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PETRARCH'S INKSTAND. IN THE POSSESSION OF Miss EDGBWORTH, PRESENTED TO HKR BY A LADY.

By beauty won from soft Italia's land. Here Cupid, Petrarch's Cupid, takes his stand. Arch suppliant, welcome to thy fav'rite isle, Close thy spread wings, and rest thee here awhile : Still the true heart with kindred strains inspire, Breathe all a poet's softness, all his flre ; But if the perjured knight approach this font, Forbid trie words to come as they were wont, Forbid the ink to flow, the pen to write, And send the false one baffled from thy sight.

Miss Edgeworth.

THE

EYERY -DAY BOO

TABLE BOOK;

EVERLASTING CALENDAR OF POPULAR AMUSEMENTS,

SPORTS, PASTIMES, CEREMONIES, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND EVENTS,

INCIDENT TO

of tfje

anfc

IN PAST AND PRESENT TIMES;

FORMING A

COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE YEAR, MONTHS, AND SEASONS,

AND A

PERPETUAL KEY TO THE ALMANAC;

INCLUDING

ACCOUNTS OF THE WEATHER, RULES FOR HEALTH AND CONDUCT, REMARKABLE AND IMPORTANT ANECDOTES, FACTS, AND NOTICES, IN CHRONOLOGY, ANTIQUITIES, TOPO- GRAPHY, BIOGRAPHY, NATURAL HISTORY, ART, SCIENCE, AND GENERAL LITERATURE ; DERIVED FROM THE MOST AUTHENTIC SOURCES, AND VALUABLE ORIGINAL COMMU- NICATIONS, WITH POETICAL ELUCIDATIONS, FOR DAILY USE AND DIVERSION.

BY WILLIAM HONE.

I tell of festivals, and fairs, and plays,

Of merriment, and mirth, and bonfire blaze ;

I tell of Christmas-mummings, new year's day,

Of twelfth-night king and queen, and children's play ;

I tell of valentines, and true-love's-knots,

Of omens, cunning men, and drawing lots :

I tell of- brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers,

Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers ;

I tell of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,

Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes ;

I tell of groves, of twilights, and I sing

The court of Mab, and of the fairy king.

HERRICK.

WITH TOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIX ENGRAVINGS.

IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III.

LONDON :

PRINTED FOR THOMAS fXJSGG,

73, C H E A P S I D E.

;•-..•• •

p/?

I/O

I 2io

hi c «

J. Haddon, Printer, Castle Street, Finsbniy.

PREFACE.

OH the close of the E VERY-DAY BOOK, which commenced on New Year's

Day, 1825, and ended in the last week of 1826, I began this work.

«.

The only prospectus of the TABLE BOOR was the eight versified lines on the title-page. They appeared on New Year's Day, prefixed to the first number ; which, with the successive sheets, to the present date, constitute the volume now in the reader's hands, and the entire of my endeavours during the hull year,

So long as I am enabled, and the public continue to be pleased, the TABLE BOOK will be continued. The kind reception of the weekly numbers, and the monthly parts, encourages me to hope that like favour will be extended to the half-yearly volume. Its multifarious contents and the illustrative engravings, with the help of the copious index, realize my wish, " to please the young, and help divert the wise." Perhaps, if the good old window-seats had not gone out of fashion, it might be called a parlour-window book — a good name for a volume of agreeable reading selected from the book-case, and left lying about, for the constant recreation of the family, and the casual amusement of visitors.

W. HONE. Midsummer, 1837.

THE FRONTISPIECE.

PETRARCH'S INKSTAND.

Miss EDOEWORTH'S lines express her esti- mation of the gem she has the happiness to own. That lady allowed a few casts from it in bronze, and a gentleman who possesses one, and who favours the " Table Book" with his approbation, permits its use for a frontispiece to this volume. The engraving will not be questioned as a deco- ration, and it has some claim to be regarded as an elegant illustration of a miscellany which draws largely on art and literature, and on nature itself, towards its supply.

