Street-music, like everything else, has made a step forward during the last fifty years. The old-established organ-tunes even are changed; the Hundredth Psalm, Auld Lang Syne, and Jim Crow, have given place to airs from operas, and even to Beethoven's waltzes; whilst the street-bands and separate itinerants perform, and often in creditable style, music of a very good and even classical description. It would be amusing to trace the history of street music in England from its earliest days to the present; but the subject thus carried out would require more space than the pages of the Journal allow. There would be the romances of real life to which we have already alluded; the famous fight of the fiddlers on the Welsh marches; the inn-music, waits, &c., of Elizabeth's and the preceding reigns; and the itinerant musicians of the Civil War, who were so numerous that the parliament made an ordinance declaring them vagrants. If no very great judges of the art, our ancestors were nevertheless lovers of it: we allude of course to the great body of the nation, the people; for the practice of having music in taverns and inns is constantly alluded to in our old English writers. It was not alone the courtier who might say: 'I am advised to give her music o' mornings; they say it will penetrate.' The itinerant fiddler, according to Bishop Earle, 'made it his business to get the names of the worshipful who slept at an inn, in order that he might salute them by their names at their rising in the morning;' and indeed at the greater inns, such as we should now call hotels, there were musicians who appear to have been in some sort retainers of the house. Fynes Moryson has given a hint of this in his Itinerary, when describing the arrival of a gentleman at an inn: 'While he eates, if he have company especially, he shall be offred musicke, which he may freely take or refuse; and if he be solitary, the musicians will give him the good-day with music in the morning.'

The last of these musicians who made it a regular custom to frequent taverns-'going abusking,' as it was called-was Thomas Eccles, a brother of the song-composer of Queen Anne's reign. The following account of him is given by one who heard this last of the inn-minstrels play in 1735:

'It was about the month of November that I, with some friends, were met to spend the evening at a tavern in the city, when a man, in a mean but decent garb, was introduced to us by the waiter. Immediately upon opening the door, I heard the twang of one of his strings from under his coat, which was accompanied by the question: "Gentlemen, will you please to hear any music?" Our curiosity, and the modesty of the man's deportment, inclined us to say yes; and music he gave us such as I had never heard before, nor shall again under the same circumstances. With as fine and delicate a hand as I ever heard, he played the whole fifth and ninth solo of Corelli, two songs of Mr Handel-" Del minaccian," in Otho, and "Spero si mio caro bene," in Admetus. In short, his performance was such as would command the attention of the nicest ear, and left us, his auditors, much at a loss to guess who he was. He made no secret of his name; he said he was Thomas Eccles, the youngest of three brothers; and that Henry, the middle one, had been his master, and was then in the service of the king of France. We were very little disposed to credit the account he gave us of his brother's situation in France; but the collection of solos that have been published by him at Paris, puts it out of question.'

Unhappily, the moral character of poor Thomas Eccles was far inferior to his artistic one. He was idle, and given to drink; he lodged near Temple Bar, and was well known to the musicians of his time.

Contemporary with this itinerant musician lived the once celebrated small-coal man, Thomas Britton, who established the first concert in London. It may not

be unentertaining-we believe it may even be instructive-to give some account of this man, of whom we are told, that as he walked along the streets in his blue linen frock, and with his sack of small-coals on his back, the passers-by would say: "There goes the famous small-coal man, who is a lover of learning, a performer in music, and a companion of gentlemen." Thomas Britton was born at Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire. He left his native place while a boy, and bound himself apprentice to a small-coal man in St John Baptist's Street. After he had served his full time of seven years, his master gave him a sum of money not to set up business. Upon this, Tom went into Northamptonshire again, and after he had spent his money, he returned again to London, set up the small-coal trade [we are sorry for this breach of promise], and withal took a stable, and turned it into a house, which stood the next door to the little gate of St John's of Jerusalem next Clerkenwell Green. Some time after he had settled here, he became acquainted with Dr Garenners, his near neighbour, by which means he became an excellent chemist; and perhaps he performed such things in that profession as had never been done before, with little cost and charge, by the help of a moving elaboratory, that was contrived and built by himself, which was much admired by all of that faculty that happened to see it; insomuch that a certain gentleman of Wales was so much taken with it, that he was at the expense of carrying him down into that country on purpose to build him such another, which Tom performed to the gentleman's very great satisfaction; and for the same he received from him a very handsome and generous gratuity. Besides his great skill in chemistry, he was as famous for his knowledge of the theory of music, in the practick part of which faculty he was likewise very considerable. He was so much addicted to it, that he pricked with his own hand, very neatly and accurately, and left behind him a valuable collection of music . . . . which was sold upon his death for near a hundred pounds.'*

