“The reviewer gets carried away with his own sensational tale of ‘Medea Blenkinsop, or the Octogamist’:

‘But think of the shifts and perplexities of a wife with eight husbands, being not only mysteriously married like Aurora Floyd to her noble husband’s horse-trainer, but… also to the Emperor of China, who writes compromising letters by each mail, the more compromising as she is also secretly married to the postman, who is of a suspicious temper…; also, under peculiar circumstances, to the giant of a show that is coming to be set up at a fair in the neighbourhood; also to a maniac whom she keeps in the cellar.'”

Cited in The Maniac In The Cellar : Sensation Novels Of The 1860s by Winifred Hughes (Princeton University Press, 1980)

There are great unwritten works we mourn, books their authors planned but never penned. Ruskin’s survey of Swiss towns and villages is one, Dobson’s series of pamphlets provisionally entitled Sundry Imperilments Of The Mists And The Marshes is another. We know from his scribblings that the out of print pamphleteer intended to write no fewer than sixteen essays, each devoted to a particular menace of mist and marsh, yet he never completed a single one, nor even began any of them, possibly due to sheer unalloyed ignorance. So when we want to familiarise ourselves with so important a topic, we must turn to Daniel Defoe:

“I have one remark more, before I leave this damp part of the world, and which I cannot omit on the womens account; namely, that I took notice of a strange decay of the sex here; insomuch, that all along this county it was very frequent to meet with men that had had from five or six, to fourteen or fifteen wives; nay, and some more; and I was inform’d that in the marshes on the other side the river over-against Candy Island, there was a farmer, who was then living with the five and twentieth wife, and that his son who was but about 35 years old, had already had about fourteen; indeed this part of the story, I only had by report, tho’ from good hands too; but the other is well known, and easie to be inquired in to, about Fobbing, Curringham, Thundersly, Benfleet, Prittlewell, Wakering, Great Stambridge, Cricksea, Burnham, Dengy, and other towns of the like situation: The reason, as a merry fellow told me, who said he had had about a dozen and half of wives, (tho’ I found afterwards he fibb’d a little) was this; That they being bred in the marshes themselves, and season’d to the place, did pretty well with it; but that they always went up into the hilly country, or to speak their own language into the uplands for a wife: That when they took the young lasses out of the wholesome and fresh air, they were healthy, fresh and clear, and well; but when they came out of their native air into the marshes among the fogs and damps, there they presently chang’d their complexion, got an ague or two, and seldom held it above half a year, or a year at most; and then, said he, we go to the uplands again, and fetch another.”

From A tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-26)

As we sink further into barbarism, it is pleasing to be given reminders that the dapper and the elegant can survive, sometimes in the unlikeliest of places. I am not at all sure I would wish to live in Vietnam, but I would certainly like to see us copy their toilet signage. Would it not lift your spirits, ever so slightly, to see our public conveniences marked with these silhouettes?

Some other signs here (via David Thompson).

Things are going from bad to worse with Dennis Beerpint. The weedy poet, still posing as a beatnik, was apparently very upset by the negative reviews of his newly-published Ginsbergy Howl-y piece, Whimper!, a thousand-odd lines of unrelieved drivel. At public performances, where he has been declaiming these free verse witterings from platforms and soap-boxes, hecklers boo and things get chucked at him, chiefly tomatoes.

Now, Beerpint has fallen victim to delusions of persecution. In a letter to the weekly magazine Weedy Poets Under Attack, he claims that this passage from The Anatomie Of Absvrditie by Thomas Nashe, written over four hundred years ago, is aimed directly at him:

“Hence come our babling Ballets, and our new found Songs and Sonets, which euery rednose Fidler hath at his fingers end, and euery ignorant Ale knight will breath foorth ouer the potte, as soone as his braine waxeth hote. Be it a truth which they would tune, they enterlace it with a lye or two to make meeter, not regarding veritie, so they may make vppe the verse ; not vnlike to Homer, who cared not what he fained, so hee might make his Countrimen famous. But as the straightest things beeing put into water, seeme crooked, so the crediblest trothes, if once they come with in compasse of these mens wits, seeme tales. Were it that the infamie of their ignoraunce did redound onelie vppon themselues, I could be content to apply my speech otherwise, then to their Apuleyan eares, but sith they obtaine the name of our English Poets, and thereby make men thinke more baselie of the wittes of our Countrey, I cannot but turne them out of their counterfeit luerie, and brand them in the foreheade, that all men may know their falshood… What politique Counsailour or valiant Souldier will ioy or glorie of this, in that some stitcher, Weauer, spendthrift, or Fidler, hath shuffled or slubberd vp a few ragged Rimes, in the memoriall of the ones prudence, or the others prowesse? It makes the learned sort to be silent, when as they see vnlearned sots so insolent.”

