Mr. Tycho Wing died in 1750, after which it was written and 'compiled ty Mr. William Harvey, of Knipton, near Grantham, for Mr. Vincent Wing, who continued and wrote it for him till about the year 1762, after whose death Thomas Wright was employed in compiling the same. This, I believe, pretty nearly brings the secret history of its editorship down to the period when it was assumed by Mr. Henry Andrews, as mentioned on page 117 of the Year Book. All this contention sprang, I find, from the circumstance of there being two Francis Moores in the field, each affirming that he alone was the veritable Simon Pure. One of these was put forth by the Stationers' Company, and the other by "T. Carnan, St. Paul's Church-Yard; "who," as he states at the foot of his title-page for 1782, "after an expensive suit in law and equity, by the unanimous opinion of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, dispossessed the Stationers' Company of their pretended exclusive privilege of printing Almanacs, which they had usurped for two centuries-a convincing proof that no unjust monopoly will ever stand the test of an English court of Justice. Carnan, like Francis Moore at present, was fond of mixing politics with his astrology; and says many bitter things of Lord North, Taxes, Sinecurists, &c., which I pass without farther notice, as not being exactly to the matter in hand. His compilation appears to have been conducted by Andrews of Royston, and was probably bought up or driven from the field, by the Stationers' Company, about 1788, as I find no trace of it after that year. Predictions as to the weather seem to be getting as much out of repute as those of another description; and certainly, in a climate like ours, few undertakings can be more hazardous than that of inferring from the weather of one year what that of the next will be. Thus at p. 75 of the Year Book it is stated, with truth, that the middle of January is generally the coldest part of the year-a remark which the experience of several past seasons entirely justifies; yet that period in 1831 has been remarkably mild; great-coats have been at discount, and sea-coal fires regarded with indifference. To some unlucky speculations upon these points, into which the Almanacmakers were led by trusting to the fallacious criterion of weather-wise experience, is to be attributed the circumstance that the compilers of " Rider's British Merlin' have abandoned that part of their undertaking, in despair. The months of July and August 1828, it may be remembered were extremely unseasonable; rain fell incessantly, and so cold was the atmosphere, that, during the last nights of July, tender plants suffered from the effects of a slight frost. Yet during all this time, in contradiction to barometers and cloudy skies, the weather-columns in the British Merlin exhibited the following pleasant but delusive announcements. July. Fair and hot. Good weather for the Hay. "August. Fine harvest-weather." This was rather unfortunate to be sure: but no one can be wise at all times, and the false prophets, doubtless, hoped, by a lucky hit in their next almanac, to efface the impression made by their present failure. That two summers of unprecedented wet and cold should occur together was quite beyond the bounds of probability; and, upon the strength of this reasoning, they ventured to predict that the two months which were provokingly rainy in 1828 would present the following delightful appearance in 1829:“July. Fair and hot towards the end. "August. Fine harvest weather. Fair and hot. Excellent weather or the corn." Well! the result was, that the summer of 1829, throughout, proved to be about the coldest and wettest ever known. The rains commenced towards the end of June, and fell almost incessantly till near the end of October. This was too much; and the next Almanac, I think, announced that the column which had heretofore been devoted to remarks on the weather would in future be occupied "with matter of greater utility and interest." Ere I quit this subject, let me say a word or two upon "Partridge's Almanac," the character of which you have described most justly. How this disgusting medley of faith and absurdity should have found purchasers, even amongst the most besotted slaves of superstition, is utterly incomprehensible. To show its character by extracts is scarcely possible, for its grossness renders it unquotable; but I will venture one brief specimen from the January column of 1825, for the sake of its closing prediction, which shows that Robin was much more gifted as a prophet than a poet'; although he doubtless little imagined that what he foretold would so speedily take place. "Dick! Dick!—Coming, sir! Sir Robin's back.