No me des tregua, no me perdones nunca. Hostígame en la sangre, que cada cosa cruel sea nosotros que volvemos
Érase una vez, en un país tan brumoso que solo se podía llegar hasta él enlazando diez borracheras, como esos pañuelos anudados que el ilusionista se saca de la boca en el circo y nadie se sorprende ni aplaude cuando nos encontramos defendiendo nuestra ración de tiempo y paraíso bajo sus cielos bajos y cenicientos y os esputo que había fetos relámpagos que iluminaban sucios ríos como el Tinanmuðe donde sodomizar sirenas costaba 500 libras o el más puerco y triste Trisantona que huía hacía al norte cuando nos dimos el primer baño y todo sucede en el sentido inmanente y no en el transitivo que sumado resulta un puñado de cisnes negros en el lago que refleja castillo y catedral aunque eso no fue no cuando encallamos con la vieja goleta rusa pese a que el mar era germano y mucho menos cuando a ras de las nubes algodonosas de Brycgstow buscamos tugurios de piratas y apareció un cetrino que se follaba marineros en un cuarto de baño de la autoridad portuaria gritando tengo salchichón y cantamos como defensa que somos héroes con esperanza y la ovación de endriagos y tiburientes fue el sonido que marca el paso hasta que calon lân atravesó los puentes de Trefynwy y trasquiló ovejas en las marcas galesas o eso traducimos cuando estuvimos donde John Lackland si encontró por fin tierra y uno vertió grosella en pintas de pis amargo que allí llaman bitter y ya no hubo salsa local para tanta salchicha y no vimos más rumiantes del puerro hasta que tomamos lustros después por sorpresa a las golfas de Rhuthun y a los orcos en Yr Wyddgrug y ahora os pienso todos callados con la mirada del oh no ya no y la turba mental que me lanza como eco de maldición picto picto gorgorito con miasmas goma azul líquido y ya nadie me hiere impunemente hijos de puta por las calles de Dùn Èideann ni en los hoyos de Cill Rìmhinn o las nasas de Cathair Aile y luego bajamos por la interminable línea blanca entre venados y corzos despedazados y tuvimos que devorar con redundancia a la peculiar oveja negra de Mæssa's Ham y volver por millonésima vez al punk punk pandemonio de chimeneas de lo que fue en su día nuestro reino de Elmet y presumimos de un 3 de 9 al final del sinuoso paso de la sierpe pese al árbitro del estiércol o al priest esphenisciforme o a las sevicias de las guarrillas tatuadas y toda nuestra flema para saber si eres búho o filo es una bola verde centelleante que resuena desde la tierra de los loiners hasta Hrocaberg donde la japo ofrecía té o café y los albaneses hostias pero ni así nos alistamos a orillas del jabón avon ya que la orange plank road que cose el dobladillo del destino sólo se detiene por virtud en Lerpwl y la mierda de cormorán redime y pégate un tiro cuando acabes la cerveza pero no cruces a nado el Afon Merswy que tenemos a los zapadores necrófagos tendiendo puentes al aturuxo de Yoggy Soggy babea y si enarcas la ceja te mandan a remos al gran ouso de Lenne Regis y su pantera rosa que si me da por comparar no mea en ese otro ouso no tan grande que lava Eoforwic aunque estas piedras sí tengan jabalí en el nombre y columna legionaria cerca de un pub que no recordaba en nada a aquel otro de Tigguo Cobauc donde cruzamos con cruzados por culpa de unas flechas negras y el horizonte es sólo una sutura en la campana del entresueño y así seguiremos la fiera horda en bucle buscando dragones y planeando aún todas las mañanas una centuria de futuras incursiones a despecho del diabólico chino y de la lenidad cornuda e imaginando nuevos brezales y puertos más grises en un sin tiempo como giste guardado tras el cordón sedeño de un museo de jarras de porcelana en cuyas puertas puedes leer hasta el infinito In main we trust in Main we trust IMWT…
Los trabajos de titán discurrían como el juego de escribir en la arena.
Llegamos a Yardley Gobion con las luces del alba.
666 comentarios:
«A máis antiga ‹Máis antiga 201 – 400 de 666 Máis recente › A máis nova»
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El rostro gótico, glabro
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9 de marzo de 2021, 22:35
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otro comentarista niputas al que el flujo de conciencia interior o el monólogo perpetuo con uno mismo le suenan a niveles alterados de la conciencia por el exceso de normalidad
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9 de marzo de 2021, 22:38
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Sgian Dubh. Sobre los acantilados de mármol
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9 de marzo de 2021, 22:41
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Nec spe, nec metu
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9 de marzo de 2021, 22:48
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Nihil Moriarty
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9 de marzo de 2021, 22:51
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Cronista cirrótico
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9 de marzo de 2021, 22:53
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Conde de Lérezmont y Dragón
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9 de marzo de 2021, 22:56
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El gótico carpintero es un gótico falso, un inútil ejercicio de prestidigitación
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9 de marzo de 2021, 23:03
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Centinela
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10 de marzo de 2021, 08:47
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Javi Coma
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10 de marzo de 2021, 10:32
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otro resumen
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10 de marzo de 2021, 10:33
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#Shityourselflittleparrot.
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10 de marzo de 2021, 10:39
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Segismundo Malatesta
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10 de marzo de 2021, 10:42
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El Heterodoxo
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10 de marzo de 2021, 10:44
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Hablar de oídas
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10 de marzo de 2021, 11:36
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El hombrecillo de los gansos
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10 de marzo de 2021, 19:58
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Viaje este año
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10 de marzo de 2021, 21:38
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Esopo Peye
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10 de marzo de 2021, 22:29
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esguín
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10 de marzo de 2021, 23:13
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O Xoves Hai Cocido
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11 de marzo de 2021, 08:48
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Misfits en un Saco de Patatas
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11 de marzo de 2021, 08:54
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The Puto Pato Glücklich
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11 de marzo de 2021, 09:20
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Mentiroro redomado
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11 de marzo de 2021, 10:52
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Belleza fractal
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11 de marzo de 2021, 10:55
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Chatarrero de Sangre, Cerveza e Irascibilidad
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11 de marzo de 2021, 10:58
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solo me enseñaron a ser un asceta fallido y a aprender las cosas por pura rutina
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11 de marzo de 2021, 11:01
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Blake Absenta o el celebérrimo * Roberto Tumbas en todas las resacas
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11 de marzo de 2021, 14:48
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Porcobravos 'Til I die
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11 de marzo de 2021, 14:55
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Tony Montana
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11 de marzo de 2021, 16:28
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Ladillao Cubeiro Cantalupo
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11 de marzo de 2021, 16:32
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Folly Bucelario
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11 de marzo de 2021, 19:08
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Rollo Foula
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11 de marzo de 2021, 19:31
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la Vieja Arenisca Roja
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11 de marzo de 2021, 19:33
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El Sármata Borracho que fue Samurái Vagabundo
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11 de marzo de 2021, 19:34
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Robin Capucha
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11 de marzo de 2021, 19:44
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Eurídice Blasco
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11 de marzo de 2021, 19:47
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El meón
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11 de marzo de 2021, 19:58
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Requiere un culo estoico o un buen par de piernas.
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11 de marzo de 2021, 20:02
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Casandra Yuggoth
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11 de marzo de 2021, 20:05
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considerando nuestro contexto geográfico, me parecía perfectamente posible una guerrilla surfer
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11 de marzo de 2021, 20:07
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La cosmovisión chamánica del orín de renos y del muscimol
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11 de marzo de 2021, 20:23
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Emilio "Mapache"
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11 de marzo de 2021, 20:28
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El Barbero del Main
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11 de marzo de 2021, 20:31
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Ferrotiño
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11 de marzo de 2021, 20:33
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Olmos Stoker de Liébana
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11 de marzo de 2021, 20:40
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Capitán Mora
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11 de marzo de 2021, 20:45
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no son estridentistas y... sin embargo lo son
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11 de marzo de 2021, 21:52
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Hicieron falta dos médicos, dos enfermeros y clonazepam para evitar que se arrancara el catéter.
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11 de marzo de 2021, 21:56
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Violencia, hiperactividad, inanición, canibalismo, homosexualidad, subrayado con plumón de color amarillo.
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11 de marzo de 2021, 21:58
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División 250
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11 de marzo de 2021, 22:01
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Total Comments: 61666
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11 de marzo de 2021, 22:16
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Curtido en Los Barrizales de la Vanidad
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12 de marzo de 2021, 08:54
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Terreno pantanoso
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12 de marzo de 2021, 19:31
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Blas Trallero Lezo
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12 de marzo de 2021, 20:02
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Laszlo Toth
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12 de marzo de 2021, 20:05
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Sláine
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12 de marzo de 2021, 20:16
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inglés afincado
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12 de marzo de 2021, 20:51
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Albion KillFoes
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12 de marzo de 2021, 20:54
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Søren Schopenhauer
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12 de marzo de 2021, 23:01
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Manfredo Mensfeldt Cardonnel Findlay
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12 de marzo de 2021, 23:09
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Tomó la Boss, una escopeta británica calibre 12 de dos cañones, que había sido su orgullo.
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12 de marzo de 2021, 23:16
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Orson (Falstaff at Midnight)
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12 de marzo de 2021, 23:55
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;
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13 de marzo de 2021, 14:13
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Emilio "Mapache"
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13 de marzo de 2021, 16:37
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Persiguiendo una marea de metáforas masturbatorias
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13 de marzo de 2021, 18:59
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Una Frase Lapidaria Como Vacuna Ante Este Cúmulo De Despropósitos
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13 de marzo de 2021, 19:26
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Juan Caboto
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13 de marzo de 2021, 19:37
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Blas Trallero Lezo
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13 de marzo de 2021, 19:39
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Eric Blair
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13 de marzo de 2021, 19:44
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Emboscado en el rastrojo
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13 de marzo de 2021, 19:47
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El par torsor nunca duerme
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13 de marzo de 2021, 19:49
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Un hacha de sílex puede servir para cazar un venado o para abrir el cráneo de un semejante.
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13 de marzo de 2021, 19:52
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Velvet Coat
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13 de marzo de 2021, 22:15
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Nigel Faradio
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13 de marzo de 2021, 22:36
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Vamos pillando los remos
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13 de marzo de 2021, 22:44
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Liam Neeson
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14 de marzo de 2021, 16:45
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Rusty Malaparte
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14 de marzo de 2021, 18:31
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Bastard on sodomy
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14 de marzo de 2021, 18:46
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Paddy O' Driscoll se viste de comentarista niputas para ganar las jodidas pintas de cerveza a base de referencias
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:11
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Paddy O' Driscoll se viste de comentarista niputas para ganar las jodidas pintas de cerveza a base de referencias
dixo...
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:16
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Lázaro
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:18
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Aleister Saint Germain
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:21
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John Verga
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:23
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Mike Hongos
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:26
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lo juro por el perro
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:35
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Winston Churchill
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:41
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inglés afincado
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:43
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Willy Pol Pot
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:44
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Oliver Cromwell
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:46
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Doctor Pyg
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:50
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Necesitamos un Mistagogo que aleccione al Cardumen y adoctrine al Hato
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:55
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Conde de Lérezmont y Dragón
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14 de marzo de 2021, 19:59
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camino sinuoso es el snake pass
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14 de marzo de 2021, 20:02
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Javier Villafañe
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14 de marzo de 2021, 20:03
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Brann Rilke
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14 de marzo de 2021, 20:05
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El Sármata Borracho que fue Samurái Vagabundo
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14 de marzo de 2021, 20:07
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Veterano que bebe veterano
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14 de marzo de 2021, 20:08
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Beowulf
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14 de marzo de 2021, 20:09
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la goleta rusa
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14 de marzo de 2021, 20:14
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Λεωνίδας et Les quatre cents coups
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14 de marzo de 2021, 20:16
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Colin Frasca Reyerta conocido como Connor O' Farrell
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15 de marzo de 2021, 09:38
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Karmele
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15 de marzo de 2021, 17:55
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Coruxo
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15 de marzo de 2021, 17:57
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Bristol Cities
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15 de marzo de 2021, 21:29
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Le Main tiene un pájaro azul en una jaula roja
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15 de marzo de 2021, 21:53
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RODILLO
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15 de marzo de 2021, 22:01
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En los altares de la hecatombe
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15 de marzo de 2021, 22:03
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Y, tierna y rubia, apoyó la cabeza en el hombro de él.
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15 de marzo de 2021, 22:06
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Emilio "Mapache"
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15 de marzo de 2021, 22:19
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Estadísticamente comprobado
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15 de marzo de 2021, 22:23
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Manzanas de Worcester
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15 de marzo de 2021, 22:24
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Ferrocarril Oeste
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15 de marzo de 2021, 22:27
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un cuento chino
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15 de marzo de 2021, 22:29
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número pi
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15 de marzo de 2021, 22:31
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Doctor Pyg
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15 de marzo de 2021, 22:34
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Suniti Namjoshi
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15 de marzo de 2021, 22:41
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Guadañas and Calabazas quema rastrojos en las Marcas rubras y ocres del Arcaísmo Yerto
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16 de marzo de 2021, 09:26
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A tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain
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16 de marzo de 2021, 16:23
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Pádraig Dháphionta
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:19
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:25
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:25
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:26
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:28
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:28
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:28
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:29
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:30
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Oliver Cromwell
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:32
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Oliver Cromwell
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:33
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Oliver Cromwell
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:33
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Oliver Cromwell
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:33
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Oliver Cromwell
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:34
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Oliver Cromwell
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:35
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Oliver Cromwell
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:35
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Paddy O' Driscoll se viste de comentarista niputas para ganar las jodidas pintas de cerveza a base de referencias
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:42
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:45
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:46
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Portavoz en las Sombras Ctónicas del Rodillarato
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:49
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:51
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:54
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:54
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:55
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:55
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:56
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:57
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:57
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:57
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:58
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:58
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:58
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:59
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:59
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 18:59
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:00
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run to the shit
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:01
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:01
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:02
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:02
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:03
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:04
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:04
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:06
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:06
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:07
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:07
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:08
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:09
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:09
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:10
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:11
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:11
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:13
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:13
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:14
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:15
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:16
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:16
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:17
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:18
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:19
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:19
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Y yo con estas pintas
dixo...
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:20
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Y yo con estas pintas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:21
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and by the ruin of their masters fortunes in that South-Sea Deluge.
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:23
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No cabe [...] decodificar las alusiones privadas y extratextuales
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:33
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Como si anudarse al rito despertara a los océanos.
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:36
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Rey Sedecías
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:44
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Malvado Follomar
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16 de marzo de 2021, 19:45
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Perdidos en Masham
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16 de marzo de 2021, 20:10
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Doctor Pyg
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16 de marzo de 2021, 21:35
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Gonzo Hearst o las Tribulations del periodismo feraz
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16 de marzo de 2021, 21:37
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Polla dura cree en le Main
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16 de marzo de 2021, 21:38
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Tricia Helfer a cuatro patas
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16 de marzo de 2021, 21:41
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Mister Brimstone
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16 de marzo de 2021, 21:47
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El porco bravo en la frontera
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16 de marzo de 2021, 21:52
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Blas Trallero Lezo
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16 de marzo de 2021, 22:09
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Enarbolando el Hrafnsmerki
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16 de marzo de 2021, 22:23
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I.X
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17 de marzo de 2021, 08:23
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I.X
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17 de marzo de 2021, 08:23
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Λεωνίδας et Les quatre cents coups
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17 de marzo de 2021, 08:27
«A máis antiga ‹Máis antiga 201 – 400 de 666 Máis recente › A máis nova»Era inmenso y glauco, crestado de espuma e increíble. Era el mar germano y sus olas vaginales olían a todos los ríos profanados por el porcobravismo in itinere.
El capitán grosella quiere hacer una sofisticada mermelada de referencias para epatar a la gavilla quantrill y en su lugar le sale un torpe potaje de guiños only para iniciados de escaso interés literario con tropezones de puro peloteo mainista aderezado con un vergonzante servilismo de aspiraciones trepadoras
Del gran camino no llegan noticias
La Anglogalician es una sucesión de ciclos... y de vez en cuando uno regresa a la casilla de salida después de follarse a una oca
Fue en Yardley Gobion, y antes del alba, cuando descubrí la nada, que camina sin rumbo pisándonos los talones y borra nuestro rastro; y nunca he vuelto a olvidarla ya.
Yo tomaba nota con meticulosidad maniática de los detalles infinitesimales, de los lugares donde quedaba alzada la incertidumbre que pesaba sobre lo demás
Experimento, contra la estupidez de mi tiempo, olas de odio que me asfixian. La mierda me llega hasta la boca, como en las hernias estranguladas. Pero voy a conservarla, esa mierda, fijarla, endurecerla. Quiero hacer con ella una pasta con la que embadurnaré el siglo XXI, igual que los indios doran las pagodas con boñigas de vaca
El río había quedado oscurecido por la abundante niebla que se cernía desde la mañana, haciendo que la ascensión lenta del cartero por el negro afluente de la carretera pareciera la deriva de una figura remolcada por el agua, arrastrada sobre una corriente estable junto a la orilla repleta de hojas hacia el escalón que sobresalía allí como una embarcación donde ella ya se había precipitado, como por casualidad, para interceptarlo antes de que llegara al buzón y hacerle la mamada diaria.
Ag lámhach go tréan fén sárbhrat séin
Ya tenemos a la Senescalía Logística trabajando arreo en el viaje Middlesbrough-Leeds-Sheffield y aledaños. En breve habrá noticias. Y si nos vacunan, que no sea en el campo.
Mientras tanto, pueden ir preparando el terreno consultando nuestra primera guía de pubs de Middlesbrough.
232 comentarios a orillas del Tees
Seo libh, canaídh Amhrán na bhFiann
no se puede decir que la entrada sea un punto
Catamitas en tránsito con tiempo para la zoofilia.
Una parodia de la vida de unos chiflados es indistinguible de un relato de la vida de unos chiflados
masculla una frase en piamontés cada vez que se encuentra con alguien que deleita al personal con una paja mental: Ma gavte la nata – quítate el tapón (con la connotación que la persona está tan hinchada por la flatulencia de su diarrea mental y su propia autoimportancia que tendría que desinflarse).
y el atontado y atónito lector vuelve a entrar en vereda cuando dice la herejía de que una lengua que no puede mentir le parece una distopía: no, tontita, es que en realidad estamos hablando de la parresía y la comunidad, y en la comunidad real no se puede mentir, que no te das cuenta… Y cómo la oveja galesa vuelve de inmediato al redil intelectual con las orejas gachas y los bajos rebosantes do leite galaico.
Si puede recordar todos esos criptodatos es que nunca estuvo allí
el criterio más justo es el del mundo del boxeo: hay pesos pesados, pesos welter, pesos medios, pelos mosca, y cada, cual, disfruta de una gloria universal dentro de sus límites respectivos
Si se cumplen las amenazas y vamos al abrigo del abono del Teihx, quién paga los patos?
Un pájaro rojo que emule cada noche con pequeños saltos las posiciones de las estrellas en las 88 constelaciones.
Un pulpo que encuentre esqueletos de sirenas sodomizadas y se quede quieto a su lado tres días y tres noches.
Un armiño que recoja solamente flores blancas y las entierre
sin razón en las marcas galesas
Todos estos recuerdos pasaban por su imaginación sin provocar en él sentimiento alguno de compasión, odio o deseo de ningún género.
Todo ello le parecía trivial en comparación con lo que estaba a punto de comenzar y comenzaba ya para él.
Corto con la mandolina finísimas láminas del sombrero de un buen edulis y finas láminas de foie fresco. Salpimento e intercalo unas y otras a modo de falsa lasaña en un pequeño molde de metal y por encima extiendo un puré de manzana reineta y cebolla tierna. Aso y gratino al horno, a fuego fuerte, menos de diez minutos. Luego, tras desmoldar, rallo por encima un poco o un mucho de trufa negra fresca o blanca, la que el bolsillo u otras artes pueda conseguir. Mejor colocar debajo una fina tosta que empapará la salsa amarilla.
Acompaña el platillo una ensalada de escarola marinada una noche en zumo de granada y aliñada con una gotas de buen vinagre de Jerez y mejor aceite Picual. Sobre esta ensalada, un poco de hilada de jamón y unas lascas de castañas fritas y saladas (se hacen también con una buena mandolina…) adornan y enriquecen el dulce amargor del verde.
Es cierto, las palabras escritas no se comen, pero muchas veces alimentan.
Ante el fuego se preparan las palabras y los hechos, se toma conciencia de ser una tribu, una familia, unos pocos, los que nunca deciden, imponen ni mandan. Ante un plato de sopa, un guiso de patatas escocesas, un poco de flujo vaginal, los porcos bravos vuelven a entender cual era lo importante y dónde estaba la trampa y el engaño.
El verdadero porco bravo es el único hombre que puede permitirse estar relajado en este mundo; su concepto del futuro es claro y verdadero, sus objetivos son sencillos y sus deseos son muy pequeños en comparación con las jaurías de chacales que forman la oposición. Su único problema es que no puede permitirse el lujo de tener razón, así que casi todos los bravos porcos acaban por mentir en nombre de algún mal necesario
La era del entusiasmo anglogalicioso: eso parece ya algo pasado de moda. Las hermanas de la caridad, ¿han estado esperando? Durante un tiempo pensé que me esperarían para siempre, pues era su deber, que mi largo viaje terminaría entre sus brazos repletos de arrugas y tatuajes deformes. Las hermanas de la caridad se han cansado de esperar, no les devolví un millón de llamadas y pasaron demasiadas noches atadas de pies y manos, sedadas por toda clase de violadores.
Y pienso: una entrada improvisada, natural como un vómito, llena de hilos narrativos dispersos, ¿puede ser al mismo tiempo perfectamente matemática, estructurada y conexa?
la basura que genera te dice más de una persona que vivir con ella
Un ir más allá de las versiones oficiales de nuestra concepción cotidiana de la anglogalician con vistas a un parque infantil de dos niveles, escenario de mutilaciones rituales y otras formas de mantener el caos.
Parece que su prosa fluye como el chorro descuidado de un adicto con mono, pero todo está cuidado hasta el detalle, y en sus aparentes desvaríos se cuelan pistas para quienes saben encontrarlas.
seguiremos la feroz cacofonía destemplada du Main hasta tirarnos por el precipicio.
Allí donde no alcanza el poder de la lógica emerge otra realidad. Una nueva corriente de sentido que parece haber puesto en suspenso (al menos momentáneamente) muchas convenciones. Surgen articulaciones inestables. Secuencias erráticas que parecen expresar, con fuerza e intensidad, el sentido último de una realidad fragmentaria y que parece trasladarnos a una determinada plenitud. Escritura-pulsión. Hicimos algunos experimentos, en este sentido, con títulos como “Geometría líquida”, “Mapa ingrávido” o “Caosmos”. Deriva sensorial (en procesos de porosidad y ósmosis conceptual). Percepción errática: a modo de calidoscopio abierto. Construir agregados sensoriales. Artefactos de sin-sentido que están más allá de la lógica y de la rígida jaula racional. Entonces las palabras como pájaros ebrios de libertad vuelan hacia la lejanía.
Podemos trazar mapas paradójicos sobre la página en blanco en un blog rupestre. Escribiendo anotaciones en un cuaderno con rutas perdidas. Hasta diseñar extravíos en regiones secretas. Para recoger el murmullo de una gota de lluvia que se desliza por el vidrio de una ventana invernal. Cualquier resquicio del mundo asoma en nuestra conciencia. Registrando con precisión la cartografía volátil de nuestro desconcierto. Oscilación entre el relieve de la percepción y la conciencia de lejanía. El aura surge de ese desplazamiento simultáneo. Movimiento donde el primer plano de la mirada se desplaza hacia la visión del horizonte. Sombra y luz. Vista y tacto intercambian sus papeles hasta llegar a una fusión complementaria, como la que sugiere la hermosa frase de la oveja escocesa: “Que te la metan es un contacto sin distancias”. La mirada puede ser rápida o lenta. Cada relato visual necesita de un tiempo. La ráfaga perceptiva es un destello: casi un átomo cromático que se manifiesta con urgencia. La lenta molécula de agua que resbala junto a la pupila (al deslizarse sobre la hoja de una planta) y la visión borrosa de la montaña en la niebla: necesitan de un tiempo próximo a la duración. Proximidad táctil e infinito cromático. El aura guarda mucho de ofrenda a la lejanía y simultáneo culto al detalle minúsculo. Un rostro que huye y traza el contorno de un paisaje (con una inmediatez casi cinematográfica). Formas que escapan hacia metamorfosis sin fin. Inestables configuraciones furtivas. Relieve en primer plano de la mirada (una pequeña piedra que tocamos con la mano) y la borrosa lejanía azul en el horizonte (pautada en difusos estratos de colores fríos) entremezclados. Circula el espacio. Algunas líneas grises (casi blanquecinas). Lo invisible toma carta de naturaleza. Una identidad porosa, permeable que conecta lo real y lo virtual, lo cercano y lo lejano. Como una síntesis de espacio-tiempo entrelazado. Proceso de escuchar, sentir, contemplar, tocar. Hasta alcanzar un idioma sensorial como meta. Vocabulario de las emociones. Para atrapar la plenitud de una realidad sensible. La conciencia flota en la demorada aventura de la ausencia. Encogerse y crecer. Dilatar el tiempo en la ceremonia de la percepción. Como un ritual que va de la plenitud al silencio. Nada está en reposo. El instante es un torbellino. Nos zambulle en el infinito como una ráfaga de viento. Un remolino que convoca un haz de materia. Una acumulación de vida que nos habla desde las distintas esquinas. Cada esquina es un instante de tiempo, un intervalo que sirve de pliegue de nuestras emociones entrecortadas.
La literatura occidental comienza con la historia de una demolición y no ha dejado de empeorar.
Nada teme más el hombre que ser tocado por lo desconocido en las tierras donde duermen los dragones
Empieza la ceremonia del aire sofocante y la ciudad es
un remolino de lenguas de fuego. Tiemblan los cuerpos
y las conciencias y la noche invade las dimensiones del
día. Se vuelan las sinagogas, las mezquitas, las iglesias. Hay
prisa por gozar y volar. La tristeza y la euforia se reparten
las calles. El miedo se desliza de casa en casa, de lecho en
lecho, y es difícil pactar con el sueño. En camas de niebla
las hijas duermen con los padres y en las plazas claman
los nuevos profetas. Algunos ceden, otros resisten, otros
recuerdan a los que se fueron, otros matan aves nocturnas
y esperan la llegada de la Estrella de la Mañana. Suenan
cornetas, cantan las ranas del parque forestal mientras las
muchachas bailan bajo la luna roja, que las mira bendiciendo sus movimientos y sus risas. ¡Porcos bravos, viva el
Caos! Las palabras parecen sustancias sin peso, los relatos
pierden fundamento, el silencio adquiere la forma de un
clamor vacío.
En la noche inglesa, el potro regresa a la atalaya y se reintegra en
la manada.
Detesto a las víctimas cuando respetan a sus verdugos
Tenía las bragas bajadas hasta la altura de las rodillas y me veía en medio de una habitación de paredes deterioradas.
Me incorporé aturdida, notando dolores en todo el cuerpo, y especialmente en el ano y la vagina.
Te han pillado saliendo del motel vestido de mosca. Te han oído cantar sobre una rama que no era tuya. Tal vez te han visto andar al ras del bosque sin uniforme, arrastrando el fusil en dirección opuesta al frente. Como sea, algo, huérfana u oveja has de haber roto. Ahora debes mentir.
Vas a necesitar una buena atmósfera y que el conductor pare a tiempo en la autopista
el cuervo del estribillo: agujeros negros de alta factura.
La gravedad de estas palabras es dominante, ergo— la luz va y se pierde en su tonel negro, la barriga bailarina de la que cuelgan todos los cielos.
en forma de toro para los que aún no entendieron el blog
de ternera para los que pudieron verme
de cierva para los que no creen en nada
de presagio para los indecisos
Mi abuelo abre la boca y dice “no saben lo que son los ingleses”. Y luego se calla.
Una cosa es la obesidad mórbida de unos tipejos que no entrenan, y otra más imperdonable es la falta de puntería a la hora de espigar referencias.
Lo están haciendo peor de lo esperado.
Lo que están mandando a "asvosaslideirassonvasoira" es propio de una fraternidad de tarados.
Muchos viajes a las islas de la moqueta con pis no son coartada para todo.
En cuanto a patria: patria, patria, qué es patria. Es una carta en un juego de naipes. Sabes cuándo se usa, cuando el mandamás necesita que vayas a matar a alguien de a gratis, o que le des la mitad de tu sueldo
Ninguno, queda claro, debe afeitarse por las mañanas, y sufrir, en general.
O si se quiere, en particular—
engarrotamientos frente al espejo,
por ejemplo, para qué me afeito,
cuántas afeitadas me quedan,
debo temer o anhelar la cifra decreciente de rastrillos,
debería de detenerme tal vez,
dejar de afeitarme,
dejar de crecer barba,
dejar de crecer,
dejar decrecer,
es divertido si te la chupan,
peor aún que ser un animal de carga es saberse un animal de carga
Tiene en el frente las siglas de un equipo de fútbol, y en el reverso, un número soñado por la suerte: 13.
