RIGSBY'S VISIONS OF THE TIMES OF OLD.*
THE plan and the matter of this work are better than the execution. One object of the author is to delineate the character of the genuine an- tiquarian, who lives in the world of the past ; to show his pursuits and pleasures, as well as to account for his enthusiasm. Another pur- pose seems to be to take a district rich in national arolueology, Ro- man British, Saxon, Danish, and, making recorded facts the data, to produce a species of romance, in which the persons and events shall be historical but the details invented. Dr. Bigsby also has a contrivance to exhibit the manners and mode of life under the Danish invaders ; and, to eke out the contents of his third volume, he prints a variety of papers, containing his opinions on the shameful way in which birth, ancestry, and • Visions of the Times of Old; or the Antiquarian Enthusiast. By Robert BigsbY. Esq., LL.D.. kc. Sco.; Author of "The Triumph of Drake," " Miscellaneous Forma ind Essays." In three volumes. Published by Wright. heraldic honours, are now slighted. The manner in which Dr. Bigsby endeavours to present his matter is not badly contrived. He feigns that knight of the last century is the author of the book ; and the life, cha- racter, gardens, and house of Sir Ernest Oldworthy, "the antiquarian enthusiast," furnish the means of developing at length the feelings, tastes, and pursuits of the devoted archteologist ; a man quite unlike Scott's Jonathan Oldbuck, who is pronounced to be "a plain, sober, calculating, reatter-of-factish, and somewhat worldly-minded individual—an elderly gentleman making antiquarian matters his hobby on the true Wardour ;Street scale of research." The fanciful history of King Askew, said to be "a legendary narrative descriptive of the heroic age of the North," but rather, it strikes us, of the doings of the Danes in England, especially in the author's neighbourhood of Repton in Derbyshire, is based on a common literary artifice a little elaborated. Instead of finding the story in a chest or some other repository of valuables, the book is mysteriously sent to Sir Ernest from a collection in France. The third section of Visions of the Times of Old is a veritable dream. The Knight falls asleep, and fancies he receives a visit from a foreign philogo- [ler, who has been warned that King Askew, with his court, warriors, and followers, are held in magic slumber in the bowels of the earth in the neighbourhood of Oldworthy's house, and that it is possible by courage to disenchant them. The antiquarian and his visiter set out on their task: the usual midnight difficulties occur in discovering the spot and digging to the magic stone, which in this instance lets them suddenly into the earth. Amid noises like those of enchantment, they walk through what appears to have been the "establishment" of the Danish King ; and, as every individual has been fixed in the common action of his life, the scheme is well enough contrived for the exhibition of a tableau. On reaching the Monarch the disenchantment takes place; upon which the furious Dane orders the execution of the two intruders, as sorcerers. Oldworthy, after witnessing the decapitation of his companion, awakes, and gladly finds it but a dream.
It will be seen that the structure of the book is extremely artificial, calling so much upon the reason's indulgence as to require very nice treatment to sustain the interest. If we assume his possession of the re- quisite knowledge, Washington Irving would have depicted with mingled humour and tenderness the character and life of the learned, amiable, odd enthusiast, Sir Ernest, early crossed in love, yet not soured or disgusted by his disappointment; for Irving would have described his house, his grounds, his pictures, and his library, in a manner which would have brought the reality before the mind, without dreadfully overlaying them, as Dr. Bigsby does. Had Southey tried his hand at an historical romance in prose, after he had left off writing them in verse under the name of epics, he would have been well fitted for the pseudo Northern chronicle ; though such books are not easy to manage, involving the incongruity of being neither fact nor fiction. The exceedingly lifeless and artificial cha- racter of the dream of "the enchanted sleepers" would render it a peril- ous attempt for any one. Dr. Bigsby lacks the genius of Southey or of Washington Irving ; but he has qualities that would well enough fit him for his work, were it not for a prevailing drawback. He is perhaps not so sound an anti- quary as he deems himself, but he is earnest in his subject, and works con amore. He has an eye to appreciate the beauties of nature, and a mind to sympathize with the associations of the past. A versifier him- self, Dr. Bigaby is well read in our older poets. He has fluency, fancy, and some power of dramatic adaptation. But all these qualities are mar- red by diffusion. In the very beat parts he runs down his ideas, till the reader is fairly exhausted with the exuberance of details and the torrent of words : in the worst he imitates Ossian after this fashion— "Bright as the herald-star of the morning; soft as the dew of evening; bloom- ing as the flowers that deck the vale of Hyloki, was Syritha, the lovely daughter of Thorir, King of Hleidra. Gentle was she as the doves of Yngvi; her pre- sence was as a burst of sunlight, when it pierces the storm-clouds of the deep. White as the sparkling foam of the summer waves, when they rise by turns amidst the steep rocks, was the delicately-moulded breast of the royal maiden. Her eyes, of tenderest azure, spread forth a beamy gladness in the hall; and her long fair tresses, floating hi airy freedom, were like the saffron-tinted clouds of the flower-breathing dawn. Her cheek wore the rosy billeh of the morning beam, when it breaks rejoicingly over the misty hills of the East; while her lip revealed the dewy hr ghtness of the sea-born coral, where it makes glad the depths of some dim and hoary cave."