Is Beerpint an insolent unlearned sot? Perhaps he is. On the other hand, if this passage really is directed at him, it is likely to be the one and only time he is compared to Homer.

But now my own braine waxeth hote, for the sun is bright and battering, and I must lie me down in the shade, and ponder the wonders of Burnham-on-Crouch, of which more some other time.

Gawp-eyed and jaw dropped, drool dribbling down my chin, I remain astonished at the seemingly fathomless ornithological ignorance I find around me. Only the other day, as I passed an aspen clump in which dozens of birds were perched, chirping, I had to explain, slowly and patiently, to my walking companion that the noise he heard was birdsong, that it was made by birds, that birds were, for the most part, aerial life-forms with wings and beaks and feathers, and that though they were capable of flight they often perched on tree-branches and other handy surfaces. This intelligence seemed to dumbfound him. It was with a certain desolation that I realised this said more about my choice of walking companion than it did about the companion himself. He is a harmless enough soul, but his brain has been Jesuit-damaged, and his prospects are grim indeed. My own prospects are not much better, but at least I know what a bird is.

And the reason I know is that I carry always with me, tucked in my pocket, an aide memoire, like the one shown below, courtesy of Agence Eureka. Might I suggest that you print it out, have it laminated, and keep it about your person at all times? Then you, too, will know what I know, at least in the ornithological field.

There are difficult days, like today, when I awake in the grip of the fever. My ablutions are performed hurriedly, as if there is no time to waste, even though it is still before dawn. If I can face breakfast, I bolt it, like a half-starved squirrel alighting upon a single discarded nut on the lawn of a municipal park. I pace up and down, disconsolate, muttering, eyes popping, my hair dishevelled and with beetles falling from it. I wander through the chartered streets and see in every face I meet signs of the same restlessness, signs of the same phrenzy. Aimless and distracted I return home. My limbs are aquiver but I snap them to stillness and manage to make a pot of tea. I turn on the kitchen radio and tune in to Tugboat Crew Playtime, hoping the tunes will soothe my brain. I feel as if there is a nest of vipers squirming in my vitals, but eventually I gather. I gather. And I walk as boldly as I can across the hall and push open the living room door and I look down…

And of course, it is fine. It is perfectly serviceable. A tad worn in places, a faded stain here or there, but nothing I cannot cope with. And thus does my carpet madness evaporate, and I am human again, no longer a demented thing.

I had resigned myself to these periodic attacks, but now it seems help is at hand. If my carpet madness gets worse, there is a remedy. According to the North Korean Central News Agency,

Products of the Pyongyang Carpet Factory are drawing interests of many people at home and abroad.

The factory, with a long history of carpet production, is producing various kinds of hand-woven carpet, machine-woven carpet and others to suit the world trend.

It is located in Sosong District of Pyongyang.

Pak Won Chol, director of the factory, said in an interview with KCNA to the following effect: The factory is making silk carpet good for health and longevity which the Korean ancestors had long used and wool carpet giving comfortable feeling.

A doctor once told me he thought my own “episodes” of carpet madness were brought on by a neurotic terror that my carpet did not suit the world trend. If that is indeed the cause, then I now know how to conquer the bonkersness once and for all.

Thanks to Mick Hartley for the link.

I think it highly likely that quite a few Hooting Yard readers will have woken up this morning thinking to themselves, “Gosh! It really is time I bought myself a map of Switzerland! As soon as I have done my ablutions and chomped my breakfast I shall head off to the cartographers’ bazaar to make a judicious purchase!”

It is thus fortunate that I can pass on to you some very sensible advice in the matter, courtesy of that excellent Mr Ruskin.

