Moorfields

“ Who are of Moorfields origin, where they press you to buy household-goods and furniture; as they do clothes in Rosemary Lane, Seven Dials, Field Lane, and Houndsditch. Ladies dresses used to be barked pretty much in Cranbourn Alley and the neighbourhood of Leicester Square; but it is pleasant to have to notice the abatement of the nuisance in a great measure. The shop-women content themselves, now-a-days, with merely asking strangers to look at their goods. ”

“ This man, whose feats of strength might have figured with those of the heroes of Homer, was born in London, about the year 1710. He was bred a carpenter, and attained the height of five feet ten inches, being well proportioned in other respects. At the age of twenty-four, he took a tavern on the city road, and displayed his extraordinary powers in the gymnastic exhibitions then common at Moorfields. ”

“ Soon paved streets and two-storey houses were seen in Moorfields, the city authorities having let the land on leases for seven years.
The wearied people complained that their feet were "ready to burn" through walking in the streets "among the hot coals."
(September 5th, 1666.) Means were provided to save the unfortunate multitudes from starvation, and on this same day proclamation was made
"... ”

“ When I was in France (the region of complaisance and vanity) , I have often observed, that a great man who has entered a levy of flatterers humble and temperate, has grown so insensibly heated by the court which was paid him on all sides, that he has been quite distracted before he could get into his coach.
If we consult the collegiates of Moorfields, we shall find most of them are beholden to their pride for their introduction into that magnificent palace. ”

“ The mayor, who owed his election to pressure of parliament, and who was on that account never really popular in the city, unwittingly assisted the royal cause by another act of injudicious meddling. On Sunday, the 9th April, 1648, he sent a detachment of trained bands to interfere with the amusement of some boys playing tip-cat in Moorfields. A crowd of apprentices and others took the part of the boys, and attacked the trained bands, getting possession of their arms and colours. ”

“ When Moore's Life of Byron first appeared, it was in two large, quarto volumes, and the first came out alone. Murray told Leslie that a lady said to him, "I hear it is dull;" and he told her the scandal was all to be in the second volume. "And is the second volume to be had separately?" asked the lady. I was once, says a writer, passing through Moorfields, with a young girl, aged about nine or ten years, born and educated in Portugal, but in the Protestant faith; and, observing a large concourse of people assembled around a pile of fagots on fire, I expressed a curiosity to know the cause. ”

“ No overgrown colonnades of stone, like an alderman's gouty legs in white cotton stockings, fit only to use as rammers for paving Tottenham Court Road. This house is neither after the model of a temple in Athens, no, nor a temple in Moorfields, but it is built to act English plays in ”

“ By 1699 he had moved to Fulwood's Rents, where he kept a punch-shop and tavern (probably the King's Head) , next door to Gray's Inn, until his death. Giles Jacob (Poetical Register, 1723) says: ‘Of late years he has kept a public-house in the city (but in a genteel way) , and with his wit, humour, and good liquor, has afforded his guests a pleasurable entertainment; especially the high-church party.’ In a book called ‘Apollo's Maggot in his Cups,’ Ward professed great indignation at this account, and said that his house was not in the city, but in Moorfields. ”

“ Nothing can be more bold and surprizing, nothing more beautiful and harmonious: the bas relief at the base, allowing for some few defects, is 9finely imagined, and executed as well: and nothing material can be cavilled with but the inscriptions round about it.” These, however, Sir Christopher Wren had prepared in a more elegant and masculine style, as appears by the Parentalia; but he was over-ruled.
Monument yard, New Fish street hill, so called from the Monument placed in it.
Moor court, 1. Fore street, Cripplegate, so called from its vicinity to Moorfields. 2. Miles lane, near Crooked lane. ”

“ Away to the north the road crosses the desolate country like a pale-green ribbon. It passes over Lockton High Moor, climbs to 700 feet at Tom Cross Rigg, and then disappears into the valley of Eller Beck, on Goathland Moor, coming into view again as it climbs steadily up to Sleights Moor, nearly 1,000 feet above the sea. An enormous stretch of moorland spreads itself out towards the west. ”

