in the natural course of events, and in the very teeth of the declarations made in the history of Robin Hood and his consort, have taken place.

Mark this also;--the historians of Robin Hood and Maid Marian (and their history was written, if not by contemporaries, yet in the next generation; nor is it likely that such a renowned personage should be unnoticed in chronicles for any space of time) all declare that they could not ascertain the fate of Marian after the death of Robin. _His_ death and burial are well known, and the inscription to his memory is still extant; but _she_ was lost sight of from the time of his decease. How comes it then that Robert Davenport, in the 17th century, should be so well informed, as to know that Matilda ended her days in a nunnery by poison administered by order of king John, when there is _no tradition extant_ of the time or manner of _her_ decease? We have no other authority than this of Davenport’s tragedy on the subject; and I should therefore be inclined to think that he was misinformed, and that the event recorded by him never happened. As to its being _another_ Matilda Fitzwalter, it is highly preposterous to imagine. Is it likely that at the same time there should be two barons of that name and title, each having a daughter named Matilda or Maud? Davenport calls his baron the _old_ baron Fitzwater; and the father of Maid Marian is described as the _old_ baron: both must therefore have lived in the reign of Richard I., and also in that of John till their death. Indeed we have proof that the baron was alive in John’s reign, because Richard I. having restored him at the same time that he pardoned Fitzooth, _John dispossessed them both_ on his accession.

I think it therefore highly improbable that there should have been so remarkable a coincidence as _two_ barons Fitzwalter, and _two_ Matildas at the same time, and both the latter subject to the unwelcome addresses of John: consequently I cannot give credence, without _proofs_, to the incident in Davenport’s play.

I am, Sir,

respectfully yours,

“THE VEILED SPIRIT.”

_May 17, 1827._

P.S.--Since writing the above, my friend F. C. N. suggests to me, that there was a baron Fitzwalter in John’s reign, proprietor of Castle Baynard, whose daughter Matilda John saw at a tourney, and being smitten with her charms, proposed to her father for her as his mistress, (precisely the events connected with Maid Marian;) and being refused, he attacked Castle Baynard, and ultimately destroyed it. However, for the reasons I have before stated, I am decidedly of opinion, that if such a baron was proprietor of Castle Baynard, it must have been the father of Maid Marian, as I cannot suppose that there were _two_. I cannot precisely remember, nor have I any thing at hand to refer to, but I believe it was at a tourney somewhere that _prince_ John first saw _Maud_.

[235] This is an error of the poet’s. His real name was Fitz-Wa_l_ter,
i. e. _the son of Walter_.

* * * * *

_For the Table Book._

THE PHANTOM LIGHT

What phantom light from yonder lonely tower,
Glimmers yet paler than the pale moon beam;--
Breaking the darkness of the midnight hour,--
What bodes its dismal, melancholy gleam?

’Tis not the brightness of that glorious light,
That bursts in splendour from the hoary north;
’Tis not the pharos of the dangerous night,
Mid storms and winds benignly shining forth.

Still are the waves that wash this desert shore,
No breath is there to fill the fisher’s sail;
Yet round yon isle is heard the distant roar
Of billows writhing in a tempest’s gale.

Doomed are the mariners that rashly seek
To land in safety on that dreadful shore;
For once engulfed in the forbidden creek,
Their fate is sealed--they’re never heard of more.

For spirits there exert unholy sway--
When favoured by the night’s portentous gloom--
Seduce the sailor from his trackless way,
And lure the wretch to an untimely doom.

A demon tenant’s yonder lonely tower,
A dreadful compound of hell, earth, and air;
To-night he visits not his favourite bower,
So pale the light that faintly glimmers there.

In storms he seeks that solitary haunt,
And, with their lord, a grim unearthly crew;
Who, while they join in wild discordant chant,
The mystic revels of their race pursue.

But when the fiends have gained their horrid lair,
The light then bursts forth with a blood-red glare;
And phantom forms will flit along the wave
Whose corses long had tenanted the grave.

* * * * *

A GROVE

THE FORMATION OF ONE WITH A VIEW TO THE PICTURESQUE.

The prevailing character of a grove is _beauty_; fine trees are lovely objects; a grove is an assemblage of them; in which every individual retains much of its own peculiar elegance; and whatever it loses is transferred to the superior beauty of the whole. To a grove, therefore, which admits of endless variety in the disposition of the trees, differences in their shapes and their greens are seldom very important, and sometimes they are detrimental. Strong contrasts scatter trees which are thinly planted, and which have not the connection of underwood; they no longer form one plantation; they are a number of single trees. A thick grove is not indeed exposed to this mischief, and certain situations may recommend different shapes and different greens for their effects upon the _surface_; but in the _outline_ they are seldom much regarded. The eye attracted into the depth of the grove passes by little circumstances at the entrance; even varieties in the form of the line do not always engage the attention: they are not so apparent as in a continued thicket, and are scarcely seen, if they are not considerable.

