THE BLIND BEGGAR OF BETHNAL eyed Bessie, confirmed their happiness; but, alas! her beauty was but a blank to the eyes of her doting father. GREEN. THIS popular English ballad is supposed to have been written in the reign of Elizabeth. But like almost every other ballad which has been preserved principally by tradition, there are various versions of it, all more or less differing from each other. With reference to one of the main events in the ballad, history states that Sir Henry de Montford (the hero of the ballad) fell by the side of his father, Simon de Montford, the great Earl of Leicester, at the decisive battle of Evesham, fought August 4, 1265, in which the king defeated the rebel barons, and slew their leader and his son. But tradition says that the son, Sir Henry de Montford, was not slain, but wounded, and left upon the field for dead: the wound he had received deprived him of sight. While lying in this distressing condition, he was discovered by a daughter of one of the barons searching the battle-field for the body of her father, who had fallen in the fight; his piteous condition attracted her attention, and she caused him to be removed from the field by a party of her followers, while, accompanied by the remainder, she continued the search after her father. She had not proceeded far when the body of the baron, her father, was discovered, pierced with many a ghastly wound, surrounded by the pallid corpses of his faithful followers. All that could be accomplished had been effected: she wept her parent's death, and celebrated his obsequies in such a manner as befitted his rank. The fatal battle of Evesham had left this young lady without a protector or a friend, and the estates of her rebel father were forfeited. Can it be wondered, in this deserted state, her tender heart urged her to nurse her unfortunate patient with redoubled care? and under her affectionate treatment his general health was soon reestablished, but the injury his eyes had received excluded all hopes of the recovery of his sight. The little money that had been raised on the sale of his wife's jewels was now all expended, and he had no other resource but to beg for a living, which, by the by, in those days was a very profitable calling. The ballad commences with this period of his life, but confines itself more particularly to the history of his daughter. The version we have taken the following extracts from is in Dr. Percy's "Reliques of English Poetry," and a black-letter copy preserved in the British Museum, entitled, "The Rarest Ballad that ever was seen of the Blind Beggar's Daughter of Bednal Green. Printed by and for W. Ouley; and are to be sold by C. Bates, at the sign of the Sun and Bible, in Pye Corner." The ballad commences with speaking of the beauty of the daughter and the poverty of the father; it then states that she went as a servant at an inn in the town of Romford : small, She had not been there a month to an end, The king made no search after the young rebel De Montford, for he was supposed to have been slain. Thus he was easily enabled to make his escape; he disguised himself and fled to London, accompanied by his fair preserver, and took up his residence in a small cottage near Bednal Green, as it was then called. Constant association, and the fellow-feeling of misfortune and ĺoneliness, soon fanned the flame of love in their Wherefore unto her they joyfully said, every one this answer she made; breasts, and they became man and wife. "This thing to fulfil we all do agree; One daughter alone, the fair-haired, blue-But where dwells thy father, my pretty Bessie ?** To "My father," she said, "is soon to be seen; "Nay, then," said the merchant, "thou art not for me;" "Nor," said the inn-holder, "my wife thou shalt be;" "I loathe," said the gentle, "a beggar's degree, And therefore adieu, my pretty Bessie." "Why, then," quoth the knight, "hap better or worse, I weigh not true love by the weight of the purse, Then spake the blind beggar, "Although I be poor, With that an angel he cast on the ground, twain. So that the place wherein they did sit, Thou hast fulfilled thy promise aright." To church then went this gallant young knight; Now after the sumptuous dinner was done, A gold coin valued at about ten shillings. "The praise of a woman in question to bring He had a dainty lute under his arm, He touched the strings which made such a charm "A poor beggar's daughter did dwell on a green, He then goes on to state his rank and misfortunes: "When the barons in arms did King Henry oppose, Sir Simon de Montford their leader they chose; A leader of courage undaunted was he, And ofttimes he made their enemies flee. At length in the battle on Evesham Plain A baron's fair daughter stepped forth in the night Was moved with pity, and brought him