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February 11th
Born: The Princess Elizabeth (of York), 1466;
Mary Queen of England, 1516, Westminster; Bernard de Bovier de Fontenelle, litt
�rateur,
1657, Rouen.
Died: The Emperor Herodias, 641; Elizabeth Plantagenet, of York, 1502; Rend
Descartes, French philosopher, 1650, Stockholm; William Shenstone, poet,
1763, Hales Owen;
Macvey Napier, editor of the Encyclopadia Britannica, 1847.
Feast Day: Saints Satnrninus, Dativus, and
others, martyrs of Africa, 304. St. Severinus, 507. St. Theodora, empress, 867,
(In the Anglo-Romish
calendar) C�dmon, about 680.
C�DMON
C�dmon is the most ancient English poet whose name is
known. He lived in Northumbria, near the monastery which, was then called
Streaneshalch, but
which has since been known by the name of Whitby. The name of its abbess, Hilda,
is known to every one acquainted. with Northern legend and poetry.
It was a favourite custom of the Anglo-Saxons to meet
together at drinking-parties, and there, in. the midst of their mirth, the harp
was moved
round, and each in his turn was expected to sing or chant some poem to the
instrument�and these, as we may gather from the story, were often the composition
of the singer, for the
art of composing poetry seems to have been very extensively cultivated among our
Saxon forefathers. Now the education of C�dmon, who was apparently the son of a
small landholder,
had been so much neglected that he had been unable either to compose, or to repeat
or sing: and when on these occasions he saw the harp approach him, he felt so
overwhelmed with
shame that he rose from his seat and went home. An important part of the wealth of
an Anglo-Saxon landholder at this time�the events of which we are speaking
occurred in the latter
half of the seventh century �consisted in cattle, and it was the duty of the sons
or retainers of the family to guard them at night: for this could not be done by
the agricultural
serfs, as none but a freeman was allowed to bear arms. Now it happened on one of
the occasions when C�dmon thus slunk from the fosstive beer-party (gebeorscipe) in
disgrace, that
it was his turn to guard the cattle, and proceeding from the hall to his post, he
laid himself down there with a feeling of vexation and despondency, and
immediately fell asleep.
In his slumber a stranger appeared to him, and,
addressing him by his name, said, 'C�dmon, sing me something.' C�dmon answered, 'I
know nothing to
sing, or I should not have left the hall to come here so soon. ''Nay,' said the
stranger, 'but thou hast something to sing!' 'What must I sing?' said Coalmen.
'Sing the
Creation,'was the reply. C�dmon immediately began to sing verses 'which he had
never heard before,' and which are given in Anglo-Saxon in some of the old
manuscripts. When he
awoke, he was not only able to repeat the lines which he had composed in his
dream, but he went on at will in the most excellent poetry. In the morning he
presented himself before
the reeve, or bailiff, of Whitby, and informed him of his miraculous gift of
poetry, and the reeve took him to the abbess Hilda. Hilda and a number of high and
pious ecclesiastics
listened to his story, and witnessed his performance, after which they read. to
him a short portion of the Scripture in Anglo-Saxon, and he went home, and on his
return next
morning he repeated it in Anglo-Saxon verse, excelling in beauty everything they
had heard before. Such a heaven-horn poet was a prize not to be thrown away, and
C�dmon yielded to
Hilda's earnest solicitations, and became a monk of her house�for the early
Auglo-Saxon nunneries contained monks and nuns in the same establishment. He was
here employed by the
pious abbess in translating into Anglo-Saxon verse the whole of the sacred
history. Bede gives an affecting account of C�dmon's death, which took place about
the year 680. He was
regarded as a saint by the Anglo-Saxon Church, and his death is placed in the
Anglo-Romish Calendar on the 11
th of February, but
there is no known authority for fixing it on that day.
