Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

September 4.

HOW TO KEEP Apples.

Gather them dry, and put them with clean straw, or clean chaff, into casks; cover them up close, and put them into a cool dry cellar. Fruit will keep perfectly good a twelvemonth in this manner.

How to mark your fruit.

Let the cultivator of choice fruit cut in paper the initial letters of his name, or any other mark he likes; and just before his peaches, nectarines, &c. begin to be coloured, stick such letters or mark with gum-water on that side of the fruit which That part of the rind which is under the paper will remain green, in the exact form of the mark, and and so the fruit be known wheresoever found, for the mark cannot be obliterated.

is next the sun.

NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. Mean Temperature... 59. 92.

September 5.

OLD BARTHOLOMEW.

I learn to climb, to walk and run,
I make defence, and dangers shun;
Now quick, now slow, now poised on high,
I stand in air and vault the sky;
The sailor's skill, the soldier's part,
I compass by Gymnastic art.

Should be secured to gather wealth;
All life's concerns require that health
That limb and muscle, nerve and vein,
Should vigorous force and motion gain :-
Seek the Gymnasium,-try the plan,
And be the strong and graceful man.

The Olympic games, of Grecian birth,
Gave many a youth athletic worth;
Hence Romans shone ;-hence Britons fought,
The Picts and Vandals influence caught;
The lance, the spear, and arrow flew,
And prove
what deeds Gymnastics do.

With ease the horseman learns to ride
And keep his hobby in his pride;
Bloodless the feats are here pursued,
And vanquished contests are renewed.
Hey for Gymnastics!-'tis the rage
Both with the simple and the sage.

Clias, and Voelker as the chief,
Each makes his charge and gives relief;
Each points his pupils to the goal,
And, more than Parry, gains the pole:
Up and be trim!-the sport is fine,-

:

This day has been so marked in our Fling down the gauntlet,-mount the line. almanacs since the new style.

THE SEASON.

We may expect very pleasant weather during this month. For whether the summer has been cold, warm, or showery, September, in all latitudes lying between 45 and 55 degrees north, produces, on an average, the finest and pleasantest weather of the year as we get farther south the pleasantest temperature is found in October; more northward than 55 degrees the chills of autumn are already arrived, and we must look for temperature to August.

THE GYMNASIUM.

For the Every-Day Book.

Hæc opera atque hæ sunt generosi Principis artes.
Juv. Sat. 8. L. 224.

Let cricket, tennis, fives, and ball,
The active to amusement call;
Let sportsmen through the fields at morn
Discharge the gun and sound the horn,-
Gymnastic sport shall fill my hours,
Renew my strength and tone my powers.

• Perennial Calendar.

Caleidoscopes were once the taste,—
Velocipedes were rode for haste,-
Those fed the eye with pleasing views,
These ran the streets and tithed their dues;
Thrown to the shade like fashions past,
Gymnastics reign, for they are last.
Nature with art is like a tower,
Strong in defence in every hour;
Nature with art can nearly climb
The Alp and Appenine of time;
Make life more lasting, life more bold,
By true Gymnastic skill controlled.

Sept. 1826.

J. R. PRIOR.

[blocks in formation]

A TOTAL ECLIPSE IN CALIGRAPHY. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Sir,-As a subscriber to your highly entertaining work, I take the liberty of sending you the following.

In the first volume of the Every-Day Book, page 1086, I found an account of some small writing, executed by Peter Bales, which Mr. D'Israeli presumed to have been the whole bible written so small, that it might be put in an English walnut "The nut no bigger than a hen's egg. holdeth the book; there are as many leaves in this little book as in the great bible, and as much written in one of the little leaves, as a great leaf of the bible."-There is likewise an account in the same pages of the "Iliad" having been written so sinall that it might be put in a nut-shell; which is nothing near so much as the above. I have lately seen written within the compass of a new penny piece, with the naked eye, and with a common clarified pen, the lord's prayer, the creed, the ten commandments, the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth collects after Trinity, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c., the name of the writer, place of abode, nearest market town, county, day of the month and date of the year, all in words at length, and with the whole of the capital letters and stops belonging thereto, the_commandments being all numbered. It was written by, and is in the possession of, Mr. John Parker of Wingerworth, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire: the writing bears date September 10, 1823. This piece of writing, I find, upon calculation, to be considerably smaller than either of the before-mentioned pieces. My calculation is as follows:

A moderate sized egg will hold a book one inch and three quarters by one inch and three-eighths. Bibles have from about sixty to eighty lines in a column; I have not seen more. In this ingenious display of fine penmanship, there are eighty lines in one inch, and two half-eighths of an inch, which in one inch and three quarters, (the length of the bible,) is one hundred and six lines, which would contain one-third more matter than the bibles with eighty lines in a column; and one line of this writing, one inch and two-half eighths of an inch in length, (which is the sixteenth of an inch less in bread than the small bible,) is equal to two lines from one column of the great bible-for example.

