THE GATHERER.
Dr. Johnson has remarked that the French are fond of Young's Night Thoughts, a fact which is hard to be accounted for, that a nation so celebrated for their gaiety should have a regard for an author treating on such serious subjects.
Wigs.—In the reign of Queen Anne, enormous full-bottomed wigs often cost twenty or thirty guineas each.
"Capillary Attraction."—When Charles II. was espoused to the Infanta of Portugal, a fleet was sent over to Lisbon, with proper attendants to bring her hither, but her majesty being informed that there were some particular customs in Portugal, with relation to the ladies, which the king would not easily dispense with, the fleet was detained six or seven weeks, at a great expense, till her majesty's hair grew.
(Mr. Prince, with his Russia Oil, would have prospered under Royal Patronage in those days; and Mr. Rowland would not have needed immortality in Byron's verse: "incomparable huile Macassar.")
The King of Kippen.—When James V. of Scotland, travelled in disguise, he used a name which was known only to some of the principal nobility and attendants. He was called the Goodman (the tenant, that is) of Ballangiech. Ballangiech is a steep pass, which leads down behind the Castle of Stirling. Once, when he was feasting in Stirling, the king sent for some venison from the neighbouring hills. The deer were killed and put on horses' backs to be transported to Stirling. Unluckily, they had to pass the castle gates of Ampryor, belonging to a chief of the Buchanans, who had a considerable number of guests with him. It was late, and the company were rather short of victuals, though they had more than enough of liquor. The chief, seeing so much fat venison passing his very door, seized on it; and, to the expostulations of the keepers, who told him that it belonged to King James, he answered insolently, that if James was king in Scotland, he, Buchanan, was king in Kippen, being the name of the district in which the Castle of Ampryor lay. On hearing what had happened, the king got on horseback, and rode instantly from Stirling to Buchanan's house, where he found a strong, fierce-looking Highlander, with an axe on his shoulder, standing sentinel at the door. This grim warder refused the king admittance, saying that "the Laird of Arnpryor was at dinner, and would not be disturbed." "Yet go up to the company, my good friend," said the king, "and tell him that the good man of Ballangiech is come to feast with the King of Kippen." The porter went grumbling into the house, and told his master that there was a fellow with a red beard who called himself the good man of Ballangiech, at the gate, and said he was come to dine with the King of Kippen. As soon as Buchanan heard these words, he knew that the king was there in person, and hastened down to kneel at James's feet, and to ask forgiveness for his insolent behavour. But the king, who only meant to give him a fright, forgave him freely, and, going into the castle, feasted on his own venison, which Buchanan had intercepted. Buchanan of Arnpryor was ever afterwards called King of Kippen.
W.G.C.
Remarkable Murder.—"Anno 1605: one William Calverly, of Calverly, in the county of York, esquire, murthered two of his own children at home at his own house, then stabbed his wife into the body, with full intent to have killed her, and then went out with intention to have killed his child, at nurse, but was prevented. He was pressed to death, at York, for this murther, because he stood mute, and would not plead."—Old History.
Law respecting Caps.—An old Law, enacted that every person above seven years of age, should wear on Sundays, and Holidays, a cap of wool, knit-made, thickened and dressed in England, by some of the trade of Cappers—under the forfeiture of three-farthings for every day's neglect; excepting Maids, Ladies, and Gentlemen, and every Lord, Knight, and Gentleman of Twenty marks of land, and their heirs, and such as had borne office of worship in any City, Town, or Place, and the Wardens of the London Companies.
T. GILL.
Splendid Biography.—Richard Neville, the Great Earl of Warwick and Salisbury, was well known in history by the appellation of the King Maker. His biographer says, "He was a man whose hospitality was so abundant, that the ordinary consumption of a breakfast, at his house in London, was six oxen; whose popularity was so great, that his absence was accounted as the absence of the sun from the hemisphere; whose service was so courted, that men of all degrees were proud to wear the badges of his livery; and whose authority was so potent, that kings were raised, or deposed, as suited his humour."
P.T.W.
Character of England by Henry the Seventh.—Henry the Seventh (whose breeding had been low and private) being once pressed by some of his council, to pursue his title to France, returned this answer: "That France was indeed a flourishing and gallant kingdom; but England, in his mind, was as fine a seat for a country gentleman as any that could be found in Europe."
G.K.
The Plough.
"Look how the purple flower, which the plough
Hath shorn in sunder, languishing doth die."
Peachum.
