July 4.
Translation of St. Martin.
This day is thus noticed as a festival in the church of England calendar and the almanacs, wherein he is honoured with another festival on the eleventh of November.
The word “translation” signifies, in reference to saints, as most readers already know, that their remains were removed from the graves wherein their bodies were deposited, to shrines or other places for devotional purposes.
For the Honour of Hackneymen.
“Give a dog an ill name and hang him”—give hackney-coachmen good characters and you’ll be laughed at: and yet there are civil coachmen in London, and honest ones too. Prejudice against this most useful class of persons is strong, and it is only fair to record an instance of integrity which, after all, is as general, perhaps, among hackneymen, as among those who ride in their coaches.
Honesty Rewarded.—A circumstance took place on Tuesday, (July 4, 1826,) which cannot be made too generally known among hackney-coachmen, and persons who use those vehicles.
A gentleman took a coach in St. Paul’s churchyard, about twenty minutes before twelve, and was set down in Westminster exactly at noon. Having transacted his business there, he was proceeding homeward a little before one, when he suddenly missed a bank note for three hundred pounds, which he had in his pocket on entering the coach. He had not observed either the number or date of the note, or the number of the coach. He therefore returned to the bankers in the city, and ascertained the number and date of the note, then proceeded to the bank of England, found that it had not been paid, and took measures to stop its payment, if presented. After some further inquiry, he applied about half-past three, at the hackney-coach office, in Essex-street, in the Strand, and there to his agreeable surprise, he found that the coachman had already brought the note to the commissioners, at whose suggestion the gentleman paid the coachman a reward of fifty pounds. The name of the honest coachman should be known: it is John Newell, the owner and driver of the coach No. 314, and residing in Marylebone-lane.
It should also be known, that persons leaving property in hackney-coaches, may very generally recover it by applying without delay at the office in Essex-street. Since the act of parliament requiring hackney-coachmen to bring such articles to the office came into effect, which is not four years and a half ago, no less than one thousand and fifty-eight articles have been so brought, being of the aggregate value of forty-five thousand pounds, and upwards.[243]
Descend we from the coach, and, leaving the town, take a turn with a respected friend whither he would lead us.
Field Paths.
(For the Every-Day Book.)
I love our real old English footpaths. I love those rustic and picturesque stiles, opening their pleasant escapes from frequented places, and dusty highways, into the solitudes of nature. It is delightful to catch a glimpse of one on the village green, under the old elder-tree by some ancient cottage, or half hidden by the overhanging boughs of a wood. I love to see the smooth dry track, winding away in easy curves, along some green slope, to the churchyard, to the embosomed cottage, or to the forest grange. It is to me an object of certain inspiration. It seems to invite one from noise and publicity, into the heart of solitude and of rural delights. It beckons the imagination on, through green and whispering corn fields, through the short but verdant pasture; the flowery mowing-grass; the odorous and sunny hayfield; the festivity of harvest; from lovely farm to farm; from village to village; by clear and mossy wells; by tinkling brooks, and deep wood-skirted streams; to crofts, where the daffodil is rejoicing in spring, or meadows, where the large, blue geraneum embellishes the summer wayside; to heaths, with their warm, elastic sward and crimson bells, the chithering of grasshoppers, the foxglove, and the old gnarled oak; in short, to all the solitary haunts, after which the city-pent lover of nature pants, as “the hart panteth after the water-brooks.” What is there so truly English? What is so linked with our rural tastes, our sweetest memories, and our sweetest poetry, as stiles and fieldpaths? Goldsmith, Thomson, and Milton have adorned them with some of their richest wreaths. They have consecrated them to poetry and love. It is along the footpath in secluded fields,—upon the stile in the embowered lane,—where the wild-rose and the honey-suckle are lavishing their beauty and their fragrance, that we delight to picture to ourselves rural lovers, breathing in the dewy sweetness of a summer evening vows still sweeter. It is there, that the poet seated, sends back his soul into the freshness of his youth, amongst attachments since withered by neglect, rendered painful by absence, or broken by death; amongst dreams and aspirations which, even now that they pronounce their own fallacy, are lovely. It is there that he gazes upon the gorgeous sunset,—the evening star following with silvery lamp the fading day, or the moon showering her pale lustre through the balmy night air, with a fancy that kindles and soars into the heavens before him,—there, that we have all felt the charm of woods and green fields, and solitary boughs waving in the golden sunshine, or darkening in the melancholy beauty of evening shadows. Who has not thought how beautiful was the sight of a village congregation pouring out from their old grey church on a summer day, and streaming off through the quiet meadows, in all directions, to their homes? Or who, that has visited Alpine scenery, has not beheld with a poetic feeling, the mountaineers come winding down out of their romantic seclusions on a sabbath morning, pacing the solitary heath-tracks, bounding with elastic step down the fern-clad dells, or along the course of a riotous stream, as cheerful, as picturesque, and yet as solemn as the scenes around them?