away. In secret she nursed him, and 'suaged his pain, While he through the realm was believed to be slain; At length his fair bride she consented to be, Now when the fair company every one Had heard the strange tale in the song he had shown, They all were amazed, as well they might be, Thy father likewise is of noble degree, Thus was the feast ended with joy and delight; All with his fair lady, the pretty Bessie. CHEAP SERVANTS. THERE is often occasion for the remark that an over anxiety to cheapen what we hire or buy is not true economy-the result is, the acquisition of a damaged or indifferent article. The proverb-founded on long experience "the cheapest is the dearest in the end," has pronounced a wise judgment on this point. With regard to the mistaken economy of employing servants who are content to engage for very low wages, and to submit to privations and drudgery which the menials of the avowed slave-owner do not undergo, we shall offer some observations, tending to show how much more prudent it is to employ good servants at comparatively high wages than bad ones, even on the lowest imaginable rates. There are, however, numerous cases in which a master or mistress cannot afford to pay or maintain a servant with liberality. To employers rigidly saving from necessity we can offer no other suggestion than thismake up in acts of kind and considerate indulgence for what is deficient in wages and The demoralization of so numerous a class. consequent on the systematic violation of the fourth commandment, is a great loss in a religious and social point of view. But we shall confine ourselves to the pecuniary side of the question, and select a few cases within our own observation which may tend to establish our first proposition. A young married couple took an expensively furnished house in a fashionable city, for the purpose of letting apartments. As they were persons of excellent reputa tion and good connections, some families desirous of serving them engaged their lodgings from time to time, until after experience of the annoyances and discomforts occasioned by stupid and incapable servants-all of the very cheap sort they were obliged, one after another, and in quick succession, to leave the house. When they remonstrated mildly with Mr. and Mrs. Smith, it was frankly admitted that the maid-of-all-work for the time being was very ignorant, or very lazy, and broke more crockery and glass than her head was worth, and far beyond the limits of her wages to replace, but that a new servant was coming who would give ample satisfaction, &c. On one occasion Mrs. Smith assured a very profitable lodger that she had engaged a maid who cooked in the first style. Well," said the gentleman, "I do not wish to leave your establishment if I can avoid doing so; let me try the talents of your new cook to-morrow." A small substantial comforts. party was invited to dine; a turbot, a turNo class of domestic servants is, gene-key, and some other rather expensive rally, worse treated than that of appren-creature comforts" were provided, all of tices or hired attendants from charity schools. Employers wanting cheap drudges, over whom they may exercise ungenerous despotism, seek for these unfortunate creatures, and though it is unreasonable to expect in them the qualifications of trained and experienced servants, these are looked for without giving time and opportunity for acquiring them. which Euphemia Amelia Dobbins undertook to roast, stew, or boil, to the satisfaction of the company. A male waiter was hired, and the cook therefore had no par lour attendances to distract her attention from the culinary operations in which she professed to be an adept. An hour after the appointed time dinner was announced; but such a dinner! The The cheap servants of lodging-houses are soup was inferior to any poor-house broth, always overworked, and sometimes under- being washy and burnt; the turbot looked fed; they rise early, are in perpetual mo- as if it had been cut up into pieces of bait tion all day, and cannot go to bed until a for larger fishes, nibbled by their teeth, and very late hour; and if bodily sustenance be then rejected as unpalatable. The forlorn not dealt out to them with niggardly hand, hopes of the host and his company now they rarely receive even the weekly portion rested on the turkey. The cover was liftedof spiritual food which the Sabbath after- one side of the breast bone exhibited pallid noon's services are designed to minister. skin and raw flesh-the other moiety was They experience the difficulty or hopeless-black and juiceless as a cinder-stuffing ness of obtaining any cessation from toil, and gravy there were none. even on the day of sacred repose. There is enough to exasperate the temper of the enno true economy in using any