Bartholomew Fair, 1721.

OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
POPULAR ANTIQUITIES
OF
GREAT BRITAIN:

CHIEFLY ILLUSTRATING

THE ORIGIN OF OUR VULGAR AND PROVINCIAL CUSTOMS, CEREMONIES, AND SUPERSTITIONS.

BY

JOHN BRAND, M.A.,
FELLOW AND SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF LONDON.

ARRANGED, REVISED, AND GREATLY ENLARGED, BY
SIR HENRY ELLIS, K.H., F.R.S., SEC. S.A., &c.
PRINCIPAL LIBRARIAN OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

A NEW EDITION, WITH FURTHER ADDITIONS.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN
1854

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

[p.1]

COUNTRY WAKES:¹
CALLED ALSO FEASTS OF DEDICATION, REVELLINGS, RUSH-BEARINGS,
AND, IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND, HOPPINGS.

As in the times of Paganism annual festivals were celebrated in honour and memory of their gods, goddesses, and heroes, [p.2] when the people resorted together at their temples² and tombs; and as the Jews constantly kept their anniversary feast of Dedication, in remembrance of Judas Maccabaeus, their deliverer, so it hath been an ancient custom among the Christians of this island to keep a feast every year, upon a certain week or day, in remembrance of the finishing of the building of their parish church, and of the first solemn dedicating of it to the service of God, and committing it to the protection of some guardian saint or angel.³

At the conversion of the Saxons, says Bourne, by Austin, the monk, the heathen Paganalia were continued among the converts, with some regulations, by an order of Pope Gregory the Great, to Mellitus, the abbot, who accompanied Austin in his mission to this island. His words are to this effect: on the day of dedication, or the birthday of holy martyrs, whose relics are there placed, let the people make to themselves booths of the boughs of trees, round about those very churches which had been the temples of idols, and, in a religious way, to observe a feast; that beasts may no longer be slaughtered by way of sacrifice to the devil, but for their own eating and the glory of God; and that when they are satisfied, they may return thanks to Him who is the giver of all good things.⁴ Such are the foundations of the country Wake.

Bishop Hall, in his Triumphs of Rome, alludes as follows to these convivial entertainments: "What should I speak of our merry Wakes, and May games, and Christmas triumphs, which you have once seen here, and may see still in those under the Roman dition: in all which, put together, you may well say no Greek can be merrier than they." (Triumph of Pleasure, p. 23.) I have a curious sermon, entitled the Religious Revel, preached at Atsuch, a country revel, dedicated to Mr. William Ekins, of the parish of St. Thomas, near Exon, by H. Rosewell, 1711. It is a defence and vindication of [p.3] keeping the annual feast of the dedication, finishing, and consecration of our churches (constantly kept, and called in the country a Wake or Revel), still supposing and asserting the very great impiety of revellings, properly so called; i.e. lewd and disorderly Revellings, upon any account or occasion. In Collinson's History of Somersetshire, i. 64, speaking of Stocklinch, St. Magdalen parish, the author says: "A Revel is held here on St. Mary Magdalen's day." In Bridge's History of Northamptonshire many instances are recorded of the Wake being still kept on or near to the day of the saint to which the church was dedicated. In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, under the head of "The Wake Day," are the following lines:

"Fil oven ful of flawnes, Ginnie passe not for sleepe,
To-morrow thy father his wake day will keepe:
Then every wanton may danse at her will,
Both Tomkin with Tomlin, and Jankin with Gil."

Thus explained in Tusser Redivivus, 1744, p. 8: "The Wake .day is the day on which the parish church was dedicated, called so because the night before it they were used to watch till morning in the church, and feasted ail the next day. Waking in the church was left off, because of some abuses, and we see here it was converted to waking at the oven. The other continued down to our author's days, and in a great many places continues still to be observed with all sorts of rural merriments, such as dancing, wrestling, cudgel-playing, &c.

"This feast was at first regularly kept on that day in every week on which the church was dedicated; but it being observed and complained of, that the number of holidays was excessively increased, to the detriment of civil government and secular affairs; and also that the great irregularities and licentiousness which had crept into these festivities by degrees, especially in the churches, chapels, and churchyards, were found highly injurious to piety, virtue, and good manners; there were therefore both statutes and canons made to regulate and restrain them: and by an act of convocation, passed by Henry VIII, 1536,⁵ their number was in some measure lessened.

[p.4]

The feast of the dedication of every church was ordered to be kept upon one and the same day everywhere; that is, on the first Sunday in October; and the Saint's day to which the church was dedicated entirely laid aside. This act is now disregarded; but probably it arose from thence that the feast of Wakes was first put off till the Sunday following the proper day, that the people might not have too many avocations from their necessary and domestic business.

The following entries occur in the churchwarden's accounts of St. Mary at Hill, in the city of London, 1495: "For bred and wyn and ale to Bowear (a singer) and his co., and to the Quere on Dedication Even, and on the morrow, is. vjd." 1555. "Of the Sumcyon of our Lady's Day, which is our church holyday, for drinkyng over-night at Mr. Hay ward's, at the King's Head, with certen of the parish and certen of the chapel and other singing men, in wyne, pears, and sugar, and other chargis, viiis. id. Eor a dynnerfor our Lady's Day, for all the synging men & syngyng children, il. For a pounde and halfe of sugar at dinner, is. vijd. 0b. 1557. For garlands for our Lady's Day & for strawenge yerbes, ijs. ijd. For bryngyng down the images to Rome Land and other things to be burnt." In these accounts, "To singing men and children from the King's chapel and elsewhere," on some of the grand festivals, particularly the parish feast (our Lady's Assumption), a reward in money and a feast is charged in several years.

When an order was made in 1627 and in 1631, at Exeter and in Somersetshire, for the suppression of the Wakes, both the ministers and the people desired their continuance, not only for preserving the memorial of the dedication of their several churches, but for civilizing their parishioners, composing differences by the mediation and meeting of friends, increasing of love and unity by these feasts of charity, and for the relief and comfort of the poor. In King Charles the First's Book of Sports, Oct. 18, 1633, we read: "His majesty finds that, under pretence of taking away abuses, there hath been a general forbidding, not only of ordinary meetings, but of the feasts of the dedications of the churches, commonly called Wakes. Now his majesty's express will and pleasure is, that these feasts, with others, shall be observed; and that his justices of the peace, in their several divisions, shall look to it, [p.5] both that all disorders there may be prevented or punished, and that all neighbourhood and freedom, with manlike and lawful exercises be used." (See Harris's Life of Charles I. p. 50.)

In the southern parts of this nation, says Bourne, most country villages are wont to observe some Sunday in a more particular manner than the rest; i.e. the Sunday after the day of dedication, or day of the saint to whom their church was dedicated. Then the inhabitants deck themselves in their gaudiest clothes, and have open doors and splendid entertainments, for the reception and treating of their relations and friends, who visit them on that occasion from each neighbouring town. The morning is spent for the most part at church, though not as that morning was wont to be spent, not in commemorating the saint or martyr, or in gratefully remembering the builder and endower. The remaining part of the day is spent in eating and drinking. Thus also they spend a day or two afterwards, in all sorts of rural pastimes and exercises, such as dancing on the green, wrestling, cudgelling, &c.

Carew tells us, in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 69, "The Saint's Feast is kept upon the Dedication Day, by every householder of the parish, within his own dores, each entertaining such forrayne acquaintance as will not fayle, when their like turne cometh about, to requite them with the like kindness." But Borlase informs us that, in his time, it being very inconvenient, especially in harvest time, to observe the parish feast on the Saint's day, they were, by the bishop's special authority, transferred to the following Sunday.

Stubs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1585, p. 95, gives us the manner of keeping of Wakesses and Feastes in England. "This is their order therein: Every towne, parish, and village, some at one time of the yeare, some at another (but so that every one keeps his proper day assigned and appropriate to itselfe, which they call their Wake-day), useth to make great preparation and provision for good cheare, to the which all their friendes and kirisfolkes farre and neere ar invited." He adds that there are such doings at them, "insomuch as the poore men that beare the charges of these feastes and wakesses are the poorer, and keep the worser houses a long tyme after. And no marvaile, for many spend more at one of these wakesses than in all the whole yere besides." Stubs has been already mentioned as a Puritan, and conse- [p.6] quently one who did not duly distinguish between the institution itself and the degenerate abuse of it.

Borlase says, the parish feasts instituted in commemoration of the dedication of parochial churches were highly esteemed among the primitive Christians, and originally kept on the Saint's Day to whose memory the church was dedicated. The generosity of the founder and endower thereof was at the same time celebrated, and a service composed suitable to the occasion. This is still done in the colleges of Oxford, to the memory of the respective founders. On the eve of this day prayers were said and hymns were sung all night in the church; and from these watchings the festivals were styled Wakes; which name still continues in many parts of England, although the vigils have been long abolished. See also Wheatley on the Common Prayer, 1848, p. 89; and Dugd. Warw., p. 515.

Speght, in his Glossary to Chaucer, says: "It was the manner in times past, upon festival evens, called vigiliae, for parishioners to meet in their church-houses or churchyards, and there to have a drinking-fit for the time. Here they used to end many quarrels between neighbour and neighbour. Hither came the wives in comely manner: and they which were of the better sort had their mantles carried with them, as well for show as to keep them from cold at the table, These mantles also many did use in the church at morrow-masses and other times." In the 28th canon given under King Edgar (preserved in Wheloc's edition of Bede), I find decent behaviour enjoined at these church wakes. The people are commanded to pray devoutly at them, and not to betake themselves to drinking or debauchery.

The following is preserved in the MS. Collections of Aubrey (relating to North Wilts) in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, dated 1678: "Before the Wake or feast of the dedication of the church, they sat up all night fasting and praying." That is, upon the eve of the wake.

Captain Silas Taylor says, that "in the days of yore, when a church was to be built, they watched and prayed on the vigil of the dedication, and took that point of the horizon where the sun arose for the east, which makes that variation, so that few (churches) stand true except those built between the two equinoxes. I have experimented some churches, and [p.7] have found the line to point to that part of the horizon where the sun rises on the day of that Saint to whom the church is dedicated."

In the Introduction to the Survey of North Wiltshire, printed in Aubrey's Miscellanies, 1714, p. 33, we read: "The night before the day of dedication of the church, certain officers were chosen for gathering the money for charitable uses. Old John Wastfield, of Langley, was Peter Man at St. Peter's Chapel there."

The following ludicrous trait in the description of a country wake is a curious one from a most rare little book entitled A strange Metamorphosis of Man, transformed into a Wildernesse, deciphered in Characters, 1634. He is speaking of the Goose. "They hate," says our quaint author, "the laurell, which is the reason they have no poets amongst them; so as if there be any that seeme to have a smatch in that generous science, he arrives no higher than the style of a ballet, wherein they have a reasonable facultie; especially at a WAKE, when they assemble themselves together at a towne-greene, for then they sing their ballets, and lay out such throats as the country fidlers cannot be heard." I cannot omit quoting thence, also, the well-known singularity of this domestic fowl. "She hath a great opinion of her own stature, especially if she be in company of the rest of her neighbours and fellow-gossippes, the duckes and hennes, at a harvest feast; for then if she enter into the hall there, as high and wide as the doore is, she will stoop for feare of breaking her head."

Great numbers attending at these wakes, by degrees less devotion and reverence were observed, till at length, from hawkers and pedlars coming thither to sell their petty wares, the merchants came also, and set up stalls and booths in the churchyards; and not only those, says Spelman, who lived in the parish to which the church belonged resorted thither, but others also, from all the neighbouring towns and villages: and the greater the reputation of the Saint, the greater were the numbers that flocked together on this occasion. The holding of these fairs on Sundays was justly found fault with by the clergy. The Abbot of Ely, in King John's reign, inveighed much against so flagrant a profanation of the sabbath; but this irreligious custom was not entirely abolished till the reign of King Henry the Sixth.

[p.8]

[A good description of a Wake is given in the Spectator, No. 161: "I was last week at one of these assemblies, which was held in a neighbouring parish; where I found their green covered with a promiscuous multitude of all ages and both sexes, who esteem one another more or less the following part of the year according as they distinguish themselves at this time. The whole company were in their holiday clothes, and divided into several parties, all of them endeavouring to show themselves in those exercises wherein they excelled, and to gain the approbation of the lookers-on." The sports described are cudgel-playing, football, and wrestling.]

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xvi. 460, 1795, Parishes of Sandwick and Stromness, co. Orkney, we read: "Parish of Sandwick: The people do no work on the 3d day of March, in commemoration of the day on which the church of Sandwick was consecrated; and as the church was dedicated to St. Peter, they also abstain from working for themselves on St. Peter's Day (29th June); but they will work to another person who employs them." In the same work, xviii. 652, Parish of Culross, we are told: "St. Serf was considered as the tutelar Saint of this place, in honour of whom there was an annual procession on his day: viz. 1st July, early in the morning of which all the inhabitants, men and women, young and old, assembled and carried green branches through the town, decking the public places with flowers, and spent the rest of the day in festivity. (The church was dedicated not only to the Virgin Mary, but also to St. Serf.) The procession is still continued, though the day is changed from the Saint's day to the present king's birthday."

In many villages in the north of England these meetings are still kept up, under the name of Hoppings.⁶ We shall hope that the rejoicings on them are still restrained in general within the bounds of innocent festivity; though it is to be feared they sometimes prove fatal to the morals of our swains, and corrupt the innocence of our rustic maids. So [p.9] in Northbrooke's Treatise against Dauncing, p. 118: "Also their daunces were spiritual, religious, and godly, not after our hoppings and leapings, and interminglings men with women, &c. (dauncing every one for his part), but soberly, gravely," &c. Also, p. 132, "What good doth all that dauncing of young women holding upon men's armes, that they may hop the higher?"

In a most curious and rare tract, entitled A Joco-serious Discourse in two Dialogues, between a Northumberland Gentleman and his Tenant, a Scotchman, both old Cavaliers, 1686, p. 32, we read:

"To horse-race, fair, or hoppin go,
There play our cast among the whipsters,
Throw for the hammer, lowp (leap) for slippers,
And see the maids dance for the ring,
Or any other pleasant thing;
F*** for the pigg, lye for the whetstone,
Or chuse what side to lay our betts on."

We find notes explaining the word "Hoppin" by "annual feasts in country towns where no market is kept," and "lying for the whetstone," I'm told, has been practised, but **** for the pigg is beyond the memory of any I met with; tho' it is a common phrase in the north to any that's gifted that way; and probably there has been such a mad practice formerly. The ancient grossierete of our manners would almost exceed belief. In the stage directions to old Moralities we often find "Here Satan letteth a ****." Lying for the whetstone will be explained in another part of the present volume. [The following notice was circulated on the occasion of a hopping at Newcastle in 1758: "On this day (May 22) the annual diversions at Swalwell will take place, which will consist of dancing for ribbons, grinning for tobacco, women running for smocks, ass races, foot courses by men, with an odd whim of a man eating a cock alive, feathers, entrails, &c."]

Hospinian cites Thomas Naogeorgus, in his fourth book of the Regnum Papisticum, as drawing a most loathsome picture of the excesses and obscenities used in his time at the Feast of Dedications. Thus translated by Barnabe Googe:

"The Dedication of the Church is yerely had in minde,
With worship passing catholicke, and in a wond'rous kinde:

[p.10]

From out the steeple hie is hangde a crosse and banner fayre,
The pavement of the temple strowde with hearbes of pleasant ayre;
The pulpets and the aulters all that in the church are scene,
And every pewe and piller great are deckt with boughes of greene:
The tabernacles opned are, and images are drest,
But chiefly he that patron is doth shine above the rest:
A horde there standes, whereon their bulles and pardons thick they lay,
That given are to every one that keepes this holyday:
The idoll of the patron eke without the doore doth stande,
And beggeth fast of every man, with pardons in his hande:
"Who for bicause he lackes his tongue, and hath not yet the skill
In common people's languages, when they speak well or ill;
He hath his owne interpreter, that alwayes standeth by,
And unto every man that commeth in or out doth cry:
Desiring them the patrone there with giftes to have in minde,
And popishe pardons for to buie, release of sinnes to finde.
On every side the neighbours come, and such as dwell not nere,
Come of their owrie good willes, and some required to be there.
And every man his weapon hath, their svvordes and launces long,
Their axes, curriars, pystolets, with pykes and darts among.
The yong men in their best array, and trimmest maydes appeare,
Both jeasters, roges, and minstrels with their instruments are heare.
The pedler doth his packe untrusse, the host his pots doth fill,
And on the table breade and drinke doth set for all that will:
Nor eyther of them their heape decey ves, for of the others all,
To them th' advauntage of this feaste, and gaine, doth chiefly fall.
The service done, tbey eyther to the taverne fast doe flie,
Or to their neighbour's house, whereas they feede unreasonablie:
For sixe or seven courses they unto the table bring,
And for their suppers may compare with any heathen king.
The table taken up, they rise, and all the youth apace,
The minstrell with them called go to some convenient place:
Where, when with bagpipe hoarce he hath begon his musicke fine.
And unto such as are preparde to daunce hath given signe,
Comes thither streight both boys and gyrles, and men that aged bee,
And maryed folkes of middle age, there also comes to see,
Old wrinckled hagges, and youthfull dames, that minde to daunce aloft,
Then sundrie pastimes do begin, and filthie daunces oft:
When drunkards they do lead the daunce with fray and bloody fight,
That handes, and eares, and head, and face, are torne in wofull plight.
The streames of bloud runne downe the armes, and oftentimes is seene
The carkasse of some ruffian slaine, is left upon the greene.
Here many, for their lovers sweete, some daintie thing do buie,
And many to the taverne goe, and drinke for companie,
Whereas they foolish songs do sing, and noyses great do make:
Some in the meane while play at carries, and some the dice do shake.
Their custome also is, the priest into the house to pull
Whom, when they have, they thinke their game accomplished at full:
He farre in noyse exceedes them all, and eke in drinking drie
The cuppes, a prince he is, and holdes their heades that speewing lie."

[p.11]

In Hinde's Life of John Bruen, of Bruen-Stapleford, in the county of Chester, Esquire, 1641, at p. 89, the author, speaking of Popish and profane wakes at Tarum, says: "Popery and Profannes, two sisters in evil, had consented and conspired in this parish, as in many other places, together to advance their idols against the arke of God, and to celebrate their solemne feastes of their Popish Saints, as being the Dututelares, the speciall patrons and protectors of their church and parish, by their WAKES and VIGILS, kept in commemoration and honour of them, in all riot and excesse of eating and drinking, dalliance and dancing, sporting and gaming, and other abominable impieties and idolatries."

"In the northern counties," says Hutchinson, in his History of Northumberland, ii. 26, "these holy feasts are not yet abolished ; and in the county of Durham many are yet celebrated. They were originally Feasts of Dedication in commemoration of the consecration of the church, in imitation of Solomon's great convocation at the consecrating the Temple of Jerusalem. The religious tenour is totally forgotten, and the Sabbath is made a day of every dissipation and vice which it is possible to conceive could crowd upon a villager's manners and rural life. The manner of holding these festivals in former times was under tents and booths erected in the churchyard, where all kinds of diversions were introduced. Interludes were there performed, being a species of theatrical performance, consisting of a rehearsal of some passages in Holy Writ personated by actors. This kind of exhibition is spoken of by travellers who have visited Jerusalem, where the religious even presume to exhibit the Crucifixion and Ascension with all their tremendous circumstances. On these celebrations in this country, great feasts were displayed, and vast abundance of meat and drink."

Of Cheshire, Dr. Gower, in his Sketch of the Materials for a History of that County, tells us: "I cannot avoid reminding you upon the present occasion, that frumenty makes the principal entertainment of all our country wakes: our common people call it 'firmitry.' It is an agreeable composition of boiled wheat, milk, spice, and sugar," p. 10. King, in his Vale Royal of England, p. 20, speaking of the inhabitants of Chester, says: "Touching their house-keeping, it is bountiful [p.12] and comparable with any other shire in the realm: and that is to be seen at their weddings and burials, but chiefly at their wakes, which they yearly hold (although it be of late years well laid down)."

Macaulay, in his History of Claybrook, 1791, p. 93, observes that there is a wake the Sunday next after St. Peter, to whom the church is dedicated: adding, at p. 128, "the people of this neighbourhood are much attached to the celebration of wakes; and on the annual return of those festivals, the cousins assemble from all quarters, fill the church on Sunday, and celebrate Monday with feasting, with musick, and with dancing. The spirit of old English hospitality is conspicuous among the farmers on those occasions; but with the lower sort of people, especially in manufacturing villages, the return of the wake never fails to produce a week, at least, of idleness, intoxication, and riot: these and other abuses, by which these festivals are so grossly perverted from the original end of their institution, render it highly desirable to all the friends of order, of decency, and of religion, that they were totally suppressed." The following is found in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 300:

"Come, Anthea, let us two
Go to feast, as others do.
Tarts and custards, creams and cakes
Are the junkets still at wakes:
Unto which the tribes resort,
Where the businesse is the sport.
Morris-dancers thou shalt see,
Marian too in pagentrie;
And a mimick to devise
Many grinning properties.
Players there will be, and those
Base in action as in clothes;
Yet with strutting they will please
The incurious villages.
Near the dying of the day
There will be a cudgel-play,
When a coxcomb will be broke
Ere a good word can be spoke.
But the anger ends all here,
Drencht in ale, or drown'd in beere.
Happy rusticks, best content
With the cheapest merriment;
And possesse no other feare
Than to want the wake next yeare."

[p.13]

In Sir Aston Cokain's Poems, 1658, p. 210, is the following:

"To Justice Would-be.

"That you are vext their wakes your neighbours keep,
They guess it is because you want your sleep;
I therefore wish that you your sleep would take,
That they (without offence) might keep their wake."

It appears that in ancient times the parishioners brought rushes at the Feast of Dedication, wherewith to strew the church, and from that circumstance the festivity itself has obtained the name of Rush-bearing,⁷ which occurs for a country wake in a glossary to the Lancashire dialect. In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the city of London, 1504, Yongeham and Revell, is the following article: "Paid for 2 berden rysshes for the strewyng the newe pewes, 3d." Ibid. 1493, Howtyng and Overy "for 3 burdens of rushes for the new pews, 3d." In similar Accounts for the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster (4 to. p. 12), under the year 1544, is the following item: "Paid for rushes against the Dedication Day, which is always the first Sunday of October, 1s. 5d." In Coates's History of Reading, p. 227, among the entries in the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Laurence Parish for 1602, we have: "Paid for flowers and rushes for the churche when the Queene was in town, xxd." In Thomas Newton's Herball to the Bible, 1587, is the following passage: "Sedge and rushes with the which many in the country do use in summer time to strawe their parlors and churches, as well for cooleness as for pleasant smell." Chambers, and indeed all apartments usually inhabited, were formerly strewed in this manner. As our ancestors rarely washed their floors, disguises of uncleanliness became necessary things. It appears that the English stage was strewed with rushes. The practice in private houses is noticed by Dr. Johnson from Caius de Ephemera Britannica.

In Whimzies, or a New Cast of Characters, 1631, p. 197, [p.14] describing a zealous brother, the author tells us: "He denounceth a heavy woe upon all wakes, summerings, and rush-bearings, preferring that act whereby pipers were made rogues by Act of Parliament, before any in all the Acts and Monuments." In the same work, p. 19 (second part), speaking of a pedlar, the author says: "A countrey rush-bearing, or morrice-pastoral, is his festival; if ever he aspire to plum-porridge, that is the day. Here the guga-girles gingle it with his neat nifles." So, also, in A Boulster Lecture, 1640, p. 78, we find: "Such an one as not a rush-bearer or May-morrish in all that parish could subsist without him," Notices of the custom of rush-bearing in different parts of Derbyshire will be found in Glover's History and Gazetteer of the County of Derby, i. 259, 260.

[The rush-bearing, according to Lucas, is in this manner: They cut hard rushes from the marsh, which they make up into long bundles, and then dress them in fine linen, silk ribands, flowers, &c. Afterwards, the young women in the village, who perform the ceremony that year, take up the burdens erect, and begin the procession (precedence being always given to the churchwarden's burden), which is attended with music, drums, &c. Setting down their burdens in the church, they strip them of their ornaments, leaving the heads or crowns of them decked with flowers, cut papers, &c. Then the company return and cheerfully partake of a cold collation, and spend the remaining part of the day and night in dancing round a maypole, adorned with flowers.]

Bridges, in his History of Northamptonshire, i. 187, speaking of the parish of Middleton Chenduit, says: "It is a custom here to strew the church in summer with hay gathered from six or seven swaths in Ash-meadow, which have been given for this purpose. The rector finds straw in winter."

In Ireland, "on the Patron Day," according to Sir Henry Piers, 1682, in most parishes, as also on the feasts of Easter and Whitsuntide, the more ordinary sort of people meet near the alehouse in the afternoon, on some convenient spot of ground, and dance for the cake; here, to be sure, the piper fails not of diligent attendance. The cake to be danced for is provided at the charge of the alewife, and is advanced on a board on the top of a pike about ten feet high; this board is round, and from it riseth a kind of a garland, beset and [p.15] tied round with meadow-flowers, if it be early in the summer; if later, the garland has the addition of apples, set round on pegs, fastened unto it. The whole number of dancers begin all at once in a large ring, a man and a woman, and dance round about the bush (so is this garland called) and the piper as long as they are able to hold out. They that hold out longest at the exercise win the cake and apples, and then the alewife's trade goes on.

CARTERS' INTERJECTIONS.

PERHAPS it will be thought no uninteresting article in this little code of Vulgar Antiquities to mention a well-known interjection used by the country people to their horses, when yoked to a cart, &c., Heit or Heck! I find this used in the days of Chaucer, in the Friar's Tale:

"They saw a cart that charged was with hay,
The which a carter drove forth on his way:
Depe was the way, for which the carte stode;
The carter smote and cryde as he were wode,
Heit Scot! Heit Brok! what spare ye for the stones?
The Fiend, quoth he, you fetch, body and bones!"

The name of Brok is still, too, in frequent use amongst farmers' draught oxen.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1799, lxix. 659, derives Woohe! the well-known exclamation to stop a team of horses, from the Latin. "The exclamation used by our waggoners when they wish, for any purpose, to stop their team (an exclamation which it is less difficult to speak than to write, although neither is a task of great facility), is probably a legacy bequeathed us by our Roman ancestors; precisely a translation of the ancient classical Ohe! an interjection strictly confined to bespeaking a pause rendered by our lexicographers, Enough! Oh) enough!

'Ohe, jam satis est Ohe, Libelle.'"

A learned friend, whose communications I have frequently had occasion to acknowledge in the course of this work, says: "The exclamation 'Geho, geho,' which carmen use to their horses, is probably of great antiquity. It is not peculiar to this country, as I have heard it used in France. In the story [p.16] of the milkmaid who kicked down her pail, and with it all her hopes of getting rich, as related in a very ancient collection of apologues, entitled Dialogus Creaturarum, printed at Gouda, in 1480, is the following passage: 'Et cum sic gloriaretur, et cogitaret cum quanta gloria duceretur ad ilium virum super equum dicendo gio gio, cepit pede percutere terram quasi pungeret equum calcaribus.'"

HARVEST HOME,
ALIAS MELL SUPPER, KERN OR CHURN SUPPER, OR FEAST OF INGATHERING.

MACROBIUS tells us⁸ that, among the Heathens, the masters of families, when they had got in their harvest, were wont to feast with their servants who had laboured for them in tilling the ground. In exact conformity to this, it is common among Christians, when the fruits of the earth are gathered in and laid in their proper repositories, to provide a plentiful supper for the harvest-men and the servants of the family. At this entertainment all are, in the modern revolutionary idea of the word, perfectly equal. Here is no distinction of persons, but master and servant sit at the same table, converse freely together, and spend the remainder of the night in dancing, singing, &c., in the most easy familiarity.

Bourne thinks the original of both these customs is Jewish, and cites Hospinian, who tells us that the Heathens copied after this custom of the Jews, and at the end of the harvest offered up their first fruits to the gods.⁹ For the Jews rejoiced and feasted at the getting in of the harvest.

[p.17]

This festivity is undoubtedly of the most remote antiquity. That men in all nations where agriculture flourished should have expressed their joy on this occasion by some outward ceremonies has its foundation in the nature of things. Sowing is hope; reaping, fruition of the expected good. To the husbandman, whom the fear of wet, blights, &c., has harassed with great anxiety, the completion of his wishes could not fail of imparting an enviable feeling of delight. Festivity is but the reflex of inward joy, and it could hardly fail of being produced on this occasion, which is a temporary suspension of every care.

The respect shown to servants at this season seems to have sprung from a grateful sense of their good services. Everything depends at this juncture on their labour and despatch. Vacina, (or Vacuna, so called as it is said a vacando, the tutelar deity, as it were, of rest and ease,) among the ancients, was the name of the goddess to whom rustics sacrificed at the conclusion of harvest.

In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, under the me nth of August are the following lines:

"Grant, harvest-lord, more by a penny or two,
To call on his fellowes the better to doo:
Give gloves to thy reapers a larges to crie,
And daily to loiterers have a good eie."

On which is this note in Tusser Redivivus, 1744, p. 100: "He that is the lord of harvest is generally some stayd, sober-working man, who understands all sorts of harvest-work. If he be of able body he commonly leads the swarth in reaping arid mowing. It is customary to give gloves to reapers, especially where the wheat is thistly. As to crying a largess, they need not be reminded of it in these our days, whatever they were in our author's time." [The following curious lines "Upon the Norfolk Largess," are taken from the Norfolk Drollery, 1673, pp. 73-4:

"We have a custom, no where else is known,
For here we reap, where nothing e'er was sown;
Our harvest-men shall run ye cap and leg,
And leave their work at any time to beg.
They make a harvest of each passenger,
And therefore have they a lord-treasurer.

[p.18]

Here ye must pence, as well as prayers bestow,
"Tis not enough to say ' God speed the plow.'
These ask as men that meant to make ye stand,
For they petition with their arms in hand;
And till ye give, or some good sign appears,
They listen to ye with their harvest-eares.
If nothing drops into the gaping purse,
Ye carry with ye, to be sure, a curse;
But if a largess come, they shout ye deaf,
Had you as many ears as a wheatsheaf:
Sometimes the hollow greater is by odds,
As when 'tis answer'd from the ivye tods.
Here all unite, and each his accent bears,
That were but now together by the eares.
And, which a contradiction doth imply,
Because they get a largess they must cry;
Cry with a pox ! whoever of it hears,
May wish their tankard had no other tears:
Thus, in a word, our reapers now-a-days,
Reap in the field, and glean in the high-ways."]

Mr. Stevenson, in the Twelve Moneths, 1661, p. 37, speaking of August, thus glances at the customs of Harvest Home: "The furmenty-pot welcomes home the harvest-cart, and the garland of flowers crowns the captain of the reapers; the battle of the field is now stoutly fought. The pipe and the tabor are now busily set a-work; and the lad and the lass will have no lead on their heels. 'Tis the merry time wherein honest neighbours make good cheer, and God is glorified in his blessings on the earth." The following is in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 113:

"The Hock-cart, or Harvest-home: to the Right Honourable Mildmay Earle of Westmorland.

"Come, sons of Summer, by whose toile
We are the lords of wine and oile,
By whose tough labour and rough hands,
We rip up first, then reap our lands,
Crown'd with the eares of corne, now come,
And to the pipe sing harvest home;
Come forth, my lord, and see the cart,
Brest up with all the country art.
See here a maukin, there a sheet
As spotlesse pure as it is sweet:
The horses, mares, and frisking fillies,
(Clad, all, in linnen, white as lillies,)

[p.19]

The harvest swames and wenches bound
For joy, to see the hock-cart crown'd.
About the cart, heare how the rout
Of rural younglings raise the shout;
Pressing before, some coming after,
Those with a shout, and these with laughter.
Some blesse the cart; some kiss the sheaves;
Some prank them up with oaken leaves:
Some crosse the fill-horse ; some, with great
Devotion, stroak the home-borne wheat:
While other rusticks, less attent
To prayers than to merryment
Run after with their breeches rent.
Well, on, brave boyes, to your lord's hearth,
Glitt'ring with fire; where, for your mirth,
You shall see, first, the large and cheefe
Foundation of your feast, fat beefe:
With upper stories, mutton, veale,
And bacon (which makes fulle the meale),
With sev'rall dishes standing by,
And here a custard, there a pie,
And here all-tempting fruinentie."

[The Suffolk peasantry use, amongst others, the following Harvest-home song:

"Here's a health to the barley-mow!
Here's a health to the man
Who very well can
Both harrow, and plough, and sow!
When it is well sown,
See it is well mown,
Both raked and gravelled clean,
And a barn to lay it in.
Here's a health to the man
Who very well can
Both thrash and fan it clean!"]

Newton, in his Tryall of a Man's owne Selfe, 1602, p. 54, under Breaches of the Second Commandment, censures "the adorning with garlands, or presenting unto any image of any Saint, whom thou hast made speciall choice of to be thy patron and advocate, the firstlings of thy increase, as CORNE and GRAINE, and other oblations."

Moresin tells us that Popery, in imitation of this, brings home her chaplets of corn, which she suspends on poles; that offerings are made on the altars of her tutelar gods, while [p.20] thanks are returned for the collected stores, and prayers are made for future ease and rest. Images, too, of straw or stubble, he adds, are wont to be carried about on this occasion; and that in England he himself saw the rustics bringing home in a cart a figure made of corn, round which men and women were singing promiscuously, preceded by a drum or piper. In a Journey into England, by Paul Hentzner, in the year 1598, ed. 1757, p. 79, speaking of Windsor, he says: "As we were returning to our inn, we happened to meet some country people celebrating their Harvest Home; their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which perhaps they would signify Ceres: this they would keep moving about, while men and women, men and maid-servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn."

"I have seen," says Hutchinson, in his History of Northumberland, ii. ad finem, 17, "in some places, an image apparelled in great finery, crowned with flowers, a sheaf of corn placed under her arm, and a scycle in her hand, carried out of the village in the morning of the conclusive reaping day, with music and much clamour of the reapers, into the field, where it stands fixed on a pole all day, and when the reaping is done, is brought home in like manner. This they call the Harvest Queen, and it represents the Roman Ceres."

An old woman, who is respectable authority on a subject of this nature, at a village in Northumberland, informed me that, not half a century ago, they used everywhere to dress up something similar to the figure above described at the end of harvest, which was called a Harvest Doll, or Kern Baby. This northern word is plainly a corruption of corn baby, or image, as is the kern supper, which we shall presently consider, of corn supper. In Carew's Survey of Cornwall, f. 20 b, "an ill-kerned or saved harvest" occurs.

At Werington, in Devonshire, the clergyman of the parish informed me that when a farmer finishes his reaping, a small quantity of the ears of the last corn are twisted or tied together into a curious kind of figure, which is brought home with great acclamations, hung up over the table, and kept till the next year. The owner would think it extremely unlucky to part with this, which is called "a knack." The whoop and halloo "A knack! a knack! well cut! [p.21] well bound! well shocked!" and in some places, in a sort of mockery, it is added, "Well scattered on the ground." A countryman gave me a somewhat different account, as follows: "When they have cut the corn, the reapers assemble together: a knack is made, which one placed in the middle of the company holds up, crying thrice, 'A knack!' which all the rest repeat : the person in the middle then says:

'Well cut! well bound!
Well shocked ! well saved from the ground!'

He afterwards cries 'Whoop!' and his companions hollow as loud as they can." I have not the most distant idea of the etymology of the "knacks" used on this occasion. I applied for one of them. No farmer would part with that which hiding over his table; but one was made on purpose for me. I should suppose that Moresin alludes to something like this when he says: "Et spiceas papatus (habet) coronas, quas videre est in domibus," &c. Papatus, p. 163, v. SPICLE.

Purchas in his Pilgr., 1626, lib. ix. c. 12, speaking of the Peruvian superstitions, and quoting Acosta, lib. vi. c. 3, tells us: "In the sixth moneth they offered a hundred sheep of all colours, and then made a feast, bringing the mayz from the fields into the house, which they yet use. This feast is made coming from the farm to the house, saying certain songs, and praying that the mayz may long continue. They put a quantity of the mayz (the best that groweth in their farms) in a thing which they call Pirva, with certain ceremonies, watching three nights. Then do they put it in the richest garment they have, and, being thus wrapped and dressed, they worship this Pirva, holding it in great veneration, and saying it is the mother of the mayz of their inheritance, and that by this means the mayz augments and is preserved. In this month they make a particular sacrifice, and the witches demand of this Pirva if it hath strength enough to continue until the next year; and if it answers No, then they carry this mayz to the farm whence it was taken, to burn and make another Pirva as before: and this foolish vanity still continueth."

This Peruvian Pirva, says my learned and ingenious friend Mr. Walter, Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, bears a strong resemblance to what is called in Kent an Ivy Girl, which is a figure composed of some of the best corn the field produces, [p.22] and made as well as they can into a human shape; this is afterwards curiously dressed by the women, and adorned with paper trimmings, cut to resemble a cap, ruffles, handkerchief, &c. of the finest lace. It is brought home with the last load of corn from the field upon the waggon, and they suppose entitles them to a supper at the expense of their employers.¹⁰

Dr. E. D. Clarke, noticing the annual custom at Rhodes of carrying Silenus in procession at Easter, says: "Even in the town of Cambridge, and centre of our University, such curious remains of ancient customs may be noticed, in different seasons of the year, which pass without observation. The custom of blowing horns upon the first of May (old style) is derived from a festival in honour of Diana. At the Hawkie, as it is called, I have seen a clown dressed in woman's clothes, having his face painted, his head decorated with ears of corn, and bearing about him other symbols of Ceres, carried in a waggon, with great pomp and loud shouts, through the streets, the horses being covered with white sheets; and when I inquired the meaning of the ceremony, was answered by the people, that they were drawing the HARVEST QUEEN."

In Otia Sacra, 4to. Lond. 1648, p. 173, in "Verses on Retiredness," we read:

"How the Hock-Cart with all its gear
Should be trick'd up, and what good chear."

Hockey Cake is that which is distributed to the people at Harvest Home. The following lines occur in Poor Robin's Almanack for August, 1676:

"Hoacky is brought home with hallowing,
Boys with plumb-cake the cart following."

The Hockey Cart is that which brings the last corn, and the children rejoicing with boughs in their hands, with which the horses also are attired. See Salmon's Survey, Hertfordshire, ii. 415.

In Braithwaite's Lancashire Lovers, 1640, p. 19, the rustic lover entices his mistress to marriage with promise of many [p.23] rural pleasures, among which occurs, "Wee will han a seed-cake at Fastens;" and in Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, ed. 1638, under the character of a Franklin, we find enumerated the several country sports, amongst which occurs "the Hoky or Seed Cake."

In some parts of Yorkshire, as a clergyman of that county informed me, there is given at the end of shearing or reaping the corn, a prize sheaf to be run for; and when all the corn is got home into the stack-yard, an entertainment is given, called the Inning Goose.

[A custom exists amongst harvest-men in Suffolk, which is called Ten-pounding. In most reaps there is a set of rules agreed upon amongst the reapers before harvest, by which they are to be governed during its continuance. The object of these rules is usually to prevent or punish loss of time by laziness, drunkenness, &c.; and to correct swearing, lying, or quarrelling amongst themselves; or any other kind of misbehaviour which might slacken the exertions, or break the harmony of the reap. One of the modes of punishment directed by these rules, is called Ten-pounding, and it is executed in the following manner: Upon a breach of any of the rules, a sort of drum-head court-martial is held upon the delinquent; and if he is found guilty he is instantly seized, and thrown down flat on his back. Some of the party keep his head down, and confine his arms; whilst others turn up his legs in the air, so as to exhibit his posteriors. The person who is to inflict the punishment then takes a shoe, and with the heel of it (studded as it usually is with hob-nails) gives him the prescribed number of blows upon his breech, according to the sentence. The rest of the party sit by, with their hats off, to see that the executioner does his duty; and if he fails in this, he undergoes the same punishment. It sometimes happens, that, from the prevailing use of high-lows, a shoe is not to be found amongst the company. In this case, the hardest and heaviest hand of the reap is selected for the instrument of correction, and, when it is laid on with hearty good will, it is not inferior to the shoe. The origin of the term Ten-pounding is not known; but it has nothing to do with the number of blows inflicted.¹¹]

[p.24]

Different places adopt different ceremonies. There is a sport on this occasion in Hertfordshire, called Crying the Mare, (it is the same in Shropshire,) when the reapers tie together the tops of the last blades of corn, which is Mare, and standing at some distance, throw their sickles at it, and he who cuts the knot has the prize, with acclamations and good cheer.¹² I was informed of the following custom on this occasion at Hitchin, in the same county, where each farmer drives furiously home with the last load of his corn, while the people run after him with bowls full of water in order to throw on it: this is also accompanied with great shouting.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1795, p. 124, on Ancient Customs in the Isle of Sky, says: "In this hyperborean country, in every district there is to be met with a rude stone consecrated to Gruagach, or Apollo. The first who has done with his reaping sends a man or a maiden with a bundle of corn to his next neighbour, who hath not yet reaped down his harvest, who, when he has finished, despatches to his own next neighbour, who is behind in his work, and so on, until the whole corns are cut down. This sheaf is called the Cripple Goat, or Goabbir Bhacagh, and is at present meant as a brag or affront to the farmer, for being more remiss or later than others in reaping the harvest, for which reason the bearer of it must make as good a pair of heels, for fear of being ill-used for his indiscretion, as he can. Whether the appellation of Cripple Goat may have any the least reference to the Apollonian Altar of Goats' Horns I shall not pretend to determine." From some Reflections by the Rev. Donald M'Queen of Kilmuir, in the Isle of Sky.

In the ancient Roman Calendar, so often cited, I find the following observations on the 11th of June: (the harvests in Italy are much earlier than with us) "Messorum sestas, et eorum consuetudo cum agresti pompa." "The season of reapers, and their custom with rustic pomp."

[p.25]

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, 1797, xix. 550, Parish of Longforgan, Perth, we read: "It was, till very lately, the custom to give what was called a Maiden Feast, upon the finishing of the harvest; and to prepare for which, the last handful of corn reaped in the field was called the Maiden. This was generally contrived to fall into the hands of one of the finest girls in the field, was dressed up with ribands, and brought home in triumph, with the music of fiddles or bagpipes. A good dinner was given to the whole band, and the evening spent in joviality and dancing, while the fortunate lass who took the Maiden was the queen of the feast; after which this handful of corn was dressed out, generally in the form of a cross, and hung up with the date of the year, in some conspicuous part of the house. This custom is now entirely done away, and in its room each shearer is given 6d. and a loaf of bread. However, some farmers, when all their corns are brought in, give their servants a dinner and a jovial evening, by way of Harvest Home."

Thomson, in his Seasons, has left us a beautiful description of the annual festivity of Harvest Home. His words are these:

"The harvest treasures all
Now gather'd in, beyond the rage of storms,
Sure to the swain; the circling fence shut up;
And instant Winter's utmost rage defy'd,
While, loose to festive joy, the country round
Laughs with the loud sincerity of mirth,
Shook to the wind their cares. The toil-strung youth,
By the quick sense of music taught alone,
Leaps wildly graceful in the lively dance.
Her ev'ry charm abroad, the village toast,
Young, buxom, warm, in native beauty rich,
Darts not unmeaning looks; and where her eye
Points an approving smile, with double force
The cudgel rattles, and the wrestler twines.
Age too shines out; and, garrulous, recounts
The feats of youth. Thus they rejoice; nor think
That, with to-morrow's sun, their annual toil
Begins again the never-ceasing round.''

In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, under the month of August, in addition to the lines already quoted, are the following, alluding to this festivity:

"In harvest time, harvest folke, servants and all,
Should make, alltogither, good cheere in the hall,

[p.26]

And fill out the black bol of bleith to their song,
And let them be merrie al harvest time long.
Once ended thy harvest, let none be begilde,
Please such as did please thee, man, woman, and child.
Thus doing, with alway suche helpe as they can,
Thou winnest the praise of the labouring man."