Isaiah. Chap. XXIV.-Two lines of verse 20, the bible having seventy-nine lines in a column :

" and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again." Ezekiel, Chap. xxx.-Two lines of verse 12, the bible having sixty-three lines in a column :

" and I will make the Land waste, aud all that is therein, by the hand of strangers."

One line of Mr. Parker's writing being part of the seventh collect after Trinity: "good things; graft in our hearts the love of thy name, increase in us truc religion, now”—

Another line being part of the ninth and tenth commandments:"false witness against thy neighbour. 10.Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house.”

Mr. Parker very obligingly submits his writing to the inspection of the curious, and would execute one similar for a proper reward. If this account should be thought worthy of a place in your "EveryDay Book," I shall feel much obliged by its insertion, and will endeavour to send you something amusing respecting the customs, pastimes, and amusements of this part of Derbyshire. I am, Sir,

Your well-wisher

And obedient servant,
JOHN FRANCIS BROWNE.

Lings, near Chesterfield,
August, 30, 1826.

NATURALISTS' CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature...59.17.

September 7.

ENURCHUS.

For this saint, in the church of England calendar, see vol. i. col. 1253.

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 7th of September, 1772, a most astonishing rain fell at Inverary, in Scotland, by which the rivers rose to such a heighth, as to carry every thing along with the current that stood in the way. Even trees that had braved the floods for more than one hundred years, were torn up by the roots and carried down the stream. Numbers of bridges were swept away, and the military roads rendered impassable. All the duke of Argyle's cascades, bridges, and bulwarks, were destroyed at his fine palace, in that neighbourhood.

Annual Register.

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]

the stage of the world more remarkable for their peculiarities and eccentricities.

of many virtues; and while they laughed at the fancies of the visionary, they respected the man. Brown once indulged a gentleman in Durham with a sight of the drawing above alluded to, and on a loud laugh at what the poet esteemed the very perfection of terrific sublimity, Brown told him he was no christian, or he would not deride a scriptural drawing which the angel Gabriel had approved !”

Brown's poesy was chiefly of a serious nature, (at least it was intended to be so,) levity and satire were not his forte. Like Dante, his imagination was gloomy-he delighted to describe the torments of hell

Of the early part of James Brown's life little is known that can be depended upon, but the compiler of the present article has heard him assert that he was born at Berwick-on-Tweed; if this be the case it is probable he left that town at a very early age, as in his speech none of the provincialisms of the lower order of inhabitants of Berwick could be observed, and had he resided there for any length of time, he must have imperceptibly imbibed the vulgar dialect. Certain, however, it is, that when a young man he resided in that "fashionable" part of Newcastle--the rattling of the chains, and the upon-Tyne called "the Side," where he kept a rag-shop, and was in the habit of attending the fairs in the neighbourhood with clothes ready-made for sale. During his residence in Newcastle his first wife died; of this person he always spoke in terms of affection, and was known long after her death, to shed tears on her being alluded to. In all probability it was owing to his loss of her that his mind became disturbed, and from an industrious tradesman he became a fanatic. A few years after her decease he married a Miss Richardson, of Durham, a respectable though a very eccentric character, and who survived him a year. This lady being possessed of a theatre, and some other little property in Durham, he removed to that city to reside.

When Brown first devoted himself to the muses is uncertain, but about thirtythree years ago, he lived in New castle, styled himself the poet-laureate of that place, and published a poem explanatory of a chapter in the Apocalypse, which was adorned" with a hideous engraving of a beast with ten horns. Of this plate he always spoke in terms of rapture. We have heard that it was designed by the bard; but as Mr. B., though a poet, never laid any claim to the character of an artist, it is our belief that he had no hand in its manufacture, but that it was the work of some of those waggish friends who deceived him by their tricks, and rendered his life a pleasure. Their ingenious fictions prevented his dwelling on scenes by which his existence might have been embittered, and it is but justice to his numerous hoaxers to assert, that without their pecuniary assistance he would have often been in want of common necessaries. Though credulous he was bonest; though poor he was possessed

screams of the damned; the mount of Sisyphus was his Parnassus, the Styx was his Helicon, and the pale forms that flit by Lethe's billows, the muses that inspired his lay. His poems consisted chiefly of visions, prophecies, and rhapsodies, suggested by some part of the sacred volume of the contents of which he had an astonishing recollection. When he was at the advanced age of ninety-two it was almost impossible to quote any passage of scripture to him without his remembering the book, chapter, and frequently the verse from whence it was taken. Of his poetry (though in his favourite city he has left many imitators) we cannot say any thing in praise; it had "neither thyme nor reason," it was such as a madman would inscribe on the walls of his cell. His song, like that of the witches in Thalaba, was "an unintelligible song" to all but the writer, on whose mind in reading it, to use the words of one of the sweetest of our modern poets, "meaning flashed like strong inspiration." The only two lines in his works that have any thing like meaning in them are—

"When men let Satan rule their heart

They do act the devil's part."

