Born: Hugo Grotius,
historical and theological writer, 1583, Delft; Sir
John Pringle, P.R.S., medical writer, 1707, Satchel,
Roxburghshire; William Hazlitt, miscellaneous writer,
1778, Maidstone. Michael Hillman,
Equestrian, New London, Ct. 1956
Died: Louis II, King of
France, 'Le Beque,' 879; William, Earl of Pembroke,
1630; Jean Lebeuf, French antiquarian writer, 1760;
Prince Eugene of Savoy, 1736, Vienna; William
Cheselden, anatomist, 1752; Admiral John Byron, 1786;
La-grange, French
mathematician, 1813, Paris; Paul Courier, French
novelist, 1825; Cardinal Weld, 1837, Rome; Alexander Nasmyth, painter, 1840,
Edinburgh.
Feast Day: St. Bademus,
abbot, martyr, 376. B. Mechtildes, virgin and abbess,
14th century.
INTRODUCTION OF THE ORGAN INTO A CHURCH AT COMPIEGNE
The only incident of religious
history connected with the 10th of April that is
noticed in a French work resembling the present, is
the introduction by King Pepin, of France, of an organ
into the Church of St. Corneille at Compiegne, in the
year 787�rather a minute fact to be so signalised;
suggesting, however, the very considerable antiquity
of the instrument in association with devotion. It may
be remarked that the bagpipe is believed by the
historians of music to be the basis of the organ: the
organ is, in its primitive form, a bagpipe put into a
more mechanical form, and furnished with a key-board.
And this, again, suggests how odd it is that Scotland,
which still preserves the bagpipe as a national
instrument, should have all along, in her religious
history, treated its descendant, the organ, with such
contumely.
When the Scots invaded the
northern parts in 1640, a sergeant-major was billeted
in one Mr. Calvert's house, who was musically
disposed, and had a portative organ for his pleasure
in one of his chambers. The Scotchman, being of the
preciser strain, and seeing the instrument open, "Art
thou a kirkman?" says he. "No, sir," says he (Mr.
Calvert). "Then, what the de'il, man," returns the
Scot, " dost thou with this same great box o' whistles
here?" '�Thoms's Anecdotes and Traditions.
THE 'TENTH OF APRIL'
The name of this day is almost
the only one applied in England, in the manner of our
French neighbours, as a denomination for an event. And
yet the event was, after all, one of slight ultimate
importance. It was an apparent danger to the peace of
the country, and one which was easily turned aside and
neutralised.
The Parisian Revolution of
February, 1818, had, as usual, stirred up and brought
into violent action all the discontents of Europe.
Even in happy England there was a discontent, one involving certain sections
of the working classes, and referring rather to
certain speculative political claims than to any
practical grievance. The Chartists, as they were
called, deemed this a good opportunity for pressing
their claims, and they resolved to do so with a
demonstration of their numbers, thus hinting at the
physical force which they possessed, but probably
without any serious designs against the peace of their
fellow-citizens.
It was arranged that a monster
petition should be presented to parliament on the 10th
of April, after being paraded through London by a
procession. The Government, fearing that an outbreak
of violence might take place, as had happened already
at Manchester, Glasgow, and other large towns,
assembled large bodies of troops, planted cannon in
the neighbourhood of Westminster Bridge, and
garrisoned the public offices; at the same time a vast
number of the citizens were sworn in as special
constables to patrol the streets.
The Chartists met on Kennington Common, under the presidency
of
Mr. Feargus
O'Connor, M.P., but their sense of the preparations
made for the preservation of the peace, and a hint
that they would not be allowed to cross the bridges in
force, took away all hope of their intended
demonstration. Their petition was quietly taken `in
three cabs' along Vauxhall Bridge, and presented to
the House of Commons; the multitude dispersed; by four
o'clock in the afternoon London had resumed its
ordinary appearances, and the Tenth of April remained
only a memory of an apprehended danger judiciously met
and averted.
HOARDED
TREASURES AND TREASURE TROVE
The custom of hoarding or
burying money belongs either to a rude or a disturbed
state of society. Where matters are more systematic
and peaceful, spare cash can always be made to yield
interest. Sometimes, in past years, the hiding of
treasure arose from a sort of diseased activity of the
money-loving propensity. A singular case of this kind
occurred in 1843. On the 10th of April, eight
labourers were employed in grubbing up trees at
Tufnell Park, near High-gate, and during their labours
they lighted upon two jars containing nearly four
hundred sovereigns in gold. They divided the money,
and one of them spent his share; but soon afterwards
Mr. Tufnell, lord of the manor, claimed the whole of
it as treasure-trove.
There is a complex law, partly
statute and partly civil, relating to the recovery of
treasure for which the original owner does not apply;
and according to the circumstances of the finding, the
property belongs to the Crown, to the lord of the
manor, or to the finder, or to two out of these three.
While the eight labourers were anxiously puzzling over
Mr. Tufnell's claim, the real owner stepped forward,
and told a singular tale. He was a brass-founder
living in Clerkenwell; and being about nine months
before under a temporary mental delusion, he one night
took out two jars of sovereigns with him, and buried
them in the field at Tufnell Park. Being able to prove
these facts, his claim to the money was admitted. In
other cases, the burying of treasure results not from
any delusion, but from the ignorance of the owner as
to any better mode of securing it. In 1820, some
labouring men, on clearing out a ditch at Bristol,
found a number of guineas and half-guineas, and a
silver snuff-box. Some time afterwards a sailor was
seen to be disconsolately grubbing at that spot; and
on inquiry, it appeared that, before starting on his
last voyage, he had hidden behind the ditch his few
worldly treasures, and had cut a notch in a tree to
denote the spot.
