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BLESSINGS OF INSTRUCTION.

Hast thou e'er seen a garden clad

In all the robes that Eden had;

Or vale o'erspread with streams and trees,
A paradise of mysteries;

Plains with green hills adorning them,
Like jewels in a diadem ?

These gardens, vales, and plains, and hills,
Which beauty gilds and music fills,
Were once but deserts. Culture's hand
Has scattered verdure o'er the land,
And smiles and fragrance rule serene,
Where barren wild usurped the scene.
And such is man-A soil which breeds
Or sweeetest flowers, or vilest weeds;
Flowers lovely as the morning's light,
Weeds deadly as an aconite;
Just as his heart is trained to bear
The poisonous weed, or flow'ret fair.
Bowring.

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Sheep-shearing, one of the great rural labours of this delightful month, if not so full of variety as the hay-harvest, and so creative of matter for those "in search of the picturesque" (though it is scarcely less so), is still more lively, animated, and spirit-stirring; and it besides retains something of the character of a rural holiday, which rural matters need, in this age and in this country, more than ever they did, since it became a civilized and happy one. The sheep shearings are the only stated periods of the year at which we hear of festivities, and gatherings together of the lovers and practisers of English husbandry; for even the harvest-home itself is fast sink

ing into disuse, as a scene of mirth and revelry, from the want of being duly encouraged and partaken in by the great ones of the earth; without whose countenance and example it is questionable whether eating, drinking, and sleeping, would not soon become vulgar practices, and be discontinued accordingly! In a state of things like this, the Holkham and Woburn sheep-shearings do more honour to their promoters than all their wealth can purchase and all their titles convey. But we are getting beyond our soundings: honours, titles, and “states of things," are what we do not pretend to meddle with, especially when the pretty sights and sounds preparatory to and attendant on sheep-shearing, as a mere rural employment, are waiting to be noticed.

Now, then, on the first really summer's day, the whole flock being collected on the higher bank of the pool formed at the abrupt winding of the nameless mill-stream, at the point, perhaps, where the little wooden bridge runs slantwise across it, and the attendants being stationed waist-deep in the midwater, the sheep are, after a silent but obstinate struggle or two, plunged headlong, one by one, from the precipitous bank; when, after a moment of confused splashing, their heavy fleeces float them along, and their feet, moving by an instinctive art which every creature but man possesses, guide them towards the opposite shallows, that steam and glitter in the sunshine. Midway, however, they are fain to submit to the rude grasp of the relentless washer, which they undergo with as ill a grace as preparatory schoolboys do the same operation. Then, gaining the opposite shore heavily, they stand for a moment till the weight of water leaves them, and, shaking their streaming sides, go bleating away towards their fellows on the adjacent green, wondering within themselves what has happened.

The shearing is no less lively and picturesque, and no less attended by all the idlers of the village as spectators. The shearers, seated in rows beside the crowded pens, with the seemingly inanimate load of fleece in their laps, and bending intently over their work; the occasional whetting and clapping of the shears; the neatly-attired housewives, waiting to receive the fleeces; the smoke from the tar-kettle, ascending through the clear air; the shorn sheep escaping,

one by one, from their temporary bondage, and trotting away towards their distant brethren, bleating all the while for their lambs, that do not know them; all this, with its ground of universal green, and finished every-where by its leafy distances, except where the village spire intervenes, forms together a living picture, pleasanter to look upon than words can speak, but still pleasanter to think of, when that is the nearest ap proach you can make to it.*

CHRONOLOGY.

On this day, in the year 1734, the duke of Berwick, while visiting the trenches at the siege of Philipsburgh, near Spire, in Germany, was killed, standing between his two sons by a cannon ball. He was the illegitimate son of the duke of York, afterwards James II., whom he accompanied in his flight from England, in 1688. His mother was Arabella Churchill, maid of honour to the duchess of York, and sister to the renowned Marlborough.