-Good lack! What's the matter?-A great clatter. What about?—Nothing, sir. That's a joke-A pig in a poke. Poor Robin!-Poor Robin! About to die, in a pig-stie." And this trash was put forth, by "the Worshipful Company of Stationers," in the year of our Lord, 1825! Truly, 'twas time for the "Schoolmaster" to commence his progress. Staffordshire Moorlands. November 17.-Day breaks. Sun rises sets J. B――n. Twilight ends. November 18. 5 39 7 38 4 22 6 21 18th of November, 1700, died Henry Cooke, an artist of eminence. He was born in England, and when young procured money sufficient to enable him to visit Italy, but he was so little known or esteemed as an artist at his return that he resided in Knave's-acre, in partnership with a house-painter. He was found in this obscurity by Lutterel, who introduced him to sir Godfrey Copley; and that gentleman employed him in decorating a seat he built in Yorkshire, for which Cooke received £150, a considerable sum to him at that time. Theodore Russel engaged him in his painting-room for five years; during which period Cooke lived a profligate life, and killed a man who loved a woman to whom Cooke had formed an attachment. He fled to Italy, and seven years afterwards ventured to return home. Time had effaced the recollection of his crime, or he had contrived to procure protection, for he was unmolested, and worked for king William on the cartoons and other pictures in the royal collection. He is said to have copied the cartoons. His principal performances were an equestrian portrait of Charles II. at Chelsea College, the choir of New college chapel, Oxford, the stair-case at Ranelagh house, the ceiling of the great room at the water works at Islington, and the staircase at lord Carlisle's house in Soho square, a mansion subsequently well known by the assemblies held there under the direction of the celebrated Mrs. Corneleys. Cooke's pencilwas chieflyengaged on historical subjects: he did not give himself a fair chance in portrait painting, and, through disgust at "the capricious behaviour of those who sat to him, he declined pursuing it. His own portrait by himself, possessed by lord Orford, though touched with spirit, was dark and unnatural in the coloring. The following lines were published by Elsum, "on a Listening Fawn" of Cooke's painting. Two striplings of the wood, of humor gay, Cooke married the woman for whom he incurred the guilt of murder.* MARVELLOUS MUSIC. Verstegan, in his "Restitution of Decayed intelligence,"+relates the following strange story. Hulberstadt, in Germany, was extremely infested with rats, which a certain musician, called from his habit the " 'Pyed Piper," agreed for a great sum of money to destroy: whereupon he tuned his pipes, and the rats immediately followed him to the next river, where they were all drowned. But, when the piper demanded his pay, he was refused with some scorn and contempt, upon which he began another tune, and was followed by all the children of the town to a neighbouring hill called Hamelen, which opened and swallowed them up and afterwards closed again. One boy being lame came after the rest, but, seeing what had happened, returned, and related this strange circumstance. The story was believed, for the parents never after heard of their lost children. This incident is stated to have happened on the 22nd of July in the year 1376, and that since that time the people of Halberstadt permit not any drum, pipe, or other instrument to be sounded in that street which leads to the gate through which the children passed. They also established a decree, that in all writings of contract or bargain, after the date of our Saviour's nativity, the date also of the year of the children's going forth should be added, in perpetual remembrance of this surprising event. THE NORTHUMBERLAND BAGpipe. The wild, melancholy, warlike sound of the ancient pibrocks, was certainly well calculated to excite the astonishment of the refined Italians and to rouse the enthusiasm of a North Briton in a foreign land. The gentleman who favored the Editor with the preceding communication relative to the famous Northumbrian piper says, "It is twenty years this autumn since James Allan played to me at Eldon Court Baron, a post pibrock on the regimental Northumberland bagpipe, to the astonishment of his hearers. The same gentleman obligingly communicated the following verses, which were written for the Northumberland regimental bagpipes. They refer to a supposed invasion of the Scots having taken place in the absence of the Palatine and to the gathering of the Fenwicke, a Northumberland clan, and their allies to repel the incursion. A BORDER GATHERING. Pipe of Northumbria sound! Swell wide their war-host. Now fierce from the border, Join