Corporations in old times kept fools, and there are still traces of the custom. The antiquary admires the carving of a fool, “a motley fool,” at the porchway of the King John tavern at Exeter, and contemplates it as probably the faithful representation of an obsolete servant of that ancient city; while the traveller endeavours to obtain a sight of the “noted Captain Cooke, all alive! alive!”—the most public, and not the least important officer of its lively corporation.
A tract, published without a title-page, yet symbolically, as it were, bearing a sort of half-head, whereby it is denominated “A Pamphlet called Old England for Ever!” is the production of captain Cooke himself; and a lithographed print represents that “noted” personage “drawn from nature,” in his full costume, as “Captain of the Sheriffs troop at 74 assizes for the county of Devon.” An [engraving] from the print is at the head of this article; the original is “published by George Rowe, 38, Paris-street, Exeter,” price only a shilling. The present representation is merely to give the reader some notion of the person of the captain, previously to introducing so much of his “particular confession, life, character, and behaviour,” as can be extracted from his aforesaid printed narrative.
The tract referred to, though denominated “Old England for Ever,” seems intended to memorialize “Captain Cooke—for ever.” Aspiring to eclipse the celebrated autobiography of “P. P. Clerk of this Parish,” the captain calls his literary production “a pamphlet of patriotic home achievements during the late direful war from 1793 to 1815;” and, accordingly, it is a series, to adopt his own words, of “twenty-two years multifarious but abridged memoirs, novelties, anecdotes, genealogy, and bulletins, by the author’s natural instinct.”
The first most important information resulting from the captain’s “natural instinct,” is this:—that “the duke of Wellington, marshal Blucher, the allied officers, and armies, defeated the atheist, the enemy of the Sabbath and of peace to the world, on Sunday, 18th of June 1815, at half after eight o’clock in the evening:” which day the captain, therefore, calls “an indelible day;” and says, “I built a cottage that year, and have a tablet over my door—Waterloo Cottage, in memory of Europe’s victory, Sunday, 18th June, 1815; and I went to Wellington-hill to see the foundation-stone laid for a Wellington column, in honour of the duke. So much for Buonaparte’s fanfaronade!—At daybreak of the 15th of July, he (Buonaparte) surrendered himself to the English captain Maitland, of the Bellerophon—an appropo name to the refugee.—I was called up the next morning at one o’clock; I wrote twenty letters to country gentlemen of the O!-be-joyful news, by the same morning’ post. I have been often called up on express news.”
From hence may be deduced the value of the captain and his opinions in the city of Exeter; and, no doubt, due importance will be attached to his proposition, that “parliament should always meet of a Friday or Saturday, and prorogue of a Monday, to prevent sabbath-breaking as little as possible;” and that “the mails should be prohibited from blowing their horns in the dead of the night or morning, in towns or villages.” It was contemplated to carry these measures into effect by joint stock companies, wherein all the captain’s friends were shareholders, when the “panic” came down from London by an opposition coach, and destroyed public confidence in the captain’s plans. They are noticed here in the order wherein he states them himself; and, pursuing the like order, it is proper to state, in the first place, something of the house wherein this self-eminent person was born; then, something respecting “Ashburton Pop;” and, lastly, something respecting his apprenticeship, and his services as a loyal man and a saddler to “the city of Exeter, and the corporation and trade thereof.”
“I was born,” says the captain, “at the Rose and Crown public-house on the old bridge, in the borough town of Ashburton, 1765; where a good woollen-manufactory has been carried on; and it has produced a great character, or so, for learning:” and “has been as famous for a beverage, called Ashburton Pop, as London is for porter. I recollect its sharp feeding good taste, far richer than the best small beer, more of the champaign taste, and what was termed a good sharp bottle. When you untied and hand-drew the cork, it gave a report louder than a pop-gun, to which I attribute its name; its contents would fly up to the ceiling; if you did not mind to keep the mouth of the stone bottle into the white quart cup, it filled it with froth, but not over a pint of clear liquor. Three old cronies would sit an afternoon six hours, smoke and drink a dozen bottles, their reckoning but eight-pence each, and a penny for tobacco. The pop was but twopence a bottle. It is a great novel loss to the town; because its recipe died with its brewer about 1785.”
From the never-enough-sufficiently to be lamented and for-ever-departed “Pop,” the captain returns to himself. “My mother,” says he, “put me apprentice at fifteen to the head saddler in Exeter, the late Mr. Charter, whom I succeeded when I came of age, and have lived in the same house thirty-seven years, up to 1817, where my son now lives, under the firm of Cooke and Son.” He evidently takes great pleasure in setting forth the names of his customers; and he especially relates, “I got to be saddler, through the late Charles Fanshawe, recorder of Exeter, to the late lord Elliott Heathfield, colonel of dragoons. His lordship was allowed to be one of the first judges of horses and definer of saddlery in the kingdom; his lordship’s saddle-house consisted from the full bristed to the demy pick, shafto, Hanoverian, to the Dutch pad-saddles; and from the snaffle, Pelham, Weymouth, Pembroke, Elliott, Mameluke, and Chifney bridles. Chifney was groom to the prince regent. Besides all this, the vast manage horse-tackling, tomies, dumb-jockies, hobbles, lunging, lifting, and side reins. His lordship’s saddle and riding-house was a school for a saddler and dragoon. And I had the honour of being saddler to other colonels of dragoons, connoisseurs of saddlery, when they were at Exeter quarters.”
Here the captain’s enthusiasm increases: “I could write,” says he, “a treatise on all the parts of the bearings and the utility of all the kinds of saddles, bridles, stirrups, and harness-collars, made for the last thirty years, for the benefit of horse or rider; from the bullock-back horse to the finest withered.” With just judgment, while on the saddle, the captain expatiates on the mode of riding to the best advantage. “As is said, keep your head cool, feet warm, and live temperate, and you won’t need the doctor, without something is amiss; so let your saddle clear your finger with all your weight in the stirrups going down hill; the same on the hind part with all your weight on the seat going up hill; you won’t need the saddler without something is amiss.” A miss is as good as a mile, and the captain diverges to a “great mystery,” which must be related in his own words:—
“The great mystery to know a horse’s age is between five and eight years old. A horse may live to thirty; but not one out of a thousand but what are worked out of their lives at fifteen. From their sucking first teeth, they loose, and get their permanent teeth at five years old; at six they have a small pit-hole, a bean’s eye, a cavity in two of their outer lower teeth; at seven they have this mark but in one, the outside tooth; at eight years old the teeth are all filled up; then the mark is out of the mouth. But dealers and judges look to the upper teeth; there is a mark to twelve years old, but no vestige afterward. An old horse has long large teeth, worn off on the top edge. The prime of a horse is between six and twelve years of age. He is weak and faint before six, and stiff and dull after twelve. Some say a horse is out of mark at seven; but it is at eight. The average age of horses is at twelve years—the average of man not at the half of his time appointed on earth!”
To a posey of poesy, occupying nearly a page in this part of the pamphlet, it is impossible to do justice with equal satisfaction to the reader and the captain; yet, in courtesy, it is proper to cull