servants thus. tertainer, who, though a mild and benevo All this was lent man, was now sadly annoyed. He certainly uttered no benedictions on the new cook, but rose from the table abruptly, requesting that his guests would accompany him to an adjoining tavern of fashionable reputation, where an eatable dinner might be procured on such a sudden emer-cent clothing, were no temptations to any gency. Mrs. Smith was in dismay, and Euphemia Amelia Dobbins bellowed with vexation. She declared that she had always given perfect satisfaction to the tip-toppest families, and had the best of recommendations, &c., &c. The simple fact was, that the Smiths would only pay a thorough servant the wages usually given to an under nurserymaid. Their poor hack was obliged to rise early and often to sit up late, and to do every conceivable housework throughout the day. Nothing was well done, and most things were so badly done by the cheap family servant, that within a year and a half of Mr. and Mrs. Smith's experiment in the lodging-house line the husband became insolvent from want of lodgers. While we write, in a lodging-house on the sea-coast, Sally Slowfoot has prevented us from touching a dish of artichokes by serving them up in a thick coating of melted butter, which effectually kept our fingers from the leaves which we had tasted in imagination. If this very cheap and very awkward girl, who had just before dropped a pair of ill-fried soles from their dish upon the tablecloth, had intended to reserve the artichokes for her own use, she could not have contrived a surer scheme for accomplishing her purpose; the butter served the purpose of the familiar label, "You are requested not to touch." Sally is provokingly tedious and immethodical in all her movements. Long intervals elapse before she lays or removes plates, dishes, &c. She makes much unnecessary work for herself, from want of timing her various labours and observing some right arrangement of them. She is one of those dull, slow-going, and puzzle-pated servants, who are dear at any wages. We have suggested to our landlady the economy of exchanging Sally for a woman who understands her duties, if she wishes to have her lodgers better served, and thereby satisfied with their quarters. Miss Flint was another person who had neither comfort nor gain from her system of employing very cheap servants. She had the failing, too, of being so niggardly in her housekeeping, and so extremely selfish in everything, so unwilling to allow her ser vants the occasional recreations which they require in order to render servitude tolerable, that even the most cheap and incapable ones rarely remained longer than a month in her service. Very poor and stingy fare, with wages insufficient to procure deservant worth having; and this old lady doled out from under lock and key everything consumed in her miserable house, even to a shovelful of coals, by which meanness the servants plainly understood that they were considered as rogues by their mistress, who would have done much more wisely for her own sake if she had acted in a manner to conciliate affection and respect from her attendants, as a humane and ladylike mistress would have done in her position, and with her independent income. Miss Flint at one time kept a cheap boy to attend to her pony and chaise. This youth was of an experimental character, and though strictly forbidden to ride the pony, he one day mounted it in order to test its leaping powers. The poor animal fell into a deep ditch on its back, which was broken by the fall. Another cheap boy was employed by Miss Flint as a gardener, in which capacity he cleared away the plants, roots and stems, of a fine asparagus bed in July, and reduced them to ashes, imagining they were weeds, Now, a careful groom and gardener would have cost this lady less on the balance of the year's accounts, and have been a source of comfort and respectability to her, instead of causing her perpetual loss and annoyance. We could adduce many similar cases to show that there is no economy in employing cheap and ignorant servants of any description, in preference to others who understand their business, and who, as "the labourer is worthy of his hire," may justly expect to be adequately paid for their services. A CHAPTER ON DIAMONDS. THESE exquisite little lumps of crystallised carbon are remarkably unprepossessing in their natural state. To an unpractised eye they resemble ordinary pebbles so closely that a casual finder would be likely to throw them away as useless, never imagining that, when cut and polished by the lapidary's art, these unattractive crystals form the choicest ornaments of regal splendour, and command a value far beyond that of any other natural production. The dia mond is the hardest known substance, is | to Marion