The Every-day Book and Table Book, v. 1 (of 3) / or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac

This is the eleventh month of the year. The anglo-saxons gave names in their own tongue to each month, and “November they termed wint-monat, to wit, wind-moneth, whereby wee may see that our ancestors were in this season of the yeare made acquainted with blustring Boreas; and it was the antient custome for shipmen then to shrowd themselves at home, and to give over sea-faring (notwithstanding the littlenesse of their then used voyages) untill blustring March had bidden them well to fare.”[377] They likewise called it blot-monath. In the saxon, “blot” means blood; and in this month they killed great abundance of cattle for winter-store, or, according to some, for purposes of sacrifice to their deities.[378]

Bishop Warburton commences a letter to his friend Hurd, with an allusion to the evil influence which the gloominess of this month is proverbially supposed to have on the mind. He dates from Bedford-row, October 28th, 1749:—“I am now got hither,” he says, “to spend the month of November: the dreadful month of November! when the little wretches hang and drown themselves, and the great ones sell themselves to the court and the devil.”

“This is the month,” says Mr. Leigh Hunt, “in which we are said by the Frenchman to hang and drown ourselves. We also agree with him to call it ‘the gloomy month of November;’ and, above all, with our in-door, money-getting, and unimaginative habits, all the rest of the year, we contrive to make it so. Not all of us, however: and fewer and fewer, we trust, every day. It is a fact well known to the medical philosopher, that, in proportion as people do not like air and exercise, their blood becomes darker and darker: now what corrupts and thickens the circulation, and keeps the humours within the pores, darkens and clogs the mind; and we are then in a state to receive pleasure but indifferently or confusedly, and pain with tenfold painfulness. If we add to this a quantity of unnecessary cares and sordid mistakes, it is so much the worse. A love of nature is the refuge. He who grapples with March, and has the smiling eyes upon him of June and August, need have no fear of November.—And as the Italian proverb says, every medal has its reverse. November, with its loss of verdure, its frequent rains, the fall of the leaf, and the visible approach of winter, is undoubtedly a gloomy month to the gloomy but to others, it brings but pensiveness, a feeling very far from destitute of pleasure; and if the healthiest and most imaginative of us may feel their spirits pulled down by reflections connected with earth, its mortalities, and its mistakes, we should but strengthen ourselves the more to make strong and sweet music with the changeful but harmonious movements of nature.” This pleasant observer of the months further remarks, that, “There are many pleasures in November if we will lift up our matter-of-fact eyes, and find that there are matters-of-fact we seldom dream of. It is a pleasant thing to meet the gentle fine days, that come to contradict our sayings for us; it is a pleasant thing to see the primrose come back again in woods and meadows; it is a pleasant thing to catch the whistle of the green plover, and to see the greenfinches congregate; it is a pleasant thing to listen to the deep amorous note of the wood-pigeons, who now come back again; and it is a pleasant thing to hear the deeper voice of the stags, making their triumphant love amidst the falling leaves.

“Besides a quantity of fruit, our gardens retain a number of the flowers of last month, with the stripped lily in leaf; and, in addition to several of the flowering trees and shrubs, we have the fertile and glowing china-roses in flower: and in fruit the pyracantha, with its lustrous red-berries, that cluster so beautifully on the walls of cottages. This is the time also for domestic cultivators of flowers to be very busy in preparing for those spring and winter ornaments, which used to be thought the work of magic. They may plant hyacinths, dwarf tulips, polyanthus-narcissus, or any other moderately-growing bulbous roots, either in water-glasses, or in pots of light dry earth, to flower early in their apartments. If in glasses, the bulb should be a little in the water; if in pots, a little in the earth, or but just covered. They should be kept in a warm light room.

“The trees generally lose their leaves in the following succession:—walnut, mulberry, horse-chesnut, sycamore, lime, ash, then, after an interval, elm, then beech and oak, then apple and peach-trees, sometimes not till the end of November; and lastly, pollard oaks and young beeches, which retain their withered leaves till pushed off by their new ones in spring. Oaks that happen to be stripped of their leaves by chaffers, will often surprise the haunter of nature by being clothed again soon after midsummer with a beautiful vivid foliage.

“The farmer endeavours to finish his ploughing this month, and then lays up his instruments for the spring. Cattle are kept in the yard or stable, sheep turned into the turnip-field, or in bad weather fed with hay; bees moved under shelter, and pigeons fed in the dove-house.

