Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 482, March 26, 1831 - Various - Страница 2

Who has not heard of the Vicar of Bray, and his turning, turning, and turning again? Here is his church, and a goodly tower withal, which we, in our turn, have endeavoured to turn to the illustration of our pages. There is no sinister motive in the selection; but if we have hit the white, or rather the black, of such variableness, "let the galled jade wince," and pay the Mirror the stale compliment of veluti in speculum.

Bray is a small village about one mile from Maidenhead, and its name would have remained "unsaid, unsung," had it not been for its never-enough-to-be-ridiculed Vicar. Camden supposes Bray to have been occupied by the Bibroci, who submitted to Caesar, and obtained his protection, and with it a secure possession of one of the most beautiful spots in this county; so that submissiveness seems to have been the very air of the place in all times. Philippa, the queen of Edward III., had rents assigned to her from this and the adjoining manor of Cookham. It is now considered as part of the royal domain, being attached to the liberties of Windsor Castle, and retaining some peculiar privileges, among which is an exemption from tolls in the adjacent market-towns. In default of male heirs, lands are not divided here among females of the same degree of kindred, but descend solely to the eldest. The church is "a spacious structure," says the Windsor Guide, and "composed of various materials, and exhibiting a mixture of almost every style of architecture," says the "Beauties of England and Wales;" but we leave the reader to his own conclusion from our Engraving, sketched in the summer of last year. We take for granted the church does not change in appearance every year, if its Vicar once did in creed.

The story of the Vicar of Bray is told with some variations, but the fact is not questioned. In the Beauties of England and Wales we read that his name was Simon Symonds, that he possessed the benefice in the reign of Henry VIII. and the three succeeding monarchs, and that he died in the forty-first year of Elizabeth. "This man was twice a Protestant and twice a Papist; and when reproached for the unsteadiness of his principles, which could thus suffer him to veer with every change of administration, replied, 'that he had always governed himself by what he thought a very laudable principle, which was, never on any terms, if he could avoid it, to part with his vicarage." This creed has been amplified into a song, which we shall quote presently, more for its being a good conceite than for its scarceness.

The author just quoted from the Beauties observes, in a note—"Several late writers, particularly Ireland and Ferrar, who have mentioned the above circumstances, describe them as happening in the reign of Charles the Second, James the Second, &c. This mistake throws the imputation of apostacy on the worthy person who held the vicarage towards the conclusion of the 17th century. It should be remarked, that the story was first published by Fuller, in his Church History; and as the author died in the year 1661, it is evident that it must have been circulated previous to that event."

We have not the Church History at hand, but Fuller, in his Worthies, says, "Bray is a village well known in Barkshire, the vivacious Vicar whereof, living under King Henry the Eighth, King Edward the Sixth, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, was first a Papist, then a Protestant, then a Papist, then a Protestant again. This Vicar being tax't by one for being a turncoat, not so (said he) for I always kept my principles, which is this, to live and die Vicar of Bray."

Lastly, here is the song:—

THE VICAR OF BRAY

ANOTHER OLD SONG

ORIGIN OF THE SONG "FOUR AND TWENTY FIDDLERS ALL ON A ROW."

The fiddle was not allowed to be a concert instrument till the reign of Charles the Second, who, in imitation of Louis the Fourteenth, established a band of twenty-four violins, alias fiddles, which gave birth to Tom Durfey's song of "Four and Twenty Fiddlers all on a Row," &c.: a humorous production, in which there is a mockery of every instrument, and almost every trade, and which used to be performed between the acts, or between the play and farce, by some man of humour at benefits.

The author of the Guardian, in No. 67, gives an account of Tom Durfey, with a view to recommend him to the public notice for a benefit play, and says, that he remembered King Charles the Second leaning on Tom Durfey's shoulder more than once, and humming over a song with him.

Roi des Violons, or King of the Fiddlers, was anciently a title in France. It became defunct, in 1685, owing to anarchy—thus harmony and discord cannot agree.

