We are informed in the " Menagiana," that this pleasant episode is copied from a sermon of John Rolinus, doctor of Paris, &c., monk of Cluny-on widowhood. In the doctor's discourse it was told of a certain widow, who went to consult the curé of her parish, whether she should marry her servant. The curé, like a wise man, always gave her tnat advice which he saw she was pre-determined to follow: and at last referred her to the bells of the church to settle the doubtful question. The bells rang, and the widow distinctly heard them say," Prends ton valet, prends ton valet" (Take your servant, take your servant), and accordingly she submitted to their better judgment, and married him. Unfortunately, however, the servant proved a bad master to his mistress, and the good woman went immediately to reproach the curé for his infamous conduct! He ex cused himself by declaring she must have misunderstood the monition of the bells; he rang them again, and then the poor lady heard clearly, "Ne le prends pas; ne le prends pas" (don't take him, don't take him). The latter version of the story has been cast into English metre, and cooked up into a capital comic song, well known to all frequenters of melodious meetings, concerting clubs, and harmonic hassemblies. The burden of the song explains to us the reason of the bells chiming with such a different meaning: "Those evening bells, those evening bells, There is but one more instance which I shall produce of a bell holding rational discourse with a poet; but it is one in which the language it employed was without ambiguity, and the result of which was of the greatest importance to the listener, and of eminent advantage to the literary world. To the advice of a bell we are indebted for the beautiful poem of the King's Quair." The amiable and unfortunate James I. of Scotland informs us, at the commencement of the poem, that he was lying in bed one morning, when the reminiscence of all he had seen and all he had suffered, from his earliest youth, completely prevented the return of slumber; it was then that, as he expresses it, "Wery for-lyin, I listnyt sodaynlye, And sone I herd the bell to matins ryng, And up I rase, na langer wald I lye; But now how trowe ze suich a fantasye Fell me to my mynd, that ay me though: the bell, Said to me, Tell on man, quhat the befell." The astonished monarch reasoned with himself upon this extraordinary command; he argued with himself, "This is us, ultimately he obeyed the injunction, my uwin ymaginacion;" but, happily for and, as he confesses, I sat me down, "As the bell tinks, so the fool thinks, The poets are under (and confess it) the greatest obligation to the garrulity of bells; to the professors of the "bellscience" (as poetry was wont to be called), the bells relax their accustomed brevity of speech, and become diffuse and anecdotical: thus sings the first living poet of the day; "the first," do I say? ay! he is More. • Menagiana, 63, in "Table Talk," Constable's Miscellany, vol. x. I should have imagined that a bell could not avoid giving an approving omen: I should have thought a clapper must applaud! Sun rises sets Twilight ends h. m. 3 8 5 16 6 44 8 52 Stock gilliflower begins to flower in gardens. The sycamore in young leaf. Moore's Melodies. + King's Quair, canto i. stanza 11. la modern orthography it should run thus, Weary with lying, I listen'd suddenly, And soon I heard the bell to matins ring, And up I rose, nor longer would I lie; But now, how trow ye? such a fantasy Fell me to my mind, that aye methought the bell, Said to me, Tell on, man, what thee befell" "This is my own imagination.-And "I sat me down, And forth withal my pen in hand I took, And made a cross, and thus began my book." P. P. P. April 11. April 11, 1689. The prince of Orange and his-wife the princess Mary, daughter of James II., were crowned at London and filled the throne vacated by her exiled father, who by this ceremony, and their acceptance of the memorable bill of rights, was utterly cashiered and excluded. DRESS, TEMP. WILLIAM AND MARY. In this reign we find Dryden complaining that "our snippers (taylors) go over once a year into France, to bring back the newest mode, and to learn to cut and shape it." The fashions underwent some changes. Gentlemen wore their coats cut straight before, and reaching below the knee, with lace in front, and often buttoned to the bottom, without pockets on the outside; large cuffs, laced and buttoned, but no collar. The vest reached nearly to the knee. It was frequently fringed with gold or silver. Frogs or tassel, adorned the button-holes. The breeches fitted close, and reached below the knee; the shirt was ruffled, and generally with lace; the cravat long, plain, or entirely of point; shoes square-toed, the heel high; the buckles were large: the boots were worn high and stiffened; and the hats were cocked, and of a moderate size. We may reasonably suppose that the gentlemen dressed in the Dutch rather than in the French fashions; but the monarch