“Among our autumnal pleasures, we ought not to have omitted the very falling of the leaves:

“Towards the end of the month, under the groves and other shady places, they begin to lie in heaps, and to rustle to the foot of the passenger; and there they will lie till the young leaves are grown overhead, and spring comes to look down upon them with their flowers:—

Shelley.

November 1.

All Saints.

This festival in the almanacs and the church of England calendar is from the church of Rome, which celebrates it in commemoration of those of its saints, to whom, on account of their number, particular days could not be allotted in their individual honour.

On this day, in many parts of England, apples are bobbed for, and nuts cracked, as upon its vigil, yesterday; and we still retain traces of other customs that we had in common with Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, in days of old.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Sir,

Should the following excerpt relative to the first of November be of use to you, it is at your service, extracted from a scarce and valuable work by Dr. W. Owen Pughe, entitled “Translations of the Heroic Elegies of Llywarch Hên, London, 1792.”

“The first day of November was considered (among the ancient Welsh) as the conclusion of summer, and was celebrated with bonfires, accompanied with ceremonies suitable to the event, and some parts of Wales still retain these customs. Ireland retains similar ones, and the fire that is made at these seasons, is called Beal teinidh, in the Irish language, and some antiquaries of that country, in establishing the eras of the different colonies planted in the island, have been happy enough to adduce as an argument for their Phœnician origin this term of Beal teinidh.

“The meaning of tàn, (in Welsh), like the Irish teinidh, is fire, and Bal is simply a projecting springing out or expanding, and when applied to vegetation, it means a budding or shooting out of leaves and blossoms, the same as balant, of which it is the root, and it is also the root of bala and of blwydd, blwyddyn and blynedd, a year, or circle of vegetation. So the signification of bâl dân, or tân bâl, would be the rejoicing fire for the vegetation, or for the crop of the year.”

The following seven triplets by Llywarch Hên, who lived to the surprising age of one hundred and forty years, and wrote in the sixth century, also relate to the subject. The translations, which are strictly literal, are also from the pen of Dr. Pughe.

It will be perceived that each triplet, as was customary with the ancient Britons is accompanied by a moral maxim, without relation to the subject of the song.

Gwilym Sais.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Laurastinus. Laurastinus sempervirens.
Dedicated to St. Fortunatus.

November 2.

All Souls.

This day, also a festival in the almanacs, and the church of England calendar, is from the Romish church, which celebrates it with masses and ceremonies devised for the occasion. “Odilon, abbot of Cluny, in the 9th century, first enjoined the ceremony of praying for the dead on this day in his own monastery; and the like practice was partially adopted by other religious houses until the year 998, when it was established as a general festival throughout the western churches. To mark the pre-eminent importance of this festival, if it happened on a Sunday it was not postponed to the Monday, as was the case with other such solemnities, but kept on the Saturday, in order that the church might the sooner aid the suffering souls; and, that the dead might have every benefit from the pious exertions of the living, the remembrance of this ordinance was kept up, by persons dressed in black, who went round the different towns, ringing a loud and dismal-toned bell at the corner of each street, every Sunday evening during the month; and calling upon the inhabitants to remember the deceased suffering the expiatory flames of purgatory, and to join in prayer for the repose of their souls.[379]”

Time.

Mr. John M‘Creery, to whose press Mr. Roscoe committed his “History of Leo X.,” and the subsequent productions of his pen, has marked this day by dating a beautiful poem on it, which all who desire to seize the “golden grains” of time, will do well to learn and remember daily.

Mr. M‘Creery first printed this little effusion of his just and vigorous mind on a small slip, one of which he gave at the time to the editor of the Every-Day Book, who if he has not like

is not therefore less able to determine the value of those that are gone for ever; nor therefore less anxious to secure each that may fall to him; nor less qualified to enjoin on his youthful readers the importance of this truth, “that time once gone, ne’er comes again.” He would bid them remember, in the conscience-burning words of one of our poets, that—

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Winter Cherry. Physalis.
Dedicated to St. Marcian.

November 3.

Without being sad, we may be serious; and continue to-day the theme of yesterday.

Mr. Bowring, from whose former poetical works several citations have already glistened these pages, in a subsequent collection of effusions, has versified to our purpose. He reminds us that—

Another poem is a translation

The same writer truly pictures our fearful estate, if we heed not the silent progress of “the enemy,” that by proper attention we may convert into a friend.—

These “memorabilia” are from a three-shilling volume, entitled “Hymns, by John Bowring,” intended as a sequel to the “Matins and Vespers.” Mr. Bowring does not claim that his “little book” shall supply the place of similar productions. “If it be allowed,” he says, “to add any thing to the treasures of our devotional poetry; if any of its pages should be hereafter blended with the exercises of domestic and social worship; or if it shall be the companion of meditative solitude, the writer will be more than rewarded.” All this gentleman’s poetical works, diversified as they are, tend “to mend the heart.”

