ROGER FURMETY, the Miller. CALEB KEEPSAKE, yclep'd the Honest Lawyer of Occum-Rogus. EPIPHANY GOTOBED, the Apothecary. KIT MAUL, the Bone-setter. PURITY KIDD, the Carpet Weaver. MATTHEW OVERCAST, the Wool-comber. CRICKET HORNBUCKLE, the Feltmonger. CHAPTER I. OLD PICK-A-BACK, you may be pleased to know, was before my time, usher of the Free-school of our ancient village, and resided, when he was at home, with only Charity Pope, his faithful housekeeper, and Chitty-bob, his favourite cat, in the little parsonage, at the back side of the bead-house, looking into the churchyard. This, comfortably furnished, and with a library, heir-looms of the place, he enjoyed rent free, by favour of the resident vicar, that holy man, who was a pattern for all parish priests. At the back side of the parsonage again, lived his worthy neighbour Caleb Keepsake, attorney at law, almost as good a man, mirabile dictu, as the vicar himself. They, the aforesaid crazy usher, and this said honest lawyer, were inseparables; and many a tale delectable to hear, have I heard Old Silly-crow relate of Pick-a-back, and Charity Pope, and lawyer Keepsake, and Chitty-bob, the black velvet puss-yea, she was shining soft and velvet-y, as our best pall, quoth Willy Wool, and ne'er a kitten born off purring Chitty-bob, was ever known to want a place. I never can forget our ancient school-'twas old indeed, coeval with the date of great Sir Simon's monument, the noble knight who fought for the first Harry Tudor, at famous Bosworth Field. He founded it, and Old Pick-a-back would have been master of the venerable old-fashioned seminary, had he lived long enough, having been promised the reversion from the right worthy descendants of the founder, for more than sixty years, only that Geoffry Merryweather, the master for the time being, happening, as Old Pick-a-back was wont to say, to be of the blood of the Parrs on one side, and of the blood of the Jenkins's on the other, the far-famed Longevities and Kill-me-nots; or to speak plainly, only that Old Merryweather was yet living, at one hundred and one, hale and hearty into the bargain, when the grey-headed usher was only ninety-nine, and beginning to bend with age. "I am not impatient for the reversion of the school," said the contented usher, smiling all the while. "I can wait, God knows." "All in good time," quoth Silly-crow. This escaped him about six months before his death. "But it doth vex me,” said he, "to see old Semicolon strap the urchins with so stout an arm, whilst I, alas! can scarcely hold a steady hand to nib a goose quill." Moreover, latterly poor Pick-a-back got rigid somewhere about the knees, and could not run up the Windmill-hill as he was wont, to win the wager, although the boys gave their old playmate a start of full ten yards, or thirty feet. Neither were his eyes altogether so good as he could wish; and so he told the squire the last Sunday he was seen at church: 'twas Easter-tide, when last the holy chalice touched his pious lips, for Pick-a-back had ever been a Godly man. Ipse, a Godlier than ego. "I myself," quoth Silly-crow, who wept at Pick-a-back's bed foot, as he sat scratching the pole of Chitty-bob, then about to be the late worthy usher's orphan cat; whispering, “I'll be a foster father to thee, pretty puss.' "It was strange" enow, quoth Silly-crow, when he one night was smoking before the parlour fire, long after ipse he himself became the master of the school. "Twas strange that Mistress Patience Pope, whom he, the worthy Silly-crow, took special care of in her dotage, and Lawyer Keepsake, and whiskered worn-out Chitty-bob, should all have given up the ghost, at the same hour, upon the self-same night. But things more wondrous far than these were apt to happen in Occum-Rogus," quoth Old Silly-crow. "But why the owls made such a special rout that night-Te-whit, tee-who-0-0-0-I never could divine, unless it were to scream a requiem to Chitty-bob, the paragon of mousers." "Time was, your reverence," said Pick-a-back, while talking to the squire; "time was I could write the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments within a silver penny's space; but somehow my eyes are not now what they were. I cannot read your pearl type comfortably without a glass." "He would not "And have been cut off so soon, perchance," said the mas-boys, held conclave on the case, and came to this ter of the free-school, "but for his