" I delight," says Petrarch, " in my pic- tures. I take great pleasure also in images; they come in show more near unto nature than pictures, for they do but appear ; but these are felt to be substantial, and their bodies are more durable. Amongst the Grecians the art of painting was esteemed above all handycrafts, and the chief of all the liberal arts. How great the dignity hath been of statues; and how fervently the study and desire of men have reposed in such pleasures, emperors and kings, and other noble personages, nay, even persons of in- ferior degree, have shown, in their indus- trious keeping of them when obtained." Insisting on the golden mean, as a rule of happiness, he says, " I possess an amazing collection of books, for attaining this, and every virtue : great is my delight in behold- ing such a treasure." He slights persons who collect books " for the pleasure of boasting they have them ; who furnish their chambers with what was invented to furnish their minds ; and use them no otherwise than they do their Corinthian tables, or their painted tables and images, to look at." He contemns others who esteem not the true value of books, but the price at •which they may sell them — " a new prac- tice" (observe it is Petrarch that speaks) "crept in among the rich, whereby they may attain one art more of unruly desire." He repeats, with rivett'mg force, " I have great plenty of books : where such scarcity has been lamented, this is no small possession : I have an inestimable many of books '.'' He was a diligent collector, and a liberal imparter of these treasures. He corres- ponded with Rictiiwu «e Bury, :*-, i\i^- hriou* prelate of our own country, eminent for his love of learning and learned men,

and sent many precious volumes to Eng- land to enrich the bishop's magnificent library. He vividly remarks, " I delight passionately in my books ;" and yet he who had accumulated them largely, estimated them rightly : he has a saying of books worthy of himself — " a wise man seeketh not quantity but sufficiency."

Petrarch loved the quiet scenes of nature y and these can scarcely be observed from a carriage or while riding, and are never enjoyed but on foot ; and to me — on whom that discovery was imposed, and who am sometimes restrained from country walks, by necessity — it was no small pleasure, when I read a passage in his " View of Human Nature," which persuaded me of his fondness for the exercise : " A jour- ney on foot hath most pleasant commo- dities ; a man may go at his pleasure ; none shall stay him, none shall carry him beyond his wish; none shall trouble him; he hath but one labour, the labour of nature — to go."-

In " The Indicator" there is a paper of peculiar beauty, by Mr. Leigh Hunt, " on receiving a sprig of myrtle from Vaucluse," with a paragraph suitable to this occasion : " We are supposing that all our readers are acquainted with Petrarch. Many of them doubtless know him intimately. Should any of them want an introduct n to him, how should we speak of him in u*e gross ? We should say, that he was one of the finest gentlemen and greatest scho- lars that ever lived ; that he was a writer who flourished in Italy in the fourteenth century, at the time when Chaucer was young, during the reigns of our Edwards; that he was the greatest light of his age ; that although so fine a writer himself, and the author of a multitude of works, or rather because he was both, he took the greatest pains to revive the knowledge of the ancient learning, recommending it every where, and copying out large manuscripts with his own hand ; that two great citit -••-. Paris and Rome, contended which should have the honour of crowning1 him ; that he was crowned publicly, in the metropolis of the world, with laurel and with myrtle ; that he was the frienH of Boccaccio the father of Italian prose ; and lastly, that his

PETRARCH'S INKSTAND

greatest renown nevertheless, as well as the predominant feelings of his existence, arose from the long love he bore for a lady of Avignon, the far-famed Laura, whom he fell in love with on the 6th of April, 1327, on a Good Friday; whom he rendered illustrious in a multitude of sonnets, which have left a sweet sound and sentiment in the ear of all after lovers ; and who died, still passionately beloved, in the year 1348, on the same day and hour on which he first beheld her. Who she was, or why their connection was not closer, remains a mys- tery. But that she was a real person, and that in spite of all her modesty she did not show an insensible countenance to his pas- sion, is clear from his long-haunted imagi- nation, from his own repeated accounts, from all that he wrote, uttered, and thought. One love, and one poet, sufficed to give the whole civilized world a sense of delicacy in desire, of the abundant riches to be found in one single idea, and of the going out of a man's self to dwell in the soul and happiness of another, which has served to refine the passion for all modern times ; and perhaps will do so, as long as love re- news the world."

At Vaucluse, or Valchiusa, " a remark- ab.e spot in the old poetical region of Pro- vence, consisting of a little deep glen of green meadows surrounded with rocks, and containing the fountain of the river Sorgue," Petrarch resided for several years, and composed in it the greater part of his poems.

The following is a translation by sir William Jones, of

AN ODE, BY PETRARCH, To THE FOUNTAIN OF VAL«HIUSA

Ye clear and sparkling; streams !