On which is this note in Tusser Redivivus, p. 104: "This, the poor labourer thinks, crowns all: a good supper must be provided, and every one that did anything towards the inning must now have some reward, as ribbons, laces, rows of pins to boys and girls, if never so small, for their encouragement; and, to be sure, plum-pudding. The men must now have some better than best drink, which, with a little tobacco, and their screaming for their largesses, their business will soon be done." In another part of Tusser's work, under "The Ploughman's Feast Days," are these lines:

"For all this good feasting, yet art thou not loose,
Til Ploughman thou givest his Harvest Home goose;
Though goose go in stubble, I passe not for that.
Let Goose have a goose, be she lean, be she fat."

On which Tusser Redivivus remarks, p. 81, "The goose is forfeited if they overthrow during harvest."

In the Abbé de Marolle's Memoirs, in the description of the state of France under Henry IV., we find the following account of Harvest Home: "After the harvest, the peasants fixed upon some holiday to meet together and have a little regale (by them called the Harvest Gosling); to which they invited not only each other, but even their masters, who pleased them very much when they condescended to partake of it." (Anecdotes of some distinguished Persons, 1795, iii. 198.) In Cornwall, it should seem, they have "Harvest Dinners;" and these, too, not given immediately at the end of the harvest. "The harvest dinners," says Carew, in his Survey, f. 68, "are held by every wealthy man, or, as wee term it, every good liver, betweene Michaelmas and Candlemas, whereto he inviteth his next neighbours and kindred; and, though it beare onely the name of a dinner, yet the ghests take their supper also with them, and consume a great part of the night after in Christmas rule. Neither doth the good cheere wholly expire (though it somewhat decrease) but with the end of the weeke."

[p.27]

The country people in Warwickshire, according to Steevens, use a sport at their Harvest Home, where one sits as a judge, to try misdemeanors committed in harvest, and the punishment of the men is, to be laid on a bench and slapped on the breech with a pair of boots. This they call giving them the boots.

Formerly, it should seem, there was a Harvest Home Song. Bishop Kennett, in the Glossary to his Parochial Antiquities, v. Dytenum, tells us: "Homines de Hedyngton ad curiam Domini singulis armis inter festum S. Michaelis et festum S. Martini venient cum toto et pleno Dyteno, sicut hactenus consueverunt." This, he adds, is singing harvest home. Dr. Johnson tell us, in his Tour to the Hebrides, that he saw the harvest of a small field in one of the Western Islands. The strokes of the sickle were timed by the modulation of the harvest song, in which all their voices were united. They accompany, in the Highlands, every action which can be done in equal time with an appropriated strain, which has, they say, not much meaning, but its effects are regularity and cheerfulness. The ancient proceleusmatic song, by which the rowers of galleys were animated, may be supposed to have been of this kind. There is now an Oar Song used by the Hebridians. Thus far the learned traveller. I have often observed at Newcastle-upon-Tyne (and I suppose it is the same in other sea-port towns) that the sailors, in heaving their anchors, made use of a similar kind of song. In ploughing with oxen in Devonshire, I observed a song of the same kind.

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xix. 384, Bandothy, co. Perth, it is said: "There is one family on the Cupar-Grange estate, which has been there a century. The former tenant in that family kept a piper, to play to his shearers all the time of harvest, and gave him his harvest-fee. The slowest
shearer had always the drone behind him."

In the Life of Eugene Aram, 2d edit. p. 71, there is an essay on "the Mell-supper,¹³ and shouting the Churn," by that [p.28] unhappy but very extraordinary man. In this he supposes these feasts to be the relics of Pagan ceremonies, or Judaism, and to be of far higher antiquity than is generally apprehended, as old as a sense of joy for the benefit of plentiful harvest, and human gratitude to the Creator for his munificence to men. In England, he adds, we hear of it under various names in different counties, as Mell-supper, Churn-supper, Harvest-supper, Harvest-home, Feast of Ingathering, &c. To prove that the Jews celebrated the Feast of Harvest, he cites Exodus xxiii. 16, and Leviticus xxiii. 39, and refers to Callimachus's Hymn to Apollo to show that the Heathens misapplied through ignorance the acknowledgment of this festivity, and directed it to a secondary, not the primary fountain of this benefit, i.e. Apollo, or the Sun. Bread, or cakes, he says, composed part of the Hebrew offering, as appears by Leviticus xxiii. 13; and we gather from Homer, in the first book of his Iliad, that a cake thrown upon the head of the victim was also part of the Greek offering to Apollo. Apollo, continues Aram, losing his divinity on the progress of Christianity, what had been anciently offered to God the reapers as prudently eat up themselves. At last the use of the meal of new corn was neglected, and the supper, so far as meal was concerned, was made indifferently of old or new corn, as .was most agreeable to the founder. He derived MELL, either from meal, or else from the instrument called with us a mell, wherewith corn was anciently reduced to meal in a mortar. He adds, as the harvest was last concluded with several preparations of meal, or brought to be ready for the mell, this term became, in a translated signification, to mean the last of other [p.29] things; as when a horse comes last in the race, they often say in the North, he has got the mell.¹⁴ [On the completion of the reaping in Durham, they sing

"Bless'd be the day that Christ was born,
We've gotten mell of * * * * corn,
Weel bound and better shorn,
Hip! hip! huzza!"

This "Harvest-home Call" is the one generally made use of in the county of Devon:

"We have ploughed, we have sowed,
We have reaped, we have mowed,
We have brought home every load,
Hip! hip! hip! harvest-home!"

And the following is another provincial specimen:

"A knack! a knack!
Well- cut! well bound!
Well shocked! Well saved from the ground!
Whoop! whoop! huzza!!"]

There was also a churn-supper, or more properly a kern-supper (so they pronounce it vulgarly in Northumberland), and a shouting in the church, or kern. This, Aram informs [p.30] us, was different from that of the mell-supper: the former being always provided when ail was shorn, the latter after all was got in. I should have thought that most certainly kern-supper was no more than corn-supper, had not Aram asserted that it was called the churn-supper, because, from immemorial times, it was customary to produce in a churn a great quantity of cream, and to circulate it in cups to each of the rustic company, to be eaten with bread. This custom in Aram's time (he was executed in August 1759) survived about Whitby and Scarborough in the eastern parts of Yorkshire, and round about Gisburne, &c., in the west. In other places cream has been commuted for ale, and the tankard politely preferred to the churn.

To festivities of the same kind must be referred the Meadow Verse. In Herrick's Hesperides, p. 161, we have

"The Meddow Verse, or Anniversary, to Mistris Bridget Lawman.

"Come with the spring-time forth, fair maid, and be
This year again the medow's deity.
Yet ere ye enter, give us leave to set
Upon your head this flowry coronet;
To make this neat distinction from the rest,
You are the prime, and princesse of the feast:
To which, with silver feet, lead you the way,
While sweet-breath nymphs attend on you this day.
This is your houre; and best you may command,
Since you are lady of this fairie land.
Full mirth wait on you, and such mirth as shall
Cherrish the cheek, but make none blush at all.
The parting Verse, the Feast there ended.
Loth to depart, but yet at last, each one
Back must now go to's habitation:
Not knowing thus much, when we once do sever,
Whether or no that we shall meet here ever."

"If Fates do give
Me longer date, and more fresh springs to live,
Oft as your field shall her old age renew,
Herrick shall make the meddow-verse for you."

Armstrong, in his History of the Island of Minorca, p. 177, says: "Their harvests are generally gathered by the middle of June; and, as the corn ripens, a number of boys and girls [p.31] station themselves at the edges of the fields, and on the tops of the fence-walls, to fright away the small birds with their shouts and cries. This puts one in mind of Virgil's precept in the first book of his Georgics

'Et sonitu terrebis aves,'

and was a custom, I doubt not, among the Roman farmers, from whom the ancient Minorquins learned it. They also use, for the same purpose, a split reed: which makes a horrid rattling, as they shake it with their hands."

Bridges, in his History of Northamptonshire, i. 219, tells ns: "Within the Liberty of Warkworth in Ashe Meadow, divided amongst the neighbouring parishes, and famed for the following customs observed in the mowing of it. The meadow is divided into fifteen portions, answering to fifteen lots, which are pieces of wood cut off from an arrow, and marked according to the landmarks in the field. To each lot are allowed eight mowers, amounting to one hundred and twenty in the whole. On the Saturday seven night after Midsummer Day, these portions are laid out by six persons, of whom two are chosen from Warkworth, two from Overthorp, one from Grimsbury, and one from Nethercote. These are called Field-men, and have an entertainment provided for them upon the day of laying out the meadow, at the appointment of the lord of the manor. As soon as the meadow is measured, the man who provides the feast, attended by the Hay-ward of Warkworth, brings into the field three gallons of ale. After this the meadow is run, as they term it, or trod, to distinguish the lots; and, when this is over, the hay-ward brings into the field a rump of beef, six penny loaves, and three gallons of ale, and is allowed a certain portion of hay in return, though not of equal value with his provision. This hay-ward and the master of the feast have the name of Crocus-men. In running the field, each man hath a boy allowed to assist him. On Monday morning lots are drawn, consisting some of eight swaths, and others of four. Of these the first and last carry the garlands. The first two lots are of four swaths, and whilst these are mowing the mowers go double; and as soon as these are finished, the following orders are read aloud: 'Oyez! oyez! oyez! I charge you, under God, and in his Majesty's name, that you keep the King's peace in the lord of [p.32] the manor's behalf, according to the order and customs of this meadow. No man or men shall go before the two garlands; if you do, you shall pay your penny, or deliver your scythe at the first demand, and this so often as you shall transgress. No man or men shall mow above eight swaths over their lots, before they lay down their scythes and go to breakfast. No man or men shall mow any farther than Monks-holm-Brook, but leave their scythes there and go to dinner, according to the custom and manner of this manor. God save the King!' The dinner, provided by the lord of the manor's tenant, consists of three cheesecakes, three cakes, and a new-milk-cheese. The cakes and cheesecakes are of the size of a winnowing-sieve; and the person who brings them is to have three gallons of ale. The master of the feast is paid in hay, and is further allowed to turn all his cows into the meadow on Saturday morning till eleven o'clock; that by this means giving the more milk the cakes may be made the bigger. Other like customs are observed in the mowing of other meadows in this parish."

To the festivities of Harvest Home must be referred the following popular custom among the hop-pickers in Kent, thus described in Smart's Hop Garden, b. ii. 1. 477, and of which he gives an engraved representation in the title-page to his Poems, 1752. He is describing their competitions:

"Who first may fill
The bellying bin, and cleanest cull the hops.
Nor aught retards, unless invited out
By Sol's declining, and the evening's calm,
Leander leads Laetitia to the scene
Of shade and fragrance then th' exulting band
Of pickers, male and female, seize the fair
Reluctant, and with boisterous force and brute,
By cries unmov'd, they bury her in the bin.
Nor does the youth escape him too they seize,
And in such posture place as best may serve
To hide his charmer's blushes. Then with shouts
They rend the echoing air, and from them both
(So custom has ordain'd) a largess claim."

Martin, in his Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, p. 368, mentions a singular harvest superstition. Speaking of the Orkneys, he says: "There is one day in harvest on which the vulgar abstain from work, because of an ancient [p.33] and foolish tradition, that if they do their work the ridges will bleed." Brand also mentions this in his Description of the Orkney Islands, 1805.

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, 1793, vii. 303, Parish of Mouswald, co. Dumfries, we read: "The inhabitants can now laugh at the superstition and credulity of their ancestors, who, it is said, could swallow down the absurd nonsense of 'a boon of shearers,' i.e. reapers being turned into large grey stones on account of their kemping, i.e. striving. These stones, about twenty years ago, after being blasted with gunpowder, were used in building the farm-houses then erecting near the spot, which had formerly been part of a common."

THE HARVEST MOON.

[THE following charm is found in an edition of Mother Bunch, and is stated to be efficacious during the continuance of the harvest moon, a well-known astronomical phenomenon. When you go to bed, place under your pillow a common prayer-book, open at the part of the matrimonial service in which is printed, "With this ring I thee wed." Place on it a key, a ring, a flower, a sprig of willow, a small heart-cake, a crust of bread, and the following cards, viz. the ten of clubs, nine of hearts, ace of spades, and the ace of diamonds : wrap all these round in a hankerchief of thin gauze or muslin. On getting into bed, cross your hands and say

"Luna, every woman's friend,
To me thy goodness condescend;
Let me this night in visions see
Emblems of my destiny."

If you dream of flowers, trouble will betide you; if the storm ends in a fine calm, so will your fate; if of a ring or the ace of diamonds, marriage; bread, an industrious life; cake, a prosperous life; flowers, joy; willow, treachery in love, spades, death; diamonds, money; clubs, a foreign land; hearts, illegitimate children; keys, that you will rise to great trust and power, and never know want; birds, that you will have many children; geese, that you will marry more than once.]

[p.34]

THE FEAST OF SHEEP-SHEARING.

THE author of the Convivial Antiquities tells us that the pastoral life was anciently accounted an honourable one, particularly among the Jews and the Romans. Mention occurs in the Old Testament of the festive entertainments of the former on this occasion, particularly in the second book of Samuel, where Absalom the king's son was master of the feast. And Varro may be consulted for the manner of celebrating this feast among the latter.¹⁵ In England, particularly in the southern parts, for these festivities are not so common in the north, on the day they begin to shear their sheep, they provide a plentiful dinner for the shearers and their friends who visit them on the occasion: a table, also, if the weather permit, is spread in the open village for the young people and children. The washing and shearing of sheep, is attended with great mirth and festivity. Indeed, the value of the covering of this very useful animal must always have made the shearing-time, in all pastoral countries, a kind of Harvest Home. In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, under "The Ploughman's Feast-days," are the following lines, alluding to this festivity:

"Wife, make us a dinner, spare flesh neither come,
Make wafers and cakes, for our sheepe must be shorne;
At sheepe shearing, neighbours none other things crave,
But good cheere and welcome like neighbours to have."

There is a beautiful description of this festivity in Dyer's [p.35] poem called "The Fleece," at the end of the first book, 1. 601:

"At shearing-time, along the lively vales,
Rural festivities are often heard;
Beneath each blooming arbour all is joy
And lusty merriment : while on the grass
The mingled youth in gaudy circles sport,
We think the golden age again returned
And all the fabled Dryades in dance.
Leering, they bound along, with laughing air,
To the shrill pipe and deep remurm'ring chords
Of th' ancient harp, or tabor's hollow sound;
While th' old apart, upon a bank reclin'd,
Attend the tuneful carol, softly mixt
With ev'ry murmur of the sliding wave,
And ev'ry warble of the feather'd choir;
Music of Paradise! which still is heard
When the heart listens; still the views appear,
Of the first happy garden, when Content
To Nature's flowery scenes directs the sight.
With light fantastic toe, the nymphs
Thither assembled ; thither every swain;
And o'er the dimpled stream a thousand flow'rs,
Pale lilies, roses, violets, and pinks,
Mixt with the greens of burnet, mint, and thyme,
And trefoil sprinkled with their sportive arms.
Such custom holds along th' irriguous vales
From Wreakin's brow to rocky Dolvoryn,
Sabrina's early haunt.

-------------------The jolly chear
Spread on a mossy bank, untouch'd abides
Till cease the rites : and now the mossy bank
Is gaily circled, and the jolly chear
Dispers'd in copious measure: early fruits
And those of frugal store, in husk or kind;
Steep'd grain, and curdlet milk with dulcet cream
Soft temper'd, in full merriment they quaff,
And cast about their gibes; and some apace
Whistle to roundelays: their little ones
Look on delighted: while the mountain woods,
And winding valleys, with the various notes
Of pipe, sheep, kine, and birds, and liquid brooks,
Unite their echoes: near at hand the wide
Majestic wave of Severn slowly rolls
Along the deep divided glebe: the flood,
And trading bark with low contracted sail,
Linger among the reeds and copsy banks
To listen, and to view the joyous scene."

[p.36]

Thus, also, Thomson in his Summer, describes the washing and shearing of sheep:

"-----------------In one diffusive band
They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog
Compell'd, to where the mazy-running brook
Forms a deep pool: this bank abrupt and high,
And that fair-spreading in a pebbled shore.
Urged to the giddy brink, much is the toil,
The clamour much of men, and boys, and dogs,
Ere the soft fearful people to the flood
Commit their woolly sides. And oft the swain
On some impatient seizing, hurls them in;
Embolden'd then, nor hesitating more,
Fast, fast, they plunge amidst the flashing wave,
And, panting, labour to the farthest shore.
Repeated this, till deep the well-wash'd fleece
Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt
The trout is banish'd by the sordid stream;
Heavy, and dripping, to the breezy brow
Slow move the harmless race; where, as they spread
Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray,
Inly disturb 'd, and wondering what this wild
Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints
The country fill; and, toss'd from rock to rock,
Incessant bleatings run around the hills.
At last, of snowy white, the gather'd flocks
Are in the wattled pen innumerous press'd
Head above head ; and rang'd in lusty rows
The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears;
The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores
With all her gay-drest maids attending round.
One, chief, in gracious dignity enthron'd,
Shines o'er the rest the past'ral Queen, and rays
Her smiles, sweet-beaming on her shepherd King;
While the glad circle round them yield their souls
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.
Meantime their joyous task goes on apace:
Some mingling stir the melted tar, and some
Deep on the new-shorn vagrant's heaving side,
To stamp his master's cypher, ready stand;
Others th' unwilling wether drag along;
And glorying in his might, the sturdy boy
Holds by the twisted horns th' indignant ram.
Behold, when bound, and of its robe bereft,
By needy man, that all-depending lord,
How meek, how patient, the mild creature lies!
What softness in its melancholy face,
What dumb complaining innocence appears!

[p.37]

Fear not, ye gentle tribes! 'tis not the knife
Of horrid slaughter that is o'er you waved;
No! tis the tender swain's well-guided shears,
Who having now to pay his annual care,
Borrow'd your fleece, to you a cumbrous load,
Will send you bounding to your hills again."

By the following passage in Feme's Glory of Generositie, p. 71, it should seem that cheese-cakes composed a principal dainty at the feast of Sheep-shearing. "Well vor your paines (if you come to our Sheep-shearing veast) bum vaith yous taste of our CHEESE-CAKE." This is put into the mouth of Columell the Plowman. In Braithwaite's Lancashire Lovers, 1640, Camillus the Clown, courting Doriclea, tells her: "We will have a lustie CHEESE-CAKE at our sheepe wash," p. 19.

The expense attending these festivities appears to have afforded matter of complaint. Thus in Questions of profitable and pleasant Concernings, &c., 1594: "If it be a Sheep-shearing feast, Master Baily can entertain you with his bill of reckonings to his maister of three sheapherds' wages, spent on fresh cates, besides spices, and saffron pottage."

In Ireland, "On the first Sunday in harvest, viz. in August, they will be sure to drive their cattle into some pool or river and therein swim them: this they observe as inviolable as if it were a point of religion, for they think no beast will live the whole year through unless they be thus drenched. I deny not but that swimming of cattle, and chiefly in this season of the year, is healthful unto them, as the poet hath observed:

'Balantumque gregem fluvio niersare salubri.'—Virg.
'In th' healthful flood to plunge the bleating flock.'

But precisely to do this on the first Sunday in harvest, I look on as not only superstitious, but profane." Piers's Desc. of West Meath, in Vallancey's Collectanea, i. 121.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

BOURNE observes that in his time it was usual in country villages, where the politeness of the age had made no great conquest, to pay a greater deference to Saturday afternoon [p.38] than to any other of the working days of the week. The first idea of this cessation from labour at that time was, that every one might attend evening prayers as a kind of preparation for the ensuing Sabbath. The eve of the Jewish Sabbath is called the Preparation, Moses having taught that people to remember the Sabbath over night.

In Hearing and Doing the ready Way to Blessednesse, by Henry Mason, parson of St. Andrew Undershaft, 1635, p. 537, is the following, which would seem to prove that at that time Saturday afternoon was kept holy by some even in the metropolis: "For better keeping of which (the seventh) day, Moses commanded the Jews (Exod. xvi. 23) that the day before the Sabbath they should bake what they had to bake, and seeth what they had to seeth; so that they might have no businesse of their own to do, when they were to keepe God's holy day. And from hence it was that the Jews called the sixth day of the week, the preparation of the Sabbath.

(Matt, xxvii. 62, and Luke xxiii. 54.) answerably whereunto, and (as I take it) in imitation thereof, the Christian Church hath beene accustomed to keep Saterday half holy day, that in the afternoon they might ridd by-businesses out of the way, and by the evening service might prepare their mindes for the Lord's day then ensuing. Which custome and usage of God's people, as I will not presse it upon any man's conscience as a necessarie dutie; so every man will grant mee, that God's people, as well Christian as Jewish, have thought a time of preparation most fit for the well observing of God's holy day."

In Jacob's History of Faversham, p. 172, in 'Articles for the Sexton of Faversham,' 22, Hen. VIII. I find: "Item, the said sexton, or his deputy, every Saturday, Saint's even, and principal feasts, shall ring noon with as many bells as shall be convenient to the Saturday, saint's even, and principal feasts," &c.

The following curious extract is from a MS. volume of Sermons for all the Saints' days and remarkable Sundays in the year, in the Episcopal Library at Durham: "It is writen in the liffe of Seynt ***** that he was bisi on Ester Eve before None that he made one to shave him or the sunne went doune. And the fiend aspied that, and gadirid up his heeris; and whan this holi man sawe it, he conjured him and badde him tell him whi he did so. Thane said he, bycause yu didest [p.39] no reverence to the Sundaie, and therfore this heris wolle I kepe unto ye day of Dome in reproffe of the. Thane he left of all his shavyng and toke the heris of the fiend, and made to brene hem in his owne hand for penaunce, whiche him thought he was worthe to suffre: and bode unshaven unto Monday. This is saide in reprove of hem that worchen at ofternone on Saturdayes."

The Hallawyng of Saturday afternoon is thus accounted for in the Dialogue of Dives and Pauper, 1493: "The thridde Precepte, xiv. chap. Dives. How longe owyth the haliday to be kept and halowyd Pauper. From even to even Nathelesse summe begynne sonner to halow after that the feest is, and after use of the cuntré. But that men use in Saturdaies and vigilies to ryny holy at midday compellith nat men anon to halowe, but warnythe them of the haliday folowynge, that they shulde thynke thereon and spede theym, and so dispose hem and their occupacions that they might halowe in due tyme."

It appears by a Council of William, king of Scotland, A.D. 1203, that it was then determined that Saturday, after the twelfth hour, should be kept holy.¹⁶ King Edgar, A.D. 958, made an Ecclesiastical law that the Sabbath or Sunday should be observed on Saturday at noon, till the light should appear on Monday morning.¹⁷ Mr. Johnson upon this law says, the Noontide "signifies three in the afternoon, according to our present account: and this practice, I conceive, continued down to the Reformation. In King Withfred's time, the Lord's Day did not begin till sunset on the Saturday. See 697, Numb. 10. Three in the afternoon was hora nona in the Latin account, and therefore called noon: how it came afterwards to signifie mid-day, I can but guess. The monks by their rules could not eat their dinner till they had said [p.40] their Noon-song, which was a service regularly to be said at three o'clock: but they probably anticipated their devotions and their dinner, by saying their Noon-song immediately after their Mid-day song, and presently falling on. I wish they had never been guilty of a worse fraud than this. But it may fairly be supposed that when mid-day became the time of dining and saying noon-song, it was for this reason called noon by the monks, who were the masters of the language during the dark ages. In the Shepherd's Almanack, noon is mid-day; high noon y three." (Johnson's Const. Part 1, Ann. 958. 5.)

In Yet a Course at the Romyshe Foxe, p. 21, is the following Processyon upon Saturdayes at even-songe. "Your holye father Agapitus, popett of Rome, fyrst dreamed it out and enacted it for a lawdable ceremonye of your whoryshe churche. But I marvele sore that ye observe yt upon Saturdayes at nyght at even-songe, he commaundynge yt to bee observed upon the Sondayes, in the mornynge betwixt holie water makynge and high masse." "Moch is Saturnus beholden unto yow (whych is one of the olde goddes) to garnyshe the goyng out of hys day with so holye an observacyon. Joye yt ys of your lyfe as to remember your olde fryndes. Doubtlesse yt ys a fyne myrye pageant, and yow worthye to be called a Saturnyane for it." Hence, without doubt, was derived the present (or, more properly speaking, the late) custom of spending a part of Saturday afternoon without servile labour.¹⁸

Wheatley tells us, that in the East, the church thought fit to indulge the humour of the Judaizing Christians so far as to observe the Saturday as a festival day of devotion, and thereon to meet for the exercise of religious duties, as is plain from several passages of the ancients. Iliustr. of the Common Prayer, ed. 1848, p. 186. The religious observation of the Saturday afternoon is now entirely at an end.

With regard to Saturday afternoons, perhaps men who live [p.41] by manual labour, and have families to support by it, cannot spend them better than in following the several callings in which they have employed themselves on the preceding days of the week. For industry will be no bad preparation for the Sabbath. Considered in a political view, much harm has been done by that prodigal waste of days, very falsely called holy days, in the Church of Rome. They have, however well intended, greatly favoured the cause of vice and dissipation, without doing any essential service to that of rational religion. Complaints appear to have been made in almost every Synod and Council of the licentiousness introduced by the keeping of vigils. Nor will the philosopher wonder at this, for it has its foundation in the nature of things.

I find the following homely rhymes upon the several days of the week in Divers Crab-tree Lectures, 1639, p. 126:

"You know that Munday is Sundayes brother;
Tuesday is such another;
Wednesday you must go to church and pray;
Thursday is half -holiday;
On Friday it is too late to hegin to spin;
The Saturday is half-holiday agen."

Hooker says: "Holydays were set apart to be the land-marks to distinguish times."

THE BORROWED DAYS.

THERE is a singular old proverb preserved in Ray's Collection: "April borrows three days of March, and they are ill." April is pronounced with an emphasis on the last syllable, so as to make a kind of jingling rhyme with "ill," the last word in the line.

I have taken notice of this, because I find in the ancient Calendar of the Church of Rome, to which I have so often referred, the following observations on the 31st of March: "The rustic fable concerning the nature of the month. The rustic names of six days which shall follow in April, or may be the last in March."¹⁹ There is no doubt but that these observations [p.42] in the ancient Calendar, and our proverb, are derived from one common origin; but for want of more lights, I am unable at present to trace them any further.

The Borrowing Days, as they are called, occur in The Complaynt of Scotland, p. 58. "There eftir i entrit in ane grene forest, to contempil the tender zong frutes of grene treis, because the borial blastis of the thre borouing dais of Marche hed chaissit the fragrant flureise of evyrie frut-tree far athourt the feildis." The glossary explains "Borrouing days, the three last days of March:" and adds, "concerning the origin of the term, the following popular rhyme is often repeated:

"March borrowit fra Averill
Three days, and they were ill."

[Brockett, in his N. C. Glossary, gives the following modernised version:

"March borrowed of April
Three days, and they were ill:
The one was sleet, the other was snow,
The third was the worst' that e'er did blow."]

Also the following:

"March said to Aperill,
I see three hogs upon a hill;
But lend your three first days to me,
And I'll be bound to gar them dee.
The first, it sail be wind and weet;
The next, it sail be snaw and sleet;
The third, it sail be sic a freeze
Sail gar the birds stick to the trees.
But when the Borrowed Days were gane,
The three silly hogs came hirplin harne."

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, 1791, i. 57, Parish of Kirkmichael, the minister, mentioning an old man of the age of 103 years, says: "His account of himself is, that he was born in the Borrowing Days of the year that King William came in." A note adds, "that is on one of the three last days of March 1688."

In the Country Almanack for 1676, among the "remarquee upon April," are the following:

"No blust'ring blasts from March needs April borrow:
His own oft proves enow to breed us sorrow.
Yet if he weep (with us to sympathise),
His trickling tears will make us wipe our eyes."

[p.43]

In the British Apollo, vol. iii. No. 18, the meaning is asked of the old poetical saying:

"March borrows of April
Three days, and they are ill;
April returns them back again,
Three days, and they are rain."

A. Proverbs relating to the weather cannot be founded on any certainty. The meaning of this is, that it is more seasonable for the end of March and the beginning of April to be fair, but often

"March does from April gain
Three days, and they're in rain;
Return'd by April in 's bad kind,
Three days, and they're in wind."

[The following allusion to these days occurs in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1731: "There is an old proverb in antique verse, viz.:

'March borrow'd of April three days and they were ill,
They kill'd three lambs were playing on a hill.'

But it is disputed amongst those experienced prognosticators who carry almanacks in their shoes, and foretel weather by the aching of their corns, or the itching of their elbows, whether these borrowing days be the three last days of March, or the three first of April. Now Easter holidays are come, and young men and maids go a walking, talking, courting, loving, which often ends in marrying; which is a commencement of a lease upon lives, and seldom both live to see it expired."]

A clergyman in Devonshire informed me that the old farmers in his parish call the first three days of March "Blind Days," which were anciently considered as unlucky ones, and upon which no farmer would sow any seed. This superstition, however, is now, rapidly disappearing.

These had not escaped the observation of the learned author of the Vulgar Errors. He, too, seems to have been in the dark concerning them; for he barely tells us, p. 247: "It is usual to ascribe unto March certain Borrowed Daies from April."

Dr. Jamieson, in his Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, says: "These days being generally stormy, our forefathers have endeavoured to account for this circumstance, by pretending that March borrowed them from April, that he might extend his power so much longer." "Those," he adds, [p.44] "who are much addicted to superstition, will neither borrow nor lend on any of these days. If any one should propose to borrow of them, they would consider it as an evidence that the person wished to employ the article borrowed for the purposes of witchcraft against the lenders. Some of the vulgar imagine that these days received their designation from the conduct of the Israelites in borrowing the property of the Egyptians. This extravagant idea must have originated partly from the name, and partly from the circumstances of these days nearly corresponding to the time when the Israelites left Egypt, which was on the fourteenth day of the month Abib, or Nisan, including part of our March and April. I know not whether our western magi suppose that the inclemency of the Borrowing Days has any relation to the storm which proved so fatal to the Egyptians."

In the Highlands the same idea is commonly received; with this difference, that the days are considerably antedated, as the loan is also reversed. Mrs. Grant, in her Superstitions of the Highlanders, ii. 217, says: "The Favilteach, or three first days of February, serve many poetical purposes in the Highlands. They are said to have been borrowed for some purpose by February from January, who was bribed by February with three young sheep. These three days, by Highland reckoning, occur between the 11th and 15th of February; and it is accounted a most favourable prognostic for the ensuing year, that they should be as stormy as possible. If they should be fair, then there is no more good weather to be expected through the spring. Hence the Favilteach is used to signify the very ultimatum of bad weather."

DAYS LUCKY OR UNLUCKY.

BOURNE (chap, xviii.), speaking of that superstitious custom among the heathens of observing one day as good, and another as bad, observes: "that among these were lucky and unlucky days; some were Dies atri, and some Dies albi. The Atri were pointed out in their calendar with a black character, the Albi with a white; the former to denote it a day of bad [p.45] success, the latter a day of good. Thus have the monks, in the dark and unlearned ages of Popery, copy'd after the heathens, and dream'd themselves into the like superstitions, esteeming one day more successful than another." He tells us, also, that St. Austin, upon the passage of St. Paul to the Galatians against observing days, and months, and times, and years, explains it to have this meaning: "The persons the Apostle blames are those who say, I will not set forward on my journey, because it is the next day after such a time, or because the moon is so; or I'll set forward that I may have luck, because such is just now the position of the stars. I will not traffick this month, because such a star presides, or I will because it does. I shall plant no vines this year, because it is Leap-year," &c. Barnabe Googe thus translates the remarks of Naogeorgus on this subject:

"And first, betwixt the dayes they make no little difference,
For all be not of vertue like, nor like preheminence.
But some of them Egyptian are, and full of jeopardee,
And some againe, beside the rest, both good and luckie bee.
Like diffrence of the nights they make, as if the Almightie King,
That made them all, not gracious were to them in every thing."
                                                        Popish Kingdome. fol. 44.

Thomas Lodge, in his Incarnate Devils, 1596, p. 12, glances as follows at the superstitious observer of lucky and unlucky times: "He will not eat his dinner before lie hath lookt in his almanacke." Mason, in the Anatomie of Sorcerie, 1612, p. 85, enumerates among the superstitious of that age, "Regarders of times, as they are which will have one time more lucky than another: to be borne at one hower more unfortunate than at another: to take a journey or any other enterprize in hand, to be more dangerous or prosperous at one time than at another: as likewise, if such a festivall day fall upon such a day of the weeke, or such like, we shall have such a yeare following: and many other such like vaine speculations, set downe by our astrologians, having neither footing in God's word, nor yet natural reason to support them; but being grounded onely upon the superstitious imagination of man's braine."

In the Tryall of a Man's Own Self, &c by Thomas Newton, 1602, p. 44, he inquires, under "Sinnes Externall and Outward" against the First Commandment, "whether, for the procuring of any thing either good or bad, thou hast used [p.46] any unlawful! meanes, or superstitious and damnable helps—Of which sort bee the observation and choise of DAYES, of planetarie houres, of motions and courses of starres, mumbling of prophane praiers, consisting of words both strange and senselesse, adjurations, sacrifices, consecrations, and hallowings of divers thinges, rytes and ceremonies unknowne to the Church of God, toyish characters and figures, demanding of questions and aunsweares of the dead, dealing with damned
spirits, or with any instruments of phanaticall divination, as basons, rings, cristalls, glasses, roddes, prickes, numbers, dreames, lots, fortune-tellings, oracles, soothsayings, horoscoping, or marking the houres of nativities, witchcraftes, enchauntments, and all such superstitious trumperie: the enclosing or binding of spirits to certaine instruments, and such like devises of Sathan the devill." Under the same head, p. 50, he asks: "Whether the apothecarie have superstitiously observed or fondly Stayed for CHOISE DAYES or houres, or any other ceremonious rites, in gathering his herbs and other simples for the making of drougs and receipts."²⁰

The following curious passage on this subject is taken from Melton's Astrologaster, p. 56 et seq.: "Those observers of time are to be laught at that will not goe out of their house before they have had counsell of their Almanacke, and will rather have the house fall on their heads than stirre, if they note some natural effect about the motion of the aire, which they suppose will varie the luckie blasts of the starres, that will not marry, or traffique or doe the like, but under some constellation. These, sure, are no Christians: because faith- [p.47] full men ought not to doubt that the Divine Providence from any part of the world, or from any time whatsoever, is absent. Therefore we should not impute any secular business to the power of the starres, but to know that all things are disposed by the arbitrement of the King of Kuigs. The Christian faith is violated when, so like a pagan and apostate, any man doth observe those days which are called Ægyptiaci, or the calends of Januarie, or any moneth, or day, or time, or yeere, eyther to travell, marry, or doe anything in."

In the Book of Knowledge, p. 19, I find the following "Account of the perillous dayes of every month: In the change of every moon be two dayes, in the which what thing soever is begun, late or never, it shall come to no good end, and the dayes be full perillous for many things. In January, when the moon is three or four days old. In February, 5 or 7. In March, 6 or 7. In April, 5 or 8. May, 8 or 9. June, 5 or 15. July, 3 or 13. August, 8 or 13. September, 8 or 13. October 5 or 12. November, 5 or 9. In December, 3 or 13. Astronomers say that six dayes of the year are perillous of death; and therefore they forbid men to let blood on them, or take any drink; that is to say, January the 3d, July the 1st, October the 2d, the last of April, August the 1st, the last day going out of December. These six dayes with great diligence ought to be kept, but namely the latter three, for all the veins are then full. For then, whether man or beast be knit in them, within seven days, or certainly within fourteen days, he shall die. And if they take any drinks within fifteene dayes, they shall die; and if they eat any goose in these three dayes, within forty days they shall die; and, if any child be born in these three latter dayes, they shall die a wicked death. Astronomers and astrologers say, that in the beginning of March, the seventh night, or fourteenth day, let thee bloud of the right arm; and in the beginning of April, the eleventh day, of the left arm; and in the end of May, third or fifth day, on whether arm thou wilt; and thus, of all that year, thou shalt orderly be kept from the fever, the falling gout, the sister gout, and losse of thy sight."

Grose tells us that many persons have certain days of the week and month on which they are particularly fortunate, and others in which they are as generally unlucky. These days [p.48] are different to different persons. Aubrey has given several instances of both in divers persons. Some days, however, are commonly deemed unlucky: among others, Friday labours under that opprobrium; and it is pretty generally held that no new work or enterprise should commence on that day. Likewise, respecting the weather there is this proverb:

"------------Friday's moon,
Come when it will, it comes too soon."

A respectable merchant of the city of London informed me that no person there will begin any business, i.e. open his shop for the first time, on a Friday.

Thursday was noted as a fatal day to King Henry VIII. and his posterity. See Stowe's Annals, ed., 631, p. 812.

In Preceptes, &c., left by William Lord Burghley to his Sonne, 1636, p. 36, we read: "Though I think no day amisse to undertake any good enterprize or businesse in hande, yel have I observed some, and no meane clerks, very cautionarie to forbeare these three Mundayes in the yeare, which I leave to thine owne consideration, either to use or refuse, viz. 1 . The first Munday in April, which day Caine was born, and his brother Abel slaine. 2. The second Munday in August, which day Sodome and Gomorrah were destroyed. 3. The last Munday in December, which day Judas was born, that betrayed our Saviour Christ." Bishop Hall, in his Characters of Virtues and Vices, speaking of the superstitious man, observes: "If his journey began unawares on the dismal day, he feares a mischiefe."

In the Calendar prefixed to Grafton's Manuel, or Abridgment of his Chronicle, 1565, the unlucky days, according to the opinion of the astronomers, are noted, which I have extracted as follows: "January 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 15, 17, 29, very unlucky. February 26, 27, 28, unlucky; 8, 10, 17, very unlucky. March 16, 17, 20, very unlucky. April 7, 8, 10, 20, unlucky; 16, 21, very unlucky. May 3, 6, unlucky; 7, 15, 20, very unlucky. June 10, 22, unlucky; 4, 8, very unlucky. July 15, 21, very unlucky. August 1, 29, 30, unlucky; 19, 20, very unlucky. September 2, 4, 21, 23, unlucky; 6, 7, very unlucky. October 4, 16, 24, unlucky; 6, very unlucky. November 5, 6, 29, 30, unlucky; 15, 20, very unlucky. December 15, 22, unlucky; 6, 7, 9, very unlucky ." In the [p.49] Prognostication of Erra Pater, 1565, printed by Colwell, the unlucky days vary from these of Grafton.²¹

I find an observation on the 13th of December in the ancient Romish Calendar, which I have so often cited (Decemb. xiii. prognostica mensium per totum annum), that on this day prognostications of the months were drawn for the whole year. As also, that on the day of St. Barnabas, and on that of St. Simon and St. Jude, a tempest often arises. In the Schola Cnriositatis, ii. 236, we read: "Multi nolunt opus inchoare die Martis tariquam infausto die."

Many superstitious observations on days may be found in a curious old book called Practica Rusticorum, which I suspect to be an earlier edition of the Husbandman's Practice, 1658, at the end of the Book of Knowledge of the same date.

In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical account of Scotland, v. 82, 1793, the minister of Logierait, in Perthshire, mentioning the superstitious opinions and practices in the parish, says: "In this parish, and in the neighbourhood, a variety of superstitious practices still prevail among the vulgar, which may be in part the remains of ancient idolatry, or of the corrupted Christianity of the Romish church, and partly, perhaps, the result of the natural hopes and fears of the human mind in a state of simplicity and ignorance. Lucky and unlucky days are by many anxiously observed. That day of the week upon which the 14th of May happens to fall, for instance, is esteemed unlucky through all the remainder of the year; none marry or begin any business upon it. None chuse to marry in January or May; or to have their banns proclaimed in the end of one quarter of the year and to marry in the be- [p.50] ginning of the next. Some things are to be done before the full moon; others after. In fevers the illness is expected to be more severe on Sunday than on the other days of the week; if easier on Sunday, a relapse is feared." In the same work, vii. 560, Parishes of Kirkwall and St. Ola, co. Orkney, we read: "In many days of the year they will neither go to sea in search of fish, nor perform any sort of work at home." Ibid. viii. 156, Parish of Canisbay, co. Caithness, we are told, under the head of Dress, Customs, &c., "There are few superstitious usages among them. No gentleman, however, of the name of Sinclair, either in Canisbay or throughout Caithness, will put on green apparel, or think of crossing the Ord, upon a Monday. They were dressed in green and they crossed the Ord upon a Monday, in their way to the battle of Flodden, where they fought and fell in the service of their country, almost without leaving a representative of their name behind them. The day and the dress are accordingly regarded as inauspicious. If the Ord must be got beyond on Monday, the journey is performed by sea."²²

The Spaniards hold Friday to be a very unlucky day, and never undertake anything of consequence upon it. Among the Finns, whoever undertakes any business on a Monday or Friday must expect very little success.

And yet, from the following extract from Eradut Khan's Memoirs of the Mogul Empire, p. 10, it should seem to appear that Friday is there considered in a different light: "On Friday, the 28th of Zekand, his Majesty (Aurengzebe) performed his morning devotions in company with his attendants; after which, as was frequently his custom, he exclaimed: 'that my death may happen on a Friday, for blessed is he who dieth on that day!'"

[p.51]

Fynes Moryson, in his Itinerary, i. 61, speaking of the King of Poland at the port of Dantzic in 1593, says: "The next day the king had a good wind, but before this (as those of the Romish religion are very superstitious), the king and the queen (being of the house of Austria), while sometimes they thought Monday, sometimes Friday, to be unlucky days, had lost many fair winds."

[The following curious extract is taken from a rare tract, called the Animal Parliament, 1707: "That none must be thought good lawyers and docters, but those which will take great fees. That all duty and submission belongs to power, not to vertue. That all must have ill luck after much mirth. That all those that marry on Tuesdays and Thursdays, shall be happy. That a man's fortune can be rold in the palme of his hand. That the falling of salt portends misfortune. Those that begin journies upon a Wednesday shall run through much danger. That all women that are poor, old, and ill-favoured must be thought witches, and be burnt for the same. That the houling of a dog, or croaking of ravens, foretell a friend's death."]

COCK-CROWING.
TIME OF THE MORNING SO CALLED.

BOURNE, in his Antiquitates Vulgares, tells us, there is a tradition among the common people that, at the time of cock-crowing, the midnight spirits forsake these lower regions, and go to their proper places. Hence it is that in the country villages, where the way of life requires more early labour, the inhabitants always go cheerfully to work at that time: whereas if they are called abroad sooner, they are apt to imagine everything they see or hear to be a wandering ghost. Shakespeare has given us an excellent account of this vulgar notion in his Hamlet.²³ Bourne very seriously examines the fact, whether [p.52] spirits roam about in the night, or are obliged to go away at cock-crow; first citing from the Sacred Writings that good and evil angels attend upon men; and proving thence also that there have been apparitions of good and evil spirits. He is of opinion that these can ordinarily have been nothing but the appearances of some of those angels of light or darkness: "for," he adds, "I am far from thinking that either the ghosts of the damned or the happy, either the soul of a Dives or a Lazarus, returns here any more." Their appearance in the night, he goes on to say, is linked to our idea of apparitions. Night, indeed, by its awfulness and horror, naturally inclines the mind of man to these reflections, which are much heightened by the legendary stories of nurses and old women.