The Original von Keller’s Zweiter Reisekarte der Schweitz (1844) is, says Ruskin,  “the only map of Switzerland which has ever been executed with common sense and intelligence”. (Praeterita, Volume II, Chapter XI, paragraph 215.) Lord knows there are plenty of maps of Switzerland made with foolhardiness and stupidity, and you might have gone and bought one of those. Notch that up as another triumph for Hooting Yard’s map-procurement advisory service.

The illustration below is a detail from von Keller’s earlier 1825 map of Switzerland. It has clearly been executed with somewhat less common sense and intelligence than the 1844 version, but is still far more sensible than the average Swiss map.

“I never think or speak of the ‘New England Primer’ that I do not recall Captivity Waite, for it was Captivity who introduced me to the Primer that day in the springtime of sixty-three years ago. She was of my age, a bright, pretty girl – a very pretty, an exceptionally pretty girl, as girls go. We belonged to the same Sunday-school class. I remember that upon this particular day she brought me a russet apple. It was she who discovered the Primer in the mahogany case, and what was not our joy as we turned over the tiny pages together and feasted our eyes upon the vivid pictures and perused the absorbingly interesting text! What wonder that together we wept tears of sympathy at the harrowing recital of the fate of John Rogers!

“Even at this remote date I cannot recall that experience with Captivity, involving as it did the wood-cut representing the unfortunate Rogers standing in an impossible bonfire and being consumed thereby in the presence of his wife and their numerous progeny, strung along in a pitiful line across the picture for artistic effect – even now, I say, I cannot contemplate that experience and that wood-cut without feeling lumpy in my throat and moist about my eyes.

“How lasting are the impressions made upon the youthful mind!… still with many a sympathetic shudder and tingle do I recall Captivity’s overpowering sense of horror, and mine, as we lingered long over the portraitures of Timothy flying from Sin…

“Captivity Waite never approved of my fondness for fairy literature… When it came to fiction involving witches, ogres, and flubdubs, that was too much for Captivity, and the spirit of the little Puritan revolted.

“Captivity’s ancestors (both paternal and maternal) were, in the palmy colonial times, as abject slaves to superstition as could well be imagined. The Waites of Salem were famous persecutors of witches, and Sinai Higginbotham (Captivity’s great-great- grandfather on her mother’s side of the family) was Cotton Mather’s boon companion, and rode around the gallows with that zealous theologian on that memorable occasion when five young women were hanged at Danvers upon the charge of having tormented little children with their damnable arts of witchcraft…

“I have thought of Captivity Waite a great many times, and I have not unfrequently wondered what might have been but for that book of fairy tales which my Uncle Cephas sent me.”

Eugene Field, The Love Affairs Of A Bibliomaniac (1896)

I recently posted a quotation from Thomas Nashe (1567-c.1601), like Dobson an (almost) out of print pamphleteer. I think it will be a good idea for me to read his complete works, which include The Anatomy Of Absurdity, Nashe’s Lenten Stuffe, An Almond For A Parrot, and Have With You To Saffron Walden – the latter title alone filling me with glee. There is thus a chance that Hooting Yard will get clogged with further Nashe quotations, but I am confident readers will enjoy them.

I have always thought the most efficacious cure for melancholy was to lean on the fence of a sty and watch pigs. Help is at hand, however, for the pig-bereft melancholic seeking to ease their woes. Dan Chambers sent me an extract from an email from his Pa:

In his preface to The Anatomy of Melancholy Burton explains that he wrote the book to rid himself of his own melancholia. This it failed to do; Bishop Kennet wrote that Burton‘s only relief from despondency was to lean over the footbridge at Oxford and listen to the bargemen swearing at each other.

“To be clear, Merced does not want to sacrifice a goat in his home. He wants to sacrifice 5-7 goats, 1-2 turtles, 1 duck, 10-14 chickens, 5-7 guinea hens and 10-14 doves all at one time. Keeping and killing that many animals in a residential neighbourhood poses disease transmission dangers. It creates stench and filth”… Furthermore, said the lawyer for Euless council, sacrificing goats was “repulsive and has no place in an urban environment”.

I find myself particularly concerned for that lone duck.

Heresy Corner investigates the world o’ goat sacrifice. Food for thought not only for Santerian voodooists, but for Aztec fundamentalists and those of us who worship the hideous bat-god Fatso.

