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January 26th
Born: Lord George
Sackville, 1716; J. B. Bernadotte, king of Sweden,
1764, Pau; Thomas Noon Talfonrd, 1795.
Died: Henry Brigges, 1630, Oxford; Dr. E. Jenner,
1823, Berkeley; Francis Jeffrey, 1850, Edinburgh; Adam
Gottlob Ochlenschliiger, Danish poet, 1850.
Feast Day: St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, 166.
St. Paula, widow, 404.
St. Conon, bishop of Man, about 648.
ST. POLYCARP
Polycarpus is the earliest of the Christian fathers.
An unusual and peculiar interest attaches to him, as
one who might have known, if he did not actually know,
the evangelist John. At Smyrna, of which he was
bishop, Polycarp suffered martyrdom by burning, in
167. Of his writings there remains but an epistle to
the Philippians, exhorting them to maintain the purity
of the faith.
ST. CONON
Conon is a Scotch saint of the seventh century. He was
for some years Bishop of Man or of the Southern Isles,
and his name continued to be remembered with
veneration in the Highlandstill the Reformation. 'Claw
for claw,' as Canon said to Satan, 'and the devil take
the shortest nails,' is a proverb of the Highlanders,
apparently referring to some legend of an encounter
between the holy man and the great spiritual enemy of
our race.
FRANCIS JEFFREY
The first recognised editor of the Edinburgh Review
was a man of small and slight figure, and of handsome
countenance; of fine conversational powers, and, what
will surprise those who think of him only as the
uncompromising critic, great goodness of heart and
domestic amiability. In his latter years, when past
the psalmist-appointed term of life, he grew more than
over tender of heart and amiable, praised nursery
songs, patronised mediocrities, and wrote letters of
almost childish gentleness of expression. It seemed to
be the natural strain of his character let loose from
some stern responsibility, which had made him sharp
and critical through all his former life.
His critical writings had a brilliant reputation in
their day. He was too much a votary of the regular old
rhetorical style of poetry to be capable of truly
appreciating the Lake school, or almost any others of
his own contemporaries. The greatest mistake he made
was as to Wordsworth, whose Excursion he saluted. (Edinburgh
Review, November 1814) with an article beginning,
'This will never do;' a free and easy condemnation
which, now contrasted with the reputation of
Wordsworth, returns a fearful revenge upon the critic.
Jeffrey, however, is not
without his companions in this kind of misfortune.
Home, the author of Douglas, could
not see the merit
of Burns; and Kitson, while appreciating
him as a poet
generally, deemed his songs a failure. 'He does not,'
says the savage Joseph, 'appear to his usual advantage
in song: non omnia possumus.'
It would be a curious task, and something like a fair
revenge upon the sanguinary brotherhood of Critics, to
run over their works, and select the unhappy cases in
which, from prejudice or want of natural penetration,
they have passed judgments and made prophecies which
now appear ludicrously inappropriate. Some unlucky
pronouncements by unprofessional hands may mean-while
be noted.
It was Waller who wrote of Paradise Lost on its first
appearance:
''The old blind schoolmaster, John Milton,
hath published a tedious poem on the fall of man; if
its length be not considered a merit, it has no
other.'
Walpole, led by political
prejudice, on several
occasions wrote disparagingly of Smollett.
Humphry Clinker, which
has ever been a favourite with the British public, is
passed over ignominiously by the lord of Strawberry
Hill, as 'a party novel written by the profligate
hireling Smollett.'
We find a tolerably fair offset to the short-comings
of Whig Review criticism, in the way in which the
poetry of Hunt,
Shelley, and
Keats was treated in the
early volumes of the Quarterly. In the noted article
on the Endymion of Keats (April 1818), which Byron
speaks of in his couplet:
"Tis strange the mind,
that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuffed out by an article'
(which, however, was a
mistake), the critic professes to have been utterly
unable to read the poem, and adds:
'The author is a copyist of Mr. Hunt . . . more
unintelligible, almost as rugged, twice as diffuse, and ten times more tiresome
and absurd than
his prototype.'
