staves in the cask, they deserve to rot out of notice.
However, a plain-speaking tombstone is better than downright lying. To put flattery on a grave is like pouring melted butter down a stone sink. What queer tastes those must have who puff off the departed, as if they wanted to blow the trumpet of the dead before the last angel makes his appearance ! Here's an apple out of their basket —
" Here lies the body of Martha Gwyn, Who was so very pure within ; She crack' d the outer shell of sin, And hatch' d herself a cherubim.' '
Where do they bury the bad people? Right and left in our churchyard, they seem all to have been the best of folks, a regular nest of saints ; and some of them so precious good, it is no wonder they died — they were too fine to live in such a wicked world as this. Better give bread to the poor than stones to the dead. Better kind words to the living than fine speeches over the grave. Some of the fulsome stuff on monuments is enough to make a dead man blush.
216 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
What heaps of marble are stuck over many big people's tombs ! Half enough to build a house with ! What a lift they will have at the resurrection ! It makes me feel as if I could not get my breath to think of all those stones being heaped on my bones ; not that there's any fear of it. Let the earth which I have turned over so often lie light upon my corpse when it is turned over me. Let John Ploughman be buried some- where under the boughs of a spreading beech, with a green grass mound above him, out of which primroses and daisies peep in their season : a quiet shady spot where the leaves fall, and the robins play, and the dewdrops gleam in the sunshine. Let the wind blow fresh and free over my grave, and if there must be a line about me, let it be—
HERE LIES THE BODY OF
JOHN PLOUGHMAN,
waiting for the appearing of his
Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Christ.
IVe often heard tell of patience on a monu-
MONUMENTS. 217
ment, but I have never seen it sitting there when I have gone through churchyards; I have a good many times seen stupidity on a monument, and I have wondered why the parson, or the churchwarden, or the beadle, or whoever else has the ruling of things, let people cut such rubbish on the stones. Why, a Glos'tershire man told me that at Dymock graveyard there's a writing like this—
" Too sweetur babes you nare did see Than God amity gave to wee ; But they wur ortaken wee agur fits, And hear they lys has dead as nits."
IVe read pretty near enough silly things myself in our Surrey burying-grounds to fill a book. Better leave the grave alone than set up a monument to your own igno- rance.
Of all places for jokes and fun the queerest are tombstones, yet many a time gravestones have had such oddities carved upon them that one is led to think, the nearer the church the further from common decency. This is a cruel verse, but I dare say a true one :
218 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
" Here lies, return' d to clay, Miss Arabella Young, Who on the first of May Began to hold her tongue."
This is not much better :
" John Adams lies here, of the parish Southwell, A carrier who carried his can to his mouth well ; He carried so much, and he carried so fast, He could carry no more, so was carried at last; For the liquor he drunk being too much for one, He could not carry off, so he's now carri-on"
Why could not these people poke their fun somewhere else ? A man's wit must be nearly dead when he can find no place for it but the grave. The body of the raggedest beggar is too sacred a thing to crack jokes upon. What a queer fish must Roger Martin have been, who lived in Walworth, and put on his wife's tomb —
" Here lies the wife of Roger Martin, She was a good wife to Roger — that's sartain."
And whoever was the foolish creature at Ockham, one of the prettiest spots in these parts, who wrote these outrageous lines ?
MONUMENTS. 219
u The Lord saw good, I was topping off wood, And down fell from the tree ; I met with a check, and I broke my blessed neck, And so death topped off me/'
There, that's enough, and quite as good as a feast. Here's proof positive that some fools are left alive to write on the monu- ments of those who are buried. Well may there be ghosts about. No wonder the sleepers get out of bed when they are so badly tucked in. I say let us have a lawT to let nobody put nonsense over the dead un- less he likes to take out a certificate to be an ass, just like the license to shoot patridges and pheasants. At the same time, let all puffery be saved for drapers' shops and quack doctors, and none be allowed at the grave. I say as our minister does —
" Let no proud stone with sculptur'd virtues rise, To mark the spot wherein a sinner lies, Or if some boast must deck the sinner's grave, Boast of His love who died lost man to save."
