Auld Lang Syne
In looking over the first volume, which contains statutes passed between 1235 and 1685, one is struck by the number of stringent Acts of Parliament forming part of our present law, which nevertheless are habitually neglected.
Now that the destroying hands of the Gladstonian iconoclasts are stayed there can be no more useful task than to look around us and see how many of these relics of the embodied wisdom of our ancestors still remain to us, rusted indeed but ready for our use.
In enumerating a few of these enactments I have two objects in view. First, I would remind those whose province it is to administer law and justice to the subjects of Queen Victoria of powers with which they are armed; and, secondly, I would offer timely warning to those against whom these powers, when again exercised, which the present healthy state of public feeling assures us they will be, must inevitably be directed.
To begin then. Can there be a more appalling spectacle than the “Monstrous Regiment of Women?” Well, we have our weapons of defence ready in 3 Henry VIII. c. 11., 34 and 35 Henry VIII. c. 8, and 5 Elizabeth c. 4. s. 17. What a sound and vigorous ring is there in the first of these statutes with the pains and penalties it enacts against ignorant persons practising physic or surgery, “such,” it goes on to say, “as common artificers, smythes, wevers and women.” And how discreetly liberal is the second of these statutes, which indicates a legitimate field for women’s activity, and allows them, in common with all other unqualified persons, to cure outward sores, such as “a pyn and the web in the eye, uncoomes of hands, scaldings, burnings, sore mouths, saucelin, morfew” and the like, by herbs, ointments, baths, poultices, and plasters. But most practical, perhaps, of all these three statutes is the statute of Elizabeth, which, making no exception, sweeps within its enactments all women under the age of forty who have failed to fulfil the great end of their being, matrimony.
“And bee it further enacted that twoo justices of the peace the maior or other head officer of any citie burghe or towne corporate and twoo aldermen, or twoo other discrete burgesses of the same citie burghe or towne corporate yf ther be no aldermen, shall and may by vertue hereof appoint any suche woman as is of thage of twelfe yeres and under thage of fourtye yeres and unmarried and foorthe of service, as they shall thinck meete to serve, to be reteyned or serve by the yere or by the weeke or daye, for such wages and in such reasonable sorte and maner as they shall thinck meete: And yf any such woman shall refuse so to serve, then yt shalbe lawfull for the said justices of peace maior or head officers to comit suche woman to warde untill she shalbe bounden to serve as aforesaid.”
The effect of enforcing this law would be salutary indeed. Under the existing state of things men are frequently employed upon duties so disagreeable and ill-paid that Providence can only have intended them for women. Why then do we not take advantage of the power, nay, the duty of sending women to their proper sphere and mission which is entrusted to our magistrates and discreet burgesses? As the wages will be fixed by these authorities, the burden to the rate-payers need not be great. And we should thus silence the demand which, I am told, women are beginning to make not only for work (as if their male relations were not always ready and willing to find them plenty), but even for remunerative work.
But I pass from our women to our agricultural labourers. We have lately heard much debate on the conduct of commanding officers who, when labourers at harvest-time were holding out for wages, allowed their soldiers to help in getting in the harvest. But such aid would never have been required had not the fifteenth section of the same statute of Elizabeth been unaccountably overlooked.
“Provided always that in the time of hey or corne harvest, the justices of peace and every of them, and also the cunstable or other head officer of every towneshipe, upon request and for thavoyding of the los of any corne grayne or heye, shall and may cause all suche artificers and persons as be meete to labour, by the discretions of the said justices or cunstables or other head officers or by any of them, to serve by the daye for the mowing reaping shearing getting or inning of corne grayne and heye, according to the skill and qualite of the person; and that none of the said persons shall refuse so to doo, upon payne to suffer imprisonement in the stockes by the space of twoo dayes and one night.”
Nor need our farmers at any other times in the year fear a deficiency of labour if they will but invoke the aid of the fifth section of the same statute, whereby every person between the ages of twelve and sixty not being employed in any of a few callings mentioned in the Act, nor being a gentleman born, nor being a student or scholar in any of the universities or in any school, nor having real estate worth forty shillings a year or goods and chattels worth £10, nor being the heir-apparent of any one with real estate worth £10 a year or goods and chattels worth £40, is declared compellable to be retained to serve in husbandry by the year with any person that keepeth husbandry.