BISHOP LOW
Died on the 26th January 1855, the Right Rev. David
Low, Bishop of Ross and Argyll, in the Episcopal
communion of Scotland. The principal reason for
noticing this prelate is the fact that he was the last
surviving clergyman in Scotland, who had, in his
official character, acted upon scruples in behalf of
the house of Stuart. At the time of the excellent
bishop's entrance to the Church, in 1787�when he was
ordained a deacon�the body to which he belonged
omitted the prayer for the king and royal family from
their service, being unostentatiously but firmly
attached to the fortunes of the family which forfeited
the British crown nearly a hundred years before; and
it was not till after the death of the unfortunate
Charles Edward, in January 1788,
that they at length
(not without some difficulty) agreed to pray for King
George.
An obituary notice of Bishop Low speaks of him as
follows:
'His appearance was striking�tall,
attenuated, but active�his eye sparkling with
intelligence, his whole look that of a venerable
French abbe of the old regime. His mind was eminently
buoyant and youthful, and his memory was a fount of
the most interesting historical information,
especially in connection with the Cavalier or Jacobite
party, to which he belonged by early association and
strong religious and political predilection. Born in a
district (at that time) devoted to the cause of the
Stuarts, almost under the shadow of Edzell Castle, the
ancient stronghold of the Lindsays in Forfarshire, and
having lived much from time to time in his early years
in the West Highlands, among the Stuarts of
Ballachulish and Appin, he had enjoyed familiar
intercourse with the veterans of 1715 and 1745, and he
detailed the minutest events and adventures of those
times with a freshness and a graphic force which
afforded infinite delight to his younger auditors. His
traditional knowledge extended even to the wars of
Claverhouse and Montrose.'
Those who know of bishops and their style of living
only from the examples afforded by the English
Protestant Church, will hear with surprise and
incredulity of what we have to tell regarding Bishop
Low. This venerable man, who had never been married,
dwelt in a room of the old priory of Pittenweem, on
the coast of Fife, where he ministered to a
congregation for which a good diningroom would have
furnished tolerably ample accommodation. He probably
never had an income above a hundred a year in his life; yet of even this he spent
so little, that he was
able at the last to bequeath about eight thousand
pounds for purposes connected with his communion. A
salt herring and three or four potatoes often formed
the home dinner of the Bishop of Ross and Argyll.
Even in Scotland, chiefly from the introduction of
English clergymen of fortune into the episcopate, a
bishop is beginning to be, typically, a tolerably
well-off and comfortable-looking personage. It
therefore becomes curious to recall what he,
typically, was not many years ago. The writer has a
perfect recollection of a visit he paid, in the year
1826, to the venerable Dr. Jolly, Bishop of Moray, who
was esteemed as a man of learning, as well as a most
devoted officer of his church. He found the amiable
prelate living at the fishing town of Fraserburgh, at
the north-east corner of Aberdeenshire, where he
officiated to a small congregation. The bishop, having
had a little time to prepare himself for a visitor,
was, by the time the writer made his call, dressed in
his best suit and his Sunday wig. In a plain two-story
house, such as is common in Scotch towns, having a
narrow wooden stair ascending to the upper floor,
which was composed of two concealed apartments, a but
and a ben, and in one of these rooms, the beautiful
old man�for he was beautiful�sat, in his neat
old-fashioned black suit, buckled shoes, and wig as
white as snow, surrounded entirely by shelves full of
books, most of them of an antique and theological
cast. Ireneaus or Polyearp could not have lived in a
style more simple. The look of the venerable prelate
was full of gentleness, as if he had never had an
enemy, or a difficulty, or anything else to contend
with, in his life. His voice was low and sweet, and
his conversation most genial and kindly, as towards
the young and unimportant person whom he had admitted
to his presence. The whole scene was a historical
picture which the writer can never forget, or ever
reflect on without pleasure. Bishop Jolly lived in a
style nearly as primitive as Bishop Low; but the
savings which consequently arose from his scanty
income were devoted in a different way. His passion
apart from the church was for books, of which he had
gathered a wonderful quantity, including many that
were of considerable value for their rarity.
The series of nonjurant English bishops, which began
with those who refused to acknowledge William and
Mary, including Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury,
came to an end with the Rev. Mr. Gordon, who died on
the 19th of November 1779. There was, however, a
succession of separatists, beginning with one bishop,
and which did not terminate till 1805.