The traditions of all ages appropriate the appearance of spirits to the night. The Jews had an opinion that hurtful spirits walked about in the night. The same opinion obtained among the ancient Christians, who divided the night into four watches, called the evening, midnight, cock-crowing, and the morning. The opinion that spirits fly away at cock-crow is certainly very ancient, for we find it mentioned by the Christian poet Prudentius, who flourished in the beginning of the fourth century, as a tradition of common belief. The passage is thus translated in Bourne:

"They say the wandering powers that love
The silent darkness of the night,
At cock-crowing give o'er to rove,
And all in fear do take their flight.
The approaching salutary morn,
Th' approach divine of hated day,
Makes darkness to its place return,
And drives the midnight ghosts away
They know that this an emblem is
Of what precedes our lasting bliss,
That morn when graves give up their dead
In certain hope to meet their God."

[p.53]

Dr. Farmer, citing Bourne in this place, says: "And he quotes on this occasion, as all his predecessors had done, the well-known lines from the first hymn of Prudentius. I know not whose translation he gives us, but there is an old one by Heywood. The pious chansons, the hymns and carols which Shakespeare mentions presently, were usually copied from the elder Christian poets." Cassian, also,²⁴ who lived in the same century, mentioning a host of devils who had been abroad in the night, says, that as soon as the morn approached, they all vanished and fled away; which further evinces that this was the current opinion of the time. Philostratus, giving an account of the apparition of Achilles' shade to Apollonius Tyaneus, says, that it vanished with a little glimmer as soon as the cock crowed. Vit. Apol. iv. 16. The following is from Spenser:

"The morning cock crew loud;
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanish'd from our sight."

So Butler, in his Hudibras, I. iii. 1553:

"The cock crows and the morning grows on,
When 'tis decreed I must be gone."

Thus also Blair, in his Grave:

"------------The tale
Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly,
That walks at dead of night or takes his stand
O'er some new-open'd grave; and, strange to tell,
Evanishes at crowing of the cock."

Bourne tells us he never met with any reasons assigned for the departure of spirits at the cock-crowing; "but." he adds, ''there have been produced at that time of night things of very memorable worth, which might perhaps raise the pious credulity of some men to imagine that there was something more in it than in other times. It was about the time of cock-crowing when our Saviour was born, and the angels sung the first [p.54] Christmas carol to the poor shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. Now, it may be presumed, as the Saviour of the world was then born, and the heavenly host had then descended to proclaim the news, that the angels of darkness would be terrified and confounded, and immediately fly away; and perhaps this consideration has partly been the foundation of this opinion." It was also about this time when our Saviour rose from the dead. A third reason is, that passage in the Book of Genesis, where Jacob wrestled with the angel for a blessing; where the angel says unto him, "Let me go, for the day breaketh."

Bourne, however, thinks this tradition seems more especially to have arisen from some particular circumstances attending the time of cock-crowing; which, as Prudentius, as before cited, seems to say, is an emblem of the approach of the day of resurrection. "The circumstances, therefore, of the time of cock-crowing," he adds, "being so natural a figure and representation of the morning of the resurrection; the night so shadowing out the night of the grave; the third watch being, as some suppose, the time when our Saviour will come to Judgment at; the noise of the cock awakening sleepy man, and telling him, as it were, the night is far spent, the day is at hand; representing so naturally the voice of the arch-angel awakening the dead, and calling up the righteous to everlasting day; so naturally does the time of cock-crowing shadow out these things; that probably some good, well-meaning men might have been brought to believe that the very devils themselves, when the cock crew and reminded them of them, did fear and tremble, and shun the light."

The ancients, because the cock gives notice of the approach and break of day, have, with a propriety equal to anything in their mythology, dedicated this bird to Apollo. They have also made him the emblem of watchfulness, from the circumstance of his summoning men to their business by his crowing, and have therefore dedicated him also to Mercury. With the lark he may be poetically styled the "Herald of the Morn." In England's Parnassus, 1600, I find the two following lines ascribed to Drayton:

"And now the cocke, the morning's trumpeter,
Played Hunt's-up for the day-star to appear."

Gray has imitated our poet:

"The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed."

[p.55]

The following is from Chaucer's Assemblie of Foules, f. 235:

"The tame ruddocke and the coward kite,
The cocke, that horologe is of Thropes lite."

Thus, in the Merry Devil of Edmonton, 4to. 1631:

"More watchfull than the day-proclayming cocke."

The day, civil and political, has been divided into thirteen parts.²⁵ The after-midnight and the dead of the night are the most solemn of them all, and have, therefore it should seem, been appropriated by ancient superstition to the walking of spirits.

By a passage in Macbeth, "we were carousing till the second cock," it should seem to appear as if there were two separate times of cock-crowing. The commentators, however, say nothing of this. They explain the passage as follows: "Till the second cock: Cock-crowing." So in King Lear: "He begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock." Again, in the Twelve Merry Jestes of the Widow Edith, 1573:

"The time they pas merely til ten of the clok,
Yea, and I shall not lye, till after the first cok."

It appears from a passage in Romeo and Juliet, that Shakespeare means that they were carousing till three o'clock:

"The second cock has crow'd,
The curfew-bell has toll'd; 'tis three o'clock."

Perhaps Tusser makes this point clear, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, 1585, p. 126:

"Cocke croweth at midnight times few above six,
With pause to his neighbour to answer betwix:
At three aclocke thicker, and then as ye knowe,
Like all in to mattens neere day they doo crowe;
At midnight, at three, and an hour yer day,
They utter their language as well as they may."

[p.56]

The following very curious 'Old Wives Prayer' is found in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 205:

"Holy-rood, come forth and shield
Us i' th'citie and the field;
Safely guard us, now and aye,
From the blast that burns by day;
And those sounds that us affright
In the dead of dampish night.
Drive all hurtful fiends us fro,
By the time the cocks first crow."

Vanes on the tops of steeples were anciently made in the form of a cock,²⁶ (called from hence weathercocks,) and put up, in Papal times, to remind the clergy of watchfulness. "In summitate crucis, quse companario vulg6 imponitur, galli gallinacei effugi solet figura, quae ecelesiarum rectores vigilantise admoneat." (Du Cange, Gloss.) I find the following on this subject, in A Helpe to Discourse, 1633. "Q. Wherefore on the top of church steeples is the cocke set upon the crosse, of a long continuance? A. The flocks of Jesuits will answer you. For instruction: that whilst aloft we behold the crosse and the cocke standing thereon, we may remember our sinnes, and with Peter seeke and obtaine mercy: as though without this dumbe cocke, which many will not hearken to, untill he crow, the Scriptures were not a sufficient larum." "The inconstancy of the French," says Dr. Johnson, "was always the subject of satire. I have read a dissertation written to prove that the index of the wind upon our steeples was made in form of a cock to ridicule the French for their frequent changes." A writer, dating Wisbech, May 7, in the St. James's Chronicle, June 10, 1777, says that "the intention of the original cock-vane was derived from the cock's crowing when St. Peter had denied his Lord, meaning by this device to forbid all schism in the Church, which might arise amongst her members by their departing from her communion, and denying [p.57] the established principles of her faith. But though this invention was, in all probability, of popish original, and a man who often changes his opinion is known by the appellation of a weathercock, I would hint to the advocates of that unreformed church, that neither this intention, nor the antiquity of this little device, can afford any matter for religious argument." A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for Jan. 1737, vii. 7, says: "Levity and inconstancy of temper is a general reproach upon the French. The cock upon the steeple (set up in contempt and derision of that nation on some violation of peace, or breach of alliance) naturally represents these ill qualities." This derivation, however, seems to be as illiberal as it is groundless. In the Minute Book of the Society of Antiquaries, i. 105, we read: "29 Jan. 1723-4, Mr. Norroy (Peter Le Neve) brought a script from Gramaye, Historia Brabantise, Bruxell. p. 14, showing that the manner of adorning the tops of steeples with a cross and a cock is derived from the GOTHS, who bore that as their warlike ensign."

COCK-FIGHTING.

MEN have long availed themselves of the antipathy which one cock shows to another, and have encouraged that natural hatred with arts that may be said to disgrace human reason. Stubs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1585, p. 117, inveighs against Cock-fighting, which in his days seems to have been practised on the Sabbath in England: "They flock thicke and threefolde to the Cock-fightes, an exercise nothing inferiour to the rest, where nothing is used but swearing, forswearing, deceipt, fraud, collusion, cosenage, skoldyng, railyng, convitious talkyng, fightyng, brawlyng, quarrellyng, drinkyng, and robbing one another of their goods, and that not by direct, but indirect means and attempts. And yet to blaunch and set out these mischiefs withall (as though they were virtues), they have their appointed dayes and set houres, when these devilries must be exercised. They have houses erected to that purpose, flags and ensignes hanged out, to give notice of it to others, and proclamation goes out, to proclaim the same, to the ende [p.58] that many may come to the dedication of this solemne feast of mischiefe."²⁷

At the end of the Compleat Gamester, ed. 1 680, I find a poem entitled "An excellent and elegant copy of verses upon two cocks fighting, by Dr. R. Wild." The spirited qualities of the combatants are given in the following most brilliant couplet:

"They scorn the dunghill; 'tis their only prize
To dig for pearls within each other's eyes."

Our poet makes his conquered or dying cock dictate a will, some of the quaint items of which follow:

"Imp. first of all, let never be forgot,
My body freely I bequeath to th' pot,
Decently to be boil'd; and for its tomb,
Let it be buried in some hungry womb.
Item, executors I will have none
But he that on my side laid seven to one,
And like a gentleman that he may live,
To him and to his heirs my comb I give."

To cry coke is, in vulgar language, synonymous with crying peccavi. Coke, says the learned Ruddiman, in his Glossary to Douglas's Virgil, is the sound which cocks utter, especially when they are beaten, from which Skinner is of opinion they have the name of cock.

Bailey tells us that the origin of this sport was derived from the Athenians on the following occasion. When Themistocles was marching his army against the Persians, he, by the way, espying two cocks fighting, caused his army to behold them, and addressed them as follows: "Behold, these do not fight for their household gods, for the monuments of their ancestors, nor for glory, nor for liberty, nor for the safety of their children, but only because the one will not give way unto the other." This so encouraged the Grecians, that they fought strenuously, and obtained the victory over the Persians; upon [p.59] which Cock-fighting was, by a particular law, ordained to be annually practised by the Athenians.

Dr. Pegge, in his excellent memoir on this subject in the Archaeologia, has proved that though the ancient Greeks piqued themselves on their politeness, calling all other nations barbarous, yet they were the authors of this cruel and inhuman mode of diversion. The inhabitants of Delos were great lovers of this sport; and Tanagra, a city of Boeotia, the Isle of Rhodes, Chalcis in Eubcea, and the country of Media, were famous for their generous and magnanimous race of chickens. It appears that the Greeks had some method of preparing the birds for battle.²⁸

Cock-fighting was an institution partly religious and partly political at Athens, and was continued there for the purpose of improving the seeds of valour in the minds of the Athenian youth. But it was afterwards abused and perverted, both there and in other parts of Greece, to a common pastime and amusement, without any moral, political, or religious intention, and as it is now followed and practised amongst us. It appears that the Romans, who borrowed this with many other things from Greece, used quails as well as cocks for fighting. Mr. Douce, Illustrations of Shakspeare, ii. 87, informs us: "Quail combats were well known among the ancients, and especially at Athens. Julius Pollux relates that a circle was made, in which the birds were placed, and he whose quail was driven out of the circle lost the stake, which was sometimes money, [p.60] and occasionally the quails themselves. Another practice was to produce one of these birds, which being first smitten or filliped with the middle finger, a feather was then plucked from its head; if the quail bore this operation without flinching, his master gained the stake, but lost it if he ran away. The Chinese have been always extremely fond of quail-fighting, as appears from most of the accounts of that people, and particularly in Mr. Bell's excellent relation of his travels in China, where the reader will find much curious matter on the subject. See i. 424, ed. 8vo. We are told by Mr. Marsden that the Sumatrans likewise use these birds in the manner of game-cocks."

The first cause of contention between the two brothers Bassianus and Geta, sons of the Emperor Septimus Severus, happened, according to Herodian, in their youth, about fighting their quails and cocks.²⁹

Cocks and quails, fitted for the purpose of engaging one another to the last gasp, for diversion, are frequently compared in the Roman writers,³⁰ and with much propriety, to gladiators. The Fathers of the Church inveigh with great warmth against the spectacles of the arena, the wanton shedding of human blood in sport: one would have thought that with that of the gladiators, cock-fighting would also have been discarded under the mild and humane genius of Christianity. But, as the Doctor observes, it was reserved for this enlightened era to practise it with new and aggravated circumstances of cruelty.

The Shrove-Tuesday massacre of this useful and spirited creature is now indeed in a declining way; but those monstrous barbarities, the battle royal and Welsh main, still continue among us in full force a striking disgrace to the manly character of Britons.

It is probable that cock-fighting was first introduced into this island by the Romans; the bird itself was here before Caesar's arrival. William Fitzstephen, who wrote the Life of [p.61] Archbishop Becket in the reign of Henry II., is the first of our writers that mentions cock-fighting, describing it as the sport of schoolboys on Shrove Tuesday.³¹

Misson, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 39, says: "Cockfighting is one of the great English diversions. They build amphitheaters for this purpose, and persons of quality sometimes appear at them. Great wagers are laid; but I'm told that a man may be damnably bubbled if he is not very sharp." At p. 304 he tells us: "Cock-fighting is a royal pleasure in England. Their combates between bulls and dogs, bears and dogs, and sometimes bulls and bears, are not battels to death, as those of cocks." [The following notice of the sport occurs in Poor Robin's Almanack for the year 1730: "Great consultations at the cockpit about battles, duels, victories, and what not. The battles proclaim' d first, and the victory afterwards, with a horn trumpet. But this hurry is not at the Cockpit at Whitehall, but the cockpit at the alehouse; not about the congress at Soissons, but in Moorfields; not about the fighting of armies, but cocks; where he is a great man, and scarce to be spoke to, who fed and trimm'd the cock that won, while the other party contents himself with believing that his cock had beat, had it not been for this chance blow, or that accident; and this creates another cock-fight. The loser is vex'd, and this sets the men a fighting; they go to law, and set the lawyers a fighting or scolding, till they have got the clients money."]

In the Statutes of St. Paul's School, A. D. 1518, the following clause occurs: "I will they use no cock-fightinge nor ridinge about of victorye, nor disputing at Saint Bartilemewe, which is but foolish tabling and losse of time." (Knight's Life of Dean Colet, p. 362.) In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, 1792, iii. 378, the minister of Applecross, co. Ross, speaking of "the schoolmaster's perquisites, says: "He has the cockfight dues, which are equal to one quarter's payment for each scholar."

Perhaps the subsequent extract from a MS. Life of Alder- [p.62] man Barnes, p. 4, which I have frequently cited in my History of Newcastle, about the date of James the Second's time, leads to the etymon of the word main, which signifies a battle off-hand. "His chief recreation was cock-fighting, and which long after, he was not able to say whether it did not at least border upon what was criminal, he is said to have been the Champion of the Cock-pit.³² One cock particularly he had, called 'Spang Counter,' which came off victor in a great many battles à la main; but the sparks of Streatlem Castle killed it out of mere envy: so there was an end of Spang Counter and of his master's sport of cocking ever after."

The diversion of Cock-fighting was followed, though disapproved and prohibited in the 39th year of the reign of Edward III.; also in the reign of Henry VIII., and A. D. 1569. It has been by some called a royal diversion, and, as every one knows, the Cockpit at Whitehall was erected by a crowned head,³³ for the more magnificent celebration of the sport. It was prohibited, however, by one of the acts of Oliver Cromwell, March the 31st, 1654.

Dr. Pegge describes the Welsh main, in order to expose the cruelty of it, and supposes it peculiar to this kingdom, known neither in China, nor in Persia, nor in Malacca, nor among the savage tribes of America. "Suppose," says he, "sixteen pair of cocks; of these the sixteen conquerors are pitted the second time the eight conquerors of these are pitted a third time the four of these a fourth time and, lastly, the two conquerors of these are pitted a fifth time: so that, incredible barbarity! thirty-one of these creatures are sure to be thus inhumanly destroyed for the sport and pleasure, amid noise and nonsense, blended with the blasphemies and profaneness of those who will yet assume to themselves the name of Christians."

Without running into all the extravagance and superstition of Pythagoreans and Brahmins, yet certainly we have no right, no power or authority, to abuse and torment any of God's creatures, or needlessly to sport with their lives; but, on the contrary, ought to use them with all possible tenderness and [p.63] moderation. In a word, cock-fighting was an heathenish mode of diversion in its beginning, and at this day ought certainly to be confined to barbarous nations. Yet, it may and must be added, to aggravate the matter, and enhance our shame, our butchers in this cruel business have contrived a method, unknown to the ancients, of arming the heels of the bird with steel;³⁴ a device which has been considered a most noble improvement in the art, and indeed an invention highly worthy of men that delight in blood."

It still continues to be a favourite sport of the colliers in the north of England. The clamorous wants of their families solicit them to go to work in vain, when a match is heard of.

In performing some years ago the service appropriated to the Visitation of the Sick with one of these men, who died a few days afterwards, to my great astonishment I was interrupted by the crowing of a game cock, hung in a bag over his head. To this exultation an immediate answer was given by another cock concealed in a closet, to which the first replied, and instantly the last rejoined. I never remember to have met with an incident so truly of the tragi-comical cast as this, and could not proceed in the execution of that very solemn office till one of the disputants was removed. It had been industriously hung beside him, it should seem, for the sake of company. 'He had thus an opportunity of casting at an object he had dearly loved in the days of his health and strength, what Gray has well called "a long, lingering look behind."

BULL-RUNNING.

AT Stamford, in Lincolnshire, an annual sport is celebrated, called Bull-running, of which the following account is taken from Butcher's survey of the town, 1717, pp. 76, 77. "It is [p.64] performed just the day six weeks before Christmas. The butchers of the town, at their own charge, against the time, provide the wildest bull they can get; this bull over night is had into some stable or barn belonging to the Alderman. The next morning proclamation is made by the common bellman of the town, round about the same, that each one shut up their shop-doors and gates, and that none, upon pain of imprisonment, offer to do any violence to strangers, for the preventing whereof (the town being a great thoroughfare, and then being in Term time) a guard is appointed for the passing of travellers through the same (without hurt). That none have any iron upon their bull-clubs or other staff which they pursue the bull with. Which proclamation made, and the gates all shut up, the bull is turned out of the Alderman's house, and then hivie skivy, tag and rag, men, women, and children of all sorts and sizes, with all the dogs in the town, promiscuously running after him with their bull-clubs, spattering dirt in each other's faces, that one would think them to be so many Furies started out of hell for the punishment of Cerberus, as when Theseus and Perillas conquered the place (as Ovid describes it)

'A ragged troop of boys and girls
Do pellow him with stones;
With clubs, with whips, and many raps,
They part his skin from bones;''

and (which is the greater shame) I have seen both senatores majorum gentium et matrones de eodem gradu, following this bulling business.

"I can say no more of it, but only to set forth the antiquity thereof (as the tradition goes): William Earl of Warren, the first lord of this town, in the time of King John, standing upon his castle walls in Stamford, viewing the fair prospects of the river and meadow under the same, saw two bulls a fighting for one cow; a butcher of the town, the owner of one of those bulls, with a great mastiff dog, accidentally coming by, set his dog upon his own bull, who forced the same bull up into the town, which no sooner was come within the same but all the butchers' dogs, both great and small, followed in pursuit of the bull, which by this time made stark mad with the noise of the people and the fierceness of the dogs, ran over man, woman, and child that stood in the way; this caused all the butchers [p.65] and others in the town to rise up as it were in a tumult, making such an hideous noise that the sound thereof came into the castle unto the ears of Earl Warren, who presently thereupon mounted on horseback, rid into the town to see the business, which then appearing (to his humour) very delightful, he gave all those meadows in which the two bulls were at the first found fighting (which we now call the Castle Meadows) perpetually as a common to the butchers of the town (after the first grass is eaten) to keep their cattle in till the time of slaughter; upon this condition, that as upon that day on which this sport first began, which was (as I said before) that day six weeks before Christmas, the butchers of the town should from time to time, yearly for ever, find a mad bull for the continuance of that sport."

At present the magistracy of the town decline any interference with the bull-running.

A very long account of a similar practice at Tutbury will be found in Dr. Plott's History of Staffordshire, where it appears to have been a custom, belonging to the honour of the place, that the minstrels who came to matins there on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin should have a bull given them by the Prior of Tutbury, if they could take him on this side the river Dove nearest to the town; or else the Prior was to give them forty pence; for the enjoyment of which custom they were to give to the lord at the said feast twenty pence. See Plott's Staffordshire, p. 439; Shaw's History of Staffordshire, i. 52; and an elaborate memoir in the Archaeologia, ii. 86, where the subject is considered by Dr. Pegge.

In later times the Tutbury Bull-running appears to have given rise to greater excesses than that at Stamford. "Happily," says Shaw, "a few years since, his Grace the Duke of Devonshire, who is grantee of the site of the priory, and the estates belonging to it, was pleased to abolish this barbarous custom, which it is to be hoped will have the same effect upon those similar brutish diversions of bull-baiting practised in many country towns (particularly in the north-west parts of this county) at that season of the year called the Wake.

[p.66]

LADY IN THE STRAW.

IT should seem that the expression of the lady in the straw, meant to signify the lady who is brought to bed, is derived from the circumstance that all beds were anciently stuffed with straw, so that it is synonymous with saying, "the lady in bed," or that is confined to her bed.³⁵

There appears to have been some ceremonies anciently used when the lady took her chamber. It is stated, that when the Queen of King Henry VII. took her chamber in order to her delivery, "the Erles of Shrewsbury and of Kente hyld the towelles, whan the quene toke her rightes; and the torches ware, holden by knightes. When she was comen into hir great chambre, she stode undre hir cloth of estate; then there was ordeyned a voide of espices and swet wyne: that doone, my lorde, the quenes chamberlain, in very goode wordes desired, in the Queue's name, the pepul there present to pray God to sende hir the good oure: and so she departed to her inner chambre." Strutt, iii. 157, from a MS. in the Cotton Library.

Some have thought, but I cannot be induced to accede to the opinion, that the term "lady in the straw," takes its rise from a straw mattress necessarily made use of during the time of delivery. In the Child-bearer's Cabinet, in "a rich closet of physical secrets collected by the elaborate paines of four severall students in physick," 4to. no date, p. 9, we read: "How, and wherewith the child-bed woman's bed ought to be furnished. A large boulster, made of linen cloth, must be stuffed with straw, and be spread on the ground, that her upper part may lye higher than her lower; on this the woman may lie, so that she may seem to lean and bow, rather than [p.67] to lye, drawing up her feet unto her, that she may receve no hurt."

Henry, in his History of Britain, i. 459, tells us, that "amongst the ancient Britons, when a birth was attended with any difficulty, they put certain girdles made for that purpose about the women in labour, which they imagined gave immediate and effectual relief. Such girdles were kept with care, till very lately, in many families in the Highlands of Scotland. They were impressed with several mystical figures; and the ceremony of binding them about the woman's waist was accompanied with words and gestures, which showed the custom to have been of great antiquity, and to have come originally from the Druids."³⁶

From an ancient 4to. MS, formerly in the collection of Herbert, dated 1475, I transcribe the following charm, or more properly charect, to be bound to the thigh of a lying-in woman: "For woman that travelyth of chylde, bynd thys vvryt to her thye: In nomine Patris Ê et Filii Ê et Spiritus Sancti Ê Amen.Ê Per virtutem Domini sint rnedicina mei pia crux et passio Christi. Ê Vulnera quinque Domini sint medicina mei.Ê Sancta Maria peperit Christum. Ê Sancta Anna peperit Mariam. Ê Sancta Elizabet peperit Johannem. Ê Sancta Cecilia peperit Remigium. Ê Arepo tenet opera rotas. Ê Christus vincit. Ê Christus regnat. Ê Christus dixit Lazare veni foras.Ê Christus imperat. Ê Christus te vocat. Ê Mundus te gaudet. Ê, Lex te desiderat. Ê Deus ultionum Dominus. Ê Deus preliorum Dominus libera famulam tuam N. Ê Dextra Domini fecit virtutem. a. g. 1. a. Ê Alpha Ê et Ω Ê. [p.68] Anna peperit Mariam, Ê Elizabet precursorem, Ê Maria Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, sine dolore et tristicia. infans sive vivus sive mortuus exi foras Ê Christus te vocat ad lucem. Ê Agyos. Ê Agyos. Ê Agyos. Ê Christus vincit. Ê Christus imperat. Ê Christus regnat. Ê Sanctus Ê Sanctus Ê Sanctus Ê Dominus Deus. Ê Christus qui es, qui eras, Ê et qui venturus es. Ê Amen, bhurnon Ê blictaono Ê Christus Nazarenus Ê Rex Judeorum fili Dei Ê miserere mei Ê Amen."³⁷

The following is an extract from Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614: "A gentlewoman in extremitie of labour sware that if it pleased God she might escape death for that once, she would never in all her life after hazard herselfe to the like daunger againe; but being at last safely delivered, she then said to one of the midwives, 'So, now put out THE HOLY CANDLE, and keepe it till the next time.'''

[p.69]

In the Injunctions at the Visitation of Edmunde (Bonner) Bishop of London from September 3d, 1554, to October 8th, 1555, 4to., we read: "A mydwyfe (of the diocese and jurisdiction of London) shal not use or exercise any witchecrafte, charmes, sorcerye, invocations or praiers, other then suche as be allowable and may stand with the lawes and ordinances of the Catholike Churche." In John Bale's Comedye concernynge thre Lawes, 1538, Idolatry says:

"Yea, but now ych am a she
And a good MYDWYFE perde,
Yonge chyldren can I charm,
With whysperynges and whysshynges,
With crossyuges and with kyssynges,
With blasynges and with blessynges,
That spretes do them no harme."

In the same Comedy, Hypocrysy is introduced mentioning the following charms against barrenness:

"In Parys we have the mantell of Saynt Lewes,
Which women seke moch, for helpe of their barrennes:
For he it ones layed upon a wommanys bellye,
She go thens with chylde, the myracles are seene there daylye.
And as for Lyons, there is the length of our Lorde
In a great pyller. She that will with a coorde
Be fast hound to it, and take soche chaunce as fall,
Shall sure have chylde, for within it is hollowe all."

In the Articles to be enquired in the Visitacyon in the fyrgt yeare of Queen Elizabeth, 1559, the following occurs: "Item, whether you knowe anye that doe use charmes, sorcery, enchauntmentes, invocations, circles, witchecraftes, southsayinge, or any lyke craftes or imaginacions invented by the Devyl, and specially in the tyme of women's travayle." It appears from Strype's Annals of the Reformation, i. 537, under 1567, that then midwives took an oath, inter alia, not to "suffer any other bodies child to be set, brought, or laid before any woman delivered of child, in the place of her natural child, so far forth as I can know and understand. Also I will not use any kind of sorcery or incantation in the time of the travail of any woman."

In the collection entitled Sylva, or the Wood, p. 130, we read that "a few years ago, in this same village, the women in labour used to drinke the urine of their husbands, who were [p.70] all the while stationed, as I have seen the cows in St. James's Park, straining themselves to give as much as they can."

The following passage from the Lucky Idiot, or Fools have Fortune, from the Spanish of Don Quevedo de Alcala, by a a Person of Quality, 1734, mentions a custom in Spain: "I remember once that in the dead time of the night, there came a country fellow to my uncle in a great haste, intreating him to give order for knocking the bells, his wife being in labour (a thing usual in SPAIN); my good curate then waked me out of a sound sleep, saying, Rise, Pedro, instantly, and ring the bells for child-birth quickly, quickly. I got up immediately, and as fools have good memories, I retained the words quickly, quickly, and knocked the bells so nimbly, that the inhabitants of the town really believed it had been for fire." p. 13.

The subsequent poem, founded on a singular custom is from Lucasta, Posthume Poems of Richard Lovelace, Esq., 1659, p. 27:

"To a Lady with Child that asked an old Shirt.

"And why an honour'd ragged shirt, that shows
Like tatter'd ensigns, all its bodies blows?
Should it be swathed in a vest so dire,
It were enough to set the child on fire.
But since to ladies 't hath a custome been
Linnen to send, that travail and lye in;
To the nine sempstresses, my former friends,
I su'd, but they had nought but shreds and ends.
At last, the jolli'st of the three times three
Rent th' apron from her smock, and gave it me.
'Twas soft and gentle, subtly spun, no doubt.
Pardon my boldness, madam ; here's the clout."

GROANING CAKE AND CHEESE.

AGAINST the time of the good wife's delivery, it has been everywhere the custom for the husband to provide a large cheese and a cake. These, from time immemorial, have been the objects of ancient superstition. It was not unusual to preserve for many years, I know not for what superstitious intent, pieces of "the Groaning Cake." Thus I read in [p.71] Gayton's Festivous Notes upon Don Quixot, p. 17, "And hath a piece of the Groaning Cake (as they call it), which she kept religiously with her Good Friday bun, full forty years unmouldy and un-mouse-eaten." Misson, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 35, says: "The custom here is not to make great feasts at the birth of their children; they drink a glass of wine, and eat a bit of a certain cake, which is seldom made but upon these occasions."

In the Descriptive Account of Eastbourne in Sussex, p. 123, there is a very singular custom recited under the name of Sops and Ale, which still prevails in that place, after any lady, or respectable farmer or tradesman's wife, is delivered of a child.

It is customary at Oxford to cut the cheese (called in the north of England, in allusion to the mother's complaints at her delivery, "the Groaning Cheese") in the middle when the child is born, and so by degrees form it into a large kind of ring, through which the child must be passed on the day of the christening. In other places, the first cut of the sick wife's cheese (so also they call the Groaning Cheese) is to be divided into little pieces, and tossed in the midwife's smock, to cause young women to dream of their lovers.³⁸ Slices of the first cut of the Groaning Cheese are in the north of England laid under the pillows of young persons for the above purpose.

In the old play of the Vow-Breaker, or the Fayre Maid of Clifton, 1636, in a scene where is discovered "a bed covered with white, enter Prattle, Magpy, Long Tongue, Barren with a child, Anne in bed;" Boote says, "Neece, bring the groaning cheece, and all requisites; I must supply the father's place, and bid god-fathers." [The following allusion to this cheese occurs in Westward for Smelts, 1620: "At last, hee looked out of the window, asking who knockt at the doore? 'Tis I, kinde husband (answered shee), that have beene at a womans labour; prethee, sweet heart, open the doore. All these kinde words would not get her admittance, but gained this churlish answere at his hands: Hast thou beene at a woman's labour? Then prethee, sweet heart, returne, and amongst the residue of the [p.72] wives, help them to devoure the groning cheese, and sucke up the honest mans ale till you are drunke; by that time 'twill be day light, and I will have thy friends at thy returne, who shall give thee thankes for thy charitie."]

In a Voyage to Holland, being an Account of the late Entertainment of King William the Third and the several Princes there, by an English Gentleman attending the Court of the King of Great Britain, 1691, p. 23, we read: "Where the woman lies in, the ringle of the door does pennance, and is lapped about with linnen, either to shew you that loud knocking may wake the child, or else that for a month the ring is not to be run at; but if the child be dead, there is thrust out a nosegay tied to a stick's end, perhaps for an emblem of the life of man, which may wither as soon as born; or else to let you know, that though these fade upon their gathering, yet from the same stock the next year a new shoot may spring." So, in an old translation of Erasmus's Dialogues, by William Burton, 4to., in that of the Woman in Child-bed, occurs the following passage: "But. By chaunce I (passing by these houses) sawe the crowe, or the ring of the doore bound about with white linnen cloth, and I marvelled what the reason of it should be. Fab. Are you such a stranger in this countrey that you doe not know the reason of that? doe not you knowe that it is a signe that there is a woman lying in where that is?"

In Poor Robin's Almanack for the year 1676, that facetious periodical, noting the expenses of breeding wives to their husbands, introduces the following items:

"For a nurse, the child to dandle,
Sugar, sope, spic'dpots, and candle,
A groaning chair,³⁹ and eke a cradle.
Blanckets of a several scantling,
Therein for to wrap the bantling;
Sweetmeats from comfit-maker's trade,
When the child's a Christian made;
Pincushions and such other knacks
A child-bed woman always lacks,
Caudles, grewels, costly jellies," &c.

[p.73]

Bartholinus informs us, that the Danish women, before they put the new-born infant into the cradle, place there, or over the door, as amulets, to prevent the evil spirits from hurting the child, garlic, salt, bread, and steel, or some cutting instrument made of that metal.⁴⁰ Something like this obtained in England. Gregory, in his Posthuma, p. 97, mentions "an ordinarie superstition of the old wives, who dare not intrust a childe in a cradle by itself alone without a candle." This he attributes to their fear of night-hags.

In Scotland, children dying unbaptised (called Tarans) were supposed to wander in woods and solitudes, lamenting their hard fate, and were said to be often seen. In the North of England it is thought very unlucky to go over their graves. It is vulgarly called going over "unchristened ground." In the Gentle Shepherd, Bauldy describing Mause as a witch, says of her:

"At midnight hours o'er the kirk-yard she raves,
And howks unchristen'd weans out of their graves."

In the Highlands of Scotland, as Mr, Pennant informs us, children are watched till the christening is over, lest they should be stolen or changed by the fairies. To this notion Shakespeare alludes when he makes King Henry the Fourth, speaking of Hotspur in comparison with his own profligate son, say as follows:

"------------------ that it could be prov'd
That some night-tripping fairy had exchang'd,
In cradle-clothes, our children where they lay,
And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet!
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine."

[p.74]

Spenser has the like thought:

"From thence a fairy thee unweeting reft
There as thou slep'st in tender swadling band,
And her base elfin brood there for thee left:
Such men do changelings call, so chang'd by fairy theft."

It was thought that fairies could only change their weakly and starveling elves for the more robust offspring of men, before baptism, whence the above custom in the Highlands. One of the methods of discovering whether a child belongs to the fairies or not, is printed in a book entitled, A Pleasant Treatise of Witchcraft. See Grose's Account.

The word changeling, in its modern acceptation, implies one almost an idiot, evincing what was once the popular creed on this subject; for as all the fairy children were a little backward of their tongue, and seemingly idiots, therefore stunted and idiotical children were supposed changelings. This superstition has not escaped the learned Moresin: "Papatus credit albatas mulieres, et id genus larvas, pueros integros auferre, aliosque suggerere monstruosos, et debiles multis partibus; aut ad baptisterium cum aliis commutare, aut ad templi introitum." Papatus, p. 139.

Pennant, in his History of Whiteford, &c. p. 5, speaking of "the Fairy Oak," of which also he exhibits a portrait, relates this curious circumstance respecting it: "In this very century, a poor cottager, who lived near the spot, had a child who grew uncommonly peevish; the parents attributed this to the fairies, and imagined that it was a changeling. They took the child, put it in a cradle, and left it all night beneath the tree, in hopes that the tylwyddteg, or fairy family, or fairy folk, would restore their own before morning. When morning came, they found the child perfectly quiet, so went away with it, quite confirmed in their belief."

Waldron, in his description of the Isle of Man (Works, 1731, p. 128), tells us: "The old story of infants being changed in their cradles is here in such credit, that mothers are in continual terror at the thoughts of it. I was prevailed upon myself to go and see a child, who, they told me, was one of these changelings, and indeed must own was not a little surprised as well as shocked at the sight. Nothing under heaven could have a more beautiful face; but though between five and six years old, and seemingly healthy, he was so far [p.75] from being able to walk or stand, that he could not so much as move any one joint: his limbs were vastly long for his age, but smaller than an infant's of six months: his complexion was perfectly delicate, and he had the finest hair in the world: he never spoke nor cryed, eat scarce any thing, and was very seldom seen to smile; but if any one called him a fairy-elf he would frown, and fix his eyes so earnestly on those who said it, as if he would look them through. His mother, or at least his supposed mother, being very poor, frequently went out a chairing, and left him a whole day together: the neighbours, out of curiosity, have often looked in at the window to see how he behaved when alone, which, whenever they did, they were sure to find him laughing, and in the utmost delight. This made them judge that he was not without company more pleasing to him than any mortal's could be; and what made this conjecture seem the more reasonable, was, that if he were left ever so dirty, the woman at her return saw him with a clean face, and his hair combed with the utmost exactness and nicety." He mentions (ibid. p. 132,) "Another woman, who, being great with child, and expecting every moment the good hour, as she lay awake one night in her bed, she saw seven or eight little women come into her chamber, one of whom had an infant in her arms. They were followed by a man of the same size, in the habit of a minister." A mock christening ensued, and "they baptized the infant by the name of Joan, which made her know she was pregnant of a girl, as it proved a few days after, when she was delivered."

It appears anciently to have been customary to give a large entertainment at the churching, and previous to that at the christening.⁴¹

Harrison, in his Description of Britain, in Holinshed's Chronicles, complains of the excessive feasting, as well at other festive meetings, as at "Purifications of women." In [p.76] the Pleasant Historic of Thomas of Reading, 1632, we read: "Sutton's wife, of Salisbury, which had lately bin delivered of a sonne, against her going to church prepared great cheare: at what time Simon's wife, of Southampton, came thither, and so did divers others of the clothiers wives, onely to make merry at this churching feast." In the Batchellor's Banquet, 1677, the lady is introduced telling her husband: "You willed me (I was sent for) to go to Mistress M. churching, and when I came thither / found great cheer, and no small company of wives;" and the lady is asked: "If I had ever a new gown to be churched in." Among Shipman's Poems, 1683, is one dated 1667, and entitled, "The Churching Feast, to Sir Clifford Clifton, for a fat doe," p. 123.

The poem entitled Julia's Churching, or Purification, however, in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 339, makes no mention of the churching entertainment:

"Put on thy holy fillitings and so
To th' temple with the sober midwife go.
Attended thus (in a most solemn wise)
By those who serve the child-bed misteries,
Burn first thine incense; next, when as thou see'st
The candid stole thrown o'er the pious priest,
With reverend curtsies come, and to him bring
Thy free (and not decurted) offering.
All rites well ended, with faire auspice come
(As to the breaking of a bride-cake) home,
"Where ceremonious Hymen shall for thee
Provide a second epithalamie."

In the first volume of Proclamations, in the archives of the Society of Antiquaries of London, p. 134, is preserved an original one, printed in black letter, and dated the 16th of November, 30 Henry VIII. in which, among many "laudable ceremonies and rytes" enjoined to be retained, is the following: "Ceremonies used at purification of women delivered of chylde, and offerynge of theyr crysomes."

In a most rare book, entitled 'A Parte of a Register, contayninge sundrie memorable matters, written by divers godly and learned in our time, which stande for and desire reformation of our Church, in discipline and ceremonies, accordinge to the pure worde of God and the lawe of our lande,' 4to. said by Dr. Bancroft to have been printed at Edinburgh by Robert Waldegrave (who printed most of the Puritan books [p.77] and libels in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign), p. 64, in a list of "grosse poyntes of Poperie, evident to all men," is enumerated the following: "The Churching of women with this psalme, that the sunne and moone shall not burne them:" as is ibid. p. 63, "The offeringe of the woman at hir Churching."

Lupton, in his first book of Notable Things, ed. 1660, p. 49, says: "If a man be the first that a woman meets after she comes out of the church, when she is newly churched, it signifies that her next child will be a boy; if she meet a woman, then a wench is likely to be her next child. This is credibly
reported to me to be true."

In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, xxi. 147, parish of Monquhitter, it is said: "It was most unhappy for a woman, after bringing forth a child, to offer a visit, or for her neighbours to receive it, till she had been duly churched. How strongly did this enforce gratitude to the Supreme Being for a safe delivery! On the day when such a woman was churched, every family, favoured with a call, were bound to set meat and drink before her: and when they omitted to do so, they and theirs were to be loaded with her hunger. What was this, but an obligation on all who had it in their power to do the needful to prevent a feeble woman from fainting for want?"

CHRISTENING CUSTOMS.

THE learned Dr. Moresin informs us of a remarkable custom, which he himself was an eye-witness of in Scotland: they take, says he, on their return from church, the newly-baptised infant, and vibrate it three or four times gently over a flame, saying, and repeating it thrice, "Let the flame consume thee now or never."⁴² Borlase, from Martin's Western Islands, p. 117, [p.78] tells us: "The same lustration, by carrying of fire, is performed round about women after child-bearing, and round about children before they are christened, as an effectual means to preserve both the mother and infant from the power of evil spirits."

It is very observable here, that there was a feast at Athens, kept by private families, called Amphidromia, on the fifth day after the birth of the child, when it was the custom for the gossips to run round the fire with the infant in their arms, and then, having delivered it to the nurse, they were entertained with feasting and dancing.

Grose tells us there is a superstition that a child who does not cry when sprinkled in baptism will not live.⁴³ He has added another idea, equally well founded, that children prematurely wise are not long-lived, that is, rarely reach maturity: a notion which we find quoted by Shakespeare, and put into the mouth of Richard the Third.

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, 1793, vii. 560, Parishes of Kirkwall and St. Ola, we read that the inhabitants "would consider it as an unhappy omen, were they by any means disappointed in getting themselves married, or their children baptized, on the very day which they had previously fixed in their minds for that purpose." Ibid. xiv. 261, 1795, [p.79] Parish of Kilfinan, Argyleshire, we read; "There is one pernicious practice that prevails much in this parish, which took its rise from this source, which is, that of carrying their children out to baptism on the first or second day after birth. Many of them, although they had it in their option to have their children baptized in their own houses, by waiting one day, prefer carrying them seven or eight miles to church, in the worst weather in December or January, by which folly they too often sacrifice the lives of their infants to the phantom of superstition." Ibid. xv. 311, the minister of the parishes of South Ronaldsay and Burray, two of the Orkney Islands, describing the manners of the inhabitants, says: "Within these last seven years the minister has been twice interrupted in administering baptism to a female child, before the male child, who was baptised immediately after. When the service was over, he was gravely told he had done very wrong, for, as the female child was first baptised, she would, on her coming to the years of discretion, most certainly have a strong beard, and the boy would have none."

In the above work, v. 83, the minister of Logierait, in Perthshire, describing the superstitious opinions and practices in that parish, says: "When a child was baptised privately, it was, not long since, customary to put the child upon a clean basket, having a cloth previously spread over it, with bread and cheese put into the cloth; and. thus to move the basket three times successively round the iron crook which hangs over the fire, from the roof of the house, for the purpose of supporting the pots when water is boiled or victuals are prepared. This might be anciently intended to counteract the malignant arts which witches and evil spirits were imagined to practise against new-born infants."

Bulwer, in his Chirologia, p. 62, remarks, that "There is a tradition our midwives have concerning children borne open-handed, that such will prove of a bountiful disposition and frank-handed."

The following occurs in the Second Part of Dekker's Honest Whore, 1630: "I am the most wretched fellow: sure some left-handed priest christened me, I am so unlucky."

In Herrick's Hesperides, p. 336, we have the following charms:

[p.80]

"Bring the holy crust of bread,
Lay it underneath the head;
'Tis a certain charm to keep
Hags away while children sleep.

"Let the superstitious wife
Neer the child's heart lay a knife;
Point be up, and haft be down,
(While she gossips in the towne:)
This, 'mongst other mystick charms,
Keeps the sleeping child from harmes."

The following modern Scottish superstitions respecting newborn children are introduced into Helenore, or the Fortunate Shepherdess, a poem in the broad Scotch dialect, by Alexander Ross, 1778, p. 12:

"Gryte was the care, and tut'ry that was ha'en,
Baith night and day about the bony weeane,
The jizzen-bed⁴⁴ wi'rantry leaves⁴⁵ was sain'd,⁴⁶
And sik like things as the auld grannies kend;
Jeans paps wi' sa't and water washen clean,
Reed⁴⁷ that her milk get wrang, fan it was green.
Neist the first hippen to the green was flung,
And thereat seeful⁴⁸ words baith said and sung.
A clear-burnt coal wi' the het tongs was ta'en
Frae out the ingle-mids fu' clear and clean,
And throw the corsy-belly⁴⁹ letten fa,
For fear the weeane should be ta'en awa;
Dowing⁵⁰ and growing was the daily pray'r,
And Nory was brought up wi' unco care.

