The Every-day Book and Table Book, v. 1 (of 3): or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the AlmanacHone, William
History
The Every-day Book and Table Book, v. 1 (of 3): or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac
Hone, William
Days; Great Britain -- Social life and customs
painted for the likeness of some opulent butcher who flourished in the
reign of queen Anne. Ask the dame about it, and she refers you to
“Rhone.” This is a tall old man, who would be taller if he were not bent
by years. “I am ninety-four,” he will tell you, “this present year of
our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five.” All that he has
to communicate concerning the portrait is, “I have heard say it is the
portrait of St. Chad.” Should you venture to differ, he adds, “this is
the opinion of most people who come here.” You may gather that it is his
own undoubted belief. On pacing the garden alleys, and peeping at the
places of retirement, you imagine the whole may have been improved and
beautified for the last time by some countryman of William III., who
came over and died in the same year with that king, and whose works
here, in wood and box, have been following him piecemeal ever since.
St. Chad’s well is scarcely known in the neighbourhood, save by its
sign-board of invitation and forbidding externals. An old American
loyalist, who has lived in Pentonville ever since “the rebellion” forced
him to the mother country, enters to “totter not unseen” between the
stunted hedgerows; it was the first “place of pleasure” he came to
after his arrival, and he goes no where besides,--“every thing else is
so altered.” For the same reason, a tall, spare, thin-faced man, with
dull grey eyes and underhung chin, from the neighbourhood of
Bethnal-green, walks hither for his “Sunday morning’s exercise,” to
untruss a theological point with a law clerk, who also attends the place
because his father, “when he was ’prentice to Mr. ---- the great law
stationer in Chancery-lane in 1776, and sat writing for sixteen hours a
day, received great benefit from the waters, which he came to drink
fasting, once a week.” Such persons from local attachment, and a few
male and female atrabilarians, who without a powerful motive would never
breathe the pure morning air, resort to this spot for their health. St.
Chad’s well is haunted, not frequented. A few years and it will be with
its water as with the water of St. Pancras’ well, which is enclosed in
the garden of a private house, near old St. Pancras’ churchyard.
_Holy Wells._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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