to his neighbours. He was deemed eccentric, and so he was; for he was never proud to the humble, nor humble to the proud. His eloquence and wit elevated humility, and crushed insolence; he was the champion of the oppressed, a foe to the oppressor, a friend to the friendless, and a brother to him who was ready to perish. Though a prebend of the church with university honours, he could afford to make his parishoners happy without derogating from his ecclesiastical dignities, or abatement of self-respect, or lowering himself in the eyes of any who were not inferior in judgment, to the most inferior of the villagers of Hatton. Formerly a pleasant character dressed out with ribands and flowers, figured in village May-games under the name of $ JACK-O'-THE-Green. The Jack-o'-the-Greens would some times come into the suburbs of London, and amuse the residents by rustic dancing. The last of them, that I remember, were at the Paddington May-dance, near the "Yorkshire Stingo," about twenty years ago, from whence, as I heard, they diverged to Bayswater, Kentish-town, and adjoining neighbourhoods. A Jack-o'the-Green always carried a long walking stick with floral wreaths; he whisked it about in the dance, and afterwards walked with it in high estate like a lord mayor's footman. On this first of the month we cannot pass the poets without listening to their carols, as we do, in our walks, to the songs of the spring birds in their thickets. VOL. II.-71. TO MAY. Welcome! dawn of summer's day, The most ancient of our bards makes noble melody in this glorious month. Mr. Leigh Hunt selects a delightful passage from Chaucer, and compares it with Dryden's paraphrase : It is sparkling with young manhood and a gentle freshness. What a burst of radiant joy is in the second couplet; what a vital quickness in the comparison of the horse, "starting as the fire;" and what a native and happy case in the conclusion! The busy lark, the messenger of day, Dryden falls short in the freshness and feeling of the sentiment. His lines are beautiful; but they do not come home to us with so happy and cordial a face. second, we are bound to consider as a slip of the pen; perhaps for mounting. Here they are. The word morning in the first line, as it is repeated in the The morning-lark, the messenger of day, And licks the drooping leaves, and dries the dews; For thee the Graces lead the dancing hours, And Nature's ready pencil paints the flowers: "How poor," says Mr. Hunt," is this to Arcite's leaping from his courser 'with a lusty heart.' How inferior the commonplace of the fiery steed,' which need not involve any actual notion in the writer's mind, to the courser starting as the fire;'-how inferior the turning his face to the rising day,' and raising his voice,' to the singing loud against the sunny sheen;' and lastly, the whole learned invocation and adjuration of May, about guiding his wandering steps' and • so may thy tender blossoms' &c. to the call upon the fair fresh May, ending with that simple, quick-hearted line, in which he hopes he shall get some green here;' a touch in the happiest taste of the Italian vivacity. Dryden's genius, for the most part, wanted faith in nature. It was too gross and sophisticate. There was as much difference between him and his original, as between a hot noon in perukes at St. James's, and one of Chaucer's O dolce primavera, o fior novelli, O thou delicious spring, O ye new flowers, O airs, O youngling bowers; fresh thickening grass, Myrtles, and palms serene, ivies, and bays; And ye who warmed old lays, spirits o' the woods, Sannazzare O quivered virgins bright, Pans rustical, and fetch away a number of hawthornetrees, which they set before their dores: 'tis pity that they make such a destruction of so fine a tree." "This time two hundred years ago, our ancestors were all anticipating their May holidays. Bigotry came in, and frowned them away; then debauchery, and identified all pleasure with the town; then avarice, and we have ever since As the old antiquary takes us to Woodbeen mistaking the means for the end.- stock, and a novel by the "Great UnFortunately, it does not follow, that we known," bears that title, we will" inn" shall continue to do so. Commerce, there awhile, agreeably to an invitation while it thinks it is only exchanging com- of a correspondent who signs Ωνωφίλτατος, modities, is helping to diffuse knowledge. and who promises entertainment to the All other gains, all selfish and extrava- readers of the Every-Day Book, from an gant systems of acquisition,-tend to account of some out-of-the-way doings at over-do themselves, and to topple down that place, when there were out-of-theby their own undiffused magnitude. The way doings every where. Our friend world, as it learns other things, may learn with the Greek name is critical; for as not to confound the means with the end, regards the "new novel," he says, that or at least, (to speak more philosophically,) "Woodstock would have been much a really poor means with a really richer. better if the author had placed the inciThe veriest cricket-player on a green has dents before the battle of Worcester, and as sufficient a quantity of excitement, as supposed that Charles had been drawn a fundholder or a partizan; and health, over to England to engage in some plot of and spirits, and manliness to boot. Dr. Rochecliffes, which had proved unKnowledge may go on; must do so, from successful. This might have spared him necessity; and should do so, for the ends one great anachronism, (placing the we speak of: but knowledge, so far from pranks