NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. April 27. A SPRING WALK ON THE SURREY HILLS. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Sir,-Having, like Falstaff, " babbled o' green fields," I resolved to visit them; and a few mornings ago, taking with me a certain talisman with his majesty's head thereon, I bent my steps through the now populous town of Walworth, famous, like London, for its "Sir William," and in whose history are many things well worthy your notice. Proceeding thence through Camberwell, ascended the hill at whose foot quietly stands the Sunday resort of many town immured beings, the public-house yclept "the Fox-under-the-Hill.” Here the works of man are intruding on the country in villas of various shapes and dimensions, the sight of which would make the former possessors of the land, if they loved their fields, and could look around them, feel as did the American chief, who dining one day with some British officers at a house which commanded a view of the vast lakes and forests formerly the inheritance of his fathers, was observed to eye the scene before him with melancholy scrutiny.-" Chieftain," reyou are sad!" "I am;" was his answer, "and how can I be otherwise, when I think of the time when all I look on was the property of my nation; but 'tis gone; the white men have got it, and we are a houseless and a homeless people. The white man came in his bark, and asked leave to tie it to a tree; it was given him-he then asked to build him a hut; it was granted-but how was our kindness repaid? his hut became a fort, his bark brought in her womb the children of the thunder to our shoresthey drove us from forest to forest, from mountain to mountain, they destroyed our habitations and our people, they rooted up our trees, and have left us but the desert-I am sad; and how can I be otherwise?" I return from this digres. sion to ascend Herne Hill, the Elysium of many of our merchants and traders, whose dwellings look the abodes of happy mortals,-beings, seeking, in retirement from the busy world, to repay marked General themselves for the anxieties and fatigues O, how blest is he who here it has been, ere now, to me, a Parnassus, but that is past, and the hoofs of Lancefield's steeds have superseded those of Pegasus.-On the left a quiet green lane, such as Byron would have loved, leads to Dulwich, famous for its college, and the well paid and well fed inhabitants thereof, and its gallery of pictures. On the right is an opening as yet unprofaned by brick and mortar-the only place now left, from whence a traveller can view the soft scenery around. I go down this vista, and am rewarded with a beauteous prospect of variegated hills, vallies, meadows, &c. &c. I again approach the steep, retracing my path; and descending further, green fields and still greener hedges are on each side of me, studded with various wild flowers. At every step I hear the rich music of nature; the sky-lark is above me singing, heedless if the gled* be in the blue cloud; and at least a score of robins with their full bright eyes, and red bosoms, hopping about me, singing as stout as if it was winter, and looking quite as bold. There is a mixture of cheerfulness and melancholy in their song, which to me is pleasing; now loud and shrill, and now a long rolling sound like the rising of the wind. Advancing, I come in sight of the New Church of Norwood with its unsightly steeple. Ichabod ! the glory of the church has departed. I never observe the new churches on the Surrey side of the river, without imagining their long bodies and short steeples look, from a distance, like the rudders of so many sailing barges. Where • Hawk is the grand oriel-the square tower? what have we in their stead? a common granary casement, and a shapeless spire. I again move onward rather tired, and turning to the left, after a short uphill journey with a charming view on all sides, arrive at "the Woodman,” where the talisman I spoke of showed its power, by instantly procuring me good eating and other refreshing solace. Here a man might sit for an hour unwearied, better in head and heart from the loveliness of the scenery beneath him; and here I repose,— Inhaling as the news I read The fragrance of the Indian weed. O, the dusky hands are ne'er forgot, Of her I clasp'd, in that calm spot, I feel the thrill Of her fingers still, Her dark eyes on me beam, birds, blackbirds, thrushes, and robins, which is very early for the latter. Pacing slowly up a quiet lane to the left of the canal, I arrive at a few delightful cottages on the brow of the hill; below them to the south A lovely prospect opens wide, Wave-like hills on every side, By human hands diversified. Somewhere near the canal, at a brickmaker's hut, poor Dermody, the Irish poet, retired sick, and in poverty. Turning to the left I view Forest Hill, the sweetest haunt of my poetic hours, but here, as at every other desirable spot for meditation, frowns the warning board, placed by the hand of envious monopoly "The law will punish all who enter here." smoke-dried artisans, and other LonNun Head Hill, the favourite resort of doners, is taken from them, and a narrow path is all that remains for their Sunday promenade. Ruminating on the the hedge, enter a field, where, reclining change I move on, and espying a gap in shadowy kings in Macbeth, my cares on the long grass, I muse, till, like the and sorrows pass before me. I listen! it is the music of heaven-numerous skylarks tower aloft, the best I have yet heard; ye that wish for good ones catch them here-which