Topography.
THE YORKSHIRE GIPSY.[61]
For the Table Book.
The Gipsies are pretty well known as streams of water, which, at different periods, are observed on some parts of the Yorkshire Wolds. They appear toward the latter end of winter, or early in spring; sometimes breaking out very suddenly, and, after running a few miles, again disappearing. That which is more particularly distinguished by the name of The Gipsy, has its origin near the Wold-cottage, at a distance of about twelve miles W. N. W. from Bridlington. The water here does not rise in a body, in one particular spot, but may be seen oozing and trickling among the grass, over a surface of considerable extent, and where the ground is not interrupted by the least apparent breakage; collecting into a mass, it passes off in a channel, of about four feet in depth, and eight or ten in width, along a fertile valley, toward the sea, which it enters through the harbour at Bridlington; having passed the villages of Wold Newton, North Burton, Rudston, and Boynton. Its uncertain visits, and the amazing quantity of water sometimes discharged in a single season, have afforded subjects of curious speculation. One writer displays a considerable degree of ability in favour of a connection which he supposes to exist between it and the ebbing and flowing spring, discovered at Bridlington Quay in 1811. “The appearance of this water,” however, to use the words of Mr. Hinderwell, the historian of Scarborough, “is certainly influenced by the state of the seasons,” as there is sometimes an intermission of three or four years. It is probably occasioned by a surcharge of water descending from the high lands into the vales, by subterraneous passages, and, finding a proper place of emission, breaks out with great force.
After a secession of five years, the Gipsy made its appearance in February, 1823; a circumstance which some people had supposed as unlikely to occur, owing to the alterations effected on the Carrs, under the Muston and Yedingham drainage act.
We are told, that the ancient Britons exalted their rivers and streams into the offices of religion, and whenever an object had been thus employed, it was reverenced with a degree of sanctity ever afterwards; and we may readily suppose, that the sudden and extraordinary appearance of this stream, after an interval of two or three successive years, would awaken their curiosity, and excite in them a feeling of sacred astonishment. From the Druids may probably have descended a custom, formerly prevalent among the young people at North Burton, but now discontinued: it was—“going to meet the Gipsy,” on her first approach. Whether or not this meeting was accompanied by any particular ceremony, the writer of this paragraph has not been able to ascertain.
T. C.
Bridlington.
WILTSHIRE ABROAD AND AT HOME.
To the Editor.
There is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by heaven o’er all the world beside,
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons emparadise the night.
A land of beauty, virtue, valour, truth,
Time-tutor’d age, and love-exalted youth;
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Views not a realm so beautiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air;
In every clime the magnet of his soul,
Touch’d by remembrance, trembles to that pole.
For in this land of heaven’s peculiar grace,
The heritage of Nature’s noblest race,
There is a spot of earth, supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest;
Where man, creation’s tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride;
While in his softened looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend.
Here woman reigns—the mother, daughter, wife,
Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life;
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye
An angel guard of loves, and graces lie;
Around her knees domestic duties meet,
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.
Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?
Art thou a man? a patriot? look around;
Oh, thou shalt find, howe’er thy footsteps roam,
That land thy country, and that spot thy home.
Mr. Editor,—As your Table Book may be considered an extensively agreeable and entertaining continuation of your Every-Day Book, allow me a column, wherein, without wishing to draw attention too frequently to one subject, I would recur again to the contributions of your correspondent, in vol. ii. page 1371, of the Every-Day Book, my observations at page 1584, and his notices at page 1606. Your “Old Correspondent” is, I presume, a native of this part of the country. He tells us, page 1608, that his ancestors came from the Priory; in another place, that he is himself an antiquarian; and, if I am not much mistaken in the signatures, you have admitted his poetical effusions in some of your numbers. Assuming these to be facts, he will enter into the feeling conveyed by the lines quoted at the head of this article, and agree with me in this observation, that every man who writes of the spot, or the county so endeared, should be anxious that truth and fiction should not be so blended together as to mislead us (the inhabitants) who read your miscellany; and that we shall esteem it the more, as the antiquities, the productions, and the peculiarities of this part of our county are noticed in a proper manner.
