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leisure, they all play together at bowls. He adds, that it is not necessary to describe them all, because it is not the custom of this highly indispensable fraternity to do kindness, and they are always indignant at strong reproaches. Finally, he says, "I pray God to turn them from their wickedness." He subjoins a song which he declares if you read and sing, will show he has told the truth, and that you will be delighted with it. He alleges, that he drew it up to make you better acquainted with the scene represented in the wood-cut, in order that you might be amused and laugh. Whether it had that tendency cannot be determined, for unluckily the song, which no doubt was the best part, has perished from the copy of the singular paper now described.

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To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Sir,-If the following sketch of St. Wilfrid's life, as connected with his feast at Rippon, be thought sufficiently interesting for insertion, you will oblige an old contributor.

The town of Rippon owes its rise to the piety of early times, for we find that Eata, abbot of Melross and Lindisfarne, in the year 661 founded a monastery there, for which purpose he had lands given him by Alchfrid, at that time king of Deira, and afterwards of the Northumbrians; but before the building was completed, the Scottish monks retired from the monastery, and St. Wilfrid was appointed abbot in 663, and soon after

wards raised to the see of York.

This

prelate was then in high favour with Oswy and Egfrid, kings of Northumberland, and the principal nobility, by whose liberality he rose to such a degree of

opulence as to vie with princes, and enable him to build several rich monasteries; but his great pomp and immense wealth having drawn upon him the jealousy of the king and the archbishop of Canterbury, he was exiled. After an absence of ten years he was allowed to return to his see, and died in the monastery of Oundle in 711, aged seventy-six, and was interred there. In 940, his remains were removed to Canterbury, by Odo, archbishop of that see. Amongst all the miracles recorded of Wilfrid by the author of his life," one, if true, was very extraordinary, and would go far to convert the most obdurate pagan. It is said, that at this time, God so blessed the holy man's endeavours towards the propagation of the faith, that, on a solemn day for baptizing some thousands of the people of Sussex, the ceremony was no sooner ended but the heavens distilled such plentiful showers of rain, that the country was relieved by it from the most prodigious famine ever heard of. So great was the drought, and provision so scarce, that, in the extremity of hunger, fifty at a time joined hand in hand and flung themselves into the sea, in order to avoid the death of famine by land. But by Wilfrid's means their bodies and souls were preserved.

The town of Rippon continues to this day to honour the memory of its benefactor by an annual feast. On the Saturday following Lammas-day, the effigy of St. Wilfrid is brought into the town with great ceremony, preceded by music, when the people go out to meet it in commemoration of the return of their favourite saint and patron from exile. The following day called St. Wilfrid's Sunday is dedicated to him. On the Monday and Tuesday there are horseraces for small sums only; though formerly there were plates of twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty pounds.†

The following is a literal copy of part of an advertisement from the "Newcastle Courant” August 28, 1725.

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each horse to pay two guineas entrance, run three heats, the usual four miles' course for a heat, and carry nine stone, besides saddle and bridle. On Tuesday the fourteenth, THE LADY'S PLATE of fifteen pounds' value by any horse, &c. Women to be the riders: each to pay one guinea entrance, three heats, and twice about the common for a beat."

During the feast of St. Wilfrid, which continues nearly all the week, the inhabitants of Rippon enjoy the privilege of rambling through the delightful grounds of "Studley Royal," the seat of Mrs. Laurence, a lady remarkable for her amiable character and bounty to the neighbouring poor. On St. Wilfrid's day the gates of this fairy region are thrown open, and all persons are allowed to wander where they please.

No description can do justice to the exuberant distribution of nature and art which surrounds one on every side on entering these beautiful and enchanting grounds; the mind can never cease to wonder, nor the eye tire in beholding

them.