own wayward determination, without a dissentient voice, and what will;" and this was plausible enough, for many of is more, without dissension, saith mine authority, the ancients of the village used to shake their heads, THAT OUT THE USHER SHOULD NOT GO. particularly Master Maul, the bone-setter, a man much, I question," quoth Silly-crow to Lawyer who doctor'd for the rheumatiz, when Pick-a-back|| Keepsake, "with deference due to your better would up to his knees be seen at the mill-tail, at even-head-piece, if the question of his ejectment could tide, routing for minnow bait, along with our boys. have been carried into force, against this motherly Even Old Bull-rush, thorough varment as he was, dictum, by the Lord Chancellor himself." Thus the ancient poacher, as he waxed old, walked by the our good-hearted Usher purchased the title Pick-amaxims of Doctor Maul, and kept his feet warm back. when he reached four score. But our Old Pick-a-back could never do enough for our boys. It was kindness in his official, as well as demi-official capacities, that acquired him the appellation PICK-A-BACK. 66 "Never can I forget his funeral," quoth Sillycrow, "that was the point of time, the climaxnote ye, your reverences. It was when the vicar, looking you as one of the pictured saints, with awful voice, gave, Earth to earth, Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust, and the loose clods returned a dank and deathy sound from the coffin of beloved Picka-back. It was then that all our boys, good boys, burst simultaneously into tears. "'Tis piteous to see the aged weep for youth cut off i'the bud, but it seems natural enough, fond hope frustrate, and what not. It moveth me much more to see youth weeping at the grave of old age, I know not why," quoth Silly-crow. May be, it hath more of what your gentle-folk call sentiment. Something, I trow, angelical about it." Know then, it happened "many years agone," as Prudence Pope was used to say, the homely touch, Old Merryweather ordered Pick-a-back to horse a boy for robbing of an orchard. The magistrate himself laid the complaint, who was an illconditioned hunx, as all the country knew. The Usher pleaded for the delinquent, for flogging was not much in vogue at Occum Rogus's School. Flog the jackanapes," quoth Justice Doodle, (he was descended of the Doodles of Flint Hall,) 66 ог I'll trounce him at the Quarter Sessions." So the Usher was constrained to the unwilling office of horsing the cul- "Didst see my gentle master laid low? ah, well prit, by the peremptory mandate of his worship.a-day!" quoth Patience Pope. "Good hap, for The urchin had received some half-dozen strokes of aught we know, his blessed spirit saw the sight. Merryweather's rod, and bellowed out most lustily, For Grim, the chimney-sweeper be said to walk when ALL the dogs without set up a howling.o'nights, why not then, one so good as he, who "Aye, the dogs, kind hearts," quoth Patience ne'er did no one wrong? I would not be presumpPope, "if it be not profane to say so of dumb tuous, but all fell out, nor more nor less, just as brutes, who cannot bear to hear the cries of human dear master could have wished. Peace to his righwoe." But our Usher was a match for Squire teous bones." Doodle. I'fegs, how prompt he was, at paying off "Poor Master Pick-a-back," said Master Maul, a trick in kind. Away he shot, the urchin on his the bone-setter, the next evening at the village back, right though the market place-'twas market club. " Of the fifty and two scholars, forty and nine day-and as he ran, set up a hue-and-cry-Here || took a last look, down his deep pit-hole, through comes the flogging justice; by which strange crazy their misty eyes, as tho'f he'd been their great prank, the boy escaped with less than half a whip-grandsire," (wiping a tear from his own ;)" and ping, and his Worship Doodle was dubbed Justice Flogger, until his dying day, at least so saith my chronicle. This crazy frolic, though as well it might, had not the laughing Fates, who seemed to clap their hands at almost all that happ'd at Occum-Rogus interposed. This frolic, then, had nearly gone to get our friendly Usher clean cashiered; but the fathers of the boys, or rather, as Patience Pope declared upon her dying bed, the mothers of the the other three, biggish boys too, cried at home by the school fire, with grief and the belly-ache, from eating green gooseberries, while sickening for