The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3) / Everlasting Calerdar 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

A GENTLEMAN’S FASHION.

In the reign of Henry VII. sir Philip Calthrope, a Norfolk knight, sent as much cloth, of fine French tauney, as would make him a gown, to a tailor in Norwich. It happened one John Drakes, a shoemaker, coming into the shop, liked it so well, that he went and bought of the same as much for himself, enjoining the tailor to make it of the same fashion. The knight was informed of this, and therefore commanded the tailor to cut his gown as full of holes as his sheers could make. John Drakes’s was made “of the same fashion,” but he vowed he never would be of the gentleman’s fashion again.

Discoveries
OF THE
ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.
No. VII.

In the present stage of the inquiry will be adduced examples of the knowledge of the ancients, respecting the essential principles that “uphold the world.”

Gravity, Attraction—the Law of Squaring the Distances—Centripetal and Centrifugal Force.

The moderns, who imagine that they were the first to discover universal gravitation, have only trod in the paths of the ancients. It is true, that they have demonstrated the laws of gravitation, but this is all.

Besides universal gravitation, the ancients knew that the circular motion described by the planets in their courses, is the result of two moving forces combined—a rectilinear and a perpendicular; which, united together, form a curve. They knew also why these two contrary forces retain the planets in their orbs; and explained themselves, as the moderns do, excepting only the terms of “centripetal” and “centrifugal;” instead of which, however, they used what was altogether equivalent.

They also knew the inequality of the course of the planets, ascribing it to the variety of their weights reciprocally considered, and of their proportional distances; or, which is the same thing, in more modern terms, they knew the “law of the inverse ratio of the square of the distance from the centre of the revolution.”

Some have thought, that in Empedocles’s system the foundation of Newton’s was to be found; imagining, that under the name of “love,” he intended to intimate a law, or power, which separated the parts of matter, in order to join itself to them, and to which nothing was wanting but the name of attraction; and that by the term “discord,” he intended to describe another force, which obliged the same parts to recede from one another, and which Newton calls a repelling force.

The Pythagoreans and Platonics perceived the necessity of admitting the force of two powers, viz. projection and gravity, in order to account for the revolution of the planets. Timæus, speaking of the soul of the world, which animates all nature, says, that “God hath endowed it with two powers, which, in combination, act according to certain numeric proportions.”

Plato clearly asserts, that God had impressed upon the planets “a motion which was the most proper for them.” This could be nothing else than that perpendicular motion, which has a tendency to the centre of the universe, that is, gravity; and what coincides with it, a lateral impulse, rendering the whole circular.

Diogenes Laertius says, that at the beginning, the bodies of the universe were agitated tumultuously, and with a disorderly movement; but that God afterwards regulated their course, by laws natural and proportional.

Anaxagoras being asked what it was that retained the heavenly bodies in their orbit, notwithstanding their gravity, remarkably answered, that “the rapidity of their course preserved them in their stations; and that should the celerity of their motions abate, the equilibrium of the world being broken, the whole machine would fall to ruin.”

Plutarch, who knew almost all the shining truths of astronomy, in explaining what it was that made bodies tend towards the earth, attributes it to “a reciprocal attraction, whereby all terrestrial bodies have this tendency, and which collects into one the parts constituting the sun and moon, and retains them in their spheres.” He afterwards applies these particular phenomena to others more general; and, from what happens in our globe, deduces, according to the same principle, whatever must thence happen respectively in each celestial body; and then considers them in their relative connections one towards another. He illustrates this general relationship and connection, by instancing what happens to our moon in its revolution round the earth, comparing it to “a stone in a sling, which is impressed by two powers at once;” that of projection, which would carry it away, were it not retained by the embrace of the sling; which, like the central force, keeps it from wandering, whilst the combination of the two moves it in a circle. In another place, he speaks “of an inherent power in bodies, that is, in the earth, and other planets, of attracting to themselves whatever is within their reach.” In these two passages, there is a plain reference to the centripetal force, which binds the planets to their proper, or common centres; and to the centrifugal, which makes them roll in circles at a distance.