SEVENTH SONS AND THEIR SEVENTH
SONS
There has been a strong favour for the number Seven,
from a remote period in the world's history. It is, of
course, easy to see in what way the Mosaic narrative
gave sanctity to this number in connection with the
days of the week, and led to usages which influence
the social life of all the countries of Europe. But a
sort of mystical goodness or power has attached itself
to the number in many other ways. Seven wise men,
seven champions of Christendom, seven sleepers,
seven-league boots, seven churches, seven ages of man,
seven hills, seven senses, seven planets, seven
metals, seven sisters, seven stars, seven wonders of
the world,�all have had their day of favour; albeit
that the number has been awkwardly interfered with by
modern discoveries concerning metals, planets, stars,
and wonders of the world.
Added to the above list is the group of Seven Sons,
especially in relation to the youngest or seventh of
the seven; and more especially still if this person
happen to be the seventh son of a seventh son. It is
now, perhaps, impossible to discover in what country,
or at what time, the notion originated; but a notion
there certainly is, chiefly in provincial districts,
that a seventh son has something peculiar about him.
For the most part, the imputed peculiarity is a
healing power, a faculty of curing diseases by the
touch, or by some other means.
The instances of this belief are numerous enough.
There is a rare pamphlet called the Quack Doctor's
Speech, published in the time of Charles II. The
reckless Earl of Rochester delivered this speech on
one occasion, when dressed in character, and mounted
on a stage as a charlatan. The speech, amid much that
suited that licentious age, but would be frowned down
by modern society, contained an enumeration of the
doctor's wonderful qualities, among which was that of
being a 'seventh son of a seventh son,' and therefore
clever as a curer of bodily ills. The matter is only
mentioned as affording a sort of proof of the
existence of a certain popular belief. In Cornwall,
the peasants and the miners entertain this notion;
they believe that a seventh son can cure the king's
evil by the touch. The mode of proceeding usually is
to stroke the part affected thrice gently, to blow
upon it thrice, to repeat a form of words, and to give
a perforated coin or some other object to be worn as
an amulet.
At Bristol, about forty
years ago, there was a man who was always called
'Doctor,' simply because he was the seventh son of a
seventh son. The family of the Joneses of Muddfi, in
Wales, is said to have presented seven sons to each of
many successive generations, of whom the seventh son
always became a doctor�apparently from a conviction
that he had an inherited qualification to start with.
In Ireland, the seventh son of a seventh son is
believed to possess prophetical as well as healing
power. A few years ago, a Dublin shopkeeper, finding
his errand-boy to be generally very dilatory in his
duties, inquired into the cause, and found that, the
boy being a seventh son of a seventh son, his services
were often in requisition among the poorer neighbours,
in a way that brought in a good many pieces of silver.
Early in the present
century, there was a man in Hampshire, the seventh son
of a seventh son, who was consulted by the villagers
as a doctor, and who carried about with him a
collection of crutches and sticks, purporting to have
once belonged to persons whom he had cured of
lame-ness. Cases are not wanting, also, in which the
seventh daughter is placed upon a similar pinnacle of
greatness. In Scotland, the spae wife, or
fortune-teller, frequently announces herself as the
seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, to enhance her
claims to prophetic power. Even so late as 1851, an
inscription was seen on a window in Plymouth, denoting
that a certain doctress was 'the third seventh
daughter,'�which the world was probably intended to
interpret as the seventh daughter of the seventh
daughter of a seventh daughter.
Sometimes this belief is mixed up with curious family
legends. The Winchester Observer, a few years ago,
gave an account of the 'Tichborne Dole,' associated
with one of the very oldest Hampshire families. The
legend tells that, at some remote period, a Lady Mabella, on her death-bed,
besought her lord, the
Tichborne of those days, to supply her with the means
for bequeathing a gift or dole of bread to any one who
should apply for it annually on the Feast of the
Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin. Sir Roger promised
her the proceeds of as much land as she could go over
while a brand or billet of a certain size was burning:
she was nearly bedridden, and nearly dying; and her
avaricious lord believed that he had imposed
conditions which would place within very narrow limits
the area of land to be alienated. But he was mistaken.