Times of trouble, as we have
said, led to frequent buryings of treasure. In 1820,
the foundations of some old houses were being removed
at Exeter, and during the operations the workmen came
upon a large collection of silver coins. They made
merry and got drunk on the occasion, which attracted
the attention of their employer; he caused more
careful examination to be made, which resulted in the
discovery of a second heap of coins, in a hole covered
with a flat stone. The coins were of all dates, from
Henry the Eighth to Charles the First or the
Commonwealth; and it is not improbable that the
disturbed state of affairs in the middle of the
seventeenth century led to this mode of securing
treasure.
The French Revolution was fruitful in such
proceedings, some of which came to light in our own
country. In January 1836, at Great Stanmore, the
rector's coachman and gardener found in a field on the
side of a ditch, a heap of more than three hundred and
sixty foreign gold coins, comprising louis d'ors,
Napoleons, doubloons, and other kinds, worth on an
average more than a guinea a-piece. The wife of one of
the men told the rector's wife; and then came an
inquiry�to whom did or should the treasure belong?
As soon as the news became
noised abroad, excited villagers rushed to the spot,
and found stores far more rich than that which had set
the place in commotion, amounting to nearly four
thousand pounds in value. The finders naturally
claimed it; then the rector claimed it, because it had
been found on glebe-land; and then the Crown appointed
a regular coroner's inquest (in accordance with an
ancient usage) to investigate the whole matter. During
the inquiry, some singular evidence came out.
About twenty years earlier,
when the downfall of Napoleon had led to the
resuscitation of the Bourbons, a foreigner came to
reside at Stanmore; he used to walk about the fields
in an abstracted manner, and was naturally regarded by
the villagers as a singular character. He suddenly
left the place, and never reappeared. Two years after
the stranger's departure, another person came,
searched about the fields, and made minute inquiries
concerning some hidden wealth. He stated that the
foreigner who had formerly lived at Stanmore was dead;
that on his deathbed he had revealed the fact of
having hidden considerable treasure; and that he had
sketched a ground-plan of the field where the hoard
lay.
On comparing notes it appeared
that, during the long intervening period, two
ash-trees had been removed from the side of the ditch;
that this change had prevented the foreigner's agent
or heir from identifying the spot; and that a change
in the watercourse had gradually washed away the earth
and left the coins exposed. As a question of
probability, we may conjecture that the troubled state
of France had something to do with this burying of the
foreigner's treasure; as a question of law, the amount
reverted to the Crown as treasure-trove.
BELLMAN'S VERSES
In London, and probably other
English cities, in the seventeenth century, the
Bellman was the recognised term for what we would now
call a night watchman, being derived from the
hand-bell which the man carried in order to give alarm
in case of fire. In the Luttrell Collection of
Broadsides (Brit. Mus.) is one dated 1683-4, entitled
'A Copy of Verses presented by Isaac Ragg, Bellman, to
his Masters and Mistresses of Holbourn Division, in
the parish of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields.' It is headed
by a wood-cut representing Isaac in professional
accoutrements, a pointed pole in the left hand, and in
the right a bell, while his lantern hangs from his
jacket in front. Below is a series of verses, on St.
Andrew's Day, King Charles the First's Birthday, St.
Thomas's Day, Christmas Day, St. John's Day,
Childermas Day, New Year's Day, on the thirtieth of
January, &c., all of them very proper and very
insufferable; the `prologue' is, indeed, the only
specimen worth giving here, being the expression of
Mr. Ragg's official duty; it is as follows:
'Time, Master, calls your
bellman to his task,
To see your doors and windows are
all fast,
And that no villany or foul crime be done
To
you or yours in absence of the sun.
If any base lurker
I do meet,
In private alley or in open
street,
You shall have warning by my
timely call,
And so God bless you and give rest to
all.'
In a similar, but unadorned
broadside, dated 1666, Thomas Law, bellman, greets his
masters of St. Giles, Cripplegate, within the
Freedom,' in twenty-three dull stanzas, of which the
last may be subjoined:
'No sooner hath St. Andrew
crowned November,
But Boreas from the North brings
cold December,
And I have often heard a many say,
He brings the winter month
Newcastle way;
For comfort here of poor distressed
souls,
Would he had with him brought
a fleet of coals!'
It seems to have been
customary for the bell-man to go about at a certain
season of the year, probably Christmas, amongst the
householders of his district, giving each a copy of
his broadside�firing a broadside at each, as it
were�and expecting from each in return some small
gratuity, as an addition to his ordinary salary. The
execrable character of his poetry is indicated by the
contempt with which the wits speak of bellman's
verses.'
Robert
Herrick has a, little
poem giving his friends a blessing in the form of the
nightly addresses of
THE BELLMAN
From noise of scare fires rest
ye free,
From murders benedicitie;
From all mischances that may
fright
Your pleasing slumbers in the night;
Mercie
secure ye all, and keep
The goblin from ye, while ye
sleep.
Past one o'clock, and almost two,
My masters
all, 'good day to you.'