The duke of Berwick on quitting the country, entered into the service of France, and was engaged in several battles against the English or their allies in Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. At his death he was in the sixty-fourth year of his age. No general of his time excelled him in the art of war except his uncle, the duke of Marlborough.f

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standing in Chapel-street, near St. Nicholas church in this town, but which is now taken down to make room for a costly pile of warehouses since erected on the site.

The sign represented (elegantly, of course) a man standing in a cart laden with fish, and holding in his right hand what the artist intended to represent a salmon. The lines are to be supposed to be spoken by the driver :— This salmon has got a tail It's very like a whale, It's a fish that's very merry, They say it's catch'd at Derry; It's a fish that's got a heart,

It's catch'd and put in Dugdale's cart. This truly classic production of the muse of Mersey continued for several years to adorn the host's door, until a change in the occupant of the house induced a corresponding change of the sign, and the following lines graced the sign of "The Fishing Smack :”—

The cart and salmon has stray'd away,
And left the fishing-boat to stay.
When boisterous winds do drive you back,
Come in and drink at the Fishing Smack.

Whilst I am upon the subject of "signs," I cannot omit mentioning a punning one in the adjoining county (Chester) on the opposite side of the Mersey, by the highway-side, leading from Liscard to Wallasea. The house is kept by a son of Crispin, and he, zealous of his trade, exhibits the representation of a last, and under it this couplet:

All day long I have sought good beer,
And at the last I have found it here.

I do not know, sir, whether the preceding nonsense may be deemed worthy of a niche in your miscellany; but I have sent it at a venture, knowing that originals, however trifling, are sometimes valuable to a pains-taking (and, perhaps, wearied) collector.

I am, Sir, your obliged,

LECTOR.

By publishing the letter of my obliging correspondent "LECTOR," who transmits his real name, I am enabling England to say-he has done his duty.

Really if each of my readers would do like him I should be very grateful. While printing his belief that I am a "pains-taking" collector, I would inter

pose by observing that I am far, very far, from a "wearied" one: and I would fain direct the attention of every one who peruses these sheets to their collections, whether great or small, and express an earnest desire to be favoured with something from their stores; in truth, the best evidence of their receiving my sheets favourably will be their contributions towards them. While I am getting together and arranging materials for articles that will interest the public quite as much as any I have laid before them, I hope for the friendly aid of wellwishers to the work, and urgently solicit their communications.

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1826. Trinity Term ends.

CHEAP TRAvelling.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Newark, May 17, 1826.

Sir,-The following singular circumstance may be relied on as a fact. The individual it relates to was well known

upon the turf. I recollect him myself, and once saw the present venerable Earl of Fitzwilliam, on Stamford racecourse, humorously inquire of him how he got his conveyance, in allusion to the undermentioned circumstance, and present him with a guinea.-I am, &c.

BENJ. JOHNSON.

John Kilburn, a person well known on the turf as a list seller, &c., was at a town in Bedfordshire, and, as the turf phrase is, "quite broke down." It was during harvest, and the week before Richmond races (Yorkshire), whither he was travelling, and near which place he was born: to arrive there in time he hit on the following expedient. He applied to an acquaintance of his, a blacksmith, to stamp on a padlock the words Richmond Gaol,' with which, and a chain fixed to one of his legs, he composedly went into a corn-field to sleep. As he expected, he was soon apprehended and taken before a magistrate, who, after some deliberation, ordered two constables to guard him in a carriage to Richmond. No time was to be lost, for Kilburn said he had not been tried, and hoped they would not let him lay till another assize. The constables,

on their arrival at the gaol, accosted the keeper with "Sir, do you know this man?" "Yes, very well, it is Kilburn ; I have known him many years." "We suppose he has broken out of your gaol, as he has a chain and padlock on with your mark. Is not he a prisoner ?" "I never heard any harm of him in my life." "Nor," says Kilburn," have these gentlemen: Sir, they have been so good as to bring me out of Bedfordshire, and I will not put them to further inconvenience. I have got the key of the padlock, and I will not trouble them to unlock it. I am obliged to them for their kind behaviour." He travelled in this way about one hundred and seventy miles.

This anecdote has been seen before, perhaps, but it is now given on authority.

