Little by little he grew to be rich, A rich tobacconist comes and sues, And could you really love him." A young attorney of winning grace For the lawyer was poor and "seedy" to boot; Is merely a double verity. A crime by no means flagrant In one who wears an elegant coat, But the very point on which they vote A courtly fellow was dapper Jim— And, maugre his meagre pocket, Now dapper Jim his courtship plied And the very magnificent Miss MacBride, Half in love, and half in pride, Quite graciously relented; And tossing her head, and turning her back, To be a Bride without the "Mac," Alas! that people who've got their box Should stock their fancy with fancy stocks, Alas! that people whose money-affairs Old John MacBride, one fatal day, Of Fortune's undertakers; At his trade again, in the very shop He follows his ancient calling- But alas! for the haughty Miss MacBride'Twas such a shock to her precious pride, She couldn't recover, although she tried Her jaded spirits to rally. 'Twas a dreadful change in human affairs, From a Place" up town" to a nook "up-stairs," From an avenue down to an alley. 'Twas little condolence she had, God wot, From her "troops of friends," who hadn't forgot The airs she used to borrow; They had civil phrases enough, but yet They owned it couldn't have well been worse, And one of those chaps who make a puu, POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. To be blazing away at every one And vulgar people-the saucy churls- And mocked at her situation: "She wasn't ruined," they ventured to hope; "Because she was poor, she needn't mopeFew people were better off for soap And there was a consolation." And, to make her cup of woe run over, Was the very first to forsake her. "He quite regretted the step, 'twas true The lady had pride enough for two, To quiet the butcher and baker." And now the unhappy Miss MacBride- Cramped in the very narrowest niche MORAL. Because you flourish in worldly affairs, Don't be haughty, and put on airs, 407 With insolent pride of station. Don't be proud, and turn up your nose At poorer people in plainer clothes; But learn, for the sake of your mind's repose, That wealth's a bubble, that comes-and goes! And that all proud flesh, wherever it grows, Is subject to irritation! POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. [WASHINGTON IRVING. See Page 1.] HAVE mentioned the squire's fondness for the marvellous, and his predilection for legends and romances. His library contains a curious collection of old works of this kind, which bear evident marks of having been much read. In his great love for all that is antiquated, he cherishes popular superstitions, and listens with very grave attention to every tale, however strange; so that, through his countenance, the household, and, indeed, the whole neighbourhood, is well stocked with wonderful stories; and if ever a doubt is expressed of any one of them, the narrator will generally observe that the "squire thinks there's something in it." The Hall, of course, comes in for its share, the common people having always a propensity to furnish a great superannuated building of the kind with supernatural inhabitants. The gloomy galleries of such old family mansions, the stately chambers adorned with grotesque carvings and faded paintings, the sounds that vaguely echo about them, the moaning of the wind; the cries of rooks and ravens from the trees and chimneytops-all produce a state of mind favourable to superstitious fancies. In one chamber of the Hall, just opposite a door which opens upon a dusky passage, there is a full-length portrait of a warrior in armour. When, on suddenly turning into the passage, I have caught a sight of the portrait, thrown into strong relief by the dark pannelling against which it hangs, I have more than once been startled, as though it were a figure advancing towards me. To superstitious minds, therefore, predisposed by the strange and melancholy stories that are connected with family paintings, it needs but little stretch of fancy, on a moonlight night, or by the flickering light of a candle, to set the old pictures on the walls in motion, sweeping in their robes and trains about the galleries. To tell the truth, the squire confessed that he used to take a pleasure in his younger days in setting marvellous stories afloat, and connecting them with the lonely and peculiar places of the neighbourhood. Whenever he read any legend of a striking nature, he endeavoured to transplant it, and give it a local habitation among the scenes of his boyhood. Many of these stories took root, and he says he is often amused with the odd shapes in which they come back to him in some old woman's narrative, after they have been circulating for years among the peasantry, and undergoing rustic additions and amendments. Among these may doubtless be numbered that of the crusader's ghost, which I have mentioned in the account of my Christmas visit; and another about the hard-riding squire of yore, the family Nimrod; who is sometimes heard on stormy winter nights, galloping, with hound and horn, over a wild moor a few miles distant from the Hall. This I apprehend to have had its origin in the famous story of the wild huntsman, the favourite goblin in German tales; though, by-thebye, as I was talking on the subject with Master Simon the other evening in the dark avenue, he hinted that he had himself once or twice heard odd sounds at night, very like a pack of hounds in cry; and that once, as he was returning rather late from a hunting-dinner, he had seen a strange figure galloping along this same moor; but as he was riding rather fast at the time, and in a hurry to get home, he did not stop to ascertain what it was. Popular superstitions are fast fading away in England, owing to the