It appears to have been anciently the custom, at christening entertainments, for the guests not only to eat as much as they pleased, but also, for the ladies at least, to carry away as much as they liked in their pockets. In the Batchellor's Banquet, 1677, we read: "What cost and trouble it will be to have all things fine against the christening day; what store of sugar, biskets, comphets, and caraways, marmalet, and marchphane, with all kind of sweet suckers and superfluous banquetting stuff, with a hundred other odd and needless trifles, which at that time must fill the pockets of dainty dames!" I find the mother called here "the childwife."

In Strype's edition of Stowe's Survey of London, i. 260, [p.81] accounts are given of two great christenings, in 1561 and 1562. After the first was "a splendid banquet at home;" and the other, we read, "was concluded with a great banquet, consisting of wafers and hypocras, French, Gascoign, and Rhenish wines, with great plenty, and all their servants had a banquet in the hall with divers dishes." Waldron, in his Description of the Isle of Man (Works, p. 170), speaking of the Manx christenings, says: "The whole country round are invited to them; and, after having baptised the child, which they always do in the church, let them live ever so distant from it, they return to the house, and spend the whole day, and good part of the night, in feasting." In Whimzies, or a New Cast of Characters, 1631, p. 192, speaking of a yealous (jealous) neighbour, the author says: "Store of bisket, wafers, and careawayes, hee bestowes at his child's christning, yet are his cares nothing lessned; he is perswaded that he may eate his part of this babe, and never breake his fast."

At the christening entertainments of many of the poorer sort of people in the north of England (who are so unfortunate as to provide more mouths than they can with convenience find meat for), great collections are oftentimes made by the guests, and such as will far more than defray the expenses of the feast of which they have been partaking. Kennett, in a MS. note to Aubrey's Remains of Gentilism, says: "At Burcester, in Oxfordshire, at a christening, the women bring every one a cake, and present one first to the minister, if present. At Wendlebury, and other places, they bring their cakes at a gossiping, and give a large cake to the father of the child, which they call a rocking cake." Hutchinson, in his History of Northumberland, tells us that children in that county, when first sent abroad in the arms of the nurse to visit a neighbour, are presented with an egg, salt, and fine bread. It is customary there, also, for the midwife, &c., to provide two slices, one of bread, and the other of cheese, which are presented to the first person they meet in the procession to church at a christening. The person who receives this homely present must give the child in return three different things, wishing it at the same time health and beauty. The gentleman who informed me of this, happening once to fall in the way of such a party, and to receive the above present, was at a loss how to make the triple return, till he bethought [p.82] himself of laying upon the child which was held out to him, a shilling, a halfpenny, and a pinch of snuff. When they meet more than one person together, it is usual to single out the nearest to the woman that carries the child.

There is a singular custom prevailing in the country of the Lesgins, one of the seventeen Tartarian nations. "Whenever the Usmei, or chief, has a son, he is carried round from village to village, and alternately suckled by every woman who has a child at her breast, till he is weaned. This custom by establishing a .kind of brotherhood between the prince and his subjects, singularly endears them to each other." See the Europ. Mag. for June, 1801, p. 408.

Hutchinson observes that "the egg was a sacred emblem, and seems a gift well adapted to infancy." Bryant says, "An egg, containing in it the elements of life, was thought no improper emblem of the ark, in which were preserved the rudiments of the future world; hence in the Dionusiaca and in other Mysteries, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg. By this, as we are informed by Porphyry, was signified the world. It seems to have been a favourite symbol, and very ancient, and we find it adopted among many nations. It was said by the Persians of Orosmasdes, that he formed mankind, and inclosed them in an egg. Cakes and salt were used in religious rites by the ancients. The Jews probably adopted their appropriation from the Egyptians: 'And if thou bring an oblation of a meat-offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour,' &c., Levit. ii. 4. 'With all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.'" Ibid. p. 13.

Cowell, in his Law Dictionary, on the word "Kichell," says: "It was a good old custom for godfathers and godmothers, every time their godchildren asked them blessing, to give them a cake, which was a gods-kichell; it is still a proverbial saying in some countries, 'Ask me a blessing, and I will give you some plum-cake.'"

Among superstitions relating to children, the following is cited by Bourne, in the Antiquitates Vulgares, chap, xviii., from Bingham on St. Austin: "If when two friends are talking together, a stone, or a dog, or a child, happens to come between them, they tread the stone to pieces, as the divider of their friendship, and this is tolerable in comparison of beating an [p.83] innocent child that comes between them. But it is more pleasant that sometimes the children's quarrel is revenged by the dogs: for many times they are so superstitious as to dare to beat the dog that comes between them, who turning again upon him that smites him, sends him from seeking a vain remedy, to seek a real physician indeed."

It was anciently the custom for the sponsors at christenings to offer gilt spoons as presents to the child: these spoons were called Apostle spoons, because the figures of the twelve Apostles were chased or carved on the tops of the handles. Opulent sponsors gave the whole twelve. Those in middling circumstances gave four; and the poorer sort contented themselves with the gift of one, exhibiting the figure of any saint in honour of whom the child received its name. It is in allusion to this custom that when Cranmer professes to be unworthy of being sponsor to the young Princess, Shakespeare makes the King reply, "Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons." In the year 1560, we find entered in the books of the Stationers' Company: "A spoyne, the gyfte of Master Reginold Wolfe, all gylte, with the pycture of St. John." Ben Jonson, also, in his Bartholomew Fair, mentions spoons of this kind: "And all this for the hope of a couple of Apostle spoons and a cup to eat caudle in." So, in Middleton's Comedy of a Chaste Maid of Cheapside, 1620. "Second Gossip. What has he given her? What is it, Gossip? Third Gros. A faire high-standing cup and two great postle spoons, one of them gilt." Again, in Sir William Davenant's Comedy of the Wits, 1639:

"My pendants, carcanets, and rings,
My christening caudle-cup and spoons,
Are dissolved into that lump."

Again, in the Noble Gentleman, by Beaumont and Fletcher:

"I'll be a gossip. Bewford,
I have an odd Apostle spoon."

In Shipman's Gossips, 1666, Poems, 1683, p. 113, we read:

"Since friends are scarce, and neighbours many,
Who will lend mouths, but not a penny,
(if you grant not a supply)
Must e'en provide a chrisome pye;"

i.e. serve up the child in a pie. Our author is pleasant on [p.84] the failure of the old custom of giving Apostle spoons, &c., at christenings:

"Especially since gossips now
Eat more at christnings, than bestow.⁵¹
Formerly when they used to troul
Gilt bowls of sack, they gave the bowl
Two spoons at least; an use ill kept;
'Tis well now if our own be left."

With respect to the "crisome pye," it is well known that "crisome signifies properly the white cloth, which is set by the minister of baptism upon the head of a child newly anointed with chrism (a kind of hallowed ointment used by Roman Catholics in the sacrament of baptism and for certain other unctions, composed of oyl and balm) after his baptism. Now it is vulgarly taken for the white cloth put about or upon a child newly christened, in token of his baptism; wherewith the women used to shroud the child, if dying within the month; otherwise it is usually brought to church at the day of purification."⁵² Blount's Glossographia, in v.

We find, ibid., under Natal or Natalitious Gifts, among the Grecians, "the fifth day after the child's birth, the neighbours sent in gifts or small tokens; from which custom, that among Christians of the godfathers sending gifts to the baptised infant is thought to have flown; and that also of the neighbours sending gifts to the mother of it, as is still used in North Wales." In the Comforts of Wooing, p. 163, "The god-mother hearing when the child's to be coated, brings it a gilt coral, a silver spoon, and porringer, and a brave new tankard [p.85] of the same metal. The godfathers come too, the one with a whole piece of flowered silk, the other with a set of gilt spoons, the gifts of Lord Mayors at several times."

In Howe's edition of Stow's Chronicle, 1631, p. 1039, speaking of the life and reign of King James, he observes: "At this time, and for many yeares before, it was not the use and custome (as now it is) for godfathers and godmothers generally to give plate at the baptisme of children (as spoones, cupps, and such like), but onely to give christening shirts, with little lands and cliff's, wrought either with silke or blew threed, the best of them, for chiefe persons weare, edged with a small lace of blacke silke and gold, the highest price of which for great men's children was seldom above a noble, and the common sort, two, three, or foure, and five shillings a piece."

Strype in. his Annals of the Reformation, i. 196, A.D. 1559, informs us that "on the 27th of October that year, the Prince of Sweden, the Lord Robert and the Lady Marchioness of Northampton, stood sureties at the christening of Sir Thomas Chamberlayne's son, who was baptised at St. Benet's church, at Paul's Wharf. The church was hung with cloth of arras; and, after the christening, were brought wafers, comfits, and divers banquetting dishes, and hypocras and Muscadine wine, to entertain the guests."

There was formerly a custom of having sermons at christenings. I had the honour of presenting to the Earl of Leicester one preached at the baptism of Theophilus Earl of Huntingdon.

The well-known toy, with bells, &c., and a piece of coral at the end, which is generally suspended from the necks of infants to assist them in cutting their teeth, is with the greatest probability supposed to have had its origin in an ancient superstition, which considered coral as an amulet or defensative against fascination; for this we have the authority of Pliny: "Aruspices religiosum coralli gestamen amoliendis periculis arbitrantur; et surculi infantise alligati tutelam habere creduntur." It was thought, too, to preserve and fasten the teeth in men. Reginald Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, p. 166, says: "The coral preserveth such as bear it from fascination or bewitching, and in this respect they are hanged about children's necks. But from whence that superstition is derived, or who invented the lye, I know not; but I see [p.86] how ready the people are to give credit thereunto by the multitude of corrals that were employed."

Stevens informs us that there appears to have been an old superstition that coral would change its colour and look pale when the wearer of it was sick. So in the Three Ladies of London, 1584:

"You may say jet will take up a straw,
Amber will make one fat,
CORAL will look pale when you be sick, and
Chrystal will stanch blood."

In Bartholomeus de Proprietatibus Rerum, edit. 1536, fol. 229, we read: "Wytches tell, that this stone (coral) withstondeth lyghtenynge. It putteth of lyghtenyng, whirlewynde, tempeste and stormes fro shyppes and houses that it is in. The red (coral) helpeth ayenst the fendes gyle and scorne, and ayenst divers wonderous doyng, and multiplieth fruite, and spedeth begynnyng and ending of causes and of nedes."

Coles, in his Adam in Eden, speaking of coral, says: "It helpeth children to breed their teeth, their gums being rubbed therewith; and to that purpose they have it fastened at the ends of their mantles." And Plat, in his Jewel-House of Art and Nature, p. 232, says: "Coral is good to be hanged about children's necks, as well to rub their gums as to preserve them from the falling sickness; it hath also some special sympathy with nature, for the best coral, being worn about the neck, will turn pale and wan if the party that wears it be sick, and comes to its former colour again as they recover health."

In a most rare work, entitled the French Garden for English Ladyes and Gentlewomen to walke in: or a Sommer Dayes Labour, &c., by Peter Erondell and John Fabre, 1621, in a dialogue relative to the dress of a child, we have another proof of the long continuance of this custom: "You need not give him his corall with the small golden chayne, for I beleeve it is better to let him sleepe untill the afternoone."

In a curious old book, 12mo. 1554, entitled A Short Description of Antichrist, is this passage: "I note all their Popishe traditions of confirmacion of yonge children with oynting of oyle and creame, and with a ragge knitte about the necke of the younge babe."

[p.87]

[Good Friday and Easter Sunday are both considered lucky days for changing the caps of young children. If a child tooths first in the upper jaw, it is considered ominous of its dying in its infancy.]

BETROTHING CUSTOMS.

MOST profusely various have been the different rites, ceremonies, and customs, adopted by the several nations of the Christian world, on the performance of that most sacred of institutions, by which the Maker of mankind has directed us to transmit our race. The inhabitants of this island do not appear to have been exceeded by any other people on this occasion.

Before we enter upon the discussion of these, it will be necessary to consider distinctly the several ceremonies peculiar to betrothing by a verbal contract of marriage, and promises of love previously to the marriage union.

There was a remarkable kind of marriage-contract among the ancient Danes called hand-festing.⁵³ It is mentioned in Kay's Glossarium Northanhymbricum, in his collection of local words. Strong traces of this remain in our villages in many parts of the kingdom. I have been more than once assured from credible authority on Portland Island, that something very like it is still practised there very generally, where the inhabitants seldom or never intermarry with any on the main-land, and where the young women, selecting lovers of the same place (but with what previous rites, ceremonies, or engagements, I could never learn), account it no disgrace to allow them every favour, and that, too, from the fullest confidence of being made wives the moment such consequences of their stolen embraces begin to be too visible to be any longer concealed.

In the Christen State of Matrimony, 1543, p. 43, we read:

"Yet in thys thynge also must I warne everye reasonable and [p.88] honest parson to beware, that in contractyng of maryage they dyssemble not, nor set forthe any lye. Every man lykewyse must esteme the parson to whom he is hand-fasted, none otherwyse than for his owne spouse, though as yet it be not done in the church ner in the streate. After the hand-fastynge and makyng of the contracte, the churchgoying and weddyng shuld not be differred to longe, lest the wickedde sowe hys ungracious sede in the meane season. Into this dysh hath the Dyvell put his foote, and mengled it wythe many wycked uses and coustumes. For in some places ther is such a maner, wel worthy to be rebuked, that at the HANDEFASTING ther is made a greate feaste and superfluous bancket, and even the same night are the two handfasted personnes brought and layed together, yea certan wekes afore they go to the chyrch."

In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, 1794, xii. 615, the minister of Eskdalemuir, co. Dumfries, mentioning an annual fair, held time out of mind at the meeting of the Black and White Esks, now entirely laid aside, says: "At that fair it was the custom for the unmarried persons of both sexes to choose a companion according to their liking, with whom they were to live till that time next year. This was called hand-fatting, or hand in fist. If they were pleased with each other at that time, then they continued together for life: if not, they separated, and were free to make another choice as at the first. The fruit of the connexion (if there were any) was always attached to the disaffected person. In later times, when this part of the country belonged to the Abbacy of Melrose, a priest to whom they gave the name of Book i' Bosom (either because he carried in his bosom a Bible, or perhaps a register of the marriages), came from time to time to confirm the marriages. This place is only a small distance from the Roman encampment of Castle-oe'r. May not the fair have been first instituted when the Romans resided there? and may not the 'handfasting' have taken its rise from their manner of celebrating marriage, ex usu, by which, if a woman, with the consent of her parents or guardians, lived with a man for a year, without being absent three nights, she became his wife? Perhaps, when Christianity was introduced, this form of marriage may have been looked upon as imperfect without confirmation by a priest, and therefore one may have been sent from time to time for this purpose."

[p.89]

In a book of great curiosity, entitled A Werke for Housholders, &c., by a professed Brother of Syon, Richarde Whitforde, 1537, is the following caution on the above subject: "The ghostely enemy doth deceyve many persones by the pretence and coloure of matrimony in private and secrete contractes. For many men, when they can nat obteyne theyr unclene desyre of the woman, wyll promyse maryage and ther upon make a contracte promyse, and gyve faythe and trouth eche unto other, saying, 'Here, I take the, Margery, unto my wyfe, and therto I plyght the my troth.' And she agayne unto him in lyke maner. And after that done, they suppose they rnaye lawfully use theyr unclene behavyoure, and sometyme the acte and dede dothe folowe, unto the greate offence of God and their owne souls. It is a great jeopardy therefore to make any suche contractes, specially amonge themselfe secretely alone without recordes, which muste be two at the lest."

In Strype's Annals of the Reformation, i. App. p. 57, among the Interrogatories for the doctrine and manners of mynisters, &c., early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, is the following, which clearly implies the then use and abuse of betrothing: "28. Whether they have exhorted yong folke to absteyne from privy contracts, and not to marry without the consent of such their parents and fryends as have auctority over them, or no." I have no doubt but that in every of the privy contracts to be cautioned against by the above, there was a "mutual interchangement of rings," and the indulgence of every familiarity.

"The antient Frenchmen had a ceremonie, that when they would marrie, the bridegrome shoudd pare his nayles and send them unto his new wife; which done, they lived together afterwards as man and wife." Vaughan's Golden Grove, 1608.

In the old play, A Woman's a Weather-cocke, Scudmore, ii. 1, tells the priest who is going to marry his mistress to Count Fredericke:

"She is contracted, sir, nay married
Unto another man, though it want forme:
And such strange passages and mutuall vowes,
'Twould make your short haire start through youre blacke
Cap, should you but heare it."

It was anciently very customary, among the common sort of people, to break a piece of gold or silver in token of a [p.90] verbal contract of marriage and promises of love; one half whereof was kept by the woman, while the other part remained with the man.⁵⁴ Strutt, in his Manners and Customs,⁵⁵ has illustrated this by an extract from the old play of the Widow. From this it also appears that no dry bargain would hold on such occasions. For on the Widow's complaining that Ricardo had artfully drawn her into a verbal contract, she is asked by one of her suitors, "Stay, stay, you broke no gold between you?" To which she answers, "We broke nothing, sir." And, on his adding, "Nor drank to each other?" she replies, "Not a drop, sir." Whence he draws this conclusion, "that the contract cannot stand good in law." The latter part of the ceremony seems alluded to in the following passage in Middleton's play of No Wit like a Woman's: "Ev'n when my lip touch'd the contracting cup."

We find, in Hudibras, I. i. 487, that the piece broken between the contracted lovers must have been a crooked one:

"Like commendation ninepence crook't,
With to and from my love it lookt."

A circumstance confirmed also in the Connoisseur, No. 56, with an additional custom of giving locks of hair woven in a true lover's knot. " If, in the course of their amour, the mistress gives the dear man her hair wove in a true lover's knot, or breaks a crooked ninepence with him, she thinks herself as- [p.91] sured of his inviolate fidelity." This "bent token" has not been overlooked by Gay, Fifth Past., 129:

"A ninepence bent
A token kind to Bumkinet is sent."

It appears to have been formerly a custom also for those who were betrothed to wear some flower as an external and conspicuous mark of their mutual engagement; the conceit of choosing such short-lived emblems of their plighted loves cannot be thought a very happy one. That such a custom, however, did certainly prevail, we have the testimony of Spenser, in his Shepherd's Calendar for April, as follows:

"Bring coronations and sops in wine
Worn of paramours."

Sops-in-wine were a species of flowers among the smaller kind of single gilliflowers or pinks.

Camden, in his Ancient and Modern Manners of the Irish, says, that "they are observed to present their lovers with bracelets of women's hair, whether in reference to Venus' cestus or not, I know not." Gough's Camden, iii. 658. See also Memorable Things noted in the Description of the World, p. 113.

In the old play, entitled the Dutch Courtezan, a pair of lovers are introduced plighting their troth as follows: "Enter Freeville. Pages with torches. Enter Beatrice above." After some very impassioned conversation, Beatrice says: "I give you faith; and prethee, since, poore soule! I am so easie to beleeve thee, make it much more pitty to deceive me. Weare this sleight favour in my remembrance" (throweth down a ring to him).

"Frev. Which, when I part from,
Hope, the best of life, ever part from me!
Graceful mistresse, our nuptiatt day holds.
Beatrice. With happy constancye a wished day." [Exit.

Of gentlemen's presents on similar occasions, a lady, in Cupid's Revenge (a play of Beaumont and Fletcher's) says:

"Given earings we will wear;
Bracelets of our lovers' hair,
Which they on our arms shall twist,
(With their names carv'd) on our wrist."

[p.92]

In Greene's Defence of Conny-Catching, is the following passage: "Is there not heere resident about London, a crew of terryble hacksters in the habite of gentlemen wel appareled? and yet some weare bootes for want of stockings, with a locke worne at theyr lefte eare for their mistrisse favour." The subsequent is taken from Lodge's Wit's Miserie, 1596, p. 47: "When he rides, you shall know him by his fan: and if he walke abroad, and misse his mistres favour about his neck, arme, or thigh, he hangs the head like the soldier in the field that is disarmed."

Among affiancing customs, the following will appear singular. Park, in his Travels in the Interior of Africa, tells us: "At Baniseribe, a Slatee having seated himself upon a mat by the threshold of his door, a young woman (his intended bride) brought a little water in a calabash, and, kneeling down before him, desired him to wash his hands; when he had done this, the girl, with a tear of joy sparkling in her eye, drank the water; this being considered as the greatest proof of her fidelity and love."

We gather from Howe's additions to Stow's Chronicle, that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was "the custome for inaydes and gentilwomen to give their favourites, as tokens of their love, little handkerchiefs of about three or foure inches square, wrought round about, and with a button or a tassel at each corner, and a little one in the middle, with silke and threed; the best edged with a small gold lace, or twist, which being foulded up in, foure crosse foldes, so as the middle might be scene, gentlemen and others did usually weare them in their hatts, as favours of their loves and mistresses. Some cost six pence apiece, some twelve pence, and the richest sixteene pence."

In the old play of the Vow-Breaker, or the Fayre Maid of Clifton, 1636, act i. sc. 1, Miles, a miller, is introduced, telling his sweetheart, on going away to the wars, "Mistress Ursula, 'tis not unknowne that I have lov'd you; if I die, it shall be for your sake, and it shall be valiantly: I leave an hand-kercher with you; 'tis wrought with blew Coventry: let me not, at my returne, fall to my old song, she had a clowte of mine sowde with blew Coventry, and so hang myself at your infidelity."

The subsequent passage, from the Arraignment of lewd, [p.93] idle, froward, and unconstant Women, 1632, points out some of the vagaries of lovers of that age: "Some thinke, that, if a woman smile on them, she is presentlie over head and eares in love. One must weare her glove, another her garter, another her colours of delight," &c. pp. 31-32. As does the following epigram of a still earlier date, in the House of Correction, by I. H., sm. 8vo. 1619:

"Little Pigmeus weares his mistris glove,

Her ring and feather (favours of her love);
Who could but laugh to see the little dwarfe
Grace out himselfe with her imbrodered scarfe?
'Tis strange, yet true, her glove, ring, scarfe, and fan,
Makes him (unhansome) a well-favour'd man."

In Quarles' Shepheard's Oracles, 4to. 1646, p. 63, is the following passage:

"The musick of the oaten reeds perswades
Their hearts to mirth.
And whilst they sport and dance, the love-sick swains
Compose rush-rings and myrtleberry chains,
And stuck with glorious king-cups, and their bonnets
Adorn'd with lawr ell-slips, chaunt their love-sonnets,
To stir the fires and to encrease the flames
In the cold hearts of their beloved dames."

A joint-ring appears to have been anciently a common token among betrothed lovers. These, as we gather from the following beautiful passage in Dryden's play of Don Sebastian, 1690, p. 122, were by no means confined to the lower orders of society:

"A curious artist wrought 'em,
With joynts so close as not to be perceiv'd;
Yet are they both each other's counterpart.
(Her part had Juan inscrib'd, and his had Zayda.
You know those names were theirs :) and, in the midst,
A heart divided in two halves was plac'd.
Now if the rivets of those rings, inclos'd,
Fit not each other, I have forg'd this lye:
But if they join, you must for ever part."⁵⁶

[p.94]

Bowed money appears anciently to have been sent as a token of love and affection from one relative to another. Thus we read in the Third Part of Conny-Catching, "Then taking fourth a bowed groat, and an old pennie bowed, he gave it her as being sent from her uncle and aunt." In the Country Wake, a comedy by Doggett, 1696, v. i., Hob, who fancies he is dying, before he makes his last will and testimony, as he calls it, when his mother desires him to try to speak to Mary, "for she is thy wife, and no other," answers, "I know, I'm sure to her and I do own it before you all; I ask't her the question last Lammas, and at Allhollow's-tide we broke a piece of money, and if I had liv'd till last Sunday, we had. been ask'd in the church," [In an old penny history, called Bateman's Tragedy, or the perjured Bride justly rewarded, being the history of the unfortunate love of German's wife and young Bateman, an allusion occurs to this practice: "Long they dwelt not on this theme, before they fell to that of love, renewing their vows of eternal love and constancy that nothing but death should be able to separate them: and, to bind it, he broke a piece of gold, giving her the one half, and keeping the other himself: and then with tears and tender kisses they parted."]

Swinburne on Spousals, p. 10, says: "Some spousals are contracted by signs, as the giving and receiving a ring, others by words."

In the play of the Vow-Breaker, i. 1, Young Bateman and Anne, we read:

"Ba. Now, Nan, here's none but thou and I; thy love
Emboldens me to speak, and cheerfully
Here is a peece of Gold; 'tis but a little one,
Yet big enough to ty and seale a knot,
A jugall knot on earth, to which high heaven
Now cries amen: say thou so too, and then
When eyther of us breakes this sacred bond,
Let us be made strange spectacles to the world,
To heaven, and earth.
An. Amen, say I;
And let heaven loth me when I falsifie."

Afterwards, on Young Bateman's return from the wars, during whose absence Anne has been induced by her father to marry another person, Anne says, "I am married."

[p.96]

"Ba. I know thou art, to me, my fairest Nan:
Our vows were made to heaven, and on earth
They must be ratifide: in part they are,
By giving of a pledge, a peice of gold:
Which when we broke, joyntly then we swore,
Alive or dead, for to enjoy each other,
And so we will, spight of thy father's frownes."

And afterwards, act iii. sc. 1, Anne, seeing the ghost of Young Bateman, who had hanged himself for her sake, exclaims:

"It stares, beckons, points to the peece of gold
We brake between us: looke, looke there, here, there!"

[Compare also the following lines in the Exeter Garland, 8vo. about 1750:

"A ring of pure gold she from her finger took,
And just in the middle the same then she broke:
Quoth she, as a token of love you this take,
And this as a pledge I will keep for your sake."]

In the Scourge for Paper Persecutors, 1625, p. 11, we find the penance for anti-nuptial fornication:

"Or wanton rig, or letcher dissolute,
Doe stand at Paul's-crosse in a sheeten sute."

In Codrington's Second Part of Youth's Behaviour, or Decency in Conversation amongst Women, 1664, p. 33, is the following very remarkable passage: "It is too often seen that young gentlewomen by gifts are courted to interchange, and to return the courtesie: rings indeed and ribbands are but trifles, but believe me, they are not trifles that are aimed at in such exchanges: let them therefore be counselled that they neither give nor receive any thing that afterwards may procure their shame."

In Whimzies, or a New Cast of Characters, 1631, the unknown author, in his description of a pedlar, ii. 21, has the following passage: can it allude to the custom of interchanging betrothing rings?⁵⁷ "St. Martin's rings and counterfeit bracelets are commodities of infinite consequence. They will passe [p.96] for current at a May-pole, and purchase a favour from their May-Marian."

In Herrick's Hesperides, p. 201, a Jimmal ring is mentioned as a love-token:

"The Jimmal Ring, or True-love Knot.
Thou sent'st to me a true-love knot; but I
Returned a ring of jimmals, to imply
Thy love had one knot, mine a triple-tye."

The difference between the betrothing or affiancing ceremony and that of marriage is clearly pointed out in the following passages: "'Sponsalia non sunt de essentia sacramenti matrimonii, possuntque sine illius prsejudicio omitti, sicut et pluribus in locis revera omittuntur,' dit le Rituel d'Evreux de l'annee 1621. Le Concile Provincial de Reims en 1583 dit: 'Sponsalia non nisi cor am parocho, vel ejus vicario deinceps fiant, idque in ecclesia et non alibi.' Les Statuts Synodaux de Sens, en 1524: 'Possunt prius et debent dare fidem inter se de matrimonio contrahendo, et hoc palam in ecclesia et in prcesentia sacerdotis, &c.'" Traite des Superstitious, par M. Jean Baptiste Thiers, Par. 1704, iv. 470. To the betrothing contract under consideration must be referred, if I mistake not, and not to the marriage ceremony itself (to which latter, I own, however, the person who does not nicely discriminate betwixt them will be strongly tempted to incline), the well-known passages on this subject in Shakspeare's play of Twelfth Night.⁵⁸

 I am by no means satisfied with the comment of Steevens on these passages, though at first I had hastily adopted it. After painful research, I can find no proof that in our ancient ceremony at marriages the man received as well as gave the ring: nor do I think the custom at all exemplified by the quotation from Lupton's first book of Notable Things. The expression is equivocal, and "his maryage ring" I should think means no more than the ring used at his marriage, that which he gave and which his wile received: at least we are not warranted to interpret it at present any otherwise, till some passage can actually be adduced from the ancient manuscript rituals to evince that there ever did at marriages take [p.97] place such "interchangement of rings," a custom which however certainly formed one of the most prominent features of the ancient betrothing ceremony.

A MS. missal, as old as the time of Richard the Second, formerly the property of University College in Oxford, gives not the least intimation that the woman too gave a ring. I shall cite this afterwards under Marriage Ceremonies. The following passage from Coats's Dictionary of Heraldry, 1725, v. ANNULUS, would bear hard against me, were it supported by any other authority than that of an ipse dixit: "But for my part, I believe the rings married people gave one another do rather denote the truth and fidelity they owe to one another, than that they import any servitude." And yet concession must be made that the bridegroom appears to have had a ring given him as well as the bride in the diocese of Bordeaux in France.⁵⁹

In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, 1792, ii. 80, the minister of Galston, in Ayrshire, informs us of a singular custom there: "When a young man wishes to pay his addresses to his sweetheart, instead of going to her father's and professing his passion, he goes to a public-house; and having let the landlady into the secret of his attachment, the object of his wishes is immediately sent for, who never almost [p.98] refuses to come. She is entertained with ale and whisky, or brandy, and the marriage is concluded on. The second day after the marriage, a creeling, as it is called, takes place. The young wedded pair, with their friends, assemble in a convenient spot. A small creel, or basket, is prepared for the occasion, into which they put some stones: the young men carry it alternately, and allow themselves to be caught by the maidens, who have a kiss when they succeed. After a great deal of innocent mirth and pleasantry, the creel falls at length to the young husband's share, who is obliged to carry it generally for a long time, none of the young women having compassion upon him. At last, his fair mate kindly relieves him from his burden; and her complaisance in this particular is considered as a proof of her satisfaction with the choice she has made. The creel goes round again; more merriment succeeds; and all the company dine together and talk over the feats of the field. Perhaps the French phrase, 'Adieu panniers, vendanges sont faites,' may allude to a similar custom."

[In Guernsey, when a young man offers himself to a young lady, and is accepted, the parents of the parties give what is termed a flouncing; that is, they invite their friends to a feast. The young lady is led round the room by her future father-in-law, and introduced to his friends, and afterwards the
young man is paraded in like manner by his future father-in-law; then there is an exchange of rings and some articles of plate, according to the rank of the parties. After this, it is horrid for the damsel to be seen walking with any other male person, and the youth must scarce glance at anything feminine; in this way they court for years. After this ceremony, if the gentleman alters his mind, the lady can claim half his property; and if the fickle lass should repent, the gentleman can demand the half of hers. The natives of Guernsey keep themselves very secluded; they have three classes of society the sixties, the forties, and the twenties. The first, in their evening visiting carry a lantern with three lights; the second, one with two; and the third one.

In Wales, there is a custom called bundling, in which the betrothing parties go to bed in their clothes. It has given rise to many actions for seduction.]

[p.99]

PEASCOD WOOING.

[IT is somewhat surprising that a custom of a very singular character, which was common in this country some centuries ago, and is still partly retained in some counties, should have altogether escaped the notice of all writers on our popular customs and superstitions; and the commentators on Shakespeare have entirely misunderstood a passage in the works of our great dramatic poet, from not having been aware that our ancestors were frequently accustomed in their love affairs to employ the divination of a peascod, by selecting one growing on the stern, snatching it away quickly, and if the good omen of the peas remaining in the husk were preserved, then presenting it to the lady of their choice. Touchstone, in As You Like it, act ii. scene 4, thus alludes to this practice: "I remember, when I was in love, I broke my sword upon a stone, and bid him take that for coming a-night to Jane Smile; and I remember the kissing of her batler, and the cow's dugs that her pretty chapped hands had milked; and I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her, from whom I took two cods, and, giving her them again, said, with weeping tears, 'Wear these for my sake.'"

Mr. Davy, of Ufford, in Suffolk, informs me that the efficacy of peascods in the affairs of sweethearts is not yet forgotten among our rustic vulgar. The kitchen-maid, when she shells green peas, never omits, if she finds one having nine peas, to lay it on the lintel of the kitchen-door, and the first clown who enters it is infallibly to be her husband, or at least her sweetheart. Anderson mentions a custom in the North, of a nature somewhat similar. A Cumbrian girl, when her lover proves unfaithful to her, is, by way of consolation, rubbed with peas-straw⁶⁰ by the neighbouring lads; and when a Cumbrian youth loses his sweetheart, by her marriage with a rival, the [p.100] same sort of comfort is administered to him by the lasses of the village. "Winter time for shoeing, peascod time for wooing," is an old proverb in a MS. Devon Gl. The divination by peascods, alluded to by Mr. Davy, is thus mentioned by Gay:

"As peascods once I pluck'd, I chanced to see
One that was closely fill'd with three times three;
Which, when I cropp'd, I safely home convey'd,
And o'er the door the spell in secret laid;
The latch mov'd up, when who should first come in,
But in his proper person, Lubberkin!"

But perhaps the passage in Shakespeare is best illustrated by the following passage from Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, p. 71, which seems to have escaped the notice of all writers on this subject:

"The peascod greene, oft with no little toyle
He'd seek for in the fattest fertil'st soile,
And rend it from the stalke to bring it to her,
And in her bosom for acceptance wooe her."

Grose tells us that "a scadding of peas" is a custom in the North of boiling the common grey peas in the shell, and eating them with butter and salt, first shelling them. A bean, shell and all, is put into one of the pea-pods; whoever gets this bean is to be first married.]

RING AND BRIDECAKE.

AMONG the customs used at marriages, those of the RING and BRIDECAKE seem of the most remote antiquity. Confarreation and the ring⁶¹ were used anciently as binding ceremo- [p.101] nies by the heathens⁶² in making agreements, grants,⁶³ &c., whence they have doubtless been derived to the most solemn of our engagements.

The ceremony used at the solemnization of a marriage was called confarreation, in token of a most firm conjunction between the man and the wife, with a cake of wheat or barley. This, Blount tells us, is still retained in part with us, by that which is called the bridecake used at weddings. Moffet, in his Health's Improvement, p. 218, informs us that "the English, when the bride comes from church, are wont to cast wheat upon her head; and when the bride and bridegroom return home, one presents them with a pot of butter, as presaging plenty, and abundance of all good things."

This ceremony of confarreation has not been omitted by the learned Moresin: "SUMANALIA, panis erat formam rotce factus; hoc utuntur papani in nuptiis, &c." Papatus, p. 165. Nor has it been overlooked by Herrick in his Hesperides. At p. 128, speaking to the bride, he says:⁶⁴

"---------------------While some repeat
Your praise, and bless you, sprinkling you with wheat."

The connexion between the bridecake and wedding is strongly marked in the following custom, still retained in Yorkshire, where the former is cut into little square pieces, thrown over the bridegroom's and bride's head, and then put through the ring. The cake is sometimes broken over the [p.102] bride's head, and then thrown away among the crowd to he scrambled for. This is noted by the author of the Convivial Antiquities, f. 68, in his description of the rites of marriages in his country and time: "Peracta re divina sponsa ad sponsi Jomum deducitur, indeque panis projicitur, qui a pueris certatim rapitur." In the North, slices of the bridecake are put through the wedding ring: they are afterwards laid under pillows, at night, to cause young persons to dream of their lovers. Douce says this custom is not peculiar to the north of England. It seems to prevail generally. The pieces of the cake must be drawn nine times through the wedding ring.

Aubrey, in the Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme, MS. Lansd. 226, f. 109, says: "When I was a little boy (before the civil wars), I have seen, according to the custome then, the bride and bridegroome kisse over the bridecakes at the table. It was about the latter end of dinner; and the cakes were layd one upon another, like the picture of the shewbread in the old Bibles. The bridegroom waited at dinner."

The supposed Heathen origin of our marriage ring had well-nigh caused the abolition of it during the time of the Commonwealth. The facetious author of Hudibras (in. ii. 303) gives us the following chief reasons why the Puritans wished it to be set aside:

"Others were for abolishing
That tool of matrimony, a ring,
With which th' unsanctify'd bridegroom
Is marry'd only to a thumb
(As wise as ringing of a pig
That us'd to break up ground and dig);
The bride to nothing but her will,
That nulls the after-marriage still."

The following thought on the marriage ring, in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 72, is well expressed:

"And as this round
Is no where found
To flaw, or else to sever:
So let our love
As endlesse prove,
And pure as gold for ever."⁶⁵

[p.103]

The allusion both to the form and metal of which it is composed is elegant. Were it not too long, it would be the best poesie for a wedding ring that ever was devised.

Vallancey, in his Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, xiii. 98, says that "there is a passage in Ruth, chap, iv., v. 7, which gives room to think the ring was used by the Jews as a covenant." He adds, that the Vulgate have translated narthick (which ought to be a ring) a shoe. "In Irish, nuirt is an amulet worn on the finger or arm, a ring." "Spheera solis est narthick," says Buxtorf in his Chaldee Lexicon. Leo Modena, in his History of the Rites, Customes, and Manner of Life of the present Jews throughout the World, translated by Chilmead, 1650, p. 176, speaking of their contracts and manner of marrying, says that, before the writing of the bride's dowry is produced and read, "the bridegroom putteth a ring upon her finger, in the presence of two witnesses, which commonly used to be the Rabbines, saying withal unto her, 'Behold, thou art my espoused wife, according to the custome of Moses and of Israel.'"

The wedding ring is worn on the fourth finger of the left hand, because it was anciently believed, though the opinion has been justly exploded by the anatomists of modern times, that a small artery ran from this finger to the heart. Wheatley, on the authority of the Missals, calls it a vein. "It is," says he, "because from thence there proceeds a particular vein to the heart. This, indeed, is now contradicted by experience; but several eminent authors, as well Gentiles as Christians, as well physicians as divines, were formerly of this opinion, and therefore they thought this finger the properest to bear this pledge of love, that from thence it might be conveyed, as it were, to the heart."

In the Hereford, York, and Salisbury Missals the ring is directed to be put first upon the thumb, afterwards upon the second, then on the third, and lastly, on the fourth finger, [p.104] where it is to remain, "quia in illo digito est queedam vena procedens usque ad cor."

It is very observable that none of the above Missals mention the hand, whether right or left, upon which the ring is to be put. This has been noticed by Selden, in his Uxor Hebraica: "Digito quarto, sed non liquet dexterse an sinistrse manus." The Hereford Missal inquires, "Queero quse est ratio ista, quare anulus ponatur in quarto digito cum pollice computato, quam in secundo vel tercio? Isidorus dicit quod qusedam vena extendit se a digito illo usque ad cor, et dat intelligere unitatem et perfectionem amoris."

It appears from Aulus Gellius, lib. x. cap. 1 0, that the ancient Greeks and most of the Romans wore the ring "in eo digito qui est in manu sinistra minimo proximus." He adds, on the authority of Appian, that a small nerve runs from this finger to the heart; and that therefore it was honoured with the office of bearing the ring, on account of its connexion with that master-mover of the vital functions.

Levinus Lemnius tells us, speaking of the ring-finger, that "a small branch of the arterie, and not of the nerves, as Gellius thought, is stretched forth from the heart unto this finger, the motion whereof you shall perceive evidently in women with child and wearied in travel, and all affects of the heart, by the touch of your fore finger. I use to raise such as are fallen in a swoond by pinching this joynt, and by rubbing the ring of gold with a little saffron, for by this a restoring force that is in it passeth to the heart, and refresheth the fountain of life, unto which this finger is joyn'd: wherefore it deserved that honour above the rest, and antiquity thought fit to compasse it about with gold. Also the worth of this finger that it receives from the heart procured thus much, that the old physicians, from whence also it hath the name of Medicus, would mingle their medicaments and potions with this finger, for no venom can stick upon the very outmost part of it, but it will offend a man, and communicate itself to his heart." English Trans. 1658, p. 109.

Macrobius (Saturnal. lib. vii. cap. 13) assigns the same reason; but also quotes the opinion of Ateius Capito, that the right hand was exempt from this office, because it was much more used than the left hand, and therefore the precious stones of the rings were liable to be broken; and that the [p.105] finger of the left hand was selected which was the least used. For the ring having been used by the Romans at their marriages, consult Juvenal, Sat. vi., v. 27.

To a Querist in the British Apollo, 1708, i. 18, "Why is it that a person to be married is enjoyned to put a ring upon the fourth linger of his spouse's left hand?" It is answered, "There is nothing more in this, than that the custom was handed down to the present age from the practice of our ancestors, who found the left hand more convenient for such ornaments than the right, in that it's ever less employed; for the same reason they chose the fourth finger, which is not only less used than either of the rest, but is more capable of preserving a ring from bruises, having this one quality peculiar to itself, that it cannot be extended but in company with some other finger, whereas the rest may be singly stretched to their full length and straightness. Some of the ancients were of opinion in this matter, that the ring was so worn because to that finger, and to that only, comes an artery from the heart; but the politer knowledge of our modern anatomists having clearly demonstrated the absurdity of that notion, we are rather inclined to believe the continuance of the custom owing to the reason above mentioned."

There is an old proverb on the subject of wedding rings, which has no doubt been many a time quoted for the purpose of encouraging and hastening the consent of a diffident or timorous mistress:

"As your wedding ring wears,
Your cares will wear away."

In a scarce tract in my collection, entitled A Briefe Discourse of a Disease called the Suffocation of the Mother, written by Edward Jorden, Doctor in Physicke, 1603, the learned author, in a list of "superstitious remedies which have crept into our profession," mentions a whimsical superstition relating to the wedding ring which need not be repeated.

Many married women are so rigid, not to say superstitious, in their notions concerning their wedding rings, that neither when they wash their hands, nor at any other time, will they take it off from their finger, extending, it should seem, the expression of "till death us do part" even to this golden circlet, the token and pledge of matrimony.

[p.106]

This may have originated in the Popish hallowing of this ring, of which the following form occurs in the Doctrine of the Masse Booke, from Wyttonberge, by Nicholas Dorcaster, 1554: "The hallowing of the woman s ring at wedding. Thou Maker and Conserver of mankinde, gever of spiritual grace and graunter of eternal salvation, Lord, send thy Ê blessing upon this ring, (here the Protestant translator observes in the margin, 'Is not here wise geare?') that she which shall weare it, maye be armed wyth the vertue of heavenly defence, and that it maye profit her to eternal salvation, thorowe Christ," &c. "A prayer. Ê Halow thou, Lord, this ring, which we blesse in thy holye Name: that what woman soever shall weare it, may stand fast in thy peace, and continue in thy wyl, and live and grow and waxe old in thy love, and be multiplied into that length of daies, thorow our Lord, &c. Then let holy water be sprinkled upon the ryng."

Columbiere, speaking of rings, says: "The hieroglyphic of the ring is very various. Some of the antients made it to denote servitude, alledging that the bridegroom was to give it to his bride, to denote to her that she is to be subject to him, which Pythagoras seemed to confirm when he prohibited wearing a streight ring, that is, not to submit to over-rigid servitude."⁶⁶

Rings appear to have been given away formerly at weddings. In Wood's Athenae Oxonienses, i. 280, we read in the account of the famous philosopher of Queen Elizabeth's days, Edward Kelly, "Kelly, who was openly profuse beyond the modest limits of a sober philosopher, did give away in gold-wire rings (or rings twisted with three gold wires), at the marriage of one of his maid-servants, to the value of 4000Z." This was in 1589, at Trebona.

In Davison's Poetical Rapsody, 1611, p. 93, occurs the following beautiful sonnet:

"Upon sending his Mistresse a Gold Ring with this Poesie,
PUKE AND ENDLESSE.
If you would know the love which I you beare,
Compare it to the ring which your faire hand
Shall make more precious, when you shall it weare;
So my love's nature you shall understand.