On the

It was his skill in music, however, not in chemistry, which won for Britton the extraordinary place he obtained in society, which he retained, also, without any change of station, habits, or occupation. The stable, transformed into a house, as Hearne informs us, was very old, low built, and mean-fit habitation only for one of the humblest station; yet there assembled the wit, genius, and beauty of England, and there were heard such strains as Her Majesty's Theatre have since scarcely surpassed. ground-floor was a repository for coals; over it a long, narrow room, so low, that a tall man could but just stand upright in it. The stairs to this room were on the outside of the house, and could with difficulty be ascended. This chamber was the scene of his concerts, begun with the assistance-not pecuniary aid, for they were free of expense-of Sir Roger l'Estrange, a very musical gentleman,' and frequented by all the great geniuses of the age. Here, Dr Pepusch, or the great Handel, played the harpsichord; Bannister or Medler, the first violin; Hughes, a poet, Woolaston the painter, Shuttleworth, &c., on other instruments. Matthew Dubourg was then but a child; but his first solo played in public was performed at Britton's concert, standing on a joint-stool;' and we are told the poor child was so awed at the splendid assembly, that he was near falling to the ground.

In addition to his reputation as a musician, Britton was known as an acute collector of rare old books and manuscripts; possessing, it may consequently be inferred, no small portion of literary taste. In these pursuits, his familiar associates were the Earls of Oxford, Pembroke, Sunderland, Winchelsea, and the Duke of Devonshire. These noblemen were in the

*From Hearne's Appendix to his Hemingi Chartularii Ecclesiæ Wygorniensis.

composition as may be most likely to interest, and, we hope, instruct our readers.*

The cob-walls of the west of England are composed of earth and straw mixed up with water, like mortar, and well beaten and trodden together. The earth nearest at hand is generally used, and the more loamy it is, the better is it adapted for the purpose. The walls, which are generally two feet thick, are raised upon a foundation of stone-work; and the higher the stone-work is carried, the more secure is the cob from the moisture of the ground. When the walls have been raised to a certain height, they are allowed some weeks to settle -the length of time of course depending on the state of the atmosphere. The first layer or raise-to use the Devonian expression-never exceeds five feet, and is sometimes restricted to three; the second is not so high; while every succeeding one is diminished in height as the building advances. The solidity of cobwalls depends so much on the process of making, that if the latter be hurried, the former are sure to be crippled, and to swerve from the perpendicular. It is usual to pare down the sides of each successive raise before another is added, the instrument used -which is called the 'cob-parer'-being like the peel or shovel used by bakers for removing the bread from the oven. As the work advances, the lintels of the doors, windows, cupboards, or other recesses are bedded on cross-pieces, and put in. The walls, however, are carried up solid, and the respective openings are not cut out until the work has well settled. In the process of building, the workmen use common pitchforks; and while one is on the wall arranging and treading down the cob, another stands below, and pitches it up to him. When the walls have reached their proper altitude, and have fairly settled down, the process of roofing commences. The rafters are fixed, and afterwards thatched with wheat-straw, or reed, as it is called in Devonshire, which consists of the stiff, unbruised, unbroken stalks which have been carefully separated by the thrasher from the fodderstraw, and bound up in large sheaves called nitches. In the following spring, the walls are plastered very smoothly with lime-and-hair mortar, and the plaster covered with a coating of rough-cast, composed of fine gravel, carefully screened and mixed with pure newly slaked lime and water, till the whole becomes of the consistence of a semi-fluid. This coating is forcibly thrown, or slap-dashed, as it is called, upon the wall with a large trowel, after which it is brushed over by the workman with the lime-liquid in the pail, which, like the sprinkling of comfits with frothed sugar, gives the last finishing-touch of beauty to the cob. A cobhouse of two stories takes about two years to build; and there are instances of houses so constructed as far back as the reign of Elizabeth being found at this day in a state of perfect preservation. In the words of the Devonshire adage, all that cob wants to insure durability, is a good hat and a good pair of shoes.'

That cob should be so generally adopted in a country abounding, as the west of England does, in stone, marble, and granite, is undoubtedly owing to its cheapness, the facility with which it is wrought, and the dry, healthy, and comfortable dwelling which it forms. As regards cheapness, it will cost, speaking roughly, about a third of stone, and a fifth of brickwork; while, on the score of comfort, the thickness and non-conducting properties of the walls preserve a mean temperature within, as well during the heats of summer as the frosts of winter. But the material is ill adapted for barns and garden-walls; it harbours vermin, and is apt to be undermined by rats and mice.