general diffusion of knowledge, and the bustling intercourse kept up throughout the country; still they have their strongholds and lingering places, and a retired neighbourhood like this is apt to be one of them. The parson tells me that he meets with many traditional beliefs and notions among the common people, which he has been able to draw from them in the course of familiar conversation, though they are rather shy of avowing them to strangers, and particularly to "the gentry," who are apt to laugh at them. He says there are several of his old parishioners who remember when the village had its bar-guest, or bar-ghost; a spirit supposed to belong to a town or village, and to predict any impending misfortune by midnight shricks and wailings. The last time it was heard was just before the death of Mr. Bracebridge's father, who was much beloved throughout the neighbourhood; though there are not wanting some obstinate unbelievers, who insisted that it was nothing but the howling of a watch-dog. I have been greatly delighted, however, at meeting with some traces of my old favourite, Robin Goodfellow, though under a different appellation from any of those by which I have heretofore heard him called. The parson assures me that many of the peasantry believe in household goblins, called Dobbies, which live about particular farms and houses, in the same way that Robin Goodfellow did of old. There is a large, old-fashioned fire-place in the farm-house, which affords fine quarters for a chimney-corner sprite that likes to lie warm; especially as Ready-Money Jack keeps up rousing fires in the winter time. The old people of the village recollect many stories about this goblin that were current in their young days. It was thought to have brought good luck to the house, and to be the reason why the Tibbets were always beforehand in the world, and why their farm was always in better order, their hay got in sooner, and their corn better stacked than that of their neighbours. The present Mrs. Tibbets, at the time of her courtship, had a number of these stories told her by the country gossips; and when married, was a little fearful about living in a house where such a hobgoblin was said to haunt. Jack, however, who has always treated this story with great contempt, assured her that there was no sprite kept about his house that he could not at any time lay in the Red Sea with one flourish of his cudgel. Still his wife has never got completely over her notions on the subject, but has a horseshoe nailed on the threshold, and keeps a branch of rauntry, or mountain-ash, with its red berries, suspended from one of the great beams in the parlour-a sure protection from all evil spirits. These fairy superstitions seem to me to accord with the nature of English scenery. They suit these small landscapes, which are divided by honeysuckled hedges into sheltered fields and meadows, where the grass is mingled with daisies, buttercups, and hare-bells. When I first found myself among English scenery, I was continually reminded of the sweet pastoral images which distinguish their fairy mythology; and when for the first time a circle in the grass was pointed out to me as one of the rings where they were formerly supposed to have held their moonlight revels, it appeared for a moment as if fairy-land were no longer a fable. It seems to me that the older British poets, with that true feeling for nature which distinguishes them, have closely adhered to the simple and familiar imagery which they found in these popular superstitions, and have thus given to their fairy mythology those continual allusions to the farm-house and the dairy, the green meadow and the fountain-head, that fill our minds with the delightful associations of rural life. It is curious to observe how the most delightful fictions have their origin among the rude and ignorant. There is an indescribable charm about the illusions with which chimerical ignorance once clothed every subject. These twilight views of nature are often more captivating than any which are revealed by the rays of enlightened philosophy. The most accomplished and poetical minds, therefore, have been fain to search back into these accidental conceptions of what are termed barbarous ages, and to draw from them their finest imagery and machinery. If we look through our most admired poets, we shall find that their minds have been impregnated by these popular fancies, and that those have succeeded best who have adhered closest to the simplicity of their rustic originals. It is thus that poetry in England has echoed back every rustic note, softened into perfect melody; it is thus that it has spread its charms over everyday life, displacing nothing, taking things as it found them, but tinting them up with its own magical hues, until every green hill and fountainhead, every fresh meadow, nay, every humble flower, is full of song and story. [Spoken in the character of Nancy Lake, a girl eight years of age, who is drawn upon the stage in a child's chaise by Samuel Hughes, her My brother Jack was nine in May, And I was eight on New Year's Day; So in Kate Wilson's shop Papa (he's my papa and Jack's) Bought me last week a doll of wax, Jack's in the pouts, and this it is- Quite cross, a bit of string I beg, And bang with might and main And breaks a window-pane. This made him cry with rage and spite: To draw his peg-top's tooth! uncle's porter.] Aunt Hannah heard the window break, Well, after many a sad reproach, And trotted down the street. I saw them go: one horse was blind, The chaise in which poor brother Bill I wiped the dust from off the top, And brushed it with a broom. (I always talk to Sam): So what does he, but takes and drags Me in the chaise along the flags, And leaves me where I am. |