the wide umbrageous canopy of nature.
Gipsies, or fortune-tellers, are constantly to be found in Bagley Wood; and many a gay Oxonian may be seen in the company of some wandering Egyptian beauty. So partial, indeed, are several of the young men of the university to the tawny tribe, that they are frequently observed in their academicals, lounging round the picturesque tents, having their fortunes told; though, it must be remarked, their countenances usually evince a waggish incredulity on those occasions, and they appear much more amused with the novel scene around them than gratified with the favourable predictions of the wily Egyptians.
The merry gipsies of Bagley Wood might well sing with Herrick
"Here we securely live, and eat
The cream of meat;
And keep eternal fires
By which we sit, and do divine."
EATING "MUTTON COLD."
A correspondent in a late number asks for a solution of the expression, "eating mutton cold." If the following one is worth printing, it is much at your service and that of the readers of the MIRROR.
I consider then that it has simply the same meaning as that of "coming a day after the fair." To come at the end of a feast when the various viands (always including mutton as being easy of digestion for dyspeptic people) were still warm, though cut pretty near to the bone, would, by most persons, particularly aldermanic "bodies," be considered sufficiently vexatious; how doubly annoying then must it be to come so late as to find the meats more than half cold, and, perhaps, but little of them left even in that anti-epicurean state! Whoever has been unfortunate enough to miss a fine fat haunch either of venison or mutton, which, smoking on the board, even Dr. Kitchiner would have pronounced fit for an emperor, cannot but enter deeply and feelingly into the disappointment of that guest who, arriving, through some misdate of the invitation card, on the day subsequent to the feast, finds but, horribile dictu, cold lean ham, cold pea-soup, cold potatoes, and finally, cold mutton. Goldsmith's idea certainly was that Burke was never able to say, in the words of the Roman adage, in tempore veni quod rerum omnium est primum; but rather in plain English, "confound my ill luck, I never yet was invited to a feast but I either missed it in toto, or came so late as to be obliged to eat my mutton cold, a thing, which of all others, I most abhor." HEN. B.
POOL'S HOLE, DERBYSHIRE
This cave is said to have taken its title from a notorious robber of that name, who being declared an outlaw, found in this hole a refuge from justice, where he carried on his nocturnal depredations with impunity. Others insist that this dismal hole was the habitation of a hermit or anchorite, of the name of Pool. Of the two traditions, I prefer the former. It is situated at the bottom of Coitmos, a lofty mountain near Buxton. The entrance is by a small arch, so low that you are forced to creep on hands and knees to gain admission; but it gradually opens into a vault above a quarter of a mile in length, and as some assert, a quarter of a mile high. It is certainly very lofty, and resembles the roof of a Gothic edifice. In a cavern to the right called Pool's Chamber, there is a fine echo, and the dashing of a current of water, which flows along the middle of the great vault, very much heightens the wonder.
On the floor are great ridges of stone—water is perpetually distilling from the roof and sides of this vault, and the drops before they fall produce a very pleasing effect, by reflecting numberless rays from the candles carried by the guides. They also form their quality from crystallizations of various flakes like figures of fret work, and in some places, having long accumulated upon one another, into large masses, bearing a rude resemblance to various animals.
In the same cavity is a column as clear as alabaster, called Mary Queen of Scots' column, because it is said she reached so far; beyond which is a steep ascent for nearly a quarter of a mile, which terminates in a hollow in the roof, called the Needle's-eye, in which, when the guide places his candle, it looks like a star in the firmament. You only wonder when you get out how you attained such an achievement. W.H.H.
CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL
Happening to look at No. 229, of your valuable Miscellany, in which you have given rather a lengthy account of Canterbury Cathedral, I was surprised to find no notice taken of the beautiful STONE SCREEN in the interior of the cathedral, which is considered by many, one of the finest specimens of florid Gothic in the kingdom. The following is a brief description of this ancient specimen of architecture:
This fine piece of Gothic carved work was built by Prior Hen. de Estria, in 1304. It is rich in flutings, pyramids, and canopied niches, in which stand six statues crowned, five of which hold globes in their hands, and the sixth a church. Various have been the conjectures as to the individuals intended by these statues. That holding the church is supposed to represent King Ethelbert, being a very ancient man with a long beard. The next figure appears more feminine, and may probably intend his queen, Bertha.
Before the havoc made in Charles's reign, there were thirteen figures representing Christ and his Apostles in the niches which are round the arch-doorway, and also twelve mitred Saints aloft along the stone work, where is now placed an organ.
At the National Repository, Charing Cross, there is exhibited a very correct model of this screen, in which the likenesses of the ancient kings are admirably imitated. P.T.
ANCIENT STONE
There formerly stood about three miles from Carmarthen, at a place called New Church, a stone about eight feet long and two broad. The only distinguishable words upon it were "Severus filius Severi." The remainder of the inscription, by dilapidation and time, was defaced. It is supposed that there had been a battle fought here, and that Severus fell. About a quarter of a mile from this was another with the name of some other individual. The above stone was removed by the owner of the land on which it stood, and is now used instead of a gate-post by him. I should imagine it was the son of Severus the Roman, who founded the great wall and ditch called after him, Severus' Wall and Ditch, and as there was a Roman road from St. David's, in Wales, to Southampton, it is not improbable that the Romans should come from thence to Carmarthen. W.H.
THE COSMOPOLITE
DIET OF VARIOUS NATIONS
To the artist, the amateur, the traveller, and man of taste in general, the following gleanings respecting the diet of various nations, are, in the spirit of English hospitality, cordially inscribed. The breakfast of the Icelanders consists of skyr, a kind of sour, coagulated milk, sometimes mixed with fresh milk or cream, and flavoured with the juice of certain berries; their usual dinner is dried fish, skyr, and rancid butter; and skyr, cheese, or porridge, made of Iceland moss, forms their supper; bread is rarely tasted by many of the Icelanders, but appears as a dainty at their rural feasts with mutton, and milk-porridge. They commonly drink a kind of whey mixed with water. As the cattle of this people are frequently, during winter, reduced to the miserable necessity of subsisting on dried fish, we can scarcely conceive their fresh meat to be so great a luxury as it is there esteemed. The poor of Sweden live on hard bread, salted or dried fish, water-gruel, and beer. The Norwegian nobility and merchants fare sumptuously, but the lower classes chiefly subsist on the following articles:—oatmeal-bread, made in thin cakes (strongly resembling the havver-bread of Scotland) and baked only twice a-year. The oatmeal for this bread is, in times of scarcity, which in Norway frequently occur, mixed with the bark of elm or fir tree, ground, after boiling and drying, into a sort of flour; sometimes in the vicinity of fisheries, the roes of cod kneaded with the meal of oats or barley, are made into a kind of hasty-pudding, and
