TRANSFORMATION OF THE GIPSIES. GIPSIES are, I believe, as common as blackberries in some parts of England, but in other districts they are as rare as apricots. Whether this geographical distribution is determined by any prevailing difference in the construction of hen-roosts I do not know. It is possible that the agriculturists in widely separated parts may vary in their estimates of the value of a missing lamb or sucking pig, and the gipsies may have become aware of it. But, however this may be, they have favourite districts, and do not impartially scatter themselves over the whole country. Kent, as I understand, is never free of their encampments, and the hop-picking poultry, it is stated, run at the sight of a red cloak. It is not so in the midland shires. I happened to have been born in one of the most northern of those counties, and there the barndoor fowl have no eye for colour, and the sheep are utterly ignorant of Romanee. Nothing is fully accepted in these exact days unless it be backed up by precise statistics, and so I will supply them. During the score of years I was domiciled in that part of England I saw just three small encampments of gipsies, and I saw all that came, for their arrival occasioned too much excitement for any to be overlooked. The appearance of one of the dark-skins in any street of our little town brought everybody within sight to a gaping standstill, and filled the doors and windows with wide-eyed faces. Did a kitchen-maid see a brown woman approaching up the yard, with a child slung at her back, and a tin gridiron or a row of white clothes-pegs in her hand, her first proceeding was to scream. Not unlikely, her next step was to hold a conversation with the wise creature through the window, tremblingly advancing her hand for inspection of the palm, but she took care the open casement was within reach. The farmers immediately on learning of the wanderers' arrival loosed their mastiff dogs, and betook themselves to patrolling stealthily among ricks and behind hedgerows, carrying a pitchfork on the shoulder. Sunday after Sunday, during the stay of the gipsies, our minister preached about the Witch of Endor, and decried magic and fortune-telling. Meantime, we youngsters, mutually horrified. ourselves after school hours by reciting tales of the kidnapping of respectable small folk, and their instantaneous conversion into gipsylings by application to their skin of walnut-juice. Having worked each other up to a proper pitch of terror, we crept down the green lanes in long Indian file, to survey from a distance in awe and trepidation the mysterious dwellings of these romantic people. In one of their visits we had, I well recollect, a long spell of bad weather, and it was generally believed that the gipsies were in some way at the bottom of it. Some of the sceptically inclined hesitated to accept it as conclusive proof of the raising of the Evil One in the tents by unholy rites, but all agreed that the gipsies would find their account in it, as specially favourable for poaching, sheep-slaughtering, and still worse deeds. Looking back from this distance of time, I cannot positively say that any murders were actually committed on those occasions, or even that burglaries were more than commonly coincident with the gipsies' visits, but I am convinced that nobody was the less frightened for that. Children slept with their heads under the bed-clothes, and adults tried the bolts and bars twice. It was not our fault that nothing horrible occurred; we were all as much alarmed as if deeds of violence and blood had really happened. When it was circulated some fine morning that the gipsies were missing, crowds went to look at the half-burnt patches, marking where the tents had stood, and some individuals carried away fragments of straw, partly-charred bones (sheep's, of course), and other trifles as relics. But One, however, lives to see alterations. what a change from the state of feeling I have been sketching to that I now experience! Within the last few weeks I have had repeated opportunities of seeing a gipsy in dress coat, white waistcoat, and dancing pumps. When, in addition to this, I mention that I witnessed the queen holding crowded levées in one of our public halls, and was made aware that the king, her amiable husband, was a contributor to our leading local newspaper, I think I shall be pardoned a little surprise. Perhaps, some particulars of so striking a transformation may be required, and in such case here they are. 4 Very recently flaming placards suddenly appeared on the walls of one of our largest midland towns, announcing in parti-coloured types that the gipsies had arrived; and this innovation upon their old stealthy mode of approach was not the whole. It was further intimated that the bold new-comers would be glad to welcome visitors at their encampment, pitched in a croft which was named! The whole town, so to speak, instantly went. The American war, Dano-German