(Warm'd by the sunny beams) Through whose transparent crystal Laura play'd ;

Ye boughs that deck the grove,

Where Spring her chaplets wove, While Laura lay beneath the quivering shade ;

Sweet herbs I and blushing flowers !

That crown yon vernal bowers, For ever fatal, yet for ever dear ;

And ye, that heard my sighs

When first she charm'd my eyes, Soft-breathing gales ! my dying accents hear.

If Heav'n has fix'd my doom.

That Love must quite consume

My bursting heart, and close my eyes In death

Ah 1 grant this slight request, —

That here my urn may rest, When to its mansion flies my vital breath.

This pleasing hope will smooth

My anxious mind, and soothe The pangs of that inevitable hoar ;

My spirit will not grieve

Her mortal veil to leave In these calm shades, and this enchanting bower

Haply, the guilty maid

Through yon accnstom'd glade To my sad tomb will take her lonely way

Where first her beauty's light

O'erpower'd my dazzled sight. When love on this fair border bade me stray :

There, sorrowing, shall she see.

Beneath an aged tree, Her true, but hapless lover's lowly bier ;

Too late her tender sighs

Shall melt the pitying skies, And her soft veil shall hide the gashing tear

0 I well-reinember'd day, When on yon bank she lay,

Meek in her pride, and in her rigour mild ;

The young and blooming flowers.

Falling in fragrant showers, Shone on her neck, and on her bosom saiil'd

Some on her mantle hung,

Some in her locks were strung, Like orient gems in rings of flaming gold ;

Some, in a spicy cloud

Descending, call'd aloud, " Here Love and Youth the reins of empire hold, '

1 view'd the heavenly maid : And, rapt in wonder, said —

" The groves of Eden gave this angel birth ,"

Her look, her voice, her smile,

That might all Heaven beguile, Wafted my soul above the realms of earth .

The star-bespangled skies

Were open'd to my eyes ; Sighing I said, " Whence rose this glittering scene ?'

Since that auspicious hour.

This bank, and odorous bower, My morning couch, and evening haunt have bee*.

Well mavst thou blusj, my song,

To leave tne rural ttirODf( And fly thus artless to my Laura's ear ,

But, were thy poet's fire

Ardent as his desire, Thou wert a song that Heaven might stoop to hear

It is within probability to imagine, that the original of this "ode "may have been impressed on the paper, by Petrarch'* pea, from the inkstand of the 'rontispiece.

THE

TABLE BOOK.

FORMERLY, a " Table Book" was a memo- randum book, on which any thing was graved or written without ink. It is men- tioned by Shakspeare. Polonius, on disclos- ing Ophelia's affection for Hamlet to the king, inquires

" When I had seen this hot lore on the wing, what might you,

Or my dear majesty, your queen here, think, If I had play'd the desk, or table-book ?"

Dr. Henry More, a divine, and moralist, of the succeeding century, observes, that " Nature makes clean the table-book first, and then portrays upon it what she pleas- eth." In this sense, it might have been used instead of »a tabula rasa, or sheet of blank writing paper, adopted by Locke as an illustration of the human mind in its incipi.ency. It is figuratively introduced to nearly the same purpose by Swift : he tells us that

" Nature's fair tal»le-book, our tender souls, We scrawl all o'er with old and empty rules, Stale memorandums of the schools."

Dryden says, " Put into your Table-Book whatsoever you judge worthy."*

I hope I shall not unworthily err, if, in the commencement of a work under this title, I show what a Table Book was.

Table books, or tablets, of wood, existed before the time of Homer, and among the Jews before the Christian aera. The table books of the Romans were nearly like ours, which will be described presently; except that the leaves, which were two, three, or more in number, were of wood surfaced with wax. They wrote on them with a style, one end of which was pointed for that pur- pose, and the other end rounded or flattened, for effacing or scraping out. Styles were made of nearly all the metals, as well as of bone and ivory ; they were differently formed, and resembled ornamented skewers ; the common style was iron. More anciently, the leaves of the table book were without wax, and marks were made by the iron style on the bare wood. The Anglo-Saxon style was very handsome. Dr. Pe?ge was of opinion that the well-known jewel of Alfred, preserved in the Ashmolean museum at Oxford, was the head of the style sent by that king with Gregory's Pastoral to Athelney.f

