ANECDOTES OF A PRIEST.
It was in Nicosia, about the year 1840, that Dame Fortune once more played off one of her eccentric frolics on the person of a poor Greek priest, who had little to depend upon in this world, save such meagre offerings as the more charitable of his parishioners bestowed upon him. As the story goes, he was a devout and holy man, but beyond being able to go through the regular routine of his priestly office, possessed but scant learning, and was equally ignorant of the world's ways and manners. At the commencement of a fast, fearing he should, from his defective memory, forget its exact duration, he carefully filled his pockets with so many dried peas as there were fast days, and each day extracting one from his pockets, as the peas diminished, he was warned of the proximity of a feast, and prepared accordingly. On one occasion, his wife happening to find a few peas in her husband's pockets, and imagining the devout man was fond of this Eastern luxury, very affectionately replenished his pockets from her own store of cadamies, or roasted peas. Great was the consternation of his congregation, when on the eve of the feast day, instead of proclaiming its advent from the pulpit, as is usual, he informed them that eight or ten days yet remained for the approaching festival. A discussion on this point immediately ensued, when the priest, in confirmation of what he asserted, produced from his pocket the remaining peas, making known at the same time his method of calculating. Upon this, his wife stepped forward, and acknowledged what she had done, and great merriment ensued, in which the priest joined.
To this poor man, fortune now brought one of those rare windfalls which are more frequently heard of than experienced. One summer's evening he was seated in the courtyard of his humble house, watching with satisfaction and delight the gambols of his little children, who were amusing themselves with throwing stones at a hole in the wall. At length he remarked, that whenever a stone chanced to go near the crevice, he heard a ringing sound, and to convince himself that he was not deceived, he stepped nearer, and hit it repeatedly with a stone, each time hearing the sound distinctly. It now occurred to him that there was some concealed treasure within, and the thought made him tremble with expectation. He went to bed early, but not to sleep, having formed the determination that he would that night make a rigorous search. When all was still, he rose from his sleepless couch, and going out stealthily and noiselessly, commenced, by aid of a small pickax, breaking into the wall, removing stone by stone. He had hardly worked an hour, when out fell a bag of doubloons, followed by a second and a third. This was indeed a treasure, sufficient to satisfy a more covetous man; but he felt there would be no safety with it in Cyprus. That very night, he carefully stowed his riches in two saddle-bags, and before daybreak, awoke his wife and acquainted her with their good fortune, when horses were hired at a neighboring khan, and priest, wife, and children turned their backs upon Nicosia, and arriving early at Larnaca, embarked that very day on board a vessel sailing for Italy. The priest became the head of one of the wealthiest mercantile firms now established at Leghorn, and is, I believe, still living.
THE SHADOW OF BEN JONSON'S MOTHER.
In Hartshorn Lane, near Charing Cross, about the year 1580, dwells Mr. Thomas Fowler, a master bricklayer. He had married, in 1575, Mrs. Margaret Jonson, a widow; and had become the protector of her little boy, Benjamin, then about a year and a half old.
Benjamin is now in his sixth year. He duly attends the parish school in St. Martin's Church; for his father was "a grave minister of the gospel," and his mother is anxious that her only child, poor although he must be, shall lack no advantages of education. We see the sturdy boy daily pacing to school, through the rough and miry way of that half-rural district. In his play-hours he is soon in the fields, picking blackberries in Hedge-lane, or flying his kite by the Windmill in Saint Giles's. His father-in-law is a plain, industrious, trusty man—not rich enough to undertake any of the large works which the luxurious wants of the town present; and oft-times interfered with, in the due course of his labor, by royal proclamations against the increase of houses, which are rigidly enforced when a humble man desires to build a cottage. But young Ben has found friends. To the parish school sometimes comes Master Camden; and he observes the bold boy, always at the head of his class, and not unfrequently having his "clear and fair skin" disfigured by combats with his dirty companions, who litter about the alleys of Saint Martin's-lane. The boy has won good Master Camden's heart; and so, in due time, he proposes to remove him to Westminster School.
Let us look at the Shadow of his Mother, as she debates this question with her husband, at their frugal supper. "The boy must earn his living," says the bricklayer. "He is strong enough to be of help to me. He can mix the mortar; he will soon be able to carry the hod. Learning! stuff! he has learning enow, for all the good it will do him."—"Thomas Fowler," responds the mother, "if I wear my fingers to the bone, my boy shall never carry the hod. Master Camden, a good man, and a learned, will pay for his schooling. Shall we not give him his poor meals and his pallet-bed? Master Camden says he will make his way. I owe it to the memory of him who is gone, that Benjamin shall be a scholar, and perhaps a minister."—"Yes; and be persecuted for his opinions, as his father was. These are ticklish times, Margaret—the lowest are the safest. Ben is passionate, and obstinate, and will quarrel for a straw. Make him a scholar, and he becomes Papist or Puritan—the quiet way is not for the like of him. He shall be apprenticed to me, wife, and earn his daily bread safely and honestly." Night after night is the debate renewed. But the mother triumphs. Ben does go to Westminster School. He has hard fare at home; he has to endure many a taunt as he sits apart in the Abbey cloisters, intent upon his task. But Camden is his instructor and his friend. The bricklayer's boy fights his way to distinction.
Look again at the Shadow of that proud Mother as, after three or four anxious years, she hears of his advancement. He has an exhibition. He is to remove to Cambridge. Her Benjamin must be a bishop. Thomas Fowler is incredulous—and he is not generous: "When Benjamin leaves this roof he must shift for himself, wife." The mother drops one tear when her boy departs; the leathern purse which holds her painful savings is in Benjamin's pocket.
It is a summer night of 1590, when Benjamin Jonson walks into the poor house of Hartshorn-lane. He is travel-stained and weary. His jerkin is half hidden beneath a dirty cloak. That jerkin, which looked so smart in a mother's eyes when last they parted, is strangely shrunk—or, rather, has not the spare boy grown into a burly youth, although the boy's jerkin must still do service? The bricklayer demands his business; the wife falls upon his neck. And well may the bricklayer know him not. His face is "pimpled;" hard work and irregular living have left their marks upon him. The exhibition has been insufficient for his maintenance. His spirit has been sorely wounded. The scholar of sixteen thinks he should prefer the daily bread which is to be won by the labor of his hands, to the hunger for which pride has no present solace. Benjamin Jonson becomes a bricklayer.