C�dmon is, indeed, only known even by name through his
story, as told by the historian Bede, who was almost his contemporary, or at least
lived
only a generation later, and it would have been perhaps no more thought of than
other legends, but for a rather curious circumstance. The celebrated Archbishop
Usher became
possessed of an early manuscript of Anglo-Saxon poetry, which he afterwards gave
to Junius, a distinguished Anglo-Saxon scholar, and it proved to be a paraphrase
in Anglo-Saxon
verse of some parts of the Scripture history, bearing so many points of
resemblance to the works of C�dmon, as described by Bede, that Junius did not
hesitate to print it under
C�dmon's name (at Amsterdam, in 1655). One excellent edition, with an English
translation, has since been printed by Mr. Benjamin Thorpe. The original MS. is
now among Junius's
manuscripts in the Bodleian library, at Oxford. The earlier part of this poetry,
containing the history of the Creation and of the fall of man, is much more
poetical than the rest,
and may very probably be the same which, in Anglo-Saxon times, was ascribed to
C�dmon, though it bears no name in the manuscript. The story of the temptation and
fall is told with
great dramatic effect, and in some circumstances bears such close resemblance to
Milton's Paradise Lost, that it has been supposed that the latter poet must have
been acquainted
with the poetry of C�dmon, though the latter was printed by Junius in a very
unreadable form, and without any translation.
PREMATURE
DEATH OF DESCARTES
The death of this eminent philosopher was indirectly brought about by the means
which he had taken to escape from the persecution of his enemies. After completing
his travels, he
determined to devote his attention exclusively to philosophical and mathematical
inquiries, with the ambition of renovating the whole circle of the sciences. At
the age of
thirty-three he sold a portion of his patrimony, and retired into Holland, where
he remained eight years so completely aloof from the distractions of the world,
that his very place
of residence was unknown, though he pre-served an intercourse of letters with many
friends in France. Meanwhile with the increase of his fame arose a spirit of
controversy against
his writings.
Shrinking from the hostility of the church, he gladly
accepted an invitation of Christina, Queen of Sweden, by whom he was treated
with the greatest distinction, and was relieved from the observance of any of the
humiliating usages so generally exacted by sovereigns of those times from all whom
they admitted
into their presence. The queen, however, probably from the love of differing from
every one else, chose to pursue her studies with Descartes at live o'clock in the
morning; and as
his health was peculiarly delicate, the rigour of the climate, and the
unseasonable hour, brought on a pulmonary disease, of which he very soon died,
being then only in the
fifty-fourth year of his age. The queen wished to inter him with great honour in
Sweden; but the French ambassador interposed, and his remains were conveyed for
sepulture amongst
his countrymen in Paris. Thus fell one of the greatest men of his age, a victim to
the absurd caprice of the royal patron who had afforded him shelter from the
persecutions of the
church.
Probably, no man has given a greater impulse to
mathematical and philosophical inquiry than Descartes. He was the first who
successfully applied algebra to geometry; he pointed out the important law of the
sines; in an age in which optical instruments were extremely imperfect, he
discovered the changes
to which light is subjected in the eye by the crystalline lens; and he directed
attention to the consequences resulting from the weight of the atmosphere. He was
not only the
greatest geometrician of the age, but by the clearness and admirable precision of
his style, he became one of the founders of French prose. In his laborious
experiments upon the
animal frame, he recognised Harvey's researches on the circulation of the blood,
and made it the basis of the physiological part of his work on Man. He is the
author of what is
emphatically called Modern Philosophy; his name has revived in some measure of
late years, chiefly owing, among our-selves, to Dugald
Stewart, and in
France to the disposition of the philosophers to cast away their idols of the
eighteenth century.
SHENSTONE'S QUATRAIN
Shenstone has furnished an inn-window quatrain which is oftener heard from the
lips of our generation than any of his dulcet pastoral verses:
'Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
Must sigh to think he still has found
His warmest welcome at an inn.'
Dr. Percy, who more than once visited 'the wailing
poet of the Leasoues,' told Miss Hawkins that he always thought Shenstone and
found him a man
unhappy in his temper. In his taste for rural pleasures he was finical to a
ludicrous degree of excess. In the purchase of a cow, he regarded nothing but the
spots on her hide; if
they were beautiful, all other requisites were disregarded. His man-servant, whose
office it was to shew his grounds, had made a grotto, which Shenstone approved.
This was always
made the test of the visitor's judgment: if he admired William's grotto, his
master thought him worth accompanying round the place, and, on a signal from the
man, appeared; but if
it was passed with little notice, he kept out of the way.