Again I say, I love fieldpaths, and stiles of all species,—ay, even the most inaccessible piece of rustic erection ever set up in defiance of age, laziness, and obesity. How many scenes of frolic and merry confusion have I seen at a clumsy stile! What exclamations, and charming blushes, and fine eventual vaulting on the part of the ladies, and what an opportunity does it afford to beaux of exhibiting a variety of gallant and delicate attentions. I consider a rude stile as any thing but an impediment in the course of a rural courtship.
Those good old turn-stiles too,—can I ever forget them? the hours I have spun round upon them, when a boy; or those in which I have almost laughed myself to death at the remembrance of my village pedagogue’s disaster! Methinks I see him now. The time a sultry day;—the domine a goodly person of some eighteen or twenty stone;—the scene a footpath sentinelled with turn-stiles, one of which held him fast, as in utter amazement at his bulk. Never shall I forget his efforts and agonies to extricate himself, nor his lion-like roars, which brought some labourers to his assistance, who, when they had recovered from their convulsions of laughter, knocked off the top, and let him go. It is long since I saw a turnstile, and I suspect the Falstaffs have cried them down. But, without a jest, stiles and fieldpaths are vanishing every where. There is nothing upon which the advance of wealth and population has made so serious an inroad. As land has increased in value, wastes and heaths have been parcelled out and enclosed, but seldom have footpaths been left. The poet and the naturalist, who before had, perhaps, the greatest real property in them, have had no allotment. They have been totally driven out of the promised land. Nor is this all. Goldsmith complained, in his day, that—
“The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park’s extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;
The robe, that wraps his limbs in silken sloth,
Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth;
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green.”
And it is but too true that “the pressure of contiguous pride” has driven farther and farther, from that day to this, the public from the rich man’s lands. “They make a solitude and call it peace.” Even the quiet and picturesque footpath that led across his lawn, or stole along his wood-side, giving to the poor man, with his burden, a cooler and a nearer cut to the village, is become a nuisance. One would have thought that the rustic labourer with his scythe on his shoulder, or his bill-hook and hedging mittens in his hand, the cottage dame in her black bonnet and scarlet cloak, the bonny village maiden in the sweetness of health and simplicity, or the boy strolling along full of life and curiosity, might have had sufficient interest, in themselves, for a cultivated taste, passing occasionally at a distance across the park or lawn not only to be tolerated, but even to be welcomed as objects agreeably enlivening the stately solitude of the hall. But they have not. And what is more, they are commonly the most jealous of pedestrian trespassers who seldom visit their own estates, but permit the seasons to scatter their charms around their villas and rural possessions without the heart to enjoy, or even the presence to behold them. How often have I myself been arrested in some long-frequented dale, in some spot endeared by its own beauties and the fascinations of memory, by a board, exhibiting, in giant characters, Stopped by an order of Sessions! and denouncing the terms of the law upon trespassers. This is a little too much. I would not be querulous for the poor against the rich. I would not teach them to look with an envious and covetous eye upon their villas, lawns, cattle, and equipage; but when the path of immemorial usage is closed, when the little streak, almost as fine as a mathematical line, along the wealthy man’s ample field, is grudgingly erased, it is impossible not to feel indignation at the pitiful monopoly. Is there no village champion to be found bold enough to put in his protest against these encroachments, to assert this public right—for a right it is, as authentic as that by which the land itself is held, and as clearly acknowledged by the laws? Is there no local “Hampden with dauntless breast” to “withstand the little tyrant of the fields,” and to save our good old fieldpaths? If not, we shall, in a few years, be doomed to the highways and the hedges: to look, like Dives, from a sultry region of turnpikes, into a pleasant one of verdure and foliage which we may not approach. Already the stranger, if he lose his way, is in jeopardy of falling into the horrid fangs of a steel-trap; the botanist enters a wood to gather a flower, and is shot with a spring-gun; death haunts our dells and copses, and the poet complains, in regretful notes, that he—
“Wanders away to field and glen
Far as he may for the gentlemen.”