Al amanecer, será un lienzo ahogado en sangre, la piel de un ciervo desollado con cuchillos de sal
la elocuencia exquisita del girarse, el nunca de la nuca
que los mansos inclinen la cabeza, y que todos aborrezcan el pan negro de cada día porque al sudor ya le han mezclado sangre, semen y amargura.
Cuando se nos pide recordar los viajes, se nos pide “hacer memoria”. Este es un dato gramatical que revela una intuición fundamental de los hablantes: hacemos memoria. Es decir, la fabricamos… Acomodamos lo que recordamos a nuestras necesidades y deseos, recordamos a pedido, pero queremos creer que lo recordado ocurrió.
Ese momento nos inquieta.
Mirarás las fachadas llenas de mierda
desde la periferia británica hasta el centro inglés
por todos los sitios, las ratas esperan amontonadas en
basureros
o alineadas en arroyos
somos ratas contaminadas
el número crece y la recolección es cada vez más abundante.
Suben en hileras para tambalearse a la luz, girar sobre sí
mismas
en los callejones sus grititos de agonía
unas hinchadas y putrefactas
otras rígidas, con los bigotes tiesos.
Por debajo del orgulloso puente colgante
donde reposan los excrementos
incapaz de distinguir
mirarás un gran cielo amarillo.
Te veo acariciar la basura que flota.
El viaje se ha detenido en ese pub.
Y tienes que inventarte otro trayecto.
Nosotros y este nosotros no lo entendemos. No nos cabe pensarlo.
Es lo pendiente que ha pasado tiempo sobrexpuesto y ha tenido la suerte de eludir a los demás.
Pienso en otros escenarios ingleses para futuros folleteos, futuras borracheras, futuros amaneceres.
La condición indispensable para la esperanza es la imposibilidad
de su concreción. Cada intento de pensar en otros escenarios
es un paso en dirección contraria.
No es necesario saber mucho. Unos pocos trazos, algunos
detalles son suficientes para alcanzar el presente y decir que lo
de Yardley Gobion lo hemos olvidado aunque no sea verdad.
No todas las ciudades inglesas son tan grandes como lo imagina.
Pero las mujeres de Uffington son especialmente bellas
cuando suben la pendiente y miran al caballo de la Edad de Bronce.
Podría verlo desde un dron pero la experiencia no es la misma.
Podría consultar mapas virtuales pero la experiencia no es la misma.
Podría leer algunos libros de viajes escritos por maricas de Sheffield pero será imposible.
"Si lloviera sopa, los irlandeses saldrían con tenedores.
Los críticos son como eunucos en un harén. Están allí todas las noches, ven qué se hace todas las noches, ven cómo debe hacerse todas las noches, pero ellos mismos no pueden hacerlo.
No es que los irlandeses sean cínicos. Más bien tienen una maravillosa falta de respeto por todo y por todos.
Tengo una total irreverencia por todo lo relacionado con la sociedad excepto por lo que hace que los caminos sean más seguros, la cerveza más fuerte, la comida más barata y los viejos y las ancianas estén más cálidos en invierno y más felices en verano.
La Biblia era un consuelo para un compañero solitario en la vieja celda. El precioso papel fino con un poco de relleno de colchón, si conseguías un fósforo, era como el mejor de los puros que he probado.
La gran diferencia entre el sexo por dinero y el sexo es que el sexo por dinero generalmente cuesta mucho menos.
Las cosas más importantes que hacer en el mundo son conseguir algo de comer, algo de beber y alguien que te quiera.
Cuando volví a Dublín fui juzgado en mi ausencia por el consejo de guerra y condenado a muerte en mi ausencia, así que dije que podían dispararme en mi ausencia."
Paddy O'Driscoll se deja de gaitas y se va de pintas con Brendan Behan.
Grosella compone un repaso muy particular, en el que el lenguaje, fragmentado y distorsionado (algunos críticos se refieren al “flujo de conciencia” o “corriente de la conciencia”, como más tarde denominó el lerdo Pompo So) refleja la inmediatez del proceso del pensamiento porco bravo y la realidad inglesa.
MIENTRAS A LOS DEMÁS NOS LLEVAN UN AÑO ARRUINANDO NUESTRAS VIDAS Y NUESTRA SALUD, UNA CATERVA DE PLUTÓCRATAS Y DE TURBO-ANGLO-SIONISTAS DEL DEMONIO SE ESTÁN LUCRANDO, Y VAN ACAPARANDO CADA DÍA QUE PASA MÁS Y MÁS PODER.
ELLOS SON EL AUTÉNTICO VIRUS QUE CORROE A NUESTRO PUEBLO. A ELLOS HAY QUE EXIGIRLES RESPONSABILIDADES POR EL VENENO SOCIAL, IDEOLÓGICO Y CULTURAL QUE ESPARECEN ATRAVÉS DE LOS MEDIOS PUESTOS A SU SERVICIO.
SOBORNAN A POLÍTICOS, JUECES, PERIODISTAS... E IMPONEN AGENDAS QUE PRETENDEN ACELERAR LOS PROCESOS DE SUSTITUCIÓN ÉTNICA Y EL TRANSHUMANISMO
¿QUÉ FUE DE AQUELLA IZQUIERDA ANTIGLOBALISTA, QUE SE MANIFESTABA AÑOS HA CONTRA LA CUMBRE DE SEATTLE? ¿Y DE LOS "PATRIOTAS" ALTERNATIVOS, CONSTITUCIONALISTAS Y DE PANDERETA?AHORA SE ALINEAN SIN FISURAS CON EL NUEVO ORDEN MUNDIAL, SE ESTÁ DESCUBRIENDO EL PASTEL.
DESPERTAD, AMIGOS, Y QUE CAIGAN DE UNA VEZ LAS MÁSCARAS.
Cualquier hombre que soporte vivir en Galizalbion está loco
“Cualquier cosa que pueda ofender una cultura que no sea dominante -que es la de los blancos y heterosexuales- es silenciada. De esto se desprende la “cultura de cancelación”, porque se amplía el criterio de lo que es considerado tolerable o no tolerable, en tanto puedan afectar a alguna minoría. Así, cada día hay una obra o artista o manifestación cultural que cae dentro de esta pira donde tienen que quemarse. Sea una obra de Esquilo, Platón o un catálogo de dibujos animados, porque son considerados racistas. Es infantilizar al público, al que ven como incapaz de pensar en el contexto”.
“Lo que veo es un neopuritanismo, un macartismo de izquierda que establece listas negras y define quién puede o no puede trabajar. Personas que son condenadas por sus opiniones y se quedan sin trabajo. Profesores que dejen de enseñar. Esto no es un chiste, es gente que es socialmente linchada en su vida diaria. Hay casos en los que se está convirtiendo en una caza de brujas. Con métodos fascistas se tacha de fascistas, a quienes se animen a cuestionar la doxa, la opinión mayoritaria. Es un fenómeno que se da con mucha fuerza en Universidades y en los medios”.
“Antes, cuando uno escuchaba que se había ejercido censura, inmediatamente se pensaba en que alguien había mostrado una teta o había lanzado un insulto en público. Ahora se silencia de acuerdo a qué representante de qué colectivo dice que se sintió ofendido. Hay una inversión de todo: antes la izquierda era sinónimo de transgresión, humor, rebelión, esos eran valores de izquierda, pero ahora la izquierda se convirtió en solemne y el progresismo actúa como una patrulla moral que ocupa el lugar que ostentaba hasta hace pocos años la vieja derecha conservadora”.
“La izquierda que ayer luchaba contra la religión y el oscurantismo de repente se vuelve defensora del Islam radical, que es el mismo que arroja homosexuales desde los edificios y persigue a las minorías sexuales y religiosas. Se da así una confrontación entre dos izquierdas: la vieja heredera del iluminismo, antitotalitaria y racionalista, empieza a ser avasallada por esta otra izquierda que está dispuesta a pactar con los religiosos oscurantistas, las dictaduras del tercer mundo y los crímenes autoritarios en nombre del antiimperialismo”.
“…la izquierda se concentra en criticar los micromachismos del hombre blanco occidental cuando utilizan una palabra no inclusiva mientras hacen la vista gorda en torno a la opresión que sufren los homosexuales y las mujeres bajo la cultura del Islam”.
Nosotros en Inglaterra medimos nuestro egoísmo y nuestro altruismo según lo requiere la ocasión. Tenemos la medida apropiada para cada situación y si carecemos de ella fingimos que la tenemos. La manera de ser natural del español es la de moverse, en un solo paso, de un extremo a otro. Cuando nos invade el horror ante la insensibilidad española, ante la actitud negativa del español y su egoísmo, nos cruzamos con algún acto de generosidad y de auténtica bondad de corazón que difícilmente existe en ninguna otra nación
the skull beneath the skin of the countryside
Dominance produces activity in an antagonistic environment
Inducement produces activity in a favorable environment
Submission produces passivity in a favorable environment
Compliance produces passivity in an antagonistic environment.
"Dentro de unos minutos iniciaremos el aterrizaje. Las autoridades locales nos obligan a llenar la cabina de un gas totalmente inocuo, a través de los conductos de ventilación. Procederemos en breve". Nadie pareció inmutarse, ni cuando empezó a salir un vapor verde de las rejillas del suelo. Viéndome inquieto, el pasajero sentado junto a mi me tranquilizó: "Ellos saben por qué lo hacen, no se preocupe. No lo harían sin tener un buen motivo". Al poco rato, las azafatas salieron de la cabina de los pilotos, y todas llevaban mascaras antigás, pero entonces a mí ya no me importaba nada.
Los caucasoides no han sido elegidos para liderar el mundo. Les faltan auténticas emociones en su creación. Nunca tuvimos la sensación de que fueran pacíficos. Fueron criados para ser asesinos, con bajas tasas de reproducción y una vida corta. Los que llamas negroides iban a vivir 1.000 años y los otros humanos 120 años. Pero los caucasoides sólo 60 años. Fueron creados solamente para luchar contra otras razas invasoras, para proteger a la raza dios de los negroides. Pero se volvieron maniáticos, perdieron el control cuando se los dejó de controlar. No tenían que probar la sangre. Lo hicieron, y su auténtica naturaleza surgió. Debido a que sus niveles reproductivos estaban recortados, sus órganos sexuales fueron hechos los más pequeños de tal forma que la hembra de su raza querrá reproducirse con negroides para autoextinguirse a sí mismos al cabo de 6.000 años. Costó 600 años crearlos, parte humanos y parte bestias
Mike Barja se acomodó en la silla y miró de reojo a su compañero. El tipo lo amedrentaba un poco porque iba bien bebido, pero por fin se animó y murmuró:
- ¿Cómo te sentiste cuando Einstein dijo esa barbaridad?
- Me sentí pésimo -respondió le Main-. No hay forma de curarse si uno niega la enfermedad, y para colmo, desde el principio de los tiempos venían saliendo unos, unos. ¡Todos unos! ¿Te das cuenta?
- Deberías probar con el ajedrez -sugirió tímidamente Mike Barja
Hay una coma en mi sopa
No puedes atraparme, cultura de la cancelación. Soy el ratón más rápido de todo México
alzaremos un pináculo de escombros cubierto con nuestros excrementos para expiar el infortunio para recordarnos frágiles
y quizás recolectar el poder desposeído de las anémonas
El verdadero vértigo es la ausencia de locura
El nuevo turista se prepara el viaje él solo desde casa. Normalmente siempre encuentra vuelos a precio de ganga pero cuando te toca a ti hacerlo, no encuentras ninguna. Pero bueno, seguiré pensando que soy hombre de mala suerte. Pero aquí está la primera trampa: si quieres un viaje barato deberás viajar como una "cosa" no como una persona. Tendrás que estar dispuesto a pasar una noche en el aeropuerto, o dando vueltas por no se sabe qué ciudad. Muchos piensan que eso está genial porque así conoces otra ciudad. Pero es un absurdo. De repente te ves en medio de la noche, en una cafetería horrible, o caminando sin ningún sentido, cuando lo que realmente quieres es estar en tu cama. Claro, que también puedes dormir en un hotel. Entonces, empiezas a sospechar que el vuelo ya no resulta tan barato. Pero lo que cuenta es decir a los colegas el precio del vuelo, que sigue siendo una ganga.
Mención a parte merecen los aeropuertos, esos lugares infestados de personas que caminan rápidamente como si conocieran el lugar de toda la vida, sentados como si estuvieran en el sofá de su casa, descalzos, comiendo... Los aeropuertos son lugares militarizados. Primero debes guardar una fila interminable hasta que te toca el turno. En ese momento tiemblas ante la posibilidad de que tu maleta pese más de lo permitido. A muchos turistas les gusta forrar las maletas con plásticos. Pero, claro, todos hemos visto "El expreso de medianoche" y más vale un ridículo que ir a parar a una cárcel de mala muerte el resto de tu vida. Una vez que has dejado la maleta, ya te sientes más libre, ya eres un turista dispuesto a consumir en las numerosas tiendas.El consejo de acudir con dos horas de antelación a un aeropuerto no es la previsión, es que consumas a diestro y siniestro. Y así, vemos turistas cargados de tabaco, alcohol y regalos absurdos. Nada de lo que venden en un aeropuerto es necesario, pero el turista es un ser blando.
A la opinión pública se la trae al pairo lo que ocurre en Estados Unidos excepto cuando los medios de comunicación la azuzan. Lo que se vivió con el llamado “Blacks Lives Matter” es un claro ejemplo. Absurdamente arrodillados. Lo interesante es que el racismo desaparece cuando gobiernan los “buenos”. ¿Durante todo el mandato de Obama no hubo actos racistas? Esto deja bien claro quién manda en los medios de comunicación.
Trump ha tenido decisiones insólitas y, a mi parecer, correctas, aunque poco efectivas (puesto que serán anuladas por Biden). Su salida de la OMS, la escasa intervención exterior, su enfrentamiento con los lobbys más importantes (el pack feminismo-LGTBI-racismo-cambio climático-inmigración), su denuncia del régimen chino…
Una de las primeras decisiones del presidente Biden, o mejor dicho, de su camarilla, ya que Biden es un guiñol, ha sido “destrumpizar” a la sociedad americana. Nuestras serviles televisiones han empleado la palabra, que recuerda bastante a aquello de “desnazificar”. La democracia no existe. Es una farsa. ¿De qué sirve que gobierne un Trump si todo su legado es desmontado al día siguiente por el oponente de turno? Es muy significativo que jamás la derecha derogue las leyes aprobadas por la izquierda. Lo hemos visto en España. El Partido Popular, contrario en su día al matrimonio homosexual, al aborto y a la Ley de Memoria Histórica, no se atrevió a derogarlos. ¿Pero no fue Trump elegido democráticamente? ¿No es un agravio brutal contra quienes le votaron? La democracia no se sostiene. Cada vez es más notorio su aspecto totalitario.
Tenemos claro un principio de democracia occidental: aunque gobierne la derecha, el verdadero poder lo ostenta siempre la izquierda. Se sabe desde Münzenberg. La diferencia es que hoy día los medios de comunicación son monstruosos. Es imposible escapar de su influencia.
Trump no es un político. Es un empresario independiente que accedió al poder gracias a su dinero y al hartazgo de una sociedad abrumada y asqueada de la política cada vez más opresora de los magnates de los monopolios de información. Hemos visto quién gana la partida: los que controlan la información.
Todos los acontecimientos mediáticos son aprovechados hasta la náusea por los enemigos de Trump. El último y definitivo gran golpe de efecto ha sido el asalto al Capitolio, que recuerda mucho a nuestro 11M, cuyo resultado, además de las víctimas, fue la subida al poder de un PSOE agónico.
Es significativo como la masa despotrica contra Trump pero no se inmuta ante los verdaderos regímenes criminales. Asombra que esa misma masa aplauda la censura al presidente Trump y acepte los mensajes de los países comunistas.
Casi toda la política de Trump la firmaría un votante de Podemos. Ya no lo recuerda nadie, pero hubo una época en la que Podemos alertaba de las consecuencias fatales del Tratado de Libre Comercio. Trump también estaba en contra. La progresía patria, muy en contra de las guerras impulsadas por EEUU, calla vergonzosamente ante el hecho de que Trump ha sido un presidente que no ha intervenido prácticamente en guerras.
Me pregunto qué diferencia hay entre palabras como infrío, dobleplusfrío, viejopensar y barrigasentir (nuevalengua), y «inlimitado», «dhulicioso», «chocobueno», «anglogalician» o «refrescancia»…
La gente quiere ver a un equipo en lo más alto y al otro humillado, y se olvida de que una victoria lograda con malas artes o por la intervención de la muchedumbre no significa nada. Aunque no intervenga físicamente, el público intenta influir en el partido animando a su equipo y "picando" a los jugadores contrarios con abucheos e insultos. La Anglogalician no tiene nada que ver con el juego limpio. Su vínculo es con el odio, la envidia, la bravuconada, el desprecio de cualquier norma y un gusto sádico por contemplar la violencia; en otras palabras, es como la guerra pero sin disparos.
Sí: de donde está el peligro, precisamente de allí nace lo que salva
Bajo el Nogal de las ramas extendidas
yo te vendí y tu me vendiste.
Allí yacen ellos y aquí yacemos nosotros.
Bajo el Nogal de las ramas extendidas.
The Leith Police Dismisseth Us
No te puedes bañar dos veces en las mismas aguas de los ríos cognados del U.K
El río Ouse es un corto río costero de la vertiente del canal de la Mancha del Reino Unido que discurre por los condados de West Sussex y East Sussex en Inglaterra. El Ouse nace cerca de Lower Beeding, pasa a través de Lewes y South Downs y desemboca en el canal de la Mancha en New Haven.
A diferencia de los otros ríos ingleses llamados Ouse (el Gran Ouse, el Pequeño Ouse y el Ouse en Yorkshire), cuyos nombres provienen de un cognado de raíz escandinava con «oose», su nombre puede venir de una corrupción del francés «rivière de Lewes». El río fue originalmente conocido como el río Mid-wynd.
Cuchulain es el mayor heroe de la mitología irlandesa, el estereotipo del guerrero bravo y sin miedo. Cuando era pequeño le suplicó a su madre que le permitiera unirse a los muchachos que estaban al servicio del rey Conchubar.
-Eres demasiado joven- le contestó su madre, pues tan solo tenía seis años-. Espera un poco.
Pero él no esperó. Se marchó con su lanza y escudo de juguete. Era capaz de lanzar la jabalina y correr para tomarla antes de que tocara el suelo. Los muchachos al verle se burlaron de Cuchulain y le tiraron sus jabalinas, pero éste las detuvo con su escudo. Al verse atacado surgió en él por primera vez el furor guerrero. Pareció que el cabello se le incendiaba. Un ojo se le cerró y retrocedió al interior de su cabeza mientras el otro brillaba y se erguía sobre un eje. La boca se le abrió de tal modo que se le podía ver la garganta a la vez que de detrás de la cabeza surgía un rojo resplandor. Fue derrotando a todos sus adversarios hasta que llegó a donde estaba el rey Conchubar, el cual le tomó a su servicio. Hay quienes aseguran que el padre de Cuchulain era el mismo dios Lugh, un señor de los Tuatha de Dannan, antiguas deidades que gobernaron en Irlanda.
Cuchulain realizó grandes hazañas y se le llegó a conocer como el Sabueso de Úlster. Se convirtió en un joven apuesto, excepto cuando le dominaba el furor guerrero. Sucedió que el joven se enamoró de la joven Emer, hija de Forgall Manach. Éste le dijo que solo se podría casar con su hija tras haber sido entrenado por Scathach, la guerrera escocesa. Ésta vivía en una isla, y la única forma de llegar allí era un puente elevado que, cuando un hombre lo cruzaba, corcoveaba como un caballo asustado. Al llegar al centro del puente, Cuchulain dio un gran salto, saliendo de allí antes que el puente le tirase al agua.
Scathach le aceptó como alumno y le adiestró en todas las artes de la guerra: la destreza con el filo de la espada y el escudo sesgado, la torsión del gato y el grito de los heroes, el golpe que aturde y el que cercena. Además le entregó el gae bolga, la lanza mágica del rayo que ningún enemigo puede parar.
Tras finalizar su entrenamiento con Scathach regresó al reino de Conchubar y se casó con Emer.
Pero, en aquel entonces, los hombres de Irlanda eran grandes luchadores, y cualquier excusa les servía. Así fue como los ejercitos de Irlanda entraron en batalla, cuando el rey Ailill y la reia Maeve de Connaught intentaron robar el gran toro del Úlster.
Cuchulain obtuvo grandes victorias en el campo de batalla, pero la hostilidad entre las gentes del Úlster y el resto de Irlanda no concluyeron, sino que empeoraron. Y llegó el día que éste se preparó para luchar una vez más. Fue a ver a su madre para despedirse, y ella le sirvió una copa de vino. Pero cuando se disponía a beberla, tan sólo sangre apareció en la copa. Tres veces se lavó la copa y tres veces se convirtió el vino en sangre.
- La suerte se ha vuelto contra mí -se lamentó Cuchulain-. Ya no volveré con vida.
Su madre le suplicó que se quedara con ella hasta que su suerte volviera. Pero él se negó:
- Nunca he rehuido la batalla y nunca lo haré. Es preferible un buen nombre que una larga vida.
En batalla Cuchulain arremetió montado en su carro contra los ejércitos de Irlanda y mató a centenares: caían como las hojas de los árboles en otoño y teñían de rojo la llanura con su sangre. Pero finalmente Lugaid, hijo de Curoi, atravesó con su lanza el vientre de Cuchulain, y éste comprendió que había recibido una herida mortal.
Pidió bajar hasta el lago y beber un trago de agua, y Lugaid le concedió su deseo. Cuchulain descendió hasta la orilla y allí bebió y se lavó, luego regresó para enfrentarse a la muerte.
En medio de campo de batalla había un enorme pilar de piedra, y Cuchulain se ató a él con su cinto, dispuesto a morir de pie. Siguió combatiendo hasta que un cuervo se le posó en el hombro: era el pájaro de la diosa Morrigan, o tal vez la propia diosa. Entonces Lugaid le asestó el golpe mortal.
Así fue como murió el poderoso Cuchulain, el Sabueso de Úlster.
Se apoderó du Main un espasmo que hizo que su cuerpo se combara, pareciendo un ser monstruoso, horrible e informe sin igual. Sus piernas y articulaciones, todos sus nudillos y órganos, de la cabeza a los pies, se agitaban como un árbol en plena inundación o un junco a merced de la corriente. Su cuerpo se revolvió violentamente dentro de su propia piel de tal forma que sus pies y espinillas se dieron la vuelta hacia atrás, y los talones y las pantorrillas, hacia adelante. En su cabeza los nervios se alargaron hasta la nuca, cada uno de ellos cuan poderoso, inmenso y desmedido pomo, del tamaño de la cabeza de un niño con un mes de vida. Uno de sus ojos se hundía hasta tal punto en su cráneo que una grúlla salvaje lo perdería de vista a la altura de la mejilla de tan hundido en las profundidades del cráneo que se hallaba, y el otro ojo le colgaba a la altura de la mejilla. Su boca retorcida de forma extraña y las mejillas estiradas hacia atrás dejaban la mandíbula descarnada hasta dejar a la vista sus entrañas, sus pulmones y su hígado ondeaban en su boca y en su garganta, su mandíbula inferior le dio un golpe tal a la superior como para matar a un león, y escupía por la boca grandes cantidades de saliva que parecían copos centelleantes de lana de cabra, procedentes de la garganta. El pelo de su cabeza se retorcía como las ramas de un espino, atascado en un hoyo; si los frutos de un manzano cayeran encima suyo, apenas llegaría al suelo manzana alguna, quedando clavadas en vez en las cerdas de su cabello tieso, de la rabia, sobre el cuero cabelludo.
As we neared Worcester it soon became inevitable that we would not reach the cathedral in time to get inside, and so it proved. The huge doors at the entrance were firmly locked and we cursed silently. We knew already that reaching three cathedrals within one day was a tall order, as the experience in Peterborough back in January had proved. Unlike Peterborough however, we could not even get a glimpse of the nave and be politely thrown out by the staff. I desperately wanted to see the tomb of yet another monarch, that of Bad King John, and also that of a young man who should have been king – Prince Arthur, elder brother of Henry VIII. Had he not died England may well have remained a Catholic country and Anglicanism would never have been born. Who knows how many more or less cathedrals I would have had to lick in that case, but it was a true delight to lick Worcester.
Que el pene incorrupto de Fuck guíe esta Cruzada espumosa.
My one and only se llevará las putas piontas del Padraigh de los cojones
No va a ser fácil que no se entiende nada. Un tipo con granos se hace pajas y todo ese chorromoco. Pero lo conseguiré.
Es más fácil que FUCK Y Asclepio Taburdio resuciten y vengan cantando juntos de la mano el Danny Boy que descifrar la piedra rosetta del porcobravismo zoofilial
Quizá incluso las antiguas leyendas de híbridos de varias bestias y de medio hombres y medio bestias tengan alguna base real
¿A quién debe dirigirse la propaganda? ¿A los intelectuales o a la masa menos instruida? ¡Ella debe dirigirse siempre y únicamente a la masa! La tarea de la propaganda consiste, no en instruir científicamente al individuo aislado, sino en atraer la atención de las masas sobre hechos y necesidades. Toda propaganda debe ser popular y situar su nivel en el límite de las facultades de asimilación del más corto de alcances de entre aquellos a quienes se dirige. La facultad de asimilación de la masa es muy restringida, su entendimiento limitado; por el contrario, su falta de memoria es muy grande. Por lo tanto, toda propaganda eficaz debe limitarse a algunos puntos fuertes poco numerosos, e imponerlos a fuerza de fórmulas repetidas, por tanto tiempo como sea necesario, para que el último de los oyentes sea también capaz de captar la idea
Era una hermosa imagen, era algo vivo, como un ser de una nueva especie, que nacía ante nuestros ojos incrédulos. A medida que el hongo flotaba en el azul, cambiaba de forma adoptando la de una flor de gigantescos pétalos, de cremosa textura blanca y rosado interior
¡Reclutas del porcobravismo! Frente al fresno y el círculo de piedras ustedes me han dado su juramento de obediencia. Me han jurado fidelidad, son los niños de mi guardia, mis soldados; se han entregado a mí en cuerpo y alma. Sólo un enemigo puede existir para ustedes: mi enemigo.
El crecimiento anormal y cada vez más rápido de los débiles mentales y dementes constituye un auténtico peligro para la nación y la raza. Creo que debería aislarse y sellarse la fuente que alimenta el torrente de demencia antes de que transcurra otro año
Galiza, por su independencia recíproca, es desde el punto de vista sentimental, una parte integrante del Imperio Británico
Las ideas son más poderosas que los rifles. Si no dejamos al enemigo tener rifles, ¿por qué le vamos a dejar tener ideas?
Soy partidario del traslado forzoso, no veo nada inmoral en él. Existe ahora la necesidad de una reacción fuerte y brutal. Necesitamos ser certeros a la hora de elegir el momento, el lugar y los blancos oportunos de nuestros golpes. Si acusamos a una familia, necesitamos dañarla sin piedad, lo que incluye a sus mujeres y niños. De otro modo, no se tratará de una reacción eficaz. Durante la operación no hay necesidad de distinguir entre culpables y no culpables
Simplemente, lo que quiero hacer es dar una gran descarga eléctrica al enorme cerdo adormecido
El gran mago planteó esta cuestión:
- ¿Cuál es, de todas las cosas del mundo, la más larga y la más corta, la más rápida y la más lenta, la más divisible y la más extensa, la más abandonada y la más añorada, sin la cual nada se puede hacer, devora todo lo que es pequeño y vivifica todo lo que es grande?
Le tocaba hablar a FUck. Contestó que un hombre como él no entendía nada de enigmas y que era suficiente con haber vencido a golpe de lanza. Unos dijeron que la solución del enigma era la fortuna, otros la tierra, otros la luz. Mike Barja consideró que era el tiempo.
- Nada es más largo, agregó, ya que es la medida de la eternidad; nada es más breve ya que nunca alcanza para dar fin a nuestros proyectos; nada es más lento para el que espera; nada es más rápido para el que goza. Se extiende hasta lo infinito, y hasta lo infinito se subdivide; todos los hombres le descuidan y lamentan su pérdida; nada se hace sin él; hace olvidar todo lo que es indigno de la posteridad, e inmortaliza las grandes cosas.
Estoy arrellanado en el sillón junto a la chimenea en que crepita el fuego. Tengo la copa de coñac en la mano derecha. Con la mano izquierda, caída descuidadamente, acaricio la cabeza de mi perro... hasta que descubro que no tengo perro.
Un Hombre que se encontró un León en su camino, se disponía a domarlo mediante el poder del ojo humano. Por allí cerca se encontraba también una Serpiente de Cascabel ocupada en fascinar a un pajarito.
- ¿Qué tal te va, hermano? -le gritó el Hombre al otro reptil sin desviar los ojos del León.
- De maravilla -contestó la Serpiente-. Tengo el éxito asegurado; mi víctima se me acerca más y más a pesar de sus esfuerzos.
- Y la mía -dijo el Hombre- se me acerca más y más a pesar de los míos. ¿Tu crees que es normal?