The antiquity of cob is much less doubtful than its etymology. There can be no doubt that it was

*For the rest, we can only refer them to Mr Loudon's work, the Encyclopædia of Architecture, No. 839.

introduced into Cornwall and Devon by the Phoenicians, as it was introduced by them into all their other colonies. Although these princely merchants carried the arts of building and carpentry to the greatest perfection, it is probable that these were only displayed, to any considerable extent, in the temples of their deities, and the palaces of their kings and nobles. The Tyrian and Carthaginian watch-towers which bristled along the African and Iberian shores, we know from Sanchoniatho to have been built of a compound of stubble and mud, kneaded together like dough, and dried in the sun; and so probably were the dwellings of the vast mass of the Phoenician people. Ezekiel, who, of all the Hebrew writers, was the best acquainted with their customs, when speaking of breaking through a wall, invariably makes use of a word which would be utterly inapplicable to one of stone or brick -I digged through the wall with mine hand.' And that houses formed of the same material were common in Palestine, is evident from the identical expression of Ezekiel being twice used by our Saviour in the sixth chapter of St Matthew: 'Lay yourselves up treasures, where thieves do not break through (literally, 'dig through ') nor steal.'

In like manner, we find abundant traces of cob having been known to the ancient Greeks, and used by them very much in the same way as it is now wrought in Devonshire. Thucydides, in describing, in his second book, the works thrown up by the besiegers at the leaguer of Platæa, mentions the confining of the mud in layers of reed, just as it is confined at this day in Devon by what are there called spires-a species of rush which grows in great abundance in the neighbourhood of Topsham. Xenophon, too, in narrating the ingenious manner in which Agesipolis, king of Sparta, took the city of Mantinea, states that he dammed up the river which flowed round the town, and, by thus softening the walls, caused them to fall in. The Mantineans, he adds, when they rebuilt them, carried up the stone-foundation of the new cob (ewv) many feet, in order to prevent a recurrence of the same stratagem. These foundations described by Colonel Leake, in his work on the Morea, as very perfect, and their intention as quite obvious. The masonry, which is complete as high as it extends, is clearly too low to have formed of itself a defensive wall.

are

In Egypt, cob was in familiar use at least as far back as the times of the Hyksoi, or shepherd-kings. This is evidenced by the task-work assigned to the Jews by Pharaoh, as detailed in the fifth chapter of Exodus: "There shall be no straw given, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks.' "What the use of straw was,' says Bishop Patrick, 'in making bricks is variously conjectured: some think it was mixed with the clay to make the brick more solid '-this being, as we have seen, the precise object for which straw is used in cob. Josephus tells us that the task-work of the captive Jews in Egypt was the building of walls and a pyramid; and many have supposed that the pyramids of Dahshour, which are composed of sundried bricks made of mud and cut straw, were the very works which made the lives of the Israelites bitter with hard bondage.'

Ascending to a still more remote antiquity, we find that the tower which the Cainite worshippers of fire erected to their idol Bel on the plains of Babylonia

where stone is comparatively rare, and wood, as Heeren says, is still more scarce than stone-was faced with brickwork, cemented with slime, bitumen, mud, or whatever the chemar was; the centre, according to the conjectures of Bryant and Rich, being composed of earth. What this brickwork was probably like, we learn from the latter author, who describes the sun-burnt bricks of the Birs Nimrond and the Mujalibbe as looking like thick clumsy sods

of earth, in which are seen broken reeds or chopped straw, used for the obvious purpose of binding them' -a description which corresponds very closely with the appearance of decayed weather-beaten cob. The walls which surrounded the city were in like manner, as we learn from Herodotus, built of the earth excavated from the moat which encircled them-a statement fully corroborated by Diodorus Siculus, who gives the most particular account of them. The original walls having perished, or, to adopt the strong expression of the historian, melted into air, they were rebuilt, probably by Nebuchadnezzar, partly of burned and partly of unburned brick. In the fourth century, these renewed walls were just sufficient for the hunting preserves of the Persian king. They, too, have entirely crumbled away,

And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Left not a wreck behind.

We may not go further in our attempt to trace the antiquity of this favourite compound. Were we to give the reins to conjecture, it might not be impossible to make out a strong circumstantial case for its probable existence in the antediluvian period. We might dwell upon the facts that, until the days of Tubal-Cain, the art of working metals was unknown, and that, therefore, the city which Cain built could not have been constructed of wood; that chemistry being yet unborn, it could not have been of stone, or brick and mortar; that mud was the most obvious material to a tiller of the earth; and that beyond the fingers and the feet, no assistance of tools was in this case needed. But we refrain, content with being able to say of cob, as Byron has said so splendidly of the

Ocean:

Time writes no wrinkles on thy muddy brow; As Nimrod first beheld thee, art thou now!