But the surface and the outline are not the only circumstances to be attended to. Though a grove be beautiful as an object, it is besides delightful as a spot to walk or to sit in; and the choice and the disposition of the trees for effects _within_ are therefore a principal consideration. Mere irregularity alone will not please: strict order is there more agreeable than absolute confusion; and some meaning better than none. A regular plantation has a degree of beauty; but it gives no satisfaction, because we know that the same number of trees might be more beautifully arranged. A disposition, however, in which the lines only are broken, without varying the distances, is less natural than any; for though we cannot find straight lines in a forest, we are habituated to them in the hedge-rows of fields; but neither in wild nor in cultivated nature do we ever see trees equidistant from each other: that regularity belongs to art alone. The distances therefore should be strikingly different; the trees should gather into groups, or stand in various irregular lines, and describe several figures: the intervals between them should be contrasted both in shape and in dimensions: a large space should in some places be quite open; in others the trees should be so close together, as hardly to leave a passage between them; and in others as far apart as the connection will allow. In the forms and the varieties of these groups, these lines, and these openings, principally consists the interior beauty of a grove.

The consequence of variety in the disposition, is variety in the light and shade of the grove; which may be improved by the choice of the trees. Some are impenetrable to the fiercest sunbeam; others let in here and there a ray between the large masses of their foliage; and others, thin both of boughs and of leaves, only checker the ground. Every degree of light and shade, from a glare to obscurity, may be managed, partly by the number, and partly by the texture of the trees. Differences only in the manner of their growths have also corresponding effects; there is a closeness under those whose branches descend low and spread wide, a space and liberty where the arch above is high, and frequent transitions from the one to the other are very pleasing. These still are not all the varieties of which the interior of a grove is capable; trees, indeed, whose branches nearly reach the ground, being each a sort of thicket, are inconsistent with an open plantation; but though some of the characteristic distinctions are thereby excluded, other varieties more minute succeed in their place; for the freedom of passage throughout brings every tree in its turn near to the eye, and subjects even differences in foliage to observation. These, slight as they may seem, are agreeable when they occur; it is true they are not regretted when wanting, but a defect of ornament is not necessarily a blemish.

* * * * *

_For the Table Book._

GROVES AND HIGH PLACES.

The heathens considered it unlawful to build temples, because they thought no temple spacious enough for the sun. Hence the saying, _Mundus universus est templum solis_, “The whole world is a temple of the sun.” Thus their god Terminus, and others, were worshipped in temples open-roofed. Hills and mountains became the fittest places for their idolatry; and these consecrated hills are the “high places” so often forbidden in the sacred writings. As the number of their gods increased, so the number of their consecrated hills multiplied; and from them their gods and goddesses took names, as Mercurius Cyllenius, Venus Erycina, Jupiter Capitolinus. To beautify these holy hills, the places of their idolatrous worship, they beset them with trees; and thence arose the consecration of groves and woods, from whence also their idols were often named. At length certain choice and select trees began to be consecrated. The French magi, termed Dryadæ, worshipped the oak; the Etrurians worshipped an elm-tree; and amongst the Celtæ, a tall oak was the very idol of Jupiter.

Amongst the Israelites, idolatry began under the judges Othniel and Ehud, and became so common, that they had peculiar priests, whom they termed the prophets of the grove and idols of the grove.

Christians, in the consecration of their churches, make special choice of peculiar saints, by whose name they are called. The heathens consecrated their groves to peculiar idols; whence in profane authors we read of Diana Nemorensis, Diana Arduenna, Albunea Dea, &c., all receiving their names from the groves in which they were worshipped. The idol itself is sometimes called a grove--“Josiah brought out _the grove_ from the house of the Lord.” It is probable, that in this idol was portraited the form and similitude of a grove, and that from thence it was called a grove, as those similitudes of Diana’s temple, made by Demetrius, were termed temples of Diana.

These customs appear exemplified by inscriptions on coins, medals, in church-yards, and the various buildings commemorated by marble, flowers, and durable and perishing substances.

J. R. P.

⁂ The groves round London within a few years have been nearly destroyed by the speculating builders.