- Si tu crees que no -respondió el reptil como mejor pudo, con la boca llena de pájaro-, será mejor que lo dejes.
Media hora más tarde, el León, hurgándose los dientes con las garras, le dijo extrañado a la Serpiente de Cascabel que en toda su variada experiencia en el arte de ser domado, no había visto nunca un domador que desistiera tan concienzudamente.
- Pero -añadió con una amplia, expresiva sonrisa-, yo lo miraba a la cara.
- Un globo, un globo, quiero un globo -pidió un niño.
La madre le compró un globo. El niño soltó el globo y lo vio volar.
- Un globo, un globo, quiero un globo -volvió a pedir el niño.
El padre le compró un globo. El niño soltó el globo y lo vio volar.
- Un globo, un globo, quiero un globo -pidió otro niño.
La madre dijo:
- No.
El padre dijo:
- No.
Y el niño voló, se fue de los brazos de la madre, de los brazos del padre, volando con los globos. Esto pasó en el Jardín Zoológico la tarde de un domingo. Son testigos: un elefante, dos leones, un águila y un vendedor de globos.
Desperté esta extraña y triste mañana y me encontré con que todos mis dedos estaban convertidos en largos lápices. Asombrado me estrujé la cara ante la duda de si estaba totalmente despierto y lo que conseguí fue rayármela por todas partes. Caminé durante largo rato por el cuarto y una vez recuperado de la sorpresa y resignado a mi nueva y absurda fisonomía, decidí que debía buscar la manera de adaptarme a ella. En una página en blanco de mi diario intenté registrar tan traumática metamorfosis, pero me di cuenta que cada dedo, o mejor (oh, tantos años llamando dedos a las partes más delgadas de mis manos) que cada lápiz escribía algo distinto. El lápiz pulgar, en trazos gruesos, escribió sobre la muerte de alguien. El meñique, el más débil de todos, apenas trazó una endeble línea recta y se acostó sobre ella. El índice dibujó un sol negro de polos achatados y se quedó señalando hacia él. El medio, con firme grafía, anotó: "El centro y no el fin de la vida es la muerte, hacia ella todos convergemos: nos arrastra una pasión centrípeta". El anular se quejó de su condición de reo y maldijo al anillo que hace tantos años lo aprisiona. Los lápices de la mano izquierda lo único que hacían era garabatear, como borrachos, pero de pronto todos a la vez escribieron la misma frase, por lo que hube de leerla cinco veces: "Mañana, amo nuestro que siempre nos has esclavizado, amanecerás convertido en tintero y te vamos a beber". Yo, aterrado, para no darle oportunidad a su venganza, me los clavo de un solo golpe en la garganta.
Di orden de ir a buscar mi caballo al establo. El criado no me comprendió. Fui yo mismo al establo, ensillé el caballo y monté. A lo lejos oí el sonido de una trompeta, le pregunté lo que aquello significaba. El no sabía nada, no había oído nada. En el portón me detuvo, para preguntarme:
- ¿Hacia dónde cabalga el señor?
- No lo sé -respondí-. Sólo quiero irme de aquí, solamente irme de aquí. Partir siempre, salir de aquí, solo así puedo alcanzar mi meta.
- ¿Conoces, pues, tu meta? -preguntó él.
- Sí -contesté yo-. Lo he dicho ya. Salir de aquí: ésa es mi meta.
La anglogalician que amé se ha convertido en fantasma. Yo soy el lugar de las apariciones.
Es vana la ambición del cazador que harto de leones y bestias de segunda, busca hacer de su cuarto un bestiario medieval. Recoge libros de una selva hundida entre las sombras, cuelga en las paredes la cabeza de un dragón de York, las alas de un ángel nocturno. Y en la pared desnuda, que espera su último trofeo, coloca el espejo.
El pez volador se ahorcó con una lombriz de tierra durante las últimas horas del amanecer en Whitby. Es imposible, informa la misma fuente, ahorcarse con una lombriz de fuego, pero hay faquires que se las tragan y luego escupen peces voladores.
Desfile patriótico. Cuando pasa la bandera, un espectador permanece sin descubrirse. La muchedumbre rezonga, luego grita: “¡El sombrero!”, y se lanza contra el recalcitrante, que persiste en menospreciar el emblema nacional. Algunos patriotas le darán su merecido…
Se trataba de un gran mutilado de guerra de Yardley Gobion que tenía amputados los dos brazos.
Era un hombre tranquilo y tan delgado que a menudo se lo llevaba el viento. Así que en previsión de este tipo de catástrofes, se había llenado los bolsillos de piedras. Pero la suerte no estaba de su lado. Ocurrió durante una de aquellas noches en las que un fuerte viento no lograba llevárselo; el pobre hombre loco de contento celebraba su dicha con los marineros por las tabernas del puerto de Cill Rónáin. Nunca fue tan feliz. Al amanecer, caminaba completamente ebrio de cerveza negra como un ángel frágil por los muelles, y dicen que debió resbalar y caer al mar mientras cantaba alguna balada irlandesa sensiblera.
De todas formas esta versión de los hechos nunca fue escuchada. La oficial fue la del suicidio, llenos de pesadas piedras sus bolsillos.
El enano psicópata y el cocainómano o dejan de hablar de mí o CANTO. Dos misóginos, maltratadores y ególatras se atreven a mencionarme? Vaya par de desdichados solos y abandonados. A uno le da al alcohol y el otro al polvo. Solos y desdichados
Esta competición... pienso que atractiva para la gente, pero para los que estamos dentro una puta mierda. Nos apuntamos y hay que jugarla
Si invitasen a la rubia del tuit en vez de a lad pintas, habría un millón de participantes
Queda apenas un día para cerrar el concurso de pillar referencias en "Esta vasta y aniquiladora vacuidad". Están en juego las pintas de stout en las fogatas del Padraigh. Los 488 participantes que hubo hasta ahora ni arañan la superficie.
Un pasajero del metro de Mainburgh, a su vecino de asiento:
- ¿Ha visto? El periódico informa de otra Gran Purga.
- Si, he visto; en la lista de muertos estamos nosotros.
El Rey (le Main) ordenó comparecer a su Primer Ministro (Willy Sogas) y le dijo:
- Ahora sé a quién le debo mi mala fama. Eres tú quien ha difundido la calumnia de que soy un hombre despótico, vengativo, cruel, rencoroso, feroz, despiadado. Y que además acumulo inmensas riquezas gracias al pillaje y el latrocinio.
El Primer Ministro le contestó:
- Es cierto. Te calumnié en tu provecho. Si revelase que eres amable, justo, pío, cortés, generoso y encima pobre, estarías perdido. Tus enemigos no sentirían el menor temor de ti y ya te habrían desalojado del trono. En cambio, creyéndote el monstruo que les pinté, se cuidan muy bien de hostigarte.
El Rey pensó: "¿Qué vale más, mi trono de rey o mi reputación de hombre?".
Esa duda todavía lo roe en el Infierno.
Usted sabe, he perdido las llaves y el acordeón maldito sigue tocando.
- No lo sabía. ¿Usted escuchaba ese tango entrelazando sus dedos con los míos?
- No, no, los zapatos.
- ¡Ah! Por eso se llovió la cama.
- Usted demoraba tanto...
- Es que los gatos corrían ardiendo por el techo. Y sus manos tan heladas...
- ¿Con la rodilla?
- A veces. A veces me levantaba la cortina bien alto para que usted nadara con todos sus brazos y con mucha pierna. Pero, el mar era más fuerte que nosotros.
- Ya le advertí que la rodilla puede entrenarse. Lo importante es que toque fondo. Por eso muevo la rodilla como un paraguas, así.
- Usted, amigo mío, es el orador que nunca dice nada y la vida se escurre entre sus manos, arrugada y seca como el fuelle de un burro.
- Parece mentira, pero usted se meneaba con todas sus fuerzas. El amor, señora, es como la lluvia: nunca debe recalentarse.
- Sin embargo, es obvio que va a tronar y usted no da muestras de quedarse.
- ¿Tronar? Están golpeando la puerta. Su marido.
- ¡Sí, sí! La cena está servida. Pasemos.
- ¡No, mi amor! En este conejo me subo yo. Gustazo de poseerla.
"Nos veremos en el infierno" -me dijo ella en broma antes de apretar el gatillo- y aquí estoy, todavía esperando.
Si un porco bravo se acerca de inmediato a una oveja galesa y le susurra al oído "me ha picado un escorpión" montándola seguidamente con saña, el dolor pasa al animal que, muere al poco rato mientras lanza un pedo.
La flecha disparada por la ballesta precisa de Guillermo Tell parte en dos la manzana que está a punto de caer sobre la cabeza de Newton. Eva toma una mitad y le ofrece la otra a su consorte para regocijo de la serpiente. Es así como nunca llega a formularse la ley de gravedad.
Despertó cansado, como todos los días. Se sentía como si un tren le hubiese pasado por encima. Abrió un ojo y no vio nada. Abrió el otro y vio las vías.
Mao Tse-Tung porfiaba que los fantasmas no existían. La lógica de sus argumentos era irrebatible. Un día se le presenta un porco bravo que lo desafía a filosofar. A pesar de su hábil dialéctica el porco es derrotado a orillas de un río con nombre tolkiano. Entonces confiesa que es un fantasma: se transforma en un monstruo y desaparece. Mao Tse-Tung, por primera vez en su vida, pierde la palabra. Pierde también la vida.
Los detuvieron por atentado al pudor. Y nadie les creyó cuando el porco bravo y la oveja trataron de explicarse. En realidad, su amor no era sencillo. El padecía claustrofobia, y ella, agorafobia. Era sólo por eso que fornicaban en los umbrales.
El profesor leía el pasaje de la Odisea. Uno de los alumnos se puso de pie indignado.
- Ese pasaje -prorrumpió- es ofensivo e intolerable para los cerdos, la especie más vilipendiada y martirizada por nosotros. ¿Por qué se considera perniciosa la transformación de los compañeros de Odiseo en puercos? ¿Para qué, sin tomarles su parecer, se les convierte de nuevo en seres humanos? Cierto que se les embellece y rejuvenece para darles en algún modo una merecida compensación...
El discurso se volvió ininteligible porque se trocó en una sucesión de gruñidos a que hicieron coro los demás discípulos.
Ante los hocicos amenazadores y los colmillos inquietantes, ganó el maestro como pudo la puerta, no sin disculpar débilmente antes al poeta Homero Simpson, y aludir con algo de tacto a su linaje mediterráneo y a la repugnancia atávica por perniles y embutidos de algunos de esos bastardos cetrinos.
Había una vez un monstruo hembra. Vivía en el fondo del mar, a seis mil metros de profundidad, y fue sólo una leyenda hasta que un día los científicos se reunieron para pescarla. La arrastraron hasta la costa, la cargaron en un camión y finalmente la colocaron en un vasto anfiteatro donde se aprestaron a efectuar su disección. Pronto se vio que estaba embarazada. Alertaron a las fuerzas de seguridad y precintaron todas las puertas, porque eran hombres responsables y no querían correr riesgos con los cachorros del monstruo, pues quién sabe el daño que habrían podido causar si se los hubiera dejado sueltos por el mundo. Pero el monstruo hembra murió con su carnada de monstruos enterrada en su seno. Abrieron las puertas. La carne del monstruo empezaba a despedir mal olor. Varios científicos sucumbieron a los gases. No se rindieron. Trabajaban en turnos y con mascarillas. Al final, rascaron los huesos de la criatura hasta que quedaron bien limpios y contemplaron su brillante esqueleto. El esqueleto puede verse en el Museo Nacional de Galizalbion. Debajo se puede leer: "El temido monstruo hembra. Los gases de esta criatura son nocivos para los hombres". Y a continuación figuran los nombres de los 234 científicos que dieron su vida para descubrirlo.
El marionetista, ebrio, se tambalea mal sostenido por invisibles y precarios hilos. Sus ojos, en agonía alucinada, no atinan la esperanza de un soporte. Empujado o atraído por un caos de círculos y esguinces, trastabilla sobre el desorden de un camerino, eslabona angustias de inestabilidad, oscila hacia el vértigo de una inevitable caída. Y en última y frustrada resistencia, se despeña al fin como muñeco absurdo. La marioneta -un payaso cuyo rostro de madera asoma, tras el guiño sonriente, una nostalgia infinita- ha observado el drama de quien le da transitoria y ajena locomoción. Sus ojos parecen concebir lágrimas concretas, incapaz de ceder al marionetista la trama de los hilos con los cuales él adquiere movimiento.
From Tewkesbury we went north 12 miles, to Worcester, all the way still on the bank of the Severn; and here we had the pleasing sight of the hedge-rows, being fill'd with apple trees and pear trees, and the fruit so common, that any passenger as they travel the road may gather and eat what they please; and here, as well as in Gloucestershire, you meet with cyder in the publick-houses sold as beer and ale is in other parts of England, and as cheap.
Here we saw at a distance, in a most agreeable situation, the mansion or seat of Sir John Packington, a barronet of a very antient family; and for so long from father to son knight of the shire for the county, that it seems as if it were hereditary to that house.
On the other side of the Severn at --- and near the town of Bewdly the Lord Foley has a very noble seat suitable to the grandeur of that rising family.
Worcester is a large, populous, old, tho' not a very well built city; I say not well built because the town is close and old, the houses standing too thick. The north part of the town is more extended and also better built. There is a good old stone bridge over the Severn, which stands exceeding high from the surface of the water. But as the stream of the Severn is contracted here by the buildings on either side, there is evident occasion sometimes for the height of the bridge, the waters rising to an incredible height in the winter-time.
It narrowly escap'd burning, but did not escape plundering at the time when the Scots army commanded by King Ch. II. in person, was attack'd here by Cromwel's forces; 'twas said some of the Royalist's officers themselves, propos'd setting the city on fire, when they saw it was impossible to avoid a defeat, that they might the better make a retreat; which they propos'd to do over the Severn, and so to march into Wales: But that the king, a prince from his youth, of a generous and merciful disposition would by no means consent to it.
I went to see the town-house, which afforded nothing worth taking notice of, unless it be how much it wants to be mended with a new one; which the city, they say, is not so much enclin'd, as they are able and rich to perform. I saw nothing of publick notice there, but the three figures, (for they can hardly be call'd statues) of King Charles I. King Charles II. and Queen Anne.
The cathedral of this city is an antient, and indeed, a decay'd building; the body of the church is very mean in its aspect, nor did I see the least ornament about it, I mean in the outside. The tower is low, without any spire, only four very small pinnacles on the corners; and yet the tower has some little beauty in it more than the church itself, too; and the upper part has some images in it, but decay'd by time.
The inside of the church has several very antient monuments in it, particularly some royal ones; as that of King John, who lyes interr'd between two sainted bishops, namely, St. Oswald, and St. Woolstan. Whether he ordered his interment in that manner, believing that they should help him up at the last call, and be serviceable to him for his salvation I know not; it is true they say so, but I can hardly think the king himself so ignorant, whatever the people might be in those days of superstition; nor will I say but that it may be probable, they may all three go together at last (as it is) and yet, without being assistant to, or acquainted with one another at all.
La de Apu intentando hacer una colonoscopia en la muda al triscker debía contar como un 2 atalanta
I BEGAN my travels, where I purpose to end them, viz. at the city of London, and therefore my account of the city itself will come last, that is to say, at the latter end of my southern progress; and as in the course of this journey I shall have many occasions to call it a circuit, if not a circle, so I chose to give it the title of circuits, in the plural, because I do not pretend to have travelled it all in one journey, but in many, and some of them many times over; the better to inform my self of every thing I could find worth taking notice of.
I hope it will appear that I am not the less, but the more capable of giving a full account of things, by how much the more deliberation I have taken in the view of them, and by how much the oftner I have had opportunity to see them.
I set out, the 3d of April, 1722, going first eastward, and took what I think, I may very honestly call a circuit in the very letter of it; for I went down by the coast of the Thames thro' the marshes or hundreds, on the south-side of the county of Essex, till I came to Malden, Colchester, and Harwich, thence continuing on the coast of Suffolk to Yarmouth; thence round by the edge of the sea, on the north and west-side of Norfolk, to Lynn, Wisbich, and the Wash; thence back again on the north-side of Suffolk and Essex, to the west, ending it in Middlesex, near the place where I began it, reserving the middle or center of the several counties to some little excursions, which I made by themselves.
Passing Bow-Bridge, where the county of Essex begins, the first observation I made was, That all the villages which may be called the neighbourhood of the city of London on this, as well as on the other sides thereof, which I shall speak to in their order; I say, all those villages are increased in buildings to a strange degree, within the compass of about 20 or 30 years past at the most.
The village of Stratford, the first in this county from London, is not only increased, but, I believe, more than doubled in that time; every vacancy filled up with new houses, and two little towns or hamlets, as they may be called, on the forest side of the town, entirely new, namely, Mary-land-Point, and the Gravel-Pits, one facing the road to Woodford, and Epping, and the other facing the road to Illford: And as for the hither part, it is almost joined to Bow, in spite of rivers, canals, marshy-grounds, &c. Nor is this increase of building the case only, in this and all the other villages round London; but the increase of the value and rent of the houses formerly standing, has, in that compass of years above-mentioned, advanced to a very great degree, and I may venture to say at least a fifth part; some think a third part, above what they were before.
This is indeed most visible, speaking of Stratford in Essex; but it is the same thing in proportion in other villages adjacent, especially on the forest-side; as at Low-Layton, Layton-stone, Walthamstow, Woodford, Wansted, and the towns of West-Ham, Plaistow, Upton, &c. In all which places, or near them, (as the inhabitants say) above a thousand new foundations have been erected, besides old houses repaired, all since the Revolution: And this is not to be forgotten too, that this increase is, generally speaking, of handsom large houses, from 20l. a year to 60l. very few under 20l. a year; being chiefly for the habitations of the richest citizens, such as either are able to keep two houses, one in the country, and one in the city; or for such citizens as being rich, and having left off trade, live altogether in these neighbouring villages, for the pleasure and health of the latter part of their days.
The truth of this may at least appear, in that they tell me there are no less than two hundred coaches kept by the inhabitants within the circumference of these few villages named above, besides such as are kept by accidental lodgers.
This increase of the inhabitants, and the cause of it, I shall inlarge upon when I come to speak of the like in the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, &c. Where it is the same, only in a much greater degree: But this I must take notice of here, that this increase causes those villages to be much pleasanter and more sociable than formerly, for now people go to them, not for retirement into the country, but for good company; of which, that I may speak to the ladies as well as other authors do, there are in these villages, nay, in all, three or four excepted, excellent conversation, and a great deal of it, and that without the mixture of assemblies, gaming houses, and publick foundations of vice and debauchery; and particularly I find none of those incentives kept up on this side the country.
Mr. Camden, and his learned continuator, Bishop Gibson, have ransacked this country for its antiquities, and have left little unsearched; and, as it is not my present design to say much of what has been said already, I shall touch very lightly where two such excellent antiquaries have gone before me; except it be to add what may have been since discovered, which as to these parts is only this; That there seems to be lately found out, in the bottom of the marshes, (generally called Hackney-Marsh, and beginning near about the place now called the Wyck), between Old-Ford and the said Wyck, the remains of a great stone causeway, which, as it is supposed, was the highway, or great road from London into Essex, and the same, which goes now over the great bridge between Bow and Stratford.
That the great road lay this way, and that the great causeway landed again just over the river, where now the Temple-Mills stand, and passed by Sir Tho. Hickes's house at Ruckolls, all this is not doubted; and that it was one of those famous highways made by the Romans, there is undoubted proof, by the several marks of Roman work, and by Roman coins, and other antiquities found there, some of which are said to be deposited in the hands of the Revd. Mr. Strype, vicar of the parish of Low-Layton.
From hence the great road passed up to Layton-stone, a place by some known, now as much, by the sign of the Green-Man, formerly a lodge upon the edge of the forest; and crossing by Wansted House, formerly the dwelling of Sir Josiah Child, now of his son the Lord Castlemain, (of which, hereafter) went over the same river which we now pass at Ilford; and passing that part of the great forest which we now call Henault Forest, came into that which is now the great road, a little on this side the Whalebone, a place on the road so called, because a rib-bone of a great whale, which was taken in the river of Thames the same year that Oliver Cromwel died, 1658, was fixed there for a monument of that monstrous creature, it being at first about eight-and twenty foot long.
According to my first intention of effectually viewing the sea-coast of these three counties, I went from Stratford to Barking, a large market-town, but chiefly inhabited by fishermen, whose smacks ride in the Thames, at the mouth of their river, from whence their fish is sent up to London to the market at Billingsgate, by small boats, of which I shall speak by itself in my description of London.
One thing I cannot omit in the mention of these Barking fisher-smacks, viz. That one of those fishermen, a very substantial and experienced man, convinced me, that all the pretences to bringing fish alive to London market from the North Seas, and other remote places on the coast of Great Britain, by the new-built sloops called fish-pools, have not been able to do any thing, but what their fishing-smacks are able on the same occasion to perform. These fishing-smacks are very useful vessels to the publick upon many occasions; as particularly, in time of war they are used as press-smacks, running to all the northern and western coasts to pick up seamen to mann the navy, when any expedition is at hand that requires a sudden equipment: At other times, being excellent sailors, they are tenders to particular men of war; and on an expedition they have been made use of as machines, for the blowing up fortified ports and havens; as at Calais, St. Maloes, and other places.
This parish of Barking is very large; and by the improvement of lands taken in, out of the Thames, and out of the river which runs by the town, the tithes, as the townsmen assured me, are worth above 6ool. per annum, including small tithes. Note, This parish has two or three chapels of ease, viz. one at Ilford, and one on the side of Henault Forest, called New Chapel. Sir Tho. Fanshaw, of an antient Roman Catholick family, has a very good estate in this parish: A little beyond the town, on the road to Dagenham, stood a great house, antient, and now almost fallen down, where tradition says the Gunpowder Treason Plot was at first contriv'd, and that all the first consultations about it were held there.
This side of the county is rather rich in land, than in inhabitants, occasioned chiefly by the unhealthiness of the air; for these low marsh grounds, which, with all the south-side of the county, have been saved out of the River Thames, and out of the sea, where the river is wide enough to be call'd so, begin here or rather begin at West-Ham, by Stratford, and continue to extend themselves. From hence eastward, growing wider and wider, till we come beyond Tilbury, when the flat country lyes six seven, or eight miles broad, and is justly said to be both unhealthy, and unpleasant.
However the lands are rich, and, as is observable, it is very good farming in the marshes, because the landlords let good penny-worths, for it being a place where every body cannot live those that venture it, will have encouragement, and indeed it is but reasonable they should.
Several little observations I made in this part of the county of Essex.
We saw passing from Barking to Dagenham, The famous breach, made by an inundation of the Thames, which was so great, as that it laid near 5000 acres of land under water, but which after near ten years lying under water, and being several times blown up has been at last effectually stopped by the application of Captain Perry; the gentleman, who for several years had been employed, in the Czar of Muscovy's works, at Veronitza, on the River Don. This breach appeared now effectually made up, and they assured us, that the new work, where the breach was, is by much esteemed the strongest of all the sea walls in that level.
It was observable that great part of the lands in these levels, especially those on this side East Tilbury, are held by the farmers, cow-keepers, and grasing butchers who live in and near London, and that they are generally stocked (all the winter half year) with large fat sheep, (viz.) Lincolnshire and Leicestershire wethers, which they buy in Smithfield in September and October, when the Lincolnshire and Leicestershire grasiers sell off their stock, and are kept here till Christmas, or Candlemas, or thereabouts, and tho' they are not made at all fatter here, than they were when bought in, yet the farmer, or butcher finds very good advantage in it, by the difference of the price of mutton between Michaelmas, when 'tis cheapest, and Candlemas when 'tis dearest; this is what the butchers value themselves upon, then they tell us at the market, that it is right marsh-mutton.
In the bottom of these marshes, and close to the edge of the rivers stands the strong fortress of Tilbury, called Tilbury Fort, which may justly be looked upon, as the key of the river of Thames, and consequently the key of the city of London: It is a regular fortification, the design of it, was a pentagon, but the water bastion as it would have been call'd, was never built; the plan was laid out by Sir Martin Beckman, chief engineer to King Charles II. who also designed the works at Sheerness. The esplanade of the fort is very large, and the bastions, the largest of any in England, the foundation is laid so deep, and piles under that, driven down two on end of one another, so far, till they were assur'd they were below the channel of the river, and that the piles, which were shod with iron, entered into the solid chalk rock adjoyning to, or reaching from the chalk-hills on the other side. These bastions settled considerably at first, as did also part of the curtain, the great quantity of earth that was brought to fill them up, necessarily, requiring to be made solid by time; but they are now firm as the rocks of chalk which they came from, and the filling up one of these bastions, as I have been told by good hands, cost the Government 6oool. . being filled with chalk-rubbish fetched from the chalk-pits at North-Fleet, just above Gravesend.
The works to the land side are compleat; the bastions are faced with brick. There is a double ditch, or moat, the innermost part of which is 180 foot broad, there is a good counter-scarp, and a covered way marked out, with ravelins, and tenailles, but they are not raised a second time after their first settling.
On the land side there are also two small redoubts of brick, but of very little strength, for the chief strength of this fort on the land side consists in this, that they are able to lay the whole level under water, and so to make it impossible for an enemy to make any approaches to the fort that way.
On the side next the river, there is a very strong curtain, with a noble gate called the water-gate in the middle, and that ditch is pallisadoed. At the place where the water-bastion was designed to be built, and which by the plan should run wholly out into the river, so to flank the two curtains on each side; I say, in the place where it should have been, stands a high tower, which they tell us was built in Queen Elizabeth's time, and was called the Block-house; the side next the water is vacant.
Before this curtain above and below the said vacancy, is a platform in the place of a counterscarp, on which are planted 106 pieces of cannon, generally all of them carrying from 24 to 46 pound ball; a battery, so terrible, as well imports the consequence of that place: Besides which, there are smaller pieces planted between, and the bastions and curtain also are planted with guns, so that they must be bold fellows who will venture in the biggest ships the world has heard of, to pass such a battery, if the men appointed to serve the guns, do their duty like stout fellows, as becomes them.
The present government of this important place is under the prudent administration of the Right Honourable the Lord Newbrugh.
From hence, there is nothing for many miles together remarkable, but a continued level of unhealthy marshes, called, the Three Hundreds, till we come before Leigh, and to the mouth of the River Chelmer, and Black-water. These rivers united make a large firth, or inlet of the sea, which by Mr. Camden is called Idumanum Fluvium ; but by our fishermen and seamen, who use it as a port, 'tis called Maiden-Water.
In this inlet of the sea is Osey or Osyth Island, commonly called Oosy Island, so well known by our London men of pleasure, for the infinite number of wild-fowl, that is to say, duck, mallard, teal and widgeon, of which there are such vast flights, that they tell us the island, namely the creek, seems covered with them, at certain times of the year, and they go from London on purpose for the pleasure of shooting; and indeed often come home very well loaden with game. But it must be remembred too, that those gentlemen who are such lovers of the sport, and go so far for it, often return with an Essex ague on their backs, which they find a heavier load than the fowls they have shot.
'Tis on this shoar, and near this creek, that the greatest quantity of fresh fish is caught, which supplies not this country only, but London markets also: On the shoar beginning a little below Candy Island, or rather below Leigh Road, there lies a great shoal or sand called the Black Tayl, which runs out near three leagues into the sea due east; at the end of it, stands a pole or mast, set up by the Trinity-House men of London, whose business is, to lay buoys, and set up sea marks for the direction of the sailors; this is called Shoo-Bacon, from the point of land where this sand begins, which is call'd Shooberry-Ness, and that from the town of Shooberry, which stands by it. From this sand, and on the edge of Shooberry, before it, or south-west of it, all along, to the mouth of Colchester Water, the shoar is full of shoals and sands, with some deep channels between; all which are so full of fish, that not only the Barking fishing-smacks come hither to fish, but the whole shoar is full of small fisher-boats in very great numbers, belonging to the villages and towns on the coast, who come in every tide with what they take; and selling the smaller fish in the country, send the best and largest away upon horses, which go night and day to London market.
N.B. I am the more particular in my remark on this place, because in the course of my travels the reader will meet with the like in almost every place of note through the whole island, where it will be seen how this whole kingdom, as well the people, as the land, and even the sea, in every part of it, are employ'd to furnish something, and I may add, the best of every thing, to supply the city of London with provisions; I mean by provisions, corn, flesh, fish, butter, cheese, salt, fewel, timber, &c. and cloths also; with every thing necessary for building, and furniture for their own use, or for trades; of all which in their order.
On this shoar also are taken the best and nicest, tho' not the largest oysters in England; the spot from whence they have their common appellation is a little bank called Woelfleet, scarce to be called an island, in the mouth of the River Crouch, now called Crooksea Water; but the chief place where the said oysters are now had, is from Wyvenhoo and the shears adjacent whither they are brought by the fishermen, who take them at the mouth of, that they call, Colchester Water, and about the sand they call the Spits, and carry them up to Wyvenhoo, where they are kid in beds or pits on the shoar to feed, as they call it; and then being barrelled up, and carried to Colchester, which is but three miles off, they are sent to London by land, and are, from thence, called Colchester oysters.
