An opulent farmer applied about a law-suit to an attorney, who told him he could not undertake it, being already engaged on the other side; at the same time he said, that he would give him a letter of recommendation to a professional friend, which he did. The farmer, out of curiosity, opened it, and read as follows:
The farmer carried this epistle to the person with whom he was at variance. Its perusal cured both parties, and terminated the dispute.
For the Table Book.
At the basis of the Wolds, in the north riding of Yorkshire, creeps a sluggish stream, on whose bank may be seen the ruins of a mill, which our good forefathers supposed to be haunted. I often gaze upon those ruins with great interest; not so much for its picturesque beauty, which, like a flower in the wilderness, makes solitude less lonely, as for the many endearing claims it has upon my memory, by way of association. It stands near the home of my childhood, it reminds me of the companions of my youth, and tells of pleasures long departed.
It is now nearly ten years since I listened to a story, which haunts me like the recollection of a fearful dream; perhaps, because of its locality, or rather, of its having been told me as a fact. Be it as it may, I have thought it worth the relating; and trust that the readers of the Table Book will at least be interested.
The mill, at the time referred to, had been uninhabited for some ten or twelve years. It had found an occupier in the person of Joe Davis. The inhabitants of the distant, though nearest village, endeavoured to frighten Joe, the miller, by telling him of its being haunted. He laughed at what he called their idle fears, bade them keep their superstitious nonsense for their children’s ears; and laughingly added, that if nought but ghosts visited the mill, he stood a good chance of getting what he most required after a hard day’s work—a quiet rest.
When Joe took possession of the mill, he was as jolly a fellow as ever lived, and a fine buxom wife had he, and three rosy children. His cup of happiness was filled to the brim; his song, merry as the lark’s, and his loud, hearty laugh, were alternately to be heard above the rush of the dam, and the click-clacking of the wheel. When his work was done, it was a treat to see him playing with his children at blindman’s-buff, or hide and seek, or dandling them upon his knee.
All went on well for some time; but in a few months Joe became an altered man. There was a visible difference in his face and manner. At first, a shade was seen to overcast his hitherto unclouded brow—then his cheek became robbed of its bloom, and his step lost its buoyancy. His laughter (when he did laugh, which was seldom) seemed laboured, and was followed by a sigh; and the song—that favourite song, which he had so often sung to Mary in his courtship—faltered on his lips. Instead of clinging to his home and family as usual, he deserted them; and when the straying villager kindly questioned him as to the change, he would not answer, but shake his head, and hurry onwards.
One day Mary found her husband unusually depressed. “Come, come,” said she, “I’m sure all is not right within.” She hung fondly upon his neck—kissed him, and besought him to make her the partner of his sorrow; he raised his head, gazed at her affectionately, and endeavoured to smile away her apprehensions—but it would not do. He dashed the tear from his eye, and rushed out of the room.
Joe Davis had dreamed a dream; or, as my narrator informed me, had seen a vision. Sitting one evening in his little parlour, with his wife and children before him, he, on a sudden, leaned back in his chair—his eyes became glazed, and were rivetted on the picture of his wife holding three roses in her hand, which hung over the mantelpiece—he thought that he beheld a shadow of himself bend over the picture, that the roses began to fade, and, in fading, he distinctly saw the faces of his children, while the portrait of his wife by degrees became colourless. Such was the dream which gave him so much concern—such was the prophecy which ere long was to be fulfilled.
Joe left his house, telling Mary he would return before night. The darkness set in, but he did not make his appearance. Poor Mary, as the night advanced, became mistrustful—she looked at the clock, and listened for his approaching step. It was nearly midnight; and, save the melancholy monotonous ticking of the clock, and the low breathing of her sweet children, who were sleeping near, all was silent as the grave—when, on a sudden, the eldest child cried out, “Father, how cold you are!”—Mary started, and beheld the death-pale face of her husband kissing her children—she shrieked wildly, and fell senseless on the floor.