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SUMMER MERRIMENT. To the Editor of the Every-day Book. Sir,-You have inserted in vol. i. p. 559, an interesting account of the Morris Dance in the "olden times,” and I was rather disappointed on a perusal of your extensive Index, by not finding a few more words" respecting the Morris Dancers of our day and generation. I think this custom is of Moorish origin, and might have been introduced into this country in the middle ages. Bailey says, "the Morris Dance is an antic dance performed by five men and a boy, dressed in girl's clothes." The girlish part of it is, however, more honoured in "the breach than the observance."

In June, 1826, I observed a company of these "bold peasantry, the country's pride," in Rosoman-street, Clerkenwell. They consisted of eight young men, six of whom were dancers; the seventh played the pipe and tabor; and the eighth, the head of them, collected the pence in his hat, and put the precious metal into the slit of a tin painted box, under lock and key, suspended before him. The tune the little rural-noted pipe played to the gentle pulsations of the tabor, is called

"Moll in the wad and I fell out,
And what d'ye think it was abou.."

This may be remembered as one of the once popular street songs of the late Charles Dibdin's composition. The dancers wore party-coloured ribands round their hats, arms, and knees, to which a row of small latten bells were

appended, somewhat like those which are given to amuse infants in teethcutting, that tinkled with the motion of the wearers. These rustic adventurers "upon the many-headed town," came from a village in Hertfordshire. Truly natural and simple in appearance, their features, complexion, dress, and attitude, perfectly corresponded. Here was no disguise, no blandishment, no superhuman effort. Their shape was not compressed by fashion, nor did their hearts flutter in an artificial prison. Nature represented them about twenty-five years of age, as her seasoned sons, handing down to posterity, by their exercises before the present race, the enjoyment of their forefathers, and the tradition of happy tenantry ere power grew high, and times grew bad." The "set-to," as they termed it, expressed a vis-à-vis address; they then turned, returned, clapped their hands before and behind, and made a jerk with the knee and foot alternately,

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"Till toe and heel no longer moved." Though the streets were dirty and the rain fell reluctantly, yet they heeded not the elemental warfare, but

"Danced and smiled, and danced and smiled again:"

hence their ornaments, like themselves, looked weather-beaten. Crowds collected round them. At 12 o'clock at noon, this was a rare opportunity for the schoolboys let out of their seats of learning and confinement. The occasional huzza, like Handel's "Occasional Overture," so pleasing to the ear of liberty, almost drowned the Morris." But at intervals the little pretty pipe drew the fancy, as it were, piping to a flock in the valley by the shade of sweet trees and the bosom of the silver brook. O! methought, what difference is here by comparison with the agile-limbed aerials of St. James's and these untutored clowns! Yet something delightful comes home to the breast, and speaks to the memory of a rural-born creature, and recals at housand dear recollections of hours gone down the voyage of life into eternity! To a Londoner, too, the novelty does

not weary by its voluntary offering to their taste, and apposition to the season.

Lubin Brown, the piper, was an arch dark-featured person; his ear was alive to Doric melody; and he merrily played, and tickled the time to his note. When he stopped to take breath, his provincial dialect scattered his wit among the gapers, and his companions were well pleased with their sprightly leader. Spagnioletti, nor Cramer, could do no more by sound; nor Liston, nor Yates, by grimace. I observed his eye ever alert to the movement and weariness of his six choice youths. He was a chivalrous fellow: he had won the prize for "grinning through a horse collar" at the revel, thrown his antagonist in the "wrestling ring," and "jumped twenty yards in a sack" to the mortification of his rivals, who lay vanquished on the green. The box-keeper, though less dignified than Mr. Spring, of Drury-lane, informed me that "he and his companions in sport" had charmed the village lasses round the maypole, and they intended sojourning in town a week or two, after which the box would be opened, and an equitable division take place, previously to the commencement of mowing and hay-harvest. He said it was the third year of their pilgrimage; that they had never disputed on the road, and were welcomed home by their sweethearts and friends, to whom they never omit the carrying a seasonable gift in a very humble "Forget me not!" or Friendship's Offering."