* * * * *

J. R. P.’s note may be an excuse for observing, that the “grove” best known, perhaps, to the inhabitants of London is that at Camberwell--a spacious roadway and fine walks, above half a mile in length, between rows of stately trees, from the beginning of the village and ascending the hill to its summit, from whence there is, or rather was, the finest burst of scenery the eye can look upon within the same distance from London. The view is partially obstructed by new buildings, and the character of the “grove” itself has been gradually injured by the breaking up of the adjacent grounds and meadows into brick-fields, and the flanking of its sides with town-like houses. This grove has been the theme of frequent song. Dr. Lettsom first gave celebrity to it by his writings, and pleasant residence on its eastern extremity; and it was further famed by Mr. Maurice in an elegant poem, with delightful engravings on wood. After the death of the benevolent physician, and before the decease of the illustrator of “Indian Antiquities,” much of the earth, consecrated by their love and praise, “passed through the fire” in sacrifice to the Moloch of improvement. In a year or two “Grove Hill” may be properly named “Grove Street.”

Hampstead, however, is the “place of groves;”--how long it may remain so is a secret in the bosom of speculators and builders. Its first grove, townward, is the noble private avenue from the Hampstead-road to Belsize-house, in the valley between Primrose hill and the hill whereon the church stands, with Mr. Memory-Corner Thompson’s remarkable house and lodge at the corner of the pleasant highway to the little village of West-end. In the neighbourhood of Hampstead church, and between that edifice and the heath, there are several old groves. Winding southwardly from the heath, there is a charming little grove in Well Walk, with a bench at the end; whereon I last saw poor Keats, the poet of the “Pot of Basil,” sitting and sobbing his dying breath into a handkerchief,--gleaning parting looks towards the quiet landscape he had delighted in--musing, as in his Ode to a Nightingale.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,--
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm south,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow

----From Beckenham church we walked about two miles along a nearly straight road, fenced off from the adjoining lands, till we reached West Wickham. It was from a painted window in this church that I made the tracing of St. Catherine engraved in the _Every-Day Book_, where some mention is made of the retired situation of this village.

“Wickham Court,” the ancient manor-house adjacent to the church, was formerly the residence of Gilbert West, the translator of Pindar, and author of the “Observations on the Resurrection of Christ.” for which the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws. “He was very often visited by Lyttelton and Pitt, who, when they were weary of faction and debates, used, at Wickham, to find books and quiet, a decent table, and literary conversation.”[236] It was in West’s society, at Wickham, that lord Lyttelton was convinced of the truth of Christianity. Under that conviction he wrote his celebrated “Dissertation on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul,” which, until the appearance of Paley’s “Horæ Paulina,” was an unrivalled treatise. Mr. Pitt, (the great earl of Chatham,) during his intimacy with West, formed a walk at Wickham Court. In a summer-house of the grounds, Mr. West inscribed the following lines, in imitation of Ausonius, a Latin poet of the fourth century, “Ad Villam:”--

Not wrapt in smoky London’s sulphurous clouds,
And not far distant stands my rural cot;
Neither obnoxious to intruding crowds,
Nor for the good and friendly too remote.

And when too much repose brings on the spleen,
Or the gay city’s idle pleasures cloy;
Swift as my changing wish I change the scene,
And row the country, now the town enjoy.

The ancient manor of West Wickham was vested in sir Samuel Lennard, bart., from whom it passed to his daughter Mary, the present dowager lady Farnaby, who resides in the manor-house, and with whose permission we were permitted a look at the hall of the mansion, which contains in the windows some painted remains of armorial bearings on glass, removed from the windows of the church. A view in Hasted’s “History of Kent” represents the towers of this mansion to have been surmounted by sextagon cones, terminated at the top with the fleur de lis, a bearing in the family arms; these pinnacles have been taken down, the roofs of the towers flattened, and the walls castellated. By a charter of free warren, in the eleventh year of Edward II., a weekly market was granted to West Wickham, but it is no longer held, and Wickham, as a town, has lost its importance.

The manor-house and church are distant from the village about half a mile, with an intervening valley beautifully pleasant, in which is a road from Hayes Common to Addington and Croydon. The church is on a hill, with an old lich-gate, like that at Beckenham, though not so large. At this spot W. sat down, and made the sketch here represented by his graver. Although I had been in the edifice before, I could not avoid another visit to it. At the north-east corner, near the communion table, are many ancient figured tiles sadly neglected, loose in the pavement; some displaced and lying one upon the other. Worst of all,--and I mean offence to no one, but surely there is blame somewhere,--the ancient stone font, which is in all respects perfect, has been removed from its original situation, and is thrown into a corner. In its place, at the west end, from a nick (not a niche) between the seats, a little trivet-like iron bracket swings in and out, and upon it is a wooden hand-bowl, such as scullions use in a kitchen sink; and in this hand-bowl, of about twelve inches diameter, called a font, I found a common blue-and-white Staffordshire-ware halfpint basin. It might be there still; but, while inveighing to my friend W. against the depravation of the fine old font, and the substitution of such a paltry modicum, in my vehemence I fractured the crockery. I felt that I was angry, and, perhaps, I sinned; but I made restitution beyond the extent that would replace the baptismal slop-basin.