The grounds consist of about three hundred acres, and are laid out with a taste unexcelled in this country. There is every variety of hill and dale, and a judicious introduction of ornamental buildings with a number of fine statues; among them are Hercules and Antæus, Roman wrestlers, and a remarkably fine dying gladiator. The beauties of this terrestrial paradise would fill a volume, but the chief attraction is the grand monastic ruin of Fountain's abbey. This magnificent remain of olden time is preserved with the utmost care by the express command of its owner, and is certainly the most perfect in the kingdom. It is seated in a romantic dale surrounded by majestic oaks and firs. The great civility of the persons appointed to show the place, is not the least agreeable feeling on à visit to Studley Royal.

I am, &c. J. J. A. F.

DISSENTERS' FESTIVAL.

The first of August, as the anniversary of the death of queen Anne, and the accession of George I., seems to have been kept with rejoicing by the dissenters. In the year 1733, they held a great meeting in London, and several other parts of the kingdom to celebrate the day, it being

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DOGGET'S COAT AND BADGE.

Also in honour of this day there is a rowing match on the river Thames, instituted by Thomas Dogget an old actor of celebrity, who was so attached to the Brunshim "a whig up to the head and ears." wick family, that sir Richard Steele called

In the year after George I. came to the throne, Dogget gave a waterman's coat and silver badge to be rowed for by six watermen on the first day of August, being the anniversary of that king's accession to the throne. This he continued till his death, when it was found that he the interest of which was to be approhad bequeathed a certain sum of money, of a like coat and badge, to be rowed for priated annually, for ever, to the purchase in honour of the day by six young watermen whose apprenticeships had expired the year before. This ceremony is every year performed on the first of August, the claimants setting out, at a signal given, at that time of the tide when the current is strongest against them, and rowing from the Old Swan, near London-bridge, to the White Swan at Chelsea.+

before he was a prize-fighter, won the Broughton, who was a waterman, first coat and badge.

This annual rowing-match is the subject of a ballad-opera, by Charles Dibdin, first performed at the Haymarket, in 1774, called "The Waterman, or the First of August." In this piece Tom Tugg, a candidate for Dogget's coat and badge, sings the following, which was long a popular

SONG.

And did you not hear of a jolly young water

man,

Who at Blackfriars-bridge used for to ply; And he feather'd his oars with such skill and dexterity,

Winning each heart and delighting each He looked so neat, and rowed so steadily, eye: The maidens all flocked in his boat so readily,

Gentleman's Magazine.

↑ Jones's Biographia Dramaticæ.

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What sights of fine folks he oft row'd in his wherry!

'Twas clean'd out so nice, and so painted withal;

He was always first oars when the fine city ladies,

In a party to Ranelagh went, or Vauxhall : And oftentimes would they be giggling and leering,

But 'twas all one to Tom, their gibing and jeering,

For loving, or liking, he little did care,

valued him highly, resorted to the authority of the lord chamberlain. "Accordingly upon his complaint, a messenger was immediately despatched to Norwich, where Dogget then was, to bring him up in custody. But doughty Dogget, who had money in his pocket, and the cause of liberty at his heart, was not in the least intimidated by this formidable summons. He was observed to obey it with a particular cheerfulness, entertaining his fellow-traveller, the messenger, all the way in the coach (for he had protested against riding) with as much humour as a man of his business might be capable of

For this waterman ne'er was in want of a tasting. And, as he found his charges

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DOGGET.

Colley Cibber calls Dogget❝ a prudent, honest man," and relates anecdotes highly

to our founder's honour. One of them is very characteristic of Dogget's good sense and firmness.

The lord chamberlain was accustomed to exercise great power over actors. In king William's reign he issued an order that no actor of either company should presume to go from one to the other without a discharge, and the lord chamberlain's permission; and messengers actually took performers who disobeyed the edict into custody. Dogget was under articles to play at Drury-lane, but conceiving himself treated unfairly, quitted the stage, would act no more, and pre ferred to forego his demands rather than hazard the tediousness and danger of the law to recover them. The manager, who

were to be defrayed, he, at every inn, could afford, or a pretended weak appecalled for the best dainties the country tite could digest. At this rate they jollily rolled on, more with the air of a jaunt than a journey, or a party of pleasure than of a poor devil in durance. Upon his arrival in town, he immediately applied to the lord chief justice Holt for his habeas corpus. As his case was something particular, that eminent and learned notice of it: for Dogget was not only minister of the law took a particular discharged, but the process of his confinement (according to common fame) had a censure passed upon it in court."