A gentleman, whose profound knowledge of domestic antiquities surpasses that of

' Johnson.

t Fosbroks's Encyclopedia of Antiquities

preceding antiquaries, and remains unri- valled by his contemporaries, in his " Illus- trations of Shakspeare," notices Hamlet's expression, " My tables, — meet it is I set it down." On that passage he observes, that the' Roman practice of writing on wax tablets with a style was continued through the middle ages ; and that specimens of wooden tables, filled with wax, and con- structed in the fourteenth century, were preserved in several of the monastic libra- ries in France. Some of these consisted of as. many as twenty pages, formed into a book by means of parchment bands glued to the backs of the leaves. He says that in the middle ages there were table books of ivory, and sometimes, of late, in the form of a small portable book with leaves and clasps ; and he transfers a figure of one of the latter from an old work* to his own : it resembles the common " slate-books" still sold in the stationers' shops. He pre- sumes that to such a table book the arch- bishop of York alludes in the second part of King Henry IV.,

" And therefore will he wipe his tables clean • And keep no tell tale to his memory."

As in the middle ages there were table- books with ivory leaves, this gentleman remarks that, in Chaucer's " Sompnour's Tale," one of the friars is provided with

" A pair of tables all of ivory, And a pointel ypolished fetishly, And wrote alway the names, as he stood, Of alle folk that yave hem any good."

He instances it as remarkable, that neither public nor private museums furnished spe- cimens of the table books, common in Shakspeare's time. Fortunately, this ob- servation is no longer applicable.

A correspondent, understood to be Mr. Douce, in Dr. Aikin's " Athenaeum,'' sub- sequently says, " I happen to possess a table-book of Shakspeare's time. It is a little book, nearly square, being three inches wide and something less than four in length, bound stoutly in calf, and fastening with four strings of broad, strong, brown tape. The title as follows : ' Writing Tables, with a Kalender for xxiiii yeeres, with sundrie necessarie rules. The Tables made by Robert Triple. London, Imprinted for the Company of Stationers.' The tables ars inserted immediately after the almanack. At first sight they appear like what we call asses-skin, the colour being precisely

• Gesner De rerum fossilium figuris, &c. Tigw. 15«- 12mo.

THE TABLE BOOK.

Cfje

ear.

HAGMAN-HEIGH.

Anciently on new year's day the Ro-

mans were accustomed to carry small pre-

sents, as new year's gifts, to the senators,

under whbse protection they were severally

placed. In the reigns of the emperors,

they flocked in such numbers with valuable

ones, that various decrees were made to

abolish the custom ; though it always

continued among that people. The Romans

who settled in Britain, or the families con-

nected with them by marriage, introduced

these new year's gifts among our forefathers,

who got the habit of making presents, even

to the magistrates. Some of the fathers of

the church wrote against them, as fraught

with the greatest abuses, and the magistrates

were forced to relinquish them. Besides

the well-known anecdote of sir Thomas

More, when lord chancellor,* many in-

stances might be adduced from old records,

of giving a pair of gloves, some with " lin-

ings," and others without. Probably from

thence has been derived the fashion of giv-

ing a pair of gloves upon particular occa-

sions, as at marriages, funerals, &c. New

year's gifts continue to be received and

given by all ranks of people, to commemo-

rate the sun's return, and the prospect of

spring, when the gifts of nature are shared

by all. Friends present some small tokens

of esteem to each other — husbands to their

wives, and parents to their children. The

custom keeps up a cheerful and friendly

intercourse among acquaintance, and leads

to that good-humour and mirth so necessary

to the spirits in this dreary season. Chan-

dlers send as presents to their customers

large mould candles ; grocers give laisins,

to make a Christmas pudding, or a pack of

cards, to assist in spending agreeably the

long evenings. In barbers' shops " thrift-

box," as it is called, is put by the appren-

tice boys against the wall, and every cus-

tomer, according to his inclination, puts

something in. Poor children, and old in-

firm persons, beg, at the doors of the cha-

ritable, a small pittance, which, though

collected in small sums, yet, when put

together, forms to them a little treasure;

so that every heart, in all situations of life,

beats with joy at the nativity of his Saviour.

