THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER.

ridge thus again reverts to the circumstanc of its having been published without his or White's sanction:

John Rudge by his will, dated in 1725, gave five shillings a quarter to a poor man to go about the parish church of Trysull, in Staffordshire, during sermon, to keep people awake, and keep dogs out of the church. This sum is still paid for that purpose.

But first of your sonnet. On reading the sentences in your letter respecting it, I stood staring vacantly on the paper, in a state of feeling not At Chislet, in Kent, is a piece of land called unlike that which I have too often experienced "Dog-whipper's marsh," about two acres, out of in a dream when I have found myself in chains, which the tenants pay ten shillings a year to a or in rags, shunned, or passed by, with looks of person for keeping order in the church during horror blended with sadness, by friends and ac-divine service.

quaintance; and convinced that, in some aliena- There is an acre of land in the parish of tion of mind, I must have perpetrated some Peter-church, Herefordshire, appropriated to the erime, which I strove in vain to recollect. I use of a person for keeping dogs out of the church. then ran down to Mrs. Gilman, to learn whether she or Mr. Gilman could throw any light on the subject. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Gilman could account for it. I have repeated the sonnet often, but, to the best of my recollection, never either gave a copy to any one, or permitted any one to transcribe it; and as to publishing it without your consent, you must allow me to say the truth I had felt myself so much flattered by your having addressed it to me, that I should have been half afraid that it would appear to be asking to have my vanity tickled, if I had thought of applying to you for permission to publish it. Where and when did it appear? If you will be so good as to inform me, I may perhaps trace it out: for it annoys me to imagine myself capable of such a breach of confidence and of delicacy.

In his Journal, October 16 [1838 ?], Blanco White says:

and

In the parish of Christchurch, Spitalfields, there is a charity fund called "cat and dog money," the interest on which is now divided annually amongst six poor widows of weavers of the names of Fabry, or Ovington. There is a tradition in the parish that this money was originally left for the support of cats and dogs, but it is more probable that it was originally intended, as in the cases above mentioned, to "whip dogs and cats" out of the church during divine service, and that on the unforeseen increase in the fund after a lapse of years, it became appropriated in the present way. This money was the subject of a chancery suit in the last century, and the decree therein directed the present division.

Many of your readers will call to mind the yelp of some poor cur who had strolled through the open door of a country church on some sultry day, and been ejected by the sexton. I myself have often listened to the pit-a-pat in the In copying out my "Sonnet on Night quiet aisle, and I once remember a disturbance Death" for a friend, I have made some correc-in church caused by the quarrel of two dogs. tions. It is now as follows: Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew ered unclean animals, most likely gave rise to Such scenes, and the fact that dogs were considThee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,

Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the Host of Heaven came,
And lo! creation widen'd in man's view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay con-
ceal'd

Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood reveal'd,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us

the occupation of dog-whipper as a function of

the sexton. It will also be remembered that some dogs cannot forbear a howl at the sound of certain musical instruments; and besides the

simple inconvenience to the congregation, this howl may have been considered a manifestation of antipathy to holy influences, as the devil was supposed to fear holy water.

Church," proves to us that amongst the Hig Landseer's well-known picture of "The Free land shepherds the office does not now at least exist: and amongst other instances of the regu Why do we then shun death, with anxious strife? lar attendance at church of these "unclean au If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?mals," I know one in Wales where a favorite

blind!

S. W. SINGER.

DOG WHIPPERS.

THE followi g notes may contain information for your correondent, on the subject of dog whippers:

dog always accompanied his master to church,
and stood up in the corner of the pew, keeping
watch over the congregation with the strictest
decorum.
A NOTARY.

known

That persons bearing an office described by such a name were attached to great houses in the sixteenth century, is clear from the wellRichard Dovey, of Farmcote in Shropshire, in passage in The Two Gentlemen of the year 1659, charged certain cottes with the Verona, Act IV. Sc. 4, where Launce says, payment of eight shillings to some poor man of I, having been acquainted with the smell bethe parish of Claverley, who should undertake fore, knew it was Crab; and goes me to the fel to awaken sleepers, and whip dogs from the church low that whips the dogs: "Friend," quoth I, “you during divine service. Ten shillings and six-mean to whip the dog?" Ay, marry do I," pence per annum is now paid for the above ser- quoth he," etc.-Notes and Queries.

vice.