the meazles. But there is no such thing as clouting old heads upon young shoulders, sure enow. Boys will be boys, and as good Queen Bess, of pious memory, once said to Roger Ascham-Who the devil, Master Roger, would keep a school!" "I trow!" quoth Silly-crow, "never were such bookish folks as we of our town. This comes of 6 the parsonage library, whither-thither, all who sometimes, lo! Old Expectation, putting up his run may read. Physic, Chirurgery, and Polemics. || spectacles again in shagreen case, will shrugging O the wise-acres of Occum-Rogus!" say, I' faith, Long-look'd-for might as well have staid at home. Old Pick-a-back was an universal genius, as the squire himself used to aver, and ought to have been president of a college. This was the burden of his song at the Quarter Sessions, when his worship was appealing for an addition to the old Usher's salary. The funds were rich enough, I wot. 66 Even so with our contemporary Mr. Peter Coxe his promised volume-so long looked for-lo! it is come at last; and then, no sooner come, than many a paper-knife was quick in requisition, by hosts of friendly hands. "Indeed, this is a handsome book," quoth one; Very fine talking, your Worship," answereth Pick-a-back, with a modest bow. "What do they" and verily worth waiting for," rejoined another. teach at your Universities, save Latin and Greek." "And I rejoice," exclaimed a third, " that I Mark you, gentle reader, this was the good squire, subscribed for a large-paper copy." "Welcome, not old grumpus Doodle, the other magistrate; he Linco-welcome home!"" would not put out his crutch to save a sinking saint from drowning. Now Pick-a-back taught his good boys, those who had ever so little a modicum of wit, something of every thing. By which token, quoth Silly-crow, "our Occum-Rogus scholars know nothing." But Silly-crow knew better, he was a wag. It is something though, my worthy author, to live in days like these, when a world of patrons can be pricked down upon the card, with four guineas, set off against their honoured names for a largepaper copy. It is something, too, to add, that this noble spirit of patronage has been well bestowed. For "We have given to the world one circumnaviga- we have lived to hail the epoch, when the British tor," said Master Merryweather, reckoning on his press gives birth to the most admired illustrated fingers. "That's one," quoth Silly-crow; " and books of any press in Christendom: and this we two first rate mathematicians." "That maketh owe not to the munificence of a Leo-or a Louis le three," quoth the under usher. "And one incom- || Grand-but to Public Spirit, and National Taste; parable, almost incomprehensible, metaphysician," to an enlightened age; the long-looked-for, the so "which maketh four." Master Merryweather devoutly-wished, and the now consummated, flowing dealt in long words, it was his pride, it was his from a source the more to be prized as the most foible. "Mirabillissimum !" Thus the worthy likely to last. Merryweather would proceed, bragging of his disciples, painters, poets, soldiers, sailors, physicians, lawyers, merchants, and divines, though to lower the fond old prater a peg or two, sly Silly-crow would add, "He was no Kneller, nor he a Pope, We are surrounded by a social neighbourhood; nor t'other a Marlborough, nor this man a Hawke, || we live on very social terms with the Appinghams nor that man a Sydenham, nor the next a Bacon, at the manor-house, and the Coddringtons at the nor your trader a Gresham, nor your parson a Til-grove, with the commodores at the hall, and the lotson." "Pox take you," Old Merryweather would exclaim: "What then! but they were all good members of the Common weal!" A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod; And-An honest man's the noblest work of God The subject which our author has chosen, bears upon the very face of it a title to our regard. The Social Day. The very word conveys pleasurable associations-it is national. vicars at the moat-house: yes, we are on a social footing with all the parish, said the three spinstersisters, worthy ladies. Then, thither will I retire, said their good old uncle from Bombay. Ah! girls, there is no region upon earth like old England; And it became a proverb-“ Occum-Rogus, where and the grey-headed warrior is gone to add another dwelleth none but honest men." THE SOCIAL DAY. LONG-LOOK'D-FOR, COME AT LAST! to their social circle. This