I can look for a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of an horse.
Book dedications provide a fertile field for commonplace collectors. One of my favourites is that of Colonel Angus Buchanan’s book on the Sahara. It reads:
To Feri n’Gashi,
Only a Camel
But steel-true and great of heart.
Col. Buchanan is, however, run close by Mrs Frances Simpson, who thus dedicates her book Cats for Pleasure and Profit:
To the many kind friends, known and
unknown, that I have made
in Pussydom.
From Sidney Hutchison’s fascinating History of the Royal Academy, 1768–1968, I was relieved to learn that in 1893 the Academy finally yielded to mounting pressure from its female students to be allowed to draw from a male nude model. The ensuing decree, however, made it clear that proper standards of decency were still to be upheld:
It shall be optional for Visitors in the Painting School to set the male model undraped, except about the loins, to the class of Female Students. The drapery to be worn by the model to consist of ordinary bathing drawers, and a cloth of light material 9 feet long by 3 feet wide, which shall be wound round the loins over the drawers, passed between the legs and tucked in over the waist-band; and finally a thin leather strap shall be fastened round the loins in order to insure that the cloth keep its place.
Two more dictionary definitions:
MALLEMAROKING. 1867. Smith Taylor’s Word-Book. The visiting and carousing of seamen in the Greenland ships.
Oxford English Dictionary
TAGHAIRM. n. In the Scottish Highlands, divination: esp. inspiration sought by lying in a bullock’s hide beneath a waterfall.
Chambers
And two of those selected quotations, included in the better dictionaries in order to illustrate the use of the word defined. The first clearly struck a deep chord of sympathy in the soul of the lexicographer; it comes from the Oxford English Dictionary, as part of the entry for the word Scriptorium:
TLS, 18 January 1907: Drowsy intelligences and numbed fingers in a draughty scriptorium will easily account for deviations.
The source of the second is a Norwegian-English dictionary by Professor Einar Haugen (Universitetsforlaget, Oslo, 1965):
KANSKJE. Perhaps, maybe... Kanskje blir vi ferdig med denne ordboken en gang – Maybe we’ll finish this dictionary some time.
Here are two extracts from the wine catalogues of Mr Gerald Asher, dated 1967 and 1968 respectively:
NUITS-ST GEORGES
Deep colour and big shaggy nose. Rather a jumbly, untidy sort of wine, with fruitiness shooting off one way, firmness another and body pushing about underneath. It will be as comfortable and as comforting as the 1961 Nuits-St Georges once it has pulled its ends in and settled down.
CHTEAU LYNCH-BAGES, Grand Cru Classé Pauillac, Château-Bottled.
Just the wine for those who like the smell of Verdi. Dark colour, swashbuckling bouquet and ripe flavour. Ready for drinking, but will hold well showing a gradual shift in style as it ages into graceful discretion.
Extracts from the Index to The Violent Effigy: A Study of Dickens’ Imagination by John Carey:
babies, bottled, 82
boiling spirit, 25–6
cannibalism, 22–4, 175
cleanliness, excessive, 36–7
coffins, walking, 80–1
combustible persons, 14, 165
dust heaps, 109–11
fire, seeing pictures in, 16
fragmented vision, 95–8
guillotining, 20–1
home-smashing, 17
junk, enchantment of, 49–50
legs, humour of, 61–2, 92–3
mirrored episodes, 125–6
personal climates, 134–5
pokers, red-hot, 26, 85
‘ruffian class’, the, 38–9
scissored women, 163–4
snuff, composed of dead bodies, 80
soldiers, attraction of, 40–1
virtuous violence, 28–9
wooden legs, 91–3, 103
wooden men, 88, 102–3
zoo, feeding time at, 68–9
Here is a passage from a book called Health’s Improvement: Or, Rules Comprizing and Discovering the Nature, Method and Manner of Preparing all sorts of FOOD used in this Nation, by ‘that ever Famous Thomas Muffett, Doctor in Physick’. (Dr Muffett was also in his day the leading authority on insects – an expertise not, alas, shared by his daughter Patience who became the world’s most celebrated arachnophobe.) The following further extracts are taken from the 1655 edition, ‘corrected and enlarged’ by Dr Christopher Bennet, Fellow of the ‘College of Physitians’ in London.
Swans flesh was forbidden the Jewes, because by them the Hieroglyphical Sages did describe hypocrisie; for as Swans have the whitest feathers and the blackest flesh of all birds, so the heart of Hypocrites is contrary to their outward appearance.