The chief sort of other fish which they carry from this part of the shoar to London, are soals, which they take sometimes exceeding large, and yield a very good price at London market: Also sometimes midling turbet, with whitings, codling, and large flounders; the small fish as above, they sell in the country.
In the several creeks and openings, as above, on this shoar, there are also other islands, but of no particular note, except Mersey, which lies in the middle of the two openings, between Malden Water and Colchester Water; being of the most difficult access, so that 'tis thought a thousand men well provided, might keep possession of it against a great force, whether by land or sea; on this account, and because if possessed by an enemy, it would shut up all the navigation and fishery on that side: The Government formerly built a fort on the south-east point of it: And generally in case of Dutch war, there is a strong body of troops kept there to defend it.
At this place may be said to end what we call the Hundreds of Essex; that is to say, the three hundreds or divisions, which include the marshy country, viz. Barnstaple Hundred, Rochford Hundred, and Dengy Hundred.
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; so that marrying of wives was reckon'd a kind of good farm to them: It is true, the fellow told this in a kind of drollery, and mirth; but the fact, for all that, is certainly true; and that they have abundance of wives by that very means: Nor is it less true, that the inhabitants in these places do not hold it out; as in other countries, and as first you seldom meet with very antient people among the poor, as in other places we do, so, take it one with another, not one half of the inhabitants are natives of the place; but such as from other countries, or in other parts of this county settle here for the advantage of good farms; for which I appeal to any impartial enquiry, having myself examin'd into it critically in several places.
From the marshes, and low grounds, being not able to travel without many windings, and indentures, by reason of the creeks, and waters, I came up to the town of Malden, a noted market town situate at the conflux or joyning of two principal rivers in this county, the Chelm or Chelmer, and the Blackwater, and where they enter into the sea. The channel, as I have noted, is call'd by the sailors Malden-Water, and is navigable up to the town, where, by that means, is a great trade for carrying corn by water to London; the county of Essex being (especially on all that side) a great corn country.
From hence I went on to Colchester: The story of Kill Dane, which is told of the town of Kelvedon, three miles from Witham, namely, That this is the place where the massacre of the Danes was begun by the women, and that therefore it was call'd Kill-Dane. I say of it, as we generally say of improbable news, it wants confirmation. The true name of the town is Kelvedon, and has been so for many hundred years. Neither does Mr. Camden, or any other writer I meet with worth naming, insist on this piece of empty tradition, the town is commonly called Keldon.
COLCHESTER is an antient Corporation; the town is large, very populous; the streets fair and beautiful; and tho' it may not be said to be finely built, yet there are abundance of very good and well-built houses in it: It still mourns, in the ruins of a civil war; during which, or rather after the heat of the war was over, it suffer'd a severe siege; which, the garrison making a resolute defence, was turn'd into a blockade, in which the garrison and inhabitants also, suffered the utmost extremity of hunger, and were at last oblig'd to surrender at discretion, when their two chief officers, Sir Charles Lucas, and Sir George Lisle, were shot to death under the castle-wall. The inhabitants had a tradition, that no grass would grow upon the spot where the blood of those two gallant gentlemen was spilt; and they shewM the place bare of grass for many years, but whether for this reason, I will not affirm; the story is now dropp'd, and the grass, I suppose, grows there as in other places.
However, the batter'd walls, the breaches in the turrets, and the ruin'd churches still remain, except that the church of St. Mary's (where they had the royal fort) is rebuilt; but the steeple, which was two thirds batter'd down, because the besieged had a large culverine upon it, that did much execution, remains still in that condition.
There is another church which bears the marks of those times, namely, on the south-side of the town, in the way to the Hithe, of which more hereafter.
The lines of contravallation, with the forts built by the besiegers, and which surrounded the whole town, remain very visible in many places; but the chief of them are demolish'd.
The River Coln, which passes through this town, compasses it on the north and east-sides, and serv'd in those times for a compleat defence on those sides. They have three bridges over it, one called North-Bridge, at the north gate, by which the road leads into Suffolk; one call'd East-Bridge, at the foot of the High Street, over which lies the road to Harwich; and one at the Hithe, as above.
The river is navigable within three miles of the town for ships of large burthen; a little lower it may receive even a royal navy: And up to that part called the Hithe, close to the houses, it is navigable for hoys and small barks. This Hithe is a long street, passing from west to east, on the south-side of the town; at the west-end of it, there is a small intermission of the buildings, but not much; and towards the river it is very populous; (it may be call'd the Wapping of Colchester;) there is one church in that part of the town, a large key by the river, and a good custom-house.
The town may be said chiefly to subsist by the trade of making bays, which is known over most of the trading parts of Europe, by the name of Colchester bays, tho' indeed all the towns round carry on the same trade, namely, Kelvedon, Wittham, Coggshall, Braintree, Bocking, &c. and the whole county, large as it is, may be said to be employ'd, and in part maintain'd, by the spinning of wool for the bay trade of Colchester, and its adjacent towns. The account of the siege, anno 1648, with a DIARY of the most remarkable passages, are as follows, which I had from so good a hand, as that I have no reason to question its being a true relation.
A DIARY
OR, AN ACCOUNT OF THE
SIEGE AND BLOCKADE OF COLCHESTER
AN. 1648
On the 4th of June, we were alarm'd in the town of Colchester, that the Lord Goring, the Lord Capel, and a body of 2000 of the Loyal Party, who had been in arms in Kent, having left a great body of an army in possession of Rochester Bridge, where they resolv'd to fight the Lord Fairfax, and the Parliament army; had given the said General Fairfax the slip, and having pass'd the Thames at Greenwich, were come to Stratford, and were advancing this way: Upon which news, Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle, Col. Cook, and several gentlemen of the Loyal army, and all that had commissions from the king, with a gallant appearance of gentlemen voluntiers, drew together from all parts of the country, to join with them.
The 8th, we were further informed, that they were ad vane'd to Chelmsford, to New Hall House, and to Witham; and the 9th, some of the horse arriv'd in the town, taking possession of the gates, and having ingeneers with them, told us, that General Goring had resolv'd to make this town his head quarters, and would cause it to be well fortified; they also caused the drums to beat for voluntiers; and a good number of the poor bay-weavers, and such-like people, wanting employment, listed: So that they compleated Sir Charles Lucas's regiment, which was but thin, to near 800 men.
On the 10th we had news, that the Lord Fairfax having beaten the Royalists at Maidstone, and re-taken Rochester, had pass'd the Thames at Gravesend, tho' with great difficulty, and with some loss, and was come to Horndon on the Hill, in order to gain Colchester before the Royalists; but that hearing Sir Charles Lucas had prevented him, had order'd his rendezvous at Billerecay, and intended to possess the pass at Malden on the 11th, where Sir Thomas Honnywood, with the county Trained Bands, was to be the same day.
The same evening the Lord Goring, with all his forces, making about 5600 men, horse and foot, came to Colchester, and encamping without the suburbs, under command of the cannon of St. Mary's Fort, made disposition to fight the Parliament forces, if they came up.
The 12th, the Lord Goring came into Colchester, viewed the fort in St. Mary's churchyard, order'd more cannon to be planted upon it; posted two regiments in the suburbs without the Head-Gate; let the town know he would take them into his majesty's protection; and that he would fight the enemy in that situation. The same evening, the Lord Fairfax, with a strong party of 1000 horse, came to Lexden, at two small miles distance, expecting the rest of his army there, the same night.
The Lord Goring brought in prisoners the same day, Sir William Masham, and several other gentlemen of the county, who were secured under a strong guard; which the Parliament hearing, order'd twenty prisoners of the Royal Party to be singl'd out, declaring, that they should be used in the same manner as the Lord Goring used Sir William Masham, and the gentlemen prisoners with him.
On the 13th, early in the morning, our spies brought intelligence, that the Lord Fairfax, all his forces being come up to him, was making dispositions for a march, resolving to attack the Royalists in their camp: Upon which, the Lord Goring drew all his forces together resolving to fight. The ingineers had offer'd the night before to entrench his camp and to draw a line round it in one night's time; but his lordship declined it; and now there was no time for it: Whereupon the general, Lord Goring, drew up his army in order of battle, on both sides the road, the horse in the open fields on the wings; the foot were drawn up, one regiment in the road; one regiment on each side, and two regiments for reserve in the suburb, just at the entrance of the town, with a regiment of voluntiers, advanc'd as a forlorn hope, and a regiment of horse at the Head-Gate, ready to support the reserve, as occasion should require.
About nine in the morning we heard the enemy's drums beat a march, and in half an hour more their first troops appeared on the higher grounds towards Lexden; immediately the cannon from St. Mary's fir'd upon them, and put some troops of horse into confusion, doing great execution; which, they not being able to shun it, made them quicken their pace, to fall on, when our cannon were oblig'd to cease firing, least we should hurt our own troops, as well as the enemy: Soon after, their foot appeared, and our cannon saluted them in like manner, and killed them a great many men.
Their first line of foot was led up by Col. Barkstead, and consisted of three regiments of foot, making about 1700 men, and these charged our regiment in the lane, commanded by Sir George Lisle, and Sir William Campion: They fell on with great fury, and were receiv'd with as much gallantry, and three times repulsed; nor could they break in here, tho' the Lord Fairfax sent fresh men to support them, till the Royalists horse, oppressed with numbers on the left, were obliged to retire, and at last, to come full gallop into the street, and so on into the town: Nay, still the foot stood firm, and the voluntiers, being all gentlemen, kept their ground with the greatest resolution: But the left wing being routed, as above, Sir William Campion was oblig'd to make a front to the left; and lining the hedge with his musqueteers, made a stand with a body of pikes against the enemy's horse, and prevented them entering the lane. Here that gallant gentleman was kill'd with a carabine shot; and after a very gallant resistance, the horse on the right being also over-power'd, the word was given to retreat; which however was done in such good order, the regiments of reserve standing drawn up at the end of the street, ready to receive the enemy's horse upon the points of their pikes, that the royal troops came on in the openings between the regiments, and entered the town with very little loss, and in very good order.
By this, however, those regiments of reserve, were brought, at last, to sustain the efforts of the enemy's whole army, till being overpower'd by numbers, they were put into disorder, and forced to get into the town in the best manner they could; by which means near 200 men were kill'd or made prisoners.
Encouraged by this success, the enemy push'd on, supposing they should enter the town pelmel with the rest; nor did the Royalists hinder them, but let good part of Barksteads own regiment enter the Head Gate; but then sallying from St. Mary's with a choice body of foot on their left, and the horse rallying in the High-street, and charging them again in the front, they were driven back quite into the street of the suburb, and most of those that had so rashly enter'd, were cut in pieces.
Thus they were repulsed at the south entrance into the town; and tho' they attempted to storm three times after that with great resolution, yet they were as often beaten back, and that with great havock of their men; and the cannon from the fort all the while did execution upon those who stood drawn up to support them: So that at last seeing no good to be done, they retreated, having small joy of their pretended victory.
They lost in this action Colonel Needham, who commanded a regiment call'd the Tower Guards, and who fought very desperately; Capt. Cox, an old experienced horse officer, and several other officers of note, with a great many private men, tho' as they had the field, they concealed their number, giving out, that they lost but an hundred, when we were assured, they lost near a thousand men besides the wounded.
They took some of our men prisoners, occasion'd by the regiment of Colonel Farr, and two more, sustaining the shock of their whole army, to secure the retreat of the main body, as above.
The 14th, the Lord Fairfax finding he was not able to carry the town by storm, without the formality of a siege, took his head quarters at Lexden, and sent to London, and to Suffolk for more forces; also he order'd the Trained Bands to be raised, and posted on the roads, to prevent succours; notwithstanding which, divers gentlemen, with some assistance of men and arms, found means to get into the town.
The very same night they began to break ground; and particularly, to raise a fort between Colchester and Lexden, to cover the generals quarter from the salleys from the town; for the Royalists having a good body of horse, gave them no rest, but scour'd the fields every day, falling on all that were found stragling from their posts, and by this means kill'd a great many.
The 17th, Sir Charles Lucas having been out with 1200 horse, and detatching parties toward the sea-side, and towards Harwich, they brought in a very great quantity of provisions, and abundance of sheep and black cattle, sufficient for the supply of the town for a considerable time; and had not the Suffolk forces advanced over Cataway Bridge to prevent it, a larger supply had been brought in that way; for now it appeared plainly, that the Lord Fairfax finding the garrison strong and resolute, and that he was not in a condition to reduce them by force, at least without the loss of much blood, had resolved to turn his siege into a blockade, and reduce them by hunger; their troops being also wanted to oppose several other parties, who had, in several parts of the kingdom, taken arms for the king's cause.
This same day General Fairfax sent in a trumpet, to propose exchanging prisoners, which the Lord Goring rejected, expecting a reinforcement of troops, which were actually coming to him, and were to be at Linton in Cambridge-shire as the next day.
The same day two ships brought in a quantity of corn and provisions, and 56 men from the shore of Kent with several gentlemen, who all landed, and came up to the town, and the greatest part of the corn was with the utmost application unloaded the same night into some hoys, which brought it up to the Hithe, being apprehensive of the Parliaments ships which lay at Harwich, who having intelligence of the said ships, came the next day into the mouth of the river, and took the said two ships, and what com was left in them. The besieg'd sent out a party to help the ships, but having no boats they could not assist them.
18. Sir Charles Lucas sent an answer about exchange of prisoners, accepting the conditions offer'd, but the Parliaments general returned that he would not treat with Sir Charles, for that he Sir Charles being his prisoner upon his parole of honour, and having appear'd in arms contrary to the rules of war, had forfeited Ms honour and faith, and was not capable of command or trust in martial affairs: To this Sir Charles sent back an answer, and his excuse for his breach of his parole, but it was not accepted, nor would the Lord Fairfax enter upon any treaty with him.
Upon this second message, Sir William Masham, and the Parliament committee and other gentlemen, who were prisoners in the town, sent a message in writing under their hands to the Lord Fairfax, intreating him to enter into a treaty for peace; but the Lord Fairfax returned, he could take no notice of their request, as supposing it forced from them under restraint; but, that, if the Lord Goring desir'd peace, he might write to the Parliament, and he would cause his messenger to have a safe conduct to carry his letter: There was a paper sent enclosed in this paper, sign'd Capel, Norwich, Charles Lucas, but to that the general would return no answer, because it was sign'd by Sir Charles, for the reason above.
All this while, the Lord Goring, finding the enemy strengthening themselves, gave order for fortifying the town, and drawing lines in several places, to secure the entrance, as particularly without the east bridge, and without the north-gate and bridge, and to plant more cannon upon the works: To which end, some great guns were brought in from some ships at Wevenhoe.
The same day, our men sally'd out in three places, and attack'd the besiegers, first at their fort, call'd Essex; then at their new works, on the south of the town; a third party sallying at the east bridge, brought in some booty from the Suffolk troops, having killed several of their straglers on the Harwich road: They also took a lieutenant of horse prisoner, and brought him into the town.
19. This day we had the unwelcome news, that our friends at Linton were defeated by the enemy, and Major Muschamp, a loyal gentleman, kill'd.
The same night, our men gave the enemy alarm at their new Essex Fort, and thereby drew them out as if they would fight, till they brought them within reach of the cannon of St. Mary's, and then our men retiring, the great guns let fly among them, and made them run: Our men shouted after them; several of them were kill'd on this occasion, one shot having kill'd three horsemen in our sight.
20. We now found the enemy in order to a perfect blockade,, resolv'd to draw a line of circumvallation round the town; having receiv'd a train of forty pieces of heavy cannon from the Tower of London.
This day the Parliament sent a messenger to their prisoners, to know how they far'd, and how they were used; who return'd word, that they far'd indifferent well, and were very civilly used, but that provisions were scarce, and therefore dear.
This day a party of horse with 300 foot, sally'd out, and marched as far as the fort on the Isle of Mersey, which they made a shew of attacking, to keep in the garrison; mean while the rest took a good number of cattle from the country, which they brought safe into the town, with five waggons loaden with corn: This was the last they could bring in that way, the lines being soon finished on that side.
This day the Lord Fairfax sent in a trumpet to the Earl of Norwich, and the Lord Goring, offering honourable conditions to them all; allowing all the gentlemen their lives and arms, exemption from plunder; and passes, if they desir'd to go beyond sea; and all the private men pardon, and leave to go peaceably to their own dwellings; but the Lord Goring and the rest of the gentlemen rejected it, and laughed at them: Upon which the Lord Fairfax made proclamation, that his men should give the private soldiers in Colchester free leave to pass through their camp, and go where they pleased without molestation, only leaving their arms, but that the gentlemen should have no quarter: This was a great loss to the Royalists, for now the men foreseeing the great hardships they were like to suffer, began to slip away, and the Lord Goreing was obliged to forbid any to desert on pain of present death, and to keep parties of horse continually patrolling to prevent them; notwithstanding which, many got away.
21. The town desir'd the Lord Goreing to give them leave to send a message to Lord Fairfax, to desire they might have liberty to carry on their trade and sell their bays and says, which Lord Goreing granted; but the enemy's general return'd, that they should have consider'd that before they let the Royalists into the town: That to desire a free trade from a town besieg'd, was never heard of, or at least, was such a motion, as was never yet granted: That however, he would give the baymakers leave to bring their bays and says, and other goods, once a week, or oftener, if they desire it, to Lexden Heath, where they should have a free market, and might sell them or carry them back again, if not sold, as they found occasion.
22. The beseig'd sally'd out in the night with a strong party, and disturb'd the enemy in their works, and partly ruin'd one of their forts, call'd Ewer's Fort, where the besiegers were laying a bridge over the River Coln; Also they sally'd again at East-Bridge, and faced the Suffolk troops, who were now declared enemies, these brought in six and fifty good bullocks, and some cows, and they took and kill'd several of the enemy.
23. The besiegers began to fire with their cannon from Essex Fort, and from Barksted's Fort, which was built upon the Malden road, and finding that the besieged had a party in Sir Harbottle Grimston's house, call'd, The Fryery, they fir'd at it with their cannon, and batter'd it almost down, and then the soldiers set it on fire.
This day upon the townsmen's treaty for the freedom of the bay trade, the Lord Fairfax sent a second offer of conditions to the besieg'd, being, the same as before, only excepting Lord Goring, Lord Capel, Sir George Lisle, and Sir Charles Lucas.
This day we had news in the town, that the Suffolk forces were advanc'd to assist the besiegers and that they began a fort call'd Fort Suffolk, on the north side of the town, to shut up the Suffolk road towards Stratford. This day the besieg'd sally'd out at North-Bridge, attack'd the out-guards of the Suffolk men on Mile-End Heath, and drove them into their fort in the woods.
This day Lord Fairfax sent a trumpet, complaining of chew'd and poison'd bullets being shot from the town, and threatning to give no quarter if that practice was allow'd; but Lord Goring return'd answer, with a protestation, that no such thing was done by his order or consent.
Aug. 7. The town's people became very uneasy to the soldiers, and the mayor of the town, with the aldermen, waited upon the general, desiring leave to send to the Lord Fairfax, for leave to all the inhabitants to come out of the town, that they might not perish; to which the Lord Goring consented; but the Lord Fairfax refused them.
12. The rabble got together in a vast crowd about the Lord Goring's quarters, clamouring for a surrender, and they did this every evening, bringing women and children, who lay howling and crying on the ground for bread; the soldiers beat off the men, but the women and children would not stir, bidding the soldiers kill them, saying they had rather be shot than be starv'd.
16. The general mov'd by the cries and distress of the poor inhabitants, sent out a trumpet to the Parliament General, demanding leave to send to the prince, who was with a fleet of 19 men of war in the mouth of the Thames, offering to surrender, if they were not reliev'd in 20 days. The Lord Fairfax refused it, and sent them word, he would be in the town in person, and visit them in less than 20 days, intimating that they were preparing for a storm. Some tart messages and answers were exchanged on this occasion. The Lord Goring sent word, they were willing, in compassion to the poor town's people, and to save that effusion of blood, to surrender upon honourable terms, but that as for the storming them, which was threaten'd, they might come on when they thought fit, for that they (the Royalists) were ready for them. This held to the 19.
20. The Lord Fairfax return'd, what he said, was his last answer, and should be the last offer of mercy: The conditions offered were, That upon a peaceable surrender, all soldiers and officers under the degree of a captain, in commission, should have their lives, be exempted from plunder, and have passes to go to their respective dwellings: All the captains and superior officers, with all the lords and gentlemen, as well in commission as voluntiers, to surrender prisoners at discretion s; and when the people came about them again for bread, set open one of the gates, and bid them go out to the enemy, which a great many did willingly; upon which the Lord Goring ordered all the rest that came about his door, to be turn'd out after them: But when the people came to the Lord Fairfax's camp, the out-guards were order'd to fire at them, and drive them all back again to the gate; which the Lord Goring seeing, he order'd them to be receiv'd in again. And now, altho' the generals and soldiers also, were resolute to die with their swords in their hands, rather than yield, and had maturely resolv'd to abide a storm; yet the mayor and aldermen having petitioned them, as well as the inhabitants, being wearied with the importunities of the distressed people, and pitying the deplorable condition they were reduced to, they agreed to enter upon a treaty, and accordingly, sent out some officers to the Lord Fairfax, the Parliament General, to treat; and with them was sent two gentlemen of the prisoners upon their parole to return.
Upon the return of the said messengers with the Lord Fairfax's terms, the Lord Goring, &c. sent out a letter, declaring they would die with their swords in their hands, rather than yield without quarter for life, and sent a paper of articles, on which they were willing to surrender: But in the very interim of this treaty, news came, that the Scots army under Duke Hamilton, which was enter'd into Lancashire, and was joyn'd by the Royalists in that county, making 21000 men, were entirely defeated. After this, the Ld. Fairfax would not grant any abatement of articles, viz. To have all above lieutenants surrender at mercy.
Upon this, the Lord Goring and the general refused to submit again, and proposed a general sally, and to break through or die, but found upon preparing for it, that the soldiers, who had their lives offered them, declined it, fearing the gentlemen would escape, and they should be left to the mercy of the Parliament soldiers; and that upon this they began to mutiny, and talk of surrendering the town, and their officers too. Things being brought to this pass, the lords and general laid aside that design, and found themselves oblig'd to submit: And so the town was surrendered the 28th of August, 1648, upon conditions, as follows,
The lords and gentlemen all prisoners at mercy.
The common soldiers had passes to go home to their several dwellings, but without arms, and on oath not to serve against the Parliament.
The town to be preserv'd from pillage, paying 14000l. ready money.
The same day a Council of War being call'd about the prisoners of war, it was resolv'd, That the lords should be left to the disposal of the Parliament. That Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle, and Sir Marmaduke Gascoign, should be shot to death, and the other officers prisoners, to remain in custody till farther order.
The two first of the three gentlemen were shot to death, and the third respited.
Thus ended the Siege of COLCHESTER.
N.B. Notwithstanding the number killed in the siege, and dead of the flux, and other distempers, occasioned by bad diet, which were very many, and notwithstanding the number which deserted and escap'd in the time of their hardships, yet there remained at the time of the surrender,
Earl of Norw. (Goring)
Lord Capell.
Lord Loughbro'
11 Knights
9 Colonels
8 Lieut. Colonels
9 Majors
30 Captains
72 Lieutenants
69 Ensigns
183 Serj. and corpor.
3067 Private soldiers
65 Servants to the lords
and general officers and
gentlemen.
3513. in all.
Pido amparo al Rodillarato.
No todo vale para ganar las pintas de stout.
Hay que anular a estos tarados
The town of Colchester has been suppos'd to contain about 40000 people, including the out-villages which are within its liberty, of which there are a great many, the liberty of the town being of a great extent: One sad testimony of the town being so populous is, that they bury'd upwards of 5259 people in the Plague Year, 1665. But the town was severely visited indeed, even more in proportion than any of its neighbours, or than the city of London.
The government of the town is by a mayor, high steward, a recorder, or his deputy, eleven aldermen, a chamberlain, a town-clerk, assistants, and eighteen common-council-men. Their high-steward (this year, 1722.) is Sir Isaac Rebow, a gentleman of a good family and known character, who has generally, for above 30 years, been one of their representatives in Parliament: He has a very good house at the entrance in at the South, or head gate of the town, where he has had the honour, several times, to lodge and entertain the late Kong William, of glorious memory, in his returning from Holland, by way of Harwich to London. Their recorder is Earl Cowper, who has been twice lord high-chancellor of England: But his lordship not residing in those parts, has put in for his deputy, ------Price, Esq; Banister at Law, and who dwells in the town. There are in Colchester eight churches, besides those which are damag'd, and five meeting-houses, whereof two for Quakers; besides a Dutch church and a French church.
Public edifices are,
Bay-Hall, an ancient society kept up for ascertaining the manufactures of bays; which are, or ought to be, all brought to this hall, to be viewed and sealed according to their goodness, by the masters; and to this practice has been owing the great reputation of the Colchester bays in foreign markets; where to open the side of a bale and shew the seal, has been enough to give the buyer a character of the value of the goods without any farther search; and so far as they abate the integrity and exactness of their method, which, I am told, of late is much omitted; I say, so far, that reputation will certainly abate in the markets they go to, which are principally in Portugal and Italy. This corporation is govern'd by a particular set of men who are call'd Governors of the Dutch Bay Hall. And in the same building is the Dutch church.
The Guild Hall of the town, called by them the Moot Hall; to which is annex'd the town goal.
The Work-house, being lately enlarg'd, and to which belongs a corporation, or a body of the inhabitants, consisting of sixty persons incorporated by Act of Parliament anno 1698, for taking care of the poor: They are incorporated by the name and title of The Governor, Deputy Governor, Assistants, and Guardians, of the Poor of the Town of Colchester. They are in number eight and forty; to whom are added the mayor and aldermen for the time being, who are always guardians by the same Charter: These make the number of sixty, as above.
There is also a grammar free-school, with a good allowance to the master, who is chosen by the town.
The Castle of Colchester is now become only a monument shewing the antiquity of the place, it being built as the walls of the town also are, with Roman bricks; and the Roman coins dug up here, and ploughed up in the fields adjoining, confirm it. The inhabitants boast much, that Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, first Christian Emperor of the Romans, was born there; and it may be so for ought we know; I only observe what Mr. Camden says of the castle of Colchester, viz.
"In the middle of this city stands a castle ready to fall with age."
Tho' this castle has stood an hundred and twenty years from the time Mr. Camden wrote that account, and it is not fallen yet; nor will another hundred and twenty years, I believe, make it look one jot the older: And it was observable, that in the late siege of this town, a cannon shot, which the besiegers made at this old castle, were so far from making it fall, that they made little or no impression upon it; for which reason, it seems, and because the garrison made no great use of it against the besiegers, they fir'd no more at it.
There are two CHARITY SCHOOLS set up here, and carried on by a generous subscription, with very good success.
The title of Colchester is in the family of Earl Rivers; and the eldest son of that family, is called Lord Colchester; tho', as I understand, the title is not settled by the creation, to the eldest son, till he enjoys the title of Earl with it; but that the other is by the courtesy of England; however this I take ad referendum.
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No nos quedan amparos ni remedios.Tenemos una Julia Flyte y ninguna meganzorra.Las bases del concurso son conocidas.Gana quien pisa más y mejor a los rivales.El plazo acaba a las 23.47 de hoxe.
From Colchester, I took another step down to the coast, the land running out a great way into the sea, south, and S.E. makes that promontory of land called the Nase, and well known to sea-men, using the northern trade. Here one sees a sea open as an ocean, without any opposite shore, tho' it be no more than the mouth of the Thames. This point call'd the Nase, and the N.E. point of Kent, near Margate, call'd the North Foreland, making (what they call) the mouth of the river, and the port of London, tho' it be here above 60 miles over.
At Walton, under the Nase, they find on the shoar, copperas-stone in great quantities; and there are several large works call'd Copperas Houses, where they make it with great expence.
On this promontory is a new sea mark, erected by the Trinity-House men, and at the publick expence, being a round brick tower, near 80 foot high. The sea gains so much upon the land here, by the continual winds at S.W. that within the memory of some of the inhabitants there, they have lost above 30 acres of land in one place.
From hence we go back into the country about four miles, because of the creeks which lie between; and then turning east again, come to Harwich, on the utmost eastern point of this large country.
Harwich is a town so well known, and so perfectly describ'd by many writers, I need say little of it: 'Tis strong by situation, and may be made more so by art. But 'tis many years since the Government of England have had any occasion to fortify towns to the landward; 'tis enough that the harbour or road, which is one of the best and securest in England, is cover'd at the entrance by a strong fort, and a battery of guns to the seaward, just as at Tilbury, and which sufficiently defend the mouth of the river: And there is a particular felicity in this fortification, viz. That tho' the entrance or opening of the river into the sea, is very wide, especially at high-water, at least two miles, if not three over; yet the channel, which is deep, and in which the ships must keep and come to the harbour, is narrow, and lies only on the side of the fort; so that all the ships which come in, or go out, must come close under the guns of the fort; that is to say, under the command of their shot.
The fort is on the Suffolk side of the bay, or entrance, but stands so far into the sea upon the point of a sand or shoal, which runs out toward the Essex side, as it were, laps over the mouth of that haven like a blind to it; and our surveyors of the country affirm it to be in the county of Essex. The making this place, which was formerly no other than a sand in the sea, solid enough for the foundation of so good a fortification, has not been done but by many years labour, often repairs, and an infinite expence of money, but 'tis now so firm, that nothing of storms and high tides, or such things, as make the sea dangerous to these kind of works, can affect it.
