Merrie England in the Olden Time. George Daniel
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Название: Merrie England in the Olden Time

Автор: George Daniel

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Документальная литература

Серия:

isbn: 4064066389666

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ grove;

       I spy a harper playing

       All in his proud alcove.

       I doff my hat, desiring

       He'd tune up Buxom Joan;

       But what was I admiring?

       Odzooks! a man of stone.

       But now the tables spreading,

       They all fall to with glee;

       Not e'en at Squire's fine wedding

       Such dainties did I see!

       I long'd (poor starveling rover!)

       But none heed country elves;

       These folk, with lace daub'd over,

       Love only dear themselves.

       Thus whilst, 'mid joys abounding,

       As grasshoppers they're gay;

       At distance crowds surrounding

       The Lady of the May.

       The man i' th' moon tweer'd slily,

       Soft twinkling through the trees,

       As though 'twould please him highly

       To taste delights like these.” **

      But its days are numbered. The axe shall be laid to the roots of its beautiful trees; its green avenues turned into blind alleys;

      * Alluding to the three pictures in the Pavilions—viz. the

       King and the Miller of Mansfield—Sailors in a tippling

       house in Wapping—and the girl stealing a kiss from a

       sleepy gentleman.

       ** The statue of Handel.

      its variegated lamps give place to some solitary gas-burner, to light the groping inhabitants to their dingy homes; and the melodious strains of its once celebrated vocalists be drowned in the dismal ditty of some ballad-singing weaver, and the screeching responses of his itinerant family. What would the gallant Mr. Lowe and his sprightly Euphrosyne, Nan Catley, say, could they be told to what “base uses” their harmonious groves are condemned to be turned?

      * Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales sitting under her

       splendid Pavilion.

      Truly their wonder would be on a par with Paganini's, should ever that musical magician encounter on the other side Styx “My Lord Skaggs and his Broomstick!” *

      * This celebrated professor played on his musical broomstick

       at the Haymarket Theatre, November 1751.

       “Each buck and jolly fellow has heard of Skegginello

       The famous Skegginello, that grunts so pretty

       Upon his broomstieado, such music he has made, O,

       'Twill spoil the fiddling trade, O,

       And that's a pity!

       But have you heard or seen, O, his phiz so pretty,

       In picture shops so grin, O,

       With comic nose and chin, O,

       Who'd think a man could shine so At Eh, Eh, Eh, Eh?”

       There is a curious Tobacco Paper of Skaggs playing on his

       broomstick in full concert with a jovial party! One of the

       principal performers is a good-humoured looking gentleman

       beating harmony out of the salt-box.

       ** Certain utilitarians affect to ridicule this ancient

       civic festival, on the score of its parade, right-royally

       ridiculous! and gross gluttony—as if the corporation of

       London were the only gourmands who had offered sacrifices to

       Apicius, and died martyrs to good living! We have been at

       some pains to peep into the dining-parlours of the ancients,

       and from innumerable examples of gastronomy have selected

       the following, which prove that the epicures of the olden

       time yielded not in taste and voracity to their brethren of

       the new:—

       The emperor Septimus Severus died of eating and drinking too

       much. Valentinianus went off in a surfeit. Lucullus being

       asked one day by his attendant, what company he had invited

       to his feast, seeing so many dainties prepared, answered,

       “Lucullus shall dine with Lucullus?” Vitellius Spinter was

       so much given to gluttony, that at one supper he was served

       with two thousand several kinds of fishes, and with seven

       thousand flying fowl. Maximilian devoured, in one day, forty

       pounds of solid meat, which he washed down with a hogshead

       of wine. The emperor Geta continued his festival for three

       days, and his dainties were introduced in alphabetical

       order. Philoxenes wished he had a neck like a crane, that

       the delicious morsels might be long in going down. Lucullus,

       at a costly feast he gave to certain ambassadors of Asia,

       among other trifles, took to his own cheek a griph (query

       Griffin'!) boiled, and a fat goose in paste. Hercules and

       Lepreas had a friendly contest, which could, in quickest

       time, eat up a whole ox; Hercules won, and then challenged

       his adversary to a drinking bout, and again beat him hollow.

       If the Stoic held that the goal of life is death, and that

       we live but to learn to die—if the Pythagorean believed in

       the transmigration of souls, and scrupled to shoot a

       woodcock lest he should dispossess the spirit of his

       grandam—how much more rational was the doctrine of the

       Epicurean, (after such СКАЧАТЬ