From Blackwood's Magazine.
EVELYN AND PEPYS.

sight which for many a day had forgotten pageants. The traditionary splendors of Elizabeth, the meaner merrymakings of James, the THE "long results of time" bring about austere magnificence of that melancholy strange combinations. Meeting and crossing Charles whom many honored as a martyr, and each other here and there on their living way, all knew in the majesty of fate and sorrow, there yet could be no less likely union in the had links of association with this new period thoughts of posterity, or in the history of their which the Commonwealth altogether lacked. time, than that of the two names which head The hereditary monarchy resumed its place this page. The most frank and unreserved of with triumph, and the king who could speak autobiographers, knowing many compunctions, of his royal ancestors through many a previbut no shame; and the most courtly and po- ous generation, grasped to the instincts of the lished of antique gentlemen, perpetually hold- people, in a way which the kingliest man on ing himself erect on the poise of natural self- earth, being the son of his own deeds alone, respect and formal dignity, Samuel Pepys and must always fail to do. The kingdom flashed John Evelyn, of all men most unlike each into a sudden uproar of unreasoning enjoyother, come down to us side by side. The one ment. No one asked, if it was, after all, so unfolds his brisk panorama, the other solemnly mighty a felicity for England that the king exhibits his stately picture. Wicked humun should enjoy his own again. The country nature, always least alive to propriety, looks blindfolded itself with hearty purpose and respectfully, but with a yawn, upon the one, good-will, and, breaking forth of all its late and chuckles aloud, shaking its head for deco- restraints, gave itself up heart and soul to the rum's sake, with infinite amusement and unre- frolic, glad to forget what went before, and strained laughter, over the other. How the unthinking of all that should follow when its : two chroniclers might esteem their different pranks were done. degrees of popularity, or if the disclosure of Youth and high spirits masked with a natuall his wicked ways would shame Mr. Secre- ral and graceful illusion the license of the tary Pepys at last, the curiosity which he sa- Court; and so long as the crowned head was tisfies so frankly has no means of ascertaining new in its dominion, no intrusive familiarity now; but it requires no great penetration to stepped in to draw aside the veil. The counperceive with what stately disgust his partician try, which enjoyed so thoroughly its own riotcompanion, who leaves behind hir nothing to ous festival was perfectly pleased to look on be ashamed of, would turn from this wicked with indulgent complacency on the more prolittle impersonation of bustle, vanity, and spirit, longed rejoicings of the king; a brisk activity who smuggles along the solemn highway of of pleasure stirred the universal pulses. Long history by the Lord of Wotton's side. In ago one must be idle if one would be gay; spite of all the vices of the time, the very cli- but now there was none of all your sober max and culmination as it was of public riot craftsmen so constantly occupied as your man and license, of universal depravity and fash- of pleasure. Where great affairs of state ionable vileness, it keeps its hold strangely were deliberated-where vast projects were upon the imagination, perhaps, as the close put forth by one imperial will, and executed of the picturesque in English history. It by many stout and valorous hands in comparwas hard to believe in domestic peace after ative silence-every corner was alive now with so long an interval of broil and battle; and some device of entertainment-something to the unmitigated disaster of the civil war, and beguile and cheat the time which Cromwell the rugged heroical sway of the Common- found so short and fleeting for all he had to wealth, if they braced the kingdom and its do; and when sober men began to resume people for all imaginable hardships, left them their common life once more, they turned still shiftless and undefended against the enervat- a smiling glance upon those gardens of Armiing influences of luxury. No sooner had the da, those fabulous bowers of youth and luxiron gripe of Cromwell faltered from the reins ury and royal pleasure, which enclosed the of state which he alone could hold-no sooner king.

had the sunny light of holiday burst forth But, after all, there is no such wearisome again over a land so long held fast by the thing in the world as a prolonged unnatural stern claims of duty and necessity-than all holiday. Capricious England grew tired of England yielded itself up, flushed and languid its play-the dusty heated afternoon eclipsed to the unaccustomed pleasure. With song the fresh glories of the morning. The revels and story in his train-with misfortune and that looked so bright at first, began to pall, It exile past to endear him to the human heart was no longer the exuberance of youth, but of the nation-with fluttering imps, gay in the the coarse mirth of custom that rang in shouts stolen robes of Loves and Graces, scattering as loud as ever from the high places; and the flowers upon his way, the banished Charles, a astonished nation, stopping short in its own youthful gallant, burst gay upon the fascinated dance, looked with disenchanted eyes upon the