seldom varied his dress. But the peruke was the greatest article of extravagance. It was of French origin, and now expanded to an enormous size. Louis XIV. wore a profusion of false hair. A preposterous wig was so essentially necessary to this great monarch, that he was never seen without it: before he rose from his bed, his valet gave him his forest of peruke, and even his statues were loaded with enormity of wig. Nothing could be more absurd than the appearance of generals in armour, covered to the pommels of their saddles with false hair, frosted with powder. The beaus had their coats on the shoulders and back regularly powdered, as well as their wigs. All orders, professions, and ages, wore flowing perukes; but the higher the rank, the greater the abundance of hair. Boys of rank were subjects to this folly as well as their fathers; and many could barely remember ever having worn their natural locks. The wig, which was originally mtended, like Otho's, to imitate in color the deficient hair and to hide baldness, was now uniformly white, and by its preposhead to a most unnatural size. If the terous magnitude appeared to swell the idea was taken from the vast curling mane of the lion, it ought to have been solely adopted by the military; but the peruke covered the head of the lawyer and the medical man, in proportion to the dignity of each. It would have been considered the height of insolence for a counsellor to hove worn as large a wig as a judge, or an attorney as a barrister. The clergy took example by their metropolitan. The modest Tillotson was wigged, and the fashion descended to the humble curate. John Baptist Thiers, D. D., a French ecclesiastic, wrote an elaborate work against perukes and false hair, especially as worn by the clergy, entitled "Histoire de Perruques, a Paris, 1690," a duodecimo of above five hundred closely printed pages. Shammerée was wig-maker in ordinary to the London beaus in this reign, who had for their undress the scratch, requiring neither frizzling nor buckling, but rectified instantly from any little disorder by passing the comb over it. The large flaxen perriwigs were, by a wag, called the silver fleece. Charles II.'s reign might be called that of black, this that of white wigs. Ladies wore their dresses long and flowing, and were copyists of the French, yet scarcely so much as they have been since. They flounced their coats; a fashion which Mr. Noble whimsically imagines might have been derived from Albert Durer, who represented an angel in a flounced petticoat, driving Adam and Eve from Paradise. The ruffles were long and double, and the hair much frizzed and curled. Jewels, pearls, and amber, were worn in the hair; and ear-rings, necklaces, bracelets, ornamented the stomacher and shoulders. The ladies, following the queen's ex ample, began to work with their needles. Mr. Noble mentions, that he saw a great deal of queen Mary's needle-work, and that he had a valuable necklace of hers, of the finest amber, which he presented to Dr. Green, of Litchfield, with a pair of shoes of the queen's, which had been given to him by the late John Scott Hylton, Esq., whose maiden aunt was dresser to her majesty, and had received many articles at her royal mistress's death, in lieu of her salary, besides what she had received from her majesty in her life time. There was a pair of golden fillagree sleeve-buttons, small and elegant, and under the fillagree was the hair of King William. The head-dress was more like a veil than a cap, and thrown back; the sides hung below the bosom. This head-dress gradually diminished to a caul with two lappets, known by the name of a "mob." The shoes had raised heels and square toes, were high on the instep, and worked with gold, and always of the most costly materials. The gloves of both sexes were of white leather, worked, but not so extravagantly as in the reign of Charles I. The ladies were not encumbered with hoops, but to increase the size behind they wore "the commode," which gave additional grace, it was thought, to the swimming train. In the opinion of many this is the best song-bird in the kingdom. Mr. Albin is warm in his praise:-"He is not only, as some have said, comparable to the nightingale, for singing, but, in my judgment, deserving to be preferred before that excellent bird; and, if he be hung in the same room, will strive with him for the mastery. If brought up from the nest, and caged in the same room with a nightingale, he will learn his notes, and, as it were, incorporate them with his own.' The woodlark is of great beauty, both in shape and plume; his breast and belly are of a pale yellowish hare-color, faintly spotted with black; the back and head are party-colored, of black and reddishyellow, a white line encon.passing the head, from eye to eye, like a crown or wreath. It is something less, and shorter bodied than the common skylark, and sits upon trees, which that bird seldom or never does A gentleman who made many accurate observations on birds, says, the