[p.107]

Is it of mettall pure? so you shall prove
My love, which ne'er disloyall thought did staine.
Hath it no end? so endlesse is my love,
Unlesse you it destroy with your disdaine.
Doth it the purer waxe the more 'tis tri'de?
So doth my love; yet herein they dissent,
That whereas gold the more 'tis purifide,
By waxing lesse, doth shew some part is spent,
My love doth waxe more pure by your more trying,
And yet encreaseth in the purifying."

A remarkable superstition still prevails among the lowest of our vulgar, that a man may lawfully sell his wife to another, provided he deliver her over with a halter about her neck. It is painful to observe that instances of this frequently occur in our newspapers.

Every one knows that in England, during the time of the Commonwealth, justices of peace were empowered to marry people. A jeu d' esprit on this subject may be found in Flecknoe's Diarium, 1656, p. 83: "On the justice of peace's making marriages, and the crying them in the market."

RUSH RINGS.

A CUSTOM extremely hurtful to the interests of morality appears anciently to have prevailed both in England and other countries of marrying with a BUSH RING; chiefly practised, however, by designing men, for the purpose of debauching their mistresses, who sometimes were so infatuated as to believe that this mock ceremony was a real marriage.⁶⁷

[p.108]

BRIDE FAVOURS.

A KNOT, among the ancient northern nations, seems to have been the symbol of love, faith, and friendship, pointing out the indissoluble tie of affection and duty. Thus the ancient Runic inscriptions, as we gather from Hickes's Thesaurus,⁶⁸ are in the form of a knot. Hence, among the northern English and Scots, who still retain, in a great measure, the language and manners of the ancient Danes, that curious kind of knot, a mutual present between the lover and his mistress, which, being considered as the emblem of plighted fidelity, is therefore called a true-love knot: a name which is not derived, as one would naturally suppose it to be, from the words "true," and "love," but formed from the Danish verb [p.109] Trulofa, fidem do, I plight my troth, or faith. Thus we read, in the Islandic Gospels, the following passage in the first chapter of St. Matthew, which confirms, beyond a doubt, the sense here given "til einrar Meyar er trulofad var einum Manne," &c.; i.e. to a virgin espoused, that is, who was promised or had engaged herself to a man, &c. Hence, evidently, the bride favours, or the top-knots, at marriages, which have been considered as emblems of the ties of duty and affection between the bride and her spouse, have been derived.

Sir Thomas Browne, in his Vulgar Errors, says: "The true-lover's knot is much magnified, and still retained in presents of love among us; which, though in all points it doth not make out, had, perhaps, its original from Nodus Herculanus, or that which was called Hercules his knot, resembling the snaky complication in the caduceus, or rod of Hermes, and in which form the zone or woollen girdle of the bride was fastened, as Turnebus observes in his Adversaria."

The following beautiful madrigal, entitled "The True-love's Knot," occurs in Davison's Poetical Rapsody, 1611, p. 216:

"Love is the linke, the knot, the band of unity,
And all that love, do love with their belov'd to be:
Love only did decree
To change his kind in me.
For though I lov'd with all the powers of my mind,
And though my restles thoughts their rest in her did finde,
Yet are my hopes declinde,
Sith she is most unkinde.
For since her beauties sun my fruitles hope did breede,
By absence from that sun I hop't to sterve that weede;
Though absence did, indeede,
My hopes not sterve, but feede.
For when I shift my place, like to the stricken deere,
I cannot shift the shaft which in my side I beare:
By me it resteth there,
The cause is not elsewhere.
So have I seene the sicke to turne and turne againe,
As if that outward change could ease his inward paine:
But still, alas! in vaine,
The fit doth still remaine.
Yet goodnes is the spring from whence this ill doth grow,
For goodnes caus'd the love, which great respect did owe;
Respect true love did show;
True love thus wrought my woe."

[p.110]

Gay, in his pastoral called the Spell, thus beautifully describes the rustic manner of knitting the true-love knot:

"As Lubberkin once slept beneath a tree,
I twitch'd his dangling garter from his knee;
He wist not when the hempen string I drew;
Now mine I quickly doff, of inkle blue;
Together fast I tie the garters twain,
And, while I knit the knot, repeat this strain
Three times a true-love's knot I tie secure:
Firm be the knot, firm may his love endure."

Another species of knot divination is given in the Connoisseur, No. 56: "Whenever I go to lye in a strange bed, I always tye my garter nine times round the bed-post, and knit nine knots in it, and say to myself: 'This knot I knit, this knot I tye, to see my love as he goes by, in his apparel'd array, as he walks in every day.'" This is of course intended for poetry.

I find the following passage in the Merry Devil of Edmonton, 4to. 1631:

"With pardon, sir, that name is quite undon,
This true-love knot cancelles both maide and nun."

Bride favours appear to have been worn by the peasantry of France, on similar occasions, on the arm. In England these knots of ribands were distributed in great abundance formerly, even at the marriages of persons of the first distinction. They were worn at the hat (the gentleman's I suppose), and consisted of ribands of various colours. If I mistake not, white ribands are the only ones used at present. Ozell, in a note to his translation of Misson, p. 350, says the favour "was a large knot of ribbands, of several colours, gold, silver, carnation, and white. This is worn upon the hat for some weeks." Another note, in p. 351, says: "It is ridiculous to go to a wedding without new cloaths. If you are in mourning, you throw it off for some days, unless you are in mourning for some near relation that is very lately dead.'' Misson, p. 350, says: "Formerly in France they gave livrees de ofices, which was a knot of ribbands, to be worn by the guests upon their arms; but that is practis'd now only among peasants. In England it is done still among the greatest noblemen. These ribbands they call favours, and give them not only to those that are at the wedding, but to five hundred people besides; [p.111] they send them about, and distribute them at their own houses. 'Tother day, when the eldest son of M. de Overkerque marry'd the Duke of Ormond's sister, they dispers'd a whole inundation of those little favours. Nothing else was here to be met with, from the hat of the king down to that of the meanest servant. Among the citizens and plain gentlemen, which is what they call the gentry, they sometimes give these favours; but it is very common to avoid all manner of expence as much as possible."

In Paradoxical Assertions and Philosophical Problems, by R. H., 1664, p. 19, we read: "I shall appeal to any enamoreto but newly married, whether he took not more pleasure in weaving innocent true-love knots than in untying the virgin zone, or knitting that more than Gordian knot which none but that invincible Alexander, Death, can untye?"

To the variety of colours in the bride favours used formerly, the following passage, wherein Lady Haughty addresses Morose, in Jonson's play of the Silent Woman, evidently alludes:

"Let us know your bride's colours and yours at least."

The bride favours have not been omitted in the northern provincial poem of the Collier's Wedding:

"The blithsome, buck some country maids,
With knots of ribbands at their heads,
And pinners flutt'ring in the wind,
That fan before and toss behind."

And speaking of the youth, with the bridegroom, it says:

"Like streamers in the painted sky,
At every breast the favours fly."

In a curious old book, called the Fifteen Comforts of Marriage, a conference is introduced at pp. 44, 47, and 48, concerning bridal colours in dressing up the bridal bed by the bridemaids not, say they, with yellow ribbands, these are the emblems of jealousy not with fueille mort, that signifies fading love but with true-blue, that signifies constancy, and green denotes youth put them both together, and there's youthful constancy. One proposed blew and black, that signifies constancy till death; but that was objected to, as those colours will never match. Violet was proposed, as signifying [p.112] religion; this was objected to as being too grave: and at last they concluded to mingle a gold tissue with grass-green, which latter signifies youthful jollity. For the bride's favours, top-knots, and garters, the bride proposed blew, gold-colour, popingay-green, and limon-colour, objected to, gold-colour signifying avarice popingay-green wantonness. The younger bridemaid proposed mixtures, flame-colour flesh-colour willow and milk-white. The second and third were objected to, as flesh-colour signifies lasciviousness, and willow forsaken. It was settled that red signifies justice, and sea-green inconstancy. The milliner, at last, fixed the colours as follows: for the favours, blue, red, peach-colour, and orange-tawny: for the young ladies' top-knots, flame-colour, straw-colour (signifying plenty), peach-colour, grass-green, and milk-white; and for the garters, a perfect yellow, signifying honour and joy.

The following allusion to bride favours is from Herrick's Hesperides, p. 252:

"What posies for our wedding-rings,
What gloves we'll give, and ribbanings."

In the Gentleman's Magazine for October, 1733, iii. 545, are "Verses sent by a young lady, lately married, to a quondam lover, inclosing a green ribbon noozed:"⁶⁹

"Dear D.

In Betty lost, consider what you lose,
And, for the bridal knot, accept this nooze;
The healing ribbon, dextrously apply'd,
Will make you bear the loss of such a bride."

There is a retort courteous to this very unladylike intimation, that the discarded lover may go hang himself, but it is not worth inserting.

[p.113]

BRIDEMAIDS.

THE use of bridemaids at weddings appears as old as the time of the Anglo-Saxons; among whom, as Strutt informs us, "the bride was led by a matron, who was called the bride's woman, followed by a company of young maidens, who were called the bride's maids." The bridemaids and the bridegroom men are both mentioned by the author of the Convivial Antiquities, in his description of the rites at marriages in his country and time.⁷⁰

In later times it was among the offices of the bridemaids to lead the bridegroom to church, as it was the duty of the bridegroom's men to conduct the bride thither. This has not been overlooked in the provincial poem of the Collier's Wedding:

"Two lusty lads, well drest and strong,
Stepp'd out to lead the bride along;
And two young maids, of equal size,
As soon the bridegroom's hands surprize."

It was an invariable rule for the men always to depart the room, till the bride was undressed by her maids and put to bed.

It is stated in the account of the marriage ceremonials of Philip Herbert and the Lady Susan, performed at Whitehall in the reign of James I., that "the Prince and the Duke of Hoist, led the bride to church."

In the old History of John Newchombe, the Wealthy Clothier of Newbery, cited by Strutt, iii. 154, speaking of his bride, it is said, that "after hee, came the chiefest maidens of the country, some bearing bridecakes, and some garlands, made of wheat finely gilded, and so passed to the church. She was led to church between two sweet boys, with bridelaces and rosemary tied about their silken sleeves; the one was Sir Thomas Parry, the other Sir Francis Hungerford."

In the old play of A Woman is a Weathercock, act 1, sc. 1. on a marriage going to be solemnized, Count Fredericke says:

[p.114]

"My bride will never be readie, I thinke; beer are the other sisters" Pendant observes: "Looke you, my lorde; there's Lucida weares the willow-garland for you, and will so go to church, I hear." As Lucida enters with a willow-garland, she says:

"But since my sister he hath made his choise,
This wreath of willow, that begirts my browes,
Shall never leave to be my ornament
Till he be dead, or I be married to him."

Waldron, in his Description of the Isle of Man (Works, fol. p. 169), speaking of the Manx weddings, says: "They have bridemen and brides-maids, who lead the young couple as in England, only with this difference, that the former have ozier wands in their hands, as an emblem of superiority."

In Brooke's England's Helicon, we read:

"Forth, honour'd groome; behold, not farre behind,
Your willing bride, led by two strengthksse boyes:"

marked in the margin opposite, "Going to church bride boyes."

Misson, in his Travels, p. 352, says: "The bridemaids carry the bride into the bed-chamber, where they undress her and lay her in the bed. They must throw away and lose all the pins. Woe be to the bride if a single one is left about her; nothing will go right. Woe also to the bridemaids if they keep one of them, for they will not be married before Whitsontide." Or, as we read in Hymen, 1760, p. 173, "till the Easter following at soonest."

BRIDEGROOM MEN.

THESE appear anciently to have had the title of bride-knights.⁷¹ Those who led the bride to church were always bachelors, but she was to be conducted home by two married [p.115] persons. Polydore Vergil, who wrote in the time of Henry the Eighth, informs us that a third married man, in coming home from church, preceded the bride, bearing, instead of a torch, a vessel of silver or gold.⁷² Moresin relates that to the bachelors and married men who led the bride to and from church, she was wont to present gloves for that service during the time of dinner.⁷³

It was part of the bridegroom men's office to put him to bed to the bride, after having undressed him.

The following passage is in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady: "Were these two arms encompassed with the hands of batchelors to lead me to the church?"

In A Pleasant History of the First Founders, p. 57, we read: "At Rome the manner was that two children should lead the bride, and a third bear before her a torch of white-thorn in honour of Ceres, which custom was also observed here in England, saving that in place of the torch there was carried before the bride a bason of gold or silver; a garland, also, of corn-eares was set upon her head, or else she bare it on her hand; or, if that were omitted, wheat was scattered over her head in token of fruitfulness; as also, before she came to bed to her husband, fire and water were given her, which, having power to purify and cleanse, signified that thereby she should be chast and pure in her body. Neither was she to step over the threshold, but was to be borne over, to signifie that she lost her virginity unwillingly; with many other superstitious ceremonies, which are too long to rehearse."

[p.116]

STREWING HERBS, FLOWERS, OR RUSHES,
BEFORE THE BRIDEGROOM AND BRIDE IN THEIR WAY TO CHURCH;
AS ALSO THE WEARING NOSEGAYS ON THE OCCASION.

THERE was anciently a custom at marriages of strewing herbs and flowers, as also rushes, from the house or houses where persons betrothed resided to the church. The following is in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 129:

"Glide by the banks of virgins then, and passe
The showers of roses, lucky foure-leav'd grasse:
The while the cloud of younglings sing,
And drown ye with a flowrie spring."

As is the subsequent, in Braithwaite's Strappado for the Divell, 8vo. Lond. 1615, p. 74:

"All haile to Hymen and his marriage day,
Strew rushes, and quickly come away;
Strew rushes, maides ; and ever as you strew,
Think one day, maides, like will be done for you."

So, likewise, Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, p. 50. Every one will call to mind the passage in Shakespeare to this purpose:

"Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse."

Armin's History of the Two Maids of Moreclacke, 4to. 1609, opens thus, preparatory to a wedding: "Enter a maid strewing flowers, and a serving-man perfuming the door. The maid says, 'Strew, strew,' the man, 'The muscadine stays for the bride at church.'" So in Brooke's Epithalamium in England's Helicon:

"Now busie maydens strew sweet flowres."

In Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1636, we read: "Enter Adriana and another, strawing hearbes.

"Adr. Come, straw apace; Lord, shall I never live
To walke to church on flowers? O 'tis fine
To see a bride trip it to church so lightly,
As if her new choppines would scorn to bruzo
A silly flower."

in the Oxford Drollery, 1671, p. 118, is a poem styled "A [p.117] Supposition," in which the custom of strewing herbs is thus alluded to:

"Suppose the way with fragrant herbs were strewing,
All things were ready, we to church were going;
And now suppose the priest had joyn'd our hands," &c.

"'Tis worthy of remark that something like the ancient custom of strewing the threshold of a new-married couple with flowers and greens is, at this day, practised in Holland. Among the festoons and foliage, the laurel was always most conspicuous; this denoted, no doubt, that the wedding-day is a day of triumph." Hymen, or an accurate Description of the Ceremonies used in Marriage in every Nation of the World, 1760, p. 39. The strewing herbs and flowers on this occasion, as mentioned in a note upon the old play of Ram Alley, to have been practised formerly, is still kept up in Kent and many other parts of England. Among the allusions of modern poetry to this practice may be mentioned Six Pastorals, by George Smith, Landscape Painter at Chichester in Sussex, 1770, where, p. 35, we read:

"What do I hear? The country hells proclaim
Evander's joy and my unhappy flame.
My love continues, though there's no redress!
Ah, happy rival! Ah, my deep distress!
Now, like the gather' d flow' rs that strew' d her way,
Forc'd from my love, untimely I decay."

So also Rowe, in the Happy Village (Poems, 1796, i. 113), tells us:

"The wheaten ear was scatter'd near the porch,
The green bloom blossom'd strew'd the way to church."

The bell-ringing, &c., used on these occasions are thus introduced:

"Lo! where the hamlet's ivy'd gothic tow'r
With merry peals salutes the auspicious hour,
With sounds that thro' the chearful village bear
The happy union of some wedded pair;"

"The wedding-cake now through the ring was led,
The stocking thrown across the nuptial bed."

"Now Sunday come, at stated hour of prayer,
Or rain or shine, the happy couple there:
Where nymphs and swains in various colours dight,
Gave pleasing contrast to the modest white."

With regard to nosegays, called by the vulgar in the north [p.118] of England "Posies," Stephens has a remarkable passage in his character of a Plaine Country Bridegroom, p. 353. "He shews," says he, "neere affinity betwixt marriage and hanging; and to that purpose he provides a great nosegay, and shakes hands with every one he meets, as if he were now preparing for a condemned man's voyage." Nosegays occur in the poem of the Collier's Wedding:

"Now all prepared and ready stand,
With fans and posies in their hand."

In Racket's Marriage Present, a Wedding Sermon, the author introduces, among flowers used on this occasion, primroses, maidens'-blushes, and violets. Herrick, in his Hesperides, plays thus upon the names of flowers selected for this purpose, p. 131:

"Strip her of spring-time, tender whimp'ring maids,
Now autumne's come, when all those flow'rie aids
Of her delayes must end: dispose
That lady-smock, that pansie, and that rose,
Neatly apart;
But for prick-madam and for gentle-heart,
And soft maiden's-blush, the bride
Makes holy these, all others lay aside:
Then strip her, or unto her
Let him come who dares undo her."

In Vox Graculi, 4to. 1623, "Lady Ver, or the Spring," is called "the Nosegay-giver to weddings," p. 19.

We may here notice that it was also usual to strew flowers in churches on days of humiliation and thanksgiving. In Nichols's Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of Ancient Times in England, 1797, among the parish accounts of St. Margaret, Westminster, under the year 1650, are the following items: "Item, paid for herbs that were strewed in the windows of the church, and about the same, att two severall daies of humiliation, 3s. 10d. Item, paid for herbs that were strewed in the church upon a daie of thanksgiving, 2s. 6d." Under 1651: "Item, paid for hearbs that were strewed in the church on the 24th day of May, being a day of humiliation, 3s. Item, paid to the ringers for ringing on the 24th of October, being a day of thanksgiving for the victorie over the Scots at Worcester, 7s. Item, paid for hearbes and lawrell that were strewed in the church the same day, 8s."

[p.119]

ROSEMARY AND BAYS AT WEDDINGS.

ROSEMARY, which was anciently thought to strengthen the memory, was not only carried at funerals, but also worn at weddings. Herrick, in his Hesperides, p. 273, has the following lines on the Rosemarie Branch:

"Grow for two ends: it matters not at all,
Be't for my bridatt or my buriall."

In the old play called A Faire Quarrel, 4to. Lond. 1617, act v. sc. 1, we read

"Phis. Your maister is to be married to-day?
Trim. Else all this rosemary is lost."

In another old play, Ram Alley, or Merrie Tricks, 1611, is the following allusion to this old custom:

"Know, varlet, I will be wed this morning;
Thou shalt not be there, nor once be grac'd
With a peece of rosemary."

In a curious wedding sermon, by Roger Racket, 1607, entitled A Marriage Present, he thus expatiates on the use of rosemary at this time: "The last of the flowers is the rosemary (Rosmarinus, the rosemary, is for married men), the which by name, nature, and continued use, man challengeth as properly belonging to himselfe. It overtoppeth all the flowers in the garden, boasting man's rule. It helpeth the braine, strengthened the memorie, and is very medicinable for the head. Another property of the rosemary is, it affects the hart. Let this Rosmarinus, this flower of men, ensigne of your wisdome, love, and loyaltie, be carried not only in your hands, but in your heads and harts." [Compare, also, an old ballad called the Bride's Good-morrow, a copy of which is in the British Museum:

"Young men and maids do ready stand,
With sweet rosemary in their hand,
A perfect token of your virgin's life:
To wait upon you they intend
Unto the church to make an end,
And God make thee a joyfull wedded wife."

And perhaps the reason for the custom may be found in the [p.120] following lines in Robinson's Handefull of Pleasant Delites, 1584:

"Rosemarie is for remembrance
Betweene us dale and night,
"Wishing that I may alwaies have
You present in my sight."]

Both rosemary and bays appear to have been gilded on these occasions. So Racket, ut supra; "Smell sweet, ye flowers, in your native sweetness: be not gilded with the idle arte of man." Thus, in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 252:

"This done, we'l draw lots, who shall buy
And guild the baies and rosemary."

Also, p. 208, are "Lines to Rosemary and Baies:"

"My wooing' s ended; now my wedding's neere;
When gloves are giving, guilded be you there."

It appears from a passage in Stephens's Character of a Plaine Countrey Bride, p. 357, that the bride gave also, or wore, or carried, on this occasion, "gilt rases of ginger." "Guilt rases of ginger, rosemary, and ribbands be her best magnificence, She will therefore bestow a livery, though she receives back wages."

In a very curious old printed account of "The receiving of the Queen's Majesty into the City of London, January 14th, 1558," in the possession of Mr. Nichols, is the following passage: "How many nosegayes did her Grace receyve at poore women's hands! How oftentimes stayed she her chariot when she saw any simple body offer to speake to her Grace! A braunch of rosemary given to her Grace, with a supplication, by a poor woman about Fleet Bridge, was seene in her chariot till her Grace came to Westminster." In Strype's edition of Stow's Survey, b. i. p. 259, A. D. 1560, at "a wedding of three sisters together," we read: "Fine flowers and rosemary [were] strewed for them coming home: and so to the father's house, where was a great dinner prepared for his said three bride-daughters, with their bridegrooms and company." In the year 1562, July 20, a wedding at St. Olave's, "a daughter of Mr. Nicholls (who seems to have been the Bridge-master) was married to one Mr. Coke. At the celebration whereof were present my Lord Mayor, and all the aldermen, with [p.121] many ladies, &c.: and Mr. Becon, an eminent divine, preached a wedding sermon. Then all the company went home to the Bridge House to dinner: where was as good cheer as ever was known, with all manner of musick and dancing all the remainder of the day; and at night a goodly supper; and then followed a masque till midnight. The next day the wedding was kept at the Bridge House, with great cheer; and after supper came in masquers. One was in cloth of gold. The next masque consisted of friars, and the third of nuns. And after, they danced by times: and lastly, the friars and the nuns danced together."

In A Perfect Journall, &c. of that memorable Parliament begun at Westminster, Nov. 3, 1640, i. 8, is the following passage: "Nov. 28. That afternoon Master Prin and Master Burton came into London, being met and accompanied with many thousands of horse and foot, and rode with rosemary and bayes in their hands and hats; which is generally esteemed the greatest affront that ever was given to the courts of justice in England."

The rosemary used at weddings was previously dipped, it should seem, in scented water. In Dekker's Wonderful! Yeare, 1603, speaking of a bride who died of the plague on her wedding-day, he says: "Here is a strange alteration, for the rosemary that was washt in sweet water to set out the bridall, is now wet in teares to furnish her buriall." And in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, it is asked "were the rosemary branches dipped?"

Stephens, in his character of a Plaine Country Bridegroome, p. 352, says: "He is the finest fellow in the parish, and hee that misinterprets my definition deserves no rosemary nor rose-water." At p. 355 he adds: "He must savour of gallantry a little: though he perfume the table with rose-cake, or appropriate bone-lace and Coventry-blew:" and is passing witty in describing the following trait of our bridegroom's clownish civility: "He hath heraldry enough to place every man by his armes." Coles, in his Adam in Eden, speaking of rosemary, says: "The garden rosemary is called rosemarinum coronarium, the rather because women have been accustomed to make crowns and garlands thereof."

The following is in Parkinson's Garden of Flowers, 1629, p. 598: "The bay-leaves are necessary both for civil uses and [p.122] for physic, yea, both for the sick and for the sound, both for the living and for the dead. It serveth to adorn the house of God as well as man to crowne or encircle, as with a garland, the heads of the living, and to sticke and decke forth the bodies of the dead; so that, from the cradle to the grave, we have still use of it, we have still need of it." Ibid., p. 426: "Rosemary is almost of as great use as bays as well for civill as physical purposes: for civil uses, as all doe know, at weddings, funerals, &c; to bestow among friends." [To these may be added the following curious observations in Eachard's Observations, 8vo. Lond. 1671, p. 71: "I cannot forget him, who having at some time or other been suddenly cur'd of a little head-ach with a rosemary posset, would scarce drink out of any thing but rosemary cans, cut his meat with a rosemary knife, and pick his teeth with a rosemary sprig. Nay, sir, he was so strangely taken up with the excellencies of rosemary, that he would needs have the Bible cleared of all other herbs, and only rosemary to be inserted."]

Coles, in his Art of Simpling, p. 73, repeats the observation of rosemary, that it "strengthens the senses and memory." In a rare work, entitled A Strange Metamorphosis of Man, 1634, in No. 37, "The Bay Tree," it is observed that "hee is fit for halls and stately roomes, where, if there be a wedding kept, or such like feast, he will be sure to take a place more eminent than the rest. He is a notable smell-feast, and is so good a fellow in them, that almost it is no feast without him. He is a great companion with the rosemary, who is as good a gossip in all feasts as he a trencher-man." In the Elder Brother, 1637, act iii. sc. 3, in a scene immediately before a wedding:

"Lew. Pray take a peece of rosemary.
Mir. I'll wear it, but for the lady's sake, and none of yours."

In the first scene of Fletcher's Woman's Pride, "The parties enter with rosemary as from a wedding" So in the Pilgrim;

"Alph. Well, well, since wedding will come after wooing, Give me some rosemary, and letts be going."

We gather from the old play of Ben Jonson, entitled the Tale of a Tub, that it was customary for the maidens, i.e. the bridemaids, on the bridegroom's first appearance in the morn- [p.123] ing, to present him with a bunch of rosemary bound with ribands.⁷⁴

So late as the year 1698, the old country use appears to have been kept up, of decking the bridal bed with sprigs of rosemary; it is not, however, mentioned as being general.

GARLANDS AT WEDDINGS.

NUPTIAL garlands are of the most remote antiquity. They appear to have been equally used by the Jews and the heathens.⁷⁵ "Among the Romans," says Vaughan, in his Golden Grove, 1608, "when the marriage-day was come, the bride was bound to have a chaplet of flowers or hearbes upon her head, and to weare a girdle of sheeps wool about her middle, fastened with a true-loves-knot, the which her husband must loose. Here hence rose the proverb: He hath undone her virgin's girdle; that is, of a mayde he hath made her a woman."

Among the Anglo-Saxons, after the benediction in the church, both the bride and the bridegroom were crowned with crowns of flowers, kept in the church for that purpose. In the eastern church the chaplets used on these occasions appear [p.124] to have been blessed.⁷⁶ The nuptial garlands were sometimes made of myrtle. In England, in the time of Henry VIII., the bride wore a garland of corn-ears; sometimes one of flowers.⁷⁷ In dressing out Grisild for her marriage, in the Clerk of Oxenford's Tale, in Chaucer, the chaplet is not forgotten: "A coroune on hire hed they han y-dressed."

In Nichols's Churchwardens' Accounts, 1797, St. Margaret's Westminster, under 1540 is the following: "Paid to Alice Lewis, a goldsmith's wife of London, for a serclett to marry may dens in, the 26th day of September, 3l. 10s." In Field's Amends for Ladies, 1639, scene the last, when the marriages are agreed upon, there is a stage direction to set garlands upon the heads of the maid and widow that are to be married.

Dallaway, in his Constantinople, 1797, p. 37, tells us: "Marriage is by them (of the Greek Church) called the matrimonial coronation, from the crowns or garlands with which the parties are decorated, and which they solemnly dissolve on the eighth day following."

I know not Gosson's authority for the following passage: "In som countries the bride is crowned by the matrons with a garland of prickles, and so delivered unto her husband that hee might know he hath tied himself to a thorny plesure." Schoole of Abuse, 1587, or rather the Ephemerides of Phialo, 1579, p. 73.

"Donner le chapelet. Se prend pour marier, a cause que [p.125] l'on met ordinal rement sur la teste des nouvelles mariees, je dis des personnes de peu de condition, un chapelet de romarin. Et notre vieille coutume porte, qu'un pere pent marier sa fille d'un chapeau de roses, c'est a dire, ne luy bailler rien que son chapelet. La couronne est appellee chapelet, diminutif de chapeau, quod capiti imponeretur." Les Origines de quelguea Coutumes Anciennes, 12mo. Caen, 1672, p. 53. Ibid. p. 70: "Chapeau ou chapel de roses. C'est un petit mariage, car quand on demande ce qu'un pere donne a une fille, et qu'on veut repondre qu'il donne pen, on dit qu'il lui donne un chapeau de roses qu'un chapel ou chapelet de roses soit convenable aux nouvelles maries, personne n'en doute: les fleurs en general, et les roses particulierement, etant consacres a Venus, aux Graces, et l'Amour."

The author of the Convivial Antiquities, in his description of the rites at marriages in his country and time, has not omitted garlands: "Antequam eatur ad templum jentaculum sponsse et invitatis apponitur, serta atque corollce distribuuntur." Antiquitates Convivial, f. 68.

GLOVES AT WEDDINGS.

THE giving of gloves at marriages is a custom of remote antiquity. The following is an extract from a letter to Mr. Winwood from Sir Dudley Carleton, dated London, January 1604, concerning the manner of celebrating the marriage between Sir Philip Herbert and the Lady Susan: "No ceremony was omitted of bridecakes, points, garters and gloves."

In Ben Jonson's play of the Silent Woman, Lady Haughty observes to Morose, "We see no ensigns of a wedding here, no character of a bridale; where be our skarves and our gloves?" The bride's gloves are noticed in Stephens's character of A Plaine Country Bride, p 358: "She hath no rarity worth observance, if her gloves be not miraculous and singular; those be the trophy of some forlorne suitor, who contents himself with a large offering, or this glorious sentence, that she should have bin his bedfellow."

It appears from Selden's Uxor Hebraica, Opera, iii. 673; [p.126] that the Belgic custom at marriages was for the priest to ask of the bridegroom the ring, and, if they could be had, a pair of red gloves, with three pieces of silver money in them (arrhae loco), then putting the gloves into the bridegroom's right hand, and joining it with that of the bride, the gloves were left, on loosing their right hands, in that of the bride.

The custom of giving away gloves at weddings occurs in Wilson's play of the Miseries of Inforced Marriage. White gloves still continue to be presented to the guests on this occasion. So also in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 252:

"What posies for our wedding-rings,
What gloves we'll give, and ribbanings."

In Arnold's Chronicle (circa 1521), chiefly concerning London, among "the artycles upon whiche is to inquyre in the visitacyons of ordynaryes of chyrches," we read: "Item, whether the curat refuse to do the solemnysacyon of lawful! matrymonye before he have gyfte of money, hoses, or gloves" There is some pleasantry in the vulgar, rather amorous than superstitious, notion, that if a woman surprises a man sleeping, and can steal a kiss without waking him, she has a right to demand a pair of gloves. Thus Gay in his Sixth Pastoral: "Cic'ly, brisk maid, steps forth before the rout, And kiss'd, with smacking lip, the snoring lout; For custom says, whoe'er this venture proves, For such a kiss demands a pair of gloves.''

In the north of England a custom still prevails at maiden assizes, i.e. when no prisoner is capitally convicted, to present the judges with white gloves. It should seem, by the following passage in Clavell's Recantation of an Ill-led Life, 1634, that anciently this present was made by such prisoners as received pardon after condemnation,. It occurs in his dedication "to the impartiall judges of his majestie's bench, my Lord Chiefe Justice, and his other three honourable assistants."

"Those pardon'd men, who taste their prince's loves,
(As married to new life) do give you gloves."

Clavell was a highwayman, who had just received the king's pardon. He dates from the King's Bench Prison, October 1627. Fuller, in his Mixt Contemplations on these Times, 1660, says, p. 62: "It passeth for a generall report of what was customary in former times, that the sheriff of the county [p.127] used to present the judge with a pair of white gloves, at those which we call may den assizes, viz. when no malefactor is put to death therein."

Among the lots in a Lottery presented before the late Queene's Majesty, at the Lord Chancellor's House, 1601, in Davison's Poetical Rapsody, 1611, p. 44, is, No. 8,

"A Paire of Gloves.

"Fortune these gloves to you IN CHALLENGE sends,
For that you love not fooles that are her friends."

Can the custom of dropping or sending the glove, as the signal of a challenge, have been derived from the circumstance of its being the cover of the hand, and therefore put for the hand itself? The giving of the hand is well known to intimate that the person who does so will not deceive, but stand to his agreement. To shake hands upon it would not, it should seem, be very delicate in an agreement to fight, and therefore gloves may, possibly, have been deputed as substitutes. We may, perhaps, trace the same idea in wedding gloves.

The late Rev. Dr. Lort says in a MS. note: "At Wrexham, in Flintshire, on occasion of the marriage of the surgeon and apothecary of the place, August 1785, I saw at the doors of his own and neighbours' houses, throughout the street where he lived, large boughs and posts of trees, that had been cut down and fixed there, filled with white paper, cut in the shape of women's gloves and of white ribbons."

GARTERS AT WEDDINGS.

GARTERS at weddings have been already noticed under the head of Gloves. There was formerly a custom in the north of England,⁷⁹ which will be thought to have bordered very [p.128] closely upon indecency, and strongly marks the grossness of manners that prevailed among our ancestors;⁸⁰ it was for the young men present at a wedding to strive, immediately after the ceremony, who could first pluck off the bride's garters from her legs. This was done before the very altar. The bride was generally gartered with ribands for the occasion. Whoever were so fortunate as to be victors in this singular species of contest, during which the bride was often obliged to scream out, and was very frequently thrown down, bore them about the church in triumph.

I find the following in the Epithalamie on Sir Clipesby Crew and his Lady, in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 128:

"Quickly, quickly then prepare,
And let the young men and the bride-maids share
Your garters; and their joyntts
Encircle with the bridegroom's points."

In Brooke's Epithalamium in England's Helicon, we read:

"Youths, take his poynts, your wonted right;
And maydens, take your due, her garters."

A note to a curious and rare tract, 4to. 1686, entitled a Joco-Serious Discourse in two Dialogues between a Northumberland Gentleman and his Tenant, a Scotchman, both old Cavaliers, p. 24, tells us: "the piper at a wedding has always a piece of the bride's garter tyed about his pipes." These garters, it should seem, were anciently worn as trophies in the hats. So Butler, in Hudibras, I. ii. 524:

"Which all the saints, and some since martyrs,
Wore in their hats like wedding garters."

Misson, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 352, says: "When bed-time is come, the bride-men pull off the bride's garters, which she had before unty'd, that they might hang down, and so prevent a curious hand from coming too neer her knee. This done, and the garters being fasten'd to the hats of the gallants, the bridemaids carry the bride [p.129] into the bride chamber, where they undress her and lay her in bed." It is the custom in Normandy for the bride to bestow her garter on some young man as a favour, or sometimes it is taken from her.

In Aylet's Divine and Moral Speculations, 1654, is a copy of verses "on sight of a most honourable lady's Wedding Garter." I am of opinion that the origin of the ORDER OF THE GARTER is to be traced to this nuptial custom, anciently common to both court and country.

Among the lots in a Lottery presented before the late Queene's Majesty at the Lord Chancelor's House, 1601 (Davison's Poetical Rapsody, 1611, p. 45), there occurs, No. 14:

"A Payre of Garters.

"Though you have Fortune's garters, you must be
More staid and constant in your steps than she."

Sir Abraham Ninny, in the old play of a Woman's a Weather-Cocke, 1612, act i. sc. 1, declares:

"Well, since I'm disdain'd, off garters blew,
Which signifies Sir Abram's love was true.
Off cypresse blacke, for thou befits not me;
Thou art not cypresse, of the cypresse tree,
Befitting lovers ; out green shoe-strings, out,
Wither in pocket, since my Luce doth pout."

SCARVES, POINTS, AND BRIDE LACES AT WEDDINGS.

THAT scarves, now confined to funerals, were anciently given at marriages, has been already noticed in a former section, from Ben Jonson's Silent Woman.⁸¹ In the same [p.130] author's Tale of a Tub, Turf is introduced as saying on this occasion: "We shall all ha' bride-laces, or points, I zee."

Among the lots presented to Queen Elizabeth, in 1601, already quoted from Davison's Rapsody, p. 44, the three following occur, in a list of prizes for ladies:

"9. A Dozen of Pointes.

You are in every point a lover true,
And therefore fortune gives the points to you."

"16. A Scarfe.

Take you this scarfe, bind Cupid hande and foote,
So Love must aske you leave before he shoote."

"10. A Lace.

Give her the lace that loves to be straight-lac'd,
So Fortune's little gift is aptly plac'd."

Herrick, in his Hesperides, p. 128, in the "Epithalamie on Sir Clipesby Crew and his Lady," thus cautions the bride-groom's men against offending the delicacy of the new-married lady:

"We charge ye that no strife
(Farther than gentleness tends) get place
Among ye striving for her LACE."

And it was observed before, in the account of the marriage ceremony of John Newchombe, the wealthy clothier of Newbury, (Strutt, iii. 154,) that his bride was led to church between two sweet boys, "with bride-laces and rosemary tied about their silken sleeves." In Dekker's Honest Whore, 1630, we read: "Looke yee, doe you see the bride-laces that I give at my wedding will serve to tye rosemary to both your coffins, when you come from hanging."

[p.131]

BRIDE KNIVES.

STRANGE as it may appear, it is however certain, that knives were formerly part of the accoutrements of a bride. This perhaps will not be difficult to account for, if we consider that it anciently formed part of the dress for women to wear a knife or knives sheathed and suspended from their girdles;⁸² a finer and more ornamented pair of which would very naturally be either purchased or presented on the occasion of a marriage.⁸³ In the Witch of Edmonton, 1658, p. 21, Somerton says: "But see, the bridegroom and bride come; the new pair of Sheffield knives fitted both to one sheath.⁸⁴ A bride [p.132] says to her jealous husband, in Dekker's Match me in London, 1631:

"See at my girdle hang my wedding knives!
With those dispatch me."

From a passage in the old play of King Edward the Third, 1599, there appear to have been two of them. So among the lots, in a Lottery presented before the Queen, in Davison's Poetical Rapsody, No. 11 is

"A Pair of Knives.

"Fortune doth give these paire of knives to you,
To cut the thred of love if 't be not true."

In the old play of a Woman's a Weather-Cocke, act v. sc. 1, Bellafront says:

"Oh, were this wedlock knot to tie againe,
Not all the state and glorie it containes,
Joyn'd with my father's fury, should enforce
My rash consent; but, Scudmore, thou shalt see
This false heart (in my death) most true to thee.
(Shews a knife hanging by her side.)"

In Well Met, Gossip; or, 'tis Merry when Gossips meet, 1675, the widow says:

"For this you know, that all the wooing season,
Suiters with gifts continual seek to gain
Their mistriss love," &c.

The wife answers:

"That's very true
In conscience I had twenty pair of. gloves,
When I was maid, given to that effect;
Garters, knives, purses, girdles, store of rings,
And many a thousand dainty, pretty things."

The following remarkable passage occurs in the Praise of Musicke (ascribed to Dr. Case), 1586: "I come to marriages, wherein as our ancestors (I do willingly harp upon this string, that our yonger wits may know they stand under correction of elder judgments) did fondly and with a kind of doting maintaine many rites and ceremonies, some whereof were either shadowes or abodements of a pleasant life to come, as the eating of a quince peare, to be a preparative of sweete and delightfull dayes between the maried persons."

[p.133]

The subsequent, no less curious, I find in Northbrook's Treatise on Dicing, 1579, p. 35: "In olde time (we reade) that there was usually caried before the mayde when she shoulde be maried, and came to dwell in hir husbandes house, a distaffe, charged with flax, and a spyndle hanging at it, to the intente that shee might bee myndefull to lyve by hir labour."

THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY,
OR PART OF IT, PERFORMED ANCIENTLY IN THE CHURCH-
PORCH, OR BEFORE THE DOOR OF THE CHURCH.

CAN this custom have had its rise in the uses of Gentilism? Vallancey informs us that "the antient Etruscans always were married in the streets, before the door of the house, which was thrown open at the conclusion of the ceremony." All the ancient missals mention at the beginning of the nuptial ceremony the placing of the man and woman before the door of the church,⁸⁵ and direct, towards the conclusion, that here they shall enter the church as far as the step of the altar. The vulgar reason assigned for the first part of this practice, i.e. "that it would have been indecent to give permission within the church for a man and a woman to sleep together," is too ridiculous to merit any serious answer.

Selden, in his Uxor Hebraica (Opera, iii. 680), asserts that nowhere else, but before the face of, and at the door of the church, could the marriage-dower have been lawfully assigned.⁸⁶ "Neque alibi quam in facie ecclesise et ad ostium ecclesiae, atque ante desponsationem in initio contractus (ut juris con- [p.134] sultus nostri veteres aiunt) sic fundi dos legitime assigriari potuit."

Chaucer, who flourished during the reign of Edward the Third, alludes to this custom in his Wife of Bath, thus:

"She was a worthy woman all her live,
Husbands at the church dore had she five."

In the curious collection of prints, illustrating ancient customs, in the library of Mr. Douce, there is one that represents a marriage solemnizing at the church door. [It was customary to baptise, marry people, and to bury them in the church-porch. Hence the "font or piscina" was there placed to hold consecrated water (called by St. Austin sacrarium regenerationis, the sacred laver of regeneration) for the holy baptism; when, after receiving this, the first sacrament of the Christian church, "the child entered it as into the care of a guardian; she takes him up in all the solemn crises of life, and at his death receives him into her bosom. The church is the general home, the universal mother, the mediator and conciliator between this world and the next, the outward and visible sign of the revelation of the Divine law." We have many instances of fonts being placed in the porch of our ancient churches; there is a beautiful hexagon one in the porch of East Dereham church, Norfolk. Until the time of Edward VI. marriages were performed in the church-porch, and not in the church. Edward I. was married at the door of Canterbury cathedral, September 9, 1299, to Margaret, sister of the king of France: and until 1599, the people of France were married at the church-door.]

In a MS. entitled Historical Passages concerning the Clergy in the Papal times, cited in the History of Shrewsbury, 1779, p. 92, notes, it is observed that "the pride of the clergy and the bigotry of the laity were such, that both rich and poor were married at the church doors."

In a MS. Missal of the date of Richard the Second's reign, formerly the property of University College in Oxford, in the marriage ceremony, the man says: "Ich M. take the N. to my weddid wyf, to haven and to holden, for fayrere, for fouler, for bettur for wors, for richer for porer, in seknesse and in helthe, for thys tyme forward, til dethe us departe, if holichirche will it orden; and erto iche plijt the my treuthe:" [p.135] and on giving the ring: "With this ring I the wedde, and this gold and selver ich the leve, and with my bodi I the worschepe, and with all my worldly catelle I the honoure." The woman says: "Iche N. take the M. to my weddid husbond, to haven and to hoklen, for fayrer for fouler, for better for wors, for richer for porer, in seknesse and in helthe, to be bonlich and buxum in bed and at burde, tyl deth us departe, fro thys tyme forward, and if holichirche it wol orden; and erto iche plijt the my truthe." The variations of these missals on this head are observable. The Hereford missal makes the man say: "IN. underfynge the N. for my wedde wyf, for betere for worse, for richer for porer, yn sekenes and in helthe, tyl deth us departe, as holy church hath ordeyned; and therto y plygth the my trowthe." The woman says: "IN. underfynge the N. &c. to be boxum to the, tyl deth us departe," &c.

In the Sarum Manual there is this remarkable variation in the woman's speech: "to be bonere and buxom in bedde and at borde," &c. Bonaire and buxum are explained in the margin by "meek and obedient." In the York Manual the woman engages to be "buxom" to her husband; and the man takes her "for fairer for fouler, for better for warse."