Our author's last, and as he esteemed it, his best work-his monumentum ære perennius, was a pamphlet published in Newcastle in 1820, by Preston and Heaton, at the reasonable price of one shilling; for, unlike his brother bards, Mr. Brown never published in an expensive form. He was convinced that merit would not lie hid though concealed in a pamphlet, but like Terence's beauty, diu latere non potest, and that nonsense, though printed in quarto with the types of a Davison, would be still unnoticed and neglected. On his once being shown the

quarto edition of the "White Doe," and told that he ought to publish in a similar manner, his answer was that "none but the devil's poets needed fine clothes!" The pamphlet above alluded to was entitled" Poems on Military Battles, Naval Victories, and other important subjects, the most extraordinary ever penned, a Thunderbolt shot from a Lion's Bow at Satan's Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Devil and the Kingdom of this World reserving themselves in darkness for the great and terrible Day of the Lord, as Jude, the servant of God, declareth: By JAMES BROWN, P. L." This singular work was decorated with a whole length portrait of the author treading on the "devil's books," and blowing a trumpet to alarm sinners; it was, as we have heard him say, the work of a junior pupil of the ingenious Mr. Bewick.

During the contest for Durham, in 1820, a number of copies of an election squib, written by a humble individual connected with a northern newspaper, and entitled "A Sublime Epistle, Poetic and Politic, by James Brown, P. L." was sent him for distribution; these, after printing an explanatory address on the back of the title, wherein he called himself S. S. L. D., the "Slayer of Seven Legions of Devils," and disowned the authorship, he turned to his own emolument by selling at sixpence a copy.

In religious affairs Brown was extremely superstitious; he believed in every mad fanatic who broached opinions contrary to reason and sense. The wilder the theory, the more congenial to his mind. He was successively a believer in Wesley, Messrs. Buchan, Huntington, Imanuel Swedenburg, and Joanna Southcote; had he lived a little longer he would probably have been "a ranter." He was a great reader, and what he read he remembered. The bible, of which he had a very old and curious pocket edition in black letter, was his favourite work; next to that he esteemed Alban Butler's wonderful lives of the saints, to every relation of which he gave implicit credit, though, strange to tell, he was in his conversation always violent against the idolatries of the catholic church.

When Brown was a follower of Mr. Buchan, he used to relate that he fasted forty days and forty nights, and it is to his subject that veterinary doctor Marshall, of Durham, his legitimate successor,

alludes in the following lines of an elegy he wrote on the death of his brother poet and friend :

"He fasted forty days and nights
When Mr. Buchan put to rights

The wicked, for a wonder;

And not so much, it has been thought,
As weigh'd the button on his coat,

He took to keep sin under."

So said a Bion worthy of such an Adonis ! but other accounts differ. If we may credit Mr. Sykes, the respectable author of "Local Records," Marshall erred in supposing that the poet, camelion-like, lived on air for " forty days and forty nights." Mr. Sykes relates that in answer to a question he put to him as to how he contrived for so long a time to sustain the cravings of nature, Brown replied, that "they (he and the rest of the party of fasters) only set on to the fire a great pot, in which they boiled water, and then stirred into it oatmeal, and supped that!"

Brown, was very susceptible of flattery, and all his life long constantly received letters in rhyme, purporting to come from Walter Scott, Byron, Shelley, Southey, Wilson, and other great poets; with communications in prose from the king of England, the emperor of Morocco, the sultan of Persia, &c. All of these he believed to be genuine, and was in the habit of showing as curiosities to his friends, who were frequently the real authors, and laughed in their sleeves at his credulity.

sus

In 1821, Brown received a large parchment, signed G. R., attested by Messrs. Canning and Peel, to which was pended a large unmeaning seal, which he believed to be the great seal of Great Britain. This document purported to be a patent of nobility, creating him " baron Durham, of Durham, in the county palatine of Durham." It recited that this title was conferred on him in consequence of a translation of his works having been the means of converting the Mogul empire! From that moment he assumed the name and style of "baron Brown," and had a wooden box made for the preservation of his patent.

Of the poetic pieces which Brown was in the habit of receiving, many were close imitations of the authors whose naries were affixed to them, and evinced that the writers were capable of better things. One "from Mr. Coleridge," was a re

« НазадПродовжити »