The ancients, then, attribute to the celestial bodies a tendency towards one common centre, and a reciprocal attractive power. It appears also, that they knew, as well as the moderns, that the cause of gravitation, that attracted all things, did not reside solely in the centre of the earth. Their ideas were even more philosophic; for they taught, that “this power was diffused through every particle of the terrestrial globe, and compounded of the various energy residing in each.”

It remains to inquire, whether they knew the law by which gravity acts upon the celestial bodies, that it was in an inverse proportion of their quantity of matter, and the square of their distance. Certainly they were not ignorant, that the planets in their courses observed a constant and invariable proportion; though some sought for it in the difference of the quantity of matter contained in the masses, of which the planets were composed; and others, in the difference of their distances. Lucretius, after Democritus and Aristotle, thought that “the gravity of bodies was in proportion to the quantity of matter of which they were composed.” It is true, that the penetration and sagacity of a Newton, a Gregory, and a Maclaurin, were requisite to perceive and discover, in the few fragments of the ancients now remaining, the inverse law respecting the squares of the distances, a doctrine which Pythagoras had taught; but they acknowledge that it was contained in those writings; and they avail themselves of the authority of Pythagoras, to give weight to their system.

Plutarch, of all the philosophers who have spoken of Pythagoras, had a better opportunity of entering into the ideas of that great man, and has explained them better than any one besides. Pliny, Macrobius, and Censorinus, have also spoken of the harmony which Pythagoras observed to reign in the course of the planets; but Plutarch makes him say, that it is probable that the bodies of the planets, their distances, the intervals between their spheres, the celerity of their courses and revolutions, are not only proportionable among themselves, but to the whole of the universe. Dr. Gregory declares it to be evident, that Pythagoras understood, that the gravitation of the planets towards the sun was in a reciprocal ratio of their distance from that luminary; and that illustrious modern, followed herein by Maclaurin, makes that ancient philosopher speak thus:—

“A musical string, says Pythagoras, yields the very same tone with any other of twice its length, because the tension of the latter, or the force whereby it is extended, is quadruple to that of the former; and the gravity of one planet is quadruple to that of any other, which is at double the distance. In general, to bring a musical string into unison with one of the same kind, shorter than itself, its tension ought to be increased in proportion as the square of its length exceeds that of the other; and that the gravity of any planet may become equal to that of any other nearer the sun, it ought to be increased in proportion as the square of its distance exceeds that of the other. If, therefore, we should suppose musical strings stretched from the sun to each of the planets, it would be necessary, in order to bring them all to unison, to augment or diminish their tensions, in the very same proportion as would be requisite to render the planets themselves equal in gravity. This, in all likelihood, gave foundation for the reports, that Pythagoras drew his doctrine of harmony from the spheres.”[353]

Galileo duly honours Plato, by acknowledging that he is indebted to him for his first idea of the method of determining, how the different degrees of velocity ought to produce that uniformity of motion discernible in the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. His account is, that “Plato being of opinion that no movable thing could pass from a state of rest to any determinate degree of velocity, so as perpetually and equably to remain in it, without first passing through all the inferior degrees of celerity or retardation; he thence concludes, that God, after having created the celestial bodies, determining to assign to each a particular degree of celerity, in which they should always move, impressed upon them, when he drew them from a state of rest, such a force as made them run through their assigned spaces, in that natural and direct way wherein we see the bodies around us pass from rest into motion, by a continual and successive acceleration. And he adds, that having brought them to that degree of motion, wherein he intended they should perpetually remain, he afterwards changed the perpendicular into a circulary direction, that being the only course that can preserve itself uniform, and make a body without ceasing keep at an equal distance from its proper centre.”

This acknowledgment of Galileo is remarkable. It is a homage to antiquity from an inventive genius, who least of any, owes his eminence to the aid of the ancients. It is the disposition of noble minds to arrogate to themselves as little as possible any merit, but what they have the utmost claim to; and thus Galileo and Newton, the greatest of modern philosophers, set an example, which will never be imitated but by men of distinguished greatness.

AVON MILL, WILTS.
The Gleaning or Leasing Cake.

To the Editor.