Again we have Acts of 1275 and 1378 (3 Edward I., and 2 Richard II.), as our defences against those who are described as “devisors of false news and of horrible and false lies of prelates dukes earls barons” and, comprehensively, “other nobles and great men of the realm,” and also of various officials enumerated, with a like comprehensive “and of other great officers of the realm.” The Act of Richard II. reiterates and confirms that of Edward I., and under these Acts “all persons so hardy as to devise speak or tell any false news, lies, or such other false things” about great people, incur the penalty of imprisonment “until they have brought him into Court who was the first author of the tale.” What a check would the carrying out of these provisions put upon the impertinences of Own Correspondents, social reformers, gossips, novelists, caricaturists, and moralists! It will be a happy day for England when the many thoughtless or malignant persons who now permit themselves to retail stories inconvenient to members of the aristocracy or to the dignitaries of the country, suffer the punishment of their infraction of the law. To take but one instance of the great need there exists for the protection of our upper classes – an instance, as it chances, which enables me to show that I would not wish the private character of even a political enemy to be traduced – I may remind you that if the statutes of Scandalum Magnatum were enforced there would not now be at large persons ascribing to the late Prime Minister himself the authorship of the Greenwich stanza on the Straits of Malacca.
There are many other statutes on which I might enlarge. I might remind coroners of duties which they have forgotten, and the clergy of rights which they are allowing to lapse, but time will not permit me.
It is true that when I read my Statute Book I meet with some provisions of which I do not comprehend the necessity. As a Protestant I do not see why I should be imprisoned for three years and fined besides, if I carry off a nun from a convent with her consent; and as a botanist I do not see why, since January, 1660, I have been prohibited from setting or planting so much as a single tobacco plant in my garden. Still, all are parts of one stupendous whole, parts of the sacred fabric built by our forefathers in “Auld Lang Syne.” Touch one stone and the British Constitution may crumble. And as a humble member of the Great Constitutional Party I desire to raise my protest against the canker of decay being left to eat insidiously into our ancient and revered legislative code, by our suffering any Acts of Parliament which appear on our Statute Book as parts of the living Law of the Land to drop into disuse, as if, contrary to the doctrine of the highest legal authorities, an Act of Parliament unrepealed could become obsolete.
AULD LANG SYNE,
WHERE HOME WAS
’Twas yesterday; ’twas long ago: And for this flaunting grimy street,And for this crowding to and fro, And thud and roar of wheels and feet, Were elm-trees and the linnet’s trill, The little gurgles of the rill,And breath of meadow flowers that blow Ere roses make the summer sweet.’Twas long ago; ’twas yesterday. Our peach would just be new with leaves,The swallow pair that used to lay Their glimmering eggs beneath our eaves Would flutter busy with their brood, And, haply, in our hazel-wood,Small village urchins hide at play, And girls sit binding bluebell sheaves.Was the house here, or there, or there? No landmark tells. All changed; all lost;As when the waves that fret and tear The fore-shores of some level coast Roll smoothly where the sea-pinks grew. All changed, and all grown old anew;And I pass over, unaware, The memories I am seeking most.But where these huddled house-rows spread, And where this thickened air hangs murkAnd the dim sun peers round and red On stir and haste and cares and work, For me were baby’s daisy-chains, For me the meetings in the lanes,The shy good-morrows softly said That paid my morning’s lying lurk.Oh lingering days of long ago, Not until now you passed away.Years wane between and we unknow; Our youth is always yesterday. But, like a traveller home who craves For friends and finds forgotten graves,I seek you where you dwelled, and, lo, Even farewells not left to say!RIVER.
AN AUTUMN IDYL
“Sweet Thames! ran softly, till I end my song.”
