AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION, VOL. 13, ISSUE 350, JANUARY 3, 1829***


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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

VOL. 13, No. 350.] SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1829. [PRICE 2d.



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BRUCE CASTLE, TOTTENHAM.

[Illustration: BRUCE CASTLE, TOTTENHAM.]


The engraving represents this interesting structure, as it appeared in
the year 1686; being copied from a print, after a picture by Wolridge.

The original castle was very ancient, as appears by the foundations, and
an old brick tower over a deep well, the upper part of which has been
used as a dairy. The castle is said to have been built by Earl Waltheof,
who, in 1069 married Judith, niece to William the Conqueror, who gave
him the earldom of Northampton and Huntingdon for her portion. Matilda
or Maud, their only child, after the death of Simon St. Liz, her first
husband, married David, first of the name, king of Scotland; and Maud,
being heiress of Huntingdon, had in her own right, as an appendix to
that honour, the manor of Tottenham in Middlesex.

Robert Bruce, grandson of David, Earl of Huntingdon, and grandfather to
Robert I. of Scotland, memorable as the restorer of the independence of
his country, became one of the competitors for the crown of Scotland in
1290, but being superseded by John Baliol, Bruce retired to England, and
settled at his grandfather's estate at Tottenham, repaired the castle,
and acquiring another manor, called it and the castle after his own
name. Shakspeare says,

  Fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns,

and the fortunes of the two Bruces are "confirmation strong as holy
writ."

The estate being forfeited to the crown, it had different proprietors,
till 1631, when it was in the possession of Hugh Hare, Lord Coleraine.
Henry Hare, the last Lord Coleraine of that family, having been deserted
by his wife, who obstinately refused, for twenty years, to return to
him, formed a connexion with Miss Roze Duplessis, a French lady, by whom
he had a daughter, born in Italy, whom he named Henrietta Roza
Peregrina, and to whom he left all his estates. This lady married the
late Mr. Alderman Townsend; but, being an alien, she could not take the
estates; and the will being legally made, barred the heirs at law; so
that the estate escheated to the crown. However, a grant of these
estates, confirmed by act of parliament, was made to Mr. Townsend and
his lady, whose son, Henry Hare Townsend, Esq. in 1792, voluntarily sold
the property for the payment of the family debts; and "although the
castle may soon be levelled with the ground, yet the destruction of this
ancient fabric will acquire him more honour, than if the prudence of his
ancestors had enabled him to restore the three towers, of which now only
one remains."[1]

    [1] Gough's Camden.

The present mansion is partly ancient, and partly modern, and was very
lately the property of Sir William Curtis, Bart. Up to the period at
which the castle is represented in the engraving, the building must have
undergone many alterations, as the tower on the left, and the two
octagonal and centre towers, will prove. The grounds there appear laid
out in the trim fashion of the seventeenth century, and ornamented with
fountains, vases, &c.


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NEW YEAR'S CUSTOM.

_(For the Mirror.)_


BROMLEY PAGETS, Staffordshire, is 129 miles from London, and is a pretty
town on the skirts of Derbyshire. This place is remarkable, or was
lately, for a sport on New Year's Day and Twelfth Day, called _The
Hobby-Horse Dance_, from a person who rode upon the image of a horse,
with a bow and arrow in his hands, with which he made a snapping noise,
and kept time to the music, while six men danced the hay and other
country dances, with as many deer's heads on their shoulders. To this
hobby-horse belonged a pot, which the reeves of the town kept filled
with cakes and ale, towards which the spectators contributed a penny,
and with the remainder they maintained their poor and repaired the
church.

HALBERT H.


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THE BARON'S TRUMPET.

_(For the Mirror.)_

      Thou blowest for Hector.
            TROILUS and CRESSIDA.


  Sound, sound the charge, when the wassel bowl
    Is lifted with songs, let the trumpets shrill blast
  Awaken like fire in the warrior's soul,
    The bright recollections of chivalry past;
  Let the lute or the lyre the soft stripling rejoice,
  No music on earth is so sweet as thy voice.

  Sound, sound the charge when the foe is before us,
    When the visors are closed and the lances are down,
  If we fall, let the banner of victory o'er us
    Dance time to thy clarion that sings our renown:
  To the souls of the valiant no requiem is given,
  So fit as thine echoes, to soothe them in heaven.

LEON.



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THE NEW YEAR

_(For the Mirror.)_


  Twenty-nine, Father Janus! and can it be true,
  That your _double-fac'd_ sconce is again in our view?
  Take a chair, my old boy--while our glasses we fill,
  And tell us, "what news"--for you can if you will.

  Shall we have any war? or will there be peace?
  Will swindlers, as usual, the credulous fleece?
  Will the season produce us a _deluge_ of rain?
  Did the comet bring coughs and catarrhs in his train?

  Will gas, so delicious, _perfume_ our abodes?
  Will McAdam continue "Colossus of _roads?_"
  Will Venus's boy be abroad with his bow,
  And make the dear girls over bachelors crow?

  Will _quid-nuncs_ from scandalous whispers refrain?
  Will poets the pent of Parnassus attain?
  Will travellers' tomes touch the truth to a T?
  Will critics from caustic coercion be free?

  Shall we check crafty care in his cunning career?
  In short--shall we welcome a happy new year?
  What, _mum_, Father Janus?--egad I suppose,
  Not one of our queries you mean to disclose.

  Let us, therefore, the blessings which Providence sends,
  To our country, to us, our relations and friends,
  With gratitude own--and employ the supplies,
  As prudence suggests, "to be merry and wise."

  Nor ever, too curious the future to pry,
  Presume on our own feeble strength to rely;
  But, taught by the _past;_ for the _future_, depend
  Where the wise and the good all their wishes extend.

JACOBUS.


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FALLING STONES.

_(For the Mirror.)_


Of these bodies, the most general opinion now is, that they are really
of _celestial_ origin. But a few years ago, nothing could have appeared
more absurd than the idea that we should ever be able to examine the
most minute fragment of the siderial system; and it must, no doubt, be
reckoned among the wonders of the age in which we live, that
considerable portions of these heavenly bodies are now known to have
descended to the earth. An event so wonderful and unexpected was at
first received with incredulity and ridicule; but we may now venture to
consider the fact as well established as any other hypothesis of natural
philosophy, which does not actually admit of mathematical demonstration.
The attention of our philosophers was first called to this subject by
the falling of one of these masses of matter near Flamborough Head, in
Yorkshire; it weighed about 50 pounds, and for some years after its
descent did not excite the interest it deserved, nor would perhaps that
attention have been paid to it which was required for the investigation
of the truth, if a similar and more striking phenomenon had not happened
a few years afterwards at Benares, in the East Indies. Some fragments of
the stones which fell in India were brought to Sir Joseph Banks by Major
Williams; and Sir Joseph being desirous of knowing if there might not be
some truth in these repeated accounts of falling stones, gave them to be
analyzed, when it was found by a very skilful analysis, published in the
Transactions, 1802, that the stones collected in various countries, and
to which a similar history is attached, contained very peculiar
ingredients, and all of the same kind. The earthy parts were silex and
magnesia, in which were interspersed small grains of metallic iron.
Since these investigations, the subject has attracted very general
attention, and most of the fragments of stones said to have fallen from
heaven, and which have been preserved in the cabinets of the curious, on
account of this tradition, have been analyzed, and found to consist of
the same ingredients, varying only in their different proportions.

Pliny relates, that a great stone fell near Egos Potamos, in the
Thracian Chersonese, in the second year of the 78th Olympiad. In the
year 1706, another large stone is, on the authority of Paul Lucas, then
at Lar