Sir,—It may not be deemed an intrusion to inform your readers, that when Avon Mill was devoted to the grinding of corn it was very centrally situated for the convenience of the poor gleaners. This mill, then kept by a family of the name of Tanner, (the sons were renowned swimmers,) had also much business with the neighbouring farmers and maltsters. At the time, dame Tanner, one of the best-hearted women then living, had a custom of her own, (perhaps to discharge the dictates of a good conscience for the double toll taken by the millers.) She made after the harvest-season a cake, somewhat after the manner of the Jews’ passover cakes, given to their Gentile friends, which she called the “Gleaning cake,” and gave it to every poor person that brought gleaned corn to be ground at the mill. A few years after her death the mill was purchased (I think a chancery suit was pending) for a clothing manufactory, (one pair of stones only being kept,) which it still remains. When the shearing machines were here first introduced to cut and dress cloth by water, detachments of troops were nightly stationed in the lanes and mill to prevent large bodies of the shearmen, then out of employ, from setting fire to the premises. At subsequent periods much business has been done here in the manufacture of superfine broadcloth, but owing to the fluctuation of trade Avon Mill has not generally done half the work of its water power.

A neighbouring mill, once also a great corn mill, at Christian Malford, but which is now a spacious edifice, has shared nearly the same fate and devotedness. The water-wheels being partly undershot on this beautiful river, the water in autumn is often insufficient to the demand; but when after heavy rains the floods are out, the meadows present a sheet of blue expanse truly picturesque, and the bridges, by the depth and rapidity of the current near the mills, are nearly impassable. Many peasants returning home, and farmers riding from market, have by their adventure missed their way and been drowned.

A “pretty considerable number” of ghost stories are floating in the memories of the aged cottagers, of persons appearing after death on the Avon and its banks in this part of the country.

I am, sir,
Yours respectfully,
An Old Correspondent.

T——n, T——e,
August 21, 1827.

T. Q. M.

TRASHING.
A Bridal Custom in Yorkshire.

To the Editor.

Morley, near Leeds, July 21, 1827.

Sir,—There is a custom prevalent in various parts of Yorkshire, which I do not remember to have seen noticed in the works of Strutt, Brand, Fosbroke, or any other learned writer upon such subjects. It is called “trashing,” which signifies pelting people with old shoes on their return from church on the wedding-day. There were certain offences which subjected the parties formerly to this disagreeable liability; such as refusing to contribute to scholars’ “potations,” or other convivialities; but in process of time the reason of the thing became forgotten, and “trashing” was indiscriminately practised among the lower orders. Turf-sods or mud being substituted for lack of old shoes, and generally thrown in jest and good-humour rather than in anger or ill-will.

Although it is true that an old shoe is to this day called “a trash,” yet it did not, certainly, give the name to the nuisance. To “trash” originally signified, to clog, incumber, or impede the progress of any one; (see Todd’s Johnson;) and agreeably to this explanation we find the rope tied by sportsmen round the necks of fleet pointers to tire them well, and check their speed, is hereabouts universally called the “trashcord,” or dog trash. But why old shoes in particular were selected as the missiles most proper for impeding the progress of new married persons, it is now perhaps impossible to discover.

Yours respectfully,
N. S.

BILBOCQUET.

In 1595, Henry III. of France diverted himself, when passing through the streets of Paris, by playing with a “bilbocquet,” a cup and ball. The dukes d’Epernon and de Joyeuse accompanied him in his childish frolic, which, by this example, became so general, that gentlemen, pages, lackeys, and all sorts of people, great and small, made the management of the “bilbocquet” a serious and perpetual study. The same king traversed his capital with a basket hanging by a girdle from his neck, out of which peeped the heads of half a dozen puppies.

REMARKABLE CHARACTERS.

I.—Erasmus.

Erasmus, while a schoolboy, composed a panegyric on king Philip, (father of Charles V.,) on his coming out of Spain into Germany. His majesty took such notice of his early wit, that he honoured him with a yearly pension during his life.

King Henry VIII. of England wrote to him with his own hand, ordered him several very valuable presents, offered him a house and land, with six hundred florins a year, if he would reside in England.

Francis I., king of France, also wrote to him, offering him a bishopric, and one thousand florins a year, if he would live in France.