de l'Orme by one of her numerous susceptible of a most brilliant polish, and can only be cut, ground, or polished by itself. Diamonds are cut in two ways, as rose diamonds and as brilliants. The rose is flat at the bottom, and the facets meet at top in a point. The brilliant, on the other hand, has a flat table, and the facets at the bottom and sides are cut like a prism, and meet in a blunt point called a "culit." For many years they were supposed to be incombustible, but Wollaston succeeded in burning them by means of galvanism. Many chemists have attempted to deal with that most intractable substance carbon, and to produce diamonds by artificial means; but the diamond has hitherto defied every attempt to imitate its beauty, and still remains the most cherished of gems. The first diamonds which were found in the Brazils and brought to the Court of Portugal as pebbles, curious from their hardness, were used as card counters. A Dutchman who saw them suspected their identity with the Indian diamond, and established a factory for cutting them in Amsterdam, where to this day nearly all the diamonds found are cut. The trade employs some 10,000 persons, who are, with few exceptions, of the Jewish faith. The diamonds which are brought from the Brazils-whence, since the exhaustion of the Golconda mines, nearly all are found are discovered by washing in the beds of rivers, and the negroes who work are rigorously searched every evening to prevent their carrying away any of the precious products of their compulsory labour. Should a slave find one beyond a certain weight, he receives his liberty and a reward. One of these slaves secured a diamond of immense value, and escaped with it to Europe, although he had been searched. The man cut a deep wound in his leg and inserted the diamond into it, feigning to have fallen and cut himself. There is exported every month an average of the value of 40,000., and the Brazilian Government levies a duty on the amount exported. The largest that has ever been found there is that called the Star of the South, which was exhibited at Paris at the Exposition of 1852. It has been valued at 400,000l. A great number of the finest Indian diamonds are spoilt by the natives drilling large holes in them to wear as nose jewels, and also by their imperfect mode of cutting. The demand for diamonds has, for some years, so far exceeded the supply, that the price has advanced within the last ten years more than 100 per cent. The first portrait diamond was presented admirers, in rather a singular manner. After pressing on her acceptance in vain various costly gifts, she at last agreed to accept a portrait of her canary, set in a plain gold ring. He caused, however, a large diamond to be ground perfectly flat on both sides, and used it, instead of glass, to the miniature. The Koh-i-noor, or Mountain of Light, now in the possession of her Majesty, was originally cut in rose fashion, but was recut as a brilliant in 1850, an operation which, although it diminished its weight, greatly enhanced its value and beauty. It is computed to have been the direct cause of the death of more than 1,000 human beings; and her Majesty is, most likely, the first owner into whose possession it has come in a legitimate manner. Diamonds, although generally either white or of a yellowish tinge, are occasionally found blue, black, pink, green, and even opalescent. The late Mr. Hope had a most remarkable collection, the gem of which, the blue diamond, is yet in the possession of his descendant, Mr. Hope, of Piccadilly. The famous Sancy diamond, which forms one of the Crown jewels of France, was the occasion of a remarkable instance of fidelity in the middle ages. The King of France, having occasion for a loan, applied to the Sieur de Sancy for the loan of his diamond, that he might deposit it as a pledge with the Lombards. The Count sent it to him by a servant, who was attacked on the road by robbers and slain. The King, of course, thought the recovery of the diamond as hopeless; but the Count, who knew, his vassal better, caused search to be made for his body, and, having discovered it, cut it open and found the diamond, which the faithful servant had swallowed to preserve it. A most amusing story is current in Paris about a noble lord-whose visits to the card-table were neither few nor far between-who borrowed his wife's jewels for the purpose of having them rented, and paid a visit to a famous imitator of gems on the Boulevard, and ordered an exact copy of them to be made. The artist, with much empressement; thanked the gentleman for the compliment he paid him in mistaking his work for real. An explanation ensued, whence it appeared that the lady had forestalled her ford, and he had unwittingly carried her jewels to their manufacturer. |