Urania makes a mock assignation with the King, and substitutes the Queen in her place. The King describes the supposed meeting to the Confident, whom he had employed to solicit for his guilty passion. Pyrrhus, I'll tell thee all. When now the night She only whisper'd to me, as she promised, I did the faithful'st Princess in the world; For him who mock'd both Heav'n and her, and was THE CUSHION DANCE. For the Table Book. C. L. The concluding dance at a country wake, or other general meeting, is the “ Čushion Dance;" and if it be not called for when the company are tired with dancing, the fiddler, who has an interest in it which will be seen hereafter, frequently plays the tune to remind them of it. A young man of the company leaves the room; the poor young women, uninformed of the plot against them, suspecting nothing; but he no sooner returns, bearing a cushion in one hand and a pewter pot in the other, than they are aware of the mischief intended, and would certainly make their escape, had not the bearer of cushion and pot, aware of the invincible aversion which young women have to be saluted by young men, prevented their flight by locking the door, and putting the key in his pocket. The dance then begins. The young man advances to the fiddler, drops a penny in the pot, and gives it to one of his companions; cushion then dances round the room, followed by pot, and when they again reach the fiddler, the cushion in a sort of recitative, accomsays panied by the music," This dance it will no farther go." The fiddler, in return, sings or says, for it partakes of both, "I p I pray, kind sir, why say you so?" The answer is, "Because Joan Sanderson won't come to." But," replies the fiddler, 66 she must come to, and she shall come to, whether she will or no." The young man, thus armed with the authority of the village musician, recommences his dance round the room, but stops when he comes to the girl he likes best, and drops the cushion at her feet; she puts her penny in the pewter pot, and kneels down with the young man on the cushion, and he salutes her. When they rise, the woman takes up the cushion, and leads the dance, the man following, and holding the skirt of her gown; and having made the circuit of the room, they stop near the fiddler, and the same dialogue is repeated, except, as it is now the woman who speaks, it is John Sanderson who won't come to, and the fiddler's mandate is issued to him, not her. The woman drops the cushion at the feet of her favourite man; the same ceremony and the same dance are repeated, till every man and woman, the pot bearer last, has been taken out, and all have danced round the room in a file. The pence are the perquisite of the fiddler. H. N. in Miss Hutton's " Oakwood Hall." P.S. There is a description of this dance THE CUSHION DANCE. For the Table Book. "Saltabamus." The village-green is clear and dight Under the starlight sky; Joy in the cottage reigns to night, And brightens every eye: The fiddler in a corner stands, He gives, he rules the game; A rustic takes a maiden's hands Whose cheek is red with shame: At custom's shrine they seal their truth, The pillow's carried round and round, The fiddler speaks and plays; The choice is made,-the charm is wound, And parleys conquer nays :"For shame! I will not thus be kiss'd, Your beard cuts like a lance; Leave off-I'm sure you've sprained my wrist By kneeling in this Cushion Dance!' ,, "Ha! princum prancum !"-Love is blest; Both Joan and John submit ; Friends smiling gather round and rest, And sweethearts closely sit;Their feet and spirits languid grown, Eyes, bright in silence, glance Like suns on seeds of beauty sown, And nourish'd in the "Cushion Dance." In times to come, when older we Have children round our knees; 'Twas here my Maiden's love I drew She knelt, her mouth and press were true, And sweet as rose's blossom : E'er since, though onward we to glory, Islington. ST. SEPULCHRE'S BELL. For the Table Book. On the right-hand side of the altar of St. Sepulchre's church is a board, with a list of charitable donations and gifts, containing the following item : £. s. d. 1605. Mr. Robert Dowe gave 50 0 0 for ringing the greatest bell in this church on the day the condemned prisoners are executed, and for other services, for ever, concerning such condemned prisoners, for which services the sexton is paid £1. 6s. 8d. Looking over an old volume of the Newgate Calendar, I found some elucidation of this inscription. In a narrative of the case of Stephen Gardner, (who was executed at Tyburn, February 3, 1724,) it is related that a person said to Gardner, when he was set at liberty on a former occasion, "Beware how you come here again, or the bellman will certainly say his verses over you." On this saying there is the following remark : "It has been a very ancient practice, on the night preceding the execution of con demned criminals, for the bellman of the All you that in the condemn'd hold do lie, In the following extract from Stowe's Who is it that rides thro' the forest so green, Why starts the proud courser ? what vision is there? But, lo! a dark form o'er the pathway hath lean'd; verses ought to be repeated by a clergy- The prophet of Cadenham, the death-boding