of the merry devil of Woodstock being incompatible with simplicity of in 1651, instead of 1649,) at the same pleasures, is the quickest to perceive its time that it would throw a greater air of wealth. Chaucer would lie for hours probability over the story; for the reader looking at the daisies. Scipio and Laelius who is at all acquainted with English could amuse themselves with making history, continually feels his pleasure deducks and drakes on the water. Epami- stroyed by the recollection that in Charles's nondas, the greatest of all the active spi- escapes after the battle of Worcester, he rits of Greece, was a flute-player and never once visited Woodstock. Nor does dancer. Alfred the Great could act the the merry devil of Woodstock excite half whole part of a minstrel. Epicurus the interest, or give us half the amusetaught the riches of temperance and in- ment he would have done, if the author tellectual pleasure in a garden. The had lately read the narrative I am now other philosophers of his country walked about to copy. He seems to have perused between heaven and earth in the collo- it at some distance of time, and then to quial bowers of Academus; and the have written the novel with imperfect rewisest heart of Solomon,' who found every collection of the circumstances.-But let thing vain because he was a king, has me begin my story; to wit, an article in left us panegyrics on the spring and the the British Magazine' for April, 1747, voice of the turtle,' because he was a which will I suppose excite some curiosity, poet, a lover, and a wise man." and is in the following words : Aubrey remarks, that he never remembers to have seen a Maypole in France; but he says, " in Holland, they have their May-booms, which are streight young trees, set up; and at Woodstock, in Oxon, they every May-eve goe into the parke, The Indicator. "THE GENUINE HISTORY "GOOD DEVIL OF WOODSTOCK, The teller of this "Genuine History" proceeds as hereafter verbatim. Some original papers having lately fallen into my hands under the name of "Authentic Memoirs of the Memorable Joseph Collins of Oxford, commonly known by the name of Funny Joe, and now intended for the press," I was extremely delighted to find in them a circumstantial and unquestionable account of the most famous of all invisible agents, so well known in the year 1649, under the name of the good devil of Woodstock, and even adored by the people of that place for the vexation and distress it occasioned some people they were not much pleased with. As this famous story, though related by a thousand people, and attested in all its circumstances beyond all possibility of doubt by people of rank, learning, and reputation, of Oxford and the adjacent towns, has never yet been accounted for or at all understood, and is perfectly explained in a manner that can admit of no doubt in these papers, I could not refuse my readers their share of the pleasure it gave me in reading As the facts themselves were at that time so well known that it would have been tedious to enumerate them, they are not mentioned in these papers; but that our readers may have a perfect account of the whole transaction, as well as the secret history of it, I shall prefix a written account of it, drawn up and signed by the commissioners themselves, who were the people concerned, and which I believe never was published, though it agrees very well with the accounts Dr. Plot and other authors of credit give of the whole affair. This I found affixed to the author's memorial, with this title : "A particular account of the strange and surprising apparitions and works of spirits, which happened at Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, in the months of October and November, in the year of our Lord Christ 1649, when the honourable the commissioners for surveying the said manor-house, park, woods, and other demesnes belonging to that manor, sat and remained there. Collected and attested by themselves. "The honourable the commissioners arrived at Woodstock manor-house, October 13th, and took up their residence in the king's own rooms. His majesty's bedchamber they made their kitchen, the council hall their pantry, and the presence chamber was the place where they sat for despatch of business. His majesty's dining room they made their wood yard, and stowed it with no other wood but that of the famous royal oak from the high park, which, that nothing might be left with the name of the king about it, they had dug up by the roots, and bundled up into faggots for their firing. "October 16. This day they first sat for the despatch of business. In the midst of their first debate there entered a large black dog (as they thought) which made a terrible howling, overturned two or three of their chairs, and doing some other damage, went under the bed, and there gnawed the cords. The door this while continued constantly shut, when after some two or three hours, Giles Sharp, their secretary, looking under the bed, perceived that the creature was vanished, and that a plate of meat which one of the servants had hid there was untouched, and showing them to their honours, they were all convinced there could be no real dog concerned in the case; the said Giles also deposed on oath that to his certain knowledge there was not. "October 17. As they were this day sitting at dinner in a lower room, they heard plainly the noise of persons walking over their heads, though they well knew the doors were all locked, and there could be none there; presently after they heard also all the wood of the king's oak brought