I could not help smiling at this display of small
erudition on so whimsical a subject; but I found that
the peacocks were birds of some consequence at the
Hall, for Frank Bracebridge informed me that they
were great favourites with his father, who was extremely
careful to keep up the breed; partly because they
belonged to chivalry, and were in great request at
the stately banquets of the olden time; and partly
because they had a pomp and magnificence about them,
highly becoming an old family mansion. Nothing,
he was accustomed to say, had an air of greater state
and dignity than a peacock perched upon an antique
stone balustrade.
Master Simon had now to hurry off, having an appointment
at the parish church with the village choristers,
who were to perform some music of his selection.
There was something extremely agreeable in the cheerful
flow of animal spirits of the little man; and I confess
I had been somewhat surprised at his apt quotations
from authors who certainly were not in the range of
every-day reading. I mentioned this last circumstance
to Frank Bracebridge, who told me with a smile that
Master Simon’s whole stock of erudition was
confined to some half-a-dozen old authors, which the
Squire had put into his hands, and which he read over
and over, whenever he had a studious fit; as he sometimes
had on a rainy day, or a long winter evening.
Sir Anthony Fitzherbert’s “Book of Husbandry;”
Markham’s “Country Contentments;”
the “Tretyse of Hunting,” by Sir Thomas
Cockayne, Knight; Izaak Walton’s “Angler,”
and two or three more such ancient worthies of the
pen, were his standard authorities; and, like all
men who know but a few books, he looked up to them
with a kind of idolatry, and quoted them on all occasions.
As to his songs, they were chiefly picked out of old
books in the Squire’s library, and adapted to
tunes that were popular among the choice spirits of
the last century. His practical application of
scraps of literature, however, had caused him to be
looked upon as a prodigy of book-knowledge by all
the grooms, huntsmen, and small sportsmen of the neighbourhood.
While we were talking we heard the distant toll of
the village bell, and I was told that the Squire was
a little particular in having his household at church
on a Christmas morning; considering it a day of pouring
out of thanks and rejoicing; for, as old Tusser observed:
“At Christmas
be merry, and thankful withal,
And feast thy poor neighbours,
the great and the small.”
“If you are disposed to go to church,”
said Frank Bracebridge, “I can promise you a
specimen of my cousin Simon’s musical achievements.
As the church is destitute of an organ, he has formed
a band from the village amateurs, and established
a musical club for their improvement; he has also
sorted a choir, as he sorted my father’s pack
of hounds, according to the directions of Jervaise
Markham, in his ‘Country Contentments;’
for the bass he has sought out all the ‘deep
solemn mouths,’ and for the tenor the ‘loud
ringing mouths,’ among the country bumpkins;
and for ‘sweet mouths,’ he has culled
with curious taste among the prettiest lasses in the
neighbourhood; though these last, he affirms, are the
most difficult to keep in tune; your pretty female
singer being exceedingly wayward and capricious, and
very liable to accident.”