seer! man, instead of a bellman :— "Robert Doue, citizen and merchant taylor, of London, gave to the parish church of St. Sepulchres, the somme of £50. That after the several sessions of London, when the prisoners remain in the gaole, as condemned men to death, expecting execution on the morrow following: the clarke (that is the parson) of the church shoold come in the night time, and likewise early in the morning, to the window of the prison where they lye, and there ringing certain toles with a hand-bell appointed for the purpose, he doth afterwards (in most Christian manner) put them in mind of their present condition, and ensuing execution, desiring them to be prepared therefore as they ought to be. When they are in the cart, and brought before the wall of the church, there he standeth ready with the same bell, and, after certain toles, rehearseth an appointed praier, desiring all the people there present to pray for them. The beadle also of Merchant Taylors' Hall hath an honest stipend allowed to see that this is duely done." Probably the discontinuance of this practice commenced when malefactors were first executed at Newgate, in lieu of Tyburn. The donation most certainly refers to the verses. What the "other services " are which the donor intended to be done, and for which the sexton is paid £1. 6s. 8d., and which are to be "for ever," I do not know, but I presume those services (or some other) are now continued, as the board which contains the donation seems to me to have been newly painted. Carthusian-street, Jan. 1827. EDWIN S-. Page 25 of the quarto edition, 1618, His garments were black as the night-raven's plume, Red! "Desolation, death, ruin, the mighty shall fall- my blood, "Thou liest, vile caitiff, 'tis false, by the rood, "But say what art thou, strange, unsearchable thing, That dares to speak treason, and waylay a king ?"— Know, monarch, I dwell in the beautiful bowers "In darkness and storm o'er the ocean I sail, O pale grew the monarch, and smote on his breast, "Tis winter-the trees of the forest are bare, Why looks he with dread on the blasted oak tree? He thought of the contract, "Thou'rt safe from the Till Cadenham's oak in the winter shall bloom. ;" As he stood near the tree, lo! a swift flying dart Hath struck the proud monarch, and pierc'd thro' his versed and formal, being compared to the heart; In Malwood is silent the light-hearted glee, London. AQUILA. DESCRIBED BY A WRITER IN 1634. I will first take a survey of the long-continued deformity in the shape of your city, which is of your buildings. Sure your ancestors contrived your narrow streets in the days of wheel-barrows, before those greater engines, carts, were invented. Is your climate so hot, that as walk you need umbrellas of tiles to you intercept the sun? or are your shambles so empty, that you are afraid to take in fresh air, lest it should sharpen your stomachs ? Oh, the goodly landscape of Old Fishstreet! which, if it had not the ill luck to be crooked, was narrow enough to have been your founder's perspective; and where the garrets, perhaps not for want of architecture, but through abundance of amity, are so narrow, that opposite neighbours may shake hands without stirring from home. Is unanimity of inhabitants in wide cities better exprest than by their coherence and uniformity of building, where streets begin, continue, and end, in a like stature and shape ?* But yours, as if they were raised in a general resurrection, where every man hath a several design, differ in all things that can make a distinction. Here stands one that aims to be a palace, and next it, one that professes to be a hovel; here a giant, there a dwarf; here slender, there broad; and all most admirably different in faces, as well as in their height and bulk. I was about to defy any Londoner, who dares to pretend there is so much ingenious correspondence in this city, as that he can show me one house like * If a disagreement of neighbours were to be inferred from such a circumstance, what but an unfavourable inference would be drawn from our modern style of architecture, as exemplified in Regent-street, where the houses are, as the leopard's spots are described to be, "no two alike, and every one different." another; yet your houses seem to be refantastical looks of the moderns, which have more ovals, niches, and angles, than in your custards, and are enclosed with pasteboard walls, like those of malicious Turks, who, because themselves are not immortal, and cannot dwell for ever where they build, therefore wish not to be at charge to provide such lastingness as may entertain their children out of the rain; so slight and prettily gaudy, that if they could move, they would pass for pageants. It is your custom, where men vary often the mode of their habits, to term the nation fantastical; but where streets continually change fashion, you should make haste to chain up your city, for it is certainly mad. You would think me a malicious tra veller, if I should still gaze on your misshapen streets, and take no notice of the beauty of your river, therefore I will pass the importunate noise of your watermen, (who snatch at fares, as if they were to catch prisoners, plying the gentry so