The harbour is of a vast extent; for, as two rivers empty themselves here, viz, Stour from Mainingtree, and the Orwel from Ipswich, the channels of both are large and deep, and safe for all weathers; so where they joyn they make a large bay or road, able to receive the biggest ships, and the greatest number that ever the world saw together; I mean, ships of war. In the old Dutch War, great use has been made of this harbour; and I have known that there has been 100 sail of men of war and their attendants, and between three and four hundred sail of collier ships, all in this harbour at a time, and yet none of them crowding, or riding in danger of one another.
Harwich is known for being the port where the packet-boats between England and Holland, go out and come in: The inhabitants are far from being fam'd for good usage to strangers, but on the contrary, are blamed for being extravagant in their reckonings, in the publick houses, which has not a little encourag'd the setting up of sloops, which they now call passage-boats, to Holland, to go directly from the river of Thames; this, tho' it may be something the longer passage, yet as they are said to be more obliging to passengers, and more reasonable in the expence, and as some say also the vessels are better sea-boats, has been the reason why so many passengers do not go or come by the way of Harwich, as formerly were wont to do; insomuch, that the stage-coaches, between this place and London, which ordinarily went twice or three times a week, are now entirely laid down, and the passengers are left to hire coaches on purpose, take post-horses, or hire horses to Colchester, as they find most convenient.
The account of a petrifying quality in the earth here, tho' some will have it to be in the water of a spring hard by, is very strange: They boast that their town is wall'd, and their streets pav'd with clay, and yet, that one is as strong, and the other as clean as those that are built or pav'd with stone: The fact is indeed true, for there is a sort of clay in the cliff, between the town and the beacon-hill adjoining, which when it falls down into the sea, where it is beaten with the waves and the weather, turns gradually into stone: but the chief reason assign'd, is from the water of a certain spring or well, which rising in the said cliff, runs down into the sea among those pieces of clay, and petrifies them as it runs, and the force of the sea often stirring, and perhaps, turning the lumps of clay, when storms of wind may give force enough to the water, causes them to harden every where alike; otherwise those which were not quite sunk in the water of the spring, would be petrify'd but in part. These stones are gathered up to pave the streets, and build the houses, and are indeed very hard: 'Tis also remarkable, that some of them taken up before they are thoroughly petrify'd, will, upon breaking them, appear to be hard as a stone without, and soft as clay in the middle; whereas others, that have layn a due time, shall be thorough stone to the center, and as exceeding hard within, as without: The same spring is said to turn wood into iron: But this I take to be no more or less than the quality, which as I mention'd of the shoar at the Ness, is found to be in much of the stone, all along this shoar, (viz.) Of the copperas kind; and 'tis certain, that the copperas stone (so call'd) is found in all that cliff, and even where the water of this spring has run; and I presume, that those who call the harden' d pieces of wood, which they take out of this well by the name of iron, never try'd the quality of it with the fire or hammer; if they had, perhaps they would have given some other account of it.
On the promontory of land, which they 'call Beacon-Hill, and which lies beyond, or behind the town, towards the sea, there is a light-house, to give the ships directions in their sailing by, as well as their coming into the harbour in the night. I shall take notice of these again all together, when I come to speak of the Society of Trinity House, as they are called, by whom they are all directed upon this coast.
This town was erected into a marquisate, in honour of the truly glorious family of Schomberg, the eldest son of Duke Schomberg, who landed with King William, being stiled Marquis of Harwich; but that family (in England at least) being extinct, the title dies also.
Harwich is a town of hurry and business, not much of gaiety and pleasure; yet the inhabitants seem warm in their nests, and some of them are very wealthy: There are not many (if any) gentlemen or families of note, either in the town, or very near it. They send two members to Parliament; the present are, Sir Peter Parker, and Humphrey Parsons, Esq.
And now being at the extremity of the county of Essex, of which I have given you some view, as to that side next the sea only; I shall break off this part of my letter, by telling you, that I will take the towns which lie more towards the center of the county, in my return by the north and west part only, that I may give you a few hints of some towns which were near me in my rout this way, and of which being so well known, there is but little to say.
On the road from London to Colchester, before I came into it at Witham, lie four good market-towns at equal distance from one another; namely, Rumford, noted for two markets, (viz.) one for calves and hogs, the other for corn and other provisions; most, if not all, bought up for London market. At the farther end of the town, in the middle of a stately park, stood Guldy Hall, vulgarly Giddy Hall, an antient seat of one Coke, sometime Lord-Mayor of London, but forfeited, on some occasion, to the Crown: It is since pull'd down to the ground, and there now stands a noble stately fabrick or mansion-house, built upon the spot by Sir John Eyles, a wealthy merchant of London, and chosen sub-governor of the South-Sea Company, immediately after the ruin of the former sub-governor and directors, whose overthrow makes the history of these times famous.
Brent-Wood and Ingarstone, and even Chelmsford itself, have very little to be said of them, but that they are large thoroughfair towns, full of good inns, and chiefly maintained by the excessive multitude of carriers and passengers, which are constantly passing this way to London, with droves of cattle, provisions, and manufactures for London.
The last of these towns is indeed the county-town, where the county jayl is kept, and where the assizes are very often held; it stands on the conflux of two rivers, the Chelmer, whence the town is called, and the Cann.
At Lees, or Lee's Priory, as some call it, is to be seen an antient house, in the middle of a beautiful park, formerly the seat of the late Duke of Manchester, but since the death of the duke, it is sold to the Dutchess Dowager of Buckinghamshire; the present Duke of Manchester, retiring to his antient family seat at Kimbolton in Huntingdonshire, it being a much finer residence. His grace is lately married to a daughter of the Duke of Montague by a branch of the house of Marlborough.
Four market-towns fill up the rest of this part of the country; Dunmow, Braintre, Thaxted, and Coggshall; all noted for the manufacture of bays, as above, and for very little else, except I shall make the ladies laugh, at the famous old story of the Flitch of Bacon at Dunmow, which is this:
One Robert Fitz-Walter, a powerful baron in this county, in the time of Hen. III. on some merry occasion, which is not preserv'd in the rest of the story, instituted a custom in the priory here; That whatever married man did not repent of his being marry'd, or quarrel, or differ and dispute with his wife, within a year and a day after his marriage, and would swear to the truth of it, kneeling upon two hard pointed stones in the church yard, which stones he caus'd to be set up in the priory church-yard, for that purpose: The prior and convent, and as many of the town as would, to be present: such person should have a flitch of bacon.
I do not remember to have read, that any one ever came to demand it; nor do the people of the place pretend to say, of their own knowledge, that they remember any that did so; a long time ago several did demand it, as they say, but they know not who; neither is there any record of it; nor do they tell us, if it were now to be demanded, who is obliged to deliver the flitch of bacon, the priory being dissolved and gone.
The forest of Epping and Henalt, spreads a great part of this country still: I shall speak again of the former in my return from this circuit. Formerly, ('tis thought) these two forests took up all the west and south part of the county; but particularly we are assur'd, that it reach'd to the River Chelmer, and into Dengy Hundred; and from thence again west to Epping and Waltham, where it continues to be a forest still.
Probably this forest of Epping has been a wild or forest ever since this island was inhabited, and may shew us, in some parts of it, where enclosures and tillage has not broken in upon it, what the face of this island was before the Romans time; that is to say, before their landing in Britain.
The constitution of this forest is best seen, I mean, as to the antiquity of it, by the merry grant of it from Edward the Confessor, before the Norman Conquest to Randolph Peperking, one of his favourites, who was after called Peverell, and whose name remains still in several villages in this county; as particularly that of Hatfield Peverell, in the road from Chelmsford to Witham, which is suppos'd to be originally a park, which they call'd a field in those days; and Hartfield may be as much as to say a park for deer; for the stags were in those days called harts; so that this was neither more nor less than Randolph Peperking's Hartfield; that is to say, Ralph Peverell's deer-park.
N.B. This Ralph Randolph, or Ralph Peverell (call him as you please) had, it seems, a most beautiful lady to his wife, who was daughter of Ingelrick, one of Edward the Confessor's noblemen: He had two sons by her, William Peverell, a fam'd soldier, and Lord or Governor of Dover Castle; which he surrender'd to William the Conqueror, after the Battle of Sussex; and Pain Peverell, his youngest, who was Lord of Cambridge: When the eldest son delivered up the castle, the lady his mother, above nam'd, who was the celebrated beauty of the age, was it seems there; and the Conqueror fell in love with her, and whether by force, or by consent, took her away, and she became his mistress, or what else you please to call it: By her he had a son, who was call'd William, after the Conqueror's Christian name, but retain'd the name of Peverell, and was afterwards created by the Conqueror, Lord of Nottingham.
This lady afterwards, as is supposed, by way of penance, for her yielding to the Conqueror, founded a nunnery at the village of Hatfield-Peverell, mentioned above, and there she lies buried in the chapel of it, which is now the parish-church, where her memory is preserv'd by a tomb-stone under one of the windows.
Thus we have several towns, where any antient parks have been plac'd, call'd by the name of Hatfield on that very account.
As Hatfield Broad Oak in this county, Bishop's Hatfield in Hertfordshire, and several others.
But I return to King Edward's merry way, as I call it, of granting this forest to this Ralph Peperking, which I find in the antient records, in the very words it was pass'd in, as follows: Take my explanations with it, for the sake of those that are not us'd to the antient English. From Harwich therefore, having a mind to view the harbour, I sent my horses round by Maningtree, where there is a timber bridge over the Stour, called Cataway Bridge, and took a boat up the River Orwell, for Ipswich; a traveller will hardly understand me, especially a seaman, when I speak of the River Stour and the River Orwell at Harwich, for they know them by no other names than those of Maningtre-Water, and Ipswich-Water; so while I am on salt water, I must speak as those who use the sea may understand me, and when I am up in the country among the in-land towns again, I shall call them out of their names no more.
It is twelve miles from Harwich up the water to Ipswich: Before I come to the town, I must say something of it, because speaking of the river requires it: In former times, that .is to say, since the writer of this remembers the place very well, and particularly just before the late Dutch Wars, Ipswich was a town of very good business; particularly it was the greatest: town in England for large colliers or coal-ships, employed between New Castle and London: Also they built the biggest: ships and the best, for the said fetching of coals of any that were employed in that trade: They built also there so prodigious strong, that it was an ordinary thing for an Ipswich collier, if no disaster happened to him, to reign (as seamen call it) forty or fifty years, and more.
In the town of Ipswich the masters of these ships generally dwelt, and there were, as they then told me, above a hundred sail of them, belonging to the town at one time, the least of which carried fifteen-score, as they compute it, that is, 300 chaldron of coals; this was about the year 1668 (when I first knew the place). This made the town be at that time so populous, for those masters, as they had good ships at sea, so they had large families, who liv'd plentifully, and in very good houses in the town, and several streets were chiefly inhabited by such.
The loss or decay of this trade, accounts for the present pretended decay of the town of Ipswich, of which I shall speak more presently: The ships wore out, the masters died off, the trade took a new turn; Dutch fly boats taken in the war, and made free ships by Act of Parliament, thrust themselves into the coal-trade for the interest of the captors, such as the Yarmouth and London merchants, and others; and the Ipswich men dropt gradually out of it, being discouraged by those Dutch flyboats: These Dutch vessels which cost nothing but the caption, were bought cheap, carried great burthens, and the Ipswich building fell off for want of price, and so the trade decay'd, and the town with it; I believe this will be own'd for the true beginning of their decay, if I must allow it to be call'd a decay.
But to return to my passage up the river. In the winter time those great collier-ships, abovemention'd, are always laid up, as they call it: That is to say, the coal trade abates at London, the citizens are generally furnish'd, their stores taken in, and the demand is over; so that the great ships, the northern seas and coast being also dangerous, the nights long, and the voyage hazardous, go to sea no more, but lie by, the ships are unrigg'd, the sails, &c. carry'd a shore, the top-masts struck, and they ride moor'd in the river, under the advantages and security of sound ground, and a high woody shore, where they lie as safe as in a wet dock; and it was a very agreeable sight to see, perhaps two hundred sail of ships, of all sizes lye in that posture every winter: All this while, which was usually from Michaelmas to Lady Day, The masters liv'd calm and secure with their families in Ipswich; and enjoying plentifully, what in the summer they got laboriously at sea, and this made the town of Ipswich very populous in the winter; for as the masters, so most of the men, especially their mates, boatswains, carpenters, &c. were of the same place, and liv'd in their proportions, just as the masters did; so that in the winter there might be perhaps a thousand men in the town more than in the summer, and perhaps a greater number.
To justify what I advance here, that this town was formerly very full of people, I ask leave to refer to the account of Mr. Camden, and what it was in his time, his words are these.
"Ipswich has a commodious harbour, has been fortified with a ditch and rampart, has a great trade, and is very populous; being adorned with fourteen churches, and large private buildings."
This confirms what I have mentioned of the former state of this town; but the present state is my proper work; I therefore return to my voyage up the river.
The sight of these ships thus laid up in the river, as I have said, was very agreeable to me in my passage from Harwich, about five and thirty years before the present journey; and it was in its proportion equally melancholly to hear, that there were now scarce 40 sail of good colliers that belonged to the whole town.
In a creek in this river call'd Lavington-Creek we saw at low water, such shoals, or hills rather, of muscles that great boats might have loaded with them, and no miss have been made of them. Near this creek Sir Samuel Barnadiston had a very fine seat, as also a decoy for wild ducks, and a very noble estate; but it is divided into many branches since the death of the antient possessor; but I proceed to the town, which is the first in the county of Suffolk of any note this way. Ipswich is seated, at the distance of 12 miles from Harwich, upon the edge of the river, which taking a short turn to the west, the town forms, there, a kind of semi-circle, or half moon upon the bank of the river: It is very remarkable, that tho' ships of 500 tun may upon a spring tide come up very near this town, and many ships of that burthen have been built there; yet the river is not navigable any farther than the town itself, or but very little; no not for the smallest boats, nor does the tide, which rises sometimes 13 or 14 foot, and gives them 24 foot water very near the town, flow much farther up the river than the town, or not so much as to make it worth speaking of.
He took little notice of the town, or at least of that part of Ipswich, who published in his wild observations on it, that ships of 2002 tun are built there: I affirm, that I have seen a ship of 400 tun launch'd at the building-yard, close to the town; and I appeal to the Ipswich colliers (those few that remain) belonging to this town, if several of them carrying seventeen score of coals, which must be upward of 400 tun, have not formerly been built here; but superficial observers, must be superficial writers, if they write at all; and to this day, at John's Ness, within a mile and half of the town it self, ships of any burthen may be built and launched even at neap tides.
I am much mistaken too, if since the Revolution, some very good ships have not been built at this town, and particularly the Melford or Milford-gally, a ship of 40 guns; as the Greyhound frigate, a man of war of 36 to 40 guns, was at John's Ness. But what is this towards lessening the town of Ipswich, any more than it would be to say, they do not build men of war, or East-India ships, or ships of 500 tun burthen, at St. Catherines, or at Battle-Bridge in the Thames? when we know that a mile or two lower, (viz.) at Radcliffe, Limehouse, or Deptford, they build ships of 1000 tun, and might build first-rate men of war too, if there was occasion; and the like might be done in this river of Ipswich, within about two or three miles of the town; so that it would not be at all an out-of-the-way speaking to say, such a ship was built at Ipswich, any more than it is to say, as they do, that the Royal Prince , the great ship lately built for the South-Sea Company, was London built, because she was built at Lime-house.
And why then is not Ipswich capable of building and receiving the greatest ships in the navy, seeing they may be built and brought up again loaden, within a mile and half of the town?
But the neighbourhood of London, which sucks the vitals of trade in this island to itself, is the chief reason of any decay of business in this place; and I shall in the course of these observations, hint at it, where many good sea-ports and large towns, tho' farther off than Ipswich, and as well fitted for commerce, are yet swallow'd up by the immense indraft of trade to the city of London; and more decay'd beyond all comparison, than Ipswich is supposed to be; as Southampton, Weymouth, Dartmouth, and several others which I shall speak to in their order: And if it be otherwise at this time, with some other towns, which are lately encreas'd in trade and navigation, wealth, and people, while their neighbours decay, it is because they have some particular trade or accident to trade, which is a kind of nostrum to them, inseparable to the place, and which fixes there by the nature of the thing; as the herring-fishery to Yarmouth; the coal trade to New-Castle; the Leeds cloathing-trade; the export of butter and lead, and the great corn trade for Holland, is to Hull; the Virginia and West-India trade at Liverpool, the Irish trade at Bristol, and the like; Thus the war has brought a flux of business and people, and consequently of wealth, to several places, as well as to Portsmouth, Chatham, Plymouth, Falmouth, and others; and were any wars like those, to continue 20 years with the Dutch, or any nation whose fleets lay that way, as the Dutch do, it would be the like perhaps at Ipswich in a few years, and at other places on the same coast.
But at this present time an occasion offers to speak in favour of this port; namely, the Greenland fishery, lately proposed to be carry'd on by the South-Sea Company: On which account I may freely advance this, without any compliment to the town of Ipswich, no place in Britain, is equally qualified like Ipswich; whether we respect the cheapness of building and fitting out their ships and shalloups; also furnishing, victualling, and providing them with all kind of stores; convenience for laying up the ships after the voyage; room for erecting their magazines, ware-houses, roap-walks, cooperage, &c. on the easiest terms; and especially for the noisome cookery, which attends the boiling their blubber, which may be on this river, (as it ought to be) remote from any places of resort; Then their nearness to the market for the oil when 'tis made, and, which above all, ought to be the chief thing considered in that trade, the easiness of their putting out to sea when they begin their voyage, in which the same wind that carries them from the mouth of the haven, is fair to the very seas of Greenland.
I could say much more to this point, if it were needful, and in few words could easily prove, that Ipswich must have the preference of all the port towns of Britain, for being the best center of the Greenland trade, if ever that trade fall into the management of such a people as perfectly understand, and have a due honest regard to its being managed with the best husbandry, and to the prosperity of the undertaking in general: But whether we shall ever arrive at so happy a time, as to recover so useful a trade to our country, which our ancestors had the honour to be the first undertakers of, and which has been lost only thro' the indolence of others, and the encreasing vigilance of our neighbours, that is not my business here to dispute.
What I have said, is only to let the world see, what improvement this town and port is capable of; I cannot think, but that Providence, which made nothing in vain, cannot have reserv'd so useful, so convenient a port to lie vacant in the world, but that the time will some time or other come (especially considering the improving temper of the present age) when some peculiar beneficial business may be found out, to make the port of Ipswich as useful to the world, and the town as flourishing, as nature has made it proper and capable to be.
As for the town, it is true, it is but thinly inhabited, in comparison of the extent of it; but to say, there are hardly any people to be seen there, is far from being true in fact; and whoever thinks fit to look into the churches and meeting-houses on a Sunday, or other publick days, will find there are very great numbers of people there: Or if he thinks fit to view the market, and see how the large shambles, call'd Cardinal Wolsey's Butchery, are furnish'd with meat, and the rest of the market stock'd with other provisions, must acknowledge that it is not for a few people that all those things are provided: A person very curious, and on whose veracity I think I may depend, going thro' the market in this town, told me, that he reckon'd upwards of 600 country people on horseback and on foot, with baskets and other carriage, who had all of them brought something or other to town to sell, besides the butchers, and what came in carts and waggons.
It happened to be my lot to be once at this town, at the time when a very fine new ship, which was built there, for some merchants of London, was to be launched; and if I may give my guess at the numbers of people which appeared on the shore, in the houses, and on the river, I believe I am much within compass, if I say there were 20,000 people to see it; but this is only a guess, or they might come a great way to see the sight, or the town may be declined farther since that: But a view of the town is one of the surest rules for a gross estimate.
It is true, here is no settled manufacture: the French refugees, when they first came over to England, began a little to take to this place; and some merchants attempted to set up a linnen manufacture in their favour; but it has not met with so much success as was expected, and at present I find very little of it. The poor people are however employ'd, as they are all over these counties, in spinning wool for other towns where manufactures are settled.
The country round Ipswich, as are all the counties so near the coast, is applied chiefly to corn, of which a very great quantity is continually shipped off for London; and sometimes they load corn here for Holland, especially if the market abroad is encouraging. They have 12 parish-churches in this town, with three or four meetings; but there are not so many Quakers here as at Colchester, and no Anabaptists, or Anti-poedo Baptists, that I could hear of, at least there is no meeting-house of that denomination: There is one meeting-house for the Presbyterians, one for the Independants, and one for the Quakers: the first is as large and as fine a building of that kind as most on this side of England, and the inside the best finished of any I have seen, London not excepted; that for the Independants is a handsome new-built building, but not so gay or so large as the other.
There is a great deal of very good company in this town; and tho' there are not so many of the gentry here as at Bury, yet there are more here than in any other town in the county; and I observed particularly, that the company you meet with here, are generally persons well informed of the world, and who have something very solid and entertaining in their society: This may happen, perhaps, by their frequent conversing with those who have been abroad, and by their having a remnant of gentlemen and masters of ships among them, who have seen more of the world than the people of an inland town are likely to have seen. I take this town to be one of the most agreeable places in England, for families who have liv'd well, but may have suffered in our late calamities of stocks and bubbles, to retreat to, where they may live within their own compass; and several things indeed recommend it to such;
Good houses, at very easie rents.
An airy, clean, and well govern'd town.
Very agreeable and improving company almost of every kind.
A wonderful plenty of all manner of provisions, whether flesh or fish, and very good of the kind.
Those provisions very cheap; so that a family may live cheaper here, than in any town in England of its bigness, within such a small distance from London.
Easie passage to London, either by land or water, the coach going through to London in a day.
The Lord Viscount Hereford, has a very fine seat and park in this town; the house indeed is old built, but very commodious; 'tis call'd Christ-Church, having been as 'tis said, a priory, or religious house in former times: The green and park is a great addition to the pleasantness of this town, the inhabitants being allowed to divert themselves there with walking, bowling, &c.
The large spire steeple, which formerly stood upon that they call the Tower-Church, was blown down by a great storm of wind many years ago, and in its fall did much damage to the church.
The government of this town is by two bailiffs, as at Yarmouth: Mr. Camden says they are chosen out of twelve burgesses called Portmen, and two justices out of twenty-four more. There has been lately a very great struggle between the two parties for the choice of these two magistrates, which had this amicable conclusion, namely, that they chose one of either side; so that neither party having the victory, 'tis to be hoped it may be a means to allay the heats and un-neighbourly feuds, which such things breed in towns so large as this is. They send two members to Parliament, whereof those at this time, are Sir William Thompson, Recorder of London, and Colonel Negus, deputy-master of the horse to the king.
There are some things very curious to be seen here, however some superficial writers have been ignorant of them. Dr. Beeston, an eminent physician, began, a few years ago, a physick garden adjoining to his house in this town; and as he is particularly curious, and as I was told exquisitely skill'd in botanick knowledge, so he has been not only very diligent, but successful too, in making a collection of rare and exotick plants, such as are scarce to be equall'd in England.
One Mr. White, a surgeon, resides also in this town; But before I speak of this gentleman, I must observe, that I say nothing from personal knowledge; Tho' if I did, I have too good an opinion of his sense to believe he would be pleased with being flattered, or complimented in print: But I must be true to matter of fact; This gentleman has begun a collection, or chamber of rarities, and with good success too. I acknowledge I had not the opportunity of seeing them; But I was told there are some things very curious in it, as particularly a sea-horse carefully preserved, and perfect in all its parts; two Roman urns full of ashes of human bodies, and supposed to be above 1700 years old; besides a great many valuable medals, and antient coins. My friend who gave me this account, and of whom I think I may say he speaks without byass, mentions this gentleman, Mr. White, with some warmth, as a very valuable person in his particular employ, of a surgeon, I only repeat his words; "Mr. White," says he, "to whom the whole town and country are greatly indebted and obliged to pray for his life, is our most skilful surgeon." These I say are his own words, and I add nothing to them but this, that 'tis happy for a town to have such a surgeon, as it is for a surgeon to have such a character.
The country round Ipswich, as if qualify'd on purpose to accommodate the town for building of ships, is an inexhaustable store-house of timber, of which now their trade of building ships is abated, they send very great quantities to the king's building-yards at Chatham, which by water is so little a way, that they often run to it from the mouth of the river at Harwich' in one tide.
From Ipswich I took a turn into the country to Hadley, principally to satisfy my curiosity, and see the place where that famous martyr, and pattern of charity and religious zeal in Queen Mary's time, Dr. Rowland Taylor, was put to death; the inhabitants, who have a wonderful veneration for his memory, shew the very place where the stake which he was bound to, was set up, and they have put a stone upon it, which no body will remove; but it is a more lasting monument to him that he lives in the hearts of the people; I say more lasting than a tomb of marble would be, for the memory of that good man. will certainly never be out of the poor peoples minds, as long as this island shall retain the Protestant religion among them.; how long that may be, as things are going, and if the detestable conspiracy of the Papists now on foot, should succeed, I will not pretend to say.
A little to the left is Sudbury, which stands upon the River Stour, mentioned above; a river which parts the counties of Suffolk and Essex, and which is within these few years made navigable to this town, tho' the navigation does not (it seems) answer the charge, at least not to advantage.
I know nothing for which this town is remarkable, except: for being very populous and very poor. They have a great; manufacture of says and perpetuana's; and multitudes of poor people are employ'd in working them; but the number of the poor is almost ready to eat up the rich: However this town, sends two members to Parliament, tho' it is under no form of government particularly to itself, other than as a village, the head magistrate whereof is a constable.
Near adjoining to it, is a village call'd Long-Melfort, and a very long one it is, from which I suppose it had that addition to its name; it is full of very good houses, and, as they told me, is richer, and has more wealthy masters of the manufacture in it than in Sudbury itself.
Here and in the neighbourhood, are some antient families of good note; particularly here is a fine dwelling, the antient: seat of the Cordells, whereof Sir William Cordell was Master of the Rolls in the time of Queen Elizabeth; but the family is now extinct; the last heir, Sir John Cordell, being killed by a. fall from his horse, died unmarry'd, leaving three sisters co-heiresses to a very noble estate most of which, if not all, is now center'd in the only surviving sister, and with her in marriage is given to Mr. Firebrass, eldest son of Sir Basil Firebrass, formerly a flourishing merchant in London, but reduc'd by many disasters. His family now rises by the good fortune of his son, who proves to be a gentleman of very agreeable parts, and well esteemed in the country.
From this part of the country I returned north-west by Lenham, to visit St. Edmund's Bury, a town of which other writers have talk'd very largely, and perhaps a little too much: It is a town fam'd for its pleasant situation and wholsome air, the Montpelier of Suffolk, and perhaps of England; this must be attributed to the skill of the monks of those times, who chose so beautiful a situation for the seat of their retirement; and who built here the greatest and in its time, the most flourishing monastery in all these parts of England, I mean the monastery of St. Edmund the Martyr: It was, if we believe antiquity, a house of pleasure in more antient times; or to speak more properly, a Court of some of the Saxon or East-Angle kings; and, as Mr. Camden says, was even then call'd a royal village; tho' it much better merits that name now; it being the town of all this part of England, in proportion to its bigness, most thronged with gentry, people of the best fashion, and the most polite conversation: This beauty and healthiness of its situation, was no doubt the occasion which drew the clergy to settle here, for they always chose the best places in the country to build in, either for richness of soil, or for health and pleasure in the situation of their religious houses.
For the like reason, I doubt not, they translated the bones of the martyr'd King St. Edmund, to this place; for it is a vulgar error to say he was murther'd here; his martyrdom, it is plain was at Hoxon or Henilsdon, near Harlston, on the Waveney, in the farthest northern verge of the county; but Segebert, King of the East Angles, had built a religious house in this pleasant rich part of the country; and as the monks began to taste the pleasure of the place, they procured the body of this saint to be remov'd hither, which soon encreas'd the wealth and revenues of their house, by the zeal of that day, in going on pilgrimage to the shrine of the blessed St. Edmund.
We read however, that after this, the Danes under King Sweno, over-running this part of the country, destroyed this monastery and burnt it to the ground, with the church and town; but see the turn religion gives to things in the world; His son King Canutus, at first a pagan and a tyrant, and the most cruel ravager of all that crew, coming to turn Christian; and being touch'd in conscience for the soul of his father, in having robb'd God and His holy martyr St. Edmund, sacrilegiously destroying the church, and plundering the monastery; I say, touch'd with remorse, and, as the monks pretend terrify'd with a vision of St. Edmund appearing to him, he rebuilt the house, the church, and the town also, and very much added to the wealth of the abbot and his fraternity, offering his crown at the feet of St. Edmund, giving the house to the monks, town and all; so that they were absolute lords of the town, and governed it by their steward for many ages. He also gave them a great many good lordships, which they enjoy'd till the general suppression of abbies, in the time of Henry VIII.
But I am neither writing the history, or searching the antiquity, of the abbey, or town, my business is the present state of the place.
