1794.

THE CHRONICLES OF THE SEASONS.

B

AUTUMN,

1794. EFORE I enter on an account of the laft Autumn, I must obferve,, that

"Three Winters' cold

Have from the forefts fhook three Summers' pride; Three beauteous Springs to yellow Autumn turn'd,

In process of the Seafons, have I feen; Three April perfumes in three hot Junes Since first *” [burn'd, I began remitting to the Gentleman's Magazine copies of the ruftic records 1 hoard up quarterly in my hermitage; and now I am commencing another feries of them for the entertainment of fuch of Mr. Urban's readers as do me the honour of approving them. Trofe who do not like them are not obliged to read them.

Much alteration was perceivable in the afpect of the woodlands very early in the Autumn; but, as the leaves fell, a variety of beautiful berries became more apparent; every foreft-tree was adorned with fruit after its kind in abundance except the encuymus and afh; apples and pears were in fome places plentiful, but decayed rapidly, even faster than they did in the Autumn of last year, though both the preceding Summers were dry. By the 10th of October the foliage was thinned confiderably by the 20th of that month fome common alhes, the cockipurthorns, and the dwarf hazels, were bare; and, by the 30th, the whitethorns and mountain-athes; by the 10:h of November the horse-chefnuts, black poplars, and fome fickly-eims, were in the fame ftate; and, by the 30th, the fycamores, and reft of the elms. The mifletoes were fet with pearls, and the cornel trees with coral.

Shakspeare's Sonnets, p. 57

After confidering the groves, it is na. tural to think of the refidents and viti

tants of the groves. A greater number of the large tom-tits (parus major) [ never beheld; and fcreech owls alfo were very numerous; fo likewife were the redwings and other forts of thrushes. This latter clafs congregated in the middle of November; and on the 24th of that month a hawfinch appeared. Snipes came in fight the end of October, and the migratory aquatic tribe arrived about the 18th of November. I faw a brood of fwallows on October 9, and did not fee any after.

The beginning of the Autumn was very windy, the middle very wet, and the end very frosty. A violenc thunder-ftorm occurred on Sept. 24, an overwhelming flood on Dec. 1, and an uncommon fog on Dec. 15. The first ice was formed in the night following Sept. 27; and ice continued all day firm in the funfhine for the first time on Dec. 18; and at the fame period the earth, and all expofed obje&s on it, were whi tened, with hoar; but no fnow fell in any part of the Autumn.

A SOUTHERN FAUNIST.

St. Thomas's-day.

Mr. URBAN, Dec. 20. HAKSPEARE'S bench, and the half-pint mug out of which he used to take very copious draughts of ae at a public houfe either in Stratford-uponAvon, or the neighbourhood of that town, are well-known to all our EngJih Antiquaries, from their having been long in the poffeffion of the late Mr. James Weft, by whofe defcendants I have no doubt they are carefully preferved, and will be long tranfmitted as heir-looms in the famuy but with Shakspeare's GRAB-FREE the Antiquarian Society probably are not to weil acquainted.

There has been long a tradition in Warwickshire, that our great dramatic Bard

was

was a very boon companion; and the fame of two illuftrious bands of good fellows, who were diftinguished by the denominations of the TOPERS and the SIPPERS, is not ver extinct in that country. The TOPFRS, who were the ftoureft fellows of the two, challenged all England, it is faid, to conteft with them in deep potations of the good old English beverage; a challenge which Shakspeare and a party of his young friends at Stratford readily accepted: but, going on a Whitfunday to meet them at Bidford, a village about seven miles diftant, they were much mortified to find that the TOPERS had that very day (owing to fome mifunderstanding of the place and time appointed) gone to a neighbouring fair on a fimilar fcheme with that which brought Shakfpeare and his friends to Bidford. Being thus difappointed, they were obltged to take up with the SIPPERS, whom they found at that village, but whom they held in great contempt. On trial, however, the Stratfordians proved fo unequal to the combat, that they were obliged to yield; and, while they had yet the ufe of their legs, they fet out towards home. Unfortunately, our great Poet's head, and that of one of his

In Mr. Malone's curious Hiftory of the English Stage, I obferve the time of the death of Charles Hart, the celebrated tragedian, is a defideratum in theatrical history. In examining fome wills in the Perogative office fome time ago, I found that he made his will July 10, 1683, and that it was proved on the 7th of the following September; fo he must have died in the interval between those two periods, probably in Auguft. He refided at Stanmore, in the county of Middlefex, where he died and was bu ried. He left by his will to his friend Edward Kynaflon, the actor, one full thare of the foil and tenement thereon, called Drury-lane playhouse (the whole being divided into thirty-fix fhares), for the remainder of a term of forty-one years. From a particular bequest in his will, it is clear that he was not related to the Harts, of Stratford, as has been fuppofed.

As I understand that Mr. Malone is employed in writing a new Life of Shakspeart, I beg leave, Mr. Urban, to repont thefe anecdotes in your Literary Bank for that gentleman's ufe. Yours, &c.

-

Mr. URBAN,

M. E.

Dec. 24.

keneis of our great dramatic writer has excited a with in feveral gentlemen to poffefs (for the fake of comparifon) all the pretended as well as authorized reprefentations of him, the fol, lowing lift, for their ufe, folicits a place in your valuable Magazine :

Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston, Haunted Hilbro, hungry Grafton, Dodging Fxhall, Popith Wicksford, Beggarly Brome, and drunken Bidford! The rhymes are certainly nɔt fʊ exac as he would have made in his clofer; but, as field-measures, they may do well enough; and the epithets are ftrongly charafteriftic of his manner, being pe cularly and Happily adapted to the leveral villages whence the mifcellaneous group of Sippers had reforted to Bidford.

This celebrated tree, Mr. Urban, is fill ftanding, and is known far and Dear by the name of SHAKSPEARE'S CRAB TREE; and the foregoing anecdote was well authenticated by a clergyman, a native of Warwickshire, who died at Stratford, at a great age, above thut.years ago.

I. Engravings from the true original portrait of Shakspeare, painted on wood in the year 1597:

M. Droefhout, before the first foli
W. Marihall, before the Poems
T. Trotter (two plates)

611

1794