** H.
COMMON RIGHTS
(To the Editor of the Mirror.)As the columns of your MIRROR are a treasury of instruction, perhaps it may not be thought amiss, or unworthy its pages, to record the advances of science in the land we live in. I have long since heard of our American brethren possessing the wonderful art of "launching" as the term is, their habitations; but I was not aware that my friends on this side the water had arrived at such a height on the hill of invention, until a few weeks back, when travelling in the western part of Dorsetshire, through the small village of Pulham, in that county; a neat, comfortable-looking cottage was pointed out for my observation, and which I was assured by many creditable persons, who had witnessed the performance, was, in the year 1826, chimneys, windows, and altogether, removed, without sustaining any injury, the distance of nearly two miles. The power employed was that of ten horses. The spot where it was intended originally to stand, was pointed out to me, being a piece of waste land called Lydlinch Common. I inquired what motive could have induced the proprietor to coach it off in such a novel manner, and the following account I received "under the rose."
The brother of the person whose ingenuity has thus exerted itself, possessed a small property bordering on the aforesaid common. But to understand my story, you must know that the peasantry of the west of England, imbibe a notion, whether erroneous or not, I am not learned enough to say, that if a person builds on waste lands, and is permitted to proceed uninterrupted by the Lord of the Manor, or any other person, until he has roofed and occupied it, or as they express it "made a smoke in it" that the builder has an indisputable right to it. Now the man willing to act on this principle, set his wits to work and constructed a house on his brother's property beforementioned, on a movable foundation, such as I am unable to describe; and when completed, he, in the course of one night launched it over the hedge fairly into the common, and the next morning found him busily employed in making the smoke that was, according to village laws, to establish him in his newly acquired habitation; and no doubt he would have continued quietly in the same place to this day, had not a neighbouring 'squire took it into his head to teach this commentator on the law, another version of its intricacies, and finally caused him to set his house a-going once more, which it did in the manner aforesaid, to a bit of land to which he had a more legal right, and where it now stands.
Wonderful as this relation may seem, its truth may be relied on, and any reader of the MIRROR, travelling, or having friends in that part of the country, may easily ascertain the truth of my statement. The house at present stands near the highway leading from Sturminster to Sherborne, about five or six miles from the former, and six or seven from the latter.
RURIS.
Blandford, April 9, 1829.
ORIGIN OF SIGNS.CAT AND THE FIDDLE
(To the Editor of the Mirror.)No part of the history of civilized nations is involved in such deep obscurity as the origin and progress of their names. I do not mean their names of men and women, the etymology of which are easy; for any stupid fellow can see with half an eye that Xisuthrus and Noah are one and the same person; and that Thoth can only be Hermes; nor is there any discernable difference between Pelagius and Morgan; tout celà va sans se dire, but when we come to account for the names of places or of signs, then indeed are we lost in a vast field of metaphysical disquisition and conjectural criticism. The Spectator, your worthy predecessor, threw much light upon the science, but still he left it in its infancy. To be sure, he traced the Bull and Mouth to the Boulogne Mouth, but I don't remember that he made many other discoveries in this terrâ incognitâ. However, he hinted that the roots of most of these old saws were to be found in the French language, or rather in the jargon spoken by the would-be-fine people, in imitation of the court, and by them called French. Neither the Spectator, however, nor any of his periodical imitators have ever found out why a certain headland, bare as the back of my hand, should be dignified with the appellation of Beechey Head; unless indeed, according to the Eton grammar, our ancestors used the rule of lucus a non lucendo. The reason, however, is to be found in the French language, and Beechey Head is the present guide of the old beau chef, whereby this point was once known. The Spectator also, if I remember right, declared the old sign of the Cat and the Fiddle to be quite beyond his comprehension. In truth, no two objects in the world have less to do with each other than a cat and a violin, and the only explanation ever given of this wonderful union, appears to be, that once upon a time, a gentleman kept a house with the sign of a Cat, and a lady one, with the sign of a Fiddle, or vice versâ. That these two persons fell in love, married, and set up an Inn, which to commemorate their early loves, they called the Cat and the Fiddle. Such reasoning is exceedingly poetical, and also (mind, also, not therefore) exceedingly nonsensical. No, Sir, the Cat and the Fiddle is of greater antiquity. Did you ever read the History of Rome? Of Rome! yes, of Rome. Thence comes the Cat and the Fiddle, in somewhat a roundabout way perhaps, but so it is:
Vixtrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.
Cato was faithful to the sacred cause of liberty, and disdained to survive it; and now for the fiddle. In the days of good Queen Bess, when those who had borne the iron yoke of Mary, ventured forth and gloried in that freedom of conscience which had lately been denied them, a jolly innkeeper having lately cast off the shackles of the old religion, likened himself to the old Roman, and wrote over his door l'Hostelle du Caton fidelle. The hostelle and its sign lasted longer than the worthy gentleman, and having gone shockingly to decay, was many years after re-established. But alas! the numerous French words once mixed with our language had vanished, barbarized, and ground down into a heterogeneous mass of sounds; and le Caton fidelle was no longer known to his best friends when resuscitated under the anomalous title of the Cat and Fiddle!!
XX.
THE BLIND GIRL
(For the Mirror.)As fair a thing as e'er was form'd of clay.
Sweet wandererwe have known her long!
And often on our ear,
Has gush'd the cadence of her song,
As if some stream were near.
Her path was through our tranquil dell,
When breezes kiss'd the curfew bell.
We gaz'd upon the golden hair,
That o'er her white brow shone,
And beauty's tinge had cluster'd there,
A grace unlike its own.
We call'd it beautifulthat brow!
But rayless were the eyes below.
Those pale dim eyes, we would have given
Our flowers to see them glow
They slept, as sleeps the summer heaven,
When the sun waxeth low:
And soft her glossy lashes were,
As stars within the crystal air.
Oh, call her not a phantom form,
Of deep sepulchral spells;
Her maiden lips with life are warm,
And thought within her dwells
Thought, holy as the light that lies
In the rapt martyr's lifted eyes.
Her home'tis far away from her,
Its quiet porch is lone,
And the sunny wind no more shall stir
Its streamlet's silver tone.
The zephyrs there, their incense wreathe,
But, o'er her hair they shall not breathe.
Her sire reposeth in the wave,
Beneath an Indian sky;
The violets fringe her mother's grave,
And there, her sisters lie!
And we will waft to heaven our prayers,
When her pure dust is mix'd with theirs.