The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 2 (of 3) / or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac

by William Hone

August 5.

St. James’s Day, Old Style.

It is on this day, and not on St. James’s day new style, as mistakingly represented in vol. i. col. 978, that oysters come in.

Oyster Day.

For the Every-Day Book.

Greengrocers rise at dawn of sun—
August the fifth—come haste away!
To Billingsgate the thousands run,—
’Tis Oyster Day!—’tis Oyster Day!

Now at the corner of the street
With oysters fine the tub is filled;
The cockney stops to have a treat
Prepared by one in opening skilled.

The pepper-box, the cruet,—wait
To give a relish to the taste;
The mouth is watering for the bait
Within the pearly cloisters chased.

Take off the beard—as quick as thought
The pointed knife divides the flesh;—
What plates are laden—loads are bought
And eaten raw, and cold, and fresh!

Some take them with their steak for sauce,
Some stew, and fry, and scollop well;
While, Leperello-like, some toss;
And some in gutting them excel.[289]

Poor creatures of the ocean’s wave!
Born, fed, and fatted for our prey;—
E’en boys, your shells when parted, crave,
Perspective for the “Grotto day.”

With watchful eye in many a band
The urchin wights at eve appear;
They raise their “lights” with voice and hand—
“A grotto comes but once a year!”

Then, in some rustic gardener’s bed
The shells are fixed for borders neat;
Or, crushed within a dustman’s shed,
Like deadmen’s bones ’neath living feet.

*, *, P.

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Chronology.

Sir Reginald Bray, the architect of king Henry the seventh’s chapel, died August 5, 1503. His family came into England with the Conqueror, and flourished in Northampton and Warwickshire. He was second son to sir Richard Bray, a privy counsellor to king Henry VI. In the first year of Richard III. Reginald had a general pardon, for having adhered, it is presumed, to Henry VI. He favoured the advancement of the earl of Richmond to the throne as Henry VII., who made him a knight banneret, probably on Bosworth field. At this king’s coronation he was created a knight of the bath, and afterwards a knight of the garter.

Sir Reginald Bray was a distinguished statesman and warrior. He served at the battle of Blackheath in 1497, on the Cornish insurrection under lord Audley, part of whose estates he acquired by grant. He was constable of Oakham castle in Rutlandshire, joint chief justice of the forests south of Trent, high steward of the university of Oxford, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and high treasurer. Distinguished by the royal favour, he held the Isle of Wight for his life at an annual rent of three hundred marks, and died possessed of large estates, under a suspicious sovereign who extorted large sums from his subjects when there was very little law to control the royal will. His administration was so just as to procure him the title of “the father of his country.” To his skill in architecture we are indebted for the most eminent ecclesiastical ornament of the metropolis—the splendid chapel founded by Henry in his lifetime at Westminster; and he conducted the chapel of St. George, at Windsor palace, to its completion.

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