When Mary came to herself the fire was out, and the clock had stopped. She endeavoured to calm her agitated mind, and thought she heard the noise of the dam, and her husband singing the chorus—
She listened, and thought of her children, whom (by the revealment of one of the secrets of her prison-house) she knew were dead. The rest of that horrible night was a (——)
The morning came with its beautiful purple light—the lark hailed it with his matin-song—the flower bloomed at the very door-stone of the mill—the schoolboy whistled as he passed, as if in mockery of her woe. The light of reason had passed from Mary Davis. In the course of the day the body of her husband was found in the dam, but Mary knew it not.—
Say, gentle reader, did not Heaven deal kindly to her in bidding her taste the waters of oblivion?
——I shall never forget the story.
Q. T. M.
Accustom yourself to reflect.
Seek wisdom, and you will be sure to find her; but if you do not look for her, she will not look for you.
Do, as you would be done by.
Use yourself to kindness and compassion, and you may expect kindness and compassion in return.
Have you a Friend?
If you have a grievance on your mind you may tell it to your friend, but first be sure that he is your friend.
Educate your Children properly.
An university implies a seminary, where all the young men go the same way. What that way is, fathers and grandfathers best know.
Obstinacy is Weakness.
Obstinacy of temper proceeds from pride, and, in general, from ignorant pride, that refuses to be taught.
Regulate your Temper.
We can bear with a man who is only peevish when the wind is in the east; but it is intolerable to live with one who is peevish in every point of the compass.
True Generosity is delicately minded.
Blame no man for what he cannot help. We must not expect of the dial to tell us the hour after the sun is set.
Honourable Service.
A Mother’s Love.
Epitaph.
Adam’s Sleep.
Epitaph.
Frederick the first king of Prussia was an extremely vain man, and continually engaged in frivolous pursuits. His queen, Sophia Charlotte, the sister of our George I. was a woman of a very superior mind. In her last illness she viewed the approach of death with much calmness and serenity; and when one of her attendants observed how severely it would afflict the king, and that the misfortune of losing her would plunge his majesty into the deepest despair, the queen said, with a smile, “With respect to him, I am perfectly at ease. His mind will be completely occupied in arranging the ceremonial of my funeral, and if nothing goes wrong in the procession, he will be quite consoled for his loss.”
A New York paper says, that a lad in that city, on delivering his milk, was asked why the milk was so warm. “I don’t know,” he replied, with much simplicity, “unless they put in warm water instead of cold.”
To the Author of some Bad Lines,
on
the River Dee.
ANSWER.
Hezekiah Hulk, Huntsman.
Milford, June, 1827.
Sir Jonah Barrington lately met rather a noted corporator of Dublin in Paris, and in the course of conversation inquired why, after the king’s visit to the metropolis of Ireland, and his conciliatory admonitions, the corporation still appeared to prefer the “Boyne Water” and “King William.” The answer was characteristic. “Lord bless you, sir Jonah,” replied the corporator, “as for the Wather we don’t care a farthing about that; but if we once gave up ould King William, we’d give up all our enjoyments! Only for the Glorious Memory we would not have a toast to get drunk with—eh! sir Jonah?”
Col. 397, line 18, for “modern Europe,” read “northern Europe.”
Col. 430. In the Will of John Keats, for “losses of the sale of books,” read “hopes of the sale of books.”
Catherine Mompesson’s Tomb at Eyam.
The Desolation of Eyam.
Through the seventeenth and half of the eighteenth century the village of Eyam, three miles east from Tideswell, in Derbyshire, was populous and flourishing; and all that part of the country thickly sown with little towns and hamlets, was swarming with inhabitants. Owing to the exhausted state of the lead mines the scene is altered, and Eyam is now thinly peopled. It had before endured a dreadful affliction. The year after “that awful and terrible period, when the destroying angel passed over this island, and in the cities of London and Westminster swept away three thousand victims in one night,” the visitation was revived in this distant village, and four-fifths of the inhabitants perished in the course of the summer. This calamity is the subject of the title-page to a poetical volume of eminent merit and beauty, “The Desolation of Eyam, &c. by William and Mary Howitt, Authors of the Forest Minstrel and other Poems.”
