If red his eye with study, If pale with care his cheek, To make them bright and ruddy, The quiet that it needeth His mind shall there obtain ; And relief from care, that feedeth Alike on heart and brain. Urged by this feeling, I rambled along the Old Kent Road, making my way through the Saturnalian groups, collected by that mob-emancipating-time Easter Monday; wearied with the dust, and the exclamations of the multitude, I turned down the lane leading to the fields, near the place wherein the fair of Peckham is held, and sought for quietness in their greenness and found it not. Instead of verdure, there were rows of dwellings of plain brown brick," and a half-formed road, from whence the feet of man and horse impregnated the air with stifling atoms of vitrified dust. Proceeding over the Rye, up the lane at the side of Forest-hill, I 66 found the solitude I needed. The sun was just setting; his parting glance came from between the branches of the trees, like the mild light of a lover's eye, from her long dark lashes, when she receives the adieu of her beloved, and the promise of meeting on the morrow. The air was cool and fitful, playing with the leaves, as not caring to stir them; and as I strayed, the silence was broken by the voice of a bird-it was the tit-lark. I recognised his beautiful 66 weet and "fe-er," as he dropped from the poplar among the soft grass; and I lingered near the wood, in the hope of hearing the nightingale-but he had not arrived, or was disposed to quiet. Evening closed over me the hour came When darker shades around us thrown Retracing my steps, I reached that field timed music-the "cheer che-er," "weet, The greenness of the spring, and all its flowers; He had survived them, and had evaded the April 16, 1827. S. R. J. THE VOICE OF SPRING. I come, I come! ye have call'd me long; I have breath'd on the south, and the chestnut flowers which stretches from the back of the Rose- I have pass'd o'er the hills of the stormy north, From the streams and founts I have loos'd the chain, Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come! Away from the dwellings of care-worn men, MRS. HEMANS. MOTHERING SUNDAY. For the Table Book. To the accounts in the Every-Day Book of the observance of Mid Lent, or "Mothering Sunday," I would add, that the day is scrupulously observed in this city and neighbourhood; and, indeed, I believe generally in the western parts of England. The festival is kept here much in the same way as the 6th of January is with you: that day is passed over in silence with us. All who consider themselves dutiful children, or who wish to be so considered by others, on this day make presents to their mother, and hence derived the name of "Mothering Sunday." The family all assemble; and, if the day prove fine, proceed, after church, to the neighbouring village to eat frumerty. The higher classes partake of it at their own houses, and in the evening come the cake and wine. Mothering cakes" are very highly ornamented, artists being employed to paint them. This social meeting does not seem confined to the middling or lower orders; none, happily, deem themselves too high to be good and amiable. The " The custom is of great antiquity; and long, long may it be prevalent amongst us. Your constant reader, JUVENIS (N.) Bristol, March 28, 1827. Defoeana. No. II. MIXED BREEDS; OR, EDUCATION THROWN AWAY. I came into a public-house once in London, where there was a black Mulattolooking man sitting, talking very warmly among some gentlemen, who I observed were listening very attentively to what he said; and I sat myself down, and did the like; 'twas with great pleasure I heard him discourse very handsomely on several weighty subjects; I found he was a very good scholar, had been very handsomely bred, and that learning and study was his delight; and more than that, some of the best of science was at that time his employment at length I took the freedom to ask him, if he was born in England? He replied with a great deal of good humour, but with an excess of resentment at his father, and with tears in his eyes, "Yes, yes, sir, I am a true born Englishman, to my father's shame be it spoken; who, being an Englishman himself, could find in his heart to join himself to a negro woman, though he must needs know, the children he should beget, would curse the memory of such an action, and abhor his very name for the sake of it. Yes, yes, (said he repeating it again,) I am an Englishman, and born in lawful wedlock; happy it had been for me, though my father had gone to the devil for wh-m, had he lain with a cook-maid, or produced me from the meanest beggar in the street. My father might do the duty of nature to his black wife; but, God knows, he did no justice to his children. If it had not been for this black face of mine, (says he, then smiling,) I had been bred to the law, or brought up in the study of divinity: but my father gave me learning to no manner of purpose; for he knew I should never be able to rise by it to any thing but a learned valet de chambre. What he put me to school for I cannot imagine; he spoiled a good tarpawling, when he strove to make me a gentleman. When he had resolved to marry a slave, and lie with a slave, he should have begot slaves, and let us have been bred as we were born but he has twice ruined me; first with getting me a frightful face, and then going to paint a gentleman upon me. -It was a most affecting discourse indeed, and as such I record it; and I found it ended in tears from the person, who was : in himself the most deserving, modest, and judicious man, that I ever met with, under a negro countenance, in my life. CHINESE IDOL. It had a thing instead of a head, but no head; it had a mouth distorted out of all manner of shape, and not to be described for a mouth, being only an unshapen