How splendid all the sky! how still! So tranquil nature's works appear, Such is of well-spent life the time, When busy days are past; His flowery spring of pleasures o'er, For yet a while, a little, while, Involv'd in wintry gloom, And lo! another spring shall smile, Then shall he shine, a glorious guest, It is remarked by the gentleman-usher of the year, that "the fruit garden is one scene of tempting profusion. "Against the wall, the grapes have put on that transparent look which indicates their complete ripeness, and have dressed their cheeks in that delicate bloom which enables them to bear away the bell of beauty from all their rivals. The peaches and nectarines have become fragrant, and the whole wall where they hang is 'musical with bees. Along the espaliers, the rosy-cheeked apples look out from among their leaves, like laughing children peeping at each other through screens of foliage; and the young standards bend their straggling boughs to the earth with the weight of their produce. "Let us not forget to add, that there is one part of London which is never out of season, and is never more in season than now. Covent-garden market is still the garden of gardens; and as there is not a month in all the year in which it does not contrive to belie something or other that has been said in the foregoing pages, as to the particular season of certain flowers, fruits, &c., so now it offers the flowers and the fruits of every season united. How it becomes possessed of all these, I shall not pretend to say: but thus much I am bound to add by way of information, that those ladies and gentlemen who have country-houses in the neighbourhood of Clapham-common or Camberwell-grove, may now have the pleasure of eating the best fruit out of their own gardens-provided they choose to pay the price of it in Covent-garden market." The observer of nature, where nature can alone be fully enjoyed, will perceive, that, in this month," among the birds, we have something like a renewal of the spring melodies. In particular, the thrush and blackbird, who have been silent for several weeks, recommence their songs,— bidding good bye to the summer, in the same subdued tone in which they hailed her approach-wood-owls hoot louder than ever; and the lambs bleat shrilly from the hill-side to their neglectful dams; and the thresher's flail is heard from the unseen barn; and the plough-boy's whistle comes through the silent air from the distant upland; and snakes leave their last year's skins in the brakes-literally creeping out at their own mouths; and acorns drop in showers from the oaks, at every wind that blows; and hazel-nuts ask to be plucked, so invitingly do they look forth from their green dwellings; and, lastly, the evenings close in too quickly upon the walks to which their serene beauty invites us, and the mornings get chilly, misty, and damp." Finally, "another singular sight belonging to this period, is the occasional showers of gossamer that fall from the upper regions of the air, and cover every thing like a veil of woven silver. You may see them descending through the sunshine, and glittering and flickering in it, like rays of another kind of light. if you are in time to observe them before the sun has dried the dew from off them in the early morning, they look like robes of fairy tissue-work, gemmed with innumerable jewels."+ SEPTEMBER. Or And must we bid sweet Philomel adieu ? And a dark canopy be stretch'd above? Sol's glittering legions to th' equator fly, At the same hour he shows his orient head, And, warn'd by Thetis, sinks in Ocean's bed. Adieu! ye damask roses, which remind The maiden fair-one, how her charms decay; Ye rising blasts, oh! leave some mark behind, Some small memorial of the sweets of May; Ah! no-the ruthless season will not hear, Nor spare one glory of the ruddy year. No more the waste of music sung so late From every bush, green orchestre of love, For now their winds the birds of passage wait, And bid a last farewell to every grove; While those, whom shepherd-swains the sleepers call, Choose their recess in some sequester'd wall. Yet still shall sage September boast his pride, *Some birds shall chant, some gayer Howers shall blow, Nor is the season wholly unallied To purple bloom; the haler fruits shall grow, The stronger plants, such as enjoy the cold, And wear a livelier grace by being old. Until this day partridges are protected by act of parliament from those who are "privileged to kill.” "Can I be permitted to speak a few words to you, sir?" said the applicant. "Certainly, sir," replied sir Robert. "Then I wish to ask you, sir, whether, if I am attacked by thieves in the streets or roads, I should be justified in using fire-arins against them, and putting them to death?" Sir Robert Baker replied, that every man had a right to defend himself from robbers in the best manner he could; but at the same time he would not be justified in using fire-arms, except in cases of the utmost extremity. "Oh! I am very much obliged to you, sir; and I can be furnished at this office with a license to carry arms for that purpose?" The answer, of course, was given in the negative, though not without a good deal of surprise at such a question, and the inquirer bowed and withdrew. THE FIRST OF September. The gun fast-thundering, and the winded horn, Glane'd just, and sudden, from the fowler's These are not subjects for the peaceful muse, Nor will she stain with such her spotless song; Then most delighted, when she social sees The whole mix'd animal creation round Alive, and happy. 