The emperor Charles V. offered him a bishopric in Sicily, made him one of his privy council, allowed him a pension of four hundred florins a year, and promised to make it five hundred, if he would occasionally reside in his court.

Sigismond, king of Poland, and Ferdinand, king of Hungary, were very bountiful to him, and repeatedly invited him to dwell in their dominions.

Ann, princess of Verona, allowed him a pension of one hundred florins a year.

Frederick, duke of Saxony, and William, duke of Gulick, made him several presents.

Pope Adrian VI. wrote to him three times with his own hand; and pope Clement VII., on being raised to the purple, sent him five hundred florins, and invited him to Rome.

Pope Paul III. intended to have raised him to the rank of cardinal, if death had not prevented him.

William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, gave him an exhibition.

Cardinal Wolsey allowed him a pension out of a prebend at York.

The bishops of Lincoln and Rochester liberally supplied him with money, &c. on all occasions.

Polidore Virgil sent him money to buy a horse, and the lord Cromwell sent him thirty angels.

Lord Mountjoy, sir Thomas More, bishop Tonstall, and dean Collet, were his constant benefactors.

Cardinal Mattheo offered him a pension of five hundred a year to live in Rome, and sent him a cup of pure gold.

Albertus, archbishop, cardinal, and elector of Mentz, sent him also a cup of gold, richly ornamented with precious stones.

Cardinal Campegius, among other presents, sent him a ring of great value.

Stanislaus Olmucensis sent him a silver bowl, double gilt, with four pieces of gold, ancient coin.

The bishop of Basil offered him half the revenue of his bishopric.

Thurxo, bishop of Uratislavo, went six days’ journey out of his way to see him.

William, earl of Eyrenberg, gave him a dagger, which by the inscription “he wished in the hearts of all his enemies.”

II.—Nicholas Wood, the Glutton.

One Nicholas Wood, of Harrison, in the county of Kent, yeoman, did eat with ease a whole sheep of sixteen shillings price, and that raw, at one meal. Another time he eat thirty dozen of pigeons. At sir William Sedley’s he eat as much as would have sufficed thirty men. At lord Wotton’s in Kent, he devoured in one meal eighty-four rabbits; another time eighteen yards of black pudding, London measure. He once eat sixty pounds of cherries, and said they were but wastemeat. He eat a whole hog, and afterwards swallowed three peck of damsons: this was after breakfast, at which he had taken a pottle of milk and pottage, with bread, butter, and cheese.

“He eat in my presence,” saith Taylor, the water-poet, “six penny wheaten loaves, three sixpenny veal-pies, one pound of fresh butter, one good dish of thornback, and a sliver of a peck household loaf, an inch thick, all within the space of an hour; the house yielding no more he retired unsatisfied.”

One John Dale, at Lenham, laid him a wager, he could fill his belly for him with good wholesome victuals for two shillings. He took this wager and said, when he had finished the two shillings worth, he would eat up a sirloin of beef. Dale, however, brought six pots of mighty ale and twelve new penny white loaves, which he sopped therein, the powerful fume whereof conquered this gluttonous conqueror, and laid him asleep before he had finished his meal, whereby the roast beef was preserved and the wager lost.

Wood spent all his estate in provender for his enormous stomach, and, although a landed man and a true labourer, he died very poor in 1630.

Sam Sam’s Son.

JUST JUDGMENT.
A good Judge, and a good Jury.

It is of most essential importance to the due administration of justice that juries should be sensible of their own dignity; and, when occasion requires, that they should not implicitly and servilely bow to the opinion of any judge, however high he may be held in estimation. An instance of the beneficial result of a jury asserting, in a respectful manner, the privilege of having an opinion of their own, occurred, not at the assizes now holding, but not very long ago. Two men were indicted for a burglary: after the counsel for the prosecution had opened, the amiable and learned judge who presided, addressing the jury, said, “Gentlemen, there does not appear to me any probability that a case of burglary can be made out against the prisoners, it is therefore needless to occupy your time any further.” The jury having, however, conferred for a short time, the foreman replied, “With perfect deference to your lordship’s opinion we should rather prefer hearing the evidence.” To this his lordship readily assented: the case went on, and the guilt of the prisoners was proved beyond the possibility of a doubt. After the verdict was returned, the learned judge said, “Well, gentlemen of the jury, I will not say that you are better lawyers than I am, but I am quite sure that in the present instance you have proved yourself to be better judges.”[354]

OLD ENGLISH ALE.