66

Mr. Editor, I subscribe myself, Yours, very sincerely.

NATURALISTS' CALENDAR.

J. R. P.

Mean Temperature . . . 58 · 55.

June 16

CHRONOLOGY.

June 16, 1722, the great duke of Marlborough died. (See vol. i., p. 708.) Among the "Original Papers," published by Macpherson, is a letter of the duke's to king James II., whom he "deserted in his utmost need" for the service ot king William, wherein he betrays to his old master the design of his new one against Brest in 1694. This communication, if intercepted, might have termi

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June 17.

ST. BOTOLPH.

This English saint, whose festival is on this day, with his brother Adulph, another saint, travelled into Belgic Gaul, where Adulph became bishop of Maestricht, and Botolph returned home with news of the religious houses he had seen abroad, and recommendations from the two sisters of Ethelmund, king of the south Saxons, who resided in France, to their brother in England. Ethelmund gave him a piece of land near Lincoln, called Icanhoe, "a forsaken uninhabited desert, where nothing but devills and goblins were thought to dwell: but St. Botolphe, with the virtue and sygne of the holy crosse, freed it from the possession of those hellish inhabitants, and by the means and help of Ethelmund, built a monasterie therein." Of this establishment of the order of St. Benedict, St. Botolph became abbot. He died on this day in June, 680, and was buried in his monastery, which is presumed by some to have been at Botolph's bridge, now called Bottlebridge, in Huntingdonshire; by others, at Botolph's town, now corruptly called Boston in Lincolnshire; ard again, its situation is said to have been towards Sussex. Boston seems, most probably, to have been the site of his edifice.

St. Botolph's monastery having been destroyed by the Danes, his relics were in part carried to the monastery of Ely, and part to that of Thorney. Alban Butler, who affirms this, afterwards observes that Thorney Abbey, situated in Cambridgeshire, founded in 972, in honour of St. Mary and St. Botolph, was one of those whose abbots sat in parliament, that St. Botolph was interred there, and that Thorney was anciently called Ancarig, that is, the Isle of Anchorets. It may here be remarked, however, that Westminster was anciently

called Thorney, from its having been covered by briars; and that the lastwritten "History of Boston" refers to Capgrave, as saying, "that in the book of the church of St. Botolph, near Aldersgate, London, there is mention how a part of the body of St. Botolph was, by king Edward of happy memory, conferred on the church of St. Peter in Westminster." Father Porter, in his "Flowers of the Saincts," says, “ it hath been found written in the booke of St. Botolphe's church, near Aldersgate, in London, that part of his holy bodie was

some

by king Edward given to the abbey of Day Book possessed "the register book Winchester." The editor of the Everyof the church of St. Botolph, near Aldersgate," when he wrote on Ancient Mysteries," in which work the manuscript is described: it wanted leaves, and neither contained the entry mentioned by Capgrave, nor mentioned the disposition of the relics of St. Botolph. Besides the places already nocountry are named after St. Botolph, ticed, various others throughout the and particularly four parishes of the city of London, namely, in Aldersgate before mentioned, Aldgate, Billingsgate, and Bishopsgate. Butler says nothing of his miracles, but Father Porter mentions him as having been "famous for death." miracles both in this life and after his

LADY'S DRESS IN 1550.

The gentleman whose museum furnished the Biddenden cake, obligingly transmits an extract from some papers in his collection, relative to a wedding on this day.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Sir,-Perhaps the following account of the dresses of a lady in olden time may be interesting to your readers :

The wedding-clothes of Miss Eliz. Draper, 1550, a present from her husband, John Bowyer, Esq. of Lincoln'sinn:

First,

"Wedyn-apparrell bought for my
wyffe, Elizabeth Draper, the youn-
ger, of Camberwell, against 17°
die Junii, anno Domini, 1550,
with dispensalls.

4 ells of tawney taffeta, at
11s. 6d. the ell, for the Ve-
nyce gowne

s. d.

46 0

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