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Primrose. Primula vulgaris.
Dedicated to St. Flour.

November 4.

KING WILLIAM LANDED.

So say our almanacs, directly in opposition to the fact, that king William III. did not land until the next day, the 5th: we have only to look into our annals and be assured that the almanacs are in error. Rapin says, “The fourth of November being Sunday, and the prince’s birthday, now (in 1688) thirty-eight years of age, was by him dedicated to devotion; the fleet still continuing their course, in order to land at Dartmouth, or Torbay. But in the night, whether by the violence of the wind, or the negligence of the pilot, the fleet was carried beyond the desired ports without a possibility of putting back, such was the fury of the wind. But soon after, the wind turned to the south, which happily carried the fleet into Torbay, the most convenient place for landing the horse of any in England. The forces were landed with such diligence and tranquillity, that the whole army was on shore before night. It was thus that the prince of Orange landed in England, without any opposition, on the 5th of November, whilst the English were celebrating the memory of their deliverance from the powder-plot about fourscore years before,” &c. Hume also says, “The prince had a prosperous voyage, and landed his army safely in Torbay on the 5th of November, the anniversary of the gunpowder treason.” These historians ground their statements on the authority of bishop Burnet, who was on board the fleet, and from other writers of the period, and their accuracy is provable from the public records of the kingdom, notwithstanding the almanac-makers say to the contrary. It must be admitted, however, that the fourth is kept as the anniversary of the landing of king William, a holiday at different public offices.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Strawberry-tree. Arbutus.
Dedicated to St. Brinstan.

November 5.

Powder Plot, 1605.

This is a great day in the calendar of the church of England: it is duly noticed by the almanacs, and kept as a holiday at the public offices. In the “Common Prayer Book,” there is “A Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving, to be used yearly upon the Fifth day of November; for the happy deliverance of King James I., and the three Estates of England, from the most Traiterous and bloody-intended Massacre by Gunpowder: And also for the happy Arrival of His late Majesty (King William III.) on this Day, for the Deliverance of our Church and Nation.”

GUY FAWKES.

There cannot be a better representation of “Guy Fawkes,” as he is borne about the metropolis, “in effigy,” on the fifth of November, every year, than the drawing to this article by Mr. Cruikshank. It is not to be expected that poor boys should be well informed as to Guy’s history, or be particular about his costume. With them “Guy Fawkes-day,” or, as they as often call it, “Pope-day,” is a holiday, and as they reckon their year by their holidays, this, on account of its festivous enjoyment, is the greatest holiday of the season. They prepare long before hand, not “Guy,” but the fuel wherewith he is to be burnt, and the fireworks to fling about at the burning: “the Guy” is the last thing thought of, “the bonfire” the first. About this time ill is sure to betide the owner of an ill-secured fence; stakes are extracted from hedges, and branches torn from trees; crack, crack, goes loose paling; deserted buildings yield up their floorings; unbolted flip-flapping doors are released from their hinges as supernumeraries; and more burnables are deemed lawful prize than the law allows. These are secretly stored in some enclosed place, which other “collectors” cannot find, or dare not venture to invade. Then comes the making of “the Guy,” which is easily done with straw, after the materials of dress are obtained: these are an old coat, waistcoat, breeches, and stockings, which usually as ill accord in their proportions and fitness, as the parts in some of the new churches. His hose and coat are frequently “a world too wide;” in such cases his legs are infinitely too big, and the coat is “hung like a loose sack about him.” A barber’s block for the head is “the very thing itself;” chalk and charcoal make capital eyes and brows, which are the main features, inasmuch as the chin commonly drops upon the breast, and all deficiencies are hid by “buttoning up:” a large wig is a capital achievement. Formerly an old cocked hat was the reigning fashion for a “Guy;” though the more strictly informed “dresser of the character” preferred a mock-mitre; now, however, both hat and mitre have disappeared, and a stiff paper cap painted, and knotted with paper strips, in imitation of ribbon, is its substitute; a frill and ruffles of writing-paper so far completes the figure. Yet this neither was not, nor is, a Guy, without a dark lantern in one hand, and a spread bunch of matches in the other. The figure thus furnished, and fastened in a chair, is carried about the streets in the manner represented in the engraving; the boys shouting forth the words of the motto with loud huzzas, and running up to passengers hat in hand, with “pray remember Guy! please to remember Guy.”