The fragments of old painted glass in the windows of this church are really fine. The best are, St. Anne teaching the virgin to read; whole lengths of St. Christopher wading, with the infant Saviour beating the globe in his hand; an elderly female saint, very good; and a skeleton with armour before him. Some years ago, collectors of curiosities paid their attentions to these windows, and carried off specimens: since then wires have been put up on the outside. On the walls are hung pennons, with an iron helmet, sword, spurs, gloves, and other remains of a funereal pageant. A small organ stands on the floor: the partitions of some of the pewings are very ancient.

*

[236] Dr. Johnson.

* * * * *

~Topography.~

GODSTOW NUNNERY,

NEAR OXFORD.

The wild-flower waves, in lonely bloom,
On Godstow’s desolated wall:
There thin shades flit through twilight gloom,
And murmured accents feebly fall.
The aged hazel nurtures there
Its hollow fruit, so seeming fair,
And lightly throws its humble shade,
Where Rosamonda’s form is laid,

The rose of earth, the sweetest flower
That ever graced a monarch’s breast,
In vernal beauty’s loveliest hour,
Beneath that sod was laid to rest.
In vain the bower of love around
The Dædalëan path was wound:
Alas! that jealous hate should find
The clue for love alone designed!

The venomed bowl,--the mandate dire,--
The menaced steel’s uplifted glare,--
The tear, that quenched the blue eye’s fire,--
The humble, ineffectual prayer:--
All these shall live, recorded long
In tragic and romantic song,
And long a moral charm impart,
To melt and purify the heart.
A nation’s gem, a monarch’s pride.
In youth, in loveliness, she died:
The morning sun’s ascending ray
Saw none so fair, so blest, so gay:
Ere evening came, her funeral knell
Was tolled by Godstow’s convent bell.

The marble tomb, the illumined shrine,
Their ineffectual splendour gave:
Where slept in earth the maid divine.
The votive silk was seen to wave.
To her, as to a martyred saint.
His vows the weeping pilgrim poured
The drooping traveller, sad and faint,
Knelt there, and found his strength restored:
To that fair shrine, in solemn hour,
Fond youths and blushing maidens came.
And gathered from its mystic power
A brighter, purer, holier flame:
The lightest heart with awe could feel
The charm her hovering spirit shed
But superstition’s impious zeal
Distilled its venom on the dead!

The illumined shrine has passed away;
The sculptured stone in dust is laid:
But when the midnight breezes play
Amid the barren hazel’s shade,
The lone enthusiast, lingering near,
The youth, whom slighted passion grieves,
Through fancy’s magic spell may hear
A spirit in the whispering leaves;
And dimly see, while mortals sleep,
Sad forms of cloistered maidens move,
The transient dreams of life to weep,
The fading flowers of youth and love!

NOTE.

A small chapel, and a wall, enclosing an ample space, are all now remaining of the Benedictine nunnery at Godstow. A hazel grows near the chapel, the fruit of which is always apparently perfect, but is invariably found to be hollow.

This nunnery derives its chief interest from having been the burial-place of Rosamond. The principal circumstances of her story are thus related by Stowe: “Rosamond, the fair daughter of Walter lord Clifford, concubine to Henry II., (poisoned by queen Eleanor, as some thought,) died at Woodstock, (A. D. 1177,) where king Henry had made for her a house of wonderful working; so that no man or woman might come to her, but he that was instructed by the king, or such as were right secret with him touching the matter. This house, after some, was named Labyrinthus, or Dædalus work, which was wrought like unto a knot in a garden, called a maze: but it was commonly said, that lastly the queen came to her by a clue of thread, or silk, and so dealt with her, that she lived not long after: but when she was dead, she was buried at Godstow, in a house of nuns, beside Oxford, with these verses upon her tomb:

“Hic jacet in tumbâ, Rosa mundi, non Rosa munda:
Non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet.”

After her death, she appears to have been considered as a saint, from the following inscription on a stone cross, which, Leland says, was erected near the nunnery:

Qui meat huc, oret, signumque salutis adoret,
Utque sibi detur veniam, Rosamunda precetur.

