December 4.
The Walking Post.
In December, 1808, was living William Brockbank, whose daily pedestrian achievements occasioned public notice of him to the following effect. He was the Walking Post from Manchester to Glossop, in Derbyshire, a distance of sixteen miles, which he performed every day, Sundays excepted; returned the same evening, and personally delivered the letters, newspapers, &c. in that populous and commercial country, to all near the road, which made his daily task not less than thirty-five miles, or upwards. What is more extraordinary, he
“This daily coarse of duty walk’d”
in less than twelve hours a day, and never varied a quarter of an hour from his usual time of arriving at Glossop.
Brockbank was a native of Millom, in Cumberland, and had daily walked the distance between Whitehaven and Ulverstone, frequently under the necessity of wading the river at Muncaster, by which place he constantly went, which is at least three miles round. Including the different calls he had to make at a short distance from the road, his daily task was not less than forty-seven miles.[523]
The Weather.
Now is the time when, in some parts of England, a person of great note formerly, in every populous place, was accustomed to make frequent nocturnal rambles, and proclaim all tidings which it seemed fitting to him that people should be awakened out of their sleep to harken to. For the use of this personage, “the Bell-man,” there is a book, now almost obsolete as regards its use, with this title explanatory of its purpose,—“The Bell-man’s Treasury, containing above a Hundred several Verses fitted for all Humours and Fancies, and suited to all times and seasons.” London, 1707, 8vo. From the riches of this “treasury,” whence the predecessors of the present parish Bell-man took so much, a little may be extracted for the reader’s information. First then, if the noisy rogue were thereunto moved by a good and valuable consideration, we find, according to the aforesaid work, and the present season, that we ought to be informed, by sound of bell, and public proclamation,
Upon a Windy Night.
Now ships are tost upon the angry main,
And Boreas boasts his uncontrolled reign:
The strongest winds their breath and vigour prove,
And through the air th’ increasing murmurs shove.
Think, you that sleep secure between the sheets,
What skies your Bell-man tempts, what dangers meets.
Then, again, according to the book of forms, he is instructed to agitate us with the following
Upon a Star-light Night.
Were I a conjurer, such nights as these
I’d choose to calculate nativities;
For every star to that degree prevails,
One might e’en count, and then turn up their tails.
This night will Flamstead, and the Moorfields’ fry
Such knowledge gain, they’ll seldom tell a lye.
As an amplification of the common cry of watchmen, may be produced the ancient Bell-man’s.
Upon a Night of all Weathers.
This night, so different is the changing weather,
Boisterous or calm, I cannot tell you whether
’Tis either fair or foul; but, altogether,
Just as to cry a star-light night I study,
Immediately the air grows dark and cloudy:
In short, the temper of the skies, if any,
Is all, and nature makes a miscellany.
Men in the Moon.
A few years ago, professor Gruithausen, of Munich, wrote an essay to show that there are many plain indications of inhabitants in the moon. In answer to certain questions, the “Munich Gazette” communicates some remarkable results, derived from a great number of observations—
1. In what latitude in the moon are there indications of vegetation?
2. How far are there indications of animated beings?
3. Where are the greatest and plainest traces of art on the surface of the moon?
With respect to the first question, it appears from the observations of Schroter and Gruithausen, that the vegetation on the moon’s surface extends to fifty-five south latitude, and sixty-five north latitude. Many hundred observations show, in the different colours and monthly changes, three kinds of phenomena which cannot possibly be explained, except by the process of vegetation.
To the second question it is answered, that the indications from which the existence of living beings is inferred, are found from fifty north latitude, to thirty-seven, and perhaps forty-seven, south latitude.
The answer to the third question, points out the places on the moon’s surface in which are appearances of artificial causes altering the surface. The author examines the appearances that induce him to infer that there are artificial roads in various directions; and he describes a colossal edifice, resembling our cities, on the most fertile part near the moon’s equator, standing accurately according to the four cardinal points. The main cities are in angles of forty-five degrees and ninety degrees. A building resembling what is called a star-redoubt, the professor presumes to be dedicated to religious purposes, and as they can see no stars in the daytime (their atmosphere being so pure) he thinks that they worship the stars, and consider the earth as a natural clock. His essay is accompanied by plates.
The sombre sadness of the evening shades
Steal slowly o’er the wild sequester’d glen,
And seem to make its loneliness more lonely—
In ages past, nature was here convuls’d,
And, with a sudden and terrific crash,
Asunder rent the adamantine hills—
Now, as exhausted with the pond’rous work,
She lies extended in a deathful trance—
The mountains form her couch magnificent;
Heaven’s glittering arch her canopy;
The snows made paler by the rising moon,
Her gorgeous winding sheet; and the dark rocks
That cast deep shadows on the expanse below,
The sable ’scutcheon of the mighty dead—
The roar of waters, and the north wind’s moan
Give music meet for her funereal dirge.
Yon giant crag, the offspring of her throes,
Has rear’d his towering bulk a thousand years,
Grown hoary in the war of elements,
And still defies the thunder, and the storm
But in his summer pride, his stately form
Is mantled o’er with purple, green, and gold,
And his huge head is garlanded with flowers.
Penny Lotteries at Brough, Westmoreland.
About this time, when gardens look in a dormant state, there are frequently Penny Lotteries in the north of England; and very often a whole garden is purchased for one penny. There are sometimes twenty tickets or more, as the case may be, all written on them “blank,” save “the prize.” These are put into a hat, and a boy stands on a form or chair holding the hat on his head, while those who have bought a ticket ascend the form alternately, “one by one,” and, shutting their eyes, take a ticket, which is opened by a boy who is at the bottom for that purpose. The tickets are only a penny each, and sometimes a garden (worth a few shillings) or whatever the sale may be, is bought for so trifling a sum.
W. H. H.
For the Every-Day Book.
SONNET TO WINTER.
Winter! though all thy hours are drear and chill,
Yet hast thou one that welcome is to me
Ah! ’tis when daylight fades, and noise ’gins still,
And we afar can faintly darkness see;[524]
When, as it seems too soon to shut out day
And thought, with the intrusive taper’s ray,
We trim the fire, the half-read book resign,
And in our easy chairs at ease recline,
Gaze on the deepening sky, in thoughtful fit
Clinging to light, as loath to part with it
Then, half asleep, life seems to us a dream,—
And magic, all the antic shapes, that gleam
Upon the walls, by the fire’s flickerings made;
And, oft we start, surpris’d but not dismay’d.
Ah! when life fades, and death’s dark hour draws near,
May we as timely muse, and be as void of fear!
W. T. M.