One more Surrey rhyme, and John Ploughman leaves the churchyard to go about his work, and turn up other sods.
220 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
It is in St. Saviour's, Southwark, and is, I think, a rare good one.
" Like to the damask rose you see, Or like the blossom on the tree, Or like the dainty flow'r of May, Or like the morning of the day, Or like the sun, or like the shade, Or like the gourd which Jonah had ; Even so is man, whose thread is spun, Drawn out, and cut, and so is done : The rose withers, the blossom blasteth, The flower fades, the morning hasteth, The sun sets, the shadow flies, The gourd consumes, and man he dies."
VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE.
"The fox admires the cheese, not the raven." — Page 229.
I HAVE heard tell of a man who did not know a great A from a bull's foot, and I know a good many who certainly could not tell what great A or little A
(221)
222 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
either may mean ; but some of these peo- ple are not the most ignorant in the world for all that. For instance, they know a cow's head from its tail, and one of the election gentlemen said lately that the can- didate from London did not know that. They know that turnips don't grow on trees, and they can tell a mangold-wurtzel from a beet root, and a rabbit from a hare, and there are fine folk who play on pianos who hardly know as much as that. If they can- not read they can plough, and mow, and reap, and sow, and bring up seven children on ten shillings a-week, and yet pay their wray ; and there's a sight of people who are much too ignorant to do that. Ignorance of spelling books is very bad, but ignorance of hard work is worse. Wisdom does not always speak Latin. People laugh at smock-frocks, and indeed they are about as ugly garments as could well be contrived, but some who wear them are not half such fools as people take them for. If no igno- rant people ate bread but those who wear hobnail shoes, corn would be a fine deal cheaper. Wisdom in a poor man is like a diamond set in lead, for none but good
VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE. 223
judges can discover its value. Wisdom walks often in patched clothes, and then folks do not admire her; but I say, never mind the coat, give me the man : shells are nothing, the kernel is everything. You need not go to Pirbright to find ignoram- uses, there are heaps of them near St. Paul's. I would have everybody able to read, and write, and cipher; indeed, I don't think a man can know too much ; but mark you, the knowing of these things is not educa- tion ; and there are millions of your read- ing and writing people who are as ignorant as neighbor Norton's calf, that did not know its own mother. This is as plain as the nose on your face, if you only think a little. To know how to read and write is like having tools to work, but if you don't use these tools, and your eyes, and your ears too, you will be none the better off. Every- body should know what most concerns him and makes him most useful. If cats can catch mice and hens can lay eggs, they know the things which most suits what they wrere made for. It is little use for a horse to know how to fly, it will do well enough if it can trot. A man on a farm ought to
224 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
learn all that belongs to farming, a black- smith should study a horse's foot, a dairy- maid should be well up in skimming the milk and making the butter, and a laborer's wife should be a good scholar in the sciences of boiling and baking, washing and mending; and John Ploughman ven- tures to say that those men and women who have not learned the duties of their callings are very ignorant people, even if they can tell the Greek name for a croco- dile, or write a poem on a black beetle. It is too often very true —
* Jack has been to school To learn to be a fool."