THE COURT OF CHANCERY AS IT IS. IT has been truly remarked, that the Court of Chancery is an admirable illustration of the dog with the bad name.' The expression, 'like being in Chancery,' and others of a similar nature, are often used by people who wish to impress upon their hearers that which is tedious, expensive, and almost endless. If property is 'thrown into Chancery,' to use a popular phrase, all hope of its ever being of any further benefit to the parties interested in it, is abandoned. The Court of Chancery has won for itself an evil reputation which still clings to it, although no longer deserved.

The Court of Chancery has been thoroughly reformed. The changes began in 1850; and in 1852 an entire revolution was effected in its mode of procedure. The various times for taking the necessary proceedings were considerably shortened, printed pleadings were substituted for written ones, and unnecessary offices, such as those of the masters in Chancery, which had long been causes of delay and expense to suitors, were abolished. In many cases, too, relief may now be had by a summary mode of procedure. Also fees are paid by stamps, and officers of the court are remunerated by salaries instead of fees, so that greater fees than those prescribed by the orders of the court can no longer be taken. Thus, and in a great many other particulars, which it is unnecessary here to detail, has the Court of Chancery been reformed and its procedure simplified, with a saving of time and cost to the suitor; yet no one believes it. Works like Mr Dickens's Bleak House still continue to gain credence, although written long ago, and before Chancery reform began; novelists and newspaper writers still speak of it as it was years ago; and because they do not know of, or cannot comprehend its vast changes and improvements, will not admit that any have been made. This is most unfortunate; for not only are the people of

England thus misled, but foreigners get these absurd notions into their heads, carry them home to their own countries, and represent our highest court in the realm as a monstrosity of iniquity!

There is also another class who rail against the Court of Chancery, who wish all forms and modes of procedure to be done away with, and would, no doubt, like justice to be administered after the manner of a Turkish pacha; but this is, in England, we are glad to say, an impossibility. Forms are, to a certain extent, actually necessary to prevent injustice being done by the law; for if the process of the law could be used without knowledge, cost, or trouble, by any one who might fancy himself wronged by another, then would it become an engine of tyranny and oppression, and not of justice and equity.

Let us hope that the Court of Chancery, which, by reason of its reforms, has, from being the slowest, become one of the speediest tribunals in the kingdom, may be regarded in its proper light, and become as popular as it has hitherto been unpopular.

Parcus Deorum cultor, et infrequens,
Insanientis dum sapientiæ

Consultus erro; nunc retrorsum

Vela dare, atque iterare cursus
Cogor relictos.-HORACE.

WHEN Life was Spring our wants were small,
The present hour the future scorning-
A stunning partner at a ball,

A place among her thoughts next morning; No fears had we that she could lose

The varied charms our fancy lent her, Terpsichore was then our Muse,

And Mr Thomas Moore our Mentor.

Time passed till, though our wants were few, Hopes rose, but 'twas not hard to span 'emAn opera-box, paille gloves, a new

Rig out, or ten pounds more per annum;
When deeper aspirations came,

We called in aid-Imagination,
And drew on Fancy for our Fame,
And for our Love-upon Flirtation.
Grown more sagacious, by and by,
The wants and hopes of Life advancing,
We learned to spell Love with an i,
And dining took the pas of dancing;
We smiled at Fancy; pitied youth;

In Power began Life's aims to centre;
Demurred at Faith; and doubted Truth;
Till self became both Muse and Mentor.
Another Season served to prove

Our false appraisement of Life's treasure,
We found in Trust, and Truth, and Love,
The very corner-stones of Pleasure;
That youth of heart shewed age of head;
That gaining was less sweet than giving;
That we might live, and yet be dead
To all the real joys of living.

Our dreams how shadowy and vain

We've found; and turn back truer hearted, With humbler quest to seek again

The simple Faith in which we started; And deeper read in Wisdom's page, Know now how we have been beguiled, who 'd Suppose the objects that engage The hopes of youth-the aims of age Should find their end in second childhood. ALFRED WATTS.

Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by WILLIAM ROBERTSON, 23 Upper Sackville Street, DUBLIN, and all Booksellers.

No. 184.