Artificial as this is, those who give themselves the trouble to analyze it, will see that there is fitness in the fancy; that the similes have some sort of appropriateness to the original image, flowers of poesy run to seed. The following landscape sketch is of a superior kind, and shows what Dr. Bigsby might have done with more power of retention over his pen.
"There was a steep and woody height extending above the bank of the Trent, near the secluded spot called Ingleby, to which, in the sunny afternoons of early autumn, Sir Ernest Oldworthy would often repair. It is a wild, picturesque situation, remote from all human dwelling-places, and once belonged, with the manor, to the Priory of Repton, to which it was given by Sir Hubert Somerville, in 1291. It is distinguished by the fanciful name of 'Cuckoo Park.' Oaks of ancient growth, mingled with the ash and the elm, the larch and the Scottish Sr, spread themselves, in close array, along the dim declivity. The descent is rocky, and occasionally precipitous; while its inequalities are obscured by the low, sheltering hawthorn, and by patches of gorse and heath, forming a harbour for the abundant game. Here and there a tree, profusely covered with the tempting- Looking sloe, or with the yellow ripened crab, of like faithless aspect, diversifies the e ragged beauty of the shadowy cliffs. The river flows peacefully on beneath, wilting a narrow dell of the deepest verdure, which in the vernal season is the favourite haunt of the early primrose. Troops of that shy and shadow-loving creature the hare glance along the more open recesses of the woody scene, now flitting about, as in some strange orgy; and now, in collected groups, appearing consult about some mysterious enterprise, whereon the fate of their ancient heroes might seem to be dependent. Running hither and thither, suddenly paus- ing, and pricking their long ears in listening mood, then bounding forward with a buoyant leap, they hurry on with breathless speed, till they have gained some resort of accustomed shelter. An aucient people are the hares; they were Probably dwellers in Albion ere yet population was established. They are mentioned in the records of the Britons as animals devoted by the Druids to the 'purposes of divination, and hence they were forbidden as objects of food. The Romans are said to have introduced rabbits, pheasants, cuckoos, and pigeons, partridges, plovers, turtles, and peacocks. When, in the dusk of evening, we have seen a company of hares careering with wildly-straining impetuosity along the up.. land slopes in the vicinity of Foremark, we have half deemed that the souls of some ancient British chiefs were thus permitted to revisit the scenes of their former love—those steep declivities down which they were wont to impel their swiftly-glancing chariots of war."
This picture of the Danes is not amiss as a bit of historical writing.
"England had now become the divided possession of two powers, the West Saxons and the Danes, who had subjugated the whole of the island except Wessex. The 'heathen-folk' burnt like a devouring flame over the country; their wild howling' and ferocious manner adding a stranger terror to their approach. They were armed with all kinds of barbarian weapous—with slings, knotted clubs shod with iron, and darts often pointed with bone or flint; and being covered, in many instances, with the tails of horses and red bulls, and having the heads of wild boars, bears, wolves, and other fierce animals, placed open-mouthed over their helmets, they were distinguished by an unnatural and spectral appearance. Not a few of these wild invaders had their bodies bared to the waist, and were smeared with blood and dirt from head to heel; while, to add to the odd, uncouth grimness of their savage aspect, they wore caps of hard-boiled leather, fitting tightly to the skull. They advanced sometimes like wild beasts, with sudden leaps and inarticulate cries; at other times they marched in a kind of measured quaintly-solemn step, to the shrill accompaniment of their rude clarions, or the harsh and hoarsely-resounding roll of their drums. The more regularly- appointed warriors wore lofty feathers in their helms, and were attired in a polished iron cuirass, or a mail-shirt, and carried long halberds in their hands. They were also armed with two-edged darts for throwing at a distance, and with broad, straight, and heavy swords of immoderate length, as well as with short crooked scimitars, which they used on coming to close action."