advice, if they heard, would doubtless bring them down on me with beak and claw. Hark! it is the tit-lark, the harbinger of the nightin O, what joyous thoughts my bosom fill gale; he is just come over, and the other Of that sweet dream. But as the song says― "Farewell to Glenowen For I must be going." I proceed; Sydenham lies before me, beyond it in softened distance, Beckenham and Bromley meet the eye, with Dulwich below-and half hidden, and afar off, is smoky London, with the Abbey towers and St. Paul's dome looking gloomily grand. In the foreground lies a rich variety of upland and dale, studded with snow white dwellings. Leaving the wood on my left, I reach the reservoir of the canal, and read no less than three boards threatening with the severest penalties all intruders. Again I am surrounded with sky-larks; I watch one leave the grass, he is up nearly a quarter of an hour, and here I meet a man with a dozen or more nests of young will quickly follow: he drops from the tallest tree, and sings till earth receives him. His song is short, but very sweet; nothing can equal his rising "Weetweet-weet-weet-weet-weet-weet," and dying "Feer-feer-feer-feer-feer -feer-feer," and his lengthened "Snee that the best notes of your canaries are -jug-jug-jug." It is from him obtained; he will sing till July. About the fifteenth, the fowler will go out, and the nightingale will sell his freedom for a meal-worm-how many of us mortals do the same to gratify our appetites! The bird now caught will be a good one, which is more than I can say of the mortal. He will not yet have paired with the hen, she not having made her appearance. The males arrive first, at least so say the catchers, but I doubt if they emigrate at all. The tame ones in cages when they leave off song get April 28. CHRONOLOGY. J. In 1658, during this month, the accomplished colonel Richard Lovelace died in the Gatehouse at Westminster, whither he had been committed for his devotion to the interests and fortunes of the Stuart family. His celebrity is preserved by some elegant poems; one is especially remarkable for natural imagery, and beautiful expression of noble thought : When love with unconfined wings To whisper at my grates; And fettered with her eye, When flowing cups ran swiftly round Know no such libertie. When, linnet-like, confined I With shriller note shall sing The mercye, sweetness, majestye, Stone walls do not a prison make, If I have freedom in my love, And in my soule am free, Angels alone, that soare above, Enjoy such libertie. NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. Mean Temperature... 50. 21. April 29. THE APRIL OF 1826. This month is remarkable for the endurance of great suffering by many thousands of English artisans. In a "Statement to the Right Hon. Robert Peel, by the Hand-loom Weavers of Blackburn," they say "Our dwellings are totally destitute of every comfort. Every article of value has disappeared, either to satisfy the cravings of hunger, or to appease the clamour of relentless creditors. "Thousands who were once possessed of an honest independence gained by laborious industry, are now sunk in the lowest depths of poverty. "Were the humane man to visit the dwellings of four-fifths of the weavers, and see the miserable pittance which sixteen hours' hard labour can procure, even of those who are fully employed, divided between the wretched parents and their starving little ones, he would sicken at the sight. "When we look upon our starving wives and children, and have no bread to give them, we should consider ourselves still more degraded than we are, as undeserving the name of Englishmen, were we to withhold our complaint from his majesty's government, or to abstain from speaking in proper terms of what we consider the present unparalleled distress which exists among the weavers; and we implore you, sir, by all the ties which bind the patriot to his country, by that anxiety for the welfare of England which you have frequently evinced, to use that influence which you possess with his majesty's government towards procuring an amelioration of the condition of the most injured and oppressed class of his majesty's subjects.' The rev. Joseph Fletcher of Mile-end corroborates these statements by local acquaintance with the districts, and affirms of his own knowledge, that "the recent causes of commercial distress have produced unparalleled misery." "In the town of Blackburn and its vicinity, it has reached its highest point of aggravation. At the present crisis, upwards of seven thousand looms are unemployed in Blackburn, and nearly fourteen thousand persons have been compelled to depend on the bounty of the inhabitants; and as, according to the late census, Blackburn contains about twentyone thousand inhabitants, two-thirds of the population are in a state of utter destitution. "The remaining number of the middle and higher classes of society, bears a far less proportion to the population than in any part of the kingdom, while the same disproportion exists amidst a teeming and immense population in the villages and hamlets of the district. “Thus, the accessible sources of relief are diminished, and the means of alleviation are not in the power of those whose very dependence for their own supply rests on the destitute themselves " The pleasure of the very poor man, while he endures the privations of his ordinary condition, is the mere absence of bodily disease; and he patiently awaits the time when his life shall depart, and his body shall be buried at the parish expense, and his family shall