George Watson, the Sussex Calculator.

This singular being, who in every thing, but his extraordinary powers of memory and calculation, is almost idiotic, was born at Buxted, in Sussex, in 1785, and has followed the occupation of a labourer. He is ignorant in the extreme, and uneducated, not being able to read or write; and yet he can, with facility, perform some of the most difficult calculations in arithmetic. The most extraordinary circumstance, however, is the power he possesses of recollecting the events of every day, from an early period of his life. Upon being asked, what day of the week a given day of the month occurred? he immediately names it, and also mentions where he was, and what was the state of the weather. A gentleman who had kept a diary, put many questions of this kind to him, and his replies were invariably correct. Watson has made two or three tours into Hampshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Somersetshire, and has exhibited his singular powers in the principal towns in those counties; is familiar with every town, village, and hamlet in Sussex, can tell the number of churches, public-houses, &c. in each. The accompanying [portrait], drawn by Mr. S. W. Lee, of Lewes, will give a correct idea of this singular individual. Phrenologists, who have examined George’s skull, state the organ of numbers to be very strongly developed.

Garrick Plays.
No. XL.

[From “Fatal Jealousy,” a Tragedy, Author unknown, 1673.]

No Truth Absolute: after seeing a Masque of Gipseys.

1st Spectator. By this we see that all the world’s a cheat,
Whose truths and falsehoods lie so intermixt,
And are so like each other, that ’tis hard
To find the difference. Who would not think these people
A real pack of such as we call Gipseys?
2d Spect. Things perfectly alike are but the same;
And these were Gipseys, if we did not know
How to consider them the contrary:
So in terrestrial things there is not one
But takes its form and nature from our fancy,
Not its own being, and is but what we think it.
1st Spect. But Truth is still itself?
2d Spect. No, not at all, as Truth appears to us;
For oftentimes
That is a truth to me, that’s false to you;
So ’twould not be, if it was truly true.

How clouded Man
Doubts first, and from one doubt doth soon proceed
A thousand more, in solving of the first!
Like ’nighted travellers we lose our way,
Then every ignis fatuus makes us stray,
By the false lights of reason led about,
Till we arrive where we at first set out:
Nor shall we e’er truth’s perfect highway see,
Till dawns the day-break of eternity.

Apprehension

O Apprehension!—
So terrible the consequence appears.
It makes my brain turn round, and night seem darker
The moon begins to drown herself in clouds,
Leaving a duskish horror everywhere.
My sickly fancy makes the garden seem
Like those benighted groves in Pluto’s kingdoms.

Injured Husband.

Wife (dying.) Oh, oh, I fain would live a little longer,
If but to ask forgiveness of Gerardo!
My soul will scarce reach heav’n without his pardon.
Gerardo (entering). Who’s that would go to heav’n,
Take it, whate’er thou art; and may’st thou be
Happy in death, whate’er thou didst design.

Gerardo; his wife murdered.

Ger. It is in vain to look ’em,[434] if they hide;
The garden’s large; besides, perhaps they’re gone.
We’ll to the body.
Servant. You are by it now, my Lord.
Ger. This accident amazes me so much,
I go I know not where.

Doubt.

Doubt is the effect of fear or jealousy,
Two passions which to reason give the lye;
For fear torments, and never doth assist;
And jealousy is love lost in a mist.
Both hood-wink truth, and go to blind-man’s-buff,
Cry here, then there, seem to direct enough,
But all the while shift place; making the mind,
As it goes out of breath, despair to find;
And, if at last something it stumbles on,
Perhaps it calls it false, and then ’tis gone.
If true, what’s gain’d? only just time to see
A breachless [435] play, a game at liberty;
That has no other end than this, that men
Run to be tired, just to set down again.

Owl.

———— hark how the owl
Summons their souls to take a flight with her,
Where they shall be eternally benighted.—

[From the “Traitor,” a Tragedy, by J Shirley: by some said to have been written by one Rivers, a Jesuit: 1635.]

Sciarrah, whose life is forfeited, has offer of pardon, conditionally, that he bring his sister Amidea to consent to the Prince’s unlawful suit. He jestingly tries her affection.