"We see," says Cibber, "how naturally power, only founded on custom, is apt, where the law is silent, to run into excesses; and while it laudably pretends to govern others, how hard it is to govern itself."*

The

celebrated performer, but through Cibber, Scarcely any thing is known of this with whom he was a joint patentee in Drury-lane theatre. They sometimes warmly differed, but Cibber respected his integrity and admired his talents. logy," are exceedingly amusing, and the accounts of Dogget in "Cibber's Apobook is now easily accessible, for it forms the first volume of "Autobiography, a collection of the most instructive and themselves;"-a work printed in an ele amusing lives written by the parties gant form, and published at a reasonable be purchased separately. price, and so arranged that every life may

Cibber says of Dogget, "He was a golden actor. He was the most an original, and the strictest observer of nature,

* Autobiography, 1826, 18mo. vol. i. P.

202.

of all his contemporaries. He borrowed from none of them; his manner was his own; he was a pattern to others, whose great merit was, that they had sometimes tolerably imitated him. In dressing a character to the greatest exactness he was remarkably skilful; the least article of whatever habit he wore, seemed in some degree to speak and mark the different humour he presented; a necessary care in a comedian, in which many have been too remiss or ignorant. He could be extremely ridiculous without stepping into the least impropriety to make him so. His greatest success was in characters of lower life, which he improved from the delight he took in his observations of that kind in the real world. In songs and particular dances, too, of humour, he had Do competitor. Congreve was a great admirer of him, and found his account in the characters he expressly wrote for him. In those of Fondlewife, in his Old Batchelor,' and Ben, in Love for Love,' no author and actor could be more obliged to their mutual masterly performances." Dogget realized a fortune, retired from the stage, and died, endeared to watermen and whigs, at Eltham, in Kent, on the twenty-second of September, 1721.

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NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. Mean Temperature... 64.77.

August 2

CHRONOLOGY.

Thomas Gainsborough, eminent as a painter, and for love of his art, died on the second of August, 1788. His last words were, "We are all going to heaven, and Vandyke is of the party." He was buried, by his own desire, near his friend Kirby, the author of the Treatise on "Perspective," in the grave-yard of Kew chapel.

Gainsborough was born at Sudbury, in Suffolk, in 1727, where his father was a clothier, and nature the boy's teacher. He passed his mornings in the woods alone; and in solitary rambles sketched old trees, brooks, a shepherd and his flock, cattle, or whatever his fancy seized on. After painting several landscapes, he arrived in London and received in structions from Gravelot and Hayman: he lived in Hatton-Garden, married a lady with 2001. a year, went to Bath, and painted portraits for five guineas, till the demand for his talent enabled him gradu

He

ally to raise the price to a 1007. settled in Pall-mall in 1774, with fame and fortune.

Gainsborough, while at Bath, was chosen a member of the Royal Academy on its institution, but neglected its meetings. Sir Joshua Reynolds says, "whether he most excelled in portraits, landscapes, or fancy pictures, it is most difficult to determine." His aerial perspective is uncommonly light and beautiful. He derived his grace and elegance from nature, rather than manners; and hence his paintings are inimitably true and bewitching. Devoted to his art, he regretted leaving it; just before his death, he said, "he saw his deficiences, and had endeavoured to remedy them in his last works."

No object was too mean for Gainsborough's pencil; his habit of closely observing things in their several particulars, enabled him to perceive their relations to each other, and combine them. By painting at night, he acquired new perceptions: he had eyes and saw, and he secured every advantage he discovered. He etched three plates; one for "Kirby's Perspective;" another an oak tree with gypsies; and the third, a man ploughing on a rising ground, which he spoiled in "biting in:" the print is rare.