I am not so much of a poet, and so little of a political economist, as to lament over the progress of population. It is true that I see, with a poetical regret, green fields and beautiful fresh tracts swallowed up in cities; but my joy in the increase of human life and happiness far outbalances that imaginative pain. But it is when I see unnecessary and arbitrary encroachments upon the rural privileges of the public that I grieve. Exactly in the same proportion as our population and commercial habits gain upon us, do we need all possible opportunities to keep alive in us the spirit of nature.
“The world is too much with us, late and soon
Getting and spending; we lay waste our powers,
Little there is in nature that is ours.”
Wordsworth.
We give ourselves up to the artificial habits and objects of ambition, till we endanger the higher and better feelings and capacities of our being; and it is alone to the united influence of religion, literature, and nature, that we must look for the preservation of our moral nobility. Whenever, therefore, I behold one of our old fieldpaths closed, I regard it as another link in the chain which Mammon is winding around us,—another avenue cut off by which we might fly to the lofty sanctuary of nature for power to withstand him.
H.
Bells and Bell Ringing at Bury St. Edmund’s.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Lambeth, July 13, 1826.
My dear Sir,—To your late interesting [notices] of “Bells” and “Bell-ringing,” the following singular letter, which appears in a Suffolk paper, may be added. I happen to know something of this “jangling;” and when I resided in the town of Bury St. Edmund’s some years back, was compelled to listen to “the most hideous noise” of St. James’s lofty opponents. But “who shall decide when doctors disagree?”—Why, Mr. Editor,—we will. It is a hardship, a cruelty, a usurpation, a “tale of woe.” Listen to St. James’s statement, and then let us raise our bells, and ring a “righte sounde and merie” peal, such as will almost “split the ears of the groundlings.”—
“To the Editor of the Bury Post.
“Sir,—Since we have been repeatedly asked why St. James’s ringers lost the privilege of ringing in St. Mary’s steeple, as far as it lies in our power we will answer it. Ever since the year 1714, up to the period of 1813, the ringing in this town was conducted by one company only, who had the liberty of ringing at both steeples; and in St. Mary’s steeple there are recorded two peals rung by the Bury company, one of which was rung in 1779, and the other in 1799. In 1813, the bells of St. Mary’s wanting some repairs, the ringers applied to the churchwardens, and they having declined doing any thing to them, the ringers ceased from ringing altogether until the bells were repaired. At length an offer was made to the churchwardens to raise a young company, which offer was accepted by them, and the bells were partially repaired. In consequence of which a company was raised, and a part of it consisted of old men who were incapable of learning to ring; youth being the only time when such an art can be acquired. It was agreed that when this company could ring one course of eight (or 112 changes), that each one should receive one pound, which they have never asked for, well knowing they were never entitled to it; at the same time, it appears evident that the parish consented they should learn to ring. In 1817, only two years and a half after the company was raised, three bells were obliged to be rehung, at nearly twenty pounds’ expense. Taking an account of the annual repairs of the bells, and the repairs in 1814, the three years of sixteen-change ringers cost the parish nearly thirty pounds, which would have rehung the whole peal, being a deal more than what the old ringers would have caused them to be repaired for in 1814. We, the present company of St. James’s ringers, are well aware that St. Mary’s company had the offer to learn to ring in September, 1814, which we made no opposition to; and if St. Mary’s had learnt, we would have gladly taken them by the hand as brother ringers; but after twelve years’ arduous struggle in endeavouring to learn to ring, they are no forwarder than the first week they began. They could only then ring (no more than they can now) sixteen changes, and that very imperfectly, being but a very small part of the whole revolution of changes on eight bells, which consist of 40,320. We, St. James’s ringers, or ‘old ringers,’ as we have been commonly called, often get blamed for the most hideous noise made in St. Mary’s steeple; and after the jangling of the bells, miscalled ringing, which they afforded the other evening, we indulge in the hope that our future use of the steeple will be generally allowed.
