THE SEASON.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Sir,

The perusal of your remarks on the season and the winds, in the Every-Day

Book, page 707, reminded me of some
lines I wrote at Ramsgate. If you know
Wellington-crescent, where they were
composed, you know a very pretty place,
for either summer or winter residence.
I am, Sir, &c.

June 6, 1825.

mere horses, condemned to such unme-
rited torments for my convenience, but I
reflect, they must have undoubtedly ex-
isted in the fathers of the holy inquisi-
tion. I very well know that these senti-
ments will be treated as ludicrous by
many of my readers, but they are in them-
selves just and serious, and carry with
them the strongest probability of their
truth. So strong is it, that I cannot but
hope it will have some good effect on the
conduct of those polite people, who are
too sagacious, learned, and courageous to
be kept in awe by the threats of hell and
damnation; and I exhort every fine lady
to consider, how wretched will be her
condition, if after twenty or thirty years
spent at cards, in elegant rooms, kept
warm by good fires and soft carpets, she
should at last be obliged to change places
with one of her coach horses; and every
fine gentleman to reflect, how much more
wretched would be his, if after wasting
his estate, his health, and his life in ex-
travagance, indolence, and luxury, he
should again revive in the situation of For I am one who hate and dread
That eastern blast, and oft have fled
Its pestilences dire!

one of his creditors."

Besides Jenyns's suppositions, allow me to notice the crimping of fish, the skinning of eels alive, the whipping of pigs to death, to make them tender, the boiling of live crabs, having first put them in cold water to make them lively; together with the preference given to hunted hares, on account of their delicacy of muscles, softened by worry and exertion. These are but too common instances of a barbarous

taste.

At this season of enjoyment and leisure, when we derive pleasure from contemplating the beautiful forms and appearances of nature, and are grateful for annual abundance, let us reflect on the criminal heedlessness wherewith we allow

our appetites and pleasures to be indulg-
ed, by needless sufferings in the ani-

mals we subdue to our wants and whims.
While we endeavour to inculcate kind-
ness in our children towards one another,
let us teach them kindness to the mean-
est of created beings. I know that the
Every-Day Book widely circulates in fami-
lies; the humane sentiments that pervade
it, must therefore have considerable in-
fluence, and for this reason I select it as
a channel for conveying a humane sug-
gestion.
I am, dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,

J. B

THE EAST WIND.

J S.

A summer sun in brightness glows;
But, ah! the blighting east wind blows,
And weighs the spirit down '
All smiling is th' enlivening ray,
That tips with silvery tinge the spray,
O'er ocean's bosom thrown!

Yet, all inviting though it seems,
And tempts one forth to court its beams
I tremblingly retire:

But the young shoots that round me rise
And make me old,—(though still unwise)
Feel no such fear as I

Brimful of joy they venture forth
Wind blowing west, south, east, or north,
If cloudless be the sky!

They tripping lightly o'er the path,
To them yet free from grief or scath,

Press on and onward still,
With brow unwrinkled yet by care,
With spirit buoyant as the air-

They breathe at freedom's will
Where shipwreck'd seamen oft deplore
The loss of all their scanty store,

They rove at ebb of tide
In quest of shells, or various weed,
That, from the bed of ocean freed,

Their anxious search abide.

Proud and elated with their prize,
(All eagerness with sparkling eyes,

The treasures home are brought
To me, who plunged in gloom the while,
At home have watch'd the sea bird's guile :---
Or, in a sea of thought,

Have sent my spirit forth to find
Fit food for an immortal mind,
Else of itself the prey!
And in th' abstraction of that mood.
Full oft I've realized the good,

We boast not every day.

BATTLE OF WATERLOO

There was a sound of revelry by night,

And Belgium's capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men.
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell;

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

Did ye not hear it?-No; 'twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying fleet---
But, hark!--that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

And nearer, nearer, deadlier than before.

Arm! arm! it is!---it is---the cannon's opening roar

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated: who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon nights so sweet such awful morn could rise?

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,

And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;

And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;

And near, the beat of the alarming drum

Roused by the soldier ere the morning star;

While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,

Or whispering, with white lips—“ The foe! they come ! they coms [^

And wild, and high, the "Cameron's gathering rose !"

The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills

Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:

How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,

Savage and shrill! but with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers

With the fierce native daring which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years,

And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass,

Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,

Over the unreturning brave,—alas!

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass

Which now beneath them, but above shall grow

In its next verdure, when this fiery mass

Of living valour, rolling on the foe

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

Last noon peheld them full of lusty life,
Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay;
The midnight brought the signal sound of strife,
The morn the marshalling in arms, ---the day
Battle's magnificently-stern array!

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent
The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse,---friend,---foe, --in one red burial blent!

