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Francis Grose, Esq. F. S. A. etc.

This gentlemen died on the 12th of May, 1791; he was son of Francis Grose, esq. jeweller at Richmond, who fitted up the coronation crown of George II. He was a captain in the Surrey militia, an eminent antiquary, and a right worthy man. His "Antiquities of England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland," are more generally known perhaps than other topographical works of more profound inquiry. They were commenced in numbers, and published by " Master Samuel Hooper,"

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so he called his bookseller, to whom he was a steady and affectionate friend, though he says, in one of his letters, "he never did any one thing I desired him." His "Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," Mr. Nichols says, "it would have been for his credit to have suppressed." The truth of this observation is palpable to every one who is not sophisticat ed by the wretchedly mischievous line, that

"

Vice, to be hated, needs but to be seen."
A more mischievous sentiment was

never promulgated. Capt. Grose's "Olio" is a pleasant medley of whimsicalities. He was an excellent companion, a humorist, and caricaturist : he wrote "Rules for drawing Caricatures," and drew and etched many, wherein he took considerable liberties with his friends. Yet he eems to have disliked a personal representation of himself sleeping in a chair, which Mr. Nichols pronounces "an ex

cellent" likeness; a copy of which we
have given in the preceding page. Adjoin-
ing it is another of him, a whole length,
standing, from an engraving by Bartolozzi,
after a drawing by Dance. The sleeping
portrait is attributed to the rev. James
Douglas, one of his brother antiquaries,
who dedicated the print to their “devoted
brethren" of the society. Beneath it were
inscribed the following lines:

"Now Grose, like bright Phœbus, has sunk into rest,
Society droops for the loss of his jest ;
Antiquarian debates, unseason'd with mirth,
To Genius and Learning will never give birth.
Then wake, Brother Member, our friend from his sleep,
Lest Apollo should frown, and Bacchus should weep."

May 13.

St. John the Silent, Bp. A. D. 558. St. Peter Regalati, A. D. 1456. St. Servatus, Bp. of Tongres, A. D. 384.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

cinale,

Symphetum offi

Dedicated to St. John the Silent.

May 14.

St. Boniface, A. D. 307.

St. Pachomius, Abbot, A. D. 348. St. Pontius, A. D. 258. St. Carthagh, or Mochudu, Bp. of Lismore, A. D. 637 or 638.

He was remarkably corpulent, as the engravings show. In a letter to the rev. James Granger, he says, "I am, and ever have been, the idlest fellow living, even before I had acquired the load of adventitious matter which at present stuffs my doublet." On the margin of this letter Mr. Granger wrote, " As for the matter that stuffs your doublet, I hope it is all Common Comfrey. good stuff; if you should double it, I shall call it morbid matter and tremble for you. But I consider it as the effect of good digestion, pure blood, and laughing spirits, coagulated into a wholesome mass by as much sedentariness (I hate this long word) as is consistent with the activity of your disposition." In truth, Grose was far from an idle man; he had great mental activity, and his antiquarian knowledge and labours were great. was fond however of what are termed the pleasures of the table; and is represented in a fine mezzotinto, drawn and engraved by his friend Nathaniel Hone, with Theodosius Forrest, the barrister, and Hone himself, dressed in the character of monks, over a bowl, which Grose is actively preparing for their carousal. He died of apoplexy in Mr. Hone's house in Dublin, at the age of fifty-two. In reference to his principal works, the following epitaph, quoted by Mr.Nichols in his "Anecdotes,' was proposed for him in the "St. James's Chronicle:"

Here lies Francis Grose.
On Thursday, May 12, 1791,
Death put an end to
His views and prospects.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

He

German Fleur de lis. Iris Germanica.
Dedicated to St. Germanus.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Common Piony. Paonia officinalis.
Coralline Piony. Paonia corallina.
Dedicated to St. Pontius.

May 15.

St. Peter, Andrew, and Companions,

Martyrs, A. D. 250. St. Dympna, 7th
Cent. St. Genebrard or Genebern.

For the Every-Day Book.

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A SEASONABLE STORY."

'Tis hard, you'll tell me, but tis trueThanks to that heathen dog, MahometIn Turkey if you want to woo

But, by the bye, you'd best keep from it— The object of your love must hide

sir?

Her face from every idle gazerA wholesome check on female pride I think; and what's your notion, pray "Where beechen boughs their shade diffuse" 'Twas once my lot to hear a ditty, Fill'd with such stuff as lovers use To melt the maiden heart with pity,

Recited by a Turk: 'twas queer

I thought that one like him, who never Had seen his mistress, should appear In "puff" and "eulogy" so clever. "Two swains were smoking," tales, you know, Of love begin and end in vapour"Beside a purling stream, when lo !