The flagman Heigh is an old custom

observed in Yorkshire on new year's eve, as

appertaining to the season. The keeper of

the pinfold goes round the town, attended

• Every-Day Book, i. 9.

by a rabble at his heels, and knocking at certain doors, sings a barbarous song, be- ginning with —

" To-night it is the new year's eight, to-morrow is

the day ;

We are come about for our right and for our ray, As we us'd to dp in old king Henry's day : Sing, fellows, sing, Hagman ti'eigft," &c.

The song always concludes with " wish- ing a merry Christmas and a happy new year." When wood was chiefly used as fuel, in heating ovens at Christmas, this was the most appropriate season for the hagman, or wood-cutter, to remind his customers of his services, and to solicit alms. The word hag is still used in Yorkshire, to signify a wood. The " hagg" opposite to Easby formerly belonged to the abbey, to supply them with fuel. Hagman may be a name compounded from it. Some derive it from the Greek Ayiapwn, the holy month, when the festivals of the church for our Saviour's birth were celebrated. Formerly, on the last day of the year, the monks and friars used to make a plentiful harvest, by begging from door to door, and reciting a kind of carol, at the end of every stave of which they introduced the words " agia mene," alluding to the birth of Christ. A very different interpretation, however, was given to it by one John Dixon, a Scotch presby- terlan minister, when holding forth against this custom in one of his sermons at Kelso. "Sirs, do you know what the hagman sig- nifies ? It is the devil to be in the house ; that is the meaning of its Hebrew original."* .

SONNET

ON THE NEW YEAR.

When we look back on hours long past away. And every circumstance of joy, or woe That goes to make this strange beguiling show,

Call'd life, as though it were of yesterday,

We start to learn our quickness of decay. Still flies unwearied Time ; — on still we go And whither ? — Unto endless weal or woe,

As we have wrought our parts in this brief play.

Yet many have I seen whose thin blanched locks But ill became a head where Folly dwelt,.

Who having past this storm with all its shocks, Had nothing learnt from what they saw or felt:

Brave spirits ! that can look, with heedless eye,

On doom unchangeable, and tixt eternity.

• Clarkson's History of Richmond, cited by a cor- respondent, A. B.

THE TABLE BOOK.

10

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

The following letter, written by Horace Walpole, in relation to the tombs, is curious.

Dr. , whom he derides, was Dr. Za-

chary Pearce, dean of Westminster, and editor of Longinus, &c.

Strawberry-hill, 1761.

I heard lately, that Dr. , a very

learned personage, had consented to let the tomb of Aylmer de Valence, earl of Pem- broke, a very great personage, be removed for Wolfe's monument ; that at first he had objected, but was wrought upon by being told that hight Aylmer was a knight tem- plar, a very wicked set of people as his lord- ship had heard, though he knew nothing of them, as they are not mentioned by Longi- nus. I own I thought this a made story, and wrote to his lordship, expressing my concern that one of the finest and most ancient monuments in the abbey should be removed ; and begging, if it was removed, that he would bestow it on me, who would erect and preserve it here. After a fort- night's deliberation, the bishop sent me an answer, civil indeed, and commending my zeal for antiquity ! but avowing the story under his own hand. He said, that at first they had taken Pembroke's tomb for a knight templar's; — observe, that not only the man who shows the tombs names it every day, but that there is a draught of it at large in Dart's Westminster ; — that upon discovering whose it was, he had been very unwilling to consent to the removal, and at last had obliged Wilton to engage to set it up within ten feet of where it stands at pre- sent. His lordship concluded with congra- tulating me on publishing learned authors at my press. I don't wonder that a man who thinks Lucan a learned author, should mistake a tomb in his own cathedral. If I had a mind to be angry, I could complain with reason, — as having paid forty pounds for ground for my mother's funeral — that the chapter of Westminster sell their church over and over again : the ancient monu- ments tumble upon one's head through th<M- neglect, as one of them did, and killed a man at lady Elizabeth Percy's funeral ; and they erect new waxen dolls of queen Elizabeth, &c. to draw visits and money from the mob.

a&fojjrapftfral jlemorantJa.