uncivilly, as if they had never rowed any other passengers than bear-wards,) and now step into one of your peascod-boats, whose tilts are not so sumptuous as the roofs of gondolas; nor, when you are within, are you at the ease of a chaise-a-bras. The commodity and trade of your river belong to yourselves; but give a stranger leave to share in the pleasure of it, which will hardly be in the prospect and freedom of air; unless prospect, consisting of variety, be made up with here a palace, there a wood-yard; here a garden, there a brewhouse; here dwells a lord, there a dyer; and between both, duomo commune. If freedom of air be inferred in the liberty of the subject, where every private man hath authority, for his own profit, to smoke up a magistrate, then the air of your Thames is open enough, because it is equally free. I will forbear to visit your it will make me giddy to shoot your bridge, courtly neighbours at Wapping, not that but that I am loath to describe the civil silence at Billingsgate, which is so great, as if the mariners were always landing to sake, I will put to shore again, though I storm the harbour; therefore, for brevity's should be so constrained, even without my galoshes, to land at Puddle-dock. I am now returned to visit your houses, where the roofs are so low, that I presumed your ancestors were very mannerly, and stood bare to their wives; for I cannot discern how they could wear their highcrowned hats yet I will enter, and therein oblige you much, when you know my aversion to a certain weed that governs amongst your coarser acquaintance, as much as lavender among your coarser linen; to which, in my apprehension, your sea-coal smoke seems a very Portugal perfume. I should here hasten to a period, for fear of suffocation, if I thought you so ungracious as to use it in public assemblies; and yet I see it grow so much in fashion, that methinks your children begin to play with broken pipes instead of corals, to make way for their teeth. You will find my visit short; I cannot stay to eat with you, because your bread is too heavy, and you distrain the light substance of herbs. Your drink is too thick, and yet you are seldom over curious in washing your glasses. Nor will I lodge with you, because your beds seem no bigger than coffins; and your curtains so short, as they will hardly serve to enclose your carriers in summer, and may be held, if taffata, to have lined your grandsire's skirts, I have now left your houses, and am passing through your streets, but not in a coach, for they are uneasily hung, and so narrow, that I took them for sedans upon wheels. Nor is it safe for a stranger to use them till the quarrel be decided, whether six of your nobles, sitting together, shall stop and give way to as many barrels of beer. Your city is the only metropolis in Europe, where there is wonderful dignity belonging to carts. I would now make a safe retreat, but that methinks I am stopped by one of your heroic games called foot-ball; which I conceive (under your favour) not very conveniently civil in the streets, especially in such irregular and narrow roads as Crookedlane. Yet it argues your courage, much like your military pastime of throwing at cocks; but your metal would be much magnified (since you have long allowed those two valiant exercises in the streets) were you to draw your archers from Finsbury, and, during high market, let them shoot at butts in Cheapside. I have now no more to say, but what refers to a few private notes, which I shall give you in a whisper, when we meet in Moorfields, from whence (because the place was meant for public pleasure, and to show the munificence of your city) I shall desire you to banish laundresses and bleachers, whose acres of old linen make a show like the fields of Carthagena, when the five months' shifts of the whole fleet are washed and spread.* your A FATHER'S HOME. For the Table Book. When oppress'd by the world, or fatigu'd with its charms, My weary steps homeward I tread- Hark! the rap at the door is known as their dad's, Wide open it flies, while the lasses and lads Little baby himself leaves the breast for a gaze, While with outstretched arms and looks of amaze Then Harry, the next, climbs the knee to engage But Bob, springing forward almost in a rage, Oh, ye vot'ries of pleasure and folly's sad crew, Look here for true joys, ever blooming and new, Right merrily playing their parts. And Bill (the sly rogue) takes a lump, when he's able, Of sugar, so temptingly sweet, And, archly observing, hides under the table The spoil, till he's ready to eat. While George, the big boy, talks of terrible" sums" Bill leeringly tells, with his chin on his thumbs, Each ventures a threat to his brother, There Nan, the sweet girl, she that fags for the whole, Her sister's fine sampler and border. Helps her mother to darn or to stitch, Reminding me most of that gay laughing face Which once did my fond heart bewitch. While she! the dear partner of all my delight, Contrives them some innocent play; They dream the glad moments away. Ye children, be virtuous and true! How I minister'd comfort to you. When my vigour is gone, and to manhood's estate Show the world that you're truly my own, *Sir W. Davenant. R. |