About 1620 some doctors and surgeons, during their attendance on an English gentleman, who was diseased at Paris, discoursed on wines and other beverages; and one physician, who had been in England, said, “The English had a drink which they call ale, and which he thought the wholesomest liquor that could be drank; for whereas the body of man is supported by natural heat and radical moisture, there is no drink conduceth more to the preservation of the one, and the increase of the other, than ale: for, while the Englishmen drank only ale, they were strong, brawny, able men, and could draw an arrow an ell long; but when they fell to wine and beer, they are found to be much impaired in their strength and age:” and so the ale bore away the bell among the doctors.[355]

A SOLDIER’S AGE.

Napoleon, in his Italian successes, took a Hungarian battalion prisoners. The colonel, an old man, complained bitterly of the French mode of fighting—by rapid and desultory attacks, on the flank, the rear, the lines of communication, &c., concluding by saying, “that he fought in the army of Maria Theresa.”

“You must be old?” said Napoleon.

“Yes, I am either sixty or seventy.”

“Why, colonel, you have certainly lived long enough to know how to count years a little more closely?”

“General,” said the Hungarian, “I reckon my money, my shirts, and my horses; but as for my years, I know that nobody will want to steal them, and that I shall never lose one of them!”

COUNSELS AND CAUTIONS
By Dr. A. Hunter.

Beware!

Leave your purse and watch at home when you go to the playhouse or an auction room.

Travelling.

When you take a journey in winter put on two shirts; you will find them much warmer than an additional waistcoat.

Building Repairs.

If you mean to buy a house that you intend to alter and improve, be sure to double the tradesman’s estimate.

Your Staircase.

Paint the steps a stone colour; it will save scouring and soap.

Housekeeping.

If you are in trade keep no more houses than you can support; a summer-house and a winter-house have forced many a man into a poor-house.

Enough should suffice.

A man who has obtained a competency, and ventures upon a speculation that may be capable of consuming all that he has already got, stakes ease and comfort against beggary and disgrace.

Loquacity.

A gossip has no home.

Vol. II.—39.

The noted John Cooke of Exeter.

To the Editor.

Corporations in old times kept fools, and there are still traces of the custom. The antiquary admires the carving of a fool, “a motley fool,” at the porchway of the King John tavern at Exeter, and contemplates it as probably the faithful representation of an obsolete servant of that ancient city; while the traveller endeavours to obtain a sight of the “noted Captain Cooke, all alive! alive!”—the most public, and not the least important officer of its lively corporation.

A tract, published without a title-page, yet symbolically, as it were, bearing a sort of half-head, whereby it is denominated “A Pamphlet called Old England for Ever!” is the production of captain Cooke himself; and a lithographed print represents that “noted” personage “drawn from nature,” in his full costume, as “Captain of the Sheriffs troop at 74 assizes for the county of Devon.” An engraving from the print is at the head of this article; the original is “published by George Rowe, 38, Paris-street, Exeter,” price only a shilling. The present representation is merely to give the reader some notion of the person of the captain, previously to introducing so much of his “particular confession, life, character, and behaviour,” as can be extracted from his aforesaid printed narrative.

The tract referred to, though denominated “Old England for Ever,” seems intended to memorialize “Captain Cooke—for ever.” Aspiring to eclipse the celebrated autobiography of “P. P. Clerk of this Parish,” the captain calls his literary production “a pamphlet of patriotic home achievements during the late direful war from 1793 to 1815;” and, accordingly, it is a series, to adopt his own words, of “twenty-two years multifarious but abridged memoirs, novelties, anecdotes, genealogy, and bulletins, by the author’s natural instinct.”

