the Maltese orange,"[56] which is rather more obfuscated than your fruit of Seville, or Saint Michael's; and may help to reconcile the difference. We cannot speak from observation, but we remember at school getting our fingers into the orangery of one of these little gentry (not having a due caution of the traps set there), and the result proved sourer than lemons. The Author of the Task somewhere speaks of their anger as being "insignificantly fierce," but we found the demonstration of it on this occasion quite as significant as we desired; and have not been disposed since to look any of these "gift horses" in the mouth. Maiden aunts keep these "small deer" as they do parrots, to bite people's fingers, on purpose to give them good advice "not to venture so near the cage another time." As for their "six quavers divided into three quavers and a dotted crotchet," I suppose, they may go into Jeremy Bentham's next budget of Fallacies, along with the "melodious and proportionable kinde of musicke," recorded in your last number of another highly gifted animal [see page 358].
C. L.
[56] Fletcher in the "Faithful Shepherdess."—The Satyr offers to Clorin,
—grapes whose lusty blood
Is the learned Poet's good,
Sweeter yet did never crown
The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown
Than the squirrels' teeth that crack them.——
VI.—AN APPEARANCE OF THE SEASON
(1826)
Apology will scarcely be required for introducing a character, who at this season of the year comes forth in renovated honours, and may aptly be termed one of its ever-blues—not a peculiar of either Farringdons, nor him of Cripplegate, or St. Giles in the Fields, or of any ward or precinct within the bills: not this or that "good man"—but the universal parish beadle. "How Christmas and consolatory he looks! how redolent of good cheer is he! He is a cornucopia—an abundance. What pudding sleeves!—what a collar, red, and like a beef steak, is his! He is a walking refreshment! He looks like a whole parish, full, important—but untaxed. The children of charity gaze at him with a modest smile. The straggling boys look on him with confidence. They do not pocket their marbles. They do not fly from their familiar gutter. This is a red letter day; and the cane is reserved for to-morrow."
For the pleasant verbal description we are indebted to an agreeable writer in the "London Magazine;"[57] his corporal lineaments are "borrowed" (with permission) from a new caricature,[58] if it may be given so low a name, wherein this figure stands out, the very gem and jewel, in a grouping of characters of all sorts and denominations assembled with "infinite fancy" and "fun," to illustrate the designer's views of the age. It is a graphic satire of character rather than caricatura; mostly of class-characters, not persons; wherein the ridicule bears heavily, but is broad and comprehensive enough to shift from one neighbour to another.
[57] For Dec., 1822.
[58] The Progress of Cant; designed and etched by one of the authors of "Odes and Addresses to Great People;" and published by T. Maclean, Haymarket, L. Relfe, Cornhill; and Dickenson, New Bond-Street.
VII.—THE MONTHS
(1826)
For the Every-Day Book
Rummaging over the contents of an old stall at a half book, half old iron shop, in an alley leading from Wardour-street to Soho-square yesterday, I lit upon a ragged duodecimo, which had been the strange delight of my infancy, and which I had lost sight of for more than forty years:—the "Queen-like Closet, or Rich Cabinet:" written by Hannah Woolly, and printed for R. C. & T. S. 1681; being an abstract of receipts in cookery, confectionary, cosmetics, needlework, morality, and all such branches of what were then considered as female accomplishments. The price demanded was sixpence, which the owner (a little squab duodecimo of a character himself) enforced with the assurance that his "own mother should not have it for a farthing less." On my demurring at this extraordinary assertion, the dirty little vendor reinforced his assertion with a sort of oath, which seemed more than the occasion demanded: "and now (said he) I have put my soul to it." Pressed by so solemn an asseveration, I could no longer resist a demand which seemed to set me, however unworthy, upon a level with his dearest relations; and depositing a tester, I bore away the tattered prize in triumph. I remembered a gorgeous description of the twelve months of the year, which I thought would be a fine substitute for those poetical descriptions of them which your Every-Day Book had nearly exhausted out of Spenser. This will be a treat, thought I, for friend Hone. To memory they seemed no less fantastic and splendid than the other. But, what are the mistakes of childhood!—on reviewing them, they turned out to be only a set of common-place receipts for working the seasons, months, heathen gods and goddesses, &c. in samplars! Yet as an instance of the homely occupations of our great-grandmothers, they may be amusing to some readers: "I have seen," says the notable Hannah Woolly, "such Ridiculous things done in work, as it is an abomination to any Artist to behold. As for Example: You may find in some Pieces, Abraham and Sarah, and many other Persons of Old time, Cloathed, as they go now a-daies, and truly sometimes worse; for they most resemble the Pictures on Ballads. Let all Ingenious Women have regard, that when they work any Image, to represent it aright. First, let it be Drawn well, and then observe the Directions which are given by Knowing Men. I do assure you, I never durst work any Scripture-Story without informing my self from the Ground of it: nor any other Story, or single Person, without informing my self both of the Visage and Habit; As followeth.
"If you work Jupiter, the Imperial feigned god, He must have long Black-Curled-hair, a Purple Garment trimmed with Gold, and sitting upon a Golden Throne, with bright yellow Clouds about him."
The Twelve Months of the Year
March:
Is drawn in Tawny, with a fierce aspect, a Helmet upon his head, and leaning on a Spade, and a Basket of Garden Seeds in his Left hand, and in his Right hand the Sign of Aries; And Winged.
April.
A Young Man in Green, with a Garland of Mirtle, and Hawthorn-Buds; Winged; in one hand Primroses and Violets, in the other the Sign Taurus.
May.
With a sweet and lovely Countenance, clad in a Robe of White and Green, embroidered with several Flowers, upon his Head a garland of all manner of Roses; on the one hand a Nightingale, in the other a Lute. His Sign must be Gemini.
June.
In a Mantle of dark Grass-green, upon his Head a garland of Bents, Kings-Cups, and Maiden-hair; in his Left hand an Angle, with a box of Cantharides, in his Right, the Sign Cancer, and upon his arms a Basket