So that not for the badness of their flesh, but for resembling of wicked men’s minds they were forbidden: for being young they are not the worst of meats; nay if they be kept in a little pound and well fed with Corn, their flesh will not only alter the blackness, but also be freed of the unwholesomeness; Being thus used, they are appointed to be the first dish at the Emperour of Muscovie his table, and also much esteemed in East-Friezland.
Cuttles (called also sleeves for their shape, and scribes for their incky humour wherewith they are replenished) are commended by Galen for great nourishers; their skins be as smooth as any womans, but their flesh as brawny as any ploughmans, therefore I fear me Galen rather commended them upon hearsay, than upon any just cause or true experience; Apicius, that great Mastercook, makes sausages of them with lard and other things; which composition I would not have omitted, if it had been worth the penning.
Puffins, whom I may call the feathered fishes, are accounted even by the holy fatherhood of Cardinals to be no flesh but rather fish; whose Catholique censure I will not here oppugne, though I have just reason for it, because I will not encrease the Popes Coffers; which no doubt would be filled, if every Puffin eater bought a pardon, upon true and certain knowledge that a Puffin were flesh: albeit perhaps if his Holiness would say, that a shoulder of Mutton were fish, they either would not or could not think it flesh.
From a letter by Sarah, Lady Lyttelton, written from St Petersburg on 12 December 1813:
. . . All the beau monde does not walk; many are the ladies who maintain that the said exercise is very pernicious; they accordingly almost lose the use of their legs; and t’other day, as I was going about shopping with Madame Palianski, I observed her footman not only helped her out of the carriage but followed her upstairs, holding her under both elbows as she lounged up. I was making my progress a little more independently, and as soon as she perceived this, ‘Mais comment donc! Vous ne vous faîtes pas soutenir? Vous montez toute seule comme cela?’ she exclaimed, quite as if she had found out that I had three legs. And this a lively, healthy little woman of thirty-five!
In Evelyn Waugh’s early travel book, Labels, he tells of a visit to Paris, during which his attention was suddenly caught by
the spectacle of a man in the Place Beauveau, who had met with an accident which must, I think, be unique. He was a man of middle age and, to judge by his bowler hat and frock coat, of the official class, and his umbrella had caught alight. I do not know how this can have happened. I passed him in a taxi-cab, and saw him in the centre of a small crowd, grasping it still by the handle and holding it at arm’s length so that the flames should not scorch him. It was a dry day and the umbrella burnt flamboyantly. I followed the scene as long as I could from the little window in the back of the car, and saw him finally drop the handle and push it, with his foot, into the gutter. It lay there smoking, and the crowd peered at it curiously before moving off. A London crowd would have thought that the best possible joke, but none of the witnesses laughed, and no one to whom I have told t
his story in England has believed a word of it.
Kingsley Amis subsequently wrote to me:
On the mystery of the blazing umbrella I can throw a little light. I once tossed a burning cigarette-butt into the air, swiped negligently at it with my furled but not rolled umbrella and, having presumably managed to trap it instead of deflecting it, was soon much troubled by smoke and fumes. (Doubly discomfiting since by now I had reached the SCR in St John’s.)
In 1606 the King of Denmark paid a state visit to the court of James I, where a masque was performed in his honour. Here – only very slightly abridged – is Sir John Harington’s description of the event:
One day a great feast was held, and after dinner the representation of Solomon his Temple and the coming of the Queen of Sheba was made, before their Majesties, by device of the Earl of Salisbury and others. – But alas! as all earthly thinges do fail to poor mortals in enjoyment, so did prove our presentment hereof. The Lady who did play the Queen’s part did carry most precious gifts to both their Majesties; but forgetting the steppes arising to the canopy, overset her caskets into his Danish Majestie’s lap, and fell at his feet, tho I rather think it was in his face. Much was the hurry and confusion; cloths and napkins were at hand to make all clean. His Majesty then got up and would dance with the Queen of Sheba; but he fell down and humbled himself before her, and was carried to an inner chamber and laid on a bed of state; which was not a little defiled with the presents of the Queen which had been bestowed on his garments; such as wine, cream, jelly, beverage, cakes, spices and other good matters. The entertainment and shew went forward and most of the presenters went backward, or fell down, wine did so occupy their upper chambers. Now did appear in rich dress Hope, Faith and Charity: Hope did assay to speak, but wine rendered her endeavours so feeble that she withdrew, and hoped the King would excuse her brevity. Faith was then all alone, for I am certain she was not joyned with good works; and left the Court in a staggering condition. Charity came to the King’s feet, and seemed to cover the multitude of sins her sisters had committed: In some sorte she made obeysance and brought giftes, but said she would return home again, as there was no gift which Heaven had not already given his Majesty; she then returned to Hope and Faith, who were both sick and spewing in the lower hall.