Eyam was the birthplace of the late Anna Seward, and in the “Gentleman’s Magazine”[383] there is a letter written in her youthful days, which naturally relates the devoted attachment of the village rector, during the plague, to his stricken flock; and the affectionate adherence of his noble wife. Extracts from this letter, with others from the notes to “The Desolation of Eyam,” and a few stanzas from the poem itself, as specimens of its worth, may here suffice to convey some notion of the story. The poets’ “Introduction” is briefly descriptive of “The Peak”—its romantic rocks and glens—the roar of its flying streams—the welling-up of its still waters—the silence of its beautiful dells—
These latter lines allude to the poem, and it immediately commences.
“Eyam,” says Miss Seward, “is near a mile in length; it sweeps in a waving line amongst the mountains, on a kind of natural terrace about 303 yards broad; above which, yet higher mountains arise. From that dale of savage sublimity, which on the Buxton road from Matlock commences at the end of Middleton, we ascend a quarter of a mile up a narrow and steep lane on the right hand, which conducts us into Eyam. About the centre of the village the continuance of the houses is broken by a small field on the left. From its edge a deep and grassy dingle descends, not less picturesque, and much more beautiful from its softer features, than the craggy dale and its walls of barren rocks from which we had ascended to Eyam, and in which, by a winding course, this dingle terminates. Its ascent from the middle of Eyam is a steep, smooth, and verdant turf, with scattered nut-trees, alders, and the mountain ash. The bottom is scarcely five yards wide, so immediately ascend the noble rocks on the opposite side, curtained with shrubs, and crowned with pines that wave over their brows; only that a few bare parts appear in fantastic points and perforated arches. Always in winter and summer, after recent showers, a small clear rill ripples along the bottom of this dell, but after long drought the channel is dry, and its pebbles are left to bleach in the sun. Cliffs and fields stretch along the tops of the rocks, and from their heights we descend gradually to the upper part of Eyam, which, though high, is less elevated
At the time of the plague, the rector of Eyam, the Rev. William Mompesson, was in the vigour of youth; he had two children, a boy and girl of three and four years old, and his wife Catherine, a young and beautiful lady:—
Eyam, as before mentioned, had escaped the contagion in the “Great Year of the Plague.” It was conveyed thither, however, in the ensuing spring by infected cloths. Its appearance is vigorously sketched:—
On the commencement of the contagion, Mrs. Mompesson threw herself with her babes at the feet of her husband, to supplicate his flight from that devoted place; but not even the entreaties and tears of a beloved wife could induce him to desert his flock, in those hours of danger and dismay. Equally fruitless were his solicitations that she would retire with her infants. The result of this pathetic contest was a resolve to abide together the fury of the pestilence, and to send their children away.
It was the immediate purpose of this wise and excellent man, to stay his parishioners from flight, lest they should bear the contagion beyond their own district, and desolate the country.
From a rational belief, that assembling in the crowded church for public worship during the summer heats, must spread and increase the contagion, he agreed with his afflicted parishioners, that he should read prayers twice a week, and deliver his two customary sermons on the sabbath, from one of the perforated arches in the rocks of the dingle. By his advice they ranged themselves on the grassy steep in a level direction to the rocky pulpit; and the dell being narrow, he was distinctly heard from that arch.
The poem describes the spot, and the manner of the worship:—
The two following stanzas are fearfully descriptive of the awful interruptions to the solemn service in this sequestered spot.
The church-yard soon ceased to afford room for the dead. They were afterwards buried in an heathy hill above the village.[384] Curious travellers take pleasure in visiting, to this day, the mountain tumulus, and in examining its yet distinct remains; also, in ascending, from the upper part of Eyam, those cliffs and fields which brow the dingle, and from whence the descent into the consecrated rock is easy. It is called Cucklet church by the villagers.