Scuffles seldom happen now, but “in my youthful days,” “when Guy met Guy—then came the tug of war!” The partisans fought, and a decided victory ended in the capture of the “Guy” belonging to the vanquished. Sometimes desperate bands, who omitted, or were destitute of the means to make “Guys,” went forth like Froissart’s knights “upon adventures.” An enterprise of this sort was called “going to smug a Guy,” that is, to steal one by “force of arms,” fists, and sticks, from its rightful owners. These partisans were always successful, for they always attacked the weak.

In such times, the burning of “a good Guy” was a scene of uproar unknown to the present day. The bonfire in Lincoln’s Inn Fields was of this superior order of disorder. It was made at the Great Queen-street corner, immediately opposite Newcastle-house. Fuel came all day long, in carts properly guarded against surprise: old people have remembered when upwards of two hundred cart-loads were brought to make and feed this bonfire, and more than thirty “Guys” were burnt upon gibbets between eight and twelve o’clock at night.

At the same period, the butchers in Clare-market had a bonfire in the open space of the market, next to Bear-yard, and they thrashed each other “round about the wood-fire,” with the strongest sinews of slaughtered bulls. Large parties of butchers from all the markets paraded the streets, ringing peals from marrow-bones-and-cleavers, so loud as to overpower the storms of sound that came from the rocking belfries of the churches. By ten o’clock, London was so lit up by bonfires and fireworks, that from the suburbs it looked in one red heat. Many were the overthrows of horsemen and carriages, from the discharge of hand-rockets, and the pressure of moving mobs inflamed to violence by drink, and fighting their way against each other.

This fiery zeal has gradually decreased. Men no longer take part or interest in such an observance of the day, and boys carry about their “Guy” with no other sentiment or knowledge respecting him, than body-snatchers have of a newly-raised corpse, or the method of dissecting it; their only question is, how much they shall get by the operation to make merry with. They sometimes confound their confused notion of the principle with the mawkin, and for “the Guy,” they say, “the Pope.” Their difference is not by the way of distinction, but ignorance. “No popery,” no longer ferments; the spirit is of the lees.

The day is commonly called Gunpowder treason, and has been kept as an anniversary from 1605, when the plot was discovered, the night before it was to have been put in execution. The design was to blow up the king, James I., the prince of Wales, and the lords and commons assembled in parliament. One of the conspirators, being desirous of saving lord Monteagle, addressed an anonymous letter to him, ten days before the parliament met, in which was this expression, “the danger is past, so soon as you have burnt the letter.” The earl of Salisbury said it was written by some fool or madman; but the king said, “so soon as you have burnt the letter,” was to be interpreted, in as short a space as you shall take to burn the letter. Then, comparing the sentence with one foregoing, “that they should receive a terrible blow, this parliament, and yet should not see who hurt them,” he concluded, that some sudden blow was preparing by means of gunpowder. Accordingly, all the rooms and cellars under the parliament-house were searched; but as nothing was discovered, it was resolved on the fourth of November, at midnight, the day before the parliament met, to search under the wood, in a cellar hired by Mr. Percy, a papist. Accordingly sir Thomas Knevet, going about that time, found at the door a man in a cloak and boots, whom he apprehended. This was Guy Fawkes, who passed for Percy’s servant. On removing the wood, &c. they discovered thirty-six barrels of gunpowder, and on Guy Fawkes being searched, there were found upon him, a dark lantern, a tinder-box, and three matches. Instead of being dismayed, he boldly said, if he had been taken within the cellar, he would have blown up himself and them together. On his examination, he confessed the design was to blow up the king and parliament, and expressed great sorrow that it was not done, saying, it was the devil and not God that was the discoverer. The number of persons discovered to have been in the conspiracy were about thirteen; they were all Roman catholics, and their design was to restore the catholic religion in England. It appears that Guy Fawkes and his associates had assembled, and concerted the plot at the old King’s-head tavern, in Leadenhall-street. Two of the conspirators were killed, in endeavouring to avoid apprehension; eight were executed. Two jesuits, Oldcorn and Garnet, also suffered death; the former for saying “the ill success of the conspiracy did not render it the less just;” the latter for being privy to the conspiracy and not revealing it.