“ MIRIAM: A Tale of Pole Moor and the Greenfield Hills links the protagonists to The Burn Platts, an area above Slaithwaite near Pole Moor where a group of Romanys or Gypsies lived around the time of an incident which took place, in 1832, at the Moorcock Inn, on the edge of the bleak moorland above Greenfield near Saddleworth. It was at this remote pub that the landlord and his gamekeeper son were violently murdered.
The Burnplatters were described by MR. G. S. Philips in 1848 as a group of savages “living in log huts thatched with sods, and paying neither rent nor taxes. ”

“ And when we, who have long been dreaming of a visit to the Moor's metropolis, actually behold it, though it first appears as only a faint line of walls and towers, almost undiscernible through the rough sea of heated air-waves that surge between us and the city, now that Fez at last has risen from this endless plain over which we have been toiling southward for eleven days, we feel that we must draw rein, and for a few minutes indulge in the enjoyment of that creeping thrill. There are so few of them in life ”

“ Mowbray, for instance—a comely, curly-headed, beardless boy, on his way to join his regiment—whom she found extremely interesting, and who lost no time in becoming confidential. It was very pleasant to sit on deck through long lazy mornings and play bésique with Mr. Mowbray; and pleasant too, when the day was done, to sit with him in the moonlight and watch the Southern Cross slowly wheeling up and the waves all ablaze with phosphoric splendour, and to talk about home and Mr. Mowbray's sisters, and the stations to which each of them were bound, never, probably, to meet again. ”

“ Each bark is an eager impatient snap, and its burden is—“Rabbits!” Now, I sympathize with every living thing that breathes; yet if it were not for a constitutional objection to unnecessary vigour of language, I could almost back Fan, and echo the Great Poet’s indignant exclamation. For whatever we try to plant among the heather, by way of beautifying our small patch of moorland (as who should paint the lily or gild refined gold) , those unscrupulous rodents immediately proceed to treat as their private property. Not one of our white brooms has survived their attacks ”

“ The hall of their triumph is waste and desolate. The bat flits about its twilight vault, and the owl hoots from the neighboring Tower of Comares.
Entering the Court of the Lions a few evenings since, I was almost startled at beholding a turbaned Moor quietly seated near the fountain. For a moment one of the fictions of the place seemed realized: an enchanted Moor had broken the spell of centuries, and become visible. He proved, however, to be a mere ordinary mortal: a native of Tetuan in Barbary, who had a shop in the Zacatin of Granada, where he sold rhubarb, trinkets, and perfumes. ”

“ We are sufficiently high to look right across Fylingdales Moor to the sea beyond, a soft haze of pearly blue over the hard, rugged outline of the ling. Away towards the north, too, the landscape for many miles is limited only by the same horizon of sea, so that we seem to be looking at a section of a very large scale contour map of England. Below us on the western side runs the Mirk Esk, draining the heights upon which we stand as well as Egton High Moor and Wheeldale Moor. The confluence with the Esk at Grosmont is lost in a haze of smoke and a confusion of roofs and railway-lines ”

“ The launch rolls and umbrellas drip, and we have hundreds of yards along splashing wet pier, G. balancing on timbers and wire cables to keep a little out of the mud—one umbrella for the two. Then a jog up the town in a funny little victoria with yellow oiled canvas curtains, past little gardens with great red flowers on one tree, and trumpet-shaped white flowers hanging on the next, past soldiers in khaki, and turbaned Moors huddled in their draperies. The Moors look so out of place in Europe; they seem to have aimed at being picturesque and have failed, and know it and stick to it. ”

“ Nearing Kildale, the road suddenly plunged downwards to a stream flowing through a green, cultivated valley, with a lonely farm on the further slope. There was a fir-wood above this, and as I passed over the hill, among the tall, bare stems, the clouds parted a little in the west, and let a flood of golden light into the wood. Instantly the gloom seemed to disappear, and beyond the dark shoulder of moorland, where the Cook monument appeared against the glory of the sunset, there seemed to reign an all-pervading peace, the wood being quite silent, for the wind had dropped. ”