COMETARY INFLUENCE. Brantome relates, that the duchess of

Angouleme, in the sixteenth century, being awakened during the night, she was sur- prised at an extraordinary brightness which illuminated her chamber ; apprehending it to be the fire, she reprimanded her women for having made so large a one ; but they assured her it was caused by the moon. The duchess ordered her curtains to be un- drawn, and discovered that it was a comet which produced this unusual light. " Ah !" exclaimed she, " this is a phenomenon which appears not to persons of common condition. Shut the window, it is a comet, which announces my departure ; I must prepare for death." The following morning she sent for her confessor, in the certainty of an approaching dissolution. The phy- sicians assured her that her apprehensions were ill founded and premature. " If I had not," replied she, " seen the signal for death, I could believe it, for I do not feel myself exhausted or peculiarly ill." On the third day after this event she expired, the victim of terror. Long after this period all appearances of the celestial bodies, not perfectly comprehended by the multitude, were supposed to indicate the deaths of sovereigns, or revolutions in their govern- ments.

Two PAINTERS.

When the duke d'Aremberg was confined at Antwerp, a person was brought in as a spy, and imprisoned in the same place. The duke observed some slight sketches by his fellow prisoner on the wall, and, con- ceiving they indicated talent, desired Ru- bens, with whom he was intimate, and by whom he was visited, to bring with him a pallet and pencils for the painter, who was in custody with him. The materials requisite for painting were given to the artist, who took for his subject a group of soldiers playing at cards in the corner of a prison. When Rubens saw the picture, he cried out that it was done by Brouwer, whose works he had often seen, and as often admired. Rubens offered six hundred guineas for it ; the duke would by no means part with it, but presented the painter with a larger sum. Rubens exerted his interest, and obtained the liberty of Brouwer, by becoming his surety, received him into his house, clothed as well as maintained him, and took pains to make the world acquainted with his merit. But the levity of Brouwer' s temper would not suffer him long to con- sider his situation any better than a state, of confinement ; he therefore quitted Ru- bens, and died shortly afterwards, in con- sequence of a dissolute course of Hfe.

.THE TABLE-BOOK.

12

&epn$entatuin of a pageant ®eincle antr pap.

The state, and reverence, and show, Were so attractive, folks would go From all parts, ev'ry year, to see The*e pageant-plays at Coventry.

fliis engravinc is from a very curious Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries, ancient!* print in Mr. Snnrp's " Dissertation on the performed at Coventry."

13

THE TABLE BOOK.

14

Coventry is distinguished in the history of the drama, because, under the title of " Ludus Coventriee" there exists a manu- script volume of most curious early plays, not yet printed, nor likely to be, unless there are sixty persons, at this time suffici- ently concerned for our ancient literature and manners, to encourage a spirited gen- tleman to print a limited number of copies. If by any accident the manuscript should be destroyed, these plays, the constant theme of literary antiquaries from Dugdale to the present period, will only be known through the partial extracts of writers, who have sometimes inaccurately transcribed from the originals in the British Museum.*

Mr. Sharp's taste and attainments qua- lifying him for the task, and his residence at Coventry affording him facility of re- search among the muniments of the cor- poration, he has achieved the real labour of drawing- from these and other unexplored sources, a body of highly interesting facts, respecting the vehicles, characters, and dresses of the actors in the pageants or dramatic mysteries anciently performed by the trading companies of that city ; which, together with accounts of municipal enter- tainments of a public nature, form his meri- torious volume.

Very little has been known respecting the stage " properties," before the rise of the regular drama, and therefore the abun- dant matter of that nature, adduced by this gentleman, is peculiarly valuable. With " The Taylors' and Shearemens' Pagant," complete from the original manuscript, he gives the songs and the original music, engraved on three plates, which is eminently remarkable, because it is, perhaps, the only existing specimen of the melodies in the old Mysteries. There are ten other plates in the work ; one of them represents the club, or maul, of Pilate, a character in the pageant of the Cappers' company. " By a variety of entries it appears he had a club or maul, stuffed with wool ; and that the exterior was formed of leather, is authenti- cated by the actual existence of such a club or maul, discovered by the writer of this Dissertation, in an antique chest within the Cappers' chapel, (together with an iron

» By a notice in Mr. Sharp's " Dissertation," he pro- poses to publish the " Coventry Mysteries," with notes and illustrations, in two vols. octavo : 100 copies on royal paper, at three guineas ; and 25, on imperial paper, at five guineas. Notwithstanding he limits- the entire impression to these 125 copies, and will com- mence to print as soon as the names of sixty subscribers are sent to his publishers, it appears that this small number is not yet complete. The fact is mentioned here, because it will be a reproach to the age if such an overture '.s &ot embraced.

cresset, and some fragments of armour,) where it had probably remained ever since the breaking up of the pageant." The subject of the Cappers' pageant was usually the trial and crucifixion of Christ, and the descent into hell.