little fiction, peradventure, is the sense in which our author uses the word; and, by way of illustration, introduces his readers to a family, a few miles from town, which may be regarded as a A HOMELY saying this; but when the said Long-picture, or specimen of a class, that seems almost 'ooked-for really comes, and empties his travelling budget, the question is, what have we here? and peculiar to our soil-one, of the many, who tenant the villas, so beautifully sprinkled over our land scapes; such as you may behold from every hill, within a certain circuit of every city and populous town, all over our heaven-protected isle. In this family prevails, as happy a domestic government as the wisest moral philosopher might approve enough of wealth to purchase all that can be wanted in its sphere, and an application of that wealth that mixes elegance with comfort, and makes home the seat of all the social virtues. The theme is good. It is not often in this commercial bustling city, -is it, my worthy Mister Alderman?-that we beguile an hour in social chat over our wine, either in Austin-friars, or in Token house-yard, or within ten minutes' walk o' the Change, and sit beside a poet? one, too, who had his education at a desk, where ledgers were the books, and invoices and almanacks the only framed graphic works, to decorate the ink-splashed walls! But the more rare, the higher the biddings with works of art; and it would be no news to tell in the great city of Trinnobantes, that our poet was one, who, rather late in life, shut up his city ledger, the gallant bachelor, and opened an account with the Muses-ladies; who rarely go a shopping so far east. But, "let us to business," as they say at Lloyds. First, then, The Social Day is printed in a handsome octavo volume, and is composed of three cantos, each canto having a vignette, and most of the leading subjects of the poem being illustrated by an engraved design, with an appropriate quotation from the rhymes. eth forward to become an annual record of the FINE ARTS, a description of the merit of the prints that adorn The Social Day come more legitimately under its consideration, than the merits of its rhymes; hence, our pages will rather dwell upon the graphic excellencies of the work, than its poetic beauties. We shall presume sometimes to offer our opinions somewhat critically upon Architecture, Painting, Sculpture, and Engraving, feeling ourselves more competent to speak upon those matters. But, touching the Art Poetic, we shall leave the critical chair in undisturbed possession of those enlightened scholars, whose rhetorical superiority is acknowledged no less by ourselves than by the rest of his Majesty's good subjects, who daily improve by their weekly, monthly, and quarterly lucubrations. Prefixed to Mr. Peter Coxe's elegant volume is a portrait of Mr. Peter Coxe. This, courteous reader, if you should happen not to know the worthy poet, is, as near as may be, to what he would say of himself. And lest you should not know the author, nor have chanced to see his book, we offer to open it for you, and there you may read, by way of apology for the appearance of the said portrait, or rather to deprecate the censure of the cynic, or the waggery of the wags, upon the score of his vanity, he writes a few lines, and ends in the good-humoured and playful words of Taylor, the water poet— "There's many a head stands for a sign, MY GREAT UNCLE ZACHARY'S almost every sub And here the genii of the arts, whether to tempt another adventurer from the commercial desk, to embark upon the precarious sea of literature, or as a reward for the hold enterprise of him, the last that made the poetic voyage, (for certain they have|ject, were collected by my great uncle Zachary, the interposed their kind offices,) for never more inge-retired trader, of whom there is some account in nious, nor more friendly hands, were yet employed to offer help to any sister art, nor laboured with a more generous zeal, to bring his poetic bark safely to anchor. Almost all the designs, taken for The Social Day, were offerings, painted con amore by the author's social friends, and presented by each in testimony of his particular esteem. Of the friendship of such distinguished artists, who might not well feel proud? 