A miraculous degree of strength was given to her. She
was carried by her attendants into a field, where she
crawled round many goodly acres. A field of
twenty-three acres, at Tichborne, to this day, bears
the name of the Crawl. The lady, just before her
death, solemnly warned her family against any
departure from the terms of the dole; she predicted
that the family name would become extinct, and the
fortunes impoverished, if the dole were ever
withdrawn. The Tichborne dole, thus established, was
regarded as the occasion of an annual festival during
many generations.
It was usual to bake fourteen hundred loaves for the
dole, of twenty-six ounces each, and to give two pence
to any applicant in excess of the number that could be
then served. This custom was continued till about the
middle of the last century; when, under pretence of
attending Tichborne Dole, vagabonds, gipsies, and
idlers of every description, assembled from all
quarters, pilfering throughout the neighbourhood; and
at last, in 1796, on account of the complaints of the
magistrates and gentry, it was discontinued. This gave
great offence to many who had been accustomed to
receive the dole. And now arose a revival of old
traditions. The good Lady Mabella, as the legend told,
had predicted that, if the dole should be withheld,
the mansion would crumble to ruins; that the family
name would become extinct through the failure of male
heirs; and that this failure would be occasioned by a
generation of seven sons being followed by a
generation of seven daughters. Singularly enough, the
old house partially fell down in 1803; the baronet of
that day had seven sons; the eldest of these had
seven daughters; and the owner of the family estates
became a Doughty instead of a Tichborne If this story
be correctly told, it is certainly a very tempting one
for those who have a leaning towards the number seven.
France, as well as our
own country, has a belief in the Seventh Son mystery.
The Journal de Loiret, a French provincial newspaper,
in 1854 stated that, in Orleans, if a family has seven
sons and no daughter, the seventh is called a Marcou,
is branded with a fleur-de-lis, and is believed to
possess the power of curing the king's evil. The
Marcou breathes on the part affected, or else the
patient touches the Marcou's fleur-de-lis. In the year
above-named, there was a famous Marcou in Orleans
named Foulon; he was a cooper by trade, and was known
as 'le beau Marcou.' Simple peasants used to come to
visit him from many leagues in all directions,
particularly in Passion week, when his ministrations
were believed to be most efficacious. On the night of
Good Friday, from midnight to sunrise, the chance of
cure was supposed to be especially good, and on this
account four or five hundred persons would assemble.
Great disturbances hence arose; and as there was
evidence, to all except the silly dupes themselves,
that Foulon made use of their superstition to enrich
himself, the police succeeded, but not without much
opposition, in preventing these assemblages.
In some of the States of Germany there used formerly
to be a custom for the reigning prince to stand
sponsor to a seventh son (no daughter intervening) of
any of his subjects. Whether still acted upon is
doubtful; but there was an incident lately which bore
on the old custom in a curious way. A West Hartlepool
newspaper stated that Mr. J. V. Curths, a German,
residing in that busy colliery town, became, toward
the close of 1857, the father of one of those
prodigies �a seventh son. Probably he himself was a
Saxe Gothan by birth; at any rate he wrote to the
Prince Consort, reminding him of the old German
custom, and soliciting the honour of his Royal
Highness's sponsorship to the child. The Prince was
doubtless a little puzzled by this appeal, as he often
must have been by the strange applications made to
him. Nevertheless, a reply was sent in the Prince's
name, very complimentary to his countryman, and
enclosing a substantial souvenir for the little child;
but the newspaper paragraph is not sufficiently clear
for us to be certain whether the sponsorship really
was assented to, and, if so, how it was performed.
THREE WONDERFUL
THINGS
Sir James Stewart, of Coltness, was accustomed. to say, that after having lived
fifty years, and gone through almost all the
geographical and literary world, three things only had
surmounted his most sanguine expectations�The
Amphitheatre at Verona, the Church of St. Peter's at
Rome, and Mr. Pitt in the House of Commons.
Smoking was formerly forbidden among school-masters.
In the rules of the school at Chigwell, founded in
1629, it was declared that 'the master must be a man
of sound religion, neither Papist nor Puritan, of a
grave behaviour, and sober and honest conversation, no
tippler or haunter of alehouses, and no puffer
of tobacco.'
'To the good.'�We find this homely phrase in the
speech of Charles I to the House of Commons on 'The
Arrest of the Five Members,' as follows: 'Whatsoever I
have done in favour and to the good,' &c.
January 27th
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