When a man falls into the water, to know how to swim will be of more use to him than all his mathematics, and yet how very few boys learn swimming ! Girls are taught dancing and French when stitching and English would be a hundred per cent, more use to them. When men have to earn their livings, in these hard times, a good trade and industrious habits will serve their turn a world better than all the classics in
VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE. 225
Cambridge and Oxford : but who nowadays advocates practical training at our schools ? Schoolmasters would go into fits if they were asked to teach poor people's boys to hoe potatoes and plant cauliflowers, and yet school boards would be doing a power of good if they did something of the sort. If you want a dog to be a pointer or a set- ter, you train him accordingly : why ever don't they do the same with men ? It ought to be " every man for his business, and every man master of his business." Let Jack and Tom learn geography by all means, but don't forget to teach them how to black their own boots, and put a button onto their own trousers ; and as for Jane and Sally, let them sing and play the music if they like, but not till they can darn a stock- ing and make a shirt. When they mend up that Education Act I hope they will put in a clause to teach children practical com- mon-sense home duties as well as the three R's. But there, what's the use of talking this way, for if children are to learn com- mon sense where are we to get the teachers ? Very few people have any of it to spare, and those who have are never likely to take *5
226 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
to school keeping. Lots of girls learn nothing except the folderols which I think they call " accomplishments." There's poor Gent with six girls, and about fifty pounds a-year to keep his family on, and yet not one of them can do a hand's turn, because their mother would go into fits lest Miss Sophia Elfrida should have chapped hands through washing the family linen, or lest Alexandra Theodora should spoil her complexion in picking a few gooseberries for a pudding. It's enough to make a cat laugh to hear the poor things talk about fashion and etiquette, when they are not half as well off as the higgler's daughters down the lane, who earn their own living, and are laying money by against the time when some young farmer will pick them up. Trust me, he who marries these highty- tighty young ladies will have as bad a bar- gain as if he married a wax doll. How the fat would be in the fire if Mrs. Gent heard me say it, but I do say it for all that, — she and her girls are ignorant, very ignorant, be- cause they do not know what would be of most service to them. Every spratciowadays calls itself a herring :
VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE. 227
every donkey thinks itself fit to be one of the queen's horses ; every candle reckons itself the sun. But when a man with his best coat on, and a paper collar, a glass in his eye, a brass chain on his waistcoat, a cane in his hand, and emptiness in his head, fancies that people cannot see through his swaggers and brags, he must be ignorant, very ignorant, for he does not know him- self. Flats, dressed up to the top of the fashion, think themselves somebodies, but nobody else does. Dancing masters and tailors may rig up a fop, but they cannot make a nothing into a man. You may color a millstone as much as you like, but you can- not improve it into a cheese.
Round our part we have a lot of poets, at least a set of very ignorant people who think they are; and these folks worry me more than a little because I have written a book, and therefore ought to listen to their rigmaroles. Nonsense is nonsense whether it rhymes or not, just as bad halfpennies are good for nothing whether they jingle or lie quiet. " Here, John," said a man to me, " I want to read you some of my verses." " No, thank you," said I, " I don't feel in a
228 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
poetical frame of mind to-day." Mark you, I shan't feel a bit more so to-morrow. What right has that fellow to shoot his rubbish at my door ? I have enough of my own. I don't intend to have my ear stuffed up with cobbler's wax or cobbled verses. I had a double dose the other morning from two of our great village poets, and I must confess it was rather better than most of the rhymes that I meet with in books. Chub- bins said,
" It is a sin to steal a pin,"
And then Padley topped it up by adding,
" It is a greater to steal a tater."
Now, there's rhyme and reason for you, as the sexton said when he wrote three lines for the poor man's tombstone:
" Here I lie, Killed by a sky- Rocket in my eye."
When tradesmen put their earnings into companies and expect to see it again ; when they lend money at outrageous interest and think to make their fortunes by it, they must be ignorant, very ignorant. As well hang a
VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE. 229
wooden kettle over the fire to boil the water for tea, or sow beans in a river and look for a fine crop.
When men believe in lawyers and money- lenders (whether Jews or Gentiles), and bor- row money, and speculate, and think them- selves lucky fellows, they are shamefully ignorant. The very gander on the com- mon would not make such a stupid of him- self, for he knows when anyone tries to pluck him, and won't lose his feathers and pride himself in the operation.
The man who spends his money with the publican, and thinks that the landlord's bows and " How do ye do, my good fellow ? " mean true respect, is a perfect natural ; for with them it is —
If you have money, take a seat ; If you have none, take to your f
feet.
The fox admires the cheese ; if it were not for that he would not care a rap for the raven. The bait is not put in to the trap to feed the mouse, but to catch him. We don't light a fire for the herring's comfort, but to roast him for our own eating. Men do not keep pot-houses for the laborer's
230 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
good ; if they do, they certainly miss their aim. Why, then, should people drink " for the good of the house " ? If I spend money for the good of any house let it be my own and not the landlord's. It's a bad well into which you must put water; and the beerhouse is a bad friend, because it takes your all, and leaves you nothing but heeltaps and headaches. He who calls those his friends who let him sit and drink by the hour together, is ignorant, very ig- norant. Why, Red Lions, and Tigers, and Eagles, and Vultures, are all creatures of prey, and none but fools put themselves within the power of their jaws and talons.
