THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH'S COTTAGE, WINDSOR.
Reading edition
They who draw their notions of royal enjoyment from the tinsel of its external trappings, will scarcely believe the above cottage to have been the residence of an English princess. Yet such was the rank of its occupant but a few years since, distant as may be the contrast of courts and cottages, and the natural enjoyment of rural life from the artificial luxury—the painted pomp and idle glitter of regal state.
Grove House, the seat of Lady Dowager Onslow, of whom the Princess purchased the whole property, was built by Mr. Bateman, uncle to the eccentric Lord Bateman. This gentleman made it a point in his travels to notice everything that pleased him in the monasteries abroad; and, on his return to England, he built this house; the bedchamber being contrived, like the cells of monks, with a refectory, and every other appendage of a monastery; even to a cemetery, and a coffin, inscribed with the name of a supposititious ancient bishop. Some curious Gothic chairs, bought at a sale of the curiosities in this house, are now at Strawberry Hill.
Old Windsor gives rise to many more interesting reminiscences; and few who "suck melancholy from a song" would exchange its sombre churchyard for the gayest field of fancy. We may be there anon.
ENGLISH SUPERSTITION.
(For the Mirror.)
Sir Walter Scott, in his history of Demonology and Witchcraft, has omitted a tradition which is still popular in Cheshire, and which from its close resemblance to one of the Scottish legends related by that writer, gives rise to many interesting conjectures respecting the probable causes of such a superstition being believed in countries with apparently so little connexion or intercourse, as Cheshire and Scotland. The facts of Sir Walter's narration are as follow: vide Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 133.
"A daring horse jockey having sold a horse to a man of venerable and antique appearance, had a remarkable hillock on the Eildon Hills, called Lucken Hare, appointed as the place where, at twelve o'clock at night, he should receive the price. He came, the money was paid in an ancient coin, and he was invited by the purchaser to view his residence. The trader followed his guide through several long ranges of stalls, in each of which a horse stood motionless, while an armed warrior lay equally still at his charger's feet. 'All these men,' said the wizard in a whisper, 'will awaken at the battle of Sheriffmoor.' A horn and a sword hung suspended together at one extremity of the chamber. The former the jockey seized, and having sounded it, the horses stamped, the men arose and clashed their armour; while a voice like that of a giant pronounced these words:—
"Woe to the coward that ever he was born, Who did not draw the sword before he blew the horn."
Subsequent to this, Sir Walter proceeds to the relation of another kindred tradition, the incidents of which do not materially differ from those of the preceding. The scene of the Cheshire legend is placed in the neighbourhood of Macclesfield, in that county, and the sign of a public-house on Monk's Heath may have arrested the attention of many travellers from London to Liverpool. This village hostel is known by the designation of the Iron Gates. The sign represents a pair of ponderous gates of that metal, opening at the bidding of a figure, enveloped in a cowl; before whom kneels another, more resembling a modern yeoman than one of the 12th or 13th century, to which period this legend is attributed. Behind this person is a white horse rearing, and in the back ground a view of Alderley Edge. The story is thus told of the tradition to which the sign relates:
The Iron Gates, or the Cheshire Enchanter.
The latter part of the monk's prophecy has been fulfilled. Nixon, the well-known Cheshire seer foretold the same events in nearly the same words; but the belief in his dreams of futurity, has been much diminished by the decease of our late monarch. Recourse has been had, as in other works of greater moment, to various readings, and the probable mistakes of early transcribers, and many emendations have been proposed to supply the place of the name of George, but adhuc sub judice lis est. The Cestrian rustics of the neighbouring villages, still believe that at midnight the neighing of horses is audible under Alderley Edge.
H.
ANTIQUARIAN SCRAPS.
(To the Editor.)
I went the other day over the ruins of St. Dunstan's, and whilst gaping about, saw over one of the portals (inside) an old harp, with an inscription, which, as far as I could make it out, ran thus:—
St. Dunstan's harp against a wall, Upon a pin did hang'a, The harp itself, with ly' and all, Untouched by hand did twang'a.
The harp was supposed to play by itself on St. Dunstan's Day: ly' means lyre.
Can any of your intelligent correspondents inform me why there is an elder tree in all the Palace Gardens?
There is at the back of Old London Bridge, on this side, a street called "Labour in Vain Hill:" not from the height, but from a stone, on which are engraved two figures washing a blackamoor.
GEO. ST. CLAIR.
Dean-street, Soho.
I do not know where your indefatigable correspondent Zanga discovered his curious "Historical Fact," detailed in No. 471 of The Mirror: it is highly amusing, but unfortunately void of truth. The wife of the first Earl of Clarendon was Frances, daughter of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, Bart. (now extinct) one of the Masters of Request; by whom he had issue four sons—viz. Henry, his successor; Lawrence, created Earl of Rochester; Edward, who died unmarried; and James, who was drowned while going to Scotland in the Gloucester frigate: also two daughters—viz. Ann, wife of James, Duke of York, afterwards James II., and Frances, married to Thomas Knightly, created a Knight of the Bath.