This implement was known to the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and was invented at a very early period, being perhaps nearly coeval with the cultivation of the soil itself. Anciently, the tenants (in England) in some manors, were not allowed to have their rural implements sharpened by any but those whom the lord appointed; for which an acknowledgment was to be paid, called agusa dura; in some places agusage, a fee for sharpening plough-tackle, which some take to be the same with what was otherwise called reillage, from the ancient French reille, a ploughshare.
Ancient Fête at Gorhamlury.—In the year 1577, Queen Elizabeth was entertained at Gorhambury, by Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, from Saturday, May the 18th, to the Wednesday following, at the expense of 577l. 6s. 7-1/4d. besides fifteen bucks and two stags. Among the dainties of the feathered kind, enumerated in this entertainment, Mr. Nichols mentions herons, bitterns, godwites, dotterels, shovelers, curlews, and knots. Sir Nicholas Bacon was frequently visited by the queen, who dated many of her state papers from Gorhambury.
P.T.W.
Adrian the Fourth.—Adrian the Fourth was the only Englishman who ever filled the Papal chair. His name was Nicholas Breakspeare, and he was born at Abbot's Langley, a village in Herts. Such was the unbounded pride of this pontiff, that when the Emperor Frederick the First went to Rome, in 1155, to receive the imperial diadem, the Pope, after many difficulties concerning the ceremonial of investiture, insisted that the emperor should prostrate himself before him, kiss his feet, hold his stirrup, and lead the white palfrey on which the holy father rode. Frederick did not submit to this humiliation without reluctance; and as he took hold of the stirrup, he observed that "he had not yet been taught the profession of a groom." In a letter to his old friend, John of Salisbury, he says that St. Peter's Chair was the most uneasy seat in the world, and that his crown seemed to be clapped burning on his head. Yet did this haughty Pope (according to Dr. Cave) allow his mother to be maintained by the alms of the church of Canterbury.
P.T.W.
Quid pro quo.—A peasant of Burgundy, whom Louis XI. had taken some notice of, while Dauphin, appeared before him when he ascended the throne, and presented him with an extraordinary large radish; Louis received it with much goodwill, and handsomely repaid the peasant. The great man of the place, to whom the countryman related his good fortune, imagined that if he were to offer Louis something, he would, at any rate, make him a prince. Accordingly he went to court, and presented his finest horse to the king. Louis received his present as graciously as he had before taken the radish, and after he had sufficiently praised the horse, "See here," said he, taking the radish in his hand, "here is a radish, which, like your horse, is one of the rarest of its kind; I present it to you with many thanks."
Iota.
Muswell Hill derives its name from a famous well on the hill, where, formerly, the fraternity of St. John of Jerusalem, in Clerkenwell, had their dairy, with a large farm adjacent. Here they built a chapel for the benefit of some nuns, in which they fixed the image of our Lady of Muswell. These nuns had the sole management of the dairy: and it is singular, that the said well and farm do, at this time, belong to the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell. The water of this spring was then deemed a miraculous cure for scrofulous and cutaneous disorders. For that reason it was much resorted to; and, as tradition says, a king of Scotland made a pilgrimage hither, and was perfectly cured.
Footnote 1:[(return)]
St. Pancras was a young Phrygian nobleman, who suffered death under the Emperor Dioclesian, for his zealous adherence to the Christian faith.
Footnote 2:[(return)]
Lysons's Environs, 4to. vol. ii. part ii.
Footnote 3:[(return)]
The parish extends in this direction to the foot of Gray's Inn Lane, and includes part of a house in Queen's Square.
Footnote 4:[(return)]
Anciently Kentistonne, where William Bruges, Garter King at Arms in the reign of Henry V. had a country-house, at which he entertained the emperor Sigismund.
Footnote 5:[(return)]
The visitation of the church in the year 1251, mentions a very small tower, a good slope font, and a small marble stone ornamented with copper to carry the Pax.
Footnote 6:[(return)]
Strype, in his additions to Stowe, says, the Roman Catholics have of late effected to be buried at this place.
Footnote 7:[(return)]
One is stated to be on its way to England; our parliament has voted 10,000l to defray the expense. The other needle is destined for France.
Footnote 8:[(return)]
Mr. Colton used to say that he wrote his treasurable, "Lacon: or, many things in a few words," upon a small, rickety deal table. We perceive from Galignani's Messenger, that Mr. Colton put an end to his existence, a few days since, at Fontainbleau, it is stated in consequence of the dread of a surgical operation which it had become necessary that he should undergo.
Footnote 9:[(return)]
Abridged from printed extracts furnished by our correspondent, M.L.B.
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