chasm, neither representing the mouth of a man, beast, fowl, or fish: the thing was neither any of the four, but an incongruous monster: it had feet, hands, fingers, claws, legs, arms, wings, ears, horns, every thing mixed one among another, neither in the shape or place that nature appointed, but blended together, and fixed to a bulk, not a body; formed of no just parts, but a shape less trunk or log; whether of wood, or stone, I know not; a thing that might have stood with any side forward, or any side backward, any end upward, or any end downward; that had as much veneration due to it on one side, as on the other; a kind of celestial hedgehog, that was rolled up within itself, and was every thing every way; formed neither to walk, stand, go, nor fly; neither to see, hear, nor speak; but merely to instil ideas of something nauseous and abominable into the minds of men that adored it. MANNERS OF A LONDON WATERMAN, AND HIS FARE, A HUN DRED YEARS AGO. What I have said last [of the Manners of a spruce London Mercer,*] makes me think on another way of inviting customers, the most distant in the world from what I have been speaking of, I mean that which is practised by the watermen, especially on those whom by their mien and garb they know to be peasants. It is not unpleasant to see half a dozen people surround a man they never saw in their lives before, and two of them that can get the nearest, clapping each an arm over his neck, hug him in as loving and familiar a manner as if he were their brother newly come home from an East India voyage; a third lays hold of his hand, another of his sleeve, his coat, the buttons of it, or any thing he can come at, whilst a fifth or a sixth, who has scampered twice round him already without being able to get at him, plants himself directly before the man in hold, and within three See Table Book, p. 567. inches of his nose, contradicting his rivals with an open-mouthed cry, shows him a dreadful set of large teeth, and a small remainder of chewed bread and cheese, which the countryman's arrival had hindered from being swallowed. At all this no offence is taken, and the peasant justly thinks they are making much of him; there fore far from opposing them he patiently which way the strength that surrounds him suffers himself to be pushed or pulled shall direct. He has not the delicacy to find fault with a man's breath, who has just blown out his pipe, or a greasy head dirt and sweat he has been used to from of hair that is rubbing against his chaps: his cradle, and it is no disturbance to him to hear half a score people, some of them from him, bawl out as if he was a hundred at his ear, and the furthest not five feet yards off: he is conscious that he makes no less noise when he is merry himself, and is secretly pleased with their boisterous usages. The hawling and pulling him about he construes in the way it is intended; it is a courtship he can feel and understand he can't help wishing them well for the esteem they seem to have for him: he loves to be taken notice of, and admires the Londoners for being so pressing in their offers of service to him, for the value of threepence or less; whereas in the coun try, at the shop he uses, he can have nothing but he must first tell them what he wants, and, though he lays out three or four shillings at a time, has hardly a word spoke to him unless it be in answer to a question himself is forced to ask first. This alacrity in his behalf moves his gratitude, and unwilling to disoblige any, from his heart he knows not whom to choose. I have seen a man think all this, or something like it, as plainly as I could see the nose on his face; and at the same time move along very contentedly under a load of watermen, and with a smiling countenance carry seven or eight stone more than his own weight, to the water side. Fable of the Bees: 1725. Mày. MAY GOSLINGS.-MAY BATHERS. For the Table Book. On the first of May, the juvenile inhabitants of Skipton, in Craven, Yorkshire, have a similar custom to the one in general use on the first of April. Not content with making their companions fools on one day, JOHN JOHNSON." follows:-First, the fiddler, playing as well The performers then came forward, as as he could on an old fiddle, "See the conquering hero comes;" next, four men, two abreast, disguised with matting, rags, &c. so as to completely prevent them from being recognised, each armed with a boathook; then came Neptune himself, also disguised, mounted on the carriage of the largest gun in the ship, and followed by the barber, barber's mate, swab-bearer, shaving-box carrier, and as many of the ship's company as chose to join them, dressed in such a grotesque manner as to beggar all description. Arrived on the quarter-deck they were met by the captain, SAILORS ON THE FIRST OF MAY. when his briny majesty immediately dis For the Table Book. Sir,-You have described the ceremony adopted by our sailors, of shaving all nautical tyros on crossing the line,* but perhaps you are not aware of a custom which prevails annually on the first of May, in the whale-fishery at Greenland and Davis's Straits. I therefore send you an account of the celebration which took place on board the Neptune of London, in Greenland, 1824, of which ship I was surgeon at that period. Previous to the ship's leaving her port, the sailors collected from their wives, and other female friends, ribands "for the garland," of which great care was taken until a few days previous to the first of May, when all hands were engaged in preparing the said garland, with a model of the ship. The garland was made of a hoop, taken from one of the beef casks; this hoop, decorated with ribands, was fastened to a stock of wood, of about four feet in length, and a model of the ship, prepared by the carpenter, was fastened