A corporation notice is annually left at the house of every inhabitant in the city of London, previous to lord mayor’s day. The following (delivered in St. Bride’s) is its form:

SIR,

October the 11th, 1825.

BY Virtue of a Precept from my Lord Mayor, in order to prevent any Tumults and Riots that may happen on the Fifth of November and the next ensuing Lord Mayor’s Day, you are required to charge all your Servants and Lodgers, that they neither make, nor cause to be made, any Squibs, Serpents, Fire Balloons, or other Fireworks, nor fire, fling, nor throw them out of your House, Shop, or Warehouse, or in the Streets of this City, on the Penalties contained in an Act of Parliament made in the Tenth year of the late King William.

Note. The Act was made perpetual, and is not expired, as some ignorantly suppose.

C. Puckeridge, Beadle.

Taylor, Printer, Basinghall Street.

On the fifth of November, a year or two ago, an outrageous sparkle of humour broke forth. A poor hard-working man, while at breakfast in his garret, was enticed from it by a message that some one who knew him wished to speak to him at the street door. When he got there he was shaken hands with, and invited to a chair. He had scarcely said “nay” before “the ayes had him,” and clapping him in the vacant seat, tied him there. They then painted his face to their liking, put a wig and paper cap on his head, fastened a dark lantern in one of his hands, and a bundle of matches in the other, and carried him about all day, with shouts of laughter and huzzas, begging for their “Guy.” When he was released at night he went home, and having slept upon his wrongs, he carried them the next morning to a police office, whither his offenders were presently brought by warrant, before the magistrates, who ordered them to find bail or stand committed. It is illegal to smug a man for “a Guy.”

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Angular Physalis. Physalis Alkakengi.
Dedicated to St. Bertille.

November 6.

Michaelmas Term begins.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Sir,

October, 1825.

Presuming the object you have in view in your Every-Day Book is to convey useful and pleasing information with the utmost correctness, and, if possible, without contradiction, I beg leave to say, your statement in page 100, “that in each term there is one day whereon the courts do not transact business, namely, on Candlemas-day in Hilary Term, Ascension-day in Easter Term, Midsummer-day in Trinity Term, and All-Saints’-day in Michaelmas Term,” is not quite correct with respect to the two last days; for in last term (Trinity) Midsummer-day was subsequent to the last day, which was on the 22d of June. And if Midsummer-day falls on the morrow of Corpus Christi, as it did in 1614, 1698, 1709, and 1791, Trinity full Term then commences, and the courts sit on that day; otherwise, if it occurs in the term it is a dies non. In 1702, 1713, 1724, 1795, and 1801, when Midsummer-day fell upon what was regularly the last day of term, the courts did not then sit, regarding it as a Sunday, and the term was prolonged to the 25th. (See Blackstone’s Commentaries, vol. iii. page 278.) With respect to All-Saints’-day, (1st of November,) it does not now occur in Michaelmas Term, for by the statute 24th Geo. II. c. 48, (1752,) the Essoin day of that term is on the morrow of All-Souls, 3d of November, consequently Michaelmas Term does not actually commence before the 6th of November.

With respect to the grand days of the inns of court, I find by “The Student’s Guide to Lincoln’s Inn,” the two first days you mention are correct with respect to that society; but in Trinity Term the grand day is uncertain, unless Midsummer-day is in the term, then that is generally the grand day. In Michaelmas Term, grand day is on the second Thursday in the term.

In page 156, you state, “It is of ancient custom on the first day of term for the judges to breakfast with the lord chancellor in Lincoln’s Inn Hall.” Till within these few years, and only on the present lord chancellor removing from Bedford-square, the judges, together with the master of the rolls and his officers, the vice-chancellor, the masters in chancery, the king’s serjeants and counsel, with the different officers of the court of chancery, always assembled at the chancellor’s house to breakfast, and from thence, following the chancellor in his state carriage, to Westminster. But on the removal of lord Eldon to Hamilton-place, his lordship desired to meet the gentlemen of the courts of law and equity in Lincoln’s Inn Hall; and from that time, the judges, &c. have met in Lincoln’s Inn. This place is better adapted to the convenience of the profession than one more distant.

The above observations, if worth notice, may be used on the first day of next term, the 6th of November; but as the 6th is on a Sunday, term will not actually begin until the 7th.

I am, sir, &c.

Lincoln’s Inn, New-square.

S. G.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Yew. Taxus baccata.
Dedicated to St. Leonard.

November 7.