[152] The same conceit, humorously applied, occurs in Calverley—
“And the lean and hungry raven,
As he picks my bones, will start
To observe ‘M.N.’ engraven
Neatly on my blighted heart.”
[154] Perceval was Prime Minister from 1809 to 1812, in the time of the Regency and the Peninsular War.
[155] The “Dictionary of National Biography” gives the following account of this event: “There was a certain bankrupt named John Bellingham, a man of disordered brain, who had a grievance against the Government originating in the refusal of the English Ambassador at St. Petersburg to interfere with the regular process of Russian law under which he had been arrested. He had applied to Perceval for redress, and the inevitable refusal inflamed his crazy resentment. On Monday, May 11 (1812), the House of Commons went into Committee on the orders in Council, and began to examine witnesses. Brougham complained of Perceval’s absence, and he was sent for. As he passed through the lobby to reach the house, Bellingham placed a pistol to his breast and fired. Perceval was dead before a doctor could be found.... Bellingham was tried at the Old Bailey on May 15, and the plea of insanity being set aside by the court, he was hanged on May 18.”
[156] Robert Hunt has a delightful chapter on “The Elfin Creed of Cornwall,” in his “Popular Romances of the West of England.”
[157] Compare “The Doom-Well of St. Madron”—
“‘Now horse and hattock, both but and ben,’
Was the cry at Lauds, with Dundagel men,
And forth they pricked upon Routorr side,
As goodly a raid as a king could ride.”
[158] A reference to a custom, still followed to some extent in Devon and Cornwall, of paring the turf of grass-fields and burning the sods. It is called “bait-burning,” or “burning bait.”
[159] “Full of wise saws and modern instances.”—As You Like It.