GREENGROCERS’ DEVICES.
For the Table Book.
Dear Sir,—In my wanderings through the metropolis at this season, I observe an agreeable and refreshing novelty, an ingenious contrivance to make mustard and cress seeds grow in pleasant forms over vessels and basketwork, covered on their exterior with wet flannel, wherein the seeds are deposited, and take root and grow, to adorn the table or recess. The most curious which struck me, consisted of a “hedgehog”—a doll’s head looking out of its vernally-growing clothes—a “Jack in the green”—a Dutch cheese in “a bower”—“Paul Pry”—and “Pompey’s pillar.”
If greengrocers proceed in these devices, their ingenuity may suggest a rivalry of signs of a more lasting nature, suitable to the shop windows of other tradesmen.
Yours, truly,
J. R.
April 30, 1827.
Garrick Plays.
No. XVII.
[From the “Parliament of Bees;” further Extracts.]
Oberon. Flora, a Bee.
Ober. A female Bee! thy character?
Flo. Flora, Oberon’s Gardener,
Huswive both of herbs and flowers,
To strew thy shrine, and trim thy bowers,
With violets, roses, eglantine,
Daffadown, and blue columbine,
Hath forth the bosom of the Spring
Pluckt this nosegay, which I bring
From Eleusis (mine own shrine)
To thee, a Monarch all divine;
And, as true impost of my grove,
Present it to great Oberon’s love.
Ober. Honey dews refresh thy meads.
Cowslips spring with golden heads;
July-flowers and carnations wear
Leaves double-streakt, with maiden-hair;
May thy lilies taller grow,
Thy violets fuller sweetness owe;
And last of all, may Phœbus love
To kiss thee: and frequent thy grove.
As thou in service true shalt be
Unto our crown and royalty.
Oberon holds a Court, in which he sentences the Wasp, the Drone, and the Humble-bee, for divers offences against the Commonwealth of Bees.
Oberon. Prorex, his Viceroy; and other Bees.
Pro. And whither must these flies be sent?
Ober. To Everlasting Banishment.
Underneath two hanging rocks
(Where babbling Echo sits and mocks
Poor travellers) there lies a grove,
With whom the Sun’s so out of love,
He never smiles on’t: pale Despair
Calls it his Monarchal Chair.
Fruit half-ripe hang rivell’d and shrunk
On broken arms, torn from the trunk:
The moorish pools stand empty, left
By water, stol’n by cunning theft
To hollow banks, driven out by snakes,
Adders, and newts, that man these lakes:
The mossy leaves, half-swelter’d, serv’d
As beds for vermin hunger sterv’d:
The woods are yew-trees, bent and broke
By whirlwinds; here and there an oak,
Half-cleft with thunder. To this grove
We banish them.
Culprits. Some mercy, Jove!
Ober. You should have cried so in your youth,
When Chronos and his daughter Truth
Sojourn’d among you; when you spent
Whole years in riotous merriment,
Thrusting poor Bees out of their hives,
Seizing both honey, wax, and lives.
You should have call’d for mercy when
You impaled common blossoms; when,
Instead of giving poor Bees food,
You ate their flesh, and drank their blood.
Fairies, thrust ’em to their fate.
Oberon then confirms Prorex in his Government; and breaks up Session.
Ober.——now adieu!
Prorex shall again renew
His potent reign: the massy world,
Which in glittering orbs is hurl’d
About the poles, be Lord of: we
Only reserve our Royalty—
Field Music.[182] Oberon must away;
For us our gentle Fairies stay:
In the mountains and the rocks
We’ll hunt the Grey, and little Fox,
Who destroy our lambs at feed,
And spoil the nests where turtles feed.
[From “David and Bethsabe,” a Sacred Drama, by George Peel, 1599.]
Nathan. David.
Nath. Thus Nathan saith unto his Lord the King:
There were two men both dwellers in one town;
The one was mighty, and exceeding rich
In oxen, sheep, and cattle of the field;
The other poor, having nor ox, nor calf,
Nor other cattle, save one little lamb,
Which he had bought, and nourish’d by his hand.
And it grew up, and fed with him and his,
And ate and drank as he and his were wont,
And in his bosom slept, and was to live
As was his daughter or his dearest child.—
There came a stranger to this wealthy man,
And he refused and spared to take his own,
Or of his store to dress or make his meat,
But took the poor man’s sheep, partly poor man’s store;
And drest it for this stranger in his house.
What, tell me, shall be done to him for this?
Dav. Now, as the Lord doth live, this wicked man
Is judged, and shall became the child of death;
Fourfold to the poor man he shall restore,
That without mercy took his lamb away.
Nath. Thou art the man, and thou hast judged thyself.—
David, thus saith the Lord thy God by me:
I thee anointed King in Israel,
And saved thee from the tyranny of Saul;
Thy master’s house I gave thee to possess,
His wives unto thy bosom I did give,
And Juda and Jerusalem withal;
And might, thou know’st, if this had been too small,
Have given thee more.
Wherefore then hast thou gone so far astray,
And hast done evil, and sinned in my sight?
Urias thou hast killed with the sword,
Yea with the sword of the uncircumcised
Thou hast him slain; wherefore from this day forth
The sword shall never go from thee and thine:
For thou hast ta’en this Hithite’s wife to thee,
Wherefore behold I will, saith Jacob’s God,
In thine own house stir evil up to thee,
Yea I before thy face will take thy wives,
And give them to thy neighbour to possess.
This shall be done to David in the day,
That Israel openly may see thy shame.
Dav. Nathan, I have against the Lord, I have
Sinned, oh sinned grievously, and lo!
From heaven’s throne doth David throw himself,
And groan and grovel to the gates of hell.
Nath. David, stand up; thus saith the Lord by me,
David the King shall live, for he hath seen
The true repentant sorrow of thy heart;
But for thou hast in this misdeed of thine
Stirr’d up the enemies of Israel
To triumph and blaspheme the Lord of Hosts,
And say, “He set a wicked man to reign
Over his loved people and his tribes;”
The Child shall surely die, that erst was born,
His Mother’s sin, his Kingly Father’s scorn.
Dav. How just is Jacob’s God in all his works!
But must it die, that David loveth so?
O that the mighty one of Israel
Nill change his doom, and says the Babe must die
Mourn, Israel, and weep in Sion gates;
Wither, ye cedar trees of Lebanon;
Ye sprouting almonds with your flowing tops,
Droop, drown, and drench in Hebron’s fearful streams:
The Babe must die, that was to David born,
His Mother’s sin, his Kingly Father’s scorn.
C. L.
[182] The hum of Bees.