The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 371, May 23, 1829. Various
Mary Spittal, in great state, probably to hear a sermon delivered from the cross. This princess was attended by a thousand men in harness with shirts of mail and corslets, and morice pikes, and ten great pieces carried through London unto the court, with drums and trumpets sounding, and two morice-dancers, and in a cart two white bears."
The priory of St. Mary, of St. Mary Spittle, contained at its dissolution, about the year 1536, no less than 180 beds for the reception of sick persons and travellers. Richard Tarleton, the famous comedian, at the Curtain Theatre, it is said, "kept an ordinary in Spittle-fields, pleasant fields for the citizens to walk in;" and the row called Paternoster Row, as the name implies, was formerly a few houses, where they sold rosaries, relics, &c. The once celebrated herbalist and astrologer, Nicholas Culpepper, was another inhabitant of this spot. He died in 1654, in a house he had some time occupied, very pleasantly situated in the fields; but now a public house at the corner of Red Lion Court, Red Lion Street, east of Spittlefields market. The house, though it has undergone several repairs, still exhibits the appearance of one of those that formed a part of old London. The weaving art, which has arrived at such an astonishing perfection, was patronized by the wise and liberal Edward III., who encouraged the art by the most advantageous offers of reward and encouragement to weavers who would come and settle in England. In 1331, two weavers came from Brabant and settled at York. The superior skill and dexterity of these men, who communicated their knowledge to others, soon manifested itself in the improvement and spread of the art of weaving in this island. Many Flemish weavers were driven from their native country by the cruel persecutions of the Duke d'Alva, in 1567. They settled in different parts of England, and introduced and promoted the manufacture of baizes, serges, crapes, &c. The arts of spinning, throwing, and weaving silk, were brought into England about the middle of the fifteenth century, and were practised by a company of women in London, called silk women. About 1480, men began to engage in the silk manufacture, and in the year 1686, nearly 50,000 manufacturers, of various descriptions, took refuge in England, in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantz, by Louis le Grand, who sent thousands (says Pennant) of the most industrious of his subjects into this kingdom to present his bitterest enemies with the arts and manufactures of his kingdom; hence the origin of the silk trade in Spittlefields.
THE BIRD OF THE TOMB
In "Lyon's attempt to reach Repulse Bay," the following passage, which suggested these verses, may be met with. "Near the large grave was a third pile of stones, covering the body of a child. A Snow-Buntin (the Red-Breast of the Arctic Regions) had found its way through the loose stones which composed this little tomb, and its now forsaken, neatly built nest, was found placed on the neck of the child."
Beneath the chilly Arctic clime,
Where Nature reigns severe, sublime,
Enthron'd upon eternal snows,
Or rides the waves on icy floes—
Where fierce tremendous tempests sweep
The bosom of the rolling deep,
And beating rain, and drifting hail
Swell the wild fury of the gale;
There is a little, humble tomb,
Not deckt with sculpture's pageant pride,
Nor labour'd verse to tell by whom
The habitant was lov'd who died!
No trophied 'scutcheon marks the grave—
No blazon'd banners round it wave—
'Tis but a simple pile of stones
Rais'd o'er a hapless infant's bones;
Perchance a mother's tears have dew'd
This sepulchre, so frail and rude;—
A father mourn'd in accents wild,
His offspring lost—his only child—
Who might, in after years, have spread
A ray of honour round his head,
Nor thought, as stone on stone he threw,
His child would meet a stranger's view.
But, lo! upon its clay-cold breast,
The Arctic Robin rais'd its nest,
And rear'd its little fluttering young,
Where Death in awful quiet slept,
And fearless chirp'd, and gaily sung
Around the babe its parents wept.
It was the guardian of the grave,
And thus its chirping seem'd to say:—
"Tho' naught from Death's chill grasp could save,
Tho' naught could chase his power away—
As round this humble spot I wing,
My thrilling voice shall daily sing
A requiem o'er the faded flower,
That bloom'd and wither'd in an hour,
And prov'd life is, in every view,
Naught but a rose-bud twin'd with rue.
A blossom born at day's first light,
And fading with the earliest night;
Nor stranger's step, nor shrieking loom,
Shall scare the warbler from the tomb'"
CURING THE "KING'S EVIL."
About five miles from Sturminster Newton, and near the village of Hazlebury, resides a Dr. B–, who has attained a reputation, far extended, for curing, in a miraculous manner, the king's evil; and as the method he employs is very different from that of most modern practitioners, a short account of it may, perhaps, be acceptable to the readers of the MIRROR.
I had long known that the doctor used some particular season for his operations, but was unable to say precisely the time, until a few days since I had a conversation with a person who is well acquainted with the doctor and his yearly "fair, or feast," as it is termed. Exactly twenty-four hours before the new moon, in the month of May, every year, whether it happens by night or by day, the afflicted persons assemble at the doctor's residence, where they are supplied, by him, with the hind legs of a toad! yes, gentle reader a toad—don't start—enclosed in a small bag (accompanied, I believe, with some verbal charm, or incantation,) and also a lotion and salve of the doctor's preparation. The bag containing the legs of the reptile is worn suspended from the neck of the patient, and the lotion and salve applied in the usual manner, until the cure is completed, or until the next year's "fair."
One would think that such a mysterious routine of doctoring, would attract but few, and those the most illiterate; but I can assure my readers the case is different. The number of carts, chaises, and other conveyances laden with the afflicted which passed through this place on the 2nd instant, bore ample testimony to the number of the doctor's applicants; and the appearance of many of them corroborated the opinion that they moved in a respectable sphere of life.
The new moon happening this year on the 3rd instant, at 57 minutes past 7 o'clock in the morning, the "fair" took place at the same hour the preceding day.
My readers, no doubt, have heard of the efficacy of the stone in the toad's head, alluded to by Shakspeare,2 for curing the cramp, &c. by application to the afflicted part; but it was left for Dr. B– to discover the virtues of a toad's leg. Apropos, an eccentric friend of mine, once gravely told me he intended to procure this precious Bufonian jewel; and as probably some reader may feel a wish to possess it, I will furnish him with the proper method of obtaining it, as communicated by my scientific friend. Voici—Cut off poor bufo's head and enclose it in a small box pierced with many holes; place it in an ant hill, and let it remain some ten or twelve days, in which time, or a little longer, the ants will have entered and eaten up every part except the stone. RURIS.
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