embroilment, Derbyshire murder, the last Tory election triumph, all became uninteresting; the only things worth anybody's doing were to smoke cigars with male, and to drink tea with female gipsies. It might have been the result of a spell laid on the whole of the population. The theatre suffered considerably; one or two public concerts given at this time were failures; tradesmen put up shutters earlier than usual, and it was whispered that a parson or two had been seen about the tents at dusk. Everybody was bewitched; the gipsies had brewed a charm for the whole town. For some time I endeavoured to preserve a state of wholesome disgust. I joked my acquaintances about leaving their reticules, watches, purses, and handkerchiefs at home if they went; and I even hinted on their return that the tents had more minute inhabitants than their nominal owners, and suggested change of linen and fumigations. The gipsy fever still went on. Fresh bills flamed on the gables, and the excitement increased. It was announced that the gipsies would give a series of balls and receptions at the St. George's Hall, when the queen would hold levées in the ante-room, and the Gitano Band would be in attendance. Nothing could be more successful. The hall was crowded, and that not for a single evening, but nightly, week after week. In the daytime people flocked to the encampment, which was in a field selected as nearest to the centre of the town, and in the evenings the principal streets were in a state of semi-riot while the gipsies, shining in silks and broadcloth, passed in a large "brake," on their way from the tents to the hall. Subsequently to that, until a little after midnight, the capacious building in which they danced the latest waltzes and polkas was beleagured. The admission fees were fixed rather high, and some people said the brown-skins were pocketing a hundred pounds a night; others, protesting against exaggerations, asserted that a speculator farmed them, and gave them only £250 a week. I am human, and I could not resist all this; I felt that a social phenomenon was occrruing which I ought to witness. A visit to the croft was naturally my first step. It was, of course, an enclosure, and the only ingress was by a gate, by the side of which a large board was reared, plastered over with bills announcing the balls, &c. Twopence each person was demanded for admission, and just then the money was being taken by a quick-eyed, bold-looking lad, fourteen or fifteen years of age. A group of gaudilydressed girls were holding a parley with the young rascal, and the first words I heard fall from the gitano lips were an announcement that he had that day taken six tons weight of copper money! When the laughter which greeted that hyperbole had subsided, the spokeswoman of the girls answered that if such was the case they could not want any more money, and so they might pass in without paying. The guardian of the gate kept the rail pressed firmly down, and after half a minute's puzzle, said that could not be, for they wanted about a dozen more twopences to make up the last ton. I contributed one of the required instalments, and was permitted to pass inside. Within the field, the turf of which had been trodden into mire, were four tents, pitched at short distances from each other, and all more wretched-looking than I had conceived possible. A shame-faced crowd of visitors was huddled near each one of these canvas hovels, in which the gipsies sat, or went about their little affairs, as stolidly and silently as though no spectators were there. Every tent appeared to have belonging to it a strong covered cart, which had been drawn close to it, and underneath which a fierce dog lay growling. In those vehicular chests, it is to be supposed, the treasures of the tribe were stowed away, for, so far as was visible, the interiors of the dwellings were utterly bare of comforts. All my romantic ideas of a free and jovial life under the pleasant greenwood tree vanished at sight of those bare clay floors, with a block of wood for a seat, and the upper half of the hovel filled with dense smoke from a crackling wood fire, which appeared to require mending every two minutes. The tawny children seemed to be wholly and unceasingly occupied in breaking and chopping thorns for that purpose, and they taciturnly pursued their work, quietly, unheedingly, as if the lookers-on were figures in a dream. The largest of the tents, which it was whispered belonged to the king, had the luxury of straw strewn on the floor; and here, early afternoon as it was, the inmates were taking tea. A brightly-painted tray was set upon the straw in the centre, having arranged on it a gilt tea service of common porcelain; upon the fire a polished copper kettle was bubbling away, and squat in a sort of ring round the tent were some dozen persons, half of them gipsies, half very foolish-looking visitors. Nearest to the fire sat a brown, withered crone, with a crutch-stick beside her, who