'Tis not joy to her, This falsely-cheerful barbarous game of death; This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth Awakes impatient, with the gleaming morn; Application for a License. When beasts of prey retire, that all night long, In the shooting season of 1821, a fash- Urg'd by necessity, had rang'd the dark, As if their conscious ravage shunn'd the light, ionably 'dressed young man applied to Asham'd. Not so the steady tyrant man, sir Robert Baker for a license to kill-Who with the thoughtless insolence of power not game, but thieves. This curious ap- Infam'd, beyond the most infuriate wrath plication was made in the most serious of the worst monster that e'er roam'd the and business-like manner imaginable. waste, For sport alone pursues the cruel chase, Amid the beamings of the gentle days. Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage, For hunger kindles you, and lawless want; But lavish fed, in nature's bounty roll'd, To joy at anguish, and delight in blood, Is what your horrid bosoms never knew. So sings the muse of "The Seasons" on the one side; on the other, we have "the lay of the last minstrel" in praise of "Fowling," the "rev. John Vincent, B. A. curate of Constantine, Cornwall," whose "passion for rural sports, and the beauties of nature," gave birth to a poem where nature and sport were to be the only features of the picture," and wherein he thus describes. Full of th' expected sport my heart beats high, And with impatient step I haste to reach Quart'ring their ground exactly. Ah! that point Answers my eager hopes, and fills my breast And dart away. My victim singled out, .* meet The scatter'd covey: for no marker waits Upon my steps, though hill and valley here, With shrubby copse, and far extended brake Of high-grown furze, alternate rise around. Inviting is the view,—far to the right In rows of dusky green, potatoes stretch, With turnips mingled of a livelier hue. Towards the vale, fenc d by the prickly furze That down the hill irregularly slopes, Upwards they seem'd to fly; nor is their flight Long at this early season. Let us beat, With diligence and speed restrain'd, the ground, Making each circuit good. Near yonder hedge-row where high grass and ferns The secret hollow shade, my pointers stand. How beautiful they look! with outstretch'd tails, With heads immovable and eyes fast fix'd, One fore-leg rais'd and bent, the other firm, Advancing forward, presses on the ground! Convolv'd and flutt'ring on the blood-stain'd earth, The partridge lies:-thus one by one they fall, Save what with happier fate escape untouch'd, The pen of a country gentleman communicates an account of a remarkable character created by "love of the gun." THE LOSCOE MISER. For the Every-Day Book. About sixty years ago, at Loscoe, small village in Derbyshire, lived James Woolley, notorious for three things, the very good clocks he made, his eccentric system of farming, and the very great care he took of his money. He was, like Elwes and Dancer, an old bachelor, and for the same reason, it was a favourite maxim with him, and ever upon his lips, that "fine wives and fine gardens are mighty expensive things:" he consequently kept at a very respectful distance from both. He had, indeed, an unconquerable dread of any thing "fine," or that approached in any way that awful and ghost-like term "expensive." It would seem that Woolley's avaricious bias, was not, as is generally the case, his first ruling passion, though a phrenologist, might entertain a different opinion. "When young," says Blackner in his History of Nottinghamshire, "he was partial to shooting; but being detected at his sport upon the estate of the depraved William Andrew Horne, Esq. of Butterly (who was executed on the 11th of December, 1759, at Nottingham, for the murder of a child) and compelled by him to pay the penalty, he made a vow never to cease from labour, except when nature compelled him, till he had obtained sufficient property to justify him in following his favourite sport, without dreading the frowns of his haughty neighbour. He accordingly fell to work, and continued at it till he was weary, when he rested, and "to it again," a plan which he pursued without any regard to night or day. He denied himself the use of an ordinary bed, and of every other comfort, as well as necessary, except of the meanest kind. But when he had acquired property to qualify him to carry a gun, he had lost all relish for the sport; and he continued to labour at clock-making, except when he found an opportunity of trafficking in land, till he had amassed a considerable fortune, which he bequeathed to one of his relations. I believe he died about 1770." It must have been a singular spectacle to any one except Woolley's neighbours, who were the daily observers of his habits, to have seen a man worth upwards of 20,0001. up at five in the morning brushing away with his bare feet the dew as he fetched up his cows from the pasture, his shoes and stockings carefully held under his arm to prevent them from being injured by the wet; though, by the by, a glance at them would have satisfied any one they had but little to fear from the dew or any thing else. A penny loaf boiled in a small piece of linen, made him an excellent pudding; this with a halfpenny worth of small beer from the village alehouse was his more than ordinary dinner, and rarely sported unless on holy days, or when he had a friend or tenant to share the luxury. Once in his life Woolley was convicted of liberality. He had at great labour and expense of time made, what he considered, a clock of considerable value, and, as it was probably too large for common purposes, he presented it to the corporation of Nottingham, for the exchange. In return he was made a freeman of the town. They could not have conferred on him a greater favour: the honour mattered not -but election-dinners were things which powerfully appealed through his stomach to his heart. The first he attended was productive of a ludicrous incident. His The most prominent incident in his history, was a ploughing scheme of his own invention. He had