By came a maiden, slim and taper.
Her eyes were like two stars at night"--
No matter how I came to know it-
The one beholds her with delight

And all at once becomes a poet.
"Why sits thy soul within those eyes?"
The other asks, "resume your smoking,"
The lover hears him with surprise

And answers, "Set aside all joking,
The pipe has now no charms for me;
My heart is, as a fig, transported

To the thick foliage of some tree,

said, Let us see from whence this little spring doth issue forth. It may be the place is more fresh and cool thereabouts: if not, or if we cannot finde out the fountaine from whence it flowes, we will return here.' It liked his company well, and so they desired him to lead the way. Everie place and part of all the brooke upwards invited them to pleasant rest; but, when, at length, after much perplexitie, resulting from the very abundance and luxurie of their choice, they were about to lay themselves downe, they sawe that with greater quantitie of waters and fresher shades of green trees the brooke ran up higher, forsaking its right course towards the left hande, where our companie discovered a great thicket and spring

And there a bright-eyed bird has caught it." of divers trees, in which they saw a very

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narrow entrance, and somewhat long, whose sides were not of walls fabricated by artificiall hand but made of trees by nature, the mistresse of all things. For there were seene the deadly Cypresse, the triumphant laurell, the hard oke, the low sallow, the invincible palme, the blacke and ruggie elme, the olive, the prickie chestenut, and the high pine-apple, one amongst another, whose bodies were bound about with greene ivie and the fruitfull vine, and beset with sweet jesmines and many other redolent flowers, that grew very thicke together in that place. Amongst the which many little birds (inhabitants of that wood) went leaping from bough to bough, making the place more pleasant with their sweet and silver notes. The trees were in such order set together that they denied not the golden sunbeames to have an entrance, to paint the greene ground with divers colours (which reverberated from the flowers) that were never steadie in one place, by reason that the moveable leaves did disquiet them. This narrow way did leade to a little greene, covered all over with fine grasse, and not touched with the hungrie mouthes of devouring flockes. At the side of it was the fountaine of the brooke, having a care that the place should not drie up, sending forth on every side her flowing waters."

heart will court retreat to such a scene of The season is coming on wherein the natural beauty.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Great Star of Bethlehem. Ornithogalum
Umbrellatum.

Dedicated to St. John Nepomucen.

May 17.

St. Paschal Babylon, A. D. 1592. St.
Possidius, Bp. of Calama, in Numidia,
A. D. 430. St. Maden, or Madern. St.
Maw. St. Cathan, 6th or 7th Cent.
St. Silave, or Silan, Bp. A. D. 1100.

CHRONOLOGY.

1817. Died at Heckington, aged sixtyfive, Mr. Samuel Jessup, an opulent grazier, of pill-taking memory. He lived in a very eccentric way, as a bachelor, without known relatives; and at his decease possessed of a good fortune, notwithstand ing a most inordinate craving for physic, by which he was distinguished for the last thirty years of his life, as appeared on a trial for the amount of an apothecary's bill, at the assizes at Lincoln, a short time before Mr. Jessup's death, wherein he was defendant. The evidence on the trial affords the following materials for the epitaph of the deceased, which will not be transcended by the memorabilia of the life of any man:-In twenty-one years (from 1791 to 1816) the deceased took 226,934 pills, supplied by a respectable apothecary at Bottesford; which is at the rate of 10,806 pills a year, or twenty-nine pills each day; but as the patient began with a more moderate appetite, and increased it as he proceeded, in the last five years preceding 1816, he took the pills at the rate of seventy-eight a day, and nd in t the year 1814 he swallowed not less than 51,590. Notwithstanding this, and the addition of 40,000 bottles of mixture, and juleps and electuaries, extending altogether to fifty-five closely written columns of an apothecary's bill, the deceased lived to attain the advanced age of sixty-five years.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

times mayor of the borough; and a magistrate of the county, for which he also served the office of sheriff in 1784. His name is here introduced to commemorate an essential service that he rendered to his country, by his mild and judicious conduct during the inutiny at Spithead, in the spring of 1797. The sailors having lost three of their body in consequence of the resistance made to their going on board the London, then bearing the flag of admiral Colpoys, wished to bury them in Kingston churchyard, and to carry them in procession through the town of Portsmouth. This request was most positively refused them by the governor. They then applied to sir John Carter to grant their request, who endeavoured to convince the governor of the propriety and necessity of complying with it, declaring that he would be answerable for the peace of the town, and the orderly conduct of the sailors. The governor would not be prevailed on, and prepared for resistance; and resistance on both sides would most probably have been resorted to, had not the calmness, perseverance, and forbearance of sir John Carter at length compromised the affair, by obtaining permission for the sailors to pass through the garrison of Portsmouth in procession, and the bodies to be landed at the Common Hard in Portsea, where the procession was to join them.