Spenser, Prothalamion.LAURENCE. FRANK. JACKLAURENCEHere, where the beech-nuts drop among the grasses, Push the boat in, and throw the rope ashore.Jack, hand me out the claret and the glasses; — Here let us sit. We landed here before.FRANKJack’s undecided. Say, formose puer, Bent in a dream above the “water wan;”Shall we row higher, for the reeds are fewer, There by the pollards, where you see the swan?JACKHist! That’s a pike. Look, – note against the river, Gaunt as a wolf, – the sly old privateer,Enter a gudgeon. Snap, – a gulp, a shiver; — Exit the gudgeon. Let us anchor here.FRANK. (In the grass.)Jove, what a day! Black Care upon the crupper Nods at his post, and slumbers in the sun,Half of Theocritus, with a touch of Tupper Churns in my head. The frenzy has begun.LAURENCESing to us then. Damoetas in a choker Much out of tune, will edify the rooks.FRANKSing you again. So musical a croaker Surely will draw the fish upon the hooks.JACKSing while you may. The beard of manhood still is Faint on your cheeks, but I, alas! am old.Doubtless you yet believe in Amaryllis; — Sing me of Her, whose name may not be told.FRANKListen, O Thames. His budding beard is riper Say, by a week. Well, Laurence, shall we sing?LAURENCEYes, if you will. But, ere I play the piper, Let him declare the prize he has to bring.JACKHear then, my Shepherds. Lo to him accounted First in the song – a Pipe I will impart;This, my Belovèd, marvellously mounted, Amber and foam – a miracle of art.LAURENCELordly the gift. O Muse of many numbers, Grant me a soft alliterative song.FRANKMe, too, O Muse. And when the umpire slumbers, Sting him with gnats a summer evening long.LAURENCENot in a cot, begarlanded of spiders, Not where the brook traditionally purls,No; in the Row, supreme among the riders, Seek I the gem, the paragon of girls.FRANKNot in the waste of column and of coping, Not in the sham and stucco of a square;No; on a June-lawn to the water sloping Stands she I honour, beautifully fair.LAURENCEDark-haired is mine, with splendid tresses plaited Back from the brows, imperially curled;Calm as a grand, far-looking Caryatid Holding the roof that covers in a world.FRANKDark-haired is mine, with breezy ripples swinging Loose as a vine-branch blowing in the morn;Eyes like the morning, mouth for ever singing, — Blythe as a bird, new risen from the corn.LAURENCEBest is the song with music interwoven; Mine’s a musician, musical at heart,Throbs to the gathered grieving of Beethoven — Sways to the right coquetting of Mozart.FRANKBest? You should hear mine trilling out a ballad, Queen at a picnic, leader of the glees;Not too divine to toss you up a salad, Great in “Sir Roger” danced among the trees.LAURENCEAh, when the thick night flares with dropping torches, Ah, when the crush-room empties of the swarm,Pleasant the hand that, in the gusty porches, Light as a snowflake, settles on your arm.FRANKBetter the twilight and the cheery chatting, — Better the dim, forgotten garden-seat,Where one may lie, and watch the fingers tatting, Lounging with Bran or Bevis at her feet.LAURENCEAll worship mine. Her purity doth hedge her Round with so delicate divinity, that menStained to the soul with money-bag and ledger Bend to the Goddess, manifest again.FRANKNone worship mine. But some, I fancy, love her, Cynics to boot, I know the children runSeeing her come, for naught that I discover Save that she brings the summer and the sun.LAURENCEMine is a Lady, beautiful and queenly, Crown’d with a sweet, continual control,Grandly forbearing, lifting life serenely E’en to her own nobility of soul.FRANKMine is a Woman, kindly beyond measure, Fearless in praising; faltering in blame,Simply devoted to other people’s pleasure. Jack’s sister Florence. Now you know her name.LAURENCE“Jack’s sister Florence!” Never, Francis, never! Jack, do you hear? Why, it was She I meant.She like the country! Ah! she’s far too clever.FRANK There you are wrong. I know her down in Kent.LAURENCEYou’ll get a sunstroke, standing with your head bare. Sorry to differ. Jack, the word’s with you.FRANKHow is it, umpire? Though the motto’s threadbare, “Cœlum non animum,” is, I take it, true.JACK“Souvent femme varie,” as a rule, is truer. Flatter’d, I’m sure – but both of you romance.Happy to further suit of either wooer, Merely observing – you haven’t got a chance.LAURENCEYes. But the Pipe —FRANK The Pipe is what we care for.JACKWell, in this case, I scarcely need explain. Judgment of mine were indiscreet, and therefore —Peace to you both. – The pipe I shall retain.RIVER
