I observed also
the boy read it out with his eyes still on the book and his head
(like a mere boy) moving from side to side as the lines reached
cross the columns of the book. His lesson was in the Canticles, v.
3 of chap. v. The words these:- "I have put off my coat. How
shall I put it on? I have washed my feet. How shall I defile
them?"
The boy read thus, with his eyes, as I say, full on the text:-
"Chav a doffed my cooat. How shall I don't? Chav a washed my
veet. How shall I moil 'em?"
How the dexterous dunce could form his month to express so readily
the words (which stood right printed in the book) in his country
jargon, I could not but admire. I shall add to this another piece
as diverting, which also happened in my knowledge at this very town
of Yeovil, though some years ago.
There lived a good substantial family in the town not far from the
"Angel Inn"--a well-known house, which was then, and, I suppose, is
still, the chief inn of the town. This family had a dog which,
among his other good qualities for which they kept him (for he was
a rare house-dog), had this bad one--that he was a most notorious
thief, but withal so cunning a dog, and managed himself so warily,
that he preserved a mighty good reputation among the neighbourhood.
As the family was well beloved in the town, so was the dog. He was
known to be a very useful servant to them, especially in the night
(when he was fierce as a lion; but in the day the gentlest,
lovingest creature that could be), and, as they said, all the
neighbours had a good word for this dog.
It happened that the good wife or mistress at the "Angel Inn" had
frequently missed several pieces of meat out of the pail, as they
say--or powdering-tub, as we call it--and that some were very large
pieces. It is also to be observed the dog did not stay to eat what
he took upon the spot, in which case some pieces or bones or
fragments might be left, and so it might be discovered to be a dog;
but he made cleaner work, and when he fastened upon a piece of meat
he was sure to carry it quite away to such retreats as he knew he
could be safe in, and so feast upon it at leisure.
It happened at last, as with most thieves it does, that the inn-
keeper was too cunning for him, and the poor dog was nabbed, taken
in the fact, and could make no defence.
Having found the thief and got him in custody, the master of the
house, a good-humoured fellow, and loth to disoblige the dog's
master by executing the criminal, as the dog law directs, mitigates
his sentence, and handled him as follows:- First, taking out his
knife, he cut off both his ears; and then, bringing him to the
threshold, he chopped off his tail. And having thus effectually
dishonoured the poor cur among his neighbours, he tied a string
about his neck, and a piece of paper to the string, directed to his
master, and with these witty West Country verses on it:-
"To my honoured master,--Esq.
"Hail master a cham a' com hoam,
So cut as an ape, and tail have I noan,
For stealing of beef and pork out of the pail,
For thease they'v cut my ears, for th' wother my tail;
Nea measter, and us tell thee more nor that
And's come there again, my brains will be flat."
I could give many more accounts of the different dialects of the
people of this country, in some of which they are really not to be
understood; but the particulars have little or no diversion in
them. They carry it such a length that we see their "jouring"
speech even upon their monuments and grave-stones; as, for example,
even in some of the churchyards of the city of Bristol I saw this
excellent poetry after some other lines:-
"And when that thou doest hear of thick,
Think of the glass that runneth quick."
But I proceed into Devonshire. From Yeovil we came to Crookorn,
thence to Chard, and from thence into the same road I was in before
at Honiton.
This is a large and beautiful market-town, very populous and well
built, and is so very remarkably paved with small pebbles that on
either side the way a little channel is left shouldered up on the
sides of it, so that it holds a small stream of fine clear running
water, with a little square dipping-place left at every door; so
that every family in the town has a clear, clean running river (as
it may be called) just at their own door, and this so much finer,
so much pleasanter, and agreeable to look on than that at Salisbury
(which they boast so much of), that, in my opinion, there is no
comparison.
Here we see the first of the great serge manufacture of Devonshire-
-a trade too great to be described in miniature, as it must be if I
undertake it here, and which takes up this whole county, which is
the largest and most populous in England, Yorkshire excepted (which
ought to be esteemed three counties, and is, indeed, divided as
such into the East, West, and North Riding). But Devonshire, one
entire county, is so full of great towns, and those towns so full
of people, and those people so universally employed in trade and
manufactures, that not only it cannot be equalled in England, but
perhaps not in Europe.