walk from his funeral into the workhouse. This is his state in the best of times; but, in a season of general calamity to his class, when the barely sufficient sources of existence fail, his death is no provision for his wife and children; then the poor are rated for the maintenance of the poor; whole parishes became paupers; and the district must necessarily be supported by voluntary contributions throughout the country. The dwelling of the very poor man is always cheerless; but the abode of indigence, reduced to starvation, is a cave of despair. Thousands of families are perishing for lack of food at the moment when this is written. From him who has a little, a little is required—and from him who has much, much is required-that the plague of famine be stayed. The case is beyond the reach of legislation, but clearly within the power of associated benevolence to mitigate. A cry hunger is gone forth—is the ear deaf, that it cannot hear?-are the hands that have been often effectually stretched forth, shortened that they cannot save? ΟΙ At THE POOR MAN'S HOME. "Home is home, though it is never so homely." _Exceptions to this position are taken by ELIA, who, as regards the poor man, deems it a "fallacy," to which "crowded places of cheap entertainment, and the benches of alehouses, if they could speak, would bear mournful testimony." "To them the very poor man resorts for an image of the home, which he cannot find at home. For a starved grate, and a scanty firing, that is not enough to keep alive the natural heat in the fingers of so many shivering children with their mother, he finds in the depth of winter always a blazing hearth, and a hob to warm his pittance of beer by. Instead of the clamours of a wife, made gaunt by famishing, he meets with a cheerful attendance beyond the merits of the trifle which he can afford to spend. He has companions which his home denies him, for the very poor man can ask no visiters. He can look into the goings on of the world, and speak a little to politics. home there are no politics stirring but the domestic. All interests, real or imaginary, all topics that should expand the mind of man, and connect him with a sympathy to general existence, are crushed in the absorbing consideration of food to be obtained for the family. Beyond the price of bread, news is senseless and impertinent. At home there is no larder. Here there is at least a show of plenty; and while he cooks his lean scrap of butcher's meat before the common bars, or munches his humble cold viands, his relishing bread and cheese with an onion, in a corner, where no one reflects upon his poverty, he has sight of the substantial joint providing for the landlord and his family. He takes an interest in the dressing of it; and while he assists in removing the trivet from the fire, he feels that there is such a thing as beef and cabbage, which he was beginning to forget at home. All this while he deserts his wife and children. But what wife, and what children? Prosperous men, who object to this desertion, image to themselves some clean contented family like that which they go home to. But look at the countenance of the poor wives who follow and persecute their good man to the door of the public-house, which he is about to enter, when something like shame would restrain him, if stronger misery did not induce him to pass the threshold. That face, ground by want, in which every cheerful, every conversable lineament has been long effaced by misery, is that a face to stay at home with? is it more a woman, or a wild cat? alas! it is the face of the wife of his youth, that once smiled upon him. It can smile no longer. What comforts can it share? what burdens can it lighten? Oh, it is a fine thing to talk of the humble meal shared together. But what if there be no bread in the cupboard? The innocent prattle of his children takes out the sting of a man's poverty. But the children of the very poor do not prattle. It is none of the least frightful features in that condition, that there is no childishness in its dwellings. Poor people, said a sensible old nurse to us once, do not bring up their children; they drag them up. The little careless darling of the wealthier nursery, in their hovel is transformed betimes into a premature reflecting person No one has time to dandle it, no one thinks it worth while to coax it, to soothe it, to toss it up and down, to humour it. There is none to kiss away its tears. If it cries, it can only be beaten. It has been prettily said, that a babe is fed with milk and praise. It grew But the aliment of this A casual street-talk, between a poor woman NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. April 30. CHRONOLOGY. On the 30th of April, 1745, the battle of Fontenoy was fought between the allied armies of England, Holland, and Austria, under the command of the duke of Cumberland, and a superior French army, under marshal count De Saxe. Here the advantage of the day was to the French; the duke of Cumberland left his sick and wounded to the humanity of the victors, and Louis XV. obtained the mastery of the Netherlands. The battle was commenced with the formal politeness of a the French guards," The count bowed to lord Charles." No my lord," he answered, "we never fire first!" They again bowed; each resumed his place in his own ranks; and after these testimonies of "high consideration," the bloody conflict commenced, and there was a carnage of twelve thousand men on each side. NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. *New Monthly Magazine, March, 1826. |