By the parliamentary reformation of marriage and other rites under King Edward the Sixth, the man and woman were first permitted to come into the body or middle of the church, standing no longer, as formerly, at the door: yet by the following, from Herrick's Hesperides, p. 143, one would be tempted to think that this custom had survived the Reformation:

"The Entertainment; or, PORCH VERSE at the Marriage of
Mr. Henry Northly and the most witty Mrs. Lettice Yard.
Welcome! but yet no entrance till we blesse
First you, then you, and both for white successe:
Profane no porch, young man and maid, for fear
Ye wrong the threshold-god that keeps peace here:
Please him, and then all good luck will betide
You the brisk bridegroom, you the dainty bride."

[p.136]

DRINKING WINE IN THE CHURCH AT MARRIAGES.

THIS custom is enjoined in the Hereford Missal.⁸⁷ By the Sarum Missal it is directed that the sops immersed in this wine, as well as the liquor itself, and the cup that contained it, should be blessed by the priest.⁸⁸ The beverage used on this occasion was to be drunk by the bride and bridegroom and the rest of the company.

In Lysons's Environs of London, iii. 624, in his account of Wilsdon parish, in Middlesex, he tells us of an "Inventory of the goods and ornaments belonging to Wilsdon church about A.D. 1547," in which occur "two masers that were appointed to remayne in the church for to drynk in at bride-ales."⁸⁹

In the Workes of John Heiwood, newlie imprinted, 1576, the following passage occurs:

"The drinke of my brydecup I should have forborne
Till temperaunce had tempred the taste beforne.
I see now, and shall see, while I am alive,
Who wedth or he be wise shall die or he thrive."

[p.137]

In the Compleat Vintner, 1720, p. 17, it is asked:

"What priest can join two lovers' hands,
But wine must seal the marriage-bands?
As if celestial wine was thought
Essential to the sacred knot,
And that each bridegroom and his bride
Believ'd they were not firmly ty'd
Till Bacchus, with his bleeding tun,
Had finished what the priest begun."⁹⁰

The pieces of cake, or wafers, that appear to have been immersed in the wine on this occasion, were properly called sops, and doubtless gave name to the flower termed Sops-in-wine. The allusions to this custom in our old plays are very numerous; as in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, where Petruchio calls for wine, gives a health, and having quaffed off the muscadel, throws the sops in the sexton's face.

In the beginning of Armin's History of the Two Maids of Moreclacke, 1609, the serving-man, who is perfuming the door, says: "The muscadine stays for the bride at church." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, i. 1:

"If my wedding-smock were on,
Were the gloves bought and given, the licence come,
Were the rosemary branches dipt, and all
The hippocras and cakes eat and drunk off."

In the articles ordained by Henry VII. for the regulation of his household, Article for the Marriage of a Princess, we read: "Then pottes of ypocrice to bee ready, and to be put into the cupps with soppe, and to be borne to the estates; and to take a soppe and a drinke," &c. In Dekker's Satiro-Mastix, 1602, we read: "And when we are at church bring the wine and cakes." At the magnificent marriage of Queen Mary and Philip in Winchester Cathedral, 1554, this was [p.138] practised: "The trumpetts sounded, and they both returned, hand in hand, to their traverses in the quire, and there remayned until mase was done; at which tyme wyne and sopes were hallowed, and delivered to them booth" Leland, Collectan. ed. 1770, iv. App. 400. Dr. Farmer has adduced a line in an old canzonet on a wedding, set to music by Morley, 1606: "Sops in wine, spice, cakes are a dealing." In Ben Jonson's Magnetic Lady, the wine drank on this occasion is called a "knitting cup."

The Jews have a custom at this day, when a couple are married, to break the glass in which the bride and bridegroom have drunk, to admonish them of mortality. This custom of nuptial drinking appears to have prevailed in the Greek Church.

A wedding sermon was anciently preached at almost every marriage of persons of any consequence. In the account of the parish of Driffield, in Gloucestershire (Fosbrooke's Hist. ii. 476), we read: "One John Humphries, M.A., in Feb. 1742, published a sermon preached at a wedding here. The Marriage Psalm, on the first .Sunday of the couple's appearance at church, still continues." In the British Museum, is a Sermon preached at Trafford, in Lancashire, at the Marriage of a daughter of the right worshipfull Sir Edmund Trafford, knight, the 6th of September, Anno 1586, by William Massie, 12mo. Oxford, 1586.

In a curious account of Irish marriage customs about 1682, in Piers's Description of Westmeath, in Vallancey, i. 122, it is stated, that "in their marriages, especially in those countries where cattle abound, the parents and friends on each side meet on the side of a hill, or, if the weather be cold, in some place of shelter about mid-way between both dwellings. If agreement ensue, they drink the agreement bottle, as they call it, which is a bottle of good usquebaugh (i.e. whisky, the Irish aqua vitae, and not what is now understood by usquebaugh), and this goes merrily round. For payment of the portion, which generally is a determinate number of cows, little care is taken. Only the father or next of kin to the bride, sends to his neighbours and friends, sub mutuce vicissitudinis obtentu, and every one gives his cow or heifer, which is all one in the case, and thus the portion is quickly paid; nevertheless, caution is taken from the bridegroom, on the [p.139] day of delivery, for restitution of the cattle, in case the bride die childless within a certain day limited by agreement, and in this case every man's own beast is restored. Thus care is taken that no man shall grow rich by often marriages. On the day of bringing home, the bridegroom and his friends ride out, and meet the bride and her friends at the place of treaty. Being come near each other, the custom was of old to cast short darts at the company that attended the bride, but at such a distance that seldom any hurt ensued; yet it is not out of the memory of man that the Lord Hoath on such an occasion lost an eye: this custom of casting darts is now obsolete."

The following is from the Gent. Mag. for March, 1767, p. 140: "The ancient custom of seizing wives by force, and carrying them off, is still practised in Ireland. A remarkable instance of which happened lately in the county of Kilkenny, where a farmer's son, being refused a neighbour's daughter of only twelve years of age, took an opportunity of running away with her; but being pursued and recovered by the girl's parents, she was brought back and married by her father to a lad of fourteen. But her former lover, determining to maintain his priority, procured a party of armed men, and beseiged the house of his rival; and in the contest the father-in-law was shot dead, and several of the beseigers were mortally wounded, and forced to retire without their prize."

THE NUPTIAL KISS IN THE CHURCH.

THIS nuptial kiss in the church is enjoined both by the York Missal⁹¹ and the Sarum Manual.⁹² It is expressly mentioned in the following line from the old play of the Insatiate Countess, by Marston:

"The kisse thou gav'st me in the church, here take."

[p.140]

We learn that, in dancing, "a kiss was anciently the established fee of a lady's partner." So, in a Dialogue between Custom and Veritie concerning the Use and Abuse of Dancing and Minstrelsie, printed by John Allde:

"But some reply, what foole would daunce,
If that, when daunce is doone,
He may not have at ladyes' lips
That which in daunce he woon?"

This custom is still prevalent among the country people in many, perhaps all, parts of the kingdom. When the fiddler thinks his young couple have had music enough, he makes his instrument squeak out two notes which all understand to say, "Kiss her!" In the Tempest this line .occurs:

"Curtsied when you have and kissed.''

To which the following is a note: "As was antiently done at the beginning of some dances." So, in King Henry VIII. that prince says:

"I were unmannerly to take you out,
And not to kiss you."

It is still customary among persons of middling rank as well as the vulgar, in most parts of England, for the young men present at the marriage ceremony to salute the bride, one by one, the moment it is concluded. This, after officiating in the ceremony myself, I have frequently seen done. In the provincial poem of the Collier's Wedding, the bride is introduced as being waylaid, after the ceremony, at the church style for this purpose. [It is almost unnecessary to remind the reader of the excellent use made of this custom by Shakespeare in the Taming of the Shrew.]

The subsequent curious particulars relating to the nuptial kiss in the church, &c. are from Randolph's Letters, cited by Andrews in his Continuation of Henry's History of Great Britain, 1796, p. 148, note. He is speaking of the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots to Lord Darnley: "She had on her back the great mourning gown of black, with the great white mourning hood, &c. The rings, which were three, the middle a rich diamond, were put on her finger. They kneel together, and many prayers were said over them; she tarrieth out the mass, and he taketh a kiss, and leaveth her there, and went [p.141] to her chamber, whither, within a space, she followeth, and being required (according to the solemnity) to cast off her cares, and leave aside these sorrowful garments, and give herself to a more pleasant life, after some pretty refusal (more, I believe for manner sake than grief of heart), she suffereth them that stood by, every man that could approach, to take out a pin; and so, being committed to her ladies, changed her garments, but went not to bed; to signifie to the world that it was not lust that moved them to marry, but only the necessity of her country, not, if God will, to leave it without an heir."⁹³

CAKE CLOTH.

AMONG the Anglo-Saxons the nuptial benediction was performed under a veil, or square piece of cloth, held at each corner by a tall man over the bridegroom and bride, to conceal her virgin blushes; but if the bride was a widow, the veil was esteemed useless. According to the use of the church of Sarum, when there was a marriage before mass, the parties kneeled together and had a fine linen cloth (called the care [p.142] cloth) laid over their heads during the time of mass, till they received the benediction, and then were dismissed.⁹⁵

I have a curious Wedding Sermon, by William Wheatley, preacher of Banbury in Oxfordshire, 1624, entitled a Care Cloth, or a Treatise of the Cumbers and Troubles of Marriage. I know not the etymology of the word "care," used here in composition with "cloth."⁹⁶ Wheatley has given it the ordinary meaning of the word, but I think erroneously. Like many other etymologists, he has adapted it to his own purpose. Selden's fifteenth chapter in his Uxor Hebraica (Opera iii. 63.3), treats "de velaminibus item quibus obtecti sponsi."

In the Appendix to Hearne's Hist. and Antiq. of Glastonbury, p. 309, is preserved "Formula antiqua nuptias in iis partibus Angliae (occidentalibus nimirum) quae ecclesiae Herefordensis in ritibus ecclesiasticis ordine sunt usi, celebrandi." The care cloth seems to be described in the following passage: "Haec oratio 'S. propiciare Domine,' semper dicatur super nubentes sub pallio prosternentes."

In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, 1793, [p.143] v. 83, the minister of Logierait in Perthshire, speaking of the superstitious opinions and practices of the parish, says: "Immediately before the celebration of the marriage-ceremony, every knot about the bride and bridegroom (garters, shoestrings, strings of petticoats, &c.) is carefully loosened. After leaving the church the whole company walk round it, keeping the church- walls always upon the right hand. The bridegroom, however, first retires one way with some young men to tie the knots that were loosened about him; while the young married woman, in the same manner, retires somewhere else to adjust the disorder of her dress."

BRIDE ALE,
CALLED ALSO BRIDE-BUSH, BRIDE-STAKE, BIDDING, AND BRIDE-WAIN.

BRIDE-ALE, bride-bush, and bride-stake are nearly synonymous terms, and all derived from the circumstance of the bride's selling ale on the wedding-day, for which she received, by way of contribution, whatever handsome price the friends assembled on the occasion chose to pay her for it. The expense of a bride-ale was probably defrayed by the relations and friends of a happy pair, who were not in circumstances to bear the charges of a wedding-dinner.

In the Christen State of Matrimony, 1543, f. 48, we read: "When they come home from the church, then beginneth excesse of eatyng and drynking, and as much is waisted in one daye as were sufficient for the two newe-maried folkes halfe a year to lyve upon."⁹⁷

The following is from the Antiquarian Repertory, iii. 24, communicated by Astle from the court-rolls of Hales-Owen Borough, in the county of Salop (in the hands of Thomas [p.144] Littleton, lord of that borough), of the 15th year of Queen Elizabeth: "Custom of bride-ale. Item, a payne is made that no person or persons that shall brewe any weddyn-ale to sell, shall not brewe above twelve strike of mault at the most, and that the said persons so married shall not keep nor have above eight messe of persons at his dinner within the burrowe: and before his brydall daye he shall keep no unlawfull games in hys house, nor out of hys house, on pain of 20 shillings."

In Harrison's Description of Britain, it is remarked: "IN feasting, also, the husbandmen do exceed after their manner, especially at bridales, &c., where it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and spent; ech one brings such a dish, or so manie, with him, as his wife and he doo consult upon, but alwaies with this consideration, that the leefer friend shall have the better provision."

Thus it appears that, among persons of inferior rank, a contribution was expressly made for the purpose of assisting the bridegroom and bride in their new situation. This custom must have doubtless been often abused; it breathed, however, a great deal of philanthropy, and would naturally help to increase population by encouraging matrimony. This custom of making presents at weddings seems also to have prevailed amongst those of the higher order. From the account before cited of the nuptials of the Lady Susan with Sir Philip Herbert, in the reign of James I., it appears that the presents of plate and other things given by the noblemen were valued at 2500Z., and that the king gave 500Z. for the bride's jointure. His Majesty gave her away, and, as his manner was, archly observed on the occasion, that "if he were unmarried, he would not give her, but keep her for himself." From a passage in Ben Jonson's Silent Woman, Andrews, in his Continuation of Henry's History of Great Britain, 4to. p. 529, infers that it seems to have been a general custom to make presents to the married pair, in proportion to the gay appearance of their wedding.

Morant, in his History of Essex, ii. 303, speaking of Great Yeldham, in Hinckford hundred, says: "A house near the church was anciently used and appropriated for dressing a dinner for poor folks when married, and had all utensils and furniture convenient for that purpose. It hath since been converted into a school." Ibid. p. 499, speaking of matching [p.145] in Harlow Half-hundred, he says: "A house close to the churchyard, said to be built by one .... Chimney, was designed for the entertainment of poor people on their wedding-day. It seems to be very ancient, but ruinous."

Gough, in his Camden, edit. 1789, i. 341, Hertfordshire, says: "At Therfield, as at Bratighing, was till lately a set of kitchen furniture lent to the poor at weddings." Hutchinson, in his History of Cumberland, i. 553, speaking of the parish of Whitbeck, says: "Newly-married peasants beg corn to sow their first crop with, and are called Cornlaiters"

Owen, in his Welsh Dictionary, in v. Cawsa, says: "It is customary in some part of Wales for poor women newly married to go to farmers' houses, to ask for cheese, which is called Cawsa." Also, ibid., in v. Cymhorth: "The poor people in Wales have a marriage of contribution, to which every guest brings a present of some sort of provision or money, to enable the new couple to begin the world."

Bride-ales are mentioned by Puttenham, in his Arte of Poesie, 1589. p. 69: "During the course of Queen Elizabeth's entertainments at Kenilworth Castle, in 1575, a bryde-ale was celebrated with a great variety of shews and sports." See also Laneham's Letter, dated the same year.

Newton, in his Herbal for the Bible, p. 94, speaking of rushes, says: "Herewith be made manie pretie imagined devises for bride-ales, and other solemnities, as little baskets, hampers, panniers, pitchers, dishes, combes, brushes, stooles, chaires, purses with strings, girdles, and manie such other pretie, curious, and artificiall conceits, which at such times many do take the paines to make and hang up in the houses as tokens of good-will to the new-married bride; and, after the solemnity ended, to bestow abroad for bride-gifts or presents." Ibid. p. 225, when speaking of the rose, Newton says: "At bride-ales the houses and chambers were woont to be strawed with these odoriferous and sweet herbes, to signifie that in wedlocke all pensive sullennes and lowring cheer, all wrangling strife, jarring, variance, and discorde ought to be utterly excluded and abandoned; and that in place thereof, al mirth, pleasantnes, cheerfulnes, mildnes, quietnes, and love should be maintained, and that in matters passing betweene the husband and the wife all secresie should be used." According to Johnson, the secondary sense of "bush," is [p.146] a bough of a tree fixed up at a door to show that liquors are sold there. Hence the well-known proverb "Good wine needs no bush." There is a wedding-sermon by Whateley, of Banbury, entitled a Bride-Bush, as is another, preached to a new-married couple at Esen, in Norfolk. Thus Ben Jonson:

"With the phant'sies of Hey-troll
Troll about the bridal bowl,
And divide the broad bride-cake
Round about the bride's stake"

A bush at the end of a stake or pole was the ancient badge of a country alehouse. Around this bride-stake the guests were wont to dance as about a maypole.

The bride-ale appears to have been called in some places a bidding, from the circumstance of the bride and bridegroom's bidding or inviting the guests. A writer in the Gent. Mag. for May, 1784, p. 343, mentions this custom in some parts of South Wales, peculiar, he thinks, to that country, and still practised at the marriages of servants, tradesfolks, and little farmers: "Before the wedding an entertainment is provided, to which all the friends of each party are bid or invited, and to which none fail to bring or send some contribution, from a cow or calf down to half-a-crown or a shilling. An account of each is kept, and if the young couple do well, it is expected that they, should give as much at any future bidding of their generous guests. I have frequently known of 50l. being thus collected, and have heard of a bidding which produced even a hundred." In the Cambrian Register, 1796, p. 430, we read: "Welch weddings are frequently preceded, on the evening before the marriage, by presents of provisions and articles of household furniture to the bride and bridegroom. On the wedding-day as many as can be collected together accompany them to the church, and from thence home, where a collection is made in money from each of the guests, according to their inclination or ability, which sometimes supplies a considerable aid in establishing the newly-married couple, and in enabling them to 'begin the world,' as they call it, with more comfort; but it is, at the same time, considered as a debt to be repaid hereafter, if called upon, at any future wedding of the contributors, or of their friends or their children, in similar circumstances. Some time previous to these weddings, where they mean to receive contributions, a herald, with a crook or [p.147] wand adorned with ribbons, makes the circuit of the neighbourhood, and makes his 'bidding,' or invitation, in a prescribed form. The knight-errant cavalcade on horseback, the carrying off the bride, the rescue, the wordy war in rythm between the parties, &c., which formerly formed a singular spectacle of mock contest at the celebration of nuptials, I believe to be now almost, if not altogether, laid aside every-where through the principality."

The following is from the Gent. Mag. for 1789, lix. 99: "Bidding. As we intend entering the nuptial state, we propose having a bidding on the occasion on Thursday the 20th day of September instant, at our own house on the Parade, where the favour of your good company will be highly esteemed; and whatever benevolence you please to confer on us shall be gratefully acknowledged, and retaliated on a similar occasion, by your most obedient humble servants,

WILLIAM JONES, Caermarthen,    
ANN DAVIES, 1 Sept. 4, 1787.

"N.B. The young man's father (Stephen Jones), and the young woman's aunt (Ann Williams), will be thankfull for all favours conferred on them that day."

Another writer in the Gent. Mag. for 1784, liv. 484, mentions a similar custom in Scotland, called penny weddings. "When there was a marriage of two poor people who were esteemed by any of the neighbouring gentry, they agreed among themselves to meet, and have a dance upon the occasion, the result of which was a handsome donation, in order to assist the new-married couple in their outset in life." In the Statistical Account of Scotland, iv. 86, parish of Drain y, co. of Elgin, we are told: "A penny wedding is when the expense of the marriage entertainment is not defrayed by the young couple or their relations, but by a club among the quests. Two hundred people, of both sexes, will sometimes be convened on an occasion of this kind." In the same work, xi. 146, parish of Monquhitter, speaking of the time of 'our fathers," the minister observes: "Shrove Tuesday, Valentine Eve, the Rood day, &c. &c., were accompanied by pastimes and practices congenial to the youthful and ignorant mind. The market-place was to the peasant what the drawing-room is to the peer, the theatre of show and of consequence.

[p.148]

The scene, however, which involved every amusement and every joy of an idle and illiterate age was a penny bridal. When a pair were contracted, they, for a stipulated consideration, bespoke their wedding at a certain tavern, and then ranged the country in every direction to solicit guests. One, two, and even three hundred would have convened on these occasions to make merry at their own expense for two or more days. This scene of feasting, drinking, dancing, wooing, fighting, &c., was always enjoyed with the highest relish, and, until obliterated by a similar scene, furnished ample materials for rural mirth and rural scandal. But now the penny bridal is reprobated as an index of want of money and of want of taste. The market-place is generally occupied by people in business. Athletic amusements are confined to schoolboys. Dancing, taught by itinerant masters, cards, and conversation, are the amusements now in vogue; and the pleasures of the table enlivened by a moderate glass are frequently enjoyed in a suitable degree by people of every class." In the same work, xv. 630, parish of Avoch, co. Ross, it is said: "Marriages in this place are generally conducted in the style of penny weddings. Little other fare is provided except bread, ale, and whisky. The relatives, who assemble in the morning, are entertained with a dram and a drink gratis. But, after the ceremony is performed, every man pays for his drink. The neighbours then convene in great numbers. A fiddler or two, with perhaps a boy to scrape on an old violoncello, are engaged. A barn is allotted for the dancing, and a house for drinking; and thus they make merry for two or three days, till Saturday night. On Sabbath, after returning from church, the married couple give a sort of dinner or entertainment to the present friends on both sides: so that these weddings, on the whole, bring little gain or loss to the parties." Jamieson, in his Etymological Dictionary, quotes an Act of the General Assembly, 13th February, 1645, for the restraint of pennie brydals.⁹⁸

In Cumberland it had the appellation of a bride-wain, a [p.149] term which will be best explained by the following extract from the Glossary of Douglas's Virgil, v. Thig: There was a custom in the Highlands and North of Scotland, where newmarried persons had no great stock, or others low in their fortune, brought carts and horses with them to the houses of their relations and friends, and received from them corn, meal, wool, or whatever else they could get." The subsequent, headed Bride-wain, is extracted from the Cumberland Packet, a newspaper so called:

"There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe and taper clear,
And pomp and feast and revelry,
With mask and ancient pageantry."

"George Payton, who married Ann, the daughter of Joseph and Dinah Collin, of Crossley Mill, purposes having a bridewain at his house at Crossley, near Mary Port, on Thursday, May 7th next (1789), where he will be happy to see his friends and well-wishers, for whose amusement there will be a saddle, two bridles, a pair of gands-d'amour gloves, which whoever wins is sure to be married within the twelve months, a girdle (ceinture de Venus), possessing qualities not to be described, and many other articles, sports, and pastimes too numerous to mention, but which can never prove tedious in the exhibition," &c.

A short time after a match is solemnized, the parties give notice, as above, that on such a day they purpose to have a bride-wain. In consequence of this the whole neighbourhood for several miles round assemble at the bridegroom's house, and join in all the various pastimes of the country. This meeting resembles our wakes and fairs; and a plate or bowl is fixed in a convenient place, where each of the company contributes in proportion to his inclination and ability, and according to the degree of respect the parties are held in; and by this very laudable custom a worthy couple have frequently been benefited at setting out in life with a supply of money of from ten to fourscore pounds.

Sir F. M. Eden, in his work on the State of the Poor, 1797, i. 598, observes: "The custom of a general feasting at weddings and christenings is still continued in many villages in Scotland, in Wales, and in Cumberland; districts which, as the refinements of legislation and manners are slow in [p.150] reaching them, are most likely to exhibit vestiges of customs deduced from remote antiquity, or founded on the simple dictates of nature; and indeed it is not singular that marriages, births, christenings, house-warmings, &c., should be occasions in which people of all classes and all descriptions think it right to rejoice and make merry. In many parts of these districts of Great Britain, as well as in Sweden and Denmark, all such institutions, now rendered venerable by long use, are religiously observed. It would be deemed ominous, if not impious, to be married, have a child born, &c., without something of a feast. And long may the custom last; for it neither leads to drunkenness and riot, nor is it costly, as, alas! is so commonly the case in convivial meetings in more favoured regions. On all these occasions the greatest part of the provisions is contributed by the neighbourhood; some furnishing the wheaten flour for the pastry; others, barley or oats for bread and cakes; some, poultry for pies; some, milk for the frumenty; some, eggs; some, bacon; and some, butter; and, in short, every article necessary for a plentiful repast. Every neighbour, how high or low soever, makes it a point to contribute something. At a daubing (which is the erection of a house of clay), or at a bride-wain (which is the carrying of a bride home), in Cumberland, many hundreds of persons are thus brought together; and as it is the custom also, in the latter instance, to make presents of money, one or even two hundred pounds are said to have sometimes been collected. A deserving young couple are thus, by a public and unequivocal testimony of the good will of those who best know them, encouraged to persevere in the paths of propriety, and are also enabled to begin the world with some advantage. The birth of a child also, instead of being thought or spoken of as bringing on the parents new and heavy burthens, is thus rendered, as it no doubt ought to be, a comfort and a blessing, and, in every sense, an occasion of rejoicing. I own," adds this honourable advocate in the cause of humanity, "I cannot figure to myself a more pleasing or a more rational way of rendering sociableness and mirth subservient to prudence and virtue."

"In most parts of Essex it is a common custom, when poor people marry, to make a kind of dog-hanging, or money-gathering, which they call a wedding-dinner, to which they [p.151] invite tag and rag, all that will come; where, after dinner, upon summons of the fiddler, who setteth forth his voice like a town-crier, a table being set forth, and the bride set simpering at the upper end of it, the bridegroom standing by with a white sheet athwart his shoulders, whilst the people march up to the bride, present their money and wheel about. After this offering is over, then is a pair of gloves laid upon the table, most monstrously bedaubed about with ribbon, which by way of auction is set to sale at who gives most, and he whose hap it is to have them, shall withall have a kiss of the bride." History of Sr. Billy of Billericay, and his Squire Ricardo (a very admirable parody on Don Quixote), chap. ix.

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xviii. 122, parish of Gargunnock, co. Stirling, we read: "It is seldom there are social meetings. Marriages, baptisms, funerals, and the conclusion of the harvest, are almost the only occasions of feasting. At these times there is much unnecessary expense. Marriages usually happen in April and November. The month of May is cautiously avoided. A principal tenant's son or daughter has a crowd of attendants at marriage, and the entertainment lasts for two days at the expense of the parties. The company at large pay for the musick."

Waldron, in his Description of the Isle of Man (Works, p. 169, speaking of the Manks' wedding feasts, says: "Notice is given to all the friends and relations on both sides though they live ever so far distant. Not one of these, unless detained by sickness, fails coming and bringing something towards the feast; the nearest of kin, if they are able, commonly contribute the most, so that they have vast quantities of fowls of all sorts; I have seen a dozen of capons in one platter, and six or eight fat geese in another; sheep and hogs roasted whole, and oxen divided but into quarters."⁹⁹

In Vaughan's Golden Grove, 1608, we read: "The marriage day being come (in some shires of England), the invited [p.152] ghests do assemble together, and at the very instant of the marriage doe cast their presents (which they bestowe upon the new-married folkes) into a bason, dish, or cup which standeth upon the table in the church, ready prepared for that purpose. But this custome is onely put in use amongst them which stand in need."

It appears from Allan Ramsay's Poems, 1721, p. 120, that it was a fashion in Scotland for the friends to assemble in the new-married couple's house, before they had risen out of bed, and to throw them their several presents upon the bed-clothes:

"As fou's the house cou'd pang,
To see the young fouk or they raise,
Gossips came in ding dang,
And wi' a soss aboon the claiths
Ilk ane their gifts down flang," &c.

Here a note informs us, "They commonly throw their gifts of household furniture above the bed-cloathes where the young folks are lying." One gives twelve horn spoons, another a pair of tongs, &c.

Park, in his Travels into the Interior of Africa, describes a wedding among the Moors, p. 135: "April 10, in the evening, the tabala, or large drum, was beat to announce a wedding. A great number of people of both sexes assembled. A woman was beating the drum, and the other women joining at times in chorus, by setting up a shrill scream. Mr. Park soon retired, and having been asleep in his hut, was awakened by an old woman, who said she had brought him a present from the bride. She had a wooden bowl in her hand; and before Mr. Park was recovered from his surprise, discharged the contents full in his face. Finding it to be the same sort of holy water with which a Hottentot priest is said to sprinkle a new-married couple, he supposed it to be a mischievous frolic, but was informed it was a nuptial benediction from the bride's own person, and which, on such occasions, is always received by the young unmarried Moors as a mark of distinguished favour. Such being the case, Mr. Park wiped his face, and sent his acknowledgments to the lady. The wedding drum continued to beat, and the women to sing all night. About nine in the morning the bride was brought in state from her mother's tent, attended by a number of women, who carried her tent (a present from the husband), some [p.153] bearing up the poles, others holding by the strings, and marched singing until they came to the place appointed for her residence, where they pitched the tent. The husband followed with a number of men, leading four bullocks, which they tied to the tent-strings; and having killed another, and distributed the beef among the people, the ceremony closed." [In the north of England, it is considered unlucky for a couple to be married, or for a woman to be churched, while there is a grave open in the churchyard. It is also ominous of misfortune to be married in green. If there is an odd number of guests at a wedding, one is sure to die within the succeeding twelve months.]

WINNING THE KAIL.

THIS is mentioned in the curious local poem by Edward Chicken, the Collier's Wedding, ed. 1764, p. 21:

"Four rustic fellows wait the while
To kiss the bride at the church-style:
Then vig'rous mount their felter'd steeds,
With heavy heels, and clumsy heads;
So scourge them going, head and tail
To win what country call the kail."

The glossary to Burns's Scottish Poems describes "Broose" (a word which has the same meaning with "Kail") to be "a race at country weddings who shall first reach the bridegroom's house on returning from church." The meaning of the word is everywhere most strangely corrupted. "Broose" was originally, I take it for granted, the name of the prize on the above occasion, and not of the race itself; for whoever first reaches the house to bring home the good news, wins the "kail," i.e. a smoking prize of spice broth,¹⁰⁰ which stands [p.154] ready prepared to reward the victors in this singular kind of race. This same kind of contest is called in Westmoreland "riding for the ribbon."

Sampson, in his Statistical Survey of the County of Londonderry, 1802, p. 417, says: "At the Scotch weddings the groom and his party vie with the other youngsters who shall gallop first to the house of the bride. Nor is this feat of gallantry always without danger; for in every village through which they are expected, they are received with shots of pistols and guns; these discharges, intended to honour the parties, sometimes promote their disgrace, if to be tumbled in the dirt on such an occasion can be called a dishonour. At the bride's house is prepared a bowl of broth, to be the reward of the victor in the race, which race is therefore called the running for the brose. The Irish wedding is somewhat different, especially in the mountainous districts. However suitable the match, it is but a lame exploit, and even an affront, if the groom does not first run away with the bride. After a few days' carousal among the groom's friends, weddingers move towards the bride's country, on which occasion not only every relative, but every poor fellow who aspires to be the well-wisher of either party, doth bring with him a bottle of whisky, or the price of a bottle, to the rendezvous. After this second edition of matrimonial hilarity, the bride and groom proceed quietly to their designed home, and, forgetting all at once their romantic frolic, settle quietly down to the ordinary occupations of life."

That riding for the broose is still kept up in Scotland, may be seen by the following extract from the account of marriages in the Courier newspaper of January 16th, 1813: "On the 29th ult. at Mauchline, by the Rev. David Wilson, in Bank-lu-ad, near Cumnock, Mr. Robert Ferguson, in Whitehill of
New Cumnock, to Miss Isabella Andrew, in Fail, parish of Tarbolton. Immediately after the marriage four men of the bride's company started for the broos, from Mauchline to Whitehill, a distance of thirteen miles; and when one of them was sure of the prize, a young lady, who had started after they were a quarter of a mile off, outstripped them all, and, notwithstanding the interruption of getting a shoe fastened on her mare at a smithy on the road, she gained the prize, to the astonishment of both parties."

[p.155]

In the History and Antiquities of Claybrook, by the Rev. A. Macaulay, 1791, p. 130, we read: "A custom formerly prevailed in this parish and neighbourhood, of riding for the bridecake, which took place when the bride was brought home to her new habitation. A pole was erected in front of the house, three or four yards high, with the cake stuck upon the top of it. On the instant that the bride set out from her old habitation, a company of young men started off on horseback; and he who was fortunate enough to reach the pole first, and knock the cake down with his stick, had the honour of receiving it from the hands of a damsel on the point of a wooden sword, and with this trophy he returned in triumph to meet the bride and her attendants, who, upon their arrival in the village, were met by a party, whose office it was to adorn their horses' heads with garlands, and to present the bride with a posy. The last ceremony of this sort that took place in the parish of Claybrook was between sixty and seventy years ago, and was witnessed by a person now living in the parish. Sometimes the bridecake was tried for by persons on foot, and then it was called throwing the quintal, which was performed with heavy bars of iron; thus affording a trial of muscular strength as well as of gallantry." Macaulay mentions here that, in Minorca, if not now, at least forty years ago, a custom as old as Theocritus and Virgil was kept up, i.e. the ceremony of throwing nuts and almonds at weddings, that the boys might scramble for them. "Spargite, marite, nuces." Virg.

Malkin, in his Tour in South Wales, Glamorganshire, p. 67, says: "If may it befal the traveller who has the misfortune of meeting a Welsh wedding on the road. He would be inclined to suppose that he had fallen in with a company of lunatics escaped from their confinement. It is the custom of the whole party who are invited, both men and women, to ride full speed to the church-porch; and the person who arrives there first has some privilege or distinction at the marriage-feast. To this important object all inferior considerations gave way, whether the safety of his Majesty's subjects, who are not going to be married, or their own, be incessantly endangered by boisterous, unskilful, and contentious jockeyship. The natives, who are acquainted with the custom, and warned against the cavalcade by its vociferous approach, turn aside at [p.156] respectful distance: but the stranger will be fortunate if he escapes being overthrown by an onset, the occasion of which puts out of sight that urbanity so generally characteristic of the people."

A respectable clergyman informed me that, riding in a narrow lane near Macclesfield, in Cheshire, in the summer of 1799, he was suddenly overtaken (and indeed they had well-nigh rode over him) by a nuptial party at full speed, who, before they put up at an inn in the town, where they stopped to take some refreshment, described several circles round the market-place, or rode, as it were, several rings.

In the Westmoreland Dialect, 8vo, Kendal, 1790, a country wedding is described with no little humour. The clergyman is represented as chiding the parties for not coming before him nine months sooner. The ceremony being over, we are told that "Awe raaid haam fearful wele, an the young ans raaidfor the ribband, me cusen Betty banged aw th' lads an gat it for."

FOOTBALL MONEY.

IN the North of England, among the colliers, &c., it is customary for a party to watch the bridegroom's coming out of church after the ceremony, in order to demand money for a football, a claim that admits of no refusal.¹⁰¹ Coles, in his Dictionary, speaks of another kind of ball money given by a new bride to her old playfellows.

It is the custom in Normandy for the bride to throw a ball over the church, which bachelors and married men scramble for. They then dance together.

[p.157]

TORCHES USED AT WEDDINGS.

AT Rome the manner was that two children should lead the bride, and a third bear before her a torch of whitethorn, in honour of Ceres. I have seen foreign prints of marriages, where torches are represented as carried in the procession. I know not whether this custom ever obtained in England, though, from the following lines in Herrick's Hesperides, one might be tempted to think that it had:

"Upon a Maid that dyed the day she was marryed.

That morne which saw me made a bride,
The ev'ning witnest that I dy'd.
Those holy lights, wherewith they guide
Unto the bed the bashful bride,
Serv'd but as tapers for to burne
And light my reliques to their urne.
This epitaph, wnich here you see,
Supply'd the epithalamie."

Gough, in the introduction to his second volume of Sepulchr. Mon. p. 7, speaking of funeral torches, says: "The use of torches was however retained alike in the daytime, as was the case at weddings; whence Propertius, beautifully,

"Viximus insignes inter utramque facem:"

thus illustrated by Ovid, Epist. Cydippes ad Acontium, 1. 172:

"Et face pro thalami fax mihi mortis adest;"

and Fasti, ii. 561, speaking of February, a month set apart for Parentalia, or funeral anniversaries, and therefore not proper for marriage:

"Conde tuas, Hymenae, faces, et ab ignibus atris
Aufer, habent alias moesta sepulchra faces."

"The Romans admitted but five torches in their nuptial solemnities." Browne's Cyprus Garden, or the Quincunx Mystically Considered, p. 191.

In Swinburne's account of gipsies in his Journey through Calabria, p. 304, is the following remark: "At their weddings they carry torches, and have paranymphs to give the bride away, with many other unusual rites." Lamps and flambeaux [p.158] are in use at present at Japanese weddings. "The nuptial torch," says the author of Hymen, 1760, p. 149, "used by the Greeks and Romans, has a striking conformity to the flambeaux of the Japanese. The most considerable difference is, that, amongst the Romans, this torch was carried before the bride by one of her virgin attendants; and among the Greeks, that office was performed by the bride's mother." In the Greek church the bridegroom and bride enter the church with lighted wax tapers in their hands.¹⁰² (Ibid. p. 153.)

MUSIC AT WEDDINGS.

AT the marriages of the Anglo-Saxons the parties were attended to church by music. In the old History of John Newchombe, the wealthy clothier of Newbury, cited by Strutt, iii. 154, speaking of his marriage and the bride's going to church, the writer observes, "there was a noise (i.e. company) of musicians that played all the way before her."

Dame Sibil Turfe, a character in Ben Jonson's play of A Tale of a Tub, is introduced reproaching her husband as follows: "A clod you shall be called, to let no music go afore your child to church, to cheer her heart up!" and Scriben, seconding the good old dame's rebuke, adds, "She's i' th' right, sir; for your wedding dinner is starved without music."

In the Cristen State of Matrimony, 1543, p. 48, we read as follows: "Early in the mornyng the weddyng people begynne to excead in superfluous eatyng and drinkyng, whereof they spytte untyll the halfe sermon be done, and when they come to the preachynge they are halfe droncke, some all together. Therefore regard they neyther the prechyng nor prayer, but stond there only because of the custome. Such folkes also do come to the churche with all manner of pompe and pride, and gorgiousnes of rayment and jewels. They come with a [p.155] great noise of harpes, lutes, kyttes, basens, and drommes, wherwyth they trouble the whole church, and hyndre them in matters pertayninge to God. And even as they come to the churche, so go they from the churche agayne, lyght, nice, in shameful pompe, and vaine wantonesse."

The following is from Vernon's Hunting of Purgatory to Death, 156 1, f . 51: "I knewe a priest (this is a true tale that I tell you, and no lye,) whiche, when any of his parishioners should be maryed, woulde take his backe-pype, and go fetche theym to the churche, playnge sweetelye afore them, and then would he laye his instrument handsomely upon the aultare tyll he had maryed them and sayd masse. Which thyng being done, he would gentillye bringe them home agayne with backe-pype. Was not this priest a true ministrell, thynke ye? for he dyd not counterfayt the ministrell, but was one in dede."

Puttenham, in his Arte of English Poesie, 1589, p. 69, speaks of "blind harpers, or such like taverne minstrels that give a fit of mirth for a groat, and their matters being for the most part stories of old time, as the Tale of Sir Topas, the Iteportes of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances, or historical rimes, made purposely for recreation of the common people at Christmasse dinners and bride-ales, and in tavernes and ale-houses, and such other places of base resort."

In Brooke's Epithalamium we read:

"Now whiles slow howres doe feed the times delay,
Confus'd discourse, with musicke mixt among,
Fills up the semy-circle of the day."

In the margin opposite is put "Afternoone Musicke" [And so runs the old ballad, sung about the streets within the last few years,

"Ye patriots and courtiers so hearty,
That speech shall vote for each party,
For one be both constant and steady,
And vote to support widow Brady.
To all that I now see before me,
The bottom, the top, and the middle,
For music we now must implore ye,
What's a wedding without pipes and fiddle?"]

In Griffith's Bethel, or a Forme for Families, 1634, is the following on marriage feasts, p. 279: "Some cannot be merry [p.160] without a noise of fiddlers, who scrape acquaintance at the first sight; nor sing, unlesse the divell himselfe come in for a part, and the ditty be made in hell," &c. He had before said, "We joy indeed at weddings; but how? Some please themselves in breaking broad, I had almost said bawdy jests." Speaking of wedding entertainments, ibid., he says: "Some drink healths so long till they lose it, and (being more heathenish in this than was Ahasuerus at his feast) they urge their companions to drink by measure, out of measure."

Waldron, in his Description of the Isle of Man (Works, fol. ed. p. 169,) tells us that at the marriages of the inhabitants, "they are preceded (to church) by music, who play all the while before them the tune, the Black and the Grey, and no other is ever used at weddings." He adds, "that when they arrive at the churchyard, they walk three times round the church before they enter it."

This requisite has not been omitted in the Collier's Wedding:

"The pipers wind and take their post,
And go before to clear the coast."

The rejoicing by ringing of bells at marriages of any consequence, is everywhere common. On the fifth bell at the church of Kendal, in Westmoreland, is the following inscription, alluding to this usage:

"In wedlock bands.
All ye who join with hands,
Your hearts unite;
So shall our tuneful tongues combine
To laud the nuptial rite."

SPOUTS AT WEDDINGS.

AMONG the Anglo-Saxons, as Strutt informs us, in his Manners and Customs, i. 76, after the nuptial feast, "the remaining part of the day was spent by the youth of both sexes in mirth and dancing, while the graver sort sat down to their drinking bout, in which they highly delighted."

[p.161]

Among the higher ranks there was, in later times, a wedding-sermon, an epithalamium,¹⁰³ and at night a masque.¹⁰⁴

It was a general custom between the wedding dinner and supper to have dancing. The cushion-dance at weddings is thus mentioned in the Apophthegms of King James, the Earl of Worcester, 1658, p. 60, a wedding entertainment is spoken of: "At last, when the masque was ended, and time had brought in the supper, the cushion led the dance out of the parlour into the hall" &c. In the Christen State of Matrimony, 1543, f. 49, we read: "After the bancket and feast there begynnethe a vayne, madde, and unmannerlye fashion, for the bryde must be brought into an open dauncynge place. Then is there such rennynge, leapynge, and flyngyng amonge them; then is there suche a lyftynge up and discoverynge of the damselles clothes and other womennes apparell, that a man might thynke they were sworne to the Devels daunce. Then muste the poore bryde kepe foote with al dauncers and refuse none, how scabbed, foule, droncken, rude and shameles soever he be. Then must she oft tymes heare and se much wyckednesse, and many an uncomely word; and that noyse and romblyng endureth even tyll supper." So, in the Summe of the Holy Scripture, 1547: "Suffer not your children to go to weddings or banckettes; for nowe a daies one can learne nothing there but ribaudry and foule wordes."

Northbrooke, in his Treatise against Dauncing, p. 137, says: "In the Counsell of Laoditia, A. D. 364, it was decreed thus: It is not meete for Christian men to daunce at their mariages. Let the cleargie aryse and go their wayes when the players on the instruments (which serve for dauncing) doe bygynne to playe, least by their presence they shoulde seeme to allowe that wantonnesse." Fiddlers are called crowders. (Ibid. p. 141.) In Scott's Mock Marriage, a Comedy, 1696, p. 50, it is said: "You are not so merry as men in your condition should be. What! a couple of weddings, and not a dance?" [p.162] So, in the popular old ballad called the Winchester Wedding:

"And now they had din'd, advancing
Into the midst of the hall,
The fiddlers struck up for dancing,
And Jeremy led up the brawl.
Sucky, that danc'd with the cushion." &c.

In Playford's Dancing-Master, 1698, p. 7, is an account of "Joan Sanderson, or the Cushion Dance, an old round dance. This dance is begun by a single person (either man or woman), who, taking a cushion in his hand, dances about the room, not come to.' Mustek. 'She must come to, and she shall come to, and she must come, whether she will or no.' Then he lays down the cushion before a woman, on which she kneels, and he kisses her, singing, 'Welcom, Joan Sanderson, welcom, welcom.' Then she rises, takes up the cushion, and both dance, singing, 'Prinkum-prank'um is a fine dance, and shall we go dance it once again, and once again, and shall we go dance it once again.' Then making a stop, the woman sings as before, 'This dance it will no further go.' Mustek. 'I pray you, madam, why say you so?' Woman. 'Because John Sanderson will not come to.' Mustek. 'He must come to,' &c. (as before). And so she lays down the cushion before a man, who, kneeling upon it, salutes her, she singing, 'Welcome, John Sanderson,' &c. Then, he taking up the cushion, they take hands and dance round, singing, as before, and thus they do till the whole company are taken into the ring. Then the cushion is laid before the first man, the woman singing, 'This dance,' &c. (as before), only instead of 'Come to,' they sing 'Go fro:' and, instead of 'Welcome, John Sanderson,' &c., they sing, 'Farewell, John Sanderson, farewell, farewell;' and so they go out one by one, as they came in. Note, the woman is kiss'd by all the men in the ring at her coming in and going out, and likewise the man by the women."