On the 18th of June, 1817, the Strandbridge, a noble structure, erected at the expense of private individuals, was opened

Byron.

for the public accommodation, under the denomination of Waterloo-bridge, with military and other ceremonies.

These poor Buy-a-Broom" girls exactly dress now,
As Hollar etch'd such girls two cent'ries ago;
All formal and stiff, with legs, only, at ease-
Yet, pray, judge for yourself; and don't, if you please,
Like Matthews's "Chyle," in his Monolo Play,

Cry" The Ev'ry-Day Book is quite right, I dare say;"
But ask for the print, at old print shops, (they'll show it,)
And look at it, "with your own eyes," and you'll "know it."

809

So se

These girls are Flemings. They come to England from the Netherlands in the spring, and take their departure with the summer. They have only one low, shrill, twittering note, " Buy a broom?" sometimes varying into the singular plural, Buy a brooms?" It is a domestic cry; two or three go together, and utter it in company with each other; not in concert, nor to a neighbourhood, and scarcely louder than will attract the notice of an inmate seen at a parlour window, or an open street-door, or a lady or two passing in the street. Their hair is tightened up in front, and at the sides, and behind, and the ends brought together, and cured, or skewered, at the top of the head, as if it were constricted by a tourniquet: the little close cap, not larger than an infant's, seems to be put on and tied down by strings fastened beneath the chin, merely as a concealment of the machinery. Without a single inflexion of the body, and for any thing that appears to the contrary, it may be incased in tin. From the waist, the form abruptly and boldly bows out like a large beehive, or an arch of carpentry, built downward from above the hips, for the purpose of opening and distending the enormous petticoat into numerous plaits and folds, and thereby allowing the legs to walk without incumbrance. Their figures are exactly miniatured in an unpainted penny doll of turnery ware, made all round, before and behind, and sold in the toyshops for the amusement of infancy.

66

answer

These Flemish girls are of low stature, with features as forma. and old fashioned as their dress. Their gait to both. They and manner carry their brooms, not under the left arm, but upon it, as they would children, upright between the arm and the side, with the heads in front of the shoulder. One, and one only, of the brooms is invariably held in the right hand, and this 66 Buy a is elevated with the sharp cry broom?" or Buy a brooms?" to any one likely to become a purchaser, till it is either bought or wholly declined. The sale of their brooms is the sole purpose for which they cross the seas to us; and they suffer nothing to divert them from their avocation. A broom girl's countenance, so wearisomely indicates unwearied attention to the "main chance," and is so inflexibly solemn, that you doubt whether she ever did or can smile; yet when she does, you are astonished that

she does not always: her face does not
This appearance
relax by degrees, but breaks suddenly
into an arch laugh.
may be extorted by a joke, while driving
a bargain, but not afterwards: she as-
sumes it, perhaps, as a sort of "turn" to
hasten the "business transaction;" for
when that is concluded, the intercourse
ends immediately. Neither lingering nor
loitering, they keep constantly walking
on, and looking out for customers. They
seldom speak to each other; nor when
their brooms are disposed of, do they stop
and rejoice upon it as an end to their la-
bours; but go homewards reflectively,
with the hand every now and then dip-
ping into the pocket of the huge petii-
coat, and remaining there for a while, as
if counting the receipts of the day while
they walk, and reckoning what the
before accumulated riches will total to,
with the new addition. They seem in-
fluenced by this admonition, "get all you
can, and keep all you get."

Rather late in an autumn afternoon, in
Battersea-helds, I saw one of these girls
by herself; she was seated, with her
brooms on her lap, in a bit of scenery,
which, from Weirotter's etchings and other
prints, I have always fancied resembled a
Red-house," with
view in the Low Countries: it is an old
windmill, near the "
some low buildings among willows, on
the bank of the Thames, thrown up to
keep the river from overflowing a marshy
flat. To my imagination, she was fixed
to that spot in a reverie on her "vader-
She gazed on the strait line of
land.*"
stunted trees, as if it were the line of
beauty; and from the motion of her lips,
and the enthusiasm of her look, I deemed
she was reciting a passage from a poet of
her native country. Elevation of feeling,
in one of these poor girls, was hardly to
be looked for; and yet I know not why I
should have excluded it, as not apper-
taining to their character, except from
their seeming intentness on thrift alone.
They are cleanly, frugal, and no wasters
of time; and that they are capable of sen-
timent, I state on the authority of my
imagining concerning this poor girl;
whereon, too, I pledge myself not to have
been mistaken, for the language of the
heart is universal- and hers discoursed to
mine; though from the situation wherein

* Vader-land, a word signifying country, but infinitely more expressive; it was first adopted by Lord Byron into our language; he englishes it" Fatherland."