male woodlark is flat headed, and full behind the ears, with a white stroke from each nostril, forming a curve line over the eye, and almost meeting behind the neck; the whiteness of this line, and its extension behind the neck, are the best signs to distinguish the male: they are fullchested, long from the neck to the shoulder of the wing, narrow on the vent, with a long lightish tail, and the two corner feathers touched with white; long in body, and carries himself upright; some of the feathers under the throat have small stripes; they have three small white feathers on the top of the shoulder, and a long heel. The female is narrow-headed, and brown over the eyes, flattish from the breast to the belly, and round at the vent; short-heeled, and has only two whitish, dull, or cream-colored feathers on the shoulder; the curve-line of her head reaches but a little beyond the eye. The male is likewise known by his greater size, by the largeness and length of his call; by tall walking about the cage; and, at evening, by the doubling of his note, as if he were going to roost. Length of heel, largeness of wing, and the setting up of the crown upon the head, are said by some to be certain signs of the male; yet they do not always prove true: the strength of song cannot deceive, for the female sings but little This distinguishes birds that are taken at flight-time; those caught at other seasons sing soon afterwards or not at all. There are not any certain marks of distinction in nestlings, unless it be that the highest colored bird usually proves a male. Very few are brought up from the nest; for it is difficult, even with the utmost care, to rear them. The wood-'ark is very tender, breeds almost as early as the black bird,and the young are ready to fiy by the middle of March. The female builds at the foot of a bush or a hedge, or where the grass is rank and dry, under turf for shelter from the weather. Her nest is made of withered grass, fibrous roots, and such like matter, with a few horse hairs withinside at the bottom; it is a small and very indifferent fabric; has hardly any hollow or sides, and the whole composition scarcely weighs a quarter of an ounce. She lays four eggs, of a pale bloom color, beautifully mottled and clouded with red, yellow, &r The young of the wood-lark are tende and difficult to bring up from the nest. If taken before they are well feathered, they are subject to the cramp, and commonly die. They should be put into a basket with a little hay at the bottom, where they may lie clean and warm, and be tied close down. Feed them with sheep's heart, or other lean flesh meat, raw, mixed with a hard-boiled egg, a little bread, and hemp seed bruised or ground, chopped together as fine as possible, and a little moistened with clean water. Give them every two hours, or oftener, five or six very small bits, taking great care never to overload the stomach. The bird, when wild feeds upon beetles, caterpillers, and other insects, besides seeds. The wood-lark will take no other than his own melodious song, unless weaned from his nest; in that case he may be taught the song of another bird. Branchers, which are birds hatched in spring, are taken in June and July, with a net and a hawk, after the manner of sky-larks. They harbour about gravel pits, upon heath and common land, and in pasture fields. For fear of the hawk, they will lie so close that sometimes they suffer themselves to be taken up with the hand. They soon become tame. They are taken with clap-nets in great numbers in September. These are accounted better birds than those caught at any other time of the year, because, by keeping them all the winter, they become tamer than birds taken in January or February, and will sing longer, commonly eight or nine months in the year. January is another season for taking wood-larks. When caught at that time they are very stout good birds, and in a few days afterwards they will sing stouter and louder than birds taken in September, but not during so many months. The wood-larks, whenever taken, should be fed alike with hemp seed bruised very fine, and mixed with bread and egg hard boiled, and grated or chopped as small as possible. When first caught, he will be shy for a little time. Sift fine red gravel at the bottom of his cage, and scatter some of his meat upon it; this will entice him to eat sooner than out of his trough; but that mode may be left off when he eats out of the trough freely. In a great measure his diet should be the same as the sky-lark's. Give him no turf, but often lay fine red gravel in his cage; and when not well, instead of gravel, put mould full of ants, which is the most agreeable live food you can give him. Or give him meal-worms, two or three a day; and a little saffron or liquorice sometimes in his water. If relaxed, grate chalk or cheese among his meat and his gravel. He will eat any kind of flesh meat minced fine, which he may now and then have for change of diet, always leaving some of his