“There is a Doctor and his Fart that haue kept a foule stinking stirre in Paules Churchyard ; I crie him mercy, I slaundered him, he is scarce a Doctor till he hath done his Acts ; this dodipoule, this didopper, this professed poetical braggart hath raild vpon me, without wit or art, in certaine foure penniworth of Letters and three farthing-worth of Sonnets ; nor do I mean to present him and Shakerley to the Queens foole-taker for coatch-horses : for two that draw more equallie in one Oratoriall yoke of vaine-glorie, there is not vnder heauen… why thou arrant butter whore, thou cotqueane & scrattop of scoldes, wilt thou neuer leaue afflicting a dead Carcasse, continually read the rethorick lecture of Ramme Allie? a wispe, a wispe, rippe, rippe, you kitchin-stuffe wrangler!”

Thomas Nashe (1567-1601), writing of the poet Gabriel Harvey in Strange Newes, of the Intercepting Certaine Letters (1593)

“It was the first time, I realised, that I had ever clearly seen a jazz-band. The spectacle was positively frightening…

“Oh, those mammy-songs, those love-longings, those loud hilarities! How was it possible that human emotions intrinsically decent could be so ignobly parodied? I felt like a man who, having asked for wine, is offered a brimming bowl of hog-wash. And not even fresh hog-wash. Rancid hog-wash, decaying hog-wash. For there was a horrible tang of putrefaction in all that music. Those yearnings for Mammy of Mine and My Baby, for Dixie and the Land where Skies are Blue and Dreams come True, for Granny and Tennessee and You – they were all a necrophily. The Mammy after whom the black young Hebrews and the blond young muffin-faces so retchingly yearned was an ancient Gorgonzola ; the Baby of their tremulously gargled desire was a leg of mutton after a month in warm storage ; Granny had been dead for weeks ; and as for Dixie and Tennessee and Dream Land – they were odoriferous with the least artificial of manures.”

Aldous Huxley, Do What You Will (1929)

[Originally posted on Friday 24 July]

The bread I eat in London, is a deleterious paste, mixed up with chalk, alum, and bone-ashes ; insipid to the taste, and destructive to the constitution…

The milk… should not pass unanalysed, the produce of faded cabbage-leaves and sour draff, lowered with hot water, frothed with bruised snails, carried through the streets in open pails, exposed to foul rinsings discharged from doors and windows, spittle, snot, and tobacco-quids from foot-passengers, over-flowings from mud-carts, spatterings from coach-wheels, dirt and trash chucked into it by roguish boys for the joke’s sake, the spewings of infants, who have slabbered in the tin-measure, which is thrown back in that condition among the milk, for the benefit of the next customer ; and finally, the vermin that drops from the rags of the nasty drab that vends this precious mixture, under the respectable denomination of milkmaid.

I shall conclude this catalogue of London dainties, with that table-beer, guiltless of hops and malt, vapid and nauseous ; much fitter to facilitate the operation of a vomit, than to quench thirst and promote digestion ; the tallowy rancid mass called butter, manufactured with candle-grease and kitchen stuff ; and their fresh eggs, imported from France and Scotland.

From The Expedition Of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett (1771)

Here is another newspaper cutting quoted in Deadly Encounters : Two Victorian Sensations by Richard D Altick, this one from the Illustrated Times, 10 August 1861:

That some unusual endemic excitement has been at work, directing weak, debauched, and diseased minds into a homicidal course, must be apparent to every newspaper-reader. May not the electrical condition of the atmosphere exercise some hidden power in this way over the human brain? A correspondent of the Standard, Dr. J. Q. Rumball, a well-known lecturer on science, points out electrical causes as the origin of the potato disorder. It is a fact that lately the finest mechanisms of clockwork, notably those at the Observatory at Greenwich, have been going wrong, without visible derangement or imperfection, and this has been attributed to an abnormal condition of atmospheric electricity. It is surely not a wildly-hazardous theory to suppose that a similar agency acting upon that most susceptible and complex of galvanic machines, the human brain, may have some tendency, if not to the actual increase of crime, of lessening the healthy power which restrains its committal or of aggravating the phrenal disease which but for such influence might have been subdued, or at least retarded.