The following extract from Selden's Table Talk, under "King of England," 7, is illustrative of our cushion-dance: "The court of England is much altered. At a solemn dancing, first you have the grave measures, then the corrantoes and the galliards, and this is kept up with ceremony, at length to [p.163] French-more" (it should be Trench-more), "and the cushion-dance, and then all the company dance, lord and groom, lady and kitchen-maid, no distinction. So in our court, in Queen Elizabeth's time, gravity and state were kept up. In King James's time things were pretty well. But in King Charles's time there has been nothing but French-more, and the cushion-dance, omnium gatherum, tolly, polly, hoite come toite." In the same work, under the head "Excommunication," is an allusion to the custom of dancing at weddings: "Like the wench that was to be married: she asked her mother, when 'twas done, if she should go to bed presently? No, says her mother, you must dine first. And then to bed, mother? No, you must dance after dinner. And then to bed, mother? No, you must go to supper," &c.

It appears from the glossary to Bishop Kennet's Parochial Antiquities, that the quintain was anciently a customary sport at weddings.¹⁰⁵ He says it was used in his time at Blackthorne, and at Deddington, in Oxfordshire. It is supposed to have been a Roman exercise, left by that people at their departure from this island. We read in Blount's Glossographia, v. Quintain, that it is "a game or sport still in request at marriages, in some parts of this nation, specially in Shropshire: the manner, now corruptly thus, a quintin, buttress, or thick plank of wood, is set fast in the ground of the highway where the bride and bridegroom are to pass; and poles are provided, with which the young men run a tilt on horseback, and he that breaks most poles, and shows most activity, wins the garland." From Aubrey's Remains of Gentilisme and Judaism, it should appear that this was a common sport at weddings, till the breaking out of the civil wars, even among people in the lower rank of life.

"On Offham Green," says Hasted, History of Kent, ii. 224, "there stands a quintin, a thing now rarely to be met with, being a machine much used in former times by youth, as well to try their own activity as the swiftness of their horses [p.164] in running at it. (He gives an engraving of it.) The cross-piece of it is broad at one end, and pierced full of holes, and a bag of sand is hung at the other, and swings round on being moved with any blow. The pastime was for the youth on horseback to run at it as fast as possible, and hit the broad part in his career with much force. He that by chance hit it not at all was treated with loud peals of derision; and he who did hit it made the best use of his swiftness, lest he should have a sound blow on his neck from the bag of sand, which instantly swang round from the other end of the quintin. The great design of this sport was to try the agility of the horse and man, and to break the board, which whoever did, he was accounted chief of the day's sport. It stands opposite the dwelling-house of the estate, which is bound to keep it up." The same author (ibid. p. 639), speaking of Bobbing parish, says: "There was formerly a quintin in this parish, there being still a field in it called from thence the Quintin Field."

Owen, in his Welsh Dictionary, v. Cwintan, describes a hymeneal game thus acted: "A pole is fixed in the ground, with sticks set about it which the bridegroom and his company take up and try their strength and activity in breaking them upon the pole."

In the marriage ceremonies amongst the ancient Romans, the bridegroom threw nuts about the room for the boys to scramble. The epithalamiums in the classics prove this. It was a token that the party scattering them was now leaving childish diversions.¹⁰⁶

It appears to have been a waggish custom at weddings to [p.165] hang a bell under the party's bed. See Fletcher's Night Walker, act i. sc, 1. "Il oult une risee de jeunes homines qui s'etoient expres cachez aupres de son lit, comme on a coutume de faire en pareilles occasions.'' Contes d'Ouville, i. 3.

DIVINATIONS AT WEDDINGS.

DIVINATION at marriages was practised in times of the remotest antiquity. Vallancey tells us that, in the Memoirs of the Etruscan Academy of Cortona, is a drawing of a picture found in Herculaneum representing a marriage. In the front is a sorceress casting the five stones. The writer of the memoir justly thinks she is divining. The figure exactly corresponds with the first and principal cast of the Irish Purin; all five are cast up, and the first catch is on the back of the hand. He has copied the drawing; on the back of the hand stands one, and the remaining four on the ground. Opposite the sorceress is the matron, attentive to the success of the cast. No marriage ceremony was performed without consulting the Druidess and her Purin:

"Auspices solebant nuptiis interesse."¹⁰⁷ Juvenal, Sat. xii.

Pliny, in the tenth book, chap. viii. of his Natural History, mentions that in his time the circos, a sort of lame hawk, was accounted a lucky omen at weddings.

In the north of, and perhaps all over England, as has been already noticed, slices of the bride-cake are thrice, some say nine times, put through the wedding-ring, which are afterwards by young persons laid under their pillows when they go to bed, for the purpose of making them dream of their lovers, or of exciting prophetic dreams of love and marriage. Thus Humphrey Clinker, iii. 265, edit. 1771: "A cake being broken over the head of Mrs. Tabitha Lisinahago, the frag- [p.166] ments were distributed among the bystanders, according to the custom of the ancient Britons, on the supposition that every person who ate of this hallowed cake should that night have a vision of the man or woman whom Heaven designed should be his or her wedded mate." So the Spectator: "The writer resolved to try his fortune, fasted all day, and, that he might be sure of dreaming upon something at night, procured a handsome slice of bridecake, which he placed very conveniently under his pillow.''

The Connoisseur, also, notices the practice, No. 56: "Cousin Debby was married a little while ago, and she sent me a piece of bridecake to put under my pillow, and I had the sweetest dream; I thought we were going to be married together." The following occurs in the Progress of Matrimony, 1733, p. 30:

"But, madam, as a present take
This little paper of bride-cake;
Fast any Friday in the year, "

When Venus mounts the starry sphere,
Thrust this at night in pillowbeer;
In morning slumber you will seem
T' enjoy your lover in a dream."

In the St. James's Chronicle, from April 16th to April 18th, 1799, are the following lines on the Wedding Cake:

"Enlivening source of hymeneal mirth,
All hail the blest receipt that gave thee birth!
Tho' Flora culls the fairest of her bowers,
And strews the path of Hymen with her flowers,
Not half the raptures give her scatter'd sweets;
The cake far kinder gratulation meets.
The bridemaid's eyes with sparkling glances beam,
She views the cake, and greets the promis'd dream.
For, when endow'd with necromantic spell,
She knows what wondrous things the cake will tell.
"When from the altar comes the pensive bride,
With downcast looks, her partner at her side,
Soon from the ground these thoughtful looks arise,
To meet the cake that gayer thoughts supplies.
With her own hand she charms each destin'd slice,
And thro' the ring repeats the trebled thrice.
The hallow'd ring, infusing magic pow'r,
Bids Hymen's visions wait the midnight hour;
The mystic treasure, plac'd beneath her head,
Will tell the fair if haply she may wed.

[p.167]

These mysteries portentous lie conceal'd,
Till Morpheus calls and bids them stand reveal'd;
The future husband that night's dream will bring,
Whether a parson, soldier, beggar, king,
As partner of her life the fair must take,
Irrevocable doom of bridal cake."

For the sun to shine upon the bride was a good omen. Thus Herrick's Hesperides, p. 152:

"While that others do divine,
Blest is the bride on whom the sun doth shine."

It was formerly a custom among the noble Germans, at weddings, for the bride, when she was conducted to the bride-chamber, to take off her shoe and throw it among the by-standers, which every one strove to catch, and whoever got it thought it an omen that they themselves would shortly be happily married.¹⁰⁸

Hutchinson, in his History of Durham, i. 33, speaking of a cross near the ruins of the church in Holy Island, says: "It is now called the Petting Stone. Whenever a marriage is solemnised at the church, after the ceremony the bride is to step upon it; and if she cannot stride to the end thereof, it is said the marriage will prove unfortunate." The etymology there given is too ridiculous to be remembered: it is called petting, lest the bride should take pet with her supper.

Grose tells us of a vulgar superstition, that holds it unlucky to walk under a ladder, as it may prevent your being married that year. Our rustics retain to this day many superstitious notions concerning the times of the year when it is accounted lucky or otherwise to marry. It has been remarked in the former volume of this work, that none are ever married on Childermas Day; for whatever cause, this is a black day in the calendar of impatient lovers. See Aubrey's Miscell. edit. 1748, p. 5. Randle Holme, too, in his Academy of Armory and Blazon, edit. 1688, B. iii. cap. 3. p. 131, tells [p.168] us: "Innocence Day, on what day of the week soever it lights upon, that day of the week is by astronomers taken to be a cross-day all the year through." The following proverb, from Ray, marks another ancient conceit on this head:

"Who marries between the sickle and the scythe
Will never thrive."

We gather from the author of the Convivial Antiquities, that the heathen Romans were not without their superstitions on this subject. The month of May has been already noticed from Ovid's Fasti as a time which was considered particularly unlucky for the celebration of marriage. In the Roman Calendar in my library, so often quoted, several days are marked as unfit for marriages: "Nuptiee non fiunt," i.e. ''Feb. 11, June 2, Nov. 2, Decemb. 1." On the 16th of September, it is noted, "Tobise sacrum. Nuptiarum ceremonise a iiuptiis deductse, videlicet de ense, de pisce, de pompa, et de pedibus levandis."¹⁰⁹

In a curious old Almanac for the year 1559, "by Lewes Vaughan, made for the merydian of Gloucestre," are noted as follow: "The tymes of weddinges when it begynneth and endeth. Jan. 14, weding begin. Jan. 21, weddinge goth out. April 3, wedding be. April 29, wedding goeth out. May 22, wedding begyn." And in another almanac, for 1655, by Andrew Waterman, mariner, we have pointed out to us, in the last page, the following days as "good to marry, or contract a wife (for then women will be fond and loving), viz. January 2, 4, 11, 19, and 21. Feb. 1, 3, 10, 19, 21! March 3, 5, 12, 20, 23. April 2, 4, 12, 20, and 22. May 2, 4, 12, 20, 23. June 1, 3, 11, 19, 21. July 1, 3, 12, 19, 21, 31. August 2, 11, 18, 20, 30. Sept. 1, 9, 16, 18, 28. Octob. 1,

"De tempore prohibiti matrimonii.

"Conjugium ad vent us tollit, sed stella reducit,
Mox cineres stringunt, lux pascha octava relaxat."

[p.169] 8, 15, 17, 27, 29. Nov. 5, 11, 13, 22, 25. Decemb. 1, 8, 10, 19, 23, 29."

In Sir John Sinclair's Account of Scotland, xv. 311, the minister of the parishes of South Ronaldsay and Burray, two of the Orkney Islands, in his Statistical Account of the Character and Manners of the People, says: "No couple chuses to marry except with a growing moon, and some even wish for a flowing tide."

In a letter from Sir Dudley Carleton to Mr. Winwood, London, January, 1604, among other notices relating to marriages at Court in the reign of James I., is the following: "At night there was casting off the bride's left hose, and many other pretty sorceries."

Grose tells us of a singular superstition on this occasion, i.e. that if in a family the youngest daughter should chance to be married before her elder sisters, they must all dance at her wedding without shoes; this will counteract their ill-luck, and procure them husbands.

In a Boulster Lecture, 1640, p. 280, mention occurs of an ancient custom, "when at any time a couple were married, the sole of the bridegroom's shoe was to be laid upon the bride's head, implying with what subjection she should serve her husband."

There was an ancient superstition that the bride was not to step over the threshold in entering the bridegroom's house, but was to be lifted over by her nearest relations. She was also to knit her fillets to the door-posts, and anoint the sides, to avoid the mischievous fascinations of witches.¹¹⁰ Previous to this, too, she was to put on a yellow veil. See Herrick's Hesperides, in the Epithalamium on Sir Thomas Southwell and his Lady, p. 57:

"And now the yellow vaile at last
Over her fragrant cheek is cast.
You, you, that be of her nearest kin,
Now o'er the threshold force her in.
But to avert the worst,
Let her her fillets first

[p.170]

Knit to the posts; this point
Rememb'ring, to anoint
The sides: for 'tis a charme
Strong against future harme:
And the evil deeds, the which
There was hidden by the witch."

Pennant informs us that, among the Highlanders, during the marriage ceremony, great care is taken that dogs do not pass between the couple to be married; and particular attention is paid to leaving the bridegroom's left shoe without buckle or latchet, to prevent the secret influence of witches on the nuptial night. He adds: "This is an old opinion." Gesner says that witches made use of toads as a charm, "ut vim coeundi, ni fallor, in viris tollerent." Gesner de Quad. 72.

Tying the point was another fascination, illustrations of which may be found in Reginald Scot's Discourse concerning Devils and Spirits, p. 71; in the Fifteen Comforts of Marriage, p. 225; and in the British Apollo, ii. No. 35, 1709. In the old play of the Witch of Edmonton, 1658, young Banks says, "Ungirt, unblessed, says the proverb. But my girdle shall serve as a riding knit; and a fig for all the witches in Christendom."

It was held unlucky, also, if the bride did not weep bitterly on the wedding-day. [And bad weather was most unpropitious. In a letter from Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton, dated July 10, 1603, he says: "Mr. Winwood was married on Tuesday, with much thunder and lightning and rain. The ominous weather and dismal day put together might have made a superstitious man startled, but he turned all to the best, and so may it prove."]

FLINGING THE STOCKING.

FLINGING the stocking is thus mentioned in a curious little book entitled, the West Country Clothier undone by a Peacock, p. 65: "The sack posset must be eaten and the stocking flung, to see who can first hit the bridegroom on the nose." Misson, in his Travels through England, tells us of this cus- [p.171] tom, that the young men took the bride's stocking, and the girls those of the bridegroom; each of whom sitting at the foot of the bed, threw the stocking over their heads, endeavouring to make it fall upon that of the bride or her spouse: if the bridegroom's stockings, thrown by the girls, fell upon the bridegroom's head, it was a sign that they themselves would soon be married; and a similar prognostic was taken from the falling of the bride's stocking, thrown by the young men. Throwing the stocking has not been omitted in the Collier's Wedding:

"The stocking's thrown, the company gone,
And Tom and Jenny both alone."

In the Fifteen Comforts of Marriage, p. 60, the custom is represented a little different. "One of the young ladies, instead of throwing the stocking at the bride, flings it full in the basin" (which held the sack-posset), "and then it's time to take the posset away; which done, they last kiss round, and so depart." So Hymen, &c. 8vo. Lond. 1760, p. 174: "The men take the bride's stockings, and the women those of the bridegroom: they then seat themselves at the bed's feet, and throw the stockings over their heads, and whenever any one hits the owner of them, it is looked upon as an omen that the person will be married in a short time; and though this ceremony is looked upon as mere play and foolery, new marriages are often occasioned by such accidents. Meantime the posset is got ready and given to the married couple. When they awake in the morning, a sack-posset is also given them."

"The posset too of sack was eaten,
And stocking thrown too (all besweaten)."
                    Vereingetsrixa, p. 26.

In "A Sing-song on Clarinda's wedding," in Fletcher's Translations and Poems, 1656, p. 230, is the following account of this ceremony:

"This clutter ore, Clarinda lay
Half-bedded, like the peeping day
Behind Olimpus' cap;
Whiles at her head each twitt'ring girle
The fatal stocking quick did whirle,
To know the lucky hap."

[p.172]

So in Folly in Print, or a Book of Rhymes, p. 121, in the description of a wedding, we read:

"But still the stockings are to throw,
Some threw too high, and some too low,
There's none could hit the mark."

In the Progress of Matrimony, 8vo. 1733, p. 49, is another description (in the Palace Miscellany):

"Then come all the younger folk in,
With ceremony throw the stocking;
Backward, o'er head, in turn they toss'd it;
Till in sack-posset they had lost it.
Th' intent of flinging thus the hose
Is to hit him or her o' th' nose;
Who hits the mark thus o'er left shoulder,
Must married be ere twelve months older.
Deucalion thus, and Pyrrha, threw
Behind them stones, whence mankind grew!"

Again, in the poem entitled the "Country Wedding," in the Gentleman's Magazine for March 1735, v. 158:

"Bid the lasses and lads to the merry brown bowl,
While rashers of bacon shall smoke on the coal;
Then Roger and Bridget, and Robin and Kan,
Hit 'em each on the nose with the hose if you can."

In the British Apollo, 1708, i. 42, we read:

"Q. Apollo say, whence 'tis, I pray,
       The ancient custom came,
        Stockings to throw (I'm sure you know)
        At bridegroom and his dame?
"A. When Britons bold bedded of old,
        Sandals were backward thrown;
        The pair to tell that, ill or well,
        The act was all their own."

Allan Ramsay, in his Poems, 1721, p. 116, introduces this custom:

"The bride was now laid in her bed,
Her left leg Ho was flung;
And Geordy Gib was fidgen glad,
Because it hit Jean Gun."

In the British Apollo, before quoted, 1711, iii. 133, is the following query: "Why is the custom observed for the bride to be placed in bed next the left hand of her husband, seeing [p.173] it is a general use in England for men to give their wives the right hand when they walk together? A. Because it looks more modest for a lady to accept the honour her husband does her as an act of generosity at his hands, than to take it as her right, since the bride goes to bed first."

In the Christen State of Matrimony, 1543, f. 49, it is said: "As for supper, loke how much shameles and dronken the evenynge is more than the mornynge, so much the more vyce, excesse, and mysnourtoure is used at the supper. After supper must they begynne to pype and daunce agayne of the new. And though the yonge personnes, beyng wery of the bablynge noyse and inconvenience, come once towarde theyr rest, yet canne they have no quietnes: for a man shall fynde unmannerly and restles people that wyll first go to theyr chambre dore, and there syng vicious and naughty ballades, that the dyvell may have his whole tryumphe nowe to the uttermost."

SACK-POSSET.

IN the evening of the wedding-day, just before the company tired, the sack-posset was eaten. Of this posset the bride retired, the sack-posset was eaten. Of this posset the bride and bridegroom were always to taste first. I find this called the Benediction Posset.¹¹¹

The custom of eating a posset at going to bed seems to have prevailed generally among our ancestors. The Tobacconist, in the Wandering Jew telling Fortunes to English Men, 1640, p. 20, says: "And at my going to bed, this is my posset." Skinner derives the word from the French poser, residere, to settle; because, when the milk breaks, the cheesy parts, being heavier, subside. "Nobis proprie designat lac calidum infuso vino cerevisia, &c. coagulatum." See Junii Etymol. in v. [p.174] Herrick has not overlooked the posset in his Hesperides, p. 253:

"What short sweet prayers shall be said,
And how the posset shall be made
With cream of lilies, not of kine,
And maidens '-blush for spiced wine."

Nor is it omitted in the Collier's Wedding:

"Now some prepare t' undress the bride,
While others tame the posset's pride."

It is mentioned too among the bridal rites in the West Country Clothier, before cited, where we are told "the sack-posset must be eaten." In the Fifteen Comforts of Marriage, p. 60, it is called "an ancient custom of the English matrons, who believe that sack will make a man lusty, and sugar will make him kind."

Among the Anglo-Saxons, as Strutt informs us, in his Manners and Customs, i. 77, at night the bride was by the women attendants placed in the marriage-bed, and the bride-groom in the same manner conducted by the men, where having both, with all who were present, drunk the marriage health, the company retired. In the old song of Arthur of Bradley we read:

"And then they did foot it and toss it,
Till the cook had brought up the posset;
The bride-pye was brought forth,
A thing of mickle worth,
And so all, at the bed-side,
Took leave of Arthur and his bride."

Misson, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 352, says: "The posset is a kind of cawdle, a potion made up of milk, wine, yolks of eggs, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg," &c. He adds (p. 354): "They never fail to bring them another sack-posset next morning."

A singular instance of tantalizing, however incredible it may seem, was most certainly practised by our ancestors on this festive occasion, i.e. sewing up the bride in one of the sheets. Herrick, in his Hesperides, in the "Nuptial Song on Sir Clipesby Crew and his Lady," expressly mentions this as a then prevailing custom:

"But since it must be done, dispatch and sowe
Up in a sheet your bride, and what if so," &c.

[p.175]

It is mentioned too in the account of the marriage ceremonial of Sir Philip Herbert and the Lady Susan, performed at Whitehall in the time of James I., before cited: "At night there was sewing into the sheet."

In the Papal times no new-married couple could go to bed together till the bridal bed had been blessed. In a manuscript entitled, Historical Passages concerning the Clergy in the Papal Times, cited in the History of Shrewsbury, 1779, p. 92, it is stated that "the pride of the clergy and the bigotry of the laity were such that new-married couples were made to wait till midnight, after the marriage-day, before they would pronounce a benediction, unless handsomely paid for it, and they durst not undress without it, on pain of excommunication." The Romish rituals give the form of blessing the nuptial bed. We learn from "Articles ordained by King Henry VII. for the Regulation of his Household," published by the Society of Antiquaries, that this ceremony was observed at the marriage of a princess. "All men at her coming in to be voided, except woemen, till she be brought to her bedd: and the man, both: he sitting in his bedd, in his shirte, with a gowne cast about him. Then the bishoppe with the chap laines to come in and blesse the bedd: then every man to avoide without any drinke, save the twoe estates, if they liste priviely." See also the Appendix to Hearne's History and Antiquities of Glastonbury, p. 309; and St. Foix, Essais sur Paris.

MORNING AFTER THE MARRIAGE.

"AMONG the Anglo-Saxons," as we gather from Strutt, i. 77, after the marriage, "next morning the whole company came into the chamber of the new-married couple, before they arose, to hear the husband declare the Morning's Gift, when his relations became sureties to the wife's relations for the performance of such promises as were made by the husband." This was the ancient pin-money, and became the separate property of the wife alone.

Owen, in his Welsh Dictionary, v. Cowyll, explains that word as signifying a garment or cloak with a veil, presented [p.176] by the husband to his bride on the morning after marriage; and, in a wider sense, the settlement he has made on her of goods and chattels adequate to her rank. In more modern times there is a custom similar to this in Prussia. There the husband may (is obliged if he has found her a virgin) present to his bride the Morgengabe, or gift on the morning after marriage, even though he should have married a widow.

The custom of awaking a couple the morning after the marriage with a concert of music, is of old standing. In the letter from Sir Dudley Carleton to Mr. Winwood, describing the nuptials of the Lady Susan with Sir Philip Herbert, it is stated that "they were lodged in the council chamber, where the king gave them a reveille matin before they were up." Of such a reveille matin, as used on the marriages of respectable merchants of London in his time, Hogarth has left us a curious representation, in one of his prints of the Idle and Industrious Apprentices.

So in the Comforts of Wooing, &c. p. 62: "Next morning come the fidlers and scrape him a wicked reveillez. The drums rattle, the shaumes tote, the trumpets sound tan ta ra, ra, ra, and the whole street rings with the benedictions and good wishes of fidlers, drummers, pipers, and trumpetters. You may safely say now the wedding's proclaimed." Mason, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 252, speaking of the reveillez on the morning after a wedding, says: "If the drums and fiddles have notice of it, they will be sure to be with them by daybreak, making a horrible racket, till they have got the pence." Gay, in his Trivia, has censured the use of drums in this concert:

"Here rows of drummers stand in martial file,
And with their vellum thunder shake the pile,
To greet the new-made bride. Are sounds like these
The proper preludes to a state of peace?"

The custom of creeling, on the second day after marriage, has been already noticed, from Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland. Allan Ramsay, in his Poems, 1721, p. 125, mentions this custom as having been practised the clay after the marriage. He adds, "'Tis a custom for the friends to endeavour the next day after the wedding to make the new-married man as drunk as possible."

"In North Wales," says Pennant's manuscript, "on the [p.177] Sunday after marriage, the company who were at it come to church, i.e. the friends and relations of the party make the most splendid appearance, disturb the church, and strive who shall place the bride and groom in the most honourable seat. After service is over, the men, with fiddlers before them, go into all the ale-houses in the town."

In the Monthly Magazine for 1798, p. 417, we read: "It is customary, in country churches, when a couple has been newly married, for the singers to chaunt. on the following Sunday, a particular psalm, thence called the Wedding Psalm, in which are these words: 'Oh, well is thee, and happy shalt thou be.'"

The Mercheta Mulierum has been discredited by an eminent antiquary. It was said that Eugenius III., King of Scotland, did wickedly ordain that the lord or master should have the first night's lodging with every woman married to his tenant or bondman; which ordinance was afterwards abrogated by King Malcolme III, who ordained that the bridegroom should have the sole use of his own wife, and therefore should pay to the lord a piece of money called Marca. (Hect. Boet. 1. iii. c. 12, Spotsw. Hist. fol. 29.) One cannot help observing, on the above, that they must have been bondmen or (in the ancient sense of the word,) villains, indeed, who could have submitted to so singular a species of despotism.¹¹²

DUNMOW FLITCH OF BACON.

A CUSTOM formerly prevailed, and has indeed been recently observed, at Dunmow in Essex, of giving a flitch of bacon to any married man or woman who would swear that neither of them, in a year and a day, either sleeping or waking, repented of their marriage. The singular oath administered to them ran thus:

[p.178]

"You shall swear, by custom of confession,
If ever you made nuptial transgression,
Be you either married man or wife,
If you have brawls or contentious strife;
Or otherwise, at bed or at board,
Offended each other in deed or word:
Or, since the parish-clerk said Amen,
You wish'd yourselves unmarried agen;
Or, in a twelvemonth and a day,
Repented not in thought any way,
But continued true, in thought and desire,
As when you join'd hands in the quire.
If to these conditions, without all feare,
Of your own accord you will freely sweare,
A whole gammon of bacon you shall receive,
And bear it hence with love and good leave:
For this is our custom at Dunmow well knowne,
Though the pastime be ours, the bacon's your own."

The parties were to take this oath before the prior and convent and the whole town, humbly kneeling in the churchyard upon two hard pointed stones, which still are shown. They were afterwards taken upon men's shoulders, and carried, first, about the priory churchyard, and after through the town, with all the friars and brethren, and all the townsfolk, young and old, following them with shouts and acclamations, with their bacon before them.¹¹³

I have a large print, now become exceedingly rare, entitled "An exact perspective view of Dunmow, late the Priory, in the County of Essex, with a representation of the ceremony and procession in that Manner, on Thursday the 20th of June, 1751, when Thomas Shapeshaft, of the parish of Weathersfield, in the county aforesaid, weaver, and Ann his wife, came to demand and did actually receive a Gammon of Bacon, having first kneeled down upon two bare stones within the church door and taken the oath, &c. N.B. Before the dissolution of [p.179] monasteries it does not appear, by searching the most ancient records, to have been demanded above three times, and, including this, just as often since. Taken on the spot and engraved by David Ogborne."

Dugdale, from whom Blount seems to have obtained the greater part of his information on the Dunmow Bacon, gives the oath in prose, from the collections of Sir Richard St. George, Garter, about 1640. He adds, that, "in the book belonging to the house," he had found the memoranda of three claims prior to the dissolution. The first is in the seventh year of King Edward IV., when a gammon of bacon was delivered to one Steven Samuel of Little Ayston; the second in the twenty-third year of King Henry VI, when a flitch was delivered to Richard Wright of Badbourge, near the city of Norwich; and the third, in 1510, the second year of King Henry VIII., when a gammon was delivered to Thomas Ley, fuller, of Coggeshall, in Essex.

Among the rolls belonging to the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum, No. 25, is a copy on parchment of the record of proceedings at the manor-court of Dunmow, late the priory, in the county of Essex, before the steward, jury, suitors, and other officers of the said court, on the delivery of two gammons of bacon to John Reynolds, of Hatfield Regis, and Ann, his wife, who had been married ten years; and to William Parsley, of Much Eyston, butcher, and Jane, his wife, who had been married three years on the 27th of June, 1701. It is stated that the bacon was delivered "with the usual solemnity." This record contains the rhyming oath and sentence. The jury consisted of five spinsters.

It is stated in a newspaper of the year 1772, that on the 12th of June that year, John and Susan Gilder, of the parish of Tarling, in Essex, made their public entry into Dunmow, escorted by a great concourse of people, and demanded the gammon of bacon, according to notice previously given, declaring themselves ready to take the usual oath; but to the great disappointment of the happy couple and their numerous attendants, the priory gates were found fast nailed, and all admittance refused, in pursuance of the express orders of the lord of the manor. Gough, in his edition of Camden's Britannia, 1809, ii. 54, mentions that the custom is now abolished, "on account of the abuse of it in these loose-prin- [p.180] cipled times." The John Bull newspaper, Oct. 8, 1837, speaks of the renewal of this ceremony at a meeting of the Saffron Walden and Dunmow Agricultural Society.

The Dunmow bacon is alluded to in the Visions of Pierce Plowman, and in Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue. [And a very early notice of it occurs in MS. Laud. 416, a metrical paraphrase of the Ten Commandments, in the Bodleian Library:

"I can fynd no man now that wille enquere
The parfyte wais unto Duumow;
For they repent hem within a yere,
And many within a weke, and sonner, men trow;
That cawsith the weis to be rowgh and over grow,
That no man my fynd path or gap."]

A similar custom prevailed at Whichenovre, in Staffordshire. This appears to have been in conformity to an ancient tenure and was certainly as old as the tenth year of King Edward III., when the manor was held by Sir Philip de Somerville. The oath, as appears by the following copy, was less strict than that at Dunmow; it was taken on a book laid above the bacon: "Here ye, Sir Philippe de Somervile, Lord of Whichenovre, maynteyner and gyver of this baconne, that I A. sithe I wedded B. my wife, and sythe I hadd hyr in my kepyng, and at my wylle, by a yere and a day, after our mariage, I wold not have chaunged for none other, farer ne fowler, rycher ne pourer, ne for none other descended of greater lynage, slepyng ne waking, at noo tyme. And yf the seyd B. were sole, and I sole, I would take her to be my wyfe, before all the wymen of the worlde, of what condiciones soever they be, good or evylle, as helpe me God and hys seyntys; and this flesh and all fleshes." It is observable that this Whichenovre flitch was to be hanging in the hall of the manor "redy arrayede all times of the yere, bott in Lent." It was to be given to every man or woman married, after the day and the yere of their marriage be past; and to be gyven to everyche mane of religion, archbishop, bishop, prior, or other religious, and to everyche preest, after the year and day of their profession finished, or of their dignity reseyved." See Plott's Hist. of Staffordshire, p. 440; and the Spectator, No. 607.

This whimsical institution it should seem was not confined [p.181] entirely to Dunmow and Whichenovre, for there was the same abroad at Bretagne.

[A notice of the custom occurs in the Chelmsford Chronicle for January, 1838: "25. The anniversary of the Dunmow Agricultural Society held, when the flitch of bacon was distributed: at the dinner at the Town Hall fifty gentlemen sat down, T, M. Wilson, Esq., in the chair."]

CORNUTES.

IN pursuing our notices of marriage customs we come to the consideration of the vulgar saying, that a husband wears horns, or is a cornute, when his wife proves false to him; as also that of the meaning of the word cuckold, which has for many ages been the popular indication of the same kind of infamy, which also it has been usual slily to hint at by throwing out the little and forefinger when we point at those whom we tacitly call cuckolds.

In the Disputation between a Hee Conny-Catcher and a Shee Conny-Catcher, 4to., of the time of Queen Elizabeth, is the following witticism on this head: "Hee that was hit with the home was pincht at the heart." Also, ibid.: "Let him dub her husband knight of the forked order" So Othello:

"-------- curse of marriage!
Tis destiny, unshunnable like death.
Even then this forked plague is fated to us,
When we do quicken."

In one of George Houfnagle's Views in Spain (Seville), dated 1593, is a curious representation of "riding the stang," or "skimmington," as then practised in that country. The patient cuckold rides on a mule, hand-shackled, and having on an amazing large pair of antlers, which are twisted about with herbs, with four little flags at the top, and three bells. The vixen rides on another mule, and seems to be belabouring her husband with a crabbed stick; her face is entirely covered with her long hair. Behind her, on foot, follows a trumpeter, holding in his left hand a trumpet, and in his right a bastinado, or large strap, seemingly of leather, with which he beats [p.182] her as they go along. The passengers, or spectators, are each holding up at them two fingers like snail's horns. In the reference this procession is styled, in Spanish, "Execution de justitia de los cornudos patientes."¹¹⁴

In the English Fortune Teller, 1609, the author, speaking of a wanton's husband, says: "He is the wanton wenches game amongst themselves, and wagge's sport to point at with two fingers" Bulwer, in his Chirologia, 1644, p. 181, says: "To present the index and eare-finger (i.e. the fore and little finger) wagging, with the thumb applied unto the temples, is their expression who would scornfully reprove any. The same gesture, if you take away the motion, is used, in our nimble-fingered times, to call one cuckold, and to present the badge of cuckoldry, that men tall and imaginary home; seeming to cry, 'man of happy note, whom Fortune, meaning highly to promote, hath stucke on thy forehead the earnest penny of succeeding good lucke.'" The following passage occurs in a curious publication, entitled the Home exalted, 1661, p. 37: "Horns are signified by the throwing out the little and fore finger when we point at such whom we tacitly called cuckolds." In the famous print of "a skimmington," engraved by Hogarth for Hudibras, we observe a tailor's wife employed in this manner to denote her own, but, as she thinks, her husband's infamy.

Winstanley, in his Historical Rarities, p. 76, says: "The Italians, when they intend to scoff or disgrace one, use to put their thumb between two of their fingers, and say 'Ecco la fico;' which is counted a disgrace answerable to our English custom of making horns to the man whom we suspect to be [p.183] a cuckold." He goes on thus to account for it: "In the time of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, anno 1161, Beatrix, the emperor's wife, coming to see the city of Millain in Italy, was by the irreverent people, first imprisoned and then most barbarously handled; for they placed her on a mule, with her face towards the tail, which she was compelled to use instead of a bridle; and when they had thus shown her to all the town, they brought her to a gate, and kicked her out. To avenge this wrong, the emperor besieged and forced the town, and adjudged all the people to die, save such as would undergo this ransome. Between the buttocks of a skittish mule a bunch of figs was fastened; and such as would live must, with their hands bound behind, run after the mule till, with their teeth,, they had snatched out one or more of the figs. This condition, besides the hazard of many a sound kick, was, by most, accepted and performed."

Greene, in his Conceipt, 1598, p. 33, uses this expression of a cornute: "But certainely beleeved that Giraldo his master was as soundly armde for the heade, as either Capricorne, or the stoutest horned signe in the Zodiacke."

It is well known that the word horn in the Sacred Writings denotes fortitude and vigour of mind;¹¹⁵ and that in the classics, personal courage (metaphorically from the pushing of horned animals) is intimated by horns.¹¹⁶ Whence then are we to deduce a very ancient custom which has prevailed almost universally, of saying that the unhappy husbands of false women wear horns, or are cornutes? It may be said almost universally, for we are told that even among the Indians it was the highest indignity that could be offered them even to point at a horn.¹¹⁷

There is a singular passage upon this subject in Nicolson and Burn's History of Westmoreland and Cumberland, i. 540, which I shall give, and leave, too, without comment, as I find it. They are speaking of the monument of Thomas the first [p.184] Lord Wharton, in the church of Kirkby Stephen in Westmoreland, the crest of whose arms was a bull's head: "The consideration of horns, generally used upon the crest, seemeth to account for what hath hitherto by no author or other person ever been accounted for; namely the connexion betwixt horns and cuckolds. The notion of cuckolds wearing horns prevails through all the modern European languages, and is of four or five hundred years' standing. The particular estimation of badges and distinction of arms began in the time of the Crusades, being then more especially necessary to distinguish the several nations of which the armies were composed. Horns upon the crest, according to that of Silius Italicus, 'Casside cornigera dependens insula,' were erected in terrorem: and after the husband had been absent three or four years, and came home in his regimental accoutrements, it might be no impossible supposition that the man who wore the horns was a cuckold. And this accounts, also, why no author at that time, when the droll notion was started, hath ventured to explain the connexion; for woe be to the man in those days that should have made a joke of the Holy War, which indeed, in consideration of the expense of blood and treasure attending it, was a very serious affair."

There is a great parade of learning on the subject of this very serious jest in a foreign work in Latin, printed at Brussels in 1661, in folio, and entitled the Paradise of Pleasant Questions. The various opinions of the learned are given in this curious collection, but I much doubt if any of them will be thought satisfactory. In one of them "cornutus" is most forcibly derived from nudus and corde, as meaning a pitiful fellow, such an one as he must needs be who can sit tamely down under so great an injury. Such kind of etymology merits no serious confutation. In another, Caelius Rhodoginus is introduced as wishing to derive it from an insensibility peculiar, as he says, to the he-goat, who will stand looking on while another is possessing his female. As writers on natural history do not admit the truth of the assertion, this too will, of course, fall to the ground.¹¹⁸

[p.185]

Another conjecture is, that some mean husbands, availing themselves of their wives' beauty, have turned it to account by prostituting them, obtaining by this means the horn of Amalthea, the cornu copice, which by licentious wits has since been called, in the language of modern gallantry, tipping the horns with gold. The fact is too notorious to be doubted; but as this only accounts for a single horn, perhaps we must lay no great stress upon the probability of this surmise.

Pancirollus, on the other hand, derives it from a custom of the debauched Emperor Andronicus, who used to hang up in a frolic in the porticos of the forum, the stag's horns he had taken in hunting, intending, as he says, by this new kind of insignia, to denote at once the manners of the city, the lasciviousness of the wives he had debauched, and the size of the animals he had made his prey, and that from hence the sarcasm spread abroad, that the husband of an adulterous wife bare horns. I cannot satisfy myself with this account; for what Andronicus did seems to have been only a continuation, not the origin, of this custom. In Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, ii. 3, the following occurs:

"Under your patience, gentle empress,
'Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning.
Jove shield your husband from his hounds to-day!
'Tis pity they should take him for a stag."

The following is extracted from the Gentleman's Magazine for December 1786, p. 1020: "The woman who is false to her husband is said to plant horns on his head. I know not how far back the idea of giving his head this ornament maybe traced, but it maybe met with in Artemidorus (lib. ii.), and I believe we must have recourse to a Greek epigram for an illustration¹¹⁹

"[Greek]" Antholog. lib. ii.

[p.186] Shakespeare and Ben Jonson seem both to have considered the horns in this light: "Well, he may sleep in security, for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it; and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him." Second Part of King Henry IV., act i. sc. 2.

"What! never sigh;
Be of good cheer, man, for thou art a cuckold.
'Tis done, 'tis done! nay, when such flowing store,
Plenty itself falls in my wife's lap,
The cornu copiae will be mine, I know."
        Every Man in his Humour, a. iii. sc. 6.

Steevens, on the above passage in 2 Henry IV. has these additions: "So in Pasquil's Night-Cap, 1612, p. 43. "But chiefly citizens, upon whose crowne Fortune her blessings most did tumble downe; And in whose eares (as all the world doth know) The home of great aboundance still doth blow."

The same thought occurs in the Two Maids of Moreclacke, 1609:

"------------------ Your wrongs
Shine through the horn, as candles in the eve,
To light out others."

Armstrong, in his History of the Island of Minorca, 1756, p. 170, says the inhabitants bear hatred to the sight and name of a horn; "for they never mention it but in anger, and then they curse with it, saying cuerno, as they would diablo."

[It was formerly a common notion that the unfaithfulness of a woman to her husband was always guided by a destiny which no human power could avert. In Grange's Garden, 1577, we have an allusion to this:

"And playing thus with wanton toyes, the cuckow bad good morow;
Alas, thought I, a token 'tis for me to live in sorrow:
Cuckow sang he, Cuckow sayd I, what destiny is this?
Who so it heares, he well may thinke it is no sacred blisse.

[p.187]

Alas, quoth she, what cann have you, as yet thus for to say
In cuckow time few have a charme to cause his tongue to stay;
Wherefore,
Content yourselfe as well as I, let reason rule your minde,
As cuckolds come by destiny, so cuckowes sing by kinde."

Compare also Nicolls's poem on the Cuckoo, 1607, p. 12:

"Meanetime Dan Cuckow, knowing that his voice
Had no varietie, no change, no choice:
But through the wesand pipe of his harsh throate,
Cri'd only Cuckow, that prodigious note!"]

In the Home Exalted, 1661, I find several conjectures on the subject, but such light and superficial ones as I think ought not much to be depended upon. One of them derives the etymology from bulls; asserting that such husbands as regarded not their wives were called bulls, because it is said that that animal, when satiated with his females, will not even feed with them, but removes as far off as he can. Hence the woman in Aristophanes, complaining of the absence and slights of her husband, says: "Must I in house without Bull stay alone?" On which account those husbands have been called bulls, who by abandoning their wives occasioned their proving unchaste, and consequently were mocked with horns. By another the word horns, or cornuto, is thought to have been taken from the injured and angry moon, which is all one with Venus, from whence generation. Another conjecture, playing on the Italian word beccho, which signifies a cuckold or goat, derives it from Bacchus, whom Orpheus calls the god with two horns. Thus drunkenness causing men, by neglecting them, to have wanton wives, they are said to have horns, to show to the world the occasion of their shame; and that by tossing the horn (meaning the drinking-horns) so much to their heads, they are said to have horns, fixing them at last to their foreheads. Another derives the word horns from the infamy, for which, as in other public matters, they sound and blow horns in the streets, and supposes horns are only a public opinion and scattering of this infamy of the husband about, as proclamations are made known by sound of trumpets. There is, lastly, a conjecture that the beginning of horns came from the Indians (it will be thought a far-fetched one), whose women had a custom that, when any lover presented his mistress with an elephant, the last favour might be granted him [p.188] without prejudice to her name or honesty; that it even became matter of praise to her, not objected to even by her husband, who preserved the horns as the better part of the elephant, in order to show them to the world as trophies of his wife's beauty. What a pity it is to spoil such a surmise, by suggesting that these reputed horns are really the elephant's teeth!

There used formerly (and I believe it is still now and then retained) to be a kind of ignominious procession in the north of England, called "Riding the Stang," when, as the glossary to Douglas's Virgil informs us, "one is made to ride on a pole for his neighbour's wife's fault." "Staung Eboracensibus est lignum ablongum. Contus bajulorum." Hickes. This custom bids fair not to be of much longer continuance in the north, for I find, by the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Courant for August 3d, 1793, that at the assizes at Durham, in the preceding week, "Thomas Jameson, Matthew Harrington, Geo. Ball, Jos. Rowntree, Simon Emmerson, Robert Parkin, and Francis Wardell, for violently assaulting Nicholas Lowes, of Bishop Wearmouth, and carrying him on a stang, were sentenced to be imprisoned two years in Durham gaol, and find sureties for their good behaviour for three years." The law taking such cognisance of the practice, it must of course terminate very shortly.

This custom is represented in a plate in the Costume of Yorkshire, 1814, p. 103. The letter-press says, "This ancient provincial custom is still occasionally observed in some parts of Yorkshire, though by no means so frequently as it was formerly. It is no doubt intended to expose and ridicule any violent quarrel between man and wife, and more particularly in instances where the pusillanimous husband has suffered himself to be beaten by his virago of a partner. A case of this description is here represented, and a party of boys, assuming the office of public censors, are riding the stang. This is a pole, supported on the shoulders of two or more of the lads, across which one of them is mounted, beating an old kettle or pan with a stick. He at the same time repeats a speech, or what they term a nominy, which, for the sake of detailing the whole ceremony, is here subjoined:

"With a ran, tan, tan,
On my old tin can,
Mrs. and her good man.

[p.189]

She bang'd him, she bang'd him,
For spending a penny when he stood in need.
She up with a three-footed stool;
She struck him so hard, and she cut so deep,
Till the blood run down like a new stuck sheep!"