above the hoop to the top of the stock, in such a manner as to answer the purpose of a vane. The first of May arrives; the tyros were kept from between decks, and all intruders excluded while the principal performers got ready the necessary apparatus and dresses. The barber was the boatswain, the barber's • Every-Day Book, vol. ii. mounted, and the following dialogue ensued: : Nept. Are you the captain of this ship, sir? Capt. I am. Nept. What's the name of your ship? Nept. What is your name? Nept. You are engaged in the whale fishery? Capt. I am. Nept. Well, I hope I shall drink your honour's health, and I wish you a prosperous fishery. [Here the captain presented him with three quarts of rum.] Nept. (filling a glass.) Here's health to you, captain, and success to our cause. Have you got any fresh-water sailors on board? for if you have, I must christen them, so as to make them useful to our king and country. Capt. We have eight of them on board at your service; I therefore wish you good morning. The procession then returned in the same manner as it came, the candidates for nautical fame following in the rear; after descending the fore-hatchway they congregated between decks, when all the offerings to Neptune were given to the deputy, (the cook,) consisting of whiskey, tobacco, &c. The barber then stood ready with his box of lather, and the landsmen were ordered before Neptune, when the following dialogue took place with each, only with the alteration of the man's name, as follows: Nept. (to another.) What is your name? Nept. Where do you come from? Nept. Have you ever been to sea before? Nept. Where are you going to? At each of these answers, the brush dip. ped in the lather (consisting of soap-suds, oil, tar, paint, &c.) was thrust into the respondent's mouth and over his face; then the barber's-mate scraped his face with a razor, made of a piece of iron hoop well notched; his sore face was wiped with a damask towel, (a boat-swab dipped in filthy water) and this ended the ceremony. When it was over they undressed themselves, the fiddle struck up, and they danced and regaled with their grog until they were "full three sheets in the wind." I remain, sir, &c. Crescent-street, Euston-square. H. W. DEWHurst. NAVAL ANECDOTE. During the siege of Acre, Daniel Bryan, an old seaman and captain of the fore-top, who had been turned over from the Blanche into sir Sidney Smith's ship Le Tigré, repeatedly applied to be employed on shore; but, being an elderly man and rather deaf, his request was not acceded to. At the first storming of the breach by the French, one of their generals fell among the multitude of the slain, and the Turks, in triumph, struck off his head, and, after mangling the body with their sabres, left it a prey to the dogs, which in that country are of great ferocity, and rove in herds. In a few days it became a shocking spectacle, and when any of the sailors who had been on shore returned to their ship, inquiries were constantly made respecting the state of the French general. To Dan's frequent demands of his messmates why they had not buried him, the only answer he received was, "Go and do it yourself." One morning having obtained leave to go and see the town, he dressed himself as though for an excursion of pleasure, and went ashore with the surgeon in the jolly-boat. About an hour or two after, while the surgeon was dressing the wounded Turks in the hospital, came honest Dan, who, in his rough, good-natured manner, exclaimed, "I've been burying the general, sir, and now I'm come to see the sick!" Not particularly attending to the tar's salute, but fearing that he might catch the plague, which was making great ravages among the wounded Turks, the surgeon immediately ordered him out. Returning on board, the cockswain asked of the surgeon if he had seen old Dan? It was then that Dan's words in the hospital first occurred, and on further inquiry of the boat's crew they related the following circumstances:— The old man procured a pick-axe, a shovel, and a rope, and insisted on being let down, out of a port-hole, close to the breach. Some of his more juvenile companions offered to attend him. "No!" he replied, "you are too young to be shot yet; as for me, I am old and deaf, and my loss would be no great matter." Persisting in his adventure, in the midst of the firing, Dan was slung and lowered down, with his implements of action on his shoulder. His first difficulty was to beat away the dogs. The French levelled their pieces-they were on the instant of firing at the hero!but an officer, perceiving the friendly intentions of the sailor, was seen to throw himself across the file: instantaneously the din of military thunder ceased, a dead, solemn silence prevailed, and the worthy fellow consigned the corpse to its parent earth. He covered it with mould and stones, placing a large stone at its head, and another at its feet. The unostentatious grave was formed, but no inscription recorded the fate or character of its possessor. Dan, with the peculiar air of a British sailor, took a piece of chalk from his pocket, and attempted to write "HERE YOU LIE, OLD CROP !" He was then, with his pick-axe and shovel, hoisted into the town, and the hostile firing immediately recommenced. A few days afterwards, sir Sidney, having been informed of the circumstance, ordered old Dan to be called into the cabin."Well, Dan, I hear you have buried the French general."-" Yes, your honour.""Had you any body with you?"--" Yes, your honour."- Why, Mr. says you had not."-"But I had, your honour.""Ah! who had you?". "God Almighty, sir."-"A very good assistant, indeed. Give old Dan a glass of grog.". "Thank your honour." Dan drank the grog, and left the cabin highly gratified. He was for several years a pensioner in the royal hospital at Greenwich. |