The first most important information resulting from the captain’s “natural instinct,” is this:—that “the duke of Wellington, marshal Blucher, the allied officers, and armies, defeated the atheist, the enemy of the Sabbath and of peace to the world, on Sunday, 18th of June 1815, at half after eight o’clock in the evening:” which day the captain, therefore, calls “an indelible day;” and says, “I built a cottage that year, and have a tablet over my door—Waterloo Cottage, in memory of Europe’s victory, Sunday, 18th June, 1815; and I went to Wellington-hill to see the foundation-stone laid for a Wellington column, in honour of the duke. So much for Buonaparte’s fanfaronade!—At daybreak of the 15th of July, he (Buonaparte) surrendered himself to the English captain Maitland, of the Bellerophon—an appropo name to the refugee.—I was called up the next morning at one o’clock; I wrote twenty letters to country gentlemen of the O!-be-joyful news, by the same morning’ post. I have been often called up on express news.”

From hence may be deduced the value of the captain and his opinions in the city of Exeter; and, no doubt, due importance will be attached to his proposition, that “parliament should always meet of a Friday or Saturday, and prorogue of a Monday, to prevent sabbath-breaking as little as possible;” and that “the mails should be prohibited from blowing their horns in the dead of the night or morning, in towns or villages.” It was contemplated to carry these measures into effect by joint stock companies, wherein all the captain’s friends were shareholders, when the “panic” came down from London by an opposition coach, and destroyed public confidence in the captain’s plans. They are noticed here in the order wherein he states them himself; and, pursuing the like order, it is proper to state, in the first place, something of the house wherein this self-eminent person was born; then, something respecting “Ashburton Pop;” and, lastly, something respecting his apprenticeship, and his services as a loyal man and a saddler to “the city of Exeter, and the corporation and trade thereof.”

“I was born,” says the captain, “at the Rose and Crown public-house on the old bridge, in the borough town of Ashburton, 1765; where a good woollen-manufactory has been carried on; and it has produced a great character, or so, for learning:” and “has been as famous for a beverage, called Ashburton Pop, as London is for porter. I recollect its sharp feeding good taste, far richer than the best small beer, more of the champaign taste, and what was termed a good sharp bottle. When you untied and hand-drew the cork, it gave a report louder than a pop-gun, to which I attribute its name; its contents would fly up to the ceiling; if you did not mind to keep the mouth of the stone bottle into the white quart cup, it filled it with froth, but not over a pint of clear liquor. Three old cronies would sit an afternoon six hours, smoke and drink a dozen bottles, their reckoning but eight-pence each, and a penny for tobacco. The pop was but twopence a bottle. It is a great novel loss to the town; because its recipe died with its brewer about 1785.”

From the never-enough-sufficiently to be lamented and for-ever-departed “Pop,” the captain returns to himself. “My mother,” says he, “put me apprentice at fifteen to the head saddler in Exeter, the late Mr. Charter, whom I succeeded when I came of age, and have lived in the same house thirty-seven years, up to 1817, where my son now lives, under the firm of Cooke and Son.” He evidently takes great pleasure in setting forth the names of his customers; and he especially relates, “I got to be saddler, through the late Charles Fanshawe, recorder of Exeter, to the late lord Elliott Heathfield, colonel of dragoons. His lordship was allowed to be one of the first judges of horses and definer of saddlery in the kingdom; his lordship’s saddle-house consisted from the full bristed to the demy pick, shafto, Hanoverian, to the Dutch pad-saddles; and from the snaffle, Pelham, Weymouth, Pembroke, Elliott, Mameluke, and Chifney bridles. Chifney was groom to the prince regent. Besides all this, the vast manage horse-tackling, tomies, dumb-jockies, hobbles, lunging, lifting, and side reins. His lordship’s saddle and riding-house was a school for a saddler and dragoon. And I had the honour of being saddler to other colonels of dragoons, connoisseurs of saddlery, when they were at Exeter quarters.”