The word Stang, says Ray. is still used in some colleges in Cambridge; to stang scholars in Christmas time being to cause them to ride on a colt-staff, or pole, for missing chapel. It is derived from the Islandic Staung, hasta.

It appears from Allan Ramsay's Poems, 1721, p. 128, that riding the stang was used in Scotland. A note says: "The riding of the stang on a woman that hath beat her husband, is as I have described it, by one's riding upon a sting, or a long piece of wood, carried by two others on their shoulders, where, like a herauld, he proclaims the woman's name, and the manner of her unnatural action:

"They frae a barn a kaber raught,
Ane mounted wi' a bang,
Betwisht twa's shoulders, and sat straught
Upon 't, and rade the stang
On her that day."

Callender observes, says Jamieson in his Etymological Dictionary, that, in the north, riding the stang "is a mark of the highest infamy." "The person," he subjoins, "who has been thus treated, seldom recovers his honour in the opinion of his neighbours. When they cannot lay hold of the culprit himself, they put some young fellow on the stang, or pole, who proclaims that it is not on his own account that he is thus treated, but on that of another person, whom he names." Anc. Scot. Poems, pp. 154-5. "I am informed," Dr. Jamieson adds, "that in Lothian, and perhaps in other counties, the man who had debauched his neighbour's wife was formerly forced to ride the stang." So in R. Galloway's Poems, p. 12:^l20 "On you I'll ride the stang." [p.190] "To ride," or "riding Skimmington," is, according to Grose, a ludicrous cavalcade in ridicule of a man beaten by his wife: it consists of a man riding behind a woman with his face to the horse's tail, holding a distaff in his hand, at which he seems to work, the woman all the while beating him with a ladle. A smock displayed on a staff is carried before them, as an emblematical standard, denoting female superiority: they are accompanied by what is called rough music, that is, frying-pans, bulls'-horns, marrow-bones and cleavers, &c. a procession admirably described by Butler in his Hudibras. [The following allusion to it occurs in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1699:

"What's a cuckold? learn of me,
Few do know his pedigree,
Or his subtle nature conster,
Born a man, but dies a monster;
Yet great antiquaries say,
He sprung from old Methusala,
Who after Noah's Flood was found
To have his crest with branches crown'd.
God in Eden's happy shade
Such a creature never made:
Then to cut off all mistaking,
Cuckolds are of women's making.
Then next we shall to you declare
How many sorts of cuckolds are;
The patient cuckold he is first,
The grumbling cuckold one oth' worst,
The loving cuckold he is best,
The patient cuckold lives at rest,
Thefranticfc cuckold giveth blows,
The ignorant cuckold nothing knows,
The jealous cuckold double twang'd,
The pimping cuckold would be haug'd;
The Skimington cuckold he is one,
And so I think their number's done.
Thus, reader, by these lines you see
That there nine sorts of cuckolds be."

[p.191]

CORNUTES.

["And many others too that border
No doubt upon this forked order,
Whereby we do this profit reap,
All sorts of horns thereby are cheap."]

In Bagford's letter relating to the Antiquities of London, printed in the first volume of Leland's Collectanea, p. lxxvi, he says: "I might here mention the old custom of Skimmington, when a woman beats her husband, of which we have no memory but in Hudibras, altho' I have been told of an old statute made for that purpose." Hogarth's print, which accompanies Butler's description, is also called the Skimmington, though none of the commentators on Hudibras have attempted an elucidation of the ceremony.

In Hymen, an Account of different Marriage Ceremonies, 1760, p. 177, is the following account of a Skimmington: "There is another custom in England, which is very extraordinary: a woman carries something in the shape of a man, crowned with a huge pair of horns, a drum goes before and a vast crowd follows, making a strange music with tongs, gridirons, and kettles. This burlesque ceremony was the invention of a woman, who thereby vindicated the character of a neighbour of hers, who had stoutly beaten her husband for being so saucy as to accuse his wife of being unfaithful to his bed. The figure with horns requires no explanation; it is obvious to everybody that it represents the husband." So Misson, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 129, says: "I have sometimes met in the streets of London a woman carrying a figure of straw representing a man, crown'd with very ample horns, preceded by a drum, and followed by a mob, making a most grating noise with tongs, gridirons, frying-pans, and saucepans. I asked what was the meaning of all this; they told me that a woman had given her husband a sound beating for accusing her of making him a cuckold, and that upon such occasions some kind neighbour of the poor innocent injured creature generally performed this ceremony."

A curious little book, entitled Divers Crab-tree Lectures that Shrews read to their Husbands, 1639, has a woodcut facing the frontispiece, representing a woman beating her husband with a ladle, is called Skimmington and her Husband. This cut is repeated in a chapter entitled Skimmington's Lecture [p.192] to her Husband, which is the errand Scold, with some verses, wherein occur the following pithy lines:

"But all shall not serve thee,
For have at thy pate,
My ladle of the crab-tree
Shall teach thee to cogge and to prate."

By the above it should seem to appear that the word "Skimmington" signifies an errant scold, and has most probably been derived from the name of some woman of great notoriety in that line. Thus a "sandwich," the "little cold collation," from the Earl of Sandwich. Douce derives it from the skimming-ladle; and I find the following account of its supposed origin in D. Bellamy's, Gordon's, and other gentlemen's Dictionary, 2d edit. 8vo. Lond. "Skimmington, a sort of burlesque procession in ridicule of a man who suffers himself to be beat by his wife. In commerce it is particularly used for the membrane stripped off the animal to be prepared by the tanner, skinner, currier, parchment-maker, &c. to be converted into leather," &c.

The following curious passage is taken from Dr. King's Miscellany Poems; see his Works, 1776, iii. 256:

"When the young people ride the Skimmington,
There is a general trembling in a town.
Not only he for whom the person rides
Suffers, but they sweep other doors besides;
And by that hieroglyphic does appear
That the good woman is the master there."

It should seem from the above lines that in this ludicrous procession, intended to shame some notoriously tame husband, and who suffered his wife to wear the breeches, it was part of the ceremony to sweep before the door of the person whom they intended to satirise; and if they stopped at any other door and swept there too, it was a pretty broad hint that there were more Skimmingtons, i.e. shrews, in the town than one. In Gloucestershire, in 1786, this was called a "Skimmington."

Douce has a curious print, entitled An exact Representation of the humourous Procession of the Richmond Wedding of Abram Kendrick and Mary Westurn, 17**. Two grenadiers go first, then the flag with a crown on it is carried after them; four men with hand-bells follow; then two men, one carrying a block-head, having a hat and wig on it, and a pair of horns [p.193] the other bearing a ladle; the pipe and tabor, hautboy and liddle; then the bridegroom in a chair, and attendants with hollyhock flowers; and afterward the bride, with her attendants carrying also hollyhock flowers. Bridemaids and bridemen close the procession.

In Strype's edition of Stow's Survey of London, i. 258, we read: "1562, Shrove Monday, at Charing-cross was a man carried of four men; and before him a bag-pipe, playing, a shawm, and a drum beating, and twenty links burning about him. The cause was, his next neighbour s wife beat her husband; it being so ordered that the next should ride about the place to expose her." In Lupton's Too Good to be True, 1580, p. 50, Siquila says: "In some places with us, if a woman beat her husband, the man that dwelleth next unto hir shall ride on a cowlstaffe; and there is al the punishment she is like to have." Omen observes: "That is rather an uncomly custome than a good order; for he that is in faintnesse is undecently used, and the unruly offender is excused thereby. If this be all the punishment your wives have that beate their simple husbandes, it is rather a boldning than a discouraging of some bolde and shamelesse dames to beate their simple husbandes, to make their next neyghbors (whom they spite) to ride on a cowlstaffe, rather rejoising and flearing at the riding of their neighbours, than sorrowing or repenting for beating of their husbands."

Park, in his Travels in the Interior of Africa, speaking of Kolor, a considerable town, near the entrance to which was a sort of masquerade-habit hanging upon a tree, made of the bark of trees, which, he was told, belonged to Mumbo Jumbo, says: "This is a strange bugbear, common in all the Mandingo towns, and employed by the Pagan natives in keeping the women in subjection; for, as they are not restricted in the number of their wives, every one marries as many as he can conveniently maintain, and it often happens that the ladies disagree among themselves: family quarrels sometimes rise to such a height that the voice of the husband is disregarded in the tumult. Then the interposition of Mumbo Jumbo is invoked, and is always decisive. This strange minister of justice, this sovereign arbiter of domestic strife, disguised in his masquerade attire, and armed with the rod of public authority, announces his coming by loud and dismal screams in the adjacent woods. He begins as soon as it is dark to enter the [p.194] town, and proceeds to a place where all the inhabitants are assembled to meet him. The appearance of Mumbo Jumbo, it may be supposed, is unpleasing to the African ladies; but they dare not refuse to appear when summoned, and the ceremony commences with dancing and singing, which continues till midnight, when Mumbo seizes on the offender. The unfortunate victim, being stripped naked, is tied to a post, and severely scourged with Mumbo's rod, amidst the shouts and derision of the whole assembly; and it is remarkable that the rest of the women are very clamorous and outrageous in their abuse of their unfortunate sister, till daylight puts an end to this disgusting revelry."

The following is an extract from Hentzner's Travels in England, 1598: "Upon taking the air down the river (from London), on the left hand lies Ratcliffe, a considerable suburb. On the opposite shore is fixed a long pole, with ram's-horns upon it, the intention of which was vulgarly said to be a reflection upon wilful and contented cuckolds." Edit. 1757, p. 47.

Grose mentions a fair called Horn-Fair, held at Charlton, in Kent, on St. Luke's day, the 18th of October. It consists of a riotous mob, who, after a printed summons dispersed through the adjacent towns, meet at Cuckold's Point, near Deptford, and march from thence in procession through that town and Greenwich to Charlton, with horns of different kinds upon their heads; and at the fair there are sold ram's-horns, and every sort of toy made of horn; even the ginger-bread figures have horns. A sermon is preached at Charlton church on the fair day. Tradition attributes the origin of this licentious fair to King John, who, it is said, being detected in an adulterous amour, compounded for his crime by granting to the injured husband all the land from Charlton to Cuckold's Point, and established the fair as a tenure.

It appears from the Whole Life of Mr. William Fuller, 1703, p. 122, that it was the fashion in his time to go to Horn fair dressed in women's clothes. "I remember being there upon Horn fair day, I was dressed in my land-lady's best gown, and other women s attire, and to Horn fair we went, and as we were coming back by water, all the cloaths were spoiled by dirty water, &c., that was flung on us in an inundation, for which I was obliged to present her with two guineas, to make atonement for the damage sustained, &c."

[p.195]

In an extract from an old newspaper, I find it was formerly a custom for a procession to go from some of the inns in Bishopsgate street, in which were a king, a queen, a miller, a councillor, &c., and a great number of others, with horns in their hats, to Charlton, where they went round the church three times, &c. So many indecencies were committed upon this occasion on Blackheath (as the whipping of females with furze, &c.), that it gave rise to the proverb of "all is fair at Horn fair." Lysons, in the Environs of London, iv. 325, says the burlesque procession has been discontinued since the year 1768. [I possess an old ballad called the Merry Humours of Horn Fair, in which this procession is referred to:

"The first that rides is called the king, sir,
He has a large pair of horns
Gilt with gold, that they may glitter,
That all who see may know he's horned.
The parson's wife rides with the miller;
She said, I hate horns, I do declare,
Yet happy are the men who wear them,
My husband he shall have a pair."]

Grose in his Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, has noticed two customs evidently connected with our present subject:

"HIGHGATE. Sworn at Highgate. A ridiculous custom formerly prevailed at the public-houses in Highgate, to administer a ludicrous oath to all travellers of the middling rank who stopped there. The party was sworn on a pair of horns, fastened on a stick; the substance of the oath was, never to kiss the maid when he could kiss the mistress, never to drink small beer when he could get strong, with many other injunctions of the like kind: to all which was added the saving clause, 'Unless you like it best.' The person administering the oath was always to be called father by the juror, and he in return was to style him son, under the penalty of a bottle." One or two of the public-houses in this village still (1841) have a pair of horns elevated upon a post standing in front of the house.

"HOISTING. A ludicrous ceremony formerly performed on every soldier the first time he appeared in the field after being married. It was thus managed: As soon as the regiment or company had grounded their arms to rest awhile, three or [p.196] four men of the same company to which the bridegroom belonged seized upon him, and, putting a couple of bayonets out of the two corners of his hat to represent horns, it was placed, on his head, the back part foremost. He was then hoisted on the shoulders of two strong fellows, and carried round the arms, a drum and a fife beating and playing the Pioneers' call, named Round-heads and Cuckolds, but on this occasion styled the Cuckold's March. In passing the colours he was to take off his hat. This in some regiments was practised by the officers on their brethren."

The following is from a View of London and Westminster, or the Town Spy, 1725, p. 26. The author is speaking of St. Clement Danes: "There was formerly a good custom of saddling the spit in this parish, which, for reasons well known at Westminster, is now laid aside; so that wives, whose husbands are sea-faring persons, or who are otherwise absent from them, have lodged here ever since very quietly."

OF THE WORD CUCKOLD.

I KNOW not how this word, which is generally derived from cuculus a cuckoo, has happened to be given to the injured husband, for it seems more properly to belong to the adulterer, the cuckoo being well known to be a bird that deposits its eggs in other birds' nests. The Romans seem to have used cuculus in its proper sense, as the adulterer, calling with equal propriety the cuckold himself carruca, or hedge-sparrow, which bird is well known to adopt the other's spurious offspring.¹²¹ Johnson, in his Dictionary, says: "The cuckow is [p.197] said to suck the eggs of other birds, and lay her own to be hatched in their place; from which practice it was usual to alarm a husband at the approach of an adulterer by calling 'Cuckoo,' which by mistake was in time applied to the husband."

Pennant, in his Zoology, 1776, i. 234, speaking of the cuckoo, says: "His note is so uniform, that his name in all languages seems to have been derived from it, and in all other countries it is used in the same reproachful sense:

'The plain song cuckoo grey,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,
And dares not answer nay.' Shakesp.

"The reproach seems to arise from this bird making use of the bed or nest of another to deposit its eggs in, leaving the care of its young to a wrong parent; but Juvenal, vi. 275, with more justice, gives the infamy to the bird in whose nest the supposititious eggs were layed:

'Tu tibi tune curruca places.'"

Pliny, xviii. 26, tells us that vine-dressers were anciently called cuckoos, i.e. slothful, because they deferred cutting their vines till that bird began to sing, which was later than the right time; so that the same name may have been given to the unhappy persons under consideration, when, through disregard and neglect of their fair partners, they have caused them to go a gadding in search of more diligent and industrious companions. The cuckoo has been long considered as a bird of omen. Gay, in his Shepherd's Week, in the fourth Pastoral, notes the vulgar superstitions on first hearing the bird sing in the season:

"When first the year, I heard the cuckoo sing,
And call with welcome note the budding spring,
I straightway set a running with such haste,
Deb'rah that won the smock scarce ran so fast.
Till spent for lack of breath, quite weary grown,
Upon a rising bank I sat adown,
And doff'd my shoe, and by my troth I swear,
Therein I spied this yellow frizzled hair,¹²²
As like to Lubberkin's in curl and hue,
As if upon his comely pate it grew."

[p.198]

I find the following still more extraordinary in Naturall and Artificiall Conclusions, by Thomas Hill, 1650, cxxvii.: "A very easie and merry conceit to keep off fleas from your beds or chambers. Plinie reporteth that if, when you first hear the cuckow, you mark well where your right foot standeth, and take up of that earth, the fleas will by no means breed, either in your house or chamber, where any of the same earth is thrown or scattered."

In the north of, and perhaps all over England, it is vulgarly accounted to be an unlucky omen if you have no money in your pocket when you hear the cuckoo for the first time in a season.

Green, the author of a Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1620, calls a cuckoo the cuckold's quirister: "It was just at that time when the cuckold's quirister began to bewray April gentlemen with his never-changed notes."

The Morning Post newspaper of May 17th, 1821, says: "A singular custom prevails in Shropshire at this period of the year, which is peculiar to that county. As soon as the first cuckoo has been heard, all the labouring classes leave work, if in the middle of the day, and the time is devoted to mirth and jollity over what is called the cuckoo ale."

There is a vulgar error in natural history in supposing the substance vulgarly called "cuckoo-spit" to proceed from the exhalation of the earth, from the extravasated juice of plants, or a hardened dew. According to the account of a writer in the Gent. Mag. for July, 1794, p. 602, it really proceeds from a small insect, which incloses itself within it, with an oblong obtuse body, a large head, and small eyes. The animal emits the spume from many parts of the body, undergoes its changes within it, then bursts into a winged state, and flies abroad in search of its mate; it is particularly innoxious; has four wings, the two external ones of a dusky brown, marked with two white spots.

From the subsequent passage in Green's work just quoted, it should seem that this substance was somehow or other vulgarly considered as emblematical of cuckoldom: "There was loyal lavender, but that was full of cuckow-spittes, to show that women's light thoughts make their husbands heavy heads."

The following passage is in that most rare tract, Plaine [p.199] Percevall, the Peace-maker of England, 4to.: "You say true, Sal sapit omnia; and service without salt, by the rite of England, is a cuckold's fee if he claim it."

Steevens, commenting on the mention of columbine in Hamlet, says: "From the Caltha Poetarum, 1599, it should seem as if this flower was the emblem of cuckoldom: 'The blue cornuted columbine, Like to the crooked horns of Acheloy.'"

"Columbine," says another of the commentators, S. W., "was an emblem of cuckoldom, on account of the horns of its nectaria, which are remarkable in this plant. See Aquilegia, in Linnaeus's Genera, 684." A third commentator, Holt White, says: "The columbine was emblematical of forsaken lovers:

'The columbine, in tawny often taken,
Is then ascrib'd to such as are forsaken.'
        Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, I. ii. 1613."

Among the witticisms on cuckolds that occur in our old plays, must not be omitted the following in Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1636:

"Why, my good father, what should you do with a wife?
Would you be crested? Will you needs thrust your head
In one of Vulcan's helmets? Will you perforce
Weare a city cap, and a court feather?"

Chaucer, in his Prosopopeia of Jealousie, brings her in with a garland of gold yellow, and a cuckoo sitting on her fist.

The following expression for being jealous is found in Ritson's Old Songs, 1792, p. 112:

"The married man cannot do so:
If he be merrie and toy with any,
His wife will frowne and words give manye:
Her yellow hose she strait will put on."

Butler, in his Hudibras, II. ii. 317, in the following passage, informs us for what a singular purpose carvers used formerly to invoke the names of cuckolds:

"Why should not Conscience have vacation,
As well as other courts o' th' nation;
Have equal power to adjourn,
Appoint appearance and retorn;
And make as nice distinction serve
To split a case, as those that carve,
Invoking cuckolds names, hit joints?"

[p.200]

In Wit and Mirth Improved, or a New Academy of Complements; p. 95, the fourth gossip says:

"Lend me that knife, and I'll cut up the goose:
I am not right let me turn edge and point,
Who must I think upon to hit the joint?
My own good man? I think there's none more fit.
He's in my thoughts, and now the joint I hit."

In Batt upon Batt, 1694, p. 4, I find the following:

"So when the mistress cannot hit thejoynt,
Which proves sometimes, you know, a diff'cult point,
Think on a cuckold, straight the gossips cry;
But think on Batt's good carving knife say I;
That still nicks sure, without offence and scandal:
Dull blades may be beholden to their handle:
But those Batt makes are all so sharp, they scorn
To be so charmed by his neighbour's horn"

In the British Apollo, 1708, ii. 59, is the following query: "When a person is joynting a piece of meat, if he finds it difficult to joynt, he is bid to think of a cuckold. I desire to know whence the proverb? A. Thomas Webb, a carver to a Lord Mayor of London, in King Charles the First's reign, was as famous for his being a cuckold as for his dexterity in carving: therefore what became a proverb was used first as an invocation, when any took upon him to carve."

Kyrle, the Man of Ross, celebrated by Pope, had always company to dine with him on a market-day, and a goose, if it could be procured, was one of the dishes; which he claimed the privilege of carving himself. When any guest, ignorant of the etiquette of the table, offered to save him that trouble, he would exclaim: "Hold your hand, man: if I am good for anything, it is for hitting cuckold's joints."

In Flecknoe's Diarium, 1656, p. 70, is the following:

"On Doctor Cuckold,

"Who so famous was of late,
He was with finger pointed at:
What cannot learning do, and single state?

"Being married, he so famous grew,
As he was pointed at with two,
What cannot learning and a wife now do?"

It is still supposed that the word cuculus gave some rise to the name of cuckold, though the cuckoo lays in other nests; [p.201] yet the etymology may still hold, for lawyers tell us that the honours and disgrace of man and wife are reciprocal; so that what the one hath, the other partakes of it. Thus then the lubricity of the woman is thrown upon the man, and her dishonesty thought his dishonour; who, being the head of the wife, and thus abused by her, he gains the name of cuckold, from cuckoo, which bird, as he used to nestle in other's places; so it was of old, the hieroglyphic of a fearful, idle, and stupid fellow, and hence became the nickname of such men as neglected to dress and prune their vines in due season. So Horace,

"Magna compellans voce cucullum."¹²³

Douce's manuscript notes, however, say: "That the word cuculus was a term of reproach amongst the ancients there is not the least doubt, and that it was used in the sense of our 'cuckold' is equally clear. Plautus has so introduced it on more than one occasion."¹²⁴

[p.202]

I must conclude this subject, which is not of the most delicate kind, with an apology; yet in speaking of popular antiquities, it seemed incumbent upon me to say something concerning it. To jest concerning a crime which is replete with every evil to society is indeed to scatter firebrands and arrows in our sport.¹²⁵ It may be added, there is no philosophical justice in such insults. If the husband was not to blame, it is highly ungenerous, and an instance of that common meanness in life of confounding a person's misfortunes with his faults. The cruelty of such wanton reflections will appear, if we consider that a man, plagued with a vicious wife, needs no aggravation of his misery.

In the Athenian Oracle, ii. 359, it is remarked of cuckoldry, "The Romans were honourable, and yet Pompey, Caesar, Augustus, Lucullus, Cato, and others, had this fate, but not its infamy and scandal. For a vicious action ought to be only imputed to the author, and so ought the shame and dishonour
which follow it. He only that consents and is pimp to his own cuckoldry is really infamous and base."

THE PASSING-BELL, OR SOUL-BELL.

"Make me a straine speake groaning like a bell,
That towles departing soules."
        Marston's Antonio and Mellida, 1633.

THE word "Passing," as used here, signifies clearly the same as "departing," that is passing from life to death. So that even from the name we may gather that it was the intention in tolling a passing-bell to pray for the person dying, and [p.203] who was not yet dead. The following clause, in the Advertisements for due Order, in the 7th year of Queen Elizabeth, is much to our purpose: "Item, that when anye Christian bodie is in passing, that the bell be tolled, and that the curate be speciallie called for to comforte the sicke person; and after the time of his passings to ringe no more but one shorte peale; and one before the buriall, and another short peale after the buriall."¹²⁶

In Catholic times, here, it has been customary to toll the passing-bell at all hours of the night as well as by day; as the subsequent extract from the churchwardens' accounts for the parish of Wolchurch (MS. Harl. 2252), A. D. 1526, proves: "Item, the clerke to have for tollynge of the passynge belle, for manne, womanne, or childes, if it be in the day, iiijd. Item, if it be in the night, for the same, viijd." See Strutt's Manners, iii. 172.¹²⁷

There is a passage in Shakespeare's Henry the Fourth, Second Part, which proves that our poet has not been a more accurate observer of Nature than of the manners and customs of his time:

"And his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell
Remember'd knolling a departing friend."

Douce is inclined to think that the passing-bell was originally intended to drive away any demon that might seek to take possession of the soul of the deceased. In the cuts to those which contain the service of the dead, several devils are waiting for this purpose in the chamber of the dying man, to whom the priest is administering extreme unction. He refers to the Schol. in Theocrit. Idyll, ii. v. 36, and adds: "It is to be hoped that this ridiculous custom will never be revived, which has most probably been the cause of sending many a good soul to the other world before its time: nor can the practice of tolling bells for the dead be defended upon any [p.204] principle of common sense, prayers for the dead being contrary to the articles of our religion."¹²⁸

Among the many objections of the Brownists, it is laid to the charge of the Church of England, that though we deny the doctrine of purgatory, and teach the contrary, yet how well our practice suits with it may be considered in our ringing of hallowed bells for the soul. See Bishop Hall's Apology against the Brownists. "We call them," says the Bishop (p. 568), "soul-bells, for that they signify the departure of the soul, not for that they help the passage of the soul." Wheatly, in his Illustration of the Liturgy, apologises for our retaining this ceremony: "Our Church," says he, "in imitation of the saints in former ages, calls on the minister and others who are at hand to assist their brother in his last extremity. In order to this, she directs that when any one is passing out of this life a bell should be tolled." &c. It is called from thence the passing-bell.

I find the following in Articles to be enquired of within the Archdeaconry of Yorke by the Church Wardens and Sworne-Men, A. D. 163: "Whether doth your dark or sexton, when any one is passing out of this life, neglect to toll a bell, having notice thereof or, the party being dead, doth he suffer any more ringing than one short peale, and before his burial one, and after the same another?" Inquiry is also directed to be made, "whether at the death of any there be any superstitious ringing?"

"The passing-bell," says Grose, "was anciently rung for two purposes: one to bespeak the prayers of all good Christians for a soul just departing; the other to drive away the evil spirits who stood at the bed's foot and about the house, ready to seize their prey, or at least to molest and terrify the [p.205] soul in its passage: but by the ringing of that bell (for Durandus informs us evil spirits are much afraid of bells) they were kept aloof; and the soul, like a hunted hare, gained the start, or had what is by sportsmen called law.¹²⁹ Hence, perhaps, exclusive of the additional labour, was occasioned the high price demanded for tolling the greatest bell of the church; for, that being louder, the evil spirits must go farther off to be clear of its sound, by which the poor soul got so much more the start of them: besides, being heard farther off, it would likewise procure the dying man a greater number of prayers. This dislike of spirits to bells is mentioned in the Golden Legend by Wynkyn de Worde."¹³⁰

Bourne supposes that from the proverb mentioned by Bede, "Lord have mercy upon the soul," as St. Oswald said when he fell to the earth,¹³¹ has been derived the present national saying:

"When the bell begins to toll,
Lord have mercy on the soul."

He tells us that it was a custom with several religious families at Newcastle-upon-Tyne to use prayers, as for a soul departing, at the tolling of the passing-bell. In Ray's Collection of old English Proverbs I find the following couplet:

"When thou dost hear a toll or knell,
Then think upon thy passing-bell."

In the Rape of Lucrece, by T. Heywood, 1630, Valerius says:

"Nay, if he be dying, as I could wish he were,
Tiering out his funerall peale, and this it is:

"Come list and harke, the bell doth towle,
For some but new departing soule.
And was not that some ominous fowle,

[p.206]

The batt, the night-crow, or skreech-owle.
To these I heare the wild woolfe howle
In this black night that seems to skowle.
All these my black-booke shall in-rowle.
For hark, still, still, the bell doth towle,
For some but now departing sowle."

It is also alluded to by Gascoigne, in his Workes, 1587, p. 95, where, in the Historie of Dan Bartholomew of Bathe, he prefaces a sonnet with a great number of lines, beginning

"Alas, loe now I heare the passing-bell,
Which Care appoynteth carefully to knoule;
And in ray brest I feele my heart now swell,
To breake the stringes which joynd it to rny soule."

When Lady Catherine Grey died a prisoner in the tower, Sir Owen Hopton, who had then the charge of that fortress, "perceiving her to draw towards her end, said to Mr. Bokeham, 'Were it hot best to send to the church, that the bell may be rung?' And she herself, hearing him, said, 'Good Sir Owen, let it be so.' Then immediately perceiving her end to be near, she entered into prayer, and said, 'Lord! into thy hands I commend my soul: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit:' and so, putting down her eyes with her own hands, she yielded unto God her meek spirit at nine of the clock in the morning, the 27th of January, 1567." See "The Manner of her departing," Harl. MS. 39, in Ellis's Original Letters, 2d Series, ii. 290.

The custom of the bell being tolled whilst the person was dying, is alluded to as late as 1732, in Nelson's Fasts and Festivals of the Church, who, p. 144, speaking of the dying Christian who has subdued his passions, says: "If his senses hold out so long, he can hear even his passing-bell without disturbance." As for the title of soul-belly if that bell is so called which they toll after a person's breath is out, and mean by it that it is a call upon us to pray for the soul of the deceased person, I know not how the church of England can be defended against the charge of those who, in this instance, would seem to tax us with praying for the dead.

Bourne considers the custom as old as the use of bells themselves in Christian churches, i.e. about the seventh century. Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History, speaking of the death of the Abbess of St. Hilda, tells us that one of the sisters of a [p.207] distant monastery, as she was sleeping,¹³² thought she heard the well-known sound of that bell which called them to prayers when any of them had departed this life. Bourne thinks the custom originated in the Roman Catholic idea of the prevalency of prayers for the dead. The abbess above mentioned had no sooner heard this, than she raised all the sisters, and called them into the church, where she exhorted them to pray fervently, and sing a requiem for the soul of their mother.

The same author contends that this bell, contrary to the present custom, should be tolled before the person's departure, that good men might give him their prayers, adding, that, if they do no good to the departing sinner, they at least evince the disinterested charity of the person that prefers them.¹³³

In Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614, p. 195, if any proofs were wanting, we find the following, that the passing-bell was anciently rung while the person was dying. "A gentleman lying very sicke abed, heard a passing-bell ring out, and said unto his physician, 'Tell me, maister Doctor, is yonder musickefor my dancing?'' Ibid. p. 196, concerning "The ringing out at the burial," is this anecdote: "A rich churle and a begger were buried, at one time, in the same church- [p.208] yard, and the belles rung out amaine for the miser: now, the wise-acre his son and executor, to the ende the worlde might not thinke that all that ringing was for the begger, but for his father, hyred a trumpetter to stand all the ringing while in the belfrie, and betweene every peale to sound his trumpet, and proclaime aloude and say, Sirres, this next peale is not for R., but for Maister N., his father."

In Articles to be enquired of throughout the Diocese of Chichester, 1638, under the head of "Visitation of the sicke and persons at the point of death," we read: "In the meane time is there a passing-bell tolled, that they who are within the hearing of it may be moved in their private devotions to recommend the state of the departing soule into the hands of their Redeemer, a duty which all Christians are bound to, out of a fellow-feeling of their common mortality."

Fuller, in his Good Thoughts in Worse Times, 1647, p. 3, has the following very curious passage: "Hearing a passing-bell, I prayed that the sick man might have, through Christ, a safe voyage to his long home. Afterwards I understood that the party was dead some hours before; and, it seems in some places of London, the tolling of the bell is but a preface of course to the ringing it out. Bells better silent than thus telling lyes. What is this but giving a false alarme to men's devotions, to make them to be ready armed with their prayers for the assistance of such who have already fought the good fight, yea, and have gotten the conquest? Not to say that men's charity herein may be suspected of superstition in praying for the dead."

Dr. Zouch in a note on the Life of Sir Henry Wotton (Walton's Lives, 1796, p. 144), says: "The soul-bell was tolled before the departure of a person out of life, as a signal for good men to offer up their prayers for the dying. Hence the abuse commenced of praying for the dead. 'Aliquo nioriente campanse deberit pulsari, ut populus hoc audiens oret pro illo.' Durandi rationale." He is citing Donne's letter to Sir Henry Wotton in verse:

"And thicken on you now, as prayers ascend
To heaven on troops at a good man's passing-bell."¹³⁴

[p.209]

Bourne says, the custom was held to be popish and superstitious during the grand rebellion; for in a vestry-book belonging to the chapel of All Saints, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, it is observable that the tolling of the bell is not mentioned in the parish from the year 1643 till 1655, when the church by this and such like means having been brought in dilapidations, through want of money, it was at a vestry, held January 21 that year, ordered to be tolled again.

I find the following in Articles of Visitation for the Diocese of Worcester, 1662: "Doth the parish clerk or sexton take care to admonish the living, by tolling of a passing-bell of any that are dying, thereby to meditate of their own deaths, and to commend the other's weak condition to the mercy of God?" In similar articles for the diocese of St. David, in the same year, I read as follows: "Doth the parish-clerk, or sexton, when any person is passing out of this life, upon notice being given him therof, toll a bell, as hath been accustomed, that the neighbours may thereby be warned to recommend the dying person to the grace and favour of God?"

To a dispute about the origin of this custom, and whether the bell should be rung out when the party is dying, or some time after, the British Apollo, ii. No. 7, Supernumerary for October 1709, answers: "The passing peal was constituted, at [p.210] first, to be rung when the party was dying, to give notice to the religious people of the neighbourhood to pray for his soul; and therefore properly called the passing peal."

Pennant, in his History of Whiteford and Holywell, p. 99, says: "That excellent memento to the living, the passing-bell, is punctually sounded. I mention this because idle niceties have, in great towns, often caused the disuse. It originated before the Reformation, to give notice to the priest to do the last duty of extreme unction to the departing person, in case he had no other admonition. The canon (67) allows one short peal after death, one other before the funeral, and one other after the funeral. The second is still in use, and is a single bell solemnly tolled. The third is a merry peal, rung
at the request of the relations; as if, Scythian like, they rejoiced at the escape of the departed out of this troublesome world." He says, p. 100: "Bell-corn is a small perquisite belonging to the clerk of certain parishes. I cannot learn the origin."

The following passage is in a Strange Horse-Race, by Thomas Dekkar, 1613. Speaking of "rich curmudgeons" lying sick, he says: "Their sonnes and heires cursing as fast (as the mothers pray) until the great capon-bell ring out." If this does not mean the passing-bell, I cannot explain it.

There seems to be nothing intended at present by tolling the passing-bell, but to inform the neighbourhood of any person's death.

Sir John Sinclair, in the Statistical Account of Scotland, xviii. 439, says, in a note to the account of the parish of Borrowstowness, co. Linlithgow: "At the burials of the poor people, a custom, almost obsolete in other parts of Scotland, is continued here. The beadle perambulates the streets with a bell, and intimates the death of the individual in the following language: 'All brethren and sisters, I let ye to wit, there is a brother (or sister) departed at the pleasure of the Almighty (here he lifts his hat), called ——. All those that come to the burial, come at —— of clock. The corpse is at ——.' He also walks before the corpse to the churchyard, ringing his bell."

Till the middle of the last century a person, called the bell-man of the dead, went about the streets of Paris, dressed in a deacon's robe, ornamented with death's heads, bones, and [p.211] tears, ringing a bell, and exclaiming, "Awake, you that sleep! and pray to God for the dead!" This custom prevailed still longer in some of the provinces, where they permitted even the trivial parody, "Prenez vos femmes embrasser les." See the Voyageur a Paris, i. 72.

I cannot agree with Bourne in thinking that the ceremony of tolling a bell on this occasion was as ancient as the use of bells, which were first intended as signals to convene the people to their public devotions. It has more probably been an after-invention of superstition. Thus praying for the dying was improved upon into praying for the dead.

Durand, who flourished about the end of the twelfth century, tells us, in his Rationale,¹³⁵ "when any one is dying, bells must be tolled, that the people may put up their prayers; twice for a woman and thrice for a man; if for a clergyman, as many times as he had orders; and at the conclusion a peal on all the bells, to distinguish the quality of the person for whom the people are to put up their prayers. A bell, too, must be rung while the corpse is conducted to church, and during the bringing it out of the church to the grave." This seems to account for a custom still preserved in the North of England, of making numeral distinctions at the conclusion of this ceremony; i.e. nine knells for a man, six for a woman, and three for a child, which are undoubtedly the vestiges of this ancient injunction of popery.

[p.212]

Distinction of rank is preserved in the North of England, in the tolling of the soul-bell. A high fee annexed excludes the common people, and appropriates to the death of persons of consequence the tolling of the great bell in each church on this occasion. There, too, as Durand, above cited, orders, a bell is tolled, and sometimes chimes are rung, a little before the burial, and while they are conducting the corpse to church. They chime, or ring, too, at some places, while the grave is filling up. Durand, whose superstition often makes one smile, is of opinion, as has been already noticed from Grose, that devils are much afraid of bells, and fly away at the sound of them. His words are: "Cseterum campanee in processionibus pulsantur ut dsemones timentes fugiant. Timent enim, auditis tubis ecclesiae militantis, scilicet campanis, sicut aliquis tyrannus timet, audiens in terra sua tubas alicujus potentis regis inimici sui." Rationale, lib. i. c. 4, 15. That ritualist would have thought it a prostitution of the sacred utensils, had he heard them rung, as I have often done, with the greatest impropriety, on winning a long main at cock-fighting. He would, perhaps, have talked in another strain, and have represented these aerial enemies as lending their assistance to ring them.

On the ringing of bells to drive away spirits, much may be collected from Magius de Tintinnabulis. See Swinburne's Travels in the Two Sicilies, i. 98.

I have not been able to ascertain precisely the date of the useful invention of bells. The ancients had some sort of bells. I find the word tintinnabula, which we usually render bells, in Martial, Juvenal, and Suetonius. The Romans appear to have been summoned by these, of whatever size or form they were, to their hot baths, and to the business of public places.¹³⁶ The small bells which are seen in ancient representations of hermitages, were most probably intended [p.213] to drive away evil spirits. St. Anthony stood in particular need of such assistance.

I have examined the passage before mentioned of Bede in King Alfred's Saxon version. In rendering campana, I find he has used clusjan, which properly signifies a clock. Bellun is in the margin. Glock is the old German name for a bell, and hence it is called in French une cloche. There were no clocks in England in King Alfred's time. He is said to have measured his time by wax candles, marked with circular lines to distinguish the hours. I would infer from this, that our clocks have been certainly so called from the bells in them. Strutt confesses he has not been able to trace the date of the invention of clocks in England. Stow tells us they were commanded to be set upon churches in the year 612. A gross mistake! and into which our honest historian must have been led by his misunderstanding the word "cloca," a Latin term coined from the old German name for a bell. For clocks, therefore, meo periculo, read bells.

The large kind of bells, now used in churches, are said to have been invented by Paulinus, bishop of Nola,¹³⁷ in Campania, whence the Campana of the lower Latinity, about the four hundredth year of the Christian era. Two hundred years afterwards they appear to have been in general use in churches. Bingham, Antiq. Christ. Church, i. 316, however, thinks this a vulgar error. The Jews, according to Josephus, used trumpets for bells. The Turks do not permit the use of them at all; [p.214] the Greek Church under their dominion still follow their old custom of using wooden boards, or iron plates full of holes, which they hold in their hands and knock with a hammer or mallet, to call the people together to church. See Dr. Smith's Account of the Greek Church. He was an eyewitness of this remarkable custom, which Durand tells us is retained in the Romish Church on the last three days of the week preceding Easter.

Bingham informs us of an invention before bells for convening religious assemblies in monasteries: it was going by turns to every one's cell, and with the knock of a hammer calling the monks to church. This instrument was called the night signal and the wakening mallet. In many of the colleges at Oxford the bible-clerk knocks at every room-door with a key to waken the students in the morning, before he begins to ring the chapel bell: a vestige it should seem, of the ancient monastic custom.

China has been remarkably famous for its bells. Father Le Comte tells us that at Pekin there are seven bells, each of which weighs one hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

Baronius¹³⁸ informs us that Pope John the Thirteenth, A.D. 968, consecrated a very large new-cast bell in the Lateran church, and gave it the name of John. This is the first instance I met with of what has been since called the baptising of bells, a superstition which the reader may find ridiculed in the Romish Beehive, p. 17. The vestiges of this custom may be yet traced in England, in Tom of Lincoln, and Great Tom ("the mighty Tom") at Christ-Church in Oxford. In a Pontificale of Clement VIII. the ceremony of blessing or consecrating a bell is engraved.

In Coates's Hist. of Reading, 1802, p. 214, in the church-wardens' accounts of St. Laurence's Parish, 1499, is the following article: "It. payed for halowing of the bell named Harry, vjs. viijd. and ovir that Sir Willm. Symys, Richard Clech, and Maistres Smyth, being godfaders and godmoder at the consecracyon of the same bell, and beryng all oth^r costs to the suffrygan,"

[p.215]

Pennant, speaking of St. Wenefride's Well, in Flintshire, says: "A bell belonging to the church was also christened in honour of her. I cannot learn the names of the gossips, who, as usual, were doubtless rich persons. On the ceremony they all laid hold of the rope; bestowed a name on the bell; and the priest, sprinkling it with holy water, baptised it in the name of the Father, &c.; he then clothed it with a fine garment. After this the gossips gave a grand feast, and made great presents, which the priest received in behalf of the bell. Thus blessed, it was endowed with great powers; allayed (on being rung) all storms; diverted the thunderbolt; drove away evil spirits. These consecrated bells were always inscribed. The inscription on that in question ran thus:

"Sancta Wenefreda, Deo hoc commendare memento,
Ut pietate sua, nos servet ab hoste cruento."¹³⁹

And a little lower was another address:

"Protege prece pia quos convoco, Virgo Maria."

Egelric, abbot of Croyland, about the time of King Edgar, cast a ring of six bells, to all which he gave names, as Bartholomew, Bethhelm, Turketul, &c.¹⁴⁰ The historian tells us his predecessor, Turketul, had led the way in this fancy. The custom of rejoicing with bells on high festivals, Christmas Day, &c., is derived to us from the times of popery.¹⁴¹ The ringing of bells on the arrival of emperors, bishops, abbots, &c., at places under their own jurisdiction, was also an old [p.216] custom;¹⁴² whence we seem to have derived the modern compliment of welcoming persons of consequence by a cheerful peal.

In the account we have of the gifts made by St. Dunstan to Malmesbury Abbey, it appears that bells were not very common in that age, for he says the liberality of that prelate consisted chiefly in such things as were then wonderful and strange in England, among which he reckons the large bells and organs he gave them. An old bell at Canterbury took twenty-four men to ring it; another required thirty-two men ad sonandum. The noblest peal of ten bells, without exception, in England, whether tone or tune be considered, is said to be in St. Margaret's church, Leicester. When a full peal was rung, the ringers were said pulsare classicum.

Bells were a great object of superstition among our ancestors. Each of them was represented to have its peculiar name and virtues, and many are said to have retained great affection for the churches to which they belonged, and where they were consecrated. When a bell was removed from its original and favourite situation, it was sometimes supposed to take a nightly trip to its old place of residence, unless exercised in the evening, and secured with a chain or rope. Warner, in his Topographical Remarks on the S. W. parts of Hampshire, ii. 162, thus enumerates the virtues of a bell, in a translation of the last two lines quoted in p. 213, from the Helpe to Discourse:

"Men's death I tell
By doleful knell.

Lightning and thunder
I break asunder.

[p.217]

On Sabbath all
To church I call.

The sleepy head
I raise from bed.

The winds so fierce
I doe disperse.

Men's cruel rage
I doe asswage."

In Barnabe Googe's translation of the Regmim Papisticum of Naogeorgus, f. 41, we have the following lines on belles:

"If that the thunder chaunce to rore, and stormie tempest shake,
A wonder is it for to see the wretches how they quake,
Howe that no fayth at all they have, nor trust in any thing,
The clarke doth all the belles forthwith at once in steeple ring:
With wond'rous sound and deeper farre than he was wont before,
Till in the loftie heavens darke the thunder bray no more.
For in these christned belles they thinke doth lie much powre and might,
As able is the tempest great and storme to vanquish quight.
I sawe my self at Numburg once, a towne in Toring coast,
A bell that with this title bolde hirself did proudly boast:
By name I Mary called am, with sound I put to flight
The thunder crackes and hurtfull stormes, and every wicked spright.
Such things whenas these belles can do, no wonder certainlie
It is, if that the Papistes to their tolling alwayes flie,
When haile, or any raging storme, or tempest comes in sight,
Or