constant meat in the cage at the same time, that he may eat which he will. A gentleman, very fond of wood-larks, fed them constantly with a composition of pease-meal, honey, and butter, thoroughly mixed, rubbed into small granules, and dried in a dish before a fire. Of this meat he made enough at one time to serve six or eight birds for six weeks or two months. This has become a very usual food for them. Great care should be taken of the wood-lark, for he is very tender. Some think it necessary to wrap a piece of cloth round the perches in very cold weather. His diet, water, and gravel, should be often shifted. A WALK TO ELTHAM. [For the Year Book.] On the 25th of December last we left Camberwell, intending to keep "Christmasse," after the fashion of many of our former monarchs, in the old palace at Eltham.* The morning was fair, with a sprinkling of snow on the ground, and a bright sun above us. As we were to join some friends in the Kent road, we shaped our course in that direction, and joined it just by that ancient pool, known ever since the days of Chaucer, and perhaps earlier, by the name of "St. Thomas à Watering." For here the pilgrims on their journey to Canterbury, usually made a halt; and hence, I suppose it assumed the name of that "holy blessful martyr," though Mr. Bray (Surrey, vol. iii.) seems to think that a chapel or chantry, dedicated to that And forth we riden a litel more than pas The air was keen and frosty, but the remembrance of Dan Chaucer and his jolly company issuing from the Tabarde in Southwark, on a clear, cool, fresh, spring morning, to wander on a pilgrimage by the very track which we were now pursuing, brought before the mind's eye suh sweet fancies and gentle imaginings, that I could almost have "wallowed in December's snows" by thinking of the "soft" season. Whanne that Aprilis with his shoures sote, The draughte of March hath forced to the rote. Four "merry souls and all agog," we moved at a brisk pace along the Kent road, determined to find matter for mirth in every thing. We passed Hatcham, an ancient hill mentioned in Domesday Book, but consisting now of but few houses, and met with nothing worthy of record till we reached New Cross. "Lo! Depeford!" as Chaucer says, cried A., as the thickly congregated houses of that town burst upon our view; amongst which the low grey-stone turret of St. Nicholas, and the lofty spire of St. Paul's churches, were conspicuous; of this last, Dr. Conyers was formerly rector, and some of your readers may recollect the compliment paid him by Cowper We crossed the Ravensbourn, and began to ascend Blackheath hill, but struck out of the road by the "Cavern,' which you may, or may not, believe was excavated by Jack Cade and his merry men all, who mustered on the heights above it, a force of nearly 100,000. As we were none of us disposed to see the "fine water" issuing from the spring at its farther extremity, forced up against its will by means of a spasmodic old pump, as ricketty, withal, as a flag-staff in a gale of wind, we passed onward by a "basketmaker's villa," ta: tefully decorated with an inscription in what we agreed to be "broken English;" the style and title of the said craftsman being thus set forth— BASKETM AKER "Finem respice!" said the thoughtful H., as he stared, with lack-lustre eye, at the odd-looking supernumerary terminating its first line “ Ευρηκα! Ευρ.κα 1 exclaimed the inveterate G.-a small dealer in left-off puns-to his wondering companion, who was gazing intently at all that piece or parcel of the memorable inscription, situate, lying, and being next below it, in the vain hope of finding the letter which his friend's announcement declared to be forthcoming. We were now scrambling up from the pebbly gulph immediately above the Cavern, straining, as O. said, every nerve to come at "the Point," a bleak, and commanding slip of green turf connected with the heath, from which, though we missed the view, we could view the sight, till the "churlish chiding of the wintry wind" bade us begone about our busi ness. We passed a clump of firs, whose "sea-like sound" had often soothed me in my summer musings beneath their shade; and made for Lee Lane, along which we journeyed, marvellously di verted with the odd-looking villas which line it, till we reached the Maidstone road, by that well known Hostelrie the "Tiger's Head." We kept along the highway till a stile on our right hand invited us to cross the fields towards the palace of which we had as yet seen nothing. A beaten track promised us at all events the chance of arriving somewhere, and it was almost a matter of indifference whether we reached Eltham or not. "The palace!" cried A., with more than ordinary enthusiasm-as he discovered its mean gable crowning the rising grounds in the distance. [Wete ye Some notion of this view is attempted to be conveyed in the next page by an engraving from a sketch taken in the summer when playful children were amusing themselves with their nursery-waggon in the meadows. |