lion-like Bewick :* Harlan and Hallington, Bag-pipe at Wallington: Names of families of clans. A wisp of straw or tow, mounted on the top of a spear and set on fire when a raid took place. Upon this portentous ensign being carried through the country, every one instantly flew to arms. It was the Hot-tot. Leave the plow, leave the mow, Leave loom and smithie; Your war-gears in order, Stand firm in the van-guard; Evil Speaking. It is not good to speake evill of all whom wee know bad; it is worse to judge evill of any who may prove good. To speake ill, upon knowledge, shews a want of charity; to speake ill, upon suspicion, shews a want of honesty. I will not speake so bad as I knowe of many; I will not speake worse than I knowe of any. To knowe evill by others, and not speake it, is sometimes discretion: to speake evill by others, and not knowe it, is always dishonesty, Hee may be evill himselfe who speakes good of others upon knowledge; but hee can never be good himself, who speakes evill of others upon suspicion.-A. Warwick. READING AND KNOWLEDGE. A man must not give himself to the gathering and keeping the opinions and knowledges of another, to the end he may afterwards make report of them, or use them for shew or ostentation, or some base and mercenary profit; but he must use them so as that he may make them his own. He must not onely lodg them in his minde, but incorporate and transubstantiate them into himself. He must not onely water his minde with the dew of knowledge, but he must make it essentially better, wise, strong, good, couragious; otherwise to what end serveth study? Wisdom is not onely to be gotten by us, but to be enjoyed. He must not do as it is the manner of those that make garlands, who pick here and there whole flowers, and so carry them away to make nose-gayes, and afterwards presents; heap together out of that book, and out of this book, many good things, to make a fair and a goodly show to others; but he must do as bees use to do, who carry not away the flowers, but settle themselves upon them (like a hen that covereth her chickens) and draweth from them their spirit, force, virtue, quintessence, and nourishing themselves, turn them into their own substance, and afterwards make good and sweet honey, which is all their own; and it is no more either thyme or sweet marjorum. So must a man gather from books the marrow and spirit (never enthralling himself so much as to retain the words by heart, as many use to do, much lesse the place, the book, the chapter; that is a sottish and vain superstition and vanity, and makes him lose the principal; and having sucked and drawn the good, feed his mind therewith, inform his judgment, instruct and direct his conscience and his opinion, rectify his will; and in a word, frame unto himself a work wholly his own, that is to say, an honest man, was devised, resolute.-Charron, COME TO ME LOVE! Aza, star of my soul's dark night, Let me worship thee by this pale moon's light; Heard thy step from afar and thy sounding song; Smoothing it and my tangled hair; And once, when the friends from my couch had stray'd, Come to me love, the colds of night, And the cold of the world, the heart's worst blight, Are upon me here; Come to me sweet, Could I seek thee out I would wing my feet. I have made thee a crown of the yellow gold, And a sceptre too, and thou shalt be, I will clothe thee in sun-beams, and thy fair neck But thou com'st not my fond gifts to receive, Winds brought me thy promise-thou wilt not deceive: To CHARLES LAMB, ESQ. Friend LAMB, thy choice was good, to love the lore Of fruitage, now right luscious in its age, And now right fain, yet fearing, honest bard, S H. S. JOHN CLARE. THE MILLER'S TOMB, ON HIGHDOWN HILL, NEAR TARRING, SUSSEX. In the spring of this year (1831) I found myself, by the kind invitation of a friend, at the little village of Salvington, in the parish of Tarring, near Worthing in Sussex. Salvington is retired from the London road to Worthing, at about three miles distance from that place. It is a peaceful hamlet in the midst of meadows and farms, and was the birth-place of Selden. Passing some noble elm trees within the dwarf wall of a comfortable farm-yard, I was in a minute or two at "Selden's Cottage." Its gabled side abuts on a cross road. It is inhabited by a laboring family and the dame welcomed me withinside. Upon the oak-lintel is a Latin inscription in two lines, over the door. I began to examine it, when the good wife, pointing to a paper pinned against the plastered wall, said "It is all put down, down, down there, sir: and there I read, as I found by collation, "a true copy" with a translation of the distich, in the handwriting of an able antiquary, then residing 44. |