A fanatical priest, Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, visiting the nunnery at Godstow, and observing a tomb covered with silk, and splendidly illuminated, which he found, on inquiry, to be the tomb of Rosamond, commanded her to be taken up, and buried without the church, lest the Christian religion should grow into contempt. This brutal order was instantly obeyed: but “the chaste sisters,” says Speed, “gathered her bones, and put them in a perfumed bag, enclosing them so in lead, and laid them again in the church, under a fair large grave-stone, about whose edges a fillet of brass was inlaid, and thereon written her name and praise: these bones were at the suppression of the nunnery so found.”[237]

* * * * *

ST. MARY MAGDALEN, BERMONDSEY, SURREY.

In the parish register of this church is the following very singular entry:

“The forme of a solemn vowe made betwixt a man and his wife, having
been long absent, through which occasion the woman being married to
another man, took her again as followeth:

THE MAN’S SPEECH.

“Elizabeth, my beloved wife, I am right sorie that I have so long absented myself from thee, whereby thou shouldst be occasioned to take another man to be thy husband. Therefore I do now vowe and promise, in the sight of God and this company, to take thee again as mine owne; and will not onlie forgive thee, but also dwell with thee, and do all other duties unto thee, as I promised at our marriage.”

THE WOMAN’S SPEECH.

“Raphe, my beloved husband, I am righte sorie that I have in thy absence taken another man to be my husband; but here, before God and this companie, I do renounce and forsake him, and do promise to keep mysealfe only to thee duringe life, and to performe all the duties which I first promised to thee in our marriage.”

Then follows a short occasional prayer, and the entry concludes
thus:--

“The first day of August, 1601, Raphe Goodchilde, of the parish of Barking, in Thames-street, and Elizabeth, his wife, were agreed to live together, and thereupon gave their hands one to another, making either of them a solemn vow so to do in the presence of us,

“WILLIAM STERE,--_Parson_.

“EDWARD COKER; and

“RICHARD EYERS,--_Clerk_.”

* * * * *

There is also in the same register the following entry:--

“James Herriot, Esq. and Elizabeth Josey, gent. were married June 4th,
1624-5.--N. B. This James Herriott was one of the _forty_ children of
his father, a Scotchman.”

_Query._--Was this James Herriot related to George Heriot, the munificent founder of the hospital at Edinburgh, who died at London in January of the same year?

* * * * *

BROUGH, WESTMORELAND.

The church at Brough is a pretty large handsome building. The steeple is not so old; having been built about the year 1513, under the direction of Thomas Blenkinsop, of Helbeck, Esq. There are in it four excellent bells, by much the largest in the county, except the great bell at Kirkby Thore. Concerning these bells at Brough, there is a tradition that they were given by one _Brunskill_, who lived upon Stanemore, in the remotest part of the parish, and had a great many cattle. One time it happened that his bull fell a bellowing, which, in the dialect of the country, is called _cruning_, (this being the Saxon word to denote that vociferation.) Whereupon he said to one of his neighbours, “Hearest thou how loud this bull crunes? If these cattle should all crune together, might they not be heard from Brough hither?” He answered, “Yea.” “Well, then,” says _Brunskill_, “I’ll make them all crune together.” And he sold them all; and with the price thereof he bought the said bells, (or perhaps he might get the old bells new cast and made larger.)--There is a monument in the church, in the south wall, between the highest and second windows, under which, it is said, the said _Brunskill_ was the last that was interred.

The pulpit is of stone. There was heretofore a handsome _reading desk_, given by sir _Cuthbert Buckle_, knight, vintner in London, who was born upon Stanemore in this parish, and was lord mayor of London in the year 1593. His name was upon the desk thus:--“By Cuthbert Buckle, Anno Domini 1576.” He built also a bridge upon Stanemore, which still bears the name of _Buckle’s Bridge_; and gave eight pounds a year to a school upon Stanemore.

[237] From the “Genius of the Thames, a Lyrical Poem, with Notes, by
Thomas Love Peacock,” 1810.

* * * * *

_For the Table Book._

TO MY PSEUDO-MUSE.

Hence, thou tormenting wayward Being!
For ever courting, trifling, spreeing.
Thou _Erysipelas_ of thrall:
For ever, with thine addled hatch,
I’ll shun thee as an arrant Scratch,
Unworthy to be scratched at all.

Thy Sonnets, staves, and stanzas rhyming
To every key, to every chiming,
St. _Vitus’ Dance_ is ease to Thee:
Thou shalt no more provoke my Quill
To deeds of labour, or of skill,
Thou _cacoëthes mise-re_.

Promethean fire--Parnassus smiling,
Helicon’s spirituous drops beguiling,--
Where’er thou com’st--whate’er thou be:
The _Vagrant Act_ may take thee in;
I’ll drive thee out as Satan’s sin
Thou worse than _fire of Anthony_.

Hence Jade! tormentress of the feelings;--
Thou _Witch of End-or_ like revealings:--
Go--haunt the brains, not frenzy past:
I’ll haste to Monmouth Street and buy
A suit of Prose--then joyful cry
_Ecce Stultus!_ grown wise at last.