He who believes that either Whigs or Tories will let us off with light taxes must have been born on the day after the last of March; and he who imagines that parish boards and vestries will ever be free from jobbery must have been educated in an idiot asylum. He who believes in promises made at elections has long ears, and may try to eat thistles. Mr. Plausible has been around asking all the workingmen for their votes, and he will do all sorts of good things for them. Will he ? Yes, the day
VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE. 231
after to-morrow — a little later than never. Poor men who expect the " friends of the workingman " to do anything for them, must be ignorant, very ignorant. When they get their seats, of course they cannot stand up for their principles except when it is to their own interest to do so.
To lend umbrellas and look to have them sent home, to do a man a good turn and expect another from him when you want it, to dream of stopping some women's tongues, to try to please everybody, to hope to hear gossips speak well of you, or to reckon upon getting the truth of a story from common report, are all evidences of great ignorance. Those who know the world best trust it least : those who trust it at all are not wise ; as well trust a horse's heel or a dog's tooth ! Trusting to others ruins many. He who leaves his business to bailiffs and servants, and believes it will be well done, must be ignorant, very ignorant. The mouse knows when the cat is out of the house, and servants know when the master is away. No sooner is the eye of the master gone than the hand of the work- man slackens ; at least, it is so nine times
232 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
out of ten. " I'll go myself," and " I'll see to it," are two good servants on a farm. Those who lie in bed, and bolster themselves up with the notion that their trade will carry- on itself, are ignorant, very ignorant.
Such as drink and live riotously, and won- der why their faces are so blotchy and their pockets so bare, would leave off wondering if they had two grains of wisdom. Those who go to the public-house for happiness climb a tree to find fish. We might put all their wit in an eggshell, or they would never be such dupes as to hunt after com- fort where it is no more to be found than a cow in a crow's nest ; but, alas ! good-for- nothings are common as mice in a wheat- rick. I only wish we could pack them off to Lubberland, where they have half-a- croWn a day for sleeping. If some one could let loose fellows see the sure result of ill-living, perhaps they might reform ; and yet I don't know, for they do see it, and yet go on all the same ; like a moth that burns its wings in the flame and yet dashes into the candle again. Certainly for loitering lushingtons to expect to thrive by keeping their hands in their pockets, or their noses
VER Y IGNORANT PEOPLE. 233
in pewter pots, proves them to be ignorant, very ignorant.
When I see a young lady with a flower garden on her roof, and a draper's shop on her body, tossing her head about as if she thought everybody was charmed with her, I am sure she must be ignorant, very ig- norant. Sensible men don't marry a ward- robe or a bonnet-box ; they want a woman of sense, and women of that kind always dress sensibly, and not gaudily.
To my mind, those who sneer at religion, and set themselves up to be too knowing to believe in the Bible, are shallow fellows. They generally use big wTords, and bluster a great deal, but if they fancy they can overturn the faith of thinking people, who have tried and proved the power of the grace of God, they must be ignorant, very ignorant. He who looks at the sunrise and the sunset, and does not see the footprints of God, must be inwardly blinder than a mole, and only fit to live underground. God seems to talk to me in every primrose and daisy, to smile upon me from every star, to whisper to me in every breath of morn- ing air, and to call aloud to me in every
234 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
storm. It is strange that so many educated gentlemen see God nowhere, while John the ploughman feels him everywhere. John has no wish to change places, for the sense of God's presence is his comfort and joy. They say that man is the god of the dog : those men must be worse than dogs who will not listen to the voice of God, for a dog obeys its master's whistle. They call themselves " philosophers," don't they? Their proper name is fools, for the fool hath said in his heart, " There is no God." The sheep know when rain is coming, the swal- lows foresee the winter, and even the pigs, they say, can see the wind; how much worse than a brute must he be who lives where God is everywhere present, and yet sees him not ! Thus it is very clear that a man may be a great hand at learning and yet be ignorant, very ignorant.
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