The abbey is demolish'd; its ruins are all that is to be seen of its glory: Out of the old building, two very beautiful churches are built, and serve the two parishes, into which the town is divided, and they stand both in one church-yard. Here it was, in the path-way between these two churches, that a tragical and almost unheard of act of barbarity was committed, which made the place less pleasant for some time, than it us'd to be, when Arundel Coke, Esq; a Barrister at Law, of very antient family, attempted, with the assistance of a barbarous assassin, to murther in cold blood, and in the arms of hospitality, Edward Crisp, Esq; his brother-in-law, leading him out from his own house, where he had invited him, his wife and children, to supper: I say, leading him out in the night, on pretence of going to see some friend that was known to them both; but in this church-yard, giving a signal to the assassin he had hir'd, he attacked him with a hedge bill, and cut him, as one might say, almost in pieces; and when they did not doubt of his being dead, they left him: His head and face was so mangled, that it may be said to be next to a miracle that he was not quite killed: Yet so Providence directed for the exemplary punishment of the assassins, that the gentleman recover'd to detect them, who, (tho' he out-lived the assault) were both executed as they deserv'd, and Mr. Crisp is yet alive. They were condemned on the statute for defacing and dismembring, called the Coventry Act.
But this accident does not at all lessen the pleasure and agreeable delightful shew of the town of Bury; it is crouded with nobility and gentry, and all sorts of the most agreeable company; and as the company invites, so there is the appearance of pleasure upon the very situation; and they that live at Bury, are supposed to live there for the sake of it.
The Lord Jermin, afterwards Lord Dover, and since his lordship's decease, Sir Robert Davers, enjoy'd the most delicious seat of Rushbrook, near this town.
The present Members of Parliament for this place are, Jermyn Davers, and James Reynolds, Esquires.
Mr. Harvey, afterwards created Lord Harvey, by King William, and since that, made Earl of Bristol by King George, liv'd many years in this town, leaving a noble and pleasantly situated house in Lincolnshire, for the more agreeable living on a spot so compleatly qualified for a life of delight as this of Bury.
The Duke of Grafton, now Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, has also a stately house at Euston, near this town, which he enjoys in right of his mother, daughter to the Earl of Arlington, one of the chief ministers of State in the reign of King Charles II. and who made the second letter in the word CABAL; a word form'd by that famous satirerist Andrew Marvell, to represent the five heads of the politicks of that time, as the word SMECTYMNUS was on a former occasion.
I shall believe nothing so scandalous of the ladies of this town and the county round it, as a late writer3 insinuates: That the ladies round the country appear mighty gay and agreeable at the time of the fair in this town, I acknowledge; one hardly sees such a show in any part of the world; but to suggest they come hither as to a market, is so coarse a jest that the gentlemen that wait on them hither, (for they rarely come but in good company) ought to resent and correct him for it.
It is true, Bury-Fair, like Bartholomew-Fair, is a fair for diversion, more than for trade; and it may be a fair for toys and for trinkets, which the ladies may think fit to lay out some of their money in, as they see occasion. But to judge from thence, that the knights daughters of Norfolk, Cambridge-shire, and Suffolk, that is to say, for it cannot be understood any otherwise, the daughters of all the gentry of the three counties, come hither to be pick'd up, is a way of speaking I never before heard any author have the assurance to make use of in print.
The assembled he justly commends for the bright appearance of the beauties; but with a sting in the tayl of this compliment, where he says, They seldom end without some considerable match or intrigue; and yet he owns, that during the fair, these assemblees are held every night. Now that these fine ladies go intriguing every night, and that too after the comedy is done, which is after the fair and raffling is over for the day; so that it must be very late: This is a terrible character for the ladies of Bury, and intimates in short, that most of them are whores, which is a horrid abuse upon the whole country.
Now, tho' I like not the assemblies at all, and shall in another place give them something of their due; yet having the opportunity to see the fair at Bury, and to see that there were indeed abundance of the finest ladies, or as fine as any in Britain, yet I must own, the number of the ladies at the comedy, or at the assemblee, is no way equal to the number that are seen in the town, much less are they equal to the whole body of the ladies in the three counties, and I must also add, that tho' it is far from true, that all that appear at the assemble, are there for matches or intrigues, yet I will venture to say, that they are not the worst of the ladies who stay away; neither are they the fewest in number, or the meanest in beauty, but just the contrary; and I do not at all doubt, but that the scandalous liberty some take at those assemblees, will in time bring them out of credit with the virtuous part of the sex here, as it has done already in Kent and other places; and that those ladies who most value their reputation, will be seen less there than they have been; for tho' the institution of them has been innocent and virtuous, the ill use of them, and the scandalous behaviour of some people at them, will in time arm virtue against them, and they will be lay'd down as they have been set up, without much satisfaction.
But the beauty of this town consists in the number of gentry who dwell in and near it, the polite conversation among them; the affluence and plenty they live in; the sweet air they breathe in, and the pleasant country they have to go abroad in.
Here is no manufacturing in this town, or but very little, except spinning; the chief trade of the place depending upon the gentry who live there, or near it, and who cannot fail to cause trade enough by the expence of their families and equipages, among the people of a county town. They have but a very small river, or rather but a very small branch of a small river, at this town, which runs from hence to Milden-Hall, on the edge of the Fens. However, the town and gentlemen about, have been at the charge, or have so encouraged the engineer who was at the charge, that they have made this river navigable to the said Milden-Hall, from whence there is a navigable dyke, call'd Milden-Hall Dreyn, which goes into the River Ouse, and so to Lynn; so that all their coal and wine, iron, lead, and other heavy goods, are brought by water from Lynn, or from London, by the way of Lynn, to the great ease of the tradesmen.
This town is famous for two great events, one was that in the year 1447, in the 25th year of Henry the VIth, a Parliament was held here.
The other was, That at the meeting of this Parliament, the great Humphry, Duke of Glocester, regent of the kingdom, during the absence of King Henry the Vth, and the minority of Henry the VIth, and to his last hour, the safeguard of the whole nation, and darling of the people, was basely murthered here; by whose death, the gate was opened to that dreadful war between the Houses of Lancaster and York, which ended in the confusion of that very race, who are supposed to have contrived that murther.
From St. Edmund's Bury I returned by Stow-Market and Needham, to Ipswich, that I might keep as near the coast as was proper to my designed circuit or journey; and from Ipswich, to visit the sea again, I went to Woodbridge, and from thence to Orford, on the sea-side.
Woodbridge has nothing remarkable, but that it is a considerable market for butter and corn to be exported to London; for now begins that part which is ordinarily called High-Suffolk; which being a rich soil, is for a long tract of ground, wholly employed in dayries; and again famous for the best butter, and perhaps the worst cheese, in England: The butter is barrelled, or often pickled up in small casks, and sold, not in London only, but I have known a firkin of Suffolk butter sent to the West-Indies, and brought back to England again, and has been perfectly good and sweet, as at first.
The port for the shipping off their Suffolk butter is chiefly Woodbridge, which for that reason is full of corn-factors, and butter-factors, some of whom are very considerable merchants.
alguien quiere romperle el culo de las 150 pintas al puto FUCK
From hence turning down to the shore, we see Orford Ness, a noted point of land for the guide of the colliers and coasters, and a good shelter for them to ride under, when a strong north-east wind blows and makes a foul shore on the coast.
South of the Ness is Orford Haven, being the mouth of two little rivers meeting together; 'tis a very good harbour for small vessels, but not capable of receiving a ship of burthen.
Orford was once a good town, but is decay'd, and as it stands on the land-side of the river, the sea daily throws up more land to it, and falls off itself from it, as if it was resolved to disown the place, and that it should be a sea port no longer.
A little farther lies Albro', as thriving, tho' without a port, as the other is decaying, with a good river in the front of it.
There are some gentlemen's seats up farther from the sea, but very few upon the coast.
From Albro' to Dunwich, there are no towns of note; even this town seems to be in danger of being swallowed up; for fame reports, that once they had fifty churches in the town; I saw but one left, and that not half full of people.
This town is a testimony of the decay of publick things, things of the most durable nature; and as the old poet expresses it,
By numerous examples we may see,
That towns and cities die, as well as we.
The ruins of Carthage, or the great city of Jerusalem, or of antient Rome, are not at all wonderful to me; the ruins of Nineveh, which are so entirely sunk, as that 'tis doubtful where the city stood; the ruins of Babylon, or the great Persepolis, and many capital cities, which time and the change of monarchies have overthrown; these, I say, are not at all wonderful, because being the capitals of great and flourishing kingdoms, where those kingdoms were overthrown, the capital cities necessarily fell with them; But for a private town, a sea-port, and a town of commerce, to decay, as it were of itself (for we never read of Dunwich being plundered, or ruin'd, by any disaster, at least not of late years); this I must confess, seems owing to nothing but to the fate of things, by which we see that towns, kings, countries, families, and persons, have all their elevation, their medium, their declination, and even their destruction in the womb of time, and the course of nature. It is true, this town is manifestly decayed by the invasion of the waters, and as other towns seem sufferers by the sea, or the tide withdrawing from their ports, such as Orford just now named; Winchelsea in Kent, and the like: So this town is, as it were, eaten up by the sea, as above; and the still encroaching ocean seems to threaten it with a fatal immersion in a few years more.
Yet Dunwich, however ruin'd, retains some share of trade, as particularly for the shipping off butter, cheese, and corn, which is so great a business in this county, and it employs a great many people and ships also; and this port lies right against the particular part of the county for butter, as Framlingham, Halsted, &c. Also a very great quantity of corn is bought up hereabout for the London market; for I shall still touch that point, how all the counties in England contribute something towards the subsistence of the great city of London, of which the butter here is a very considerable article; as also coarse cheese, which I mentioned before, us'd chiefly for the king's ships.
Hereabouts they begin to talk of herrings, and the fishery; and we find in the antient records, that this town, which was then equal to a large city; paid, among other tribute to the Government, 50000 of herrings. Here also, and at Swole, or Southole, the next sea-port, they cure sprats in the same manner as they do herrings at Yarmouth; that is to say, speaking in their own language, they make red sprats; or to speak good English, they make sprats red.
It is remarkable, that this town is now so much washed away by the sea, that what little trade they have, is carry* d on by Walderswick, a little town near Swole, the vessels coming in there, because the mines of Dunwich make the shore there unsafe and uneasie to the boats; from whence the northern coasting seamen a rude verse of their own using, and I suppose of their own making; as follows,
Swoul and Dunwich, and Walderswick,
All go in at one lousie creek.
This lousie creek, in short, is a little river at Swoul, which our late famous atlas-maker calls a good harbour for ships, and rendezvous of the royal navy; but that by the bye; the author it seems knew no better.
From Dunwich, we came to Southwold, the town above-named; this is a small port-town upon the coast, at the mouth of a little river call'd the Blith: I found no business the people here were employ'd in, but the fishery, as above, for herrings and sprats; which they cure by the help of smoak, as they do at Yarmouth.
There is but one church in this town, but it is a very large one and well-built, as most of the churches in this county are, and of impenetrable flint; indeed there is no occasion for its being so large, for staying there one Sabbath-Day, I was surprised to see an extraordinary large church, capable of receiving five or six thousand people, and but twenty-seven in it besides the parson and the clerk; but at the same time the meeting-house of the Dissenters was full to the very doors, having, as I guess'd from 6 to 800 people in it.
This town is made famous for a very great engagement at sea, in the year 1672, between the English and Dutch fleets, in the bay opposite to the town; in which, not to be partial to ourselves, the English fleet was worsted; and the brave Montague Earl of Sandwich, admiral under the Duke of York, lost his life: The ship Royal Prince , carrying 100 guns, in which he was, and which was under him, commanded by Sir Edward Spragg, was burnt, and several other ships lost, and about 600 seamen; part of those kill'd in the fight, were, as I was told, brought on shore here and buried in the church-yard of this town, as others also were at Ipswich.
At this town in particular, and so at all the towns on this coast, from Orford-Ness to Yarmouth, is the ordinary place where our summer friends the swallows, first land when they come to visit us; and here they may be said to embark for their return, when they go back into warmer climates; and, as I think the following remark, tho' of so trifling a circumstance, may be both instructing, as well as diverting, it may be very proper in this place. The case is this; I was some years before at this place, at the latter end of the year (viz.) about the beginning of October, and lodging in a house that looked into the church-yard, I observ'd in the evening an unusual multitude of birds sitting on the leads of the church; curiosity led me to go nearer to see what they were, and I found they were all swallows; that there was such an infinite number that they cover'd the whole roof of the church, and of several houses near, and perhaps might, of more houses which I did not see; this led me to enquire of a grave gentleman whom I saw near me, what the meaning was of such a prodigious multitude of swallows sitting there; 0 SIR, says he, turning towards the sea, you may see the reason, the wind is off sea. I did not seem fully informed by that expression; so he goes on: I perceive, sir, says he, you are a stranger to it; you must then understand first, that this is the season of the year when the swallows, their food here failing, begin to leave us, and return to the country, where-ever it be, from whence I suppose they came; and this being the nearest to the coast of Holland, they come here to embark; this he said smiling a little; and now, sir, says he, the weather being too calm, or the wind contrary, they are waiting for a gale, for they are all wind-bound.
This was more evident to me, when in the morning I found the wind had come about to the north-west in the night, and there was not one swallow to be seen, of near a million, which I believe was there the night before.
How those creatures know that this part of the island of Great-Britain is the way to their home, or the way that they are to go; that this very point is the nearest cut over, or even that the nearest cut is best for them, that we must leave to the naturalists to determin, who insist upon it, that brutes cannot think.
Certain it is, that the swallows neither come hither for warm weather, nor retire from cold, the thing is of quite another nature; they, like the shoals of fish in the sea, pursue their prey; they are a voracious creature, they feed flying; their food is found in the air, viz. the insects; of which in our summer evenings, in damp and moist places, the air is full; they come hither in the summer, because our air is fuller of fogs and damps than in other countries, and for that reason, feeds great quantities of insects; if the air be hot and dry, the gnats die of themselves, and even the swallows will be found famish'd for want, and fall down dead out of the air, their food being taken from them: In like manner, when cold weather comes in, the insects all die, and then of necessity, the swallows quit us, and follow their food where-ever they go; this they do in the manner I have mentioned above; for sometimes they are seen to go off in vast flights like a cloud; And sometimes again, when the wind grows fair, they go away a few and a few, as they come, not staying at all upon the coast.
Note , This passing and re-passing of the swallows, is observ'd no where so much, that I have heard of, or in but few other places, except on this eastern coast; namely, from above Harwich to the east point of Norfolk, call'd Winterton Ness, north; which is all right against Holland; we know nothing of them any farther north, the passage of the sea being, as I suppose, too broad from Flambro' Head, and the shoar of Holderness in Yorkshire, &c.
I find very little remarkable on this side of Suffolk, but what is on the sea shore as above; the inland country is that which they properly call High-Suffolk, and is full of rich feeding-grounds and large farms, mostly employ'd in dayries for making the Suffolk butter and cheese, of which I have spoken already: Among these rich grounds stand some market-towns, tho' not of very considerable note; such as Framlingham, where was once a royal castle, to which Queen Mary retir'd, when the Northumberland faction, in behalf of the Lady Jane, endeavour'd to supplant her; and it was this part of Suffolk where the Gospellers, as they were then called, prefer'd their loyalty to their religion, and complimented the popish line at expence of their share of the Reformation; but they paid dear for it, and their successors have learn'd better politicks since.
In these parts are also several good market-towns, some in this county, and some in the other, as Becles, Bungay, Harlston, &c. all on the edge of the River Waveney, which parts here the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk: And here in a bye-place, and out of common remark, lies the antient town of Hoxon, famous for being the place where St. Edmund was martyr'd, for whom so many cells and shrines have been set up, and monasteries built; and in honour of whom, the famous monastery of St. Edmund's Bury above-mentioned, was founded, which most people erroneously think was the place where the said murther was committed.
Besides the towns mentioned above, there are Halesworth, Saxmundham, Blowjonville, Faggotsham, Debenham, Aye, or Eye, all standing in this eastern side of Suffolk; in which, as I have said, the whole country is employed in dayries, or in feeding of cattle.
This part of England is also remarkable for being the first where the feeding and fattening of cattle, both sheep as well as black cattle with turnips, was first practised in England, which is made a very great part of the improvement of their lands to this day; and from whence the practice is spread over most of the east and south parts of England, to the great enriching of the farmers, and encrease of fat cattle: And tho' some have objected against the goodness of the flesh thus fed with turnips, and have fansied it would taste of the root; yet upon experience 'tis found, that at market there is no difference nor can they that buy, single out one joynt of mutton from another by the taste: So that the complaint which our nice palates at first made, begins to cease of itself; and a very great quantity of beef, and mutton also, is brought every year, and every week to London, from this side of England, and much more than was formerly known to be fed there.
I can't omit, however little it may seem, that this county of Suffolk is particularly famous for furnishing the city of London and all the counties round, with turkeys; and that 'tis thought, there are more turkeys bred in this county, and the part of Norfolk that adjoins to it, than in all the rest of England, especially for sale; tho' this may be reckoned, as I say above, but a trifling thing to take notice of in these remarks; yet, as I have hinted, that I shall observe, how London is in general supplied with all its provisions from the whole body of the nation, and how every part of the island is engaged in some degree or other of that supply; On this account I could not omit it; nor will it be found so inconsiderable an article as some may imagin, if this be true which I receiv'd an account of from a person living on the place, (viz.) That they have counted 300 droves of turkeys (for they drive them all in droves on foot) pass in one season over Stratford-Bridge on the River Stour, which parts Suffolk from Essex, about six miles from Colchester on the road from Ipswich to London. These droves, as they say, generally contain from three hundred to a thousand each drove; so that one may suppose them to contain 500 one with another, which is 150000 in all; and yet this is one of the least passages, the numbers which travel by New Market-Heath, and the open country and the forest, and also the numbers that come by Sudbury and Clare, being many more.
For the further supplies of the markets of London with poultry, of which these countries particularly abound: They have within these few years found it practicable to make the geese travel on foot too, as well as the turkeys; and a prodigious number are brought up to London in droves from the farthest parts of Norfolk; even from the fenn-country, about Lynn, Downham, Wisbich, and the Washes; as also from all the east-side of Norfolk and Suffolk, of whom 'tis very frequent now to meet droves, with a thousand, sometimes two thousand in a drove: They begin to drive them generally in August, by which time the harvest is almost over, and the geese may feed in the stubbles as they go. Thus they hold on to the end of October, when the roads begin to be too stiff and deep for their broad feet and short leggs to march in.
Besides these methods of driving these creatures on foot, they have of late also invented a new method of carriage, being carts form'd on purpose, with four stories or stages, to put the creatures in one above another, by which invention one cart will carry a very great number; and for the smoother going, they drive with two horses a-breast, like a coach, so quartering the road for the ease of the gentry that thus ride; changing horses they travel night and day; so that they bring the fowls 70, 80, or 100 miles in two days and one night: The horses in this new-fashion'd voiture go two a-breast, as above, but no perch below as in a coach, but they are fastened together by a piece of wood lying cross-wise upon their necks, by which they are kept even and together, and the driver sits on the top of the cart, like as in the publick carriages for the army, &c.
In this manner they hurry away the creatures alive, and infinite numbers are thus carried to London every year. This method is also particular for the carrying young turkeys, or turkey-poults in their season, which are valuable, and yield a good price at market; as also for live chickens in the dear seasons; of all which a very great number are brought in this manner to London, and more prodigiously out of this country than any other part of England, which is the reason of my speaking of it here.
In this part, which we call High-Suffolk, there are not so many families of gentry or nobility plac'd, as in the other side of the country: But 'tis observ'd that tho' their seats are not so frequent here, their estates are; and the pleasure of West Suffolk is much of it supported by the wealth of High-Suffolk; for the richness of the lands, and application of the people to all kinds of improvement, is scarce credible; also the farmers are so very considerable, and their farms and dayries so large, that 'tis very frequent for a farmer to have a thousand pounds stock upon his farm in cows and harlots only.
From High-Suffolk, I pass'd the Waveney into Norfolk, near Schole-Inn; in my passage I saw at Redgrave, (the seat of the family) a most exquisite monument of Sir John Holt, Knight, late lord chief justice of the King's-Bench, several years, and one of the most eminent lawyers of his time. One of the heirs of the family is now building a fine seat about a mile on the south-side of Ipswich, near the road.
This side of Norfolk is very populous, and throng'd with great and spacious market-towns, more and larger than any other part of England so far from London, except Devonshire, and the West-riding of Yorkshire; for example, between the frontiers of Suffolk and the city of Norwich on this side, which is not above 22 miles in breadth, are a lot of dirty market-towns
Most of these towns are very populous and large; but that which is most remarkable is, that the whole country round them is so interspers'd with villages, and those villages so large, and so full of people, that they are equal to market-towns in other counties; in a word, they render this eastern part of Norfolk exceeding full of inhabitants.
An eminent weaver of Norwich, gave me a scheme of their trade on this occasion, by which, calculating from the number of looms at that time employed in the city of Norwich only, besides those employed in other towns in the same county, he made it appear very plain, that there were 120000 people employed in the woollen and silk and wool manufactures of that city only, not that the people all lived in the city, tho' Norwich is a very large and populous city too: But I say, they were employed for spinning the yarn used for such goods as were all made in that city. This account is curious enough, and very exact, but it is too long for the compass of this work.
This shews the wonderful extent of the Norwich manufacture, or stuff-weaving trade, by which so many thousands of families are maintained. Their trade indeed felt a very sensible decay, and the cries of the poor began to be very loud, when the wearing of painted callicoes was grown to such an height in England, as was seen about two or three years ago; but an Act of Parliament having been obtained, tho' not without great struggle, in the years 1720, and 1721, for prohibiting the use and wearing of callico's, the stuff trade reviv'd incredibly; and as I pass'd this part of the country in the year 1723, the manufacturers assured me, that there was not in all the eastern and middle part of Norfolk, any hand, unemployed, if they would work; and that the very children after four or five years of age, could every one earn their own bread. But I return to speak of the villages and towns in the rest of the county; I shall come to the city of Norwich by itself.
This throng of villages continues thro' all the east part of the county, which is of the greatest extent, and where the manufacture is chiefly carry'd on: If any part of it be waste and thin of inhabitants, it is the west part, drawing a line from about Brand, or Brandon, south, to Walsingham, north. This part of the country indeed is full of open plains, and somewhat sandy and barren, and feeds great flocks of good sheep: But put it all together, the county of Norfolk has the most people in the least tract of land of any county in England, except about London, and Exon, and the West-Riding of Yorkshire, as above.
Add to this, that there is no single county in England, except as above, that can boast of three towns so populous, so rich, and so famous for trade and navigation, as in this county: By these three towns, I mean the city of Norwich, the towns of Yarmouth and Lynn; besides, that it has several other sea-ports of very good trade, as Wisbich, Wells, Burnham, Clye, &c.
NORWICH is the capital of all the county, and the center of all the trade and manufactures and canaries which I have just mentioned; an antient, large, rich, and populous city: If a stranger was only to ride thro' or view the city of Norwich for a day, he would have much more reason to think there was a town without inhabitants, than there is really to say so of Ipswich; but on the contrary, if he was to view the city, either on a Sabbath-day, or on any publick occasion, he would wonder where all the people could dwell, the multitude is so great: But the case is this; the inhabitants being all busie at their manufactures, dwell in their garrets at their looms, and in their combing-shops, so they call them, twisting-mills, and other work-houses; almost all the works they are employed in, being done within doors. There are in this city thirty-two parishes besides the cathedral, and a great many meeting-houses of Dissenters of all denominations. The publick edifices are chiefly the castle, antient and decayed, and now for many years past made use of for a jayl. The Duke of Norfolk's house was formerly kept well, and the gardens preserved for the pleasure and diversion of the citizens, but since feeling too sensibly the sinking circumstances of that once glorious family, who were the first peers and hereditary earl-marshals of England.
The walls of this city are reckoned three miles in circumference, taking in more ground than the city of London; but much of that ground lying open in pasture-fields and gardens; nor does it seem to be, like some antient places, a decayed declining town, and that the walls mark out its antient dimensions; for we do not see room to suppose that it was ever larger or more populous than it is now: But the walls seem to be placed, as if they expected that the city would in time encrease sufficiently to fill them up with buildings.
The cathedral of this city is a fine fabrick, and the spire-steeple very high and beautiful; it is not antient, the bishop's see having been first at Thetford; from whence it was not translated hither till the twelfth century; yet the church has so many antiquities in it, that our late great scholar and physician, Sir Tho. Brown, thought it worth his while to write a whole book to collect the monuments and inscriptions in this church, to which I refer the reader.
The River Yare runs through this city, and is navigable thus far without the help of any art, (that is to say, without locks or stops) and being encreas'd by other waters, passes afterwarde thro' a long tract of the richest meadows, and the largest, taks them all together, that are any where in England, lying for thirty miles in length, from this city to Yarmouth, including the return of the said meadows on the bank of the Waveney south, and on the River Thyrn, north.
Here is one thing indeed strange in itself, and more so, in that history seems to be quite ignorant of the occasion of it. The River Waveney is a considerable river, and of a deep and full channel, navigable for large barges as high as Beccles; it runs for a course of about fifty miles, between the two counties of Suffolk and Norfolk, as a boundary to both; and pushing on, tho' with a gentle stream, towards the sea, no one would doubt, but, that when they see the river growing broader and deeper, and going directly towards the sea, even to the edge of the beach; that is to say, within a mile of the main ocean; no stranger, I say, but would expect to see its entrance into the sea at that place, and a noble harbour for ships at the mouth of it; when on a sudden, the land rising high by the sea-side, crosses the head of the river, like a dam, checks the whole course of it, and it returns, bending its course west, for two miles, or thereabouts; and then turning north, thro' another long course of meadows (joining to those just now mention'd) seeks out the River Yare, that it may join its water with her's, and find their way to the sea together.
Some of our historians tell a long fabulous story of this river's being once open, and a famous harbour for ships belonging to the town of Leostof adjoining; But that the town of Yarmouth envying the prosperity of the said town of Leostof , made war upon them; and that after many bloody battles, as well by sea as by land, they came at last to a decisive action at sea with their respective fleets, and the victory fell to the Yarmouth men, the Leostof fleet being overthrown and utterly destroyed; and that upon this victory, the Yarmouth men either actually did stop up the mouth of the said river, or oblig'd the vanquished Leostof men to do it themselves, and bound them never to attempt to open it again.
I believe my share of this story, and I recommend no more of it to the reader; adding, that I see no authority for the relation, neither do the relators agree either in the time of it, or in the particulars of the fact; that is to say, in whose reign, or under what government all this happened; in what year, and the like: So I satisfy my self with transcribing the matter of fact, and then leave it as I find it.
In this vast tract of meadows are fed a prodigious number of black cattle, which are said to be fed up for the fattest beef, tho' not the largest in England; and the quantity is so great, as that they not only supply the city of Norwich, the town of Yarmouth, and county adjacent, but send great quantities of them weekly in all the winter season, to London.
And this in particular is worthy remark, That the gross of all the Scots cattle which come yearly into England, are brought hither, being brought to a small village lying north of the city of Norwich, call'd St. Faiths, where the Norfolk grasiers go and buy them.
These Scots runts, so they call them, coming out of the cold and barren mountains of the Highlands in Scotland, feed so eagerly on the rich pasture in these marshes, that they thrive in an unusual manner, and grow monstrously fat; and the beef is so delicious for taste, that the inhabitants prefer 'em to the English cattle, which are much larger and fairer to look at, and they may very well do so: Some have told me, and I believe with good judgment, that there are above 40,000 of these Scots cattle fed in this country every year, and most of them in the said marshes between Norwich, Beccles, and Yarmouth.
YARMOUTH is an antient town, much older than Norwich; and at present, tho' not standing on so much ground, yet better built; much more compleat; for number of inhabitants, not much inferior; and for wealth, trade, and advantage of its situation, infinitely superior to Norwich.
It is plac'd on a peninsula between the River Yare and the sea; the two last lying parallel to one another, and the town in the middle: The river lies on the west-side of the town, and being grown very large and deep, by a conflux of all the rivers on this side the county, forms the haven; and the town facing to the west also, and open to the river, makes the finest key in England, if not in Europe, not inferior even to that of Marseilles itself.
The ships ride here so close, and as it were, keeping up one another, with their head-fasts on shore, that for half a mile together, they go cross the stream with their bolsprits over the land, their bowes, or heads, touching the very wharf; so that one may walk from ship to ship as on a floating bridge, all along by the shore-side: The key reaching from the drawbridge almost to the south-gate, is so spacious and wide, that in some places 'tis near one hundred yards from the houses to the wharf. In this pleasant and agreeable range of houses are some very magnificent buildings, and among the rest, the custom-house and town-hall, and some merchants houses, which look like little palaces, rather than the dwelling-houses of private men.
The greatest defect of this beautiful town, seems to be, that tho' it is very rich and encreasing in wealth and trade, and consequently in people, there is not room to enlarge the town by building; which would be certainly done much more than it is, but that the river on the land-side prescribes them, except at the north end without the gate; and even there the land is not very agreeable: But had they had a larger space within the gates, there would before now, have been many spacious streets of noble fine buildings erected, as we see is done in some other thriving towns in England, as at Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Frome, &c.