So great was sir John Carter's influence over the sailors, that they most scrupulously adhered to the terms he prescribed to them in their procession to the grave. Two of their comrades having become "a little groggy" after they came on shore, they were carefully locked up in a room by themselves, lest they should become quarrelsome, or be unable to conduct themselves with propriety. It was a most Sir John acinteresting spectacle.

Early Red Poppy. Papaver Argemone companied them himself through the

Dedicated to St. Paschal Babylon.

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garrison, to prevent any insult being offered to them. At the Common Hard he was joined by Mr. Godwin, the friend and associate of his youth, and also a most worthy magistrate of this borough. They attended the procession till it had passed the fortifications at Portsea: every thing was conducted with the greatest decorum. When the sailors returned, and were sent off to their respective ships, two or three of the managing delegates came to sir John, to inform him that the men were all gone on board, and to thank him for his great goodness to them.

Sir John seized the opportunity of inquiring after their admiral, as these delegates belonged to the London. "Do you know him, your honour?" "Yes; I have a great respect for him, and I hope you will not do him any harm." "No, by G-d, your honour, he shall not be hurt." It was at that time imagined admiral Colpoys would be hung at the yard-arm, and he had prepared for this event by arranging his affairs and making his will. In this will he had left to the widows of the three men who were so unfortunately killed an annuity of 201. each. The next morning, however, the admiral was privately, unexpectedly, and safely brought on shore, though pursued by a boat from the Mars, as soon as they suspected what was transacting. The delegates brought him to sir John Carter, and delivered him to his care they then desired to have a receipt for him, as a proof to their comrades that they had safely delivered him into the hands of the civil power; and this receipt he gave. The admiral himself, in his first appearance at court afterwards, acknowledged to the king that he owed his life to sir John Carter, and assured his majesty that his principles were misinterpreted and his conduct misrepresented, and that he had not a more faithful and worthy subject in his dominions. Notwithstanding this, the duke of Portland, then secretary of state for the home department, received a very strong letter against him, which letter his grace sent to sir John, assuring him at the same time that the government placed the utmost confidence in his honour, integrity, and patriotism, and concluded by proposing to offer a large reward for the discovery of the writer: this, with a dignified consciousness of the purity of his conduct, sir John declined; though, from some well-founded conjectures, the discovery might possibly have been easily made. This inestimable consciousness enabled him to meet with the greatest composure every effort of party rage to sully his reputation and destroy his influence. So pure were his principles, that when in the year 1806 he was offered a baronetage by Mr. Fox, he declined it on the ground that he believed the offer to have been made for his undeviating attachment to Mr. Fox's politics; and that, to accept it, would be a manifest departure from his principles. In every public and domestic relationship he was uniformly mild, impartial, and upright;

nor was he ever deterred by personal difficulties or inconveniences from a faithful, and even minute attendance on his widely extended duties. The poor in him ever found a friend, and the unfortunate a protector. The peace, comfort, and happiness of others, and not his own interest, were the unwearied objects of his pursuit. Never was there a character in which there was less of self than in his.

MANURES.

Rambling in cultivated spots renders one almost forgetful of cultivating friends. On the subject of "manure," the editor of the Every-Day Book has no competent knowledge; he has not settled in his own mind whether he should decide for "long straw or short straw," and as regards himself would willingly dispose of the important question by "drawing cuts;" all he can at present do for his country readers, is to tell them what lord Bacon affirms; his lordship says that "muck should be spread." This would make a capital text or vignette for a dissertation; but there is no space here to dissertate, and if Messrs. Taylor and Hessey's London Magazine, for May, had not suggested the subject, it would scarcely have occurred. There the reviewer of "Gaieties and Gravities" has extracted some points from that work, which are almost equal to the quantity of useful information derivable from more solid books-here they are:

Gaieties.

"Residing upon the eastern coast, and farming a considerable extent of country, I have made repeated and careful experiments with this manure; and as the mode of burial in many parts of the Continent divides the different classes into appropriated portions of the church yard, I have been enabled, by a little bribery to sextons and charnel-house men, to obtain specimens of every rank and character, and to ascertain with precision their separate qualities and results for the purposes of the farmer, botanist, or common nurseryman. These it is my pur. pose to communicate to the reader, who may depend upon the caution with which the different tests were applied, as well as upon the fidelity with which they are reported.

"A few cartloads of citizens' bones gave me a luxuriant growth of London pride, plums, Sibthorpia or base moneywort, mud-wort, bladder-wort, and mushrooms; but for laburnum or golden

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