The pageant vehicles were high scaffolds with two rooms, a higher and a lower, constructed upon four or six wheels ; in the lower room the performers dressed, and in the higher room they played. This higher room, or rather, as it may be called, the " stage," was all open on the top, that the beholders might hear and see. On the day of performance the vehicles were wheeled, by men, from place to place, throughout the city ; the floor was strewed with rushes ; and to conceal the lower room, wherein the performers dressed, cloths were hung round the vehicle : there is reason to believe that, on these cloths, the subject of the performance was painted or worked in tapestry. The higher room of the Drapers' vehicle was embattled, and ornamented with carved work, and a crest; the Smiths' had vanes, burnished and painted, with streamers flying.

In an engraving which is royal quarto, the size of the work, Mr. Sharp has laud- ably endeavoured to convey a clear idea of the appearance of a pageant vehicle, and of the architectural appearance of the houses in Coventry, at the time of performing the Mysteries. So much of that engraving as re- presents the vehicle is before the reader on the preceding page. The vehicle, supposed to be of the Smiths' company, is stationed near the Cross in the Cross-cheaping, and the time of action chosen is the period when Pilate, on the charges of Caiphas and Annas, is compelled to give up Christ for execu- tion. Pilate is represented on a throne, or chair of state; beside him stands his son with a scoptre and poll-axe, and beyond the Saviour are the two high priests ; the two armed figures behind are knights. The pageant cloth bears the symbols of the passion.

Besides the Coventry Mysteries and other matters, Mr. Sharp notices those of Chester, and treats largely on the ancient setting of the watch on Midsummer and St. John's Eve, the corporation giants, morris dancers, minstrels, and waites.

I could not resist the very fitting op- portunity on the opening of the new year, and of the Table Book together, to introduce a memorandum, that so important an ac- cession has accrued to our curious litcra-

if,

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ture, as Mr. Sharp's " Dissertation on the Coventry Mysteries."

BOOKS.

• Give me

" THE THING TO A T." A young man, brought up in the city of London to the business of an undertaker, went to Jamaica to better his condition. Business flourished, and he wrote to his father in Bishopsgate-street to send him, with a quantity of black and grey cloth, twenty gross of black Tacks. Unfortu- nately he had omitted the top to hisT, and the order stood twenty gross of black Jacks, His correspondent, on receiving the letter, recollected a man, near Fleet-market, who made quart and pint tin pots, ornamented with painting, and which were called black Jacks, and to him he gave the order for the twenty gross of black Jacks. The maker, surprised, said, he had not so many ready, but would endeavour to complete the order ; this was done, and the articles were shipped. The undertaker received them with other consignments, and was astonished at the mistake. A friend, fond of speculation, offered consolation, by pro- posing to purchase the whole at the invoice price. The undertaker, glad to get rid of an article he considered useless in that part of the world, took the offer. His friend immediately advertised for sale a number of fashionable punch vases just arrived from England, and sold the jacks, gaining 200 per cent. !

The young undertaker afterwards dis- eoursing upon his father's blunder, was *old by his friend, in a jocose strain, to crder a gross of warming-pans, and see whether the well-informed correspondents in London would have the sagacity to con-' sider such articles necessary in the latitude of nine degrees north. The young man laughed at the suggestion, but really put in practice the joke. He desired his father in his next letter to send a gross of warm- ing-pans, which actually, and to the great surprise of the son, reached the island of Jamaica. What to do with this cargo he knew not. His friend again became a pur- chaser at prime cost, and having knocked off the covers, informed the planters, that he had just imported a number of newly- constructed sugar ladles. The article under that name sold rapidly, and returned a large profit. The parties returned to Eng- Jand with fortunes, and often told the story of the black jacks and warming-pans over the bottle, adding, that " Nothing is lost in a good market."

Leave to enjoy myself. That place, that does

Contain my books, the best companions, is

To me a glorious court, where hourly I

Converse with the old sages and philosophers ;

And sometimes for variety, I confer

With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels;

Calling their victories, if unjustly got,

Unto a strict account; and in my fancy,

Deface their ill-placed statues. Can I then

Part with such constant pleasures, to embrace

Uncertain vanities ? No : be it your care

To augment a heap of wealth : it shall be mine

To increase in knowledge. FLETCHER.