was understood to be the queen grandmother; the female monarch regnant was not "at home," but the king, a well-clad, stronglooking man, of between thirty and forty, sat among the rest. As the cups were filled by a middle-aged gipsy woman, squatting at the head of the tray, they were handed about, and the bread-and-butter, on plates, was distributed in the same way. Still, there was nothing jovial about it; there was no attempt at fun, the gipsies scarcely ever spoke; all was absurdly restrained, and if one who was not a gitano attempted a joke it fell flat. An open-mouthed crowd stood at the tent entrance watching them eat buttered bread and drink Bohea, and as I had paid for the privilege I stared too; but I could not detect any speciality in their mode of handling cups and saucers, or their style of mastication, and I shortly moved on. In and out about the other tents three or four younger gipsy women, clad in scarlet Garibaldi jackets, were sauntering, slyly accosting stragglers, and now and then taking a blushing visitor inside. Sir, may I tell you your fortune?" asked one of these red-jacketed ones, sidling towards a couple of middle-aged men, standing near to me. an unusually skilful player, and the others were quite masters of their instruments; the music performed was the very latest and most fashionable, and the gipsies were unhesitatingly perfect in the figures. About half of them, of each sex, by an understood arrangement, as it seemed, kept to their own people, and the others got partners promiscuously from among the rest of the dancers. It will be inferred that the general company was not very select, but it included nearly all the “swells” of the place, and there was great rivalry for a gipsy "Certainly not," good-humouredly answered partner. But though there was a noisy mirth the one addressed. "Why, because you told it me the day before yesterday, and it nearly killed me!” The shout of laughter which arose at this (the first I had heard since entering the croft) discomfited Red-jacket, and shaking her dark head, she sauntered off. But the gipsies reckoned many victories for one such defeat. There were credible tales of carriages and cabs which went to the encampment after dark, conveying veiled ladies, anxious to learn every iota of the future. And, of course, it would be told to them. The general result of my visit to the camp was a firm conviction that English pic-nics are a great improvement upon their model, and that those who are not gitanos make much livelier and better gipsies than those who arc. Subsequently, I completed my information by going to the hall where the receptions, the levées, and the dancing went on. The place was crowded. In the ante-room, under the shelter of a bran-new tent, made gay with streamers, sat the gipsy queen, apparently about twenty-five, and not very ugly, disclosing everything to anybody for shilling fees. She She seemed to have plenty of visitors, and though most of them tried to pass the consultation off as a joke, many of them looked to be more than half believers. Within the ball-room, from whence loud strains of music were always pouring, you came upon the great spectacle. It was rather formal, and not very gipsy-like, but was evidently meant to be exceedingly respectable. The gipsies had rather a funereal look; the women were dressed in black silk, and the men in black broad-cloth; and the white kid gloves of the latter did not appear to fit their fingers, but seemed to be uncomfortably troublesome to each wearer. I think there were about five couples of gipsies, in addition to which there were four male gitanos in the Band. One of these latter, the harpist, was about the scene, the swart-skinned principals did not enter into it; they went through the figures set down, and between whiles would eat the stranger's ices, drink his wines, or smoke his cigars, but still they were separate and apart. The glare of the chandeliers was not the winking light of the moon, nor the hard, polished floor the soft, yielding turf, and the faces of their companions were all too white. It was not a gipsy dance at all; it was a hypocritical travesty, and they knew it. "Mind what you are about in the treating line, Ralph," I over-heard one of the grandlyattired fashionables whisper to an acquaintance, as he pushed his way towards the door, to allay his perspiration. "I asked the tall one I stood up with in the last dance but oneshe says she's the queen's cousin what she would take. She chose brandy and soda-water, and before I had given the order, beckoned to her sister, Myra she calls her, and then they had jellies besides. Blow me, seven shillings went in three minutes!" "They'll get nothing like that out of me," decisively answered Ralph, "I don't want 'em as partners; they're an ugly lot." I am unable honestly to dissent from that ungallant criticism. The women had black eyes, one or two of them had full red lips, and their hair, though somewhat dry and