Here the captain’s enthusiasm increases: “I could write,” says he, “a treatise on all the parts of the bearings and the utility of all the kinds of saddles, bridles, stirrups, and harness-collars, made for the last thirty years, for the benefit of horse or rider; from the bullock-back horse to the finest withered.” With just judgment, while on the saddle, the captain expatiates on the mode of riding to the best advantage. “As is said, keep your head cool, feet warm, and live temperate, and you won’t need the doctor, without something is amiss; so let your saddle clear your finger with all your weight in the stirrups going down hill; the same on the hind part with all your weight on the seat going up hill; you won’t need the saddler without something is amiss.” A miss is as good as a mile, and the captain diverges to a “great mystery,” which must be related in his own words:—

“The great mystery to know a horse’s age is between five and eight years old. A horse may live to thirty; but not one out of a thousand but what are worked out of their lives at fifteen. From their sucking first teeth, they loose, and get their permanent teeth at five years old; at six they have a small pit-hole, a bean’s eye, a cavity in two of their outer lower teeth; at seven they have this mark but in one, the outside tooth; at eight years old the teeth are all filled up; then the mark is out of the mouth. But dealers and judges look to the upper teeth; there is a mark to twelve years old, but no vestige afterward. An old horse has long large teeth, worn off on the top edge. The prime of a horse is between six and twelve years of age. He is weak and faint before six, and stiff and dull after twelve. Some say a horse is out of mark at seven; but it is at eight. The average age of horses is at twelve years—the average of man not at the half of his time appointed on earth!”

To a posey of poesy, occupying nearly a page in this part of the pamphlet, it is impossible to do justice with equal satisfaction to the reader and the captain; yet, in courtesy, it is proper to cull

As a specimen of the materials whereon he relies for a laurel crown, the following lines are drawn out from his “snarl” of versifyings:—

After this poetical effusion the captain rises to “the height of his great argument,” his undying doings. “Now,” says the captain, “now for my sixty home achievements during the late war for my king and country.” Alas! the captain seems to have disdained the “use of numbers,” except when inspired by the muses, or the “sweet voices” of the people of Exeter, when they honoured him with a “Skimmington,” which he passes over with a modesty equal to that of the Roman general who never mentioned his great ovation. The captain’s “sixty achievements” are doubtless in his pamphlet; but they in “wrong order go,” and are past the arithmetician’s art to enumerate. The chief of them must be gathered from his own account. Foremost stands “the labour I took in pleasing and accommodating my customers;” and almost next, “the many hours I have knocked my head, as it were, against Samuel Johnson, to find words for handbills and advertisements all at my own expense, to avoid inflammatory pamphlets. I gloried in the name of ‘John Bull,’ and shall to my life’s end. I went into the pot-houses at Exeter, and treated with mugs round, and gave loyal toasts and sentiments. I became a volunteer in the infantry, before the cavalry were equipped by my brother tradesmen, that they should not say my loyalty was for trade. After this, I joined the second troop of the first Devon Royal Cavalry. One of my advertisements in the difficult times, at a guinea each, in the Exeter, Sherborne, and Sun, which was then the ministerial paper, was reprinted for its loyalty and novelty in Philadelphia, and in two miscellaneous volumes of Literary Leisure, by Solomon Sumpter, Esq.; and from the attention I paid to the nobility, gentry, dragoon and militia officers, &c. when they tarried at Exeter or its neighbourhood, it was a pleasure and an honour mixed with fatigue. Besides my own business, I procured for them, gratis, manors, estates, houses, lodgings, carriages, horses, servants, fish, fowl, hunting, shooting, and trout fishing. I may say John Cooke, the saddler of Exeter, is known from England to the Indies; on the Continent, Ireland, in Scotland, by the lord chief baron Dundas, from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Penzance. I had two direction-posts at my door during the war, that no one had in the kingdom beside; one to the various places and distances, from Exeter to London 170 miles, &c. &c.; the other a large sheet of paper written as a daily monitor gratis, a bulletin of news, to cheer people in the worst of times, to guide them in the constitutional road. I even made myself a direction-post, and wore a conspicuous breastplate painted with this motto, ‘Fear God, honour the king, and revere his ministers;’ which made not only the auditory, but the judges, sheriff, and counsel stare at me. I went from Exeter to London, to the funeral of lord Nelson, the late hero of the Nile, in 1805.” The truth of the latter of the captain’s achievements “nobody can deny.” He did go to the funeral, and sat on a wall in solemn silence, fast asleep, while it passed, and then returned to Exeter, great as the great Bourbon, who