Sci.—if thou could’st redeem me
With anything but death, I think I should
Consent to live.
Amid. Nothing can be too precious
To save a brother, such a loving brother
As you have been.
Sci. Death’s a devouring gamester,
And sweeps up all;—what think’st thou of an eye?
Could’st thou spare one, and think the blemish recompenced
To see me safe with the other? or a hand—
This white hand, that has so often
With admiration trembled on the lute,
Till we have pray’d thee leave the strings awhile,
And laid our ears close to thy ivory fingers,
Suspecting all the harmony proceeded
From their own motions without the need
Of any dull or passive instrument.—
No, Amidea; thou shalt not bear one scar,
To buy my life; the sickle shall not touch
A flower, that grows so fair upon his stalk:
I would live, and owe my life to thee,
So ’twere not bought too dear.
Amid. Do you believe, I should not find
The way to heav’n, were both mine eyes thy ransom

I shall climb up those high and ragged cliffs
Without a hand.[436]

[From the “Huntingdon Divertisement,” an Interlude, “for the general entertainment at the County Feast, held at Merchant Taylor’s Hall, June 20th, 1678, by W. M.”]

Humour of a retired Knight.

Sir Jeoffry Doe-right. Master Generous Goodman.

Gen. Sir Jeoffry, good morrow.
Sir J. The same to you, Sir.
Gen. Your early zeal condemns the rising sun
Of too much sloth; as if you did intend
To catch the Muses napping.
Sir J. Did you know
The pleasures of an early contemplation,
You’d never let Aurora blush to find
You drowsy on your bed; but rouse, and spend
Some short ejaculations,—how the night
Disbands her sparkling troops at the approach
Of the ensuing day, when th’ grey-eyed sky
Ushers the golden signals of the morn;
Whilst the magnanimous cock with joy proclaims
The sun’s illustrious cavalcade. Your thoughts
Would ruminate on all the works of Heaven,
And th’ various dispensations of its power.
Our predecessors better did improve
The precious minutes of the morn than we
Their lazy successors. Their practice taught
And left us th’ good Proverbial, that “To rise
Early makes all men healthy, wealthy, wise.”
Gen. Your practice. Sir, merits our imitation;
Where the least particle of night and day’s
Improv’d to th’ best advantage, whilst your soul
(Unclogg’d from th’ dross of melancholic cares)
Makes every place a paradise.
Sir J. ’Tis true,
I bless my lucky stars, whose kind aspects
Have fix’d me in this solitude. My youth
Past thro’ the tropics of each fortune, I
Was made her perfect tennis-ball; her smiles
Now made me rich and honour’d; then her frowns
Dash’d all my joys, and blasted all my hopes:
Till, wearied by such interchange of weather,
In court and city, I at length confined
All my ambition to the Golden Mean,
The Equinoctial of my fats; to amend
The errors of my life by a good end.

C.L.

[434] The murderers.

[435] Breathless?

[436] My transcript breaks off here. Perhaps what follows was of less value; or perhaps I broke off, as I own I have sometimes done, to leave in my readers a relish, and an inclination to explore for themselves the genuine fountains of these old dramatic delicacies.

“BURNING THE WITCH”
At Bridlington, &c.

For the Table Book.

A custom was very prevalent in this part of Yorkshire about fifty years ago, and earlier, which has since been gradually discontinuing, until it has become nearly extinct—called “burning the witch” in the harvest-field. On the evening of the day in which the last corn was cut belonging to a farmer, the reapers had a merrimaking, which consisted of an extra allowance of drink, and burning of peas in the straw. The peas when cut from the ground are left to dry in small heaps, named pea-reaps. Eight or ten of these reaps were collected into one, and set fire to in the field, whilst the labourers ran and danced about, ate the “brustled peas,” blacked each other’s faces with the burned straw, and played other tricks; the lads generally aiming for the lasses, and the lasses for the lads. Such of them as could add a little grease to the grime seldom failed to do it. Even the good dame herself has sometimes joined in the general sport, and consequently fallen in for her share of the face-blacking. The evening’s entertainment consisted also of the cream-pot, which was a supper of cream and cakes, provided and eaten in the house prior to the commencement of the sport in the field. Cream-pot cakes were made rather thick, and sweet with currants and caraway-seeds. They were crossed on the top by small squares, owing to the dough being slightly cut transversely immediately before baking. The practice of “burning the witch” probably had its origin in those days of superstition, when the belief in witchery so generally and, indeed, almost universally prevailed, and was considered necessary under an idea of its being available in preventing the overthrowing of the wains, the laming of the horses, and the injuring of the servants, and of securing general success in the removing, housing, or stacking of the produce of the farm.

T. C.

Bridlington, July, 1827.

P.S. October, 1827.—One evening in the harvest of this year I was at North Burton, near Bridlington, and three distinct fires were then seen in the fields.

T C.