As your correspondent appears to have been anxious to set himself right with regard to the inaccuracies I noticed in his account of Clack, &c., I will point out that he is still in error in one slight particular. When he visits this county again, he will find, if he should direct his footsteps towards Malmsbury and its venerable abbey, (now the church,) the tradition is, that the boys of a school, kept in a room that once existed over the antique and curious entrance to the abbey, revolted and killed their master. Mr. Moffatt, in his history of Malmsbury, (ed. 1805,) has not noticed this tradition.
Excuse my transcribing from that work, the subjoined “Sonnet to the Avon,” and let me express a hope that your correspondent may also favour us with some effusions in verse upon that stream, the scene of warlike contests when the boundary of the Saxon kingdom, or upon other subjects connected with our local history.
Upon this river, meandering through a fine and fertile tract of country, Mr. Moffatt, after noticing the earlier abbots of Malmsbury, adds, “The ideas contained in the following lines were suggested by the perusal of the history of the foundation of Malmsbury abbey:
“Sonnet to the Avon.
“Reclined beside the willow shaded stream,
On which the breath of whispering zephyr plays,
Let me, O Avon, in untutor’d lays
Assert thy fairest, purest, right to fame.
What tho’ no myrtle bower thy banks adorn,
Nor sportive Naiads wanton in thy waves;
No glittering sands of gold, or coral caves,
Bedeck the channel by thy waters worn:
Yet thou canst boast of honours passing these,
For when fair science left her eastern seat,
Ere Alfred raised her sons a fair retreat,
Where Isis’ laurels tremble in the breeze;
’Twas there, near where thy curling streamlet flows,
E’en in yon dell, the Muses found repose.”
This interesting period in the history of the venerable abbey, its supposed connection with Bradenstoke Priory, the admired scenery of the surrounding country, the events of past ages blended into the exertions of a fertile imagination, and the many traditions still floating in the minds of the inhabitants, would form materials deserving the attention of a writer disposed to wield his pen in that department of literature, which has been so successfully cultivated in the northern and other parts of our island.
If by the observation, “that his ancestors came from the Priory,” your correspondent means Bradenstoke Priory, he will allow me to direct his attention to the fact of the original register of that establishment being in the British Museum. I refer him to the “Beauties of England and Wales.”
As your correspondent probably resides in London, he may be induced to obtain access to this document, in which I conclude he would have no difficulty; and if you, Mr. Editor, could favour us in your publication with an engraving of this Priory, it would be acceptable.
I appreciate the manner in which your correspondent noticed my remarks, and wish him success in his literary efforts, whether relating to objects in this vicinity, or to other matters. One remark only I will add,—that I think he should avoid the naming of respectable individuals: the mention of names may cause unpleasant feelings in a neighbourhood like this, however unintentional on his part. I should have considered it better taste in an antiquarian to have named the person in possession of the golden image, in preference to the childish incident stated to have occurred when Bradenstoke Priory was occupied by a former respectable inhabitant, Mrs. Bridges.
Your correspondent will excuse the freedom of this observation; his ready pen could perhaps relate to you the detail of a tragical event, said by tradition to have occurred at Dauntsey, where the mansion of the late earl of Peterborough now stands, and “other tales of other times.”
A Reader.[62]
Lyneham, Wilts,
January 23, 1827.
OLD BIRMINGHAM CONJURERS.
By Mr. William Hutton.
No head is a vacuum. Some, like a paltry cottage, are ill accommodated, dark, and circumscribed; others are capacious as Westminster-hall. Though none are immense, yet they are capable of immense furniture. The more room is taken up by knowledge, the less remains for credulity. The more a man is acquainted with things, the more willing to “give up the ghost.” Every town and village, within my knowledge, has been pestered with spirits, which appear in horrid forms to the imagination in the winter night—but the spirits which haunt Birmingham, are those of industry and luxury.