IMAGINATION.

Imagination enriches every thing. A great library contains not only books, but " the assembled souls of all that men held wise." The moon is Homer's and Shak- speare's moon, as well as the one we look at. The sun comes out of his chamber in the east, with a sparkling eye, " rejoicing like a bridegroom." The commonest thing becomes like Aaron's rod, that budded. Pope called up the spirits of the Cabala to wait upon a lock of hair, and justly gave it the honours of a constellation ; for he has hung it, sparkling for ever, in the eyes of posterity. A common meadow is a sorry thing to a ditcher or a coxcomb ; but by the help of its dues from imagination and the love of nature, the grass brightens for us, the air soothes us, we feel as we did in the daisied hours of childhood. Its verdures, its sheep, its hedge-row elms, — all these, and all else which sight, and sound, and association can give it, are made to furnish a treasure of pleasant thoughts. Even brick and mortar are vivified, as of old at the harp of Orpheus. A metropolis be- comes no longer a mere collection of houses or of trades. It puts on all the grandeur of its history, and its literature ; its tow- ers, and rivers ; its ait, and jewellery, and foreign wealth ; its multitude of human beings all intent upon excitement, wise or yet to learn ; the huge and sullen dignity of its canopy of smoke by day; the wide gleam upwards of its ligfited lustre at night- time ; and the noise of its many chariots, heard, at the same hour, when the wind sets gently towards some quiet suburb. — Leigh Hunt.

ACTORS.

Madame Rollan, who died in 1785, in the seventy-fifth year of her age, was a principal dancer on Covent-garden stage in

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1731, and followed her profession, by pri- vate teaching, to the last year of her life. She had so much celebrity in her day, that having one evening sprained her ancle, no less an actor than Quin was ordered by the manager to make an apology to the audi- ence for her not appearing in the dance. Quin, who looked upon all dancers as " the mere garnish of the stage,'' at first de- murred ; but being threatened with a for- feiture, he growlingly came forward, and in his coarse way thus addressed the audience :

" Ladies and Gentlemen, " I am desired by the manager to inform you, that the dance intended for this night is obliged to be postponed, on account of mademoiselle Rollan having dislocated her ancle : I wish it had been her neck."

In Quin's time Hippesley was the Roscius of low comedy ; he had a large scar on his cheek, occasioned by being dropped into the fire, by a careless nurse, when an in- fant, which gave a very whimsical cast to his features. Conversing with Quin con- cerning his son, he told him, he had some thoughts of bringing him on the stage. " Oh," replied the cynic, " if that is your intention, t think it is high time you should burn his face."

On one of the first nights of the opera of Cymon at Drury-lane theatre, when the late Mr. Vernon began the last air in the fourth act, which runs,

" Torn from me, torn from me, which way did they take her ?"

a dissatisfied musical critic immediately answered the actor's interrogation in the following words, and to the great astonish- ment of the audience, in the exact tune of the air,

" Why towards Long-acre, towards Long-acre."

This unexpected circumstance naturally embarrassed poor Vernon, but in a moment recovering himself, he sung in rejoinder, the following words, instead of the author's :

" Ho, ho, did they so,

Then I'll soon overtake her, I'll soon overtake her."

Vernon then precipitately made his exit amidst the plaudits of the whole house.

Imne department

POTATOES.

If potatoes, how much soever frosted, be only carefully excluded from the atmo- spheric air, and the pit not opened until

some time after the frost has entirely sub- sided, they will be found not to have us- tained the slightest injury. This is on account of their not having been exposed to a sudden change, and thawing gradually. A person inspecting his potato heap, which had been covered with turf, found them so frozen, that, on being moved, they rattled like stones : he deemed them irre- coverably lost, and, replacing the turf, left them, as he thought, to their fate. He was not less surprised than pleased, a con- siderable time afterwards, when he disco- vered that his potatoes, which he had given up for lost, had not suffered the least de- triment, but were, in all respects, remark- ably fine, except a few near the spot which had been uncovered. If fanners keep their heaps covered till the frost entirely disap- pears, they will find their patience amply rewarded.

LOST CHILDREN.

The Gresham commit