In portraits he strove for natural character, and when this was attained, seldom proceeded farther. He could have imparted intelligence to the features of the dullest, but he disdained to elevate what nature had forbidden to rise; hence, if he painted a butcher in his Sunday-coat, he made him, as he looked, a respectable yeoman; but his likenesses were chiefly of persons of the first quality, and he maintained their dignity. portraits are seldom highly finished, and are not sufficiently estimated, for the very reason whereon his reputation for natural scenery is deservedly high. Sir Joshua gave Gainsborough one hundred guineas for a picture of a girl and pigs, though its artist only required sixty.

His

Gainsborough had what the world calls eccentricities. They resulted rather from his indulgence in study, than contempt for the usages of society. It was well for Gainsborough that he could disregard the courtesies of life without disturbance to his happiness, from those with whom manners are morals.

Pilkington.

A series of "Studies of Figures" from Gainsborough's "Sketch Books," are exe cuted in lithography, in exact imitation of his original drawings by Mr. Richard Lane. Until this publication, these draw ings were unknown. Mr. Lane's work is to Gainsborough, what the prints in Mr. Otley's "Italian School of Design," are to Raphael and Michael Angelo. Each print is so perfect a fac-simile, that it would be mistaken for the original drawing, if we were not told otherwise. This is the way to preserve the reputation of artists. Their sketches are often better than their paintings: the elaboration of a thought tends to evaporate its spirit.

NATURALISTS' CALENDAR, Mean Temperature ... 64. 95.

August 3.

CHRONOLOGY.

Michael Adanson, an eminent naturalist of Scottish extraction, born in April, 1727, at Aix, in Provence, died at Paris on the third of August, 1806. Needham, at one of his examinations, presented Adanson, then a child, with a microscope, and the use of the instrument gave the boy a bias to the science which he distinguished as a philosopher. His parents destined him for the church, and obtained a prebend's stall for him, but he abandoned his seat, made a voyage to Senegal in 1757, and published the result of his labours in a natural history of that country. This obtained him the honour of corresponding member in the Academy of Sciences. In 1763, his "Famille des Plantes" appeared; it was followed by a design of an immense general work, which failed from Louis XV., withholding his patronage. He formed the project of a settlement on the African coast for raising colonial produce without negro slavery, which the French East India company refused to encourage: he refused to communicate his plan to the English, who, after they had become martyrs of Senegal, applied for it to Adanson, through lord North. He declined invitations from the courts of Spain and Russia, and managed as well as he could with pensions derived from his office of royal censor, his place in the academy, and other sources inadequate to the expense of forming his im

mense collections. He was reduced to poverty by the revolution. The French invited him to join it as a member; he answered, "he had no shoes." This procured him a small pension, whereon he subsisted till his death *

So early as thirteen years of age, Adanson began to write notes on the natural histories of Aristotle and Pliny; but soon quitted books to study nature. He made a collection of thirty-three thousand exist ences, which he arranged in a series of his own. This was the assiduous labour of eight years. Five years spent at Senegal, gave him the opportunity of augmenting his catalogue. He extended his researches to subjects of commercial utility, explored the most fertile and best situated districts of the country, formed a map of it, followed the course of the Niger, and brought home with him an immense collection of observations, philosophical, political, moral, and economical, with an addition to his catalogue of about thirty thousand hitherto unknown species, which, with his former list, and subsequent additions brought the whole number to more than ninety thousand.

The arrangement of Adanson's "Familles des Plantes," is founded upon the principle," that if there is in nature a system which we can detect, it can only be founded on the totality of the relations of characters, derived from all the parts and qualities of plants." His labours are too manifold to be specified, but their magnitude may be conceived from his having laid before the academy, in 1773, the plan of his "Universal Natural Encyclopædia," consisting of one hundred and twenty manuscript volumes, illustrated by seventy-five thousand figures, in folio. In 1776, he published in the "Supplement of the first Encyclopædia," by Diderot and D'Alembert, the articles relative to natu ral history and the philosophy of the sciences, comprised under the letters A. B. C. In 1779, he journied over the highest mountains in Europe, whence he brought more than twenty thousand specimens of different minerals, and charts of more than twelve hundred leagues of country. He was the possessor of the most copious cabinet in the world.

General Biography, vol. i. 17.

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