by parcels from the dining-room, and thrown with great violence into the presence chamber, as also the chairs, stools, tables, and other furniture, forcibly hurled about the room, their own papers of the minutes of their transactions torn, and the ink-glass broken. When all this had some time ceased, the said Giles proposed to enter first into these rooms, and in presence of the commissioners of whom he received the key, he opened the door, and entering with their honours following him, he there found the wood strewed about the room, the chairs tossed about and broken, the papers torn, and the ink-glass broken over them, all as they had heard, yet no footsteps appeared of any person whatever being there, nor had the doors ever been opened to admit or let out any persons since their honours were last there. It was therefore This is not king Charles the Second's celebrated "Royal Oak," but the "King's Oak" so often mentioned in the novel. To make it stand ing in 1651 is another anachronism by the by. vwplλTATOS. voted nem. con. that the person who did this mischief could have entered no other way than at the keyhole of the said doors. "In the night following this same day, the said Giles and two other of the commissioners' servants, as they were in bed at the same room with their honours, had their bed's feet lifted up so much higher than their heads, that they expected to have their necks broken, and then they were let fall at once with such violence as shook them up from the bed to a good distance; and this was repeated many times, their honours being amazed spectators of it. In the morning the bedsteads were found cracked and broken, and the said Giles, and his fellows, declared they were sore to the bones with the tossing and jolting of the beds. "October 19. As they were all in bed together, the candles were blown out with a sulphurous smell, and instantly many trenchers of wood were hurled about the room, and one of them putting his head above the clothes, had not less than six forcibly thrown at him, which wounded him very grievously. In the morning the trenchers were all found lying about the room, and were observed to be the same they had eaten on the day before, none being found remaining in the pantry. "October 20. This night the candles were put out as before, the curtains of the bed in which their honours lay, were drawn to and fro many times with great violence; their honours received many cruel blows, and were much bruised beside with eight great pewter dishes, and three dozen wooden trenchers which were thrown on the bed, and afterwards heard rolling about the room. "Many times also this night they heard the forcible falling of many faggots by their bed side, but in the morning no faggots were found there, no dishes or trenchers were there seen neither, and the aforesaid Giles attests that by their different arranging in the pantry, they had assuredly been taken thence and after put there again. "October 21. The keeper of their ordinary and his bitch lay with them; this night they had no disturbance. "October 22. Candles put out as before. They had the said bitch with them again, but were not by that protected; the bitch set up a very piteous cry, the clothes of their beds were all pulled off, and the bricks, without any wind, were thrown off the chimney tops into the midst. "October 24. The candles put out as before. They thought all the wood of the king's oak was violently thrown down by their bedsides; they counted sixty-four faggots that fell with great violence, and some hit and shook the bed, but in the morning none were found there, nor the door of the room opened in which the said faggots were. "October 25. The candles put out as before. The curtains of the bed in the drawing-room were forcibly drawn many times; the wood thrown out as before; a terrible crack like thunder was heard, and one of the servants running to see if his masters were not killed, found at his return three dozen of trenchers laid smoothly upon his bed under the quilt. "October 26. The beds were shaken as before, the windows seemed all broken to pieces, and the glass fell in vast quantities all about the room. In the morning they found the windows all whole, but the floor strewed with broken glass, which they gathered and laid by. "October 29.* At midnight, candles went out as before; something walked majestically through the room and opened and shut the window; great stones were thrown violently into the room, some whereof fell on the beds, others on the floor; and at about a quarter after one a noise was heard as of forty cannon discharged together, and again repeated at about eight minutes distance. This alarmed and raised all the neighbourhood, who coming into their honours' room gathered up the great stones, fourscore in number, many of them like common pebbles and boulters, and laid them by where they are to be seen to this day at a corner of the adjoining field. This noise, like the discharge of cannon, was heard throughout the country for sixteen miles round. During these noises, which were heard in both rooms together, both the commissioners and their servants gave one another over for lost and cried out for help, and Giles Sharp snatching up a sword had well nigh killed one of their honours, taking him for the spirit as he came in his shirt into the room. While they were together the noise was continued, and part of the tiling of the house and all the windows of an upper room were taken away with it. Sic in orig. Why the other two days are passed over so silently I know not.Ωνωφίλτατος. |