If thou shou’d’st to my brain-door, knocking,
Come with thy wheedling-pamby, mocking;
I’ll catch thee _vi et armis_:--then
By Habeas Corpus to the Pleas--
--_Sure_ I will rob thee of degrees,
And scare thee from my _Smithfield Pen_.

If I’m asleep--then thou art waiting,
Angler-like, with thy couplets baiting,
To drag my crazy thought to light:
Awake! thy float, with stanza-hook,
Is ever dipping in _Mal-Brook_--
I’ll brook no more--if sense is right.

*, *, P.

* * * * *

BATHING.

I do not know any author who has reckoned man among the amphibious race of animals; neither do I know any animal that better deserves it. Man is lord of the little ball on which he treads, one half of which, at least, is water. If we do not allow him to be amphibious, we deprive him of half his sovereignty. He justly bears that name, who can _live_ in the water. Many of the disorders incident to the human frame are prevented, and others cured, both by fresh and salt bathing; so that we may properly remark, “_He lives in the water_ who can find life, nay, even _health_ in that friendly element.”

The greatest treasure on earth is health; but a treasure, of all others, the least valued by the owner. Other property is best rated when in possession, but this can only be rated when lost. We sometimes observe a man, who, having lost this inestimable jewel, seeks it with an ardour equal to its worth; but when every research by land is eluded, he fortunately finds it in the water. Like the fish, he pines away upon shore, but, like that, recovers again in the deep.

The cure of disease among the Romans, by bathing, is supported by many authorities; among others, by the number of baths frequently discovered, in which pleasure, in that warm climate, bore a part. But this practice seemed to decline with Roman freedom, and never after held the eminence it deserved. Can we suppose the physician slept between the disease and the bath to hinder their junction; or, that he lawfully holds by prescription the tenure of sickness in _fee_?[238]

[238] W. Hutton.

* * * * *

~Rural Sports.~

ANGLING.

When genial spring a living warmth bestows,
And o’er the year her verdant mantle throws,
No swelling inundation hides the grounds,
But crystal currents glide within their bounds;
The finny brood their wonted haunts forsake,
Float in the sun, and skim along the lake,
With frequent leap they range the shallow streams,
Their silver coats reflect the dazzling beams.
Now let the fisherman his toils prepare,
And arm himself with every wat’ry snare;
His hooks, his lines peruse with careful eye,
Increase his tackle, and his rode retie.

When floating clouds their spongy fleeces drain
Troubling the streams with swift-descending rain,
And waters tumbling down the mountain’s side,
Bear the loose soil into the swelling tide;
Then, soon as vernal gales begin to rise,
And drive the liquid burthen thro’ the skies,
The fisher to the neighbouring current speeds,
Whose rapid surface purls, unknown to weeds;
Upon a rising border of the brook
He sits him down, and ties the treach’rous hook;
Now expectation cheers his eager thought,
His bosom glows with treasures yet uncaught;
Before his eyes a banquet seems to stand,
Where every guest applauds his skilful hand.

Far up the stream the twisted hair he throws,
Which down the murm’ring current gently flows;
When if or chance, or hunger’s pow’rful sway,
Directs the roving trout this fatal way,
He greedily sucks in the twining bait,
And tugs and nibbles the fallacious meat:
Now, happy fisherman, now twitch the line!
How thy rod bends! behold, the prize is thine
Cast on the bank, he dies with gasping pains,
And trickling blood his silver mail distains.

You must not ev’ry worm promiscuous use,
Judgment will tell thee proper bait to choose;
The worm that draws a long immod’rate size
The trout abhors, and the rank morsel flies;
And if too small, the naked fraud’s in sight,
And fear forbids, while hunger does invite.
Those baits will best reward the fisher’s pains,
Whose polish’d tails a shining yellow stains:
Cleanse them from filth, to give a tempting gloss,
Cherish the sully’d reptile race with moss;
Amid the verdant bed they twine, they toil,
And from their bodies wipe their native soil.

But when the sun displays his glorious beams,
And shallow rivers flow with silver streams,
Then the deceit the scaly breed survey,
Bask in the sun, and look into the day.
You now a more delusive art must try,
And tempt their hunger with the curious fly.

To frame the little animal, provide
All the gay hues that wait on female pride:
Let nature guide thee; sometimes golden wire
The shining bellies of the fly require;
The peacock’s plumes thy tackle must not fail,
Nor the dear purchase of the sable’s tail.
Each gaudy bird some slender tribute brings,
And lends the growing insect proper wings:
Silks of all colours must their aid impart,
And ev’ry fur promote the fisher’s art.
So the gay lady, with expensive care,
Borrows the pride of land, of sea, and air;
Furs, pearls, and plumes, the glittering thing displays,
Dazzles our eyes, and easy hearts betrays.