If we examine the whole parish, we cannot produce one old “witch;” but we have numbers of young, who exercise a powerful influence over us. Should the ladies accuse the harsh epithet, they will please to consider, I allow them, what of all things they most wish for, power—therefore the balance is in my favour.
If we pass through the planetary worlds, we shall be able to muster two conjurers, who endeavoured to “shine with the stars.” The first, John Walton, who was so busy in casting the nativity of others, that he forgot his own. Conscious of an application to himself, for the discovery of stolen goods, he employed his people to steal them. And though, for many years confined to his bed by infirmity, he could conjure away the property of others, and, for a reward, conjure it back again.
The prevalence of this evil, induced the legislature, in 1725, to make the reception of stolen goods capital. The first sacrifice to this law was the noted Jonathan Wild.
The officers of justice, in 1732, pulled Walton out of his bed, in an obscure cottage, one furlong from the town, now Brickiln-lane, carried him to prison, and from thence to the gallows—they had better have carried him to the work-house, and his followers to the anvil.
To him succeeded Francis Kimberley, the only reasoning animal, who resided at No. 60, in Dale-end, from his early youth to extreme age. A hermit in a crowd! The windows of his house were strangers to light. The shutters forgot to open; the chimney to smoke. His cellar, though amply furnished, never knew moisture.
He spent threescore years in filling six rooms with such trumpery as was just too good to be thrown away, and too bad to be kept. His life was as inoffensive as long. Instead of stealing the goods which other people used, he purchased what he could not use himself. He was not difficult in his choice of the property that entered his house; if there was bulk, he was satisfied.
His dark house, and his dark figure, corresponded with each other. The apartments, choked up with lumber, scarcely admitted his body, though of the skeleton order. Perhaps leanness is an appendage to the science, for I never knew a corpulent conjurer. His diet, regular, plain, and slender, showed at how little expense life might be sustained. His library consisted of several thousand volumes, not one of which, I believe, he ever read; having written, in characters unknown to all but himself, his name, the price, and the date, in the title-page, he laid them by for ever. The highest pitch of his erudition was the annual almanack.
He never wished to approach a woman, or be approached by one. Should the rest of men, for half a century, pay no more attention to the fair, some angelic hand might stick up a note like the arctic circle over one of our continents, “this world to be let.”
If he did not cultivate the acquaintance of the human species, the spiders, more numerous than his books, enjoyed an uninterrupted reign of quiet. The silence of the place was not broken; the broom, the book, the dust, or the web, was not disturbed. Mercury and his shirt performed their revolutions together; and Saturn changed his with his coat. He died in 1756, as conjurers usually die, unlamented.[63]
[61] The word is not pronounced the same as gipsy, a fortune-teller; the g, in this case, being sounded hard as in gimlet.
[62] I am somewhat embarrassed by this difference between two valued correspondents, and I hope neither will regard me in an ill light, if I venture to interpose, and deprecate controversy beyond an extent which can interest the readers of the Table Book. I do not say that it has passed that limit, and hitherto all has been well; perhaps, however, it would be advisable that “A Reader” should confide to me his name, and that he and my “Old Correspondent,” whom I know, should allow me to introduce them to each other. I think the result would be mutually satisfactory.
W. H.
[63] Hist. of Birmingham.
PATIENCE.
For the Table Book
As the pent water of a mill-dam lies
Motionless, yielding, noiseless, and serene.
Patience waits meekly with companioned eyes;
Or like the speck-cloud, which alone is seen
Silver’d within blue space, ling’ring for air
On which to sail prophetic voyages;
Or as the fountain stone that doth not wear,
But suits itself to pressure, and with ease
Diverts the dropping crystal; or the wife
That sits beside her husband and her love
Subliming to another state and life,
Off’ring him consolation as a dove,—
Her sighs and tears, her heartache and her mind
Devout, untired, calm, precious, and resign’d.
*, *, P.