fizzy, was profuse and dark; but they were low in stature, of unroseate brown complexions, and had no elegance either of step or shape. The men, it was universally agreed, excelled the women in good looks. With one or two exceptions, they were rather tall, straight, broad-shouldered fellows. But, in spite of any qualifications of this kind, the balls succeeded, and for some three weeks nightly attracted crowds, more or less dense, until the last evening, when it was announced the receipts would be for the benefit of the Gitano Band, and the building was jammed. It was not to be expected that out of a population of seventy or eighty thousand there should not be some past their dancing days, and who are no longer curious about their fortunes, having already too much knowledge on the subject. These exceptions scouted all the rest for their folly in sanctioning such proceedings. Communications even appeared in the local newspapers decrying the whole affair. Hints were broadly thrown out that the gipsies were no better than they might be, and one correspondent gravely pointed out in print that they were not Christians. Rumours were circulated in solemn circles that a child had been seen at the encampment much too light of skin to be of pure gipsy blood. It was mysteriously affirmed that unaccountable sights and sounds had been observed and heard among the tents at night, suggestive of magical incantations and unholy rites. The king crushed these traducers. In a brief and wellwritten epistle to one of the journals, he replied that their theology was a matter betwixt themselves and the object of it; and alluding delicately to the morals of their women, he affirmed significantly that Sir Cresswell Cresswell, upon visiting their camp at Aldershot, mentioned that he had Jews and Christians, foreigners and natives, in his Court-all kinds of people at one time and another, but gipsies never. The little matter of magic the king passed over, but he politely thanked the inhabitants generally for the kind reception the tribe had met with, and loftily bade us farewell. A formal notification to the latter effect was also placarded upon the walls a few days later, and on passing the croft last week, I saw only a few patches of turf whiter than the rest, and some scattered fragments of litter, indicating where the encampment had stood. No doubt the balls, levées, and receptions are being repeated in other towns. It has been prophesied that the Jews will shortly monopolise our newspapers and control our telegraphic despatch companies; are the gipsies about to undertake our amusements for us? Truly these are tolerant times! CHARLES WOLFE. W. C. By the southern wall, and beneath a southwestern segment of the great dome of St Paul's Cathedral, stands a mural monument in white marble. It is "To the Memory of Sir John Moore," who fell at Corunna. There is at the head a winged woman, lowering the body of this brave soldier into the mausoleum, by means of a garland or rope of flowers. At the foot kneels a nude, or almost nude, man, engaged in the same operation, by the aid of a strap. On a block of white marble above stands a nude boy, trying to balance a long pole with a heavy standard. Beneath the figures are these lines: No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around nim. The Ode on the Burial of Sir John Moore, from which these lines are taken, has done more to immortalise this gallant general than a thousand marble monuments. At an after-dinner conversation between Lord Byron and Shelley, recorded by Captain Medwin, the question arose as to which was the most perfect ode of the day. Shelley contended for Coleridge's ode on Switzerland, commencing "Ye clouds." Moore's melodies were quoted; and some one mentioned Campbell's Hohenlinden; when Lord Byron started up, and said, "I will show you an ode you have never seen, that I consider little inferior to the best which the present prolific age has brought forth." He left the table and returned with a magazine, from which he read the well-known lines on the "Burial of Sir John Moore," commencing: Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried. "The feeling," says Medwin, "with which he recited these admirable stanzas I shall never forget. After he had come to the end he repeated the third, and said it was 'perfect, particularly the lines, But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him." It is not pleasant to reflect that the man who has cast such a halo of poetic glory around the far-off grave of a British soldier, should be sleeping at home in an unknown grave; that we should know so little of the young clergyman whose genius was as bright as his life was simple and his piety sincere. About a mile from Cove, now Queenstown, on the Great Island, at the other side of the hill, and within the four walls of the old unroofed church of Clonmel-not the town of Clonmel, in the county Tipperary, but the parish of Clonmel, in the county Cork-repose the ashes of the Rev. Charles Wolfe, the author of this ode, and of many other pieces of great excellence. Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall state, in their work on Ireland, that they visited the churchyard of Clonmel, and could not discover the poet's grave. As the writer of this paper was residing, at no distant period, in the neighbourhood of Queenstown, he resolved to make it out, if marked by any sort of stone, for neither the gravedigger, the clerk, clergyman, nor "the oldest inhabitant," knew anything about it. I went to Clonmel, accompanied by one of my daughters, whose eyes are sharper than mine. We first took the circuit of this little I may here state that, within a few yards of his grave, I found a thin slab of white marble, bearing the name of Thomas Tobin, author of the "Honeymoon," the "Faro Fable," the "Undertaker," and the "School for Authors." The thin monumental slab, which had fallen from the wall, was left on the ground, to be trodden under the foot of men, or any animal that might wander that way. I thought the old ruined church, with its neglected and forgotten tenants, and tomb-stones, a very excellent "School for Authors." This clever dramatist was born in Salisbury, in 1770, and died in 1804, in his thirty-fourth year, within sight of land, when on his way to the West Indies, for the benefit of his health. mains were brought to Cove, now Queenstown, and interred within the four walls of the old ruined church of Clonmel. His re But to return to Charles Wolfe. I visited his grave a second time, accompanied by a literary friend, who told me the following interesting anecdote of his elegy, on the burial of Sir John Moore. "Charles Wolfe," said he, "showed me the lines in manuscript, with the beauty of which I was so much impressed, that I requested a copy, for insertion in a periodical with which I had some connection. Wolfe first refused, but in the end complied. I laid the ode before two or three of the literary savants who were in the habit of deciding what should or should not appear in their periodical. The lines were read, condemned and ridiculed; and I was laughed at for imagining such stuff worthy of publication.' I felt myself in a very awkward position, but I got cleverly out of it. I wrote to Charles Wolfe, returning him his manuscript, saying, that on more mature consideration, I did not deem the periodical I had named worthy of its insertion." The literary friend who told me this anecdote, and whose name without his permission I should not like to mention, furnished the poet, Thomas Moore, with some of the "stuff," or Irish music, to which he set some of his most beautiful melodies. I see by an old letter of Charles Wolfe, in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy, that he sent a copy of these lines to his friend, "John Taylor, at the Rev. Mr. Armstrong's, Clonoulty, Cashel," on the 16th September, 1816. "My dear John,-I have completed the burial of Sir John Moore, and will here inflict them on you. You have no one but yourself to blame—for praising the two stanzas-that I have told you so much." We discover from the date of this letter to the Rev. John Taylor (September, 1816), that the ode was not finished till nearly eight years after the death of Sir John Moore, who fell in January 1809. The following notice, which appeared in the "Edinburgh Annual Register," written, we believe, by the chaplain of the 9th Regiment, who read the prayers at the grave, furnished Charles Wolfe with the material from which he wrought out his most perfect ode :— Sir John Moore had often said that if he was killed in battle he wished to be buried where he fell. The body was removed at midnight to the citadel of Corunna. A grave was dug for him on the rampart there by a party of the 9th Regiment, and the aids-de-camp attending, by turns. No coffin could be procured, and the officers of his staff wrapped the body, dressed as it was, in a military cloak and blankets. The interment was hastened; for about eight in the morning some firing was heard, and the officers feared that if a serious attack were made they should be ordered away, and not suffered to pay him their last duty. The officers of his family bore him to the grave. The funeral service was read by the chaplain, and the corpse was covered with the earth. War and warlike heroes seemed to be favourite themes with Charles Wolfe, who was descended of a family that produced the illustrious hero, General Wolfe, who fell before Quebec. Arma virumque cano seems to have been the poet's motto. When about eighteen years of age he wrote, "Jugurtha incarceratus vitam ingemit relictam," a poem which possesses a great deal of dramatic power. It represents the Numidian Lion Jugurtha as caught, and caged in the city of Rome, after having graced the procession of the victorious general Marius. captive is thus represented as speaking to himself in his dungeon : The Well-is the rack prepared, the pincers heated? |