Mark well the various seasons of the year,
How the succeeding insect race appear;
In this revolving moon one colour reigns,
Which in the next the fickle trout disdains
Oft have I seen a skilful angler try
The various colours of the treach’rous fly;
When he with fruitless pain hath skimm’d the brook,
And the coy fish rejects the skipping hook,
He shakes the boughs that on the margin grow,
Which o’er the stream a waving forest throw;
When if an insect fall, (his certain guide)
He gently takes him from the whirling tide;
Examines well his form with curious eyes,
His gaudy vest, his wings, his horns, and size.
Then round his hook the chosen fur he winds,
And on the back a speckled feather binds;
So just the colours shine thro’ every part,
That Nature seems to live again in art,
Let not thy wary steps advance too near,
While all thy hope hangs on a single hair:
The new-form’d insect on the water moves,
The speckled trout the curious snare approves;
Upon the curling surface let it glide,
With nat’ral motion from thy hand supply’d.
Against the stream now gently let it play,
Now in the rapid eddy roll away.
The scaly shoals float by, and seiz’d with fear,
Behold their fellows toss’d in thinner air;
But soon they leap, and catch the swimming bait,
Plunge on the hook, and share an equal fate.

When a brisk gale against the current blows,
And all the wat’ry plain in wrinkles flows,
Then let the fisherman his art repeat,
Where bubbling eddies favour the deceit.
If an enormous salmon chance to spy
The wanton errors of the floating fly,
He lifts his silver gills above the flood,
And greedily sucks in th’ unfaithful food;
Then downward plunges with the fraudful prey,
And bears with joy the little spoil away.
Soon in smart pain he feels the dire mistake,
Lashes the wave, and beats the foamy lake:
With sudden rage he now aloft appears,
And in his eye convulsive anguish bears;
And now again, impatient of the wound,
He rolls and wreaths his shining body round;
Then headlong shoots beneath the dashing tide,
The trembling fins the boiling wave divide;
Now hope exalts the fisher’s beating heart,
Now he turns pale, and fears his dubious art;
He views the tumbling fish with longing eyes;
While the line stretches with th’ unwieldy prize;
Each motion humours with his steady hands,
And one slight hair the mighty bulk commands:
Till tir’d at last, despoil’d of all his strength,
The game athwart the stream unfolds his length.
He now, with pleasure, views the gasping prize
Gnash his sharp teeth, and roll his blood-shot eyes,
Then draws him to the shore, with artful care,
And lifts his nostrils in the sick’ning air:
Upon the burthen’d stream he floating lies,
Stretching his quivering fins, and gasping dies.

Would you preserve a num’rous finny race?
Let your fierce dogs the rav’nous otter chase;
Th’ amphibious monster ranges all the shores,
Darts through the waves, and ev’ry haunt explores;
Or let the gin his roving steps betray,
And save from hostile jaws the scaly prey.

I never wander where the bordering reeds
O’erlook the muddy stream, whose tangling weeds
Perplex the fisher; I, nor choose to bear
The thievish nightly net, nor barbed spear;
Nor drain I ponds the golden carp to take,
Nor troll for pikes, dispeoplers of the lake.
Around the steel no tortur’d worm shall twine,
No blood of living insect stain my line;
Let me, less cruel, cast the feather’d hook,
With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook,
Silent along the mazy margin stray,
And with the fur-wrought fly delude the prey.

_Gay._

* * * * *

GOOD-LIVING.

A DOMESTIC SCENE.

_Gent._ I wish, my dear, you would not keep the carriage an hour always at the door, when we go to a party.

_Lady._ Surely, my dear, it could not have waited half so long; and that was owing to the unusual length of our rubber.

_Gent._ I feel exceedingly unwell this evening, my head aches confoundedly, and my stomach is very uneasy.

_Lady._ You know, my dear, Mr. Abernethy told you, that after such a severe fit you ought to be very careful and moderate in your living.

_Gent._ Mr. Abernethy is a fool. Can any body be more moderate than I am? you would have me live upon water-gruel, I suppose. The rich pudding, indeed, that Mrs. Belcour made me eat, might possibly not have sat quite easy on the soup, and the salmon, and the chicken and ham, and the harrico, and the turkey and sausages; or, it is possible, the patties I eat before dinner might not perfectly agree with me, for I had by no means a good appetite when I sat down to dinner.

_Lady._ And then, you know, you eat so many cakes, and such a quantity of almonds and raisins, and oranges after dinner.

