The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3): Everlasting Calerdar 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. 3 (of 3): Everlasting Calerdar 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
Imagination enriches every thing. A great library contains not only
books, but “the assembled souls of all that men held wise.” The moon is
Homer’s and Shakspeare’s moon, as well as the one we look at. The sun
comes out of his chamber in the east, with a sparkling eye, “rejoicing
like a bridegroom.” The commonest thing becomes like Aaron’s rod, that
budded. Pope called up the spirits of the Cabala to wait upon a lock of
hair, and justly gave it the honours of a constellation; for he has hung
it, sparkling for ever, in the eyes of posterity. A common meadow is a
sorry thing to a ditcher or a coxcomb; but by the help of its dues from
imagination and the love of nature, the grass brightens for us, the air
soothes us, we feel as we did in the daisied hours of childhood. Its
verdures, its sheep, its hedge-row elms,--all these, and all else which
sight, and sound, and association can give it, are made to furnish a
treasure of pleasant thoughts. Even brick and mortar are vivified, as of
old at the harp of Orpheus. A metropolis becomes no longer a mere
collection of houses or of trades. It puts on all the grandeur of its
history, and its literature; its towers, and rivers; its art, and
jewellery, and foreign wealth; its multitude of human beings all intent
upon excitement, wise or yet to learn; the huge and sullen dignity of
its canopy of smoke by day; the wide gleam upwards of its lighted lustre
at night-time; and the noise of its many chariots, heard, at the same
hour, when the wind sets gently towards some quiet suburb.--_Leigh
Hunt._
* * * * *
ACTORS.
Madame Rollan, who died in 1785, in the seventy-fifth year of her age,
was a principal dancer on Covent-garden stage in 1731, and followed her
profession, by private teaching, to the last year of her life. She had
so much celebrity in her day, that having one evening sprained her
ancle, no less an actor than Quin was ordered by the manager to make an
apology to the audience for her not appearing in the dance. Quin, who
looked upon all dancers as “the mere garnish of the stage,” at first
demurred; but being threatened with a forfeiture, he growlingly came
forward, and in his coarse way thus addressed the audience:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,
“I am desired by the manager to inform you, that the dance intended for
this night is obliged to be postponed, on account of mademoiselle Rollan
having dislocated her ancle: I wish it had been her neck.”
* * * * *
In Quin’s time Hippesley was the Roscius of low comedy; he had a large
scar on his cheek, occasioned by being dropped into the fire, by a
careless nurse, when an infant, which gave a very whimsical cast to his
features. Conversing with Quin concerning his son, he told him, he had
some thoughts of bringing him on the stage. “Oh,” replied the cynic, “if
that is your intention, I think it is high time you should burn his
face.”
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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