P.T.W

ROSEDALE ABBEY

(For the Mirror.)

Deal.

G.R.C

PORTRAIT OF STERNE

(To the Editor.)

As many of the pages of your extensively-circulated little work have preserved memorials of Laurence Sterne, I hope you can spare room for the underwritten extract, from a letter of his to Mr. Garrick, dated Paris, March, 1762, and which may be seen in Vol I. of Mrs. Medalle's "Letters of the late L. Sterne."

My object in thus troubling you is, in the hope (perhaps you will say an almost forlorn, or distant one) that possibly some one of your readers, either here or abroad, maybe able to suggest where it is likely the under-mentioned whole-length portrait may now be of that once very distinguished man.

A CONSTANT READER

"I shandy it away fifty times more than I was ever wont, talk more nonsense than ever you heard me talk in your days—and to all sorts of people. Qui le diable est cet homme là … said Choiseul, t'other day. You'll think me as vain as a devil, was I to tell you the rest of the dialogue.... The Duke of Orleans has suffered my portrait to be added to the number of some odd men in his collection; and a gentleman who lives with him has taken it most expressively, at full length. I purpose to obtain an etching of it, and to send it to you."

EPITOME OF THE ANCIENT KINGDOM OF POLAND

(For the Mirror.)

Poland was once the country of the Vandals, who left it to invade the Roman Empire. The kingdom began, by favour of Otho III., Emperor of Germany, under Boleslaus, 999; Red Russia was added to it in 1059; Pomerania, that had been separated 180 years, again united with it, 1465; embraced Christianity, 965; the order of the White Eagle instituted in 1705. The peasants in Poland were serfs or slaves, and the value of an estate was not estimated from its extent, but from the number of the peasants who were transferred, like cattle, from one master to another. The first person who granted freedom to his peasants was Zamoiski, formerly grand chancellor, who in 1760 enfranchised six villages. The Jews were first introduced into Poland about the time of Casimir the Great; they were indulged with great privileges, and became so numerous that Poland was styled the Paradise of the Jews. So late as the thirteenth century, the Poles retained the custom of killing old men when past their labour, and such children as were born imperfect. "The natural strength of Poland, if properly exerted, (says a modern writer) would have formed a more certain bulwark against the ambition of her neighbours than the faith of treaties;" and it is worthy of remark, that of the three partitioning powers, Prussia was formerly in a state of vassalage to the republic; Russia once saw her capital and throne possessed by the Poles, under Sigismund III. whose troops got possession of Moscow, and whose son, Ladislaus, was chosen Great Duke of Muscovy, by a party of the Russian nobles; and Austria was indebted to John Sobieski, King of Poland, who, in 1683, compelled the Turks to raise the siege of Vienna, and delivered the house of Austria from the greatest dangers it ever experienced.

"The partition of Poland (says Mr. Coxe,) was first projected by the King of Prussia."

In 1794, Suwarof laid siege to Praga, a fortified suburb of Warsaw, and carried it by assault, with a tremendous carnage. The king was compelled to abdicate, and the whole country was incorporated in the dominion of Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

Early in 1797 Stanislaus arrived at Petersburg, and, according to the appointment of the sovereign, fixed his residence in the Marble Palace, on the banks of the Neva; but his death, which happened on the 12th of February, 1798, terminated the series of Polish sovereigns:

Queen Elizabeth so highly prized the merit and abilities of Sir Philip Sydney, that she sent him ambassador to Vienna, and to several courts in Germany; and when the fame of his valour became so extensive that he was put in election for the crown of Poland, she refused to further his advancement, lest (says Baker) she should lose the brightest jewel of her crown. This Marcellus of the English nation was killed at the battle of Zutphen, in 1585, while he was mounting the third horse, having before had two killed under him.

P.T.W

THE HOUR OF PHANTASY

Deal.

G.R.C