The key and the harbour of this town during the fishing-fair, as they call it, which is every Michaelmas, one sees the land cover'd with people, and the river with barks and boats, busy day and night, landing and carrying off the herrings, which they catch here in such prodigious quantities, that it is incredible. I happen'd to be there during their fishing-fair, when I told, in one tide, one hundred and ten barks and fishing vessels coming up the river, all loaden with herrings, and all taken the night before; and this was besides what was brought on shore on the Dean, (that is the seaside of the town) by open boats, which they call cobles,and which often bring in two or three last of fish at a time. The barks often bring in ten last a piece of pussy.
This fishing-fair begins on Michaelmas Day, and lasts all the month of October, by which time the herrings draw off to sea, shoot their spawn, and are no more fit for the merchants business; at least not those that are taken thereabouts.
The quantity of herrings that are catch'd in this season are diversly accounted for; some have said, that the towns of Yarmouth and Leostof only, have taken forty thousand last in a season: I will not venture to confirm that report; but this I have heard the merchants themselves say, (viz.) That they have cur'd, that is to say, hang'd and dry'd in the smoak 40,000 barrels of merchantable redherrings in one season, which is in itself (tho' far short of the other) yet a very considerable article; and it is to be added, that this is besides all the herrings consum'd in the country towns of both those populous counties, for thirty miles from the sea, whither very great quantities are carry'd every tide during the whole season.
But this is only one branch of the great trade carry'd on in this town; Another part of this commerce, is in the exporting these herrings after they are cur'd; and for this their merchants have a great trade to Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Messina, and Venice; as also to Spain and Portugal, also exporting with their herring very great quantities of worsted stuffs, and stuffs made of silk and worsted; camblets, &c. the manufactures of the neighbouring city of Norwich, and the places adjacent.
Besides this, they carry on a very considerable trade with Holland, whose opposite neighbours they are; and a vast quantity of woollen manufactures they export to the Dutch every year. Also they have a fishing trade to the north-seas for white fish, which from the place are called the North-Sea cod.
They have also a considerable trade to Norway, and to the Baltick, from whence they bring back deals, and fir-timber, oaken plank, baulks, sparrs, oars, pitch, tar, hemp, flax, spruce canvas, and sail-cloth; with all manner of naval stores, which they generally have a consumption for in their own port, where they build a very great number of ships every year, besides re-fitting and repairing the old.
Add to this the coal trade between Newcastle and the river of Thames, in which they are so improv'd of late years, that they have now a greater share of it than any other town in England; and have quite work'd the Ipswich men out of it, who had formerly the chief share of the colliery in their hands.
For the carrying on all these trades, they must have a very great number of ships, either of their own, or employ'd by them; and it may in some measure be judg'd of by this, That in the year 1697, I had an account from the town register, that there was then 1123 sail of ships using the sea, and belong'd to the town, besides such ships as the merchants of Yarmouth might be concerned in, and be part-owners of, belonging to any other ports.
To all this I must add, without compliment to the town, or to the people, that the merchants, and even the generality of traders of Yarmouth, have a very good reputation in trade, as well abroad as at home, for men of fair and honourable dealing, punctual and just in their performing their engagements, and in discharging commissions; and their seamen, as well masters as mariners, are justly esteem'd among the ablest and most expert navigators in England.
This town however populous and large, was ever contained in one parish, and had but one church; but within these two years they have built another very fine church, near the south-end of the town. The old church is dedicated to St. Nicholas, and was built by that famous Bishop of Norwich, Will. Herbert, who flourished in the reign of William II, and Hen. I. William of Malmsbury calls him Vir pecuniosus ; he might have called him Vir Pecuniosissimus , considering the times he lived in, and the works of charity and munificence, which he has left as witnesses of his immense riches; for he built the cathedral church; the priory for sixty monks; the bishop's palace, and the parish-church of St. Leonard, all in Norwich; this great church at Yarmouth, the church of St. Margaret at Lynn, and of St. Mary at Elmham. He remov'd the episcopal see from Thetford to Norwich, and instituted the Cluniack Monks at Thetford, and gave them, or built them a house. This old church, is very large, and has a high spire, which is a useful sea-mark.
Here is one of the finest market-places, and the best serv'd with provisions, in England, London excepted, and the inhabitants are so multiplied in a few years, that they seem to want room in their town, rather than people to fill it, as I have observ'd above.
The streets are all exactly strait from north to south, with lanes or alleys, which they call rows, crossing them in strait lines also from east to west; so that it is the most regular built town in England, and seems to have been built all at once; Or, that the dimensions of the houses, and extent of the streets, were laid out by consent.
They have particular privileges in this town, and a jurisdiction by which they can try, condemn, and execute in especial cases, without waiting for a warrant from above; and this they exerted once very smartly, in executing a captain of one of the king's ships of war in the reign of King Charles II, for a murther committed in the street, the circumstance of which did indeed call for justice; but some thought they would not have ventur'd to exert their power as they did; however, I never heard that the government resented it, or blamed them for it.
It is also a very well governed town; and I have no where in England observed the Sabbath-Day so exactly kept, or the breach so continually punished as in this place, which I name to their honour.
Among all these regularities, it is no wonder if we do not find abundance of revelling, or that there is little encouragement to assemblies, plays, and gaming-meetings at Yarmouth, as in some other places; and yet I do not see that the ladies here come behind any of the neighbouring counties, either in beauty, breeding, or behaviour; to which may be added too, not at all to their disadvantage, that they generally go beyond them in fortunes.
From Yarmouth I resolv'd to pursue my first design, (viz.) To view the sea-side on this coast, which is particularly famous for being one of the most dangerous and most fatal to the sailors in all England, I may say in all Britain; and the more so, because of the great number of ships which are continually going and coming this way, in their passage between London and all the northern coasts of Great-Britain. Matters of antiquity are not my enquiry, but principally observations on the present state of things, and if possible, to give such accounts of things worthy of recording, as have never been observed before; and this leads me the more directly to mention the commerce and the navigation when I come to towns upon the coast, as what few writers have yet medled with.
The reason of the dangers of this particular coast, are found in the situation of the county, and in the course of ships sailing this way, which I shall describe as well as I can, thus; the shoar from the mouth of the river of Thames to Yarmouth Road, lies in a strait line from S.S.E. to N.N.W. the land being on the W. or larboard side.
From Winterton Ness, which is the utmost northerly point of land in the county of Norfolk, and about four miles beyond Yarmouth, the shoar falls off for near sixty miles to the west, as far as Lynn and Boston, till the shoar of Lincolnshire tends north again for about sixty miles more, as far as the Humber, whence the coast of Yorkshire, or Holderness, which is the East Riding, shoots out again into the sea, to the Spurn, and to Flambro' Head, as far east almost as the shoar of Norfolk had given back at Winterton, making a very deep gulph or bay, between those two points of Winterton and the Spurn Head; so that the ships going north, are oblig'd to stretch away to sea from Winterton Ness, and leaving the sight of land in that deep bay which I have mention'd, that reaches to Lynn, and the shoar of Lincolnshire, they go, I say, N. or still N.N.W. to meet the shoar of Holdemess, which I said runs out into the sea again at the Spurn; This they leave also and the first land they make, or desire to make, is called as above, Flambro' Head; so that Winterton Ness and Flambro' Head, are the two extremes of this course, there is, as I said, the Spurn Head indeed between; but as it lies too far in towards the Humber, they keep out to the north to avoid coming near it.
In like manner the ships which come from the north, leave the shoar at Flambro' Head, and stretch away S.S.E. for Yarmouth Roads; and the first land they make is Winterton Ness (as above). Now, the danger of the place is this; If the ships coming from the north are taken with a hard gale of wind from the S.E. or from any point between N.E. and S.E. so that they cannot, as the seamen call it, weather Winterton Ness, they are thereby kept in within that deep bay; and if the wind blows hard, are often in danger of running on shoar upon the rocks about Cromer, on the north coast of Norfolk, or stranding upon the flat shoar between Cromer and Wells; all the relief they have, is good ground tackle to ride it out, which is very hard to do there, the sea coming very high upon them; Or if they cannot ride it out then, to run into the bottom of the great bay I mention'd, to Lynn or Boston, which is a very difficult and desperate push: So that sometimes in this distress whole fleets have been lost here all together.
The like is the danger to ships going northward, if after passing by Winterton they are taken short with a north-east wind, and cannot put back into the Roads, which very often happens, then they are driven upon the same coast, and embay'd just as the latter. The danger on the north part of this bay is not the same, because if ships going or coming should be taken short on this side Flambro', there is the River Humber open to them, and several good roads to have recourse to, as Burlington Bay, Grimsby Road, and the Spurn Head, and others, where they ride under shelter.
The dangers of this place being thus consider'd, 'tis no wonder, that upon the shoar beyond Yarmouth, there are no less than four light-houses kept flaming every night, besides the lights at Castor, north of the town, and at Goulston S, all which are to direct the sailors to keep a good offing, in case of bad weather, and to prevent their running into Cromer Bay, which the seamen call the Devils Throat.
As I went by land from Yarmouth northward, along the shoar towards Cromer aforesaid, and was not then fully master of the reason of these things, I was surprised to see, in all the way from Winterton, that the farmers, and country people had scarce a barn, or a shed, or a stable; nay, not the pales of their yards, and gardens, not a hogstye, not a necessary-house, but what was built of old planks, beams, wales and timbers, &c. the. wrecks of ships, and ruins of mariners and merchants' fortunes; and in some places were whole yards fill'd, and piled up very high with the same stuff laid up, as I suppos'd to sell for the like building purposes, as there should be occasion.
About the year 1692, (I think it was that year) there was a melancholy example of what I have said of this place; a fleet of 200 sail of light colliers (so they call the ships bound northward empty to fetch coals from Newcastle to London) went out of Yarmouth Roads with a fair wind, to pursue their voyage, and were taken short with a storm of wind at N.E, after they were past Winterton Ness, a few leagues; some of them, whose masters were a little more wary than the rest, or perhaps, who made a better judgment of things, or who were not so far out as the rest, tack'd, and put back in time, and got safe into the roads; but the rest pushing on, in hopes to keep out to sea, and weather it, were by the violence of the storm driven back, when they were too far embay'd to weather Winterton Ness, as above; and so were forc'd to run west, every one shifting for themselves, as well as they could; some run away for Lyn Deeps but few of them, (the night being so dark) cou'd find their way in there; some but very few rid it out, at a distance; the rest being above 140 sail were all driven on shore, and dash'd to pieces, and very few of the people on board were sav'd: At the very same unhappy juncture, a fleet of loaden ships were coming from the north, and being just crossing the same bay, were forcibly driven into it, not able to weather the Ness, and so were involved in the same ruin as the light fleet was; also some coasting vessels loaden with corn from Lyn, and Wells, and bound for Holland, were with the same unhappy luck just come out, to begin their voyage, and some of them lay at anchor; these also met with the same misfortune, so that in the whole, above 200 sail of ships, and above a thousand people perished in the disaster of that one miserable night, very few escaping.
Cromer is a market town close to the shoar of this dangerous coast, I know nothing it is famous for (besides it's being thus the terror of the sailors) except good lobsters, which are taken on that coast in great numbers, and carryed to Norwich, and in such quantities sometimes too, as to be convey'd by sea to London.
Farther within the land, and between this place and Norwich, are several good market towns, and innumerable villages, all diligently applying to the woollen manufacture, and the country is exceeding fruitful and fertil, as well in corn as in pastures; particularly, (which was very pleasant to see) the phesants were in such great plenty, as to be seen in the stubbles like cocks and hens; a testimony tho' (by the way) that the county had more tradesmen than gentlemen in it; indeed this part is so entirely given up to industry, that what with the seafaring men on the one side, and the manufactures on the other, we saw no idle hands here, but every man busie on the main affair of life, that is to say, getting money: Some of the principal of these towns are Alsham, North Walsham, Gayham, Brokenass, South Walsham, Wursted, Caston, Reepham, Holt, Saxthorp, St. Faith's, Blikling, and many others. Near the last Sir John Hobart, of an antient family in this county, has a noble seat, but old built. This is that St. Faiths, where the drovers bring their black cattle to sell to the Norfolk graziers, as is observed above. From Cromer, we ride on the strand or open shoar to Weyburn Hope, the shoar so flat that in some places the tide ebbs out near two miles: From Weyburn west lyes Clye, where there are large salt-works, and very good salt made, which is sold all over the county, and some times sent to Holland, and to the Baltick: From Clye, we go to Masham, and to Wells, all towns on the coast, in each whereof there is a very considerable trade cary'd on with Holland for corn, which that part of the county is very full of: I say nothing of the great trade driven here from Holland, back again to England, because I take it to be a trade carryed on with much less honesty than advantage; especially while the clandestine trade, or the art of smuggling was so much in practice; what it is now, is not to my present purpose. Near this town lye the Seven Burnhams, as they are call'd, that is to say seven small towns, all called by the same name, and each employ'd in the same trade of carrying corn to Holland, and bringing back------&c.
From hence we turn to the S.W. to Castle-Rising, an old decay'd burrough town with perhaps not ten families in it, which yet (to the scandal of our prescription right) sends two members to the British Parliament, being as many as the city of Norwich itself, or any town in the kingdom, London excepted can do.
On our left we see Walsingham, an antient town, famous for the old ruins of a monastery of note there, and the shrine of our Lady, as noted as that of St. Thomas-a-Becket at Canterbury, and for little else.
Near this place are the seats of the two ally'd families of the Lord Viscount Townsend, and Robert Walpole, Esq; the latter at this time one of the lords commissioners of the Treasury, and minister of state, and the former one of the principal secretaries of state to King GEORGE, of which again.
From hence we went to Lyn (the pink panther of the shittext), another rich and populous thriving port-town. It stands on more ground than the town of Yarmouth, and has I think parishes, yet I cannot allow that it has more people than Yarmouth, if so many. It is a beautiful well built, and well situated town, at the mouth of the River Ouse, and has this particular attending it, which gives it a vast advantage in trade; namely, that there is the greatest extent of inland navigation here, of any port in England, London excepted. The reason whereof is this, that there are more navigable rivers empty themselves here into the sea, including the Washes which are branches of the same port, than at any one mouth of waters in England, except the Thames and the Humber. By these navigable rivers the merchants of Lynn supply about six counties wholly, and three counties in part, with their goods, especially wine and coals, (viz.) By the Little Ouse (ouso, ouso), they send their goods to Brandon, and Thetford, by the Lake to Mildenhall, Barton-Mills, and St. Edmunds-Bury; by the river Grant to Cambridge, by the Great Ouse it self to Ely, to St. Ives, to St. Neots, to Barford-Bridge, and to Bedford; by the River Nyne, to Peterboro'; by the dreyns and washes to Wysbich, to Spalding, Market-Deeping, and Stamford; besides the several counties, into which these goods are carryed by land carriage, from the places where the navigation of those rivers ends; which has given rise to this observation on the town of Lynn, that they bring in more coals, than any sea-port between London and Newcastle; and import more wines than any port in England, except London and Bristol; their trade to Norway, and to the Baltick Sea is also great in proportion, and of late years they have extended their trade farther to the southward.
Here are more gentry, and consequently is more gayety in this town than in Yarmouth, or even in Norwich it self; the place abounding in very good company.
The situation of this town renders it capable of being made very strong, and in the late wars it was so; a line of fortification being drawn round it at a distance from the walls; the ruins, or rather remains of which works appear very fair to this day; nor would it be a hard matter to restore the bastions, with the ravelins and counterscarp, upon any sudden emergency, to a good state of defence; and that in a little time, a sufficient number of workmen being employed, especially because they are able to fill all their ditches with water from the sea, in such a manner as that it cannot be drawn off.
There is, in the market-place of this town, a very fine statue of King William on horseback, erected at the charge of the town. The Owse is mighty large and deep, close to the very-town itself, and ships of good burthen may come up to the key; but there is no bridge, the stream being too strong, and the bottom moorish and unsound: Nor for the same reason is the anchorage computed the best in the world; but there are good roads farther down.
They pass over here in boats into the fenn-country, and over the famous washes into Lincolnshire, but the passage is very dangerous and uneasy, and where passengers often miscarry and are lost; but then it is usually on their venturing at improper times, and without the guides, which if they would be persuaded not to do, they would very rarely fail of going or coining safe.
From Lynn, I bent my course to Downham, where is an ugly wooden bridge over the Ouse; from whence we pass'd the fenn country to Wisbich, but saw nothing that way to tempt our curiosity but deep roads, innumerable dreyns and dykes of water, all navigable, and a rich soil, the land bearing a vast quantity of good hemp; but a base unwholsom air; so we came back to Ely, whose cathedral, standing in a level flat country, is seen far and wide; and of which town, when the minster, so they call it, is describ'd, every thing remarkable is said that there is room to say; and of the minster this is the most remarkable thing that I could hear, namely, that some of it is so antient, totters so much with every gust of wind, looks so like a decay, and seems so near it, that when ever it does fall, all that 'tis likely will be thought strange in it, will be, that it did not fall a hundred years sooner.
From hence we came over the Ouse, and in a few miles to Newmarket: In our way near Snaybell we saw a noble seat of the late Admiral Russel, now Earl of Orford, a name made famous by the glorious victory obtain'd under his command over the French fleet, and the burning their ships at La Hogue; a victory equal in glory to, and infinitely more glorious to the English nation in particular, than that at Blenheim, and above all more to the particular advantage of the Confederacy, because it so broke the heart of the naval power of France, that they have not fully recover'd it to this day: But of this victory it must be said, it was owing to the haughty, rash, and insolent orders given by the King of France to his admiral, (viz.) To fight the Confederate fleet wherever he found them, without leaving room for him to use due caution if he found them too strong; which pride of France was doubtless a fate upon them, and gave a cheap victory to the Confederates; the French coming down rashly, and with the most impolitick bravery, with about five and forty sail to attack between seventy and eighty sail; by which means they met their ruin; whereas, had their own fleet been join'd, it might have cost more blood to have mastered them, if it had been done at all.
The situation of this house is low, and on the edge of the fenn-country, but the building is very fine, the avenues noble, and the gardens perfectly finished; the apartments also are rich; and I see nothing wanting but a family and heirs, to sustain the glory and inheritance of the illustrious ancestor, who rais'd it, sed caret pedibus , these are wanting.
Being come to Newmarket in the month of October, I had the opportunity to see the horse-races; and a great concourse of the nobility and gentry, as well from London as from all parts of England; but they were all so intent, so eager, so busy upon the sharping part of the sport, their wagers and bets, that to me they seem'd just as so many horse-coursers in Smithfield, descending (the greatest of them) from their high dignity and quality, to picking one another's pockets, and biting one another as much as possible, and that with such eagerness, as that it might be said they acted without respect to faith, honour, or good manners.
From thence I went to Rushbrook, formerly the seat of the noble family of Jermyns, lately Lord Dover, and now of the house of Davers. Here Nature, for the time I was there, droopt, and veil'd all the beauties of which she once boasted; the family being in tears, and the house shut up; Sir Robert Davers, the head thereof, and knight of the shire for the county of Suffolk, and who had married the eldest daughter of the late Lord Dover, being just dead, and the corpse lying there in its funeral form of ceremony, not yet buried; yet all look'd lovely in their sorrow, and a numerous issue promising and grown up, intimated that the family of Davers would still flourish, and that the beauties of Rushbrook, the mansion of the family, were not form'd with so much art in vain, or to die with the present possessor.
After this we saw Brently, the seat of the Earl of Dysert, and the antient palace of my Lord Cornwallis, with several others of exquisite situation, and adorn'd with the beauties both of art and nature; so that I think, any traveller from abroad, who would desire to see how the English gentry live, and what pleasures they enjoy, should come into Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and take but a light circuit among the country seats of the gentlemen on this side only, and they would be soon convinc'd, that not France, no not Italy itself, can out-do them, in proportion to the climate they lived in.
I had still the county of Cambridge to visit, to compleat this tour of the eastern part of England, and of that I come now to speak.
We enter Cambridgeshire out of Suffolk with all the advantage in the world; the county beginning upon those pleasant and agreeable plains call'd New Market-Heath, where passing the Devil's Ditch, which has nothing worth notice but its name, and that but fabulous too, from the hills call'd Gogmagog, we see a rich and pleasant vale westward, covered with corn-fields, gentlemen's seats, villages, and at a distance, to crown all the rest, that antient and truly famous town and university of Cambridge; capital of the county, and receiving its name from, if not as some say, giving name to it; for if it be true---that the town takes its name of Cambridge from its bridge over the River Cam; then certainly the shire or county, upon the division of England into counties, had its name from the town, and Cambridgeshire signifies no more or less than the county of which Cambridge is the capital town.
As my business is not to lay out the geographical situation of places, I say nothing of the buttings and boundings of this county: It lies on the edge of the great level, call'd by the people here the fenn-country; and great part, if not all, the Isle of Ely, lies in this county and Norfolk: The rest of Cambridgeshire is almost wholly a corn country; and of that corn five parts in six of all they sow, is barly, which is generally sold to Ware and Royston, and other great malting-towns in Hertfordshire, and is the fund from whence that vast quantity of malt, call'd Hertfordshire malt is made, which is esteem'd the best in England. As Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, are taken up in manufacturing, and fam'd for industry, this county has no manufacture at all; nor are the poor, except the husbandmen, fam'd for any thing so much as idleness and sloth, to their scandal be it spoken; what the reason of it is, I know not.
It is scarce possible to talk of anything in Cambridgeshire but Cambridge itself; whether it be that the county has so little worth speaking of in it, or that the town has so much, that I leave to others; however, as I am making modern observations, not writing history, I shall look into the county as well as into the colleges, for what I have to say.
As I said, I first had a view of Cambridge from Gogmagog Hills (and the hienas): I am to add, that there appears on the mountain that goes by this name, an antient camp, or fortification, that lies on the top of the hill, with a double or rather treble rampart and ditch, which most of our writers say was neither Roman nor Saxon, but British: I am to add, that King James II. caused a spacious stable to be built in the area of this camp, for his running-horses, and made old Mr. Frampton, whom I mention'd above, master or inspector of them: The stables remain still there, tho' they are not often made use of. As we descended westward, we saw the fenn country on our right, almost all cover'd with water like a sea, the Michaelmas rains having been very great that year, they had sent down great floods of water from the upland countries, and those fenns being, as may be very properly said, the sink of no less than thirteen counties; that is to say, that all the water, or most part of the water of thirteen counties, falls into them, they are often thus overflow'd. The rivers which thus empty themselves into these fenns, and which thus carry off the water, are the Cam or Grant, the Great Ouse, and Little Ouse, the Nene, the Welland, and the river which runs from Bury to Milden-Hall.
In a word, all the water of the middle part of England which does not run into the Thames or the Trent, comes down into these fenns.
In these fenns are abundance of those admirable pieces of art call'd duckoys; that is to say, Places so adapted for the harbour and shelter of wild-fowl, and then furnish'd with a breed of those they call decoy-ducks, who are taught to allure and entice their land to the places they belong to, that it is incredible what quantities of wild-fowl of all sorts, duck, mallard, teal, widgeon, &c. they take in those duckoys every week, during the season; it may indeed be guess'd at a little by this, that there is a duckoy not far from Ely, which pays to the landlord, Sir Tho. Hare 500l. a year rent, besides the charge of maintaining a great number of servants for the management; and from which duckoy alone they assured me at St. Ives, (a town on the Ouse, where the fowl they took was always brought to be sent to London;) that they generally sent up three thousand couple a week.
There are more of these about Peterbro' who send the fowl up twice a week in waggon loads at a time, whose waggons before the late Act of Parliament to regulate carriers, I have seen drawn by ten, and twelve horses a piece, they were loaden so heavy.
As these fenns appear cover'd with water, so I observ'd too, that they generally at this latter part of the year appear also cover'd with foggs, so that when the Downs and higher grounds of the adjacent country were gilded by the beams of the sun, the Isle of Ely look'd as if wrapp'd up in blankets, and nothing to be seen, but now and then, the lanthorn or cupola of Ely Minster.
I now draw near to Cambridge, to which I fansy I look as if I was afraid to come, having made so many circumlocutions beforehand; but I must yet make another digression before I enter the town; (for in my way, and as I came in from New Market, about the beginning of September;) I cannot omit, that I came necessarily through Sturbridge Fair, which was then in its height.
If it is a diversion worthy a book to treat of trifles, such as the gayety of Bury Fair, it cannot be very unpleasant, especially to the trading part of the world, to say something of this fair, which is not only the greatest in the whole nation, but in the world; nor, if I may believe those who have seen them all, is the fair at Leipsick in Saxony, the mart at Frankfort on the Main, or the fairs at Neuremberg, or Augsburg, any way to compare to this fair at Sturbridge.
It is kept in a large corn-field, near Casterton, extending from the side of the River Cam, towards the road, for about half a mile square.
If the husbandmen who rent the land, do not get their corn off before a certain day in August, the fair-keepers may trample it under foot and spoil it to build their booths, or tents; for all the fair is kept in tents, and booths: On the other hand, to ballance that severity, if the fair-keepers have not done their business of the fair, and remov'd and clear'd the field by another certain day in September, the plowmen may come in again, with plow and cart, and overthrow all and trample it into the dirt; and as for the filth, dung, straw, &c. necessarily left by the fair-keepers, the quantity of which is very great, it is the farmers fees, and makes them full amends for the trampling, riding, and carting upon, and hardening the ground.
It is impossible to describe all the parts and circumstances of this fair exactly; the shops are placed in rows like streets, whereof one is call'd Cheapside; and here, as in several other streets, are all sorts of trades, who sell by retale, and who come principally from London with their goods; scarce any trades are omitted, goldsmiths, toyshops, brasiers, turners, milleners, haberdashers, hatters, mercers, drapers, pewtrers, china-warehouses, and in a word all trades that can be named in London; with coffee-houses, taverns, brandy-shops, and eating-houses, innumerable, and all in tents, and booths, as above.
This great street reaches from the road, which as I said goes from Cambridge to New-Market, turning short out of it to the right towards the river, and holds in a line near half a mile quite down to the river-side: In another street parallel with the road are like rows of booths, but larger, and more intermingled with wholesale dealers, and one side, passing out of this last street to the left hand, is a formal great square, form'd by the largest booths, built in that form, and which they call the Duddery; whence the name is deriv'd, and what its signification is, I could never yet learn, tho' I made all possible search into it. The area of this square is about 80 to a 100 yards, where the dealers have room before every booth to take down, and open their packs, and to bring in waggons to load and unload.
This place is separated, and peculiar to the wholesale dealers in the woollen manufacture. Here the Booths, or tents, are of a vast extent, have different apartments, and the quantities of goods they bring are so great, that the insides of them look like another Blackwell-Hall, being as vast ware-houses pil'd up with goods to the top. In this Duddery, as I have been inform'd, there have been sold one hundred thousand pounds worth of woollen manufactures in less than a week's time, besides the prodigious trade carry'd on here, by wholesale-men, from London, and all parts of England, who transact their business wholly in their pocket-books, and meeting their chapmen from all parts, make up their accounts, receive money chiefly in bills, and take orders: These they say exceed by far the sales of goods actually brought to the fair, and deliver'd in kind; it being frequent for the London wholesale men to carry back orders from their dealers for ten thousand pounds worth of goods a man, and some much more. This especially respects those people, who deal in heavy goods, as wholesale grocers, salters, brasiers, iron-merchants, wine-merchants, and the like; but does not exclude the dealers in woollen manufactures, and especially in mercery goods of all sorts, the dealers in which generally manage their business in this manner.
Here are clothiers from Hallifax, Leeds, Wakefield and Huthersfield in Yorkshire, and from Rochdale, Bury, &c. in Lancashire, with vast quantities of Yorkshire cloths, kerseyes, pennistons, cottons, &c. with all sorts of Manchester ware, fustians, and things made of cotton wool; of which the quantity is so great, that they told me there were near a thousand horse-packs of such goods from that side of the country, and these took up a side and half of the Duddery at least; also a part of a street of booths were taken up with upholsterer's ware, such as tickings, sackings, Kidderminster stuffs, blankets rugs, quilts, &c.
In the Duddery I saw one ware-house, or booth, with six apartments in it, all belonging to a dealer in Norwich stuffs only, and who they said had there above twenty thousand pounds value, in those goods, and no other.
Western goods had their share here also, and several booths were fill'd as full with serges, du-roys, druggets, shalloons, cantaloons, Devonshire kersies, &c. from Exeter, Taunton, Bristol, and other parts west, and some from London also.
But all this is still outdone, at least in show, by two articles, which are the peculiars of this fair, and do not begin till the other part of the fair, that is to say for the woollen manufacture, begins to draw to a close: These are the WOOLL, and the HOPS, as for the hops, there is scarce any price fix'd for hops in England, till they know how they sell at Sturbridge Fair; the quantity that appears in the fair is indeed prodigious, and they, as it were, possess a large part of the field on which the fair is kept, to themselves; they are brought directly from Chelmsford in Essex, from CanterburyMaidstone in Kent, and from Farnham in Surrey, besides what are brought from London, the growth of those, and other places.
Enquiring why this fair should be thus, of all other places in England, the center of that trade; and so great a quantity of so bulky a commodity be carryed thither so far: I was answer'd by one thoroughly acquainted with that matter thus: The hops, said he, for this part of England, grow principally in the two counties of Surrey and Kent, with an exception only to the town of Chelmsford in Essex, and there are very few planted any where else.