The good and beautiful woman, Catherine Mompesson, expired in her husband’s arms, in the twenty-seventh year of her age. Her tomb is near an ancient cross in the church-yard of Eyam. It is represented in the vignette to the “Desolation of Eyam;” and by means of that print the present engraving is laid before the reader of this article.
Mr. Mompesson was presented to the rectory of Eakring, near Ollerton, in Nottinghamshire, and he quitted the fatal scene. On his going, however, to take possession of his living, the people, naturally impressed with the terrors of the plague, in the very cloud and whirlwind of which he had so lately walked, declined admitting him into the village. A hut therefore was erected for him in Rufford Park, where he abode till the fear subsided.
To this gift were added prebends in York and Southwell, and the offer of the deanery of Lincoln. But the good man, with an admirable disinterestedness, declined this last substantial honour, and transferred his influence to his friend, the witty and learned Dr. Fuller, author of “the Worthies of England,” &c. who accordingly obtained it. The wish, which he expressed in one of his letters, that “his children might be good rather than great,” sprang from a living sentiment of his heart. He had tasted the felicity and the bitterness of this world; he had seen its sunshine swallowed up in the shadow of death; and earth had nothing to offer him like the blessedness of a retirement, in which he might prepare himself for a more permanent state of existence.
A brass plate, with a Latin inscription, records his death in this pleasant seclusion, March 7, 1708, in the seventieth year of his age.
So ends the poem of “The Desolation of Eyam.” Its authors, in one of the notes, relate as follows:—
There are extant three letters written by W. Mompesson, from the nearly depopulated place, at a time when his wife had been snatched from him by the plague, and he considered his own fate inevitable. In the whole range of literature, we know of nothing more pathetic than these letters. Our limits do not allow us to give them entire, but we cannot forbear making a few extracts. In one, he says,
“The condition of this place has been so sad, that I persuade myself it did exceed all history and example. I may truly say that our town has become a Golgotha—the place of a skull; and, had there not been a small remnant of us left, we had been as Sodom and Gomorrah. My ears never heard such doleful lamentations, and my eyes never beheld such ghastly spectacles. Here have been seventy-six families visited in my parish, out of which two hundred and fifty-nine persons died! Now, blessed be God—all our fears are over: for none have died of the infection since the eleventh of October; and all the pest-houses have been long empty. I intend (God willing) to spend most of this week in seeing all the woollen clothes fumed and purified, as well for the satisfaction, as for the safety of the country.”
Thus it is he announces to his children, the death of their mother.
“To my dear children, George and Elizabeth Mompesson, these present with my blessing.
“Eyam, August, 1666.
“Dear Hearts,—This brings you the doleful news of your dear mother’s death—the greatest loss which ever yet befell you! I am not only deprived of a kind and loving consort, but you also are bereaved of the most indulgent mother that ever dear children had. We must comfort ourselves in God with this consideration, that the loss is only ours, and that what is our sorrow is her gain. The consideration of her joys, which I do assure myself are unutterable, should refresh our drooping spirits.
“I do believe, my dear hearts, upon sufficient ground, that she was the kindest wife in the world; and I do think from my soul that she loved me ten times more than herself. Further, I can assure you, my sweet babes, that her love to you was little inferior to hers for me. For why should she be so desirous of my living in this world of sorrows, but that you might have the comfort of my life. You little imagine with what delight she was wont to talk of you both; and the pains that she took when you sucked on her breasts is almost incredible. She gave a large testimony of her love to you on her death-bed. For, some hours before she died, I brought her some cordials, which she plainly told me she was not able to take. I desired her to take them for your dear sakes. Upon the mention of your dear names, she lifted up herself and took them; which was to let me understand, that whilst she had strength left, she would embrace any opportunity she had of testifying her affection to you.”