PERUQUIERS' PETITION
On the 11
th of February, 1765, a petition was
presented to King George III, by the master peruke-makers of the metropolis,
setting
forth the distresses of themselves and an incredible number of others dependent on
them, from the almost universal decline of their trade, in consequence of
gentlemen so generally
beginning to wear their own hair. What business remained to their profession was,
they said, nearly altogether taken from them by French artists. They had a further
ground of
complaint in their being obliged to work on Sunday, which they would much rather
have spent in their religious duties, 'learning to fear God and honour the king [a
bit of
flattery].' Under these circumstances, the distressed peruke-makers prayed his
majesty for means of relief. The king�though he must have scarcely been able to
maintain his
gravity�returned a gracious answer. But the public, albeit but little converted
from the old views regarding the need of protection to industry, had the sense to
see the ludicrous
side of the petition, and some one quickly regaled them by publishing a petition
from the Body Carpenters, imploring his majesty to wear a wooden leg, and to
enjoin all his
servants to appear in the royal presence with the same graceful decoration.
POLITICAL WINDOW-BREAKING
The foolish excesses in which the politicians of the last century occasionally
indulged, were strangely exemplified upon the acquittal of Admiral Koppel,
February 11th,
1779, after a trial of thirty days, on charges of misconduct and incapacity
exhibited against him by Sir Hugh Palliser. In the
evening, a courier
brought to London the news of Keppel's acquittal, couched in the most honourable
terms for him, and most ignominious to his antagonist. Public feeling was much
excited in favour of
Keppel. Palliser himself was fain to make his escape out of Portsmouth (where the
trial took place), at five in the morning, in a hired post-chaise, to avoid
insults and outrage
from the mob, and sheltered himself in the Admiralty. The news spread rapidly
through London, and by eleven at night most houses were illuminated, both in
London and Westminster.
Guns were discharged by the servants of some of the great lords in the Opposition,
and squibs and crackers thrown plentifully by the populace. The ministers, and
some of the Scots,
were sullen, and would not exhibit lights; yet the mob was far more temperate than
usual, the Opposition having taken no pains to inflame them, nor even to furnish
them with any
cri de guerre.
Late at night, as the people grew drunk, an empty
house in Pall Mall, recently inhabited by Sir Hugh Palliser, and still supposed to
belong to him,
was attacked; the windows were broken, and at last, though some guards had been
sent for, the mob forced their way into it, and demolished whatever remained. The
windows of Lord
Mulgrave and Captain Hood were likewise broken, and some others accidentally that
were not illuminated. It happened at three in the morning that
Charles Fox, Lord Derby, and
his brother, Major Stanley, and two or three other young men of quality, having
been drinking at
Almack's till that late hour, suddenly thought of making the tour of the streets,
and were joined by the Duke of Ancaster, who was very drunk, and, what shewed that
it was no
premeditated scheme, the latter was a courtier, and had actually been breaking
windows.
Finding the mob before Palliser's house, some of the
young lords said, 'Why don't you break Lord George Germaine's windows?' The
populace had been
so little tutored, that they asked who he was, and receiving some further
encouragement, they quickly proceeded to break Lord George's windows. The mischief
pleasing the juvenile
leaders, they marched to the Admiralty, forced the gates, and demolished
Palliser's and Lord Lilburne's windows. Lord Sandwich, exceedingly terrified,
escaped through the garden
with his mistress, Miss Reay, to the Horse Guards, and there betrayed a most
manifest panic. The rioters then proceeded to Lord North's, who got out on to the
top of his house; but
the alarm being now given, the Guards arrived, and prevented any further
mischief.--Walpole's Last Journals, vol. ii., pp. 342-344.
SUSSEX SMUGGLERS
The coast of Sussex appears to have been greatly frequented by smugglers in the
middle of the last century, and their affrays with Custom-house officers were at
that time very
desperate. In the year 1749, there was sent to Chichester a special commission,
with Sir Michael Forster as president, to try seven smugglers for the murder of
two Custom-house
officers; an act perpetrated under circumstances of atrocity too horrible to be
related. They were convicted, and, with the exception of one who died the night
before the
execution, they were all executed and hanged in chains, in different parts of
Sussex. The state of public feeling regarding these culprits made it necessary
that a company of
foot-guards and a troop of horse should attend to prevent all chances of rescue.