Dr. Bigsby lays claim to a German descent on the female side; and one of his ancestors married into the house of Chesterfield,—that is to say, he married the widow of a Stanhope. Upon these grounds the Doctor declaims largely, and somewhat tediously in his miscellaneous essays, on parvenus, and the decline of the honours paid to birth and blood. Amid his feeble violence, however, there are passages of informa- tion or character; of which we take a couple.
DEGREES OF GENTILITY.
The grant of a coat-of-arms constituting, therefore, a valuable distinction, a mark by which certain parties are hereditarily to be recognized as superior in rank to the general body of the people, it necessarily follows that any usurpation of that privilege by others is an offence, both in politics and morals, which deserves and should always meet with a ready exposure and punishment. There are four several qualities or degrees of gentility arining from the grant of coat-armour. One who inherits a coat-of-arms from his father is styled a gentleman of birth; if he derives it from his grandfather be is termed a gentleman of blood; and if he succeeds to the same from his greatgrandfather or other more distant progenitor, he is entitled a gentleman of ancestry: if he obtains the grant himself, he is simply a gentleman of coat-armour. From these facts it is readily seen, that when once a family is created by a grant of heraldic honours, it obtains at every remove from the founder an added dignity in the scale of descent, and an acknow- ledged precedency: of worth and estimation, as compared with others of later origin. The admirers of ancient blood look with comparatively little respect on arms granted at a period subsequebt to the reigns of the Tudors, and venerate with an almost superstitious regard the possessors of arms deduced from the sera of the Plautagenets. There are still certain appointments connected with the Court which can only be filled by gentlemen of ancient families ; and it is much to be regretted that the good and wise [ P] regulation which excluded from the profession of the bar all but gentlemen of four descents of coat-armour was over rescinded.
DECADENCE OF NOTTINGHAM.
Look at that mansion of old respectability. Though still inhabited by a gentle- man of some station, whose friendship I am happy to claim, it belonged in the years of its better fortunes to Thomas Lord Middleton, the right hospitable repre- sentative of one of our fine old baronial families. The one near it, of more modest proportions and less commanding aspect, was the residence of the worthy Sir Gervase Clifton, the honoured descendant of the "Gervase the Gentle," mentioned in the quaint distich composed (so at least says tradition) by the " Maiden Queen" in her earlier days of high-spirited jocularity. • • " In another quarter of the town stands, with a look of calm patrician repose, the ci-devant mansion of the Holies family, but belonging at the time to which I particularly allude (the middle of the last century) to the ancient family of Sherwin; from whom it passed, by purchase, to the writer's late father, whose large outlay in its restoration is spoken of by Bleckner in his history of the town. Near this latter edifice appears the still stylish-looking residence of the late Baroness Santry; the widow, most honoured and pitied, of the unfortunate Peer of that name, whose life was for- feited for the awful crime of murder; and a copy of whose will or codicil, some- where in my possession, begins with a melancholy allusion to his own dejected position—" I, Barry Barry, late Lord Baron Barry, of Santry, in the kingdom
of Ireland." • •
I have heard my late father refer, as a matter of tradition to the fact that there were no less than forty-two close carriages kept within the town of Not- tingham during the term of the winter assemblies; for in those days the county- towns were so many provincial metropolises—the seats of pleaaure and festive en- joyment of the most varied kind, miniature Baths or Montpeliers, without the nauseous necessity of drinking the boasted waters: now there are not, I am in- formed, more than two carriages of the description alluded to in the place; a cir- cumstance which I have cited to show the remarkable extent of the change which has passed over the face of society since the extension of our mercantile and ma- nufacturing relations.
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