“We are, Sir, most gratefully,
“Your humble servants,
“St. James’s Ringers.”
Ah! much respected “St. James’s company,” do “indulge the hope” of making St. Mary’s bells speak eloquently again. If my pen can avail, you shall soon pull “Old Tom’s” tail in that steeple; and all his sons, daughters, and kindred around him, shall lift up their voices in well-tuned chorus, and sing “hallelujahs” of returning joy. “Those evening bells, those evening bells,” which used to frighten all the dogs and old women in the parish, and which used to make me wish were suspended round the ringers’ necks, shall utter sweet music and respond delightedly to lovers’ vows and tales whispered in shady lanes and groves, in the vicinity of your beautiful town. You, worthy old bellmen, who have discoursed so rapidly on the marriages of my father, and uncle, and cousin, and friend, and acquaintance, who would have (for a guinea!) paid the same compliment to myself, (although I was wedded in a distant land, and like a hero of romance and true knight-errant, claimed my fair bride, without consulting “father or mother, sister or brother,”) and made yourselves as merry at my expense, as my pleasantest friends or bitterest enemies could have wished, had I hinted such a thing!
Oh! respectable churchwardens—discharge the “young company,” who chant unfeelingly and unprofitably. Remember the “old ringers!”
“Pity the sorrows of the poor old men.”
Respect talent—consider their virtues—patronise that art which “can only be attained when young”—and which the “young company” cannot attain—(does this mean they are stupid?)—and console the “old ringers,” and let them pull on until they are pulled into their graves! Think how they have moved the venerable tower of old St. James’s with their music[244]—nay, until the very bricks and stones above, wished to become more intimately acquainted with them! Do not let a stigma be cast upon them—for, should the good town’s-people imagine the “most hideous noise” was caused by the “old ringers,” their characters are gone for ever—they dare not even look at you through a sheet of paper! How “many a time and oft” have they fired their feux de joie on the king’s birthday—how many thousand changes pealed for the alderman’s annual feast—how many “tiddle-lol-tols” played on the celebration of your election—parish dinners, &c. &c. Then think of their fine—half-minute—scientific—eloquent “tolls” for the death of the “young—the brave—and the fair!” Oh!—respectable gentlemen in office—“think of these things.”
I can aver, the ringers of St. Mary’s are only to be equalled in the variety of their tunes, and unaccountable changes, by “the most hideous noise” of our Waterloo-road bellmen. I suppose they are a “young company.” I can only say, then, I wish they were old, if there were any chance of their playing in tune and time.
And now, farewell, my good “old ringers” of St. James’s. I have done all I can for you, and will say there is as much difference between your ringing and the “young company” at St. Mary’s, as there is between the fiddling of the late Billy Waters and Signor Spagnoletti, the leader of the large theatre in the Haymarket!
Farewell! May you have possession of St. Mary’s steeple by the time you see this in the Every-Day Book; and may the first merry peal be given in honour of your considerate and faithful townsman—
S. R.