_Gent._ How could I have got down Belcour’s insufferable wine, that tasted of the cork, like the fag bottle at a tavern dinner, without eating something?

_Lady._ And I am sure you drank a glass of Madeira with every mouthful almost at dinner; for I observed you.

_Gent._ Why how could one swallow such ill-dressed things, half cold too, without drinking? I can’t conceive what makes me feel so unwell this evening; these flatulencies will certainly kill me. It must be the easterly wind we have had for these three days that affects me: indeed, most of my acquaintance are complaining, and the doctors say, disorders are very prevalent now.----What can I _have_? John, make me a tumbler of brandy and water--make it strong, and put ginger enough in it. I have not the least appetite--what _can_ I have?

_Lady._ There is ham, and, I believe, some chicken--

_Gent._ Why, do you think I have the stomach of a ploughman, that I can eat such insipid things! Is there nothing else?

_Lady._ There is a loin of pork--perhaps you could relish a chop, nicely done?

_Gent._ _Why_, if it _was_ nicely done, _very_ nicely, perhaps I _could_; I’ll _try_--but remember it must be done _to a moment_, or I shan’t be able to touch it--and made _hot_--and some nice gravy. Confound these parties!--could any thing be more stupid. While Martin was sleeping on one side of me, there was Bernard on the other did nothing but bore me about his horses, and his wines, and his pictures, till I wished them all at old Harry--I think I shall have done with parties.

_Lady._ I am sure, my dear, they are no pleasure to me; and, if they were, I pay dear enough for it: for you generally come home in an ill humour--and your health and your pocket too suffer for it. Your _last_ bill came to more than ninety pounds, besides your expenses at Cheltenham--and the _next_ thing, I suppose, will be a voyage to Madeira, or Lisbon--and then what will _become_ of us?

_Gent._ What, do you grudge me the necessaries of life? It is I that am the sufferer--

_Lady._ Not entirely so: I am sure I feel the effects of it, and so do the servants. Your temper is so entirely changed, that the poor children are afraid to go near you--you make every body about you miserable, and you know Smith lost his cause from your not being able to attend at the last assizes, which will be nearly the ruin of him and his family. Two days before you were tolerably well, but after you had dined at ----’s, you were laid up.

_Gent._ Nay, I was as much concerned at it as any body could be; and I think I had reason to be so, for I lost three hundred pounds myself--but who can help illness? Is it not a visitation of Providence? I am sure nobody can live more temperately than I do--do you ever see me drunk? A’n’t I as regular as clockwork? Indeed, my dear, if you cannot talk more rationally, you had better go to bed. John! why don’t you bring the brandy and water! and see if the chop is ready; if I am not better in the morning, I am sure I shall not be able to attend my appointment in the city----

* * * * *

There will always be a few ready to receive the hints of experience, and to them only can this scene be useful.

* * * * *

DRINKING.

Lime applied to trees makes them put forth leaves and flourish, and produce fruit early, but then it kills them. Wine cheers and stimulates men, and makes them thrust forth flowers of wit; but, then, there is no doubt it shortens life.[239]

[239] Perron.

* * * * *

KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD

BY ST. EVREMOND.

The first thing by which we know men, is the physiognomy, the colour, and the lineaments of the face; the briskness, the air, the motion of the body, the action, the sound of the voice, the aspect, &c.: and there is no man, but at first sight we are either well or ill affected towards him. Every man makes some impressions upon us of what he is; but these impressions, being sudden, are not always certain, a little frequent conversation with him perfects our knowledge of him.

Hear the man with whom you keep company; endeavour to draw him in to make a long discourse, and then you will easily perceive the greatness or meanness of his wit, his civility, his inclination to vice or virtue, and to what kind of vice or virtue he is most inclined; whether he be sincere in his speech or a man of artifice; whether he aggravates matters, if he be a liar, or a proud man, and to what degree he carries his good or bad qualities.

Study well the persons with whom you converse familiarly, and with least circumspection. Examine them when they are sedate, in an obliging humour; and when they are in anger, in a disdainful and morose humour. When something vexes or pleases them, observe them in their sorrow and disgrace, in their pleasures, in their advancement, and in their humiliation. Be attentive to their discourse in all these several states, consider their behaviour, their sentiments, their projects, and the different motions which their passions, their ranks, and their affairs, produce in them.

Moreover, endeavour also to know yourself very well; consider in all the different states, wherein good or bad fortune has placed you, the designs which you pursue, and the resolutions for doing good or evil, you are capable of making. These several observations upon yourself and others will infallibly make you know mankind. And the reason of it is this:--all men, and even philosophers themselves, are, more or less, subject to the same passions, and all of them think very nearly after the same manner.