So wrote this most affectionate spirit to comfort his children: but, in a letter to a relative, the bitterness of his grief burst forth in an inconsolable agony. “I find this maxim verified by too sad experience; Bonum magis carendo quam fruendo cernitur. Had I been so thankful as my condition did deserve, I might yet have had my dearest dear in my bosom. But now, farewell all happy days, and God grant I may repent my sad ingratitude.”
The following letter was written to sir George Saville, afterwards lord Hallifax, his friend and patron, soon after this melancholy event, and while the plague was in his house, and he looked upon his own death as certain, and speedily approaching.
“To Sir George Saville, Baronet.
“Eyam, Sept. 1, 1666.
“Honoured and dear sir,—This is the saddest news that ever my pen could write! The destroying angel having taken up his quarters within my habitation, my dearest dear is gone to her eternal rest; and is invested with a crown of righteousness, having made a happy end.
“Indeed had she loved herself as well as me, she had fled from the pit of destruction with her sweet babes, and might have prolonged her days, but that she was resolved to die a martyr to my interest. My drooping spirits are much refreshed with her joys, which I think are unutterable.
“Sir, this paper is to bid you a hearty farewell for ever—and to bring my humble thanks for all your noble favours; and I hope that you will believe a dying man. I have as much love as honour for you; and I will bend my feeble knees to the God of Heaven that you, my dear lady and your children, and their children, may be blest with external and eternal happiness; and that the same blessing may fall upon my lady Sunderland and her relations.
“Dear sir, let your dying chaplain recommend this truth to you and your family—that no happiness nor solid comfort may be found in this vale of tears like living a pious life;—and pray remember ever to retain this rule—never to do any thing upon which you dare not first ask the blessing of God for the success thereof.
“Sir, I have made bold in my will with your name as an executor, and I hope that you will not take it ill. I have joined two others with you that will take from you the trouble. Your favourable aspect will, I know, be a great comfort to my distressed orphans. I am not desirous that they may be great, but good; and my next request is that they may be brought up in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
“I desire, sir, that you will be pleased to make choice of an humble, pious man to succeed me in my parsonage; and, could I see your face before my departure from hence, I would inform you which way I think he may live comfortably amongst his people, which would be some satisfaction to me before I die. And with tears I beg, that, when you are praying for fatherless infants, you would then remember my two pretty babes. Sir, pardon the rude style of this paper, and if my head be discomposed, you cannot wonder at me. However, be pleased to believe that I am
Dear sir,
Your most obliged, most affectionate,
and grateful servant,
“William Mompesson.”
When first the plague broke out in Eyam, Mr. Mompesson wrote to the then earl of Devonshire, residing at Chatworth, some five miles from Eyam; stating, that he thought he could prevail upon his parishioners to confine themselves within the limits of the village, if the surrounding country would supply them with necessaries, leaving such provisions as should be requested in appointed places, and at appointed hours, upon the encircling hills. The proposal was punctually complied with; and it is most remarkable, that when the pestilence became, beyond all conception, terrible, not a single inhabitant attempted to pass the deathful boundaries of the village, though a regiment of soldiers could not, in that rocky and open country, have detained them against their will: much less could any watch, which might have been set by the neighbourhood, have effected that infinitely important purpose.
By the influence of this exemplary man, obtained by his pious and affectionate virtues, the rest of the county of Derby escaped the plague; not one of the very nearly neighbouring hamlets, or even a single house, being infected beyond the limits of Eyam village, though the distemper raged there near seven months.
Further details will hardly be required respecting a story, which is as true as it is sad. The manner wherein it is poetically related is sufficiently exemplified, and therefore, without comment; and for beauties, various as the scenery of nature, expressed in charmed lines, the reader of feeling is referred to the exquisite little volume mentioned before, under the title of “The Desolation of Eyam, and other Poems; by William and Mary Howitt, authors of the Forest Minstrel, &c.”
A little piece, however, is ventured from the volume, as a seasonable conclusion at parting.