“ Wretch that thou art! prepare to render up the spoils of thy miserable victim, and to swing on the gallows that is already tired of waiting for thee.”
The terrified water-carrier fell on his knees, and made a full relation of the marvellous manner in which he had gained his wealth. The alcalde, the alguazil, and the inquisitive barber, listened with greedy ears to this Arabian tale of enchanted treasure. The alguazil was dispatched to bring the Moor who had assisted in the incantation. The Moslem entered half frightened out of his wits at finding himself in the hands of the harpies of the law. ”

“ The honest heart of the little water-carrier was touched with compassion at the appeal of the stranger. “God forbid,” said he, “that I should ask fee or reward for doing a common act of humanity.” He accordingly helped the Moor on his donkey, and set off slowly for Granada, the poor Moslem being so weak that it was necessary to hold him on the animal to keep him from falling to the earth.
When they entered the city, the water-carrier demanded whither he should conduct him. “Alas!” said the Moor, faintly, “I have neither home nor habitation, I am a stranger in the land. ”

“ Moorhead is served by the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific railways. The city is the seat of one of the state normal schools (1888) and of Concordia College (Norwegian Lutheran; 1891) , which in 1907–1908 had 500 students. ”

“ On leaving the room, the Moor fell to meditating how he should put his wife to death, and likewise the Captain of the troop, so that their death should not be laid to his charge. And as he ruminated over this day and night, he could not prevent his wife's observing that he was not the same toward her as he had been wont; and she said to him again and again, "What is the matter? what troubles you? how comes it that you, who were the most light-hearted man in the world, are now so melancholy?" ”

“ The rectory of Moorby is consolidated with the vicarage of Wood Enderby.
By deed dated Nov. 24th, 1855, the guardians of the poor, by consent of the ratepayers, gave certain land in Moorby for the site of a parish school to the minister, churchwardens, and overseers, and their successors; and more recently a school district has been formed for the parishes of Moorby, Wood Enderby, Claxby, and Wilksby; the school, which was built in 1855, being enlarged in 1872, to provide the accommodation required by this union. ”

“ As they wended their way down the hill, the shrewd Moor whispered a word of counsel in the ear of the simple little water-carrier.
“Friend Peregil,” said he, “all this affair must be kept a profound secret until we have secured the treasure, and conveyed it out of harm’s way. If a whisper of it gets to the ear of the alcalde, we are undone!”
“Certainly,” replied the Gallego, “nothing can be more true.”
“Friend Peregil,” said the Moor, “you are a discreet man, and I make no doubt can keep a secret: but you have a wife.” ”

“ To the north, the ground, broken by hills and river-valleys, yet gradually rises to the Moorlands, a bleak, bare, stone-walled country, abutting on the Derbyshire moors. The hills on the south-west do not attain so great a height, and they are not bleak, but black; for here, around Wolverhampton, is the seat of the South Staffordshire iron trade. ”

“ He sat on a log, sheltered from the fresh wind by the hedge at his back, with Susannah, to whom both horses and riders were interesting, beside him. Though old Moorhouse was remarkable by reason of his stature, which years and rheumatism had only slightly disguised, and his niece, because of a vivid, indefinable something, which arrested both male and female eyes, the couple was too ordinary a sight to attract notice from regular haunters of the fair, and only a few strangers let their minds wander from business to glance at them. ”

“ You have no trees, nor camels, nor sheep, nor sand, nor goats,” continued he; “nor are your women made like ours. You do not inhabit the earth, but are born, live, and die in your houses that float on the sea.”
The greatest luxury of a Moor is to see his wives and daughters richly dressed, and on them he exhibits all his opulence by ornamenting their ears, arms, and legs with rings of gold and silver.
They have no knowledge of the arts and trade, though they make in a rude manner, pikes, knives, and even kettles, from the native iron which is furnished to them by the Negroes. ”

“ A FLIGHT OF QUAILS. It is one of the wonders and delights of the moorland that here alone Nature pays the first call, instead of demurely waiting to be called upon. Near great towns she is coy; and even in the fields that abut on villages, she shows but a few familiar aspects; while aloof on the open heath she reveals herself unreservedly, like a beautiful woman to her chosen lover. She exhibits all her moods and bares all her secrets. ”