Next came Victory, in bright armour, and presented a rich sword to the King, who did not accept it, but put it by with his hand; and, by a strange medley of versification, did endeavour to make suit to the King; but Victory did not tryumph for long, for, after much lamentable utterance, she was led away like a silly captive, and laid to sleep in the outer steps of the antechamber. Now did Peace make entry, and strive to get foremoste to the King; but I grieve to tell how great wrath she did discover unto those of her attendants, and, much contrary to her own semblance, most rudely made war with her olive branch, and laid on the pates of those who did oppose her coming. I have much marvelled at these strange pageantries, and they do bring to my remembrance what passed of this sort in our Queens days; of which I was sometime a humble presenter and assistant; but I neer did see such lack of good order, discretion, and sobriety, as I have now done . . .
It is refreshing to note in Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur that the standards of chivalry prevailing at the Round Table were not – even if we leave aside the lamentable lapses of Sir Lancelot – of a uniformly high order. Even King Arthur himself seems to have slipped a little at times:
Ryght so com in the lady, on a whyght palfery, and cryed alowde unto kynge Arthur and sayde, ‘Sir, suffir me not to have thys despite, for the brachet* ys myne that the knyght hath ladde away.’
‘I may nat do therewith,’ seyde the kynge.
So with thys there com a knyght ryding all armed on a grete horse, and toke the lady away wyth forse wyth hym, and ever she cryed and made grete dole. So when she was gone the kynge was gladde, for she made such a noyse.
Here are two entries from Pepys. The first is dated 3 November 1661:
Lord’s Day. This day I stirred not out, but took physique and it did work very well; and all the day, as I was at leisure, I did read in Fuller’s Holy Warr (which I have of late bought) and did try to make a Song in the prayse of a Liberall genius (as I take my own to be) to all studies and pleasures; but it not proving to my mind, I did reject it and so proceeded not in it. At night my wife and I had a good supper by our- selfs, of a pullet-hashed; which pleased me much to see my condition come to allow ourselfs a dish like that. And so at night to bed.
In his entry for 15 December 1662, Pepys casts an unexpected light on the Duke of York – the future King James II:
Up and to my Lord’s [Lord Sandwich] and thence to the Duke and followed him into the parke [St James’s]; where though the ice was broken and dangerous, yet he would go slide upon his Scates; which I did not like, but he slides very well.
Love’s Labour’s Lost is the first of Shakespeare’s published plays to bear his name. Nobody knows quite when it was written, but most scholars seem to agree on the early 1590s. This would make it roughly contemporary with the first sonnets, and certainly none of the plays – not even Romeo and Juliet – shows Shakespeare more tenderly lyrical:
Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails;
Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:
For valour, is not Love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as Sphinx, as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo’s lute, strung with his hair;
And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.
The play has a lovely, funny ending. After the famous ‘When icicles hang by the wall’ – ruined for me by too many reluctant recitations at school – there appears a single sentence, printed in large type in the early Quarto text,
THE WORDS OF MERCURY ARE HARSH AFTER THE SONGS OF APOLLO.
The First Folio gives this line to Don Adriano de Armado, the ‘fantastical Spaniard’, and has him add as an afterthought,
You that way, we this way.
There is nothing particularly profound about either of these remarks; but they provide just the sort of innocent, pointless little flourish that sends the audience away smiling.
There is a lovely moment in the second Canto of Dante’s Purgatorio when we are suddenly brought, with the very gentlest of bumps, into the twentieth – or, indeed, any other century in which the reader may happen to live – and reminded of that other familiar, if fleeting, purgatory of asking other people the way.
. . . la nova gente alzò la fronte
ver noi, dicendo a noi: ‘Se voi sapete,
mostratene la via di gire al monte.’
E Virgilio rispose: ‘Voi credete
forse che siamo esperti d’esto loco;
ma noi siam peregrin come voi sète.’
. . . the new arrivals raised their heads
towards us: ‘If it lies within your power,
show us the path that leads us to the mount.’
And Virgil answered: ‘Doubtless you believe
that we are both familiar with this place.
The trouble is – we’re strangers here ourselves.’
*a female hound.
The Illustrated Christmas Cracker Page 3