Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 554, June 30, 1832», sayfa 7

WATERING PLACES IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

Baden, the well-known and much-frequented watering-place, has been long celebrated. The following account of it in the fifteenth century is interesting. Those warriors who would wile away the interval between one campaign and another agreeably, betook themselves to Baden in Aargau. Here in a narrow valley, where the Limmat flows through its rocky bed, are hot springs of highly medicinal properties. Hither, to the numerous houses of public entertainment, resorted prelates, abbots, monks, nuns, soldiers, statesmen, and all sorts of artificers. As in our fashionable watering-places, most of the visitors merely sought to dissipate ennui, enjoy life, and pursue pleasure. The baths were most crowded at an early hour in the morning, and those who did not bathe resorted thither to see acquaintances, with whom they could hold conversation from the galleries round the bath-rooms, while the bathers played at various games, or ate from floating tables. Lovely females did not disdain to sue for alms from the gallery-loungers, who threw down coins of small amount, to enjoy the ensuing scramble. Flowers were strewn on the surface of the water, and the vaulted roof rang with music, vocal, and instrumental. Towards noon the company sallied forth to the meadows in the neighbourhood, acquaintances were easily made, and strangers soon became familiar. The pleasures of the table were followed by jovial pledges in swift succession, till fife and drum summoned to the dance. Now fell the last barriers of reserve and decorum; and it is time to drop a veil over the scene. Ibid.

THE GATHERER

Morland.—George Morland's brother was telling me the other day, that he well remembered going with his brother in a hack to Smithfield, buying a young donkey there, and bringing it home with them in the coach; his brother laughing almost all the time. M.L.E.

The Three Death's Heads.—The following words (much altered) are from a poem entitled, "The Thre' Deid Powis", (The Three Death's Heads, by Patrick Johnstoun.)

 
"O, lady gay, in glittering garments drest,
Enrich'd with pearl, and many a costly stone,
Thy slender throat, and soft and snowy breast
Circled with gold and sapphires many a one.
Thy fingers small, white as the ivory bone,
Arrayed with rings, and many a ruby red;
Soon shall thy fresh and rose-like bloom be gone,
And naught of thee remain, but grim and hollow head.
O, woeful pride! dark root of all distress!
With contrite heart, our fleshless scalps behold!
O wretched man, to God, meek prayers address.
Thy lusty strength, thy wit, thy daring bold,
All shall lie low with us in charnel cold:
Proud king, 'tis thus thy pamper'd corpse shall rot;
Thus, in the dust thy purple pomp be roll'd,
Mark then, in peeled skull, thy miserable lot."
 

Bushy.—Bushy, a small village, near Watford, seems to have been very unfortunate in its ancient owners. Its first Norman possessor, Geoffrey de Mandeville, having incurred the Pope's displeasure, was obliged to be suspended in lead, on a tree, in the precinct of the Temple, London, because Christian burial was not allowed to persons under such circumstances. Edmond of Woodstock, was beheaded through the vile machinations of Queen Isabella, and her paramour, Mortimer, on a suspicion of intending to restore his brother, Edward II. to the throne; and so much was he beloved by the people, and his persecutors detested, that he stood from one to five in the afternoon before an executioner could be procured, and then an outlaw from the Marshalsea performed the detested duty. Thomas, Duke of Surrey, was beheaded at Cirencester, in rebellion against Henry IV. Thomas de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, after obtaining the highest honour in the campaigns in France with Henry V. was killed by the splinter of a window-frame, driven into his face by a cannon ball, at the siege of Orleans. Richard, the stout Earl of Warwick, another possessor, was killed at Barnet. George, Duke of Clarence, was drowned in a butt of Malmsey. Richard III. was the next possessor. Lady Margaret de la Pole, was beheaded at the age of seventy-two, by the cruel policy of Henry VIII., in revenge for a supposed affront by her son the Cardinal. In this parish also lived the infamous Colonel Titus, who advised Cromwell to deliver the nation from its yoke, in a pamphlet, entitled Killing no Murder.

West.—A New York paper states that the old sign of the Bull's Head, which has hung at a house in Strawberry-street, for nearly seventy years, is ascertained to be one of the first productions of Benjamin West, and is said to be the first painting of the kind ever executed in America. The wood on which it is painted is much decayed, but the paint and figures are visible.

Congreve is said to have written his comedy of the Old Bachelor and part of the Mourning Bride, in a grotto formed in a steep rocky hill in the grounds of Ham Hall, in Dove Dale, Derbyshire. This romantic retreat was furnished with a stone seat and table, and herein the poet and dramatist was accustomed to seek refuge from the license of a London life.

Rousseau appears to have been one of the unhappiest as well as the most unamiable of men. He imagined himself the persecuted of all persecutors, and sought an asylum in England from his supposed enemies. In April, 1766, having just settled in Derbyshire, he wrote "Here I have just arrived at last at an agreeable and sequestered asylum, where I hope to breathe freely, and at peace." He lived chiefly at Wootton Hall, and delighted to pass his leisure in the romantic Dove Dale. He did not, however, long remain "at peace," for in April following, he returned to the continent, heaping reproaches on his best friends. The rent of the house in which he lived had been greatly reduced, to allure him into the country; his spirit revolted at this; and as soon as he heard of it he indignantly left the place. Whilst at Wootton Hall, he received a present of some bottles of choice foreign wine; this was a gift, and his pride would not permit him to taste it; he therefore left it in the house untouched for the next comer. For some reason or other, or more probably for none, he had determined not to see Dr. Darwin. The Doctor, aware of his objections, placed himself on a terrace, which Rousseau had to pass, and was examining a plant. "Rousseau," said he, "are you a botanist?" They entered into conversation, and were intimate at once; but Rousseau, on reflection, imagined that this meeting was the result of contrivance, and the intimacy proceeded no further.