long lamented that he kept horses at a great expense for the purposes of husbandry. To have kept a saddle-horse would have been extravagant-and at last fancying he could do without them, they were sold, and the money carefully laid by. This was a triumph-a noble saving! The winter passed away, and his hay and corn-stacks stood undiminished; ploughing time however arrived, and his new plan must be carried into effect. The plough was drawn from its inglorious resting-place, and a score men were summoned from the village to supply the place of horses. At the breakfast-table he was not without fears of a famine-he could starve himself, but a score of brawny villagers, hungry, and anticipating a hard day's work, would eat, and drink too, and must be satisfied. They soon proceeded to the field, where a long continued drought had made the ground almost impenetrable; the day became excessively hot, and the men tugged and puffed to little purpose; they again ate heartily, and drank more good ale than the old man had patience to think of; and difficult as it was, to force the share through the unyielding sward, it was still more difficult to refrain from laughing out at the grotesque figure their group presented. They made many wry faces, and more wry furrows, and spoiled with their feet what they had not ploughed amiss. But this was not all. Had a balloon been sent up from the field it could scarcely have drawn together more intruders; he tried, but in vain, to keep them off; they thronged upon him from all quarters; his gates were all set open or thrown off the hooks; and the fences broken down in every direction. Woolley perceived his error; the men, the rope traces, and the plough were sent home in a hurry, and with some blustering, and many oaths, the trespassers were got rid of. The fences were mended, and the gates re September 2. LONDON BURNT, 1666. This notice in our almanacs was descriptively illustrated in vol. i. col. 1150, 165. BARTHOLOMEW FAIR, 1826. Another year arrives, and spite of corporation "resolutions," and references to "the committee," and "reports," and "recommendations," to abolish the fair, it is held again. "Now," says an agreeable observer, "Now arrives that Saturnalia of nondescript noise and nonconformity, Bartlemy fair;'-when that prince of peace-officers, the lord mayor, changes his sword of state into a sixpenny trumpet, and becomes the lord of misrule and the patron of pickpockets; and lady Holland's name leads an unlettered mob instead of a lettered one; when Mr. Richardson maintains, during three whole days and a half, a managerial supremacy that must be not a little enviable even in the eyes of Mr. Elliston himself; and Mr. Gyngell holds, during the same period, a scarcely less distinguished station as the Apollo of servant-maids; when "the incomparable (not to say eternal) young Master Saunders' rides on horseback to the admiration of all beholders, in the person of his eldest son; and when all the giants in the land, and the dwarfs too, make a general muster, and each proves to be, according to the most correct measurement, at least a foot taller or shorter than any other in the fair, and in fact, the only one worth seeing,-'all the rest being impostors !' In short, when every booth in the fair combines in itself the attractions of all the rest, and so perplexes with its irresistible merit the rapt imagination of the half-holyday schoolboys who have got but sixpence to spend upon the whole, that they eye the outsides of each in a state of pleasing despair, till their leave of absence is expired twice over, and then return home filled with visions of giants and gingerbread The almanac day for Bartholomew fair, is on the third of the month, which this year fell on a Sunday, and it being prescribed that the fair shall be proclaimed "on or before the third," proclamation was accordingly made, and the fair commenced on Saturday the second of September, 1826. Its appearance on that and subsequent days, proves that it is going out like the lottery, by force of public opinion; for the people no longer buy lottery tickets even in "the last lottery," nor pay as they used to do at "Bartlemy fair." There were this year only three shows at sixpence, and one at twopence; all the rest were "only a penny." The sixpenny shows were, Clarke, with riders and tumblers; Richardson, with his tragi-comical company, enacting "Paul Pry;" and wicked Wombwell, with his fellow brutes. In the twopenny show were four lively little crocodiles about twelve inches long, hatched from the eggs at Peckham, by steam; two larger crocodiles; four cages of fierce rattle snakes; and a dwarf lady. In the penny shows were a glass-blower, sitting at work in a glass wig, with rows of curls all over, making pretty little teacups at threepence each, and miniature tobacco pipes for a penny; he was assisted by a wretched looking female, who was a sword-swallower at the last figure, and figured in this by placing her feet on hot iron, and licking a poker nearly red hot with her tongue. In" Brown's grand company from Paris," there were juggling, tight-rope dancing, a learned horse, and playing on the salt-box with a rolling-pin, to a tune which is said to be peculiar to the pastime. The other penny shows were nearly as last year, and silver-haired ladies and dwarfs, more plentiful and less in demand than learned pigs, who, on that account, drew "good houses." In this year's fair there was not one "up-and-down," or "round-about.” The west side of Giltspur-street was an attractive mart to certain "men of letters;" for the ground was covered with "relics of literature." In the language of my informant, for I did not visit the fair myself, there was a "path of genius" from St. Sepulchre's church to Cock-lane. He mentions that a person, apparently an • Mirror of the Months. |