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twitch the sleeve of nodding Gratitude;
Shall
teach me but to venerate the more
Honest Oak Tables and their
guests--the poor:
Teach me unjust distinctions to deride,
And
falsehoods gender'd in the brain of Pride;
Shall give to Fancy still the
cheerful hour,
To Intellect, its freedom and its power;
To
Hospitality's enchanting ring
A charm, which nothing but thyself can
bring.
The man who would not look with honest pride
On the tight
bark that stemm'd the roaring tide,
And bore him, when he bow'd the
trembling knee,
Home, through the mighty perils of the sea,
I love
him not.--He ne'er shall be my guest;
Nor sip my cup, nor witness
how I'm blest;
Nor lean, to bring my honest friend to shame,
A

sacrilegious elbow on thy frame;
But thou through life a monitor shalt
prove,
Sacred to Truth, to Poetry, and Love.
Dec. 1803.
THE HORKEY. A Provincial Ballad.
ADVERTISEMENT.
In the descriptive ballad which follows, it will be evident that I have
endeavoured to preserve the style of a gossip, and to transmit the
memorial of a custom, the extent or antiquity of which I am not
acquainted with, and pretend not to enquire.
In Suffolk husbandry the man who, (whether by merit or by sufferance
I know not) goes foremost through the harvest with the scythe or the
sickle, is honoured with the title of "Lord," and at the Horkey, or
harvest-home feast, collects what he can, for himself and brethren, from
the farmers and visitors, to make a "frolick" afterwards, called "the
largess spending." By way of returning thanks, though perhaps
formerly of much more, or of different signification, they immediately
leave the seat of festivity, and with a very long and repeated shout of "a
largess," the number of shouts being regulated by the sums given, seem
to wish to make themselves heard by the people of the surrounding
farms. And before they rejoin the company within, the pranks and the
jollity I have endeavoured to describe, usually take place. These
customs, I believe, are going fast out of use; which is one great reason
for my trying to tell the rising race of mankind that such were the
customs when I was a boy.
I have annexed a glossary of such words as may be found by general
readers to require explanation. And will add a short extract from Sir
Thomas Brown, of Norwich, M. D. who was born three years before
Milton, and outlived him eight years.
"It were not impossible to make an original reduction of many words of
no general reception in England_, but of common use in _Norfolk, or
peculiar to the East-Angle counties; as, Bawnd, Bunny, Thurck, Enemis,

Matchly, Sainmodithee, Mawther, Kedge, Seele, Straft, Clever, Dere,
Nicked, Stingy, Noneare, Fett, Thepes, Gosgood, Kamp, Sibrit, Fangast,
Sap, Cothish, Thokish, Bide-owe, Paxwax. Of these, and some others,
of no easy originals, when time will permit, the resolution shall be
attempted; which to effect, the Danish language, new, and more ancient,
may prove of good advantage: which nation remained here fifty years
upon agreement, and have left many families in it, and the language of
these parts had surely been more commixed and perplex, if the fleet of
Hugo de Bones had not been cast away, wherein three-score thousand
souldiers, out of Britany and Flanders, were to be wafted over, and
were, by King John's appointment, to have a settled habitation in the
counties of Norfolk_ and _Suffolk." Tract the viii. on Languages,
particularly the Saxon. Folio, 1686, page 48.
THE HORKEY.
A Provincial Ballad.
What gossips prattled in the sun,
Who talk'd him fairly down,
Up,
memory! tell; 'tis Suffolk fun,
And lingo of their own.
Ah! Judie Twitchet![A] though thou'rt dead,
With thee the tale begins;

For still seems thrumming in my head
The rattling of thy pins.
[Footnote A: Judie Twitchet was a real person, who lived many years
with my mother's cousin Bannock, at Honnington.]
Thou Queen of knitters! for a ball
Of worsted was thy pride;
With
dangling stockings great and small,
And world of clack beside!
"We did so laugh; the moon shone bright;
"More fun you never knew;

"'Twas Farmer Cheerum's Horkey night,
"And I, and Grace, and
Sue----
"But bring a stool, sit round about,
"And boys, be quiet, pray;
"And
let me tell my story out;
"'Twas sitch a merry day!

"The butcher whistled at the door,
"And brought a load of meat;

"Boys rubb'd their hands, and cried, 'there's more,'
"Dogs wagg'd their
tails to see't.
"On went the boilers till the hake[Footnote: A sliding pot-hook] "Had
much ado to bear 'em;
"The magpie talk'd for talking sake,
"Birds
sung;--but who could hear 'em?
"Creak went the jack; the cats were scar'd,
"We had not time to heed
'em,
"The owd hins cackled in the yard,
"For we forgot to feed 'em!
"Yet 'twas not I, as I may say,
"Because as how, d'ye see;
"I only
help'd there for the day;
"They cou'dn't lay't to me.
"Now Mrs. Cheerum's best lace cap
"Was mounted on her head;

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