Seven more were tried and convicted at the following assizes at East Grinstead,
for highway robbery
and for the barbarous murder of a poor fellow named Hawkins, who was suspected of
giving information against them, and who was literally flogged to death. Six of
them were
executed. Most of them belonged to a celebrated set called the Hawkhurst gang, who
were the terror of the counties of Kent and Sussex. Three more were tried at the
Old Bailey, also
with sixty others, who had broken open the Custom-house at Poole, and taken away a
quantity of tobacco, which had been seized and deposited there. They were executed
at
Tyburn. A place called Whitesmith was
celebrated as a nest of smugglers long after this time; and about 1817, one of the
outstanding debts
in the overseers' books was due to a well-known smuggler of Whitesmith, for 'two
gallons of gin to be drunk in the vestry.'
There were places of deposit for the smuggled goods, most ingeniously contrived,
in various parts of Sussex. Among others, it is said, was the manorial pond at
Fulmer, under which
there was dug a cavern, which could hold 100 tubs of spirits: it was covered with
planks, carefully strewed over with mould, and this remained undiscovered for many
years.
In the churchyard at Patcham is an inscription on a
monument, now nearly illegible, to this effect:
Sacred to the memory of DANIEL SCALES,
who was unfortunately shot, on Tuesday evening, Nov. 7, 1796.
'Alas ! swift flew the fatal lead,
Which pierced through the young man's head.
He instant fell, resigned his breath,
And closed his languid eyes in death.
And you who to this stone draw near,
Oh! pray let fall the pitying tear.
From this sad instance may we all
Prepare to meet Jehovah's call.'
The real story of his death is this: Daniel Scales was a desperate smuggler, and one night
he, with many more, was
coming from Brighton, heavily laden, when the Excise officers and soldiers fell in
with them. The smugglers fled. in all directions; a riding officer, as such
persons were called,
met this man, and called upon him to surrender his booty, which he refused to do.
The officer knew that 'he was too good a man for him, for they had tried it out
before; so he shot
Daniel through the head.'
A COWED AMBASSADOR
In a grave work by Archbishop Parker, entitled The Defence of Priestes Marriages,
4to, there occurs unexpectedly an amusing anecdote:
'It chanced that there came a French ambassador to
the king's highness, King Henry the Eighth, with letters, I trove, from the
French king, not
long before that sent to him from the holy father of Rome. This ambassador,
sitting at the council-table, began to set up a stout countenance with a weak
brain, and carped
English exceedingly fast; which he thought should have been his only sufficient
commendation of them all that were at the table, that he could speak so
readily.
The matter of his talk was universal; but the substance was much noting the
gluttony of Englishmen, which devoured so much victual in the land; partly
magnifying the great
utility of the French tongue, which he noted to be almost throughout the world
frequented. And in his conference he marvelled of divers noblemen that were
present, for that they
could not keep him talk, or yet so much as understand him to perceive his great
wit.
'Among the number of the lords, there sat the old honourable Captain, the Lord
Earl of Shrewsbury, looking at his meat, and gave neither ear nor countenance to
this fade man, but
gave others leave to talk, and sat as he might, shaking his head and hands in
his palsy, which was testimony enough whether he were not in his days a warrior
lying abroad in the
field, to take air of the ground. This French ambassador was offended with him,
and said, "What an honour it were for yonder nobleman, if he could speak
the French tongue! Surely
it is a great lack to his nobility." One of the lords that kept him talk,
asking leave of this mounsire to report part of the communication to the Lord
Shrewsbury, made report
thereof, yet in his most courteous manner, with [as] easy and favourable
rehearsal as might touch a truth.
'When he heard it, where before his head, by the great age, was almost
grovelling on the table, he roused himself up in such wise, that he appeared in
length of body as much as
he was thought ever in all his life before. And, knitting his brows, he laid his
hand on his dagger, and set his countenance in such sort, that the French hardie
ambassador
turned colour wonderfully." Saith the French [fellow] so?" saith he;
"marry, tell the French dog again, by sweet St. Cuthbert, If I knew that I
had but one pestilent French word
in all my body, I would take my dagger and dig it out, before I rose from the
table. And tell that tawny [varlet] again, howsoever he hath been hunger-starved
himself at home in
France, that if we should not eat our beasts, and make victual of them as fast
as we do, they would so increase beyond measure, that they would make victual of
us, and eat us
up!"
'When these words were reported again to the French
guest, he spoiled no more victual at the dinner after that, but drank wondrous
oft . . his
eyes were never off him [the Earl of Shrewsbury] all that dinner while after.'
February 12th
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