Wonderful as this relation may seem, its truth may be relied on, and any reader of the MIRROR, travelling, or having friends in that part of the country, may easily ascertain the truth of my statement. The house at present stands near the highway leading from Sturminster to Sherborne, about five or six miles from the former, and six or seven from the latter.
RURIS.
Blandford, April 9, 1829.
ORIGIN OF SIGNS.—CAT AND THE FIDDLE
No part of the history of civilized nations is involved in such deep obscurity as the origin and progress of their names. I do not mean their names of men and women, the etymology of which are easy; for any stupid fellow can see with half an eye that Xisuthrus and Noah are one and the same person; and that Thoth can only be Hermes; nor is there any discernable difference between Pelagius and Morgan; tout celà va sans se dire, but when we come to account for the names of places or of signs, then indeed are we lost in a vast field of metaphysical disquisition and conjectural criticism. The Spectator, your worthy predecessor, threw much light upon the science, but still he left it in its infancy. To be sure, he traced the Bull and Mouth to the Boulogne Mouth, but I don't remember that he made many other discoveries in this terrâ incognitâ. However, he hinted that the roots of most of these old saws were to be found in the French language, or rather in the jargon spoken by the would-be-fine people, in imitation of the court, and by them called French. Neither the Spectator, however, nor any of his periodical imitators have ever found out why a certain headland, bare as the back of my hand, should be dignified with the appellation of Beechey Head; unless indeed, according to the Eton grammar, our ancestors used the rule of lucus a non lucendo. The reason, however, is to be found in the French language, and Beechey Head is the present guide of the old beau chef, whereby this point was once known. The Spectator also, if I remember right, declared the old sign of the Cat and the Fiddle to be quite beyond his comprehension. In truth, no two objects in the world have less to do with each other than a cat and a violin, and the only explanation ever given of this wonderful union, appears to be, that once upon a time, a gentleman kept a house with the sign of a Cat, and a lady one, with the sign of a Fiddle, or vice versâ. That these two persons fell in love, married, and set up an Inn, which to commemorate their early loves, they called the Cat and the Fiddle. Such reasoning is exceedingly poetical, and also (mind, also, not therefore) exceedingly nonsensical. No, Sir, the Cat and the Fiddle is of greater antiquity. Did you ever read the History of Rome? Of Rome! yes, of Rome. Thence comes the Cat and the Fiddle, in somewhat a roundabout way perhaps, but so it is:
Vixtrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.
Cato was faithful to the sacred cause of liberty, and disdained to survive it; and now for the fiddle. In the days of good Queen Bess, when those who had borne the iron yoke of Mary, ventured forth and gloried in that freedom of conscience which had lately been denied them, a jolly innkeeper having lately cast off the shackles of the old religion, likened himself to the old Roman, and wrote over his door l'Hostelle du Caton fidelle. The hostelle and its sign lasted longer than the worthy gentleman, and having gone shockingly to decay, was many years after re-established. But alas! the numerous French words once mixed with our language had vanished, barbarized, and ground down into a heterogeneous mass of sounds; and le Caton fidelle was no longer known to his best friends when resuscitated under the anomalous title of the Cat and Fiddle!!
XX.
THE BLIND GIRL
As fair a thing as e'er was form'd of clay.
Sweet wanderer—we have known her long!
And often on our ear,
Has gush'd the cadence of her song,
As if some stream were near.
Her path was through our tranquil dell,
When breezes kiss'd the curfew bell.
We gaz'd upon the golden hair,
That o'er her white brow shone,
And beauty's tinge had cluster'd there,
A grace unlike its own.
We call'd it beautiful—that brow!
But rayless were the eyes below.
Those pale dim eyes, we would have given
Our flowers to see them glow—
They slept, as sleeps the summer heaven,
When the sun waxeth low:
And soft her glossy lashes were,
As stars within the crystal air.
Oh, call her not a phantom form,
Of deep sepulchral spells;
Her maiden lips with life are warm,
And thought within her dwells—
Thought, holy as the light that lies
In the rapt martyr's lifted eyes.
Her home—'tis far away from her,
Its quiet porch is lone,
And the sunny wind no more shall stir
Its streamlet's silver tone.
The zephyrs there, their incense wreathe,
But, o'er her hair they shall not breathe.
Her sire reposeth in the wave,
Beneath an Indian sky;
The violets fringe her mother's grave,
And there, her sisters lie!
And we will waft to heaven our prayers,
When her pure dust is mix'd with theirs.
WINE
Sir,—I am induced to send you the following, in consequence of reading an article upon wine in No. 352, page 45 of your interesting work.
The article appears to have been written with a view of inducing a more frequent use of that wholesome and invigorating beverage by adducing a host of respectable names of antiquity. But I am somewhat inclined to believe, that notwithstanding the classic lore and learned style in which the article appears, that many there are, whose adverse temper, and whom the present "march of intellect" has so far rendered callous to authoritative conviction, that they still remain sceptics of the extraordinary good qualities and virtues, which the ancients believed this beverage to contain; only because they have thought fit to adhere to the common adage, that no opinion ought to be received upon men's authority, without a sufficient reason assigned for its correctness. It is with this view of the subject then, that I venture to make the few following observations. In the first place, we will briefly consider the nature and chemical properties of wines, and then their tendency and action upon the constitution.
The