THE VAGARIES OF PHYSIC. LORD BACON assigned as a reason why the science of medicine had not advanced and kept pace with the other sciences, that 'physicians had reasoned in a circle and not in a line.' Dr Benjamin Rush compared the same science, as practised in his day, to 'an unroofed temple, cracked at the sides, and rotten at the foundation.' An American writer, who runs a tilt against every nostrum not belonging to the vegetable kingdom, hearing that Mr Wakley had recommended all poisons sold in druggists' shops to be placed on high shelves, dryly observed, that 'in that case the lower part of the establishment would generally be to let!' Seeing, then, in what bad odour the disciples of Esculapius are held even by members of their own fraternity, and how each generation, in its turn, 'kicks against the rusty curb of old father antic, the law,' we feel almost disposed to place our medical man under the conservative guardianship of that African doctor whose mode of practice is shrewdly likened by Sir John Forbes to that of the homeopathic school of medicine: the sable physician's remedy was to write his prescription on a board, and then, having carefully washed it off, to give his patient the water to drink! Verily, from the days of Hippocrates downwards, so many have been the odd conceits that have sprung, full-armed for mischief, from the prolific brains of the world's physicians, so many and so wonder-working the medicaments propounded, from the 'all-heal of Hercules' to 'Parr's Life Pills,' that, leaving the graver side of the subject to take care of itself, and dealing only with its tickled surface,' it seems as if an amusing volume might be written on the Vagaries of Physic. Omitting from our category those who have turned diseases to commodity,' and in whom 'there is no more faith than stewed prunes,' it would be worth while to trace the path of some one of those-and their name is legion-who, wise in their generation, have yet been led away by their own chosen and familiar will-o'-thewisp. How have plain earnest men sometimes plunged headlong into quagmires through following the ignis fatuus of some particular traditionary mysticism, till, by the force of that very earnestness, they have succeeded in 'driving the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in spite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason!' How for centuries have our fathers before us given to some old formula a full measure of simple credence heaped up and brimming over; till we, in our later generation, are tempted to cry out indignantly: 'Have we laid our brains in the sun and dried them, that they want matter to prevent such gross o'er-reaching as this?' Where now is our faith

PRICE 1d.

in the 'simples' gathered beneath the moon, or plucked at some witching-hour under the 'fiery trigons?' How far have we wandered from the pastures of old father thyme,' lost our relish for 'sauce-alone, or Jack-bythe-hedge-side,' and discarded the safe companionship of 'Gill-go-over-the-ground!' How have we, degenerate, waged war in a crusade against 'Saracen's Confound,' and withheld from our gaping wounds the gentle succour of Teutonic 'stab-wort!' How have we set up new idols for our worship, and, like true iconoclasts, broken down the mysterious image from the inner sanctuary, the holy of holies, of physic! In medical traditionary lore, this same icon, as all searchers into by-gone authorities well know, was the image or likeness of a particular disease, said to be impressed on root, leaf, or flower, suggesting its specific virtue as a curative agent applied to the disease so indicated. It was called the signature of the plant. That prince of herbalists, Nicholas Culpeper, says: 'I wonder in my heart how the virtues of herbs came first to be known, if not by their signatures.' Now, as thou art a true man, O Nicholas, confide to us wherein it is fitting to put a bound to our credulity. In sober seriousness, if the 'signature' be all-powerful, may there not be also-in spite of the poet-something in a name? May we not hope to put money in our purse' by imbibing an infusion of 'money-wort or herb-twopence;' or tame a quarrelsome wife by means of 'loose-strife or grass-polly?' Might not 'ashenkeys' be applied with effect to a locked-jaw; or a habit of early rising induced-under Morpheus-by an admixture of 'pot-herbs, boiled with an old cock!'

Have you a mote in your eye, O my brother! search diligently for the 'pearl-trefoil;' it shall more benefit you than the four-leaved shamrock of fairy celebrity: 'it hath a white spot in the leaf like a pearl. It is' -as you might have divined-'under the moon, and its icon shews that it is of a singular virtue against the pearl or pin and web in the eye.' Or, better still, take 'herb-clary;' this, too, is 'under the moon,' and goes right to the mark. The seed put into the eyes, clears them from motes. Wild clary is a gallant remedy, to take one of the seeds and put it in the eye, and there let it remain till it drop out of itself (the pain will be nothing to speak on).' Thank you, CulpeperNicholas, we are obliged to you, but would fain be excused. The human animal is not, it would appear, the only 'unfledged biped' beholden to the ancients: the callow fowls of the air have a wonder-working elixir for destroyed vision in 'celandine or chelidonium, so called from a Greek word signifying swallow.' But mark our oracle's reservation: "They say, that if you put out the eyes of young swallows when they are in