Three rivers fell to strife, about their own renown,Producing rival claims to wear the rivers’ crown.Proud Amazon was one, and yellow Tiber next,And third, an English Thames – all three most fierce and vex’d.Said Amazon: “The length of my majestic streamMakes me amazed that you, two tiny rills, should deemYou can be e’en compared with me – enormous me!Of rivers I’m the king! – Let that acknowledged be!”“Absurd!” cried Tiber. “Size– and all that sort of thingAre never reckon’d points in fixing on a king.But Rome was mine! And mine her conquests, laws, and fame,In fact, her total past is coupled with my name!”“Be silent!” said the Thames; “I’m greater than you both!Not hist’ry and not miles can match with present growth.I’m proud to say I own a trading wealthy place,By Anglo-Saxons built – that fearless, active race!”The contest grew more sharp, they roll’d their waves in storm;Thermometers, if there, had shown the waters warm.Thames wreck’d some twenty ships, and Amazon still more,While Tiber caused dire dread to Romans as of yore.At length the mighty sea, lamenting such a fray,By these wise words prevailed their envious wrath to stay.“Dear streams! you once were one – to me you all return.Oh! cease then – being one – with jealousies to burn!”FOOTPATH
BETWEEN THE PATHWAY AND RIVER
“Follow that pathway till you come to some arches, and turn under them, and you will find the Blind School,” was the answer given whenever we stopped in our bewildered pilgrimage to inquire: but no arches were visible, save one disreputable old bridge, under which no self-respecting school seemed likely to find shelter; so we went on hopelessly, asking the way from waggoners and countrymen, who all seemed interested in the question, but were unable to give us any guidance. A pitiless hailstorm rattled on our umbrellas and splashed the mud upon our boots: while the path, it was evident, was leading us on towards the river, not the school; so at last in despair we turned, and flying before the storm sought refuge under the despised railway bridge, where a group of children were playing dry and comfortable, while we were wet and muddy. Once again we inquired for the Blind School, and were told to go on. The path led under a succession of iron girders which apparently stand for arches in those regions, and we tramped on discontentedly, feeling we had been deceived, and that we too might have been dry and safe like the children, if only our misinformants had called a spade a spade, and a row of iron girders something else than arches. But the path took a turn, and we saw cottages and green fields, and we reached a house which had two doors, on one of which we read, “Mr. Wallis,” and on the other nothing: so we chanced the second door, knocked, and were soon among a group of children, all neat, healthy, and cheerful – but blind. In this blind school there were but two people who could see, and these were not the only teachers, for here the blind helped the blind, as the rich helped the poor.
For this school began with a blind man. Five years ago, near the banks of the Severn, a cart containing vitriol was overturned; and of four people who were there, only two were left alive, and one of these was blind. Childless and blind, this man had to begin life again – to learn to live in darkness, and in darkness to work for others. For as soon as he had learned to grope his way, he learned to read in the books provided for the blind, and went from village to village to find other blind persons, and teach them how to read also. Then a noble-hearted woman came forward to help him, and founded the school; where blind children are trained to work as well as read, and blind men and women come every day to be taught trades. These latter come daily to the school, groping their way along the path that had been so tedious to our impatience; and learn to work, and also to read, helped sometimes by the teachers, sometimes by the blind man: who also still goes as before, from village to village, teaching and comforting those in the same straits as himself.