whirl of careless gaiety, which hid from royal | grandeur of its vast new truth with pranks of sight and observation the life of the country old astrology and nimble sleight of hand— and the wellbeing of the world. No virtuous Art that comes a full grown giant from over man, were he ever so great a votary of the the sea, holding up a mirror by the courtly royal Martyr could contrast the clear daylight hands of Lely and Kneller to the voluptuous of the great usurper's rule, and this hectic il- Graces of the court, and overflooding with lumination, without an involuntary sigh for the perukes and laced coats the ancestral picture sovereign power which was no longer an honor galleries of all England-the two great faand a defence to England. The sober sense culties of curiosity and wonder, primitive caof the nation sickened at this heedless tumult pacities almost exhausted in our day, peering of gaiety; all that was pure and honorable everywhere with a hundred eyes; and, on the shrank back in horror from the undisguised other hand, Learning marching solemnly on debauchery of these polluted palaces; the na- to its sum of knowledge, yet making itself a tional pride was at once offended and humili- very prodigy of industry and research by the ated by defenceless coasts, and a presuming way. Through this and in it, and through a and unpunished enemy, while rumors of hundred little intricacies of official jobbery, French influence meanly submitted to-of of political intrigue, of private broils and French bribes still more meanly accepted-match-makings, flows such an overflowing and sank the once worshipped king into the depths abundant soul of energy as puts life and of popular contempt. But there is seldom so breath into the whole. A corrupt and selfgreat an evil in present existence as to shut degrading state, with every element of ruin out fear of a greater, and the Duke of York, in its bosom; yet in such rude might of vitaunwise and unprosperous James, was his bro- lity-every pulse throbbing with strength, ther's guardian angel. "No one will kill me every vein full-blooded, every muscle sound to make you king," said the merry monarch to that the current of its perpetual activity his successor; it was the greatest defence sweeps our languid footsteps into it with an which remained to this idol of the popular irresistible attraction-the stream hurries upon fancy-this waster of the most royal gifts of its course with a visible impetus of life. Providence and the strongest tie which bound the undeceived and discontented country to its failure of a king.

And what even the brilliant record of Macaulay cannot do for Dutch William and his austere and virtuous heroism, a crowd of selfReligious persecution and intolerance, far biographers have done for the times of lawfrom chary of their alliance at any time, took less Charles. When the broad and general kindly to the profane sovereign, and made no story fails, it is rare that a bit of sun-bright scruple in using his power. Good, passive, daguerreotype-a homely clear succession of law-obeying Puritanism, forgetting its old everydays threaded upon some individual life usage of resistance, suffered itself to be slain-is unsuccessful in catching the eye and rouswith edifying resignation. And the time-bred ing the interest; nor is there any period so monsters too-the Popish plot fabulous or real fertile in such as is this and the preceding ge-the pseudo-Protestant plot which hunted neration. The records of Mary Hutchinson, this spectre into mad chaos and unbelief- the wife-like story of Lady Fanshaw, and agitated the public mind with fright and in- those breathings of ascetic piety and meek dignation; and heavy and real disaster added devotion, which startle us so much, from the its crushing and repeated blow. One such pen of a maid of honor in the dissolute court event as the Great Plague or Fire of London of Charles-the diaries of Mrs. Godolphin— seems enough in ordinary course for a gene- add touches of feminine nicety to Evelyn's ration of men; and we can scarcely under- gentlemanlike chronicle and the unparalleled stand the strain of nerve and courage which revelations of Mr. Secretary Pepys; not to resisted, or the passive, unreflective endurance speak of narratives less known-the journals which lived through such overwhelming cala- of pious Nonconformists, and sketches of permities. Nor only lived through-but, dancing sonal experience, which by some necessity laid on the graves of pestilence, and over the ashes upon them, hosts of those good people have of destruction, spread its unwholesome gaiety felt it their duty to leave behind. We had around without a pause. almost added to the list that person of real Yet sparkling with profane wit, rich in wan- flesh and blood, the citizen of London, who ton beauty, profusely endowed with the lesser indites the true history of the Great Plague; talents which sparkle in their generation more and but that scoffers say he is no more to be than the great lights of genius, there is no pe- relied upon than the redoubtable Crusoe, his riod more picturesque in costume, more ani- brother and kinsman, no bit of individual mated in grouping, or more pictorial in gen- story throws more light upon the time than eral light and shadow. Dawning Science, that does his. We can spare it, however, in the has not yet quite forgotten its old tricks of le- profusion of autobiographical riches, concerngerdemain, but mixes up the half-discovered ing the authenticity of which there can be no