'Tis good to hold such friends-'tis better to deserve them. Our author has not been wanting in acknowledgment, having blazoned forth the deed in grateful numbers; yea, in prose as well as verse. As the Somerset-House Miscellany humbly look WINE and WALNUTS. They were copied out in a fair hand by the worthy old citizen, between the year 1730 and 1780, in the course of his multifarious reading, and are half bound in fifty thin folios, being one for every year-ending in 1780, the memorable epoch of the RIOTS, and of his death. Many of these curious scraps are accompanied with his own remarks, to which are added some notes by, gentle reader, his surviving nephew, and your very respectful servant, INTRODUCTION. E. HARDCASTLE. To begin, GOD is the best foundation that can be laid, as testifieth both by experience, example, and consent of ancient, sacred, and prophane writers. I. In Divine Propositions. Q. What is the most ancient of all things? whilst we are in this mortal flesh, we can perceive but as in a mirrour: yet, that hereafter we shall be translated to a higher academy, where God himself shall be our school-master, and then we shall see him as he is, where all shadows vanish, and the substance only is embraced; where, being ascended, we shall know the truth of all, either argued or debated of in this sublunary region, where we live in the midst of doubts! Q. What are those three conjunctions, the like whereof never can, nor never shall be done again, upon the face of the earth? A. Three works, three conjunctions hath that Q. Wherefore are the Holy Scriptures, containing the mystery of man's salvation, folded up by God in such obscurity and darkness, as sometimes Maxi-omnipotent Majesty made in the assumption of our milian the emperor, in the first of his eight questions flesh, wonderfully singular, and singularly wonderto the learned abbot Tritemius, demanded? ful, even such as the very angels were amazed at: 1. Conjunction of God and Man. 2. Of a mother and a virgin. 3. Of faith, and the heart of man to believe this. A. The Holy Scriptures, unless they be read with that spirit by which it is believed to be written, by the inspiration of God's spirit, for the direction of man's life, and that with humility, and desire to know and be governed by it, cannot be understood,sitions (writes my good old uncle) induced me to but remain as a DEAD LETTER in the efficacy copy them oftentimes, and to send them to several thereof. young people, the sons and daughters of my friends, together with a new shilling as a new-year's gift. I copied them from a little volume published a century and a half since. Concerning whom, yet further St. Gregory saith, though they have of themselves that height and depth, wherein their mystery may exercise the wisdom of the learned; yet have they also that easiness and plainness-THAT THE SIMPLE may be COMFORTED and TAUGHT; being in themselves that WONDERFUL RIVER, both shallow and deep, wherein the lamb may wade, and the elephant may swim. Of whose death St. Austin thus speaketh further. The Holy Scriptures are thus written, that by their height the proud may be abased, as with their easiness the simple may be comforted: adding, that it is our dulness of capacity that they seem so hard to us, and the veil of our hearts, which cannot be removed, unless by him which hath the key of David, which opens where no man shuts, and shuts and no man opens, which only can open that sealed book. And, therefore, God hath not wrapped up these high mysteries of Scripture in such obscurity, as envying man's knowledge, but that the study and industry of man might be more profitably exercised. Hence no man ought to be too much dejected, that he cannot understand every mystery therein, for that there are some things that to be ignorant of, though they may somewhat subject thy presumption, will not endanger thy salvation. Possess thyself with PATIENCE, knowing that That It is storied of a scholar of St. Austine, that came to him to be instructed in some points of divinity, to whom the father gave him this lesson to learn perfectly: I SAY I WILL LOOK TO MY WAYS, THAT I OFFEND NOT WITH MY TONGUE. the scholar having received, departed from him, and returned no more until the end of nineteen years; and being asked by his master why he came not again in so long time, he answered,-the lesson was so hard, he had not learned it, although so long studied it: and all this to show the INFINITE DEPTH of GOD and his MYSTERIES; which, like veins of silver, the deeper they are searched into, the richer they are found. |