We were guided through a back way, intricate and uneven, where our blind guide warned us carefully of every step – though he said the children ran about everywhere and never fell – till we went through the school and entered his little house alongside, and found ourselves in a bright little parlour upstairs, full of books, and tastefully furnished, with a woman’s taste; for the woman who survived the accident which left her childless and crippled, had still the sight of one eye. There was an harmonium in the room, and one of the children came to play it. He was called Abraham; but this old name belonged to an intelligent, bright-faced English lad of twelve, well dressed and handsome but for his sad dim eyes. He is the son of a well-to-do farmer, and in education and intelligence far removed from some of his companions. He handled the harmonium with his small, delicate fingers as only a real musician can, and while the music lasted I nearly forgot all the sadness of the scene, and the hopeless life of the musician and the other children, who, one by one, guided by the sound, crept up the narrow stairs and came noiselessly into the room, and stood listening spell-bound till he finished. “And now, Lizzie, play,” said some one, and a girl came to the harmonium. She knew far less of music than Abraham, and had as yet little execution, but the sweet, true feeling which she gave to the old hymn tunes stirred the heart and brought tears to my eyes. “And would you like to hear us sing the hymn we sang when she was buried?” they asked. For their benefactress and friend, the woman whose untiring energy had begun and carried on this work among them, rousing sympathy for them among her townspeople, and begging for them when her own means were insufficient, died a few weeks ago, and the children of the school had seen her laid in the churchyard. The harmonium was hushed, Lizzie only struck the keynote, and they all sang, as they had all sung at the grave in the cold February morning when they saw her lowered into the cold earth,
“I know there is a land where all is bright,”
and they turned their poor sightless eyes to the light, as if that were to them the symbol of the heaven they longed to reach. It was too sad. The singing ceased, and we all tried to speak of something else. “How did you get that Indian picture?” I asked, looking round, and as the words left my lips, I reproached myself for speaking to one who could not see it, of a thing that could have no present interest to him. But I had made no mistake, as it chanced. “Ay, my brother brought it me,” he answered. “I know what you mean.” “It is painted on ivory, is it not?” “Oh no! this is a picture; my sister wears the one on ivory for a brooch, though it is rather large for that, maybe; but my brother brought them. He was at Agra during the mutiny, and he brought a ball in his shoulder, too, back – that’s what he brought; but I’d forgotten the picture till you mentioned it. But will you hear the children read now? Read the history of England, Abraham.” And Abraham read, opening the book at hazard, and reading clearly and distinctly the death of Cœur de Lion, his forgiveness of his enemy, and his burial in Fontevrault in token of his deep repentance. The children all listened with pleasure till one little one, the pet of the flock, whimpered because “Bessie” did not read; so Bessie, whose fingers were busy with her knitting, was compelled to read, although coming after Abraham it was rather a trying ordeal. Still the pet had to be satisfied, and then every one went on with their straw work, for the funds of the home are dependent on charity or the sale of work, as friends visiting Worcester will do wisely to remember. Straw mats, baskets, and balls were the work of the little ones, and they took the keenest interest in the question whether I preferred blue and white mats, or purple and white. I bought both, and shook hands all round, and in a few minutes was retreading my way towards the broad rolling Severn. Never did I feel how intense the joy of sight was as I did when I stood by its silver stream, and thought of those I had just left in the little house near the railway bridge.
THE FOOTPATH
Out at the doorway with shrill delight Ringing, clear of alloy,After a butterfly flashing so whiteAs it wheels and floats in the soft sunlight, He darts, O adventurous joy!Away! the fields are waving, the wheat Stands proudly over the path,The path winds onward, winning his feetThrough avenues arched and shady and sweet, — Sweet vista that childhood hath.But stay: the butterfly has upflown High in the stainless blue;Under the shadowing wheat alone,He stands and wonders, still as a stone, For all the world is new.He sees each beautiful stem, blue-green, Standing alone in its grace,Great pendulous poppies aflame between,And little convolvulus climbing to screen That dim forest world from his face.He sees overhead as they dance to its tune The ears flash white in the wind,But that musical laugh before mid-noonRipples far and faint in the heat, and soon Leaves silence only behind.And the silence falls on his fresh young soul, Like the far sound of the sea,Infinite, solemn; its strange controlPossesses him quite; quick fancies roll Through his brain; half fearfullyHe looks; and the long path seems to strain His tremulous lips apart;Some sudden trouble his eyes sustain;For so the folded blossom of pain Has broke in his childish heart.What is it? – some swift intuitive glance, Half-shapen only in thought,Of stranger worlds, of wide mischance?Some intimate sense of severance Or loss? – I know not what.He turns and leaps; for his mother’s arms Out of the doorway lean;She folds him safely from all alarms,And rallies his courage with rhythmical charms, — Yet knows not what he has seen.FOOTPATH
Onward, where through dewy grassSlowly wading footsteps pass;Where the daisy’s peaceful eyeGazes trustful to the sky;Where the river rippling byMakes scarce heeded harmonyWith the deep bell’s distant chime,And the wandering waifs of rhyme,Flung at random from the mind,While the thought still lags behind,Held in check by idle musingBorn of chance, not wilful choosing.Now, more clear on either side,See the meadows green divide;Clearer lies the path before us;Varied sounds are floating o’er us;All the stirring noise of life,All the ceaseless daily strife;The larger world breaks strongly inWhere footpaths end and roads begin.