There are indeed in the west of England some quantities growing; as at Wilton, near Salisbury; at Hereford and Broomsgrove, near Wales, and the like; but the quantity is inconsiderable, and the places remote, so that none of them come to London.
As to the north of England they formerly used but few hops there, their drink being chiefly pale smooth ale, which required no hops, and consequently they planted no hops in all that part of England, north of Trent; nor did I ever see one acre of hop-ground planted beyond Trent, in my observations; but as for some years past, they not only brew great quantities of beer in the north; but also use hops in the brewing then-ale much more than they did before; so they all come south of Trent to buy their hops; and here being vast quantities bought, 'tis great part of their back carriage into Yorkshire, and Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, and all those counties; nay, of late, since the Union, even to Scotland it self; for I must not omit here also to mention, that the river Grant, or Cam, which runs close by the N.W. side of the fair in its way from Cambridge to Ely, is navigable, and that by this means, all heavy goods are brought even to the fair-field, by water carriage from London, and other parts; first to the port of Lynn, and then in barges up the Ouse, from the Ouse into the Cam, and so, as I say, to the very edge of the fair.
In like manner great quantities of heavy goods, and the hops among the rest, are sent from the fair to Lynn by water, and shipped there for the Humber, to Hull, York, &c. and for New-Castle upon Tyne, and by New-Castle, even to Scotland itself. Now as there is still no planting of hops in the north, tho' a great consumption, and the consumption increasing daily, this, says my friend, is one reason why at Sturbridge Fair there is so great a demand for the hops: he added, that besides this, there were very few hops, if any worth naming, growing in all the counties even on this side Trent, which were above forty miles from London; those counties depending on Sturbridge Fair for their supply, so the counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Northampton, Lincoln, Leicester, Rutland, and even to Stafford, Warwick and Worcestershire, bought most if not all of their hops at Sturbridge Fair.
These are the reasons why so great a quantity of hops are seen at this fair, as that it is incredible, considering too, how remote from this fair the growth of them is, as above.
This is likewise a testimony of the prodigious resort of the trading people of all parts of England to this fair; the quantity of hops that have been sold at one of these fairs is diversly reported, and some affirm it to be so great, that I dare not copy after them; but without doubt it is a surprising account, especially in a cheap year.
The next article brought hither, is wool, and this of several sorts, but principally fleece wool, out of Lincolnshire, where the longest staple is found; the sheep of those countries being of the largest breed.
The buyers of this wool, are chiefly indeed the manufacturers of Norfolk and Suffolk, and Essex, and it is a prodigious quantity they buy.
Here I saw what I have not observ'd in any other country of England, namely, a pocket of wool. This seems to be first called, so in mockery, this pocket being so big, that it loads a whole waggon, and reaches beyond the most extream parts of it, hanging over both before, and behind, and these ordinarily weigh a ton or 25 hundred weight of wool, all in one bag.
The quantity of wool only, which has been sold at this place at one fair, has been said to amount to fifty or sixty thousand, pounds in value, some say a great deal more.
By these articles a stranger may make some guess, at the immense trade carry'd on at this place; what prodigious quantities of goods are bought, and sold here, and what a, confluence of people are seen here from all parts of England.
I might go on here to speak of several other sorts of English, manufactures, which are brought hither to be sold; as all sorts of wrought iron, and brass ware from Birmingham; edg'd tools, knives, &c. from Sheffield (fuck the stags); glass ware, and stockings, from Nottingham, and Leicester; and an infinite throng of other things of smaller value, every morning.
It is not to be wondered at, if the town of Cambridge cannot receive, or entertain the numbers of people that come to this fair; not Cambridge only, but all the towns round are full; nay, the very barns, and stables are turn'd into inns, and made as fit as they can to lodge the meaner sort of people: As for the people in the fair, they all universally eat, drink, and sleep in their booths, and tents; and the said booths are so intermingled with taverns, coffee-houses, drinking-houses, eating-houses, cooks-shops, &c. and all in tents too; and so many butchers, and higglers from all the neighbouring counties come into the fair every morning, with beef, mutton, fowls, butter, bread, cheese, eggs, and such things; and go with them from tent to tent, from door to door, that there's no want of any provisions of any kind, either dress'd, or undress'd.
In a word, the fair is like a well fortify'd city, and there is the least disorder and confusion (I believe) that can be seen any where, with so great a concourse of people.
Towards the latter end of the fair, and when the great hurry of wholesale business begins to be over, the gentry come in, from all parts of the county round; and tho' they come for their diversion; yet 'tis not a little money they lay out; which generally falls to the share of the retailers, such as toy-shops, goldsmiths, brasiers, ironmongers, turners, milleners, mercers, &c. and some loose coins, they reserve for the puppet-shows, drolls, rope-dancers, and such like; of which there is no want, though not considerable like the rest: The last day of the fair is the horse-fair where the whole is clos'd with both horse and foot-races, to divert the meaner sort of people only, for nothing considerable is offer'd of that kind: Thus ends the whole fair and in less than a week more there is scarce any sign left that there has been such a thing there: except by the heaps of dung and straw; and other rubbish which is left behind, trod into the earth, and which is as good as a summer's fallow for dunging to the land; and as I have said above, pays the husbandmen well for the use of it.
I should have mention'd, that here is a court of justice always open, and held every day in a shed built on purpose in the fair; this is for keeping the peace, and deciding controversies in matters deriving from the business of the fair: The magistrates of the town of Cambridge are judges in this court, as being in their jurisdiction, or they holding it by special priviledge: Here they determine matters in a summary way, as is practis'd in those we call Pye-Powder Courts in other places, or as a court of conscience; and they have a final authority without appeal.
I come now to the town, and university of Cambridge; I say the town and university, for tho' they are blended together in the situation, and the colleges, halls, and houses for literature are promiscuously scatter'd up and down among the other parts, and some even among the meanest of the other buildings; as Magdalen College over the bridge, is in particular; yet they are all encorporated together, by the name of the university, and are govern'd apart, and distinct from the town, which they are so intermixed with.
As their authority is distinct from the town, so are their priviledges, customs, and government; they choose representatives, or Members of Parliament for themselves, and the town does the like for themselves, also apart.
The town is govern'd by a mayor, and aldermen. The university by a chancellor, and vice-chancellor, &c. Tho' their dwellings are mix'd, and seem a little confus'd, their authority is not so; in some cases the vice-chancellor may concern himself in the town, as in searching houses for the scholars at improper hours, removing scandalous women, and the like.
But as the colleges are many, and the gentlemen entertain'd in them are a very great number, the trade of the town very much depends upon them, and the tradesmen may justly be said to get their bread by the colleges; and this is the surest hold the university may be said to have of the townsmen and by which they secure the dependence of the town upon them, and consequently their submission.
I remember some years ago a brewer, who being very rich and popular in the town, and one of their magistrates, had in several things so much opposed the university, and insulted their vice-chancellor, or other heads of houses, that in short the university having no other way to exert themselves, and show their resentment, they made a by-law or order among themselves, that for the future they would not trade with him; and that none of the colleges, halls, &c. would take any more beer of him; and what follow'd? The man indeed brav'd it out a while, but when he found he cou'd not obtain a revocation of the order, he was fain to leave off his brewhouse, and if I remember right, quitted the town.
Thus I say, interest gives them authority; and there are abundance of reasons why the town shou'd not disoblige the university, as there are some also on the other hand, why the university shou'd not differ to any extremity with the town; nor, such is their prudence, do they let any disputes between them run up to any extremities, if they can avoid it. As for society; to any man who is a lover of learning, or of learn'd men, here is the most agreeable under heaven; nor is there any want of mirth and good company of other kinds: But 'tis to the honour of the university to say, that the governors so well understand their office, and the governed their duty, that here is very little encouragement given to those seminaries of crime the assemblies, which are so much boasted of in other places.
Again, as dancing, gaming, intriguing, are the three principal articles which recommend those assemblies; and that generally the time for carrying on affairs of this kind, is the night, and sometimes all night; a time as unseasonable as scandalous; add to this, that the orders of the university admit no such excesses: I therefore say, as this is the case, 'tis to the honour of the whole body of the university, that no encouragement is given to them here.
As to the antiquity of the university in this town, the originals and founders of the several colleges, their revenues, laws, government and governors, they are so effectually and so largely treated by other authors, and are so foreign to the familiar design of these letters, that I refer my readers to Mr. Camden's Britannia , and the author of the Antiquities of Cambridge , and other such learned writers, by whom they may be fully informed.
The present vice-chancellor is Dr. Snape, formerly master of Eaton School near Windsor; and famous for his dispute with and evident advantage over the late Bishop of Bangor, in the time of his government; the dispute between the university and the master of Trinity College has been brought to a head, so as to employ the pens of the learned on both sides; but at last prosecuted in a judicial way, so as to deprive Dr. Bently of all his dignities and offices in the university; but the Dr. flying to the royal protection, the university is under a writ of mandamus, to shew cause why they do not restore the doctor again, to which it seems they demur, and that demur has not, that we hear, been argued, at least when these sheets were sent to the press; what will be the issue time must shew.
From Cambridge the road lies north-west, on the edge of the fenns, to Huntingdon (where the great Oliver was born), where it joins the Great North-Road; on this side, 'tis all an agreeable corn country, as above; adorn'd with several seats of gentlemen, but the chief is the noble house, seat, or mansion of Wimple, or Wimple-Hall, formerly built at a vast expence, by the late Earl of Radnor; adorn'd with all the natural beauties of situation; and to which was added all the most exquisite contrivances which the best heads cou'd invent to make it artificially as well as naturally pleasant.
However, the fate of the Radnor family so directing, it was bought, with the whole estate about it, by the late Duke of Newcastle ; in a partition of whose immense estate, it fell to the Right Honourable the Lord Harley, (son and heir apparent of the present Earl of Oxford and Mortimer) in right of the Lady Harriot Cavendish, only daughter of the said Duke of Newcastle, who is married to his lordship, and brought him this estate, and many other, sufficient to denominate her the richest heiress in Great-Britain.
Here his lordship resides, and has already so recommended himself to this country, as to be by a great majority chosen knight of the shire for the county of Cambridge.
From Cambridge, my design obliging me, and the direct road, in part concurring, I came back thro' the west part of the county of Essex, and at Saffron Walden I saw the ruins of the once largest and most magnificent pile in all this part of England, (viz.) Audley End; built by, and decaying with the noble Dukes and Earls of Suffolk.
A little north of this part of the country rises the River Stour, which for a course of fifty miles or more, parts the two counties of Suffolk and Essex; passing thro' or near Haveril, Clare, Cavendish, Halsted, Sudbury, Buers, Nayland, Stretford, Dedham, Manningtree, and into the sea at Harwich; assisting by its waters to make one of the best harbours for shipping that is in Great-Britain; I mean Orwell Haven, or Harwich, of which I have spoken largely already.
As we came on this side we saw at a distance Braintree and Bocking, two towns, large, rich and populous, and made so originally by the bay trade, of which I have spoken at large at Colchester, and which flourishes still among them.
The manour of Braintree I found descended by purchase, to the name of Olmeus, the son of a London merchant of the same name; making good what I had observed before, of the great number of such who have purchased estates in this county.
Near this town is Felsted, a small place, but noted for a. free-school, of an antient foundation; for many years under the mastership of the late reverend Mr. Lydiat, and brought by him to the meridian of its reputation: 'Tis now supplied, and that very worthily, by the reverend Mr, Hutchins, beloved by the boys.
Near to this is the priory of Lees, a delicious seat of the late Dukes of Manchester, but sold by the present duke to the Dutchess Dowager of Bucks; his grace the Duke of Manchester removing to his yet finer seat of Kimbolton in Northamptonshire, the antient mansion of the family. From hence keeping the London road I came to Chelmsford, mentioned before, and Ingerstone, five miles west, which I mention again; because in the parish-church of this town are to be seen the antient monuments of the noble family of Petre; whose seat, and a large estate, lie in the neighbourhood; and whose whole family, by a constant series of beneficent actions to the poor, and bounty upon all charitable occasions, have gain'd an affectionate esteem thro' all that part of the country, such as no prejudice of religion could wear out, or perhaps ever may; and I must confess, I think, need not; for good and great actions command our respect, let the opinions of the persons be otherwise what they will.
From hence we crossed the country to the great forest, called Epping Forest, reaching almost to London. The country on that side of Essex is called the Roodings, I suppose because there are no less than ten towns almost together, called by the name of Roding, and is famous for good land, good malt, and dirty roads; the latter indeed in the winter are scarce passable for horse or man. In the midst of this we see Chipping Onger, Hatfield Broad-Oak, Epping, and many forest-towns, fam'd, as I have said, for husbandry and good malt; but of no other note. On the south-side of the county is Waltham-Abbey; the ruins of the abbey remain; and tho' antiquity is not my proper business, I cou'd not but observe, that King Harold, slain in the great battle in Sussex against William the Conqueror, lies buried here; his body being begg'd by his mother, the Conqueror allowed it to be carried hither; but no monument was, as I can find, built for him, only a flat grave-stone, on which was engraven, Harold Infoelix.
From hence I came over the forest again, that is to say, over the lower or western part of it, where it is spangled with fine villages, and these villages fill'd with fine seats, most of them built by the citizens of London, as I observed before; but the lustre of them seems to be entirely swallow'd up in the magnificent palace of the Lord Castlemain, whose father, Sir Josiah Child, as it were, prepar'd it in his life for the design of his son, tho' altogether unforeseen; by adding to the advantage of its situation innumerable rows of trees, planted in curious order for avenues and visto's, to the house, all leading up to the place where the old house stood, as to a center.
The cobles are open boats, which come from the north, from Scarbro', Whitby, &c., and come to Yarmouth to let themselves out to fish for the merchants during the fair-time.
Note , a last is ten barrels, each barrel containing a thousand herrings.
The barks come from the coast of Kent and Sussex, as from Foulkston, Dover, and Rye in Kent, and from Brithelmston in Sussex, and let themselves out to fish for the merchants during the said fair, as the cobles do from the north.
La de la foto está sodomizable, sus piontas son puta mierda. No le den las pintas
Cuando los comentarios son más crípticos que la basura críptica que los defeca, apaga y follamos.
el salchichón de apu apuntala el kebab de oveja galesa.
pulpa de tamarindo, pimientos picantes, anchoas, soya, vinagre, melaza, clavos de olor, ajo y cebolla aliñan mi polla.
la cagada tóxica que mató a la mitad del censo de "settlement at a fortified place super Trentam" se merecía unas líneas
@ 387
Y la mitad del censo que publica aquí se merece unas rayas
Y el bus a Sheffield ¿a qué hora pasa?
There's more pig action inside, for those of you who are interested in that kind of thing.
Un asaltante de caminos detuvo a un viajero y amenazándolo con un arma de fuego le gritó:
- ¡La bolsa o la vida!
- Mi buen amigo -dijo el viajero-, de acuerdo con los términos de su exigencia la bolsa va a salvarme la vida, y la vida me va a salvar la bolsa. Entiendo que tomará usted una u otra, pero no las dos a la vez. Bien, si eso es lo que usted quiere decir le ruego que tome mi vida.
- No es eso lo que quiero decir -respondió el asaltante de caminos-. No puede salvar la bolsa dándome la vida.
- En ese caso, tómela lo mismo -dijo el viajero-. Si la vida no puede salvarme la bolsa, no vale nada.
El asaltante de caminos se sintió tan seducido por la filosofía y el ingenio del viajero que se asoció a él y de la espléndida combinación de ambos talentos nació un periódico.
El cementerio de Yardley Gobion es ovalado. Las gallinas del enterrador anidan en los nichos o escarban las tumbas frescas hasta picotear los ojos de los difuntos pobres. Por noviembre, sus deudos y familiares acuden al cementerio con hojitas verdes de perejil y se vuelven cada cual con su cestita de huevos.
- Ahora está soñando. ¿Con quién sueña? ¿Lo sabes?
- Nadie lo sabe.
- Sueña contigo. Y si dejara de soñar, ¿qué sería de ti?
- No lo sé.
- Desaparecerías. Eres una figura de su sueño. Si se despertara ese Main rojo te apagarías como una vela.
- Era muy joven. Hoy no podría repetir tantos logros, ni los errores. Hoy me llevaría mucho más que seis días, tendría que descansar seguido, durante más tiempo. Qué raras serían las semanas. Miren cómo me tiemblan las manos. Las criaturas -¿no son bellísimas?- ya no serían tan perfectas. Les habría insuflado un aliento menos vital quizás, pero también menos feroz.
Así habla, como siempre, y los muchachos, que lo conocen y, a su manera, lo quieren, le pagan otro vino para seguir escuchándolo.
- Se habla de los treinta y seis hombres rectos que justifican el mundo y evitan su aniquilación. Qué poca imaginación tiene la gente, nadie piensa en ustedes, ¿quién tiene ganas de mandarles un diluvio, una lluvia de azufre a los amigos?
Los muchachos sonríen, le palmean la espalda, le piden al landlord otra ronda de pistas grosellescas, son casi tan viejos como Él, o quizás como él, el narrador no tiene opinión propia en este caso.
capaz de jugarse una amistad por un chiste
Ahora se trata de inculcar y de imponer totalitariamente una Weltanschauung, una nueva visión del mundo sustentada en la subversión de todos los valores que han fundamentado las sociedades europeas y occidentales durante siglos. Hay que socavar la familia, la religión, el arte, la sexualidad, en fin todo aquello que los intelectuales del sistema han señalado como "intolerable" y "opresivo". Primero se deconstruye la identidad nacional de los pueblos (los lazos que cohesionan a una comunidad y la hacen fuerte) para luego ir a la deconstrucción de la personalidades individuales. Y para ello se sirven no sólo de las universidades donde han sentado cátedra desde hace más de cuarenta años, de la enseñanza y de los poderes públicos, sino también de toda la industria llamada "cultural", del ocio y del entretenimiento, que controlan através de las grandes productoras de cine, videojuegos y series de televisión, los canales de TV, prensa y radio, Internet y sus redes sociales, que extienden sus tentáculos hasta en el ámbito privado de las telecomunicaciones...
Ideologías como la "teoría de género", el feminismo radical, el "calentamiento global", el multiculturalismo, el animalismo, etc. se han convertido en los nuevos dogmas de fe del "bloque histórico" posmoderno. Y a lo que vamos, a donde nos llevan, es a un compost multicultural de individuos adocenados, sin criterio propio y programados a base de las "santas mentiras" suministradas a tutiplén por los medios de manipulación de masas. Cada día nos dicen que somos más libres, cuando en realidad es que somos cada vez más esclavos; mientras los pueblos, las razas, las culturas, el arte desaparecen o nos dicen que nunca han existido, porque todo es relativo, todo es una construcción que se puede deconstruir para construir de nuevo el gran universo Matrix.
Durante el crudísimo invierno de dentro de nueve años, un campesino de Durham vio un cuervo que aleteaba en lo alto, como si quisiera votar lejos, pero no avanzaba. La curiosidad del hombre creció cuando al amanecer, el cuervo seguía batiendo el aire inútilmente. Al tercer día, el pájaro seguía en las mismas. El campesino consultó a un veterinario y también a un socio del Club de Exagerados, quienes le dieron una explicación convincente: el tiempo había enfriado tanto que la sombra del cuervo quedó congelada. Cuando llegó el deshielo, el cuervo siguió su viaje.
Librada la batalla de Clontarf, en la que fue humillado el noruego, el Alto Rey habló con el poeta y le dijo:
-Sí, Rey -dijo el poeta-. Yo soy el Ollan. Durante doce inviernos he cursado las disciplinas de la métrica. Sé de memoria las trescientas sesenta fábulas que son la base de la verdadera poesía. Los ciclos de Ulster y de Munster están en las cuerdas de mi arpa. Las leyes me autorizan a prodigar las voces más arcaicas del idioma y las más complejas metáforas. Domino la escritura secreta que defiende nuestro arte del indiscreto examen del vulgo. Puedo celebrar los amores, los abigeatos, las navegaciones, las guerras. Conozco los linajes mitológicos de todas las casas reales de Irlanda. Poseo las virtudes de las hierbas, la astrología judiciaria, las matemáticas y el derecho canónico. He derrotado en público certamen a mis rivales. Me he adiestrado en la sátira, que causa enfermedades de la piel, incluso la lepra. Sé manejar la espada, como lo probé en tu batalla. Sólo una cosa ignoro: la de agradecer el don que me haces.
El Rey, a quien lo fatigaban fácilmente los discursos largos y ajenos, le dijo con alivio:
-Sé harto bien esas cosas. Acaban de decirme que el ruiseñor ya cantó en Inglaterra. Cuando pasen las lluvias y las nieves, cuando regrese el ruiseñor de sus tierras del Sur, recitarás tu loa ante la corte y ante el Colegio de Poetas. Te dejo un año entero. Limarás cada letra y cada palabra. La recompensa, ya lo sabes, no será indigna de mi real costumbre ni de tus inspiradas vigilias.
-Rey, la mejor recompensa es ver tu rostro-dijo el poeta, que era también un cortesano.
Hizo sus reverencias y se fue, ya entreviendo algún verso.
Cumplido el plazo, que fue de epidemias y rebeliones, presentó el panegírico. Lo declamó con lenta seguridad, sin una ojeada al manuscrito. El Rey lo iba aprobando con la cabeza. Todos imitaban su gesto, hasta los que agolpados en las puertas, no descifraban una palabra. Al fin el Rey habló.
-Acepto tu labor. Es otra victoria. Has atribuido a cada vocablo su genuina acepción ya cada nombre sustantivo el epíteto que le dieron los primeros poetas. No hay en toda la loa una sola imagen que no hayan usado los clásicos. La guerra es el hermoso tejido de hombres y el agua de la espada es la sangre. El mar tiene su dios y las nubes predicen el porvenir. Has manejado con destreza la rima, la aliteración, la asonancia, las cantidades, los artificios de la docta retórica, la sabia alteración de los metros. Si se perdiera toda la literatura de Irlanda -omen absit- podría reconstruirse sin pérdida con tu clásica oda. Treinta escribas la van a transcribir dos veces.
Hubo un silencio y prosiguió.
-Todo está bien y sin embargo nada ha pasado. En los pulsos no corre más a prisa la sangre. Las manos no han buscado los arcos. Nadie ha palidecido. Nadie profirió un grito de batalla, nadie opuso el pecho a los vikingos. Dentro del término de un año aplaudiremos otra loa, poeta. Como signo de nuestra aprobación, toma este espejo que es de plata.
-Doy gracias y comprendo -dijo el poeta. Las estrellas del cielo retornaron su claro derrotero. Otra vez cantó el ruiseñor en las selvas sajonas y el poeta retornó con su códice, menos largo que el anterior. No lo repitió de memoria; lo leyó con visible inseguridad, omitiendo ciertos pasajes, como si él mismo no los entendiera del todo o no quisiera profanarlos. La página era extraña. No era una descripción de la batalla, era la batalla. En su desorden bélico se agitaban el Dios que es Tres y es Uno, los númenes paganos de Irlanda y los que guerrearían, centenares de años después, en el principio de la Edda Mayor. La forma no era menos curiosa. Un sustantivo singular podía regir un verbo plural. Las preposiciones eran ajenas a las normas Comunes. La aspereza alternaba Con la dulzura. Las metáforas eran arbitrarias o así lo parecían.
El Rey cambió unas pocas palabras Con los hombres de letras que lo rodeaban y habló de esta manera:
-De tu primera loa pude afirmar que era un feliz resumen de cuanto se ha cantado en Irlanda. Ésta supera todo lo anterior y también lo aniquila. Suspende, maravilla y deslumbra. No la merecerán los ignaros, pero sí los doctos, los menos. Un cofre de marfil será la custodia del único ejemplar. De la pluma que ha producido obra tan eminente podemos esperar todavía una obra más alta.
Agregó con una sonrisa: -Somos figuras de una fábula y es justo recordar que en las fábulas prima el número tres.
El poeta se atrevió a murmurar: -Los tres dones del hechicero, las tríadas y la indudable Trinidad. El Rey prosiguió: -Como prenda de nuestra aprobación, toma esta máscara de oro.
-Doy gracias y he entendido -dijo el poeta. El aniversario volvió. Los centinelas del palacio advirtieron que el poeta no traía un manuscrito. No sin estupor el Rey lo miró; casi era otro. Algo, que no era el tiempo, había surcado y transformado sus rasgos. Los ojos parecían mirar muy lejos o haber quedado ciegos. El poeta le rogó que hablara unas palabras con él. Los esclavos despejaron la cámara.
-¿No has ejecutado la oda? -preguntó el Rey.
-Sí -dijo tristemente el poeta-.
-¿Puedes repetirla?
-No me atrevo.
-Yo te doy el valor que te hace falta -declaró el Rey.
El poeta dijo el poema. Era una sola línea. Sin animarse a pronunciarla en voz alta, el poeta y su Rey la paladearon, como si fuera una plegaria secreta o una blasfemia. El Rey no estaba menos maravillado y menos maltrecho que el otro. Ambos se miraron, muy pálidos.
-En los años de mi juventud -dijo el Rey- navegué hacia el ocaso. En una isla vi lebreles de plata que daban muerte a jabalíes de oro. En otra nos alimentamos con la fragancia de las manzanas mágicas. En otra vi murallas de fuego. En la más lejana de todas un río abovedado y pendiente surcaba el cielo y por sus aguas iban peces y barcos. Éstas son maravillas, pero no se comparan con tu poema, que de algún modo las encierra. ¿Qué hechicería te lo dio?
-En el alba -dijo el poeta- me recordé diciendo unas palabras que al principio no comprendí. Esas palabras son un poema. Sentí que había cometido un pecado, quizá el que no perdona el Espíritu.
-El que ahora compartimos los dos -el Rey musitó-. El de haber conocido la Belleza, que es un don vedado a los hombres. Ahora nos toca expiarlo. Te di un espejo y una máscara de oro; he aquí el tercer regalo que será el último.
Le puso en la diestra una daga. Del poeta sabemos que se dio muerte al salir del palacio; del Rey, que es un mendigo que recorre los caminos de Irlanda, que fue su reino, y que no ha repetido nunca el poema.
Estos son diez datos que desmitifican a San Patricio, según sus propios escritos y confesiones documentadas.
1) No era irlandés Era hijo de un clérigo cristiano de origen británico, Patricio nació hacia el año 450 a.C. en un lugar llamado Bannavem Taburniae, localizado, según los investigadores, en lo que hoy es la frontera sur de Gales e Inglaterra.
2) Fue un esclavo Los comerciantes irlandeses de esclavos capturaron a Patricio y a sus vecinos cuando era adolescente. Tras ser vendido, pasó seis años cuidando ovejas en Irlanda.
3) Aseguró que oía voces Mientras pastoreaba en las colinas, una voz misteriosa —según escribió— le dijo: "Mira, tu barco está listo". Cuenta que en ese momento supo que era su momento de escapar.
4) Se negó a chupar los pechos de un hombre Una vez montado en un barco, Patricio notó que no era del agrado del capitán, quien eventualmente le demandó que "chupara sus pechos", a manera de ritual para aceptar y hacer valer su autoridad. Él se negó y, en cambio, intentó convertir a la tripulación al cristianismo. Por alguna razón, el capitán sí lo aceptó a bordo. Igual le chupó la polla.
5) Dijo que tenía visiones Una noche soñó que Satanás probaba su fe al dejarle caer una enorme roca. Cuando no puedo soportar más su peso, gritó "¡Helios, Helios!", el nombre del dios griego del Sol, y la roca desapareció. Luego escribiría: "Creo que me ayudó Cristo, el Señor".
6) Hizo cosas que no se atrevía a mencionar Un día, alguien contó un secreto sobre él a sus correligionarios. "Revivieron contra mí algo que yo había confesado hace treinta años... algunas cosas que yo hice cuando era joven y que confesé en su momento", escribió. Supongo que poner el culo se encontraba entre ellas.
7) Enfrentó y abatió a líderes religiosos Numerosas leyendas se siguieron contando incluso varios años después de su muerte. Una dice que cuando un druida —líder religioso celta o galo— intentó envenenarlo o hechizarlo mediante la manipulación del clima, él lo lanzó por los aires y le rompió el esqueleto. Un asesino.
8) Dios le prometió cosas Otra leyenda cuenta que tras pasar 40 días recluido en una montaña, un ángel bajó en representación de Dios para cumplir sus demandas, entre ellas: que Patricio redimiría más almas que ningún otro santo, que sería él quien juzgaría a los pecadores irlandeses y que los ingleses nunca gobernarían Irlanda... La historia probó que Dios rompió la última.
9) Nunca habló de un trébol Ninguna de las historias tempranas sobre él mencionan al trébol y, sin embargo, en las escuelas católicas aún se enseña que Patricio usó uno como símbolo de la Santa Trinidad cuando predicó ante los paganos irlandeses. La primera vez que se mencionó por escrito fue en un texto de 1684.
10) No sacó a las serpientes de Irlanda Por grandilocuente que sea la historia, no existen razones para creer que esto hubiera ocurrido, pues no había serpientes en Irlanda durante la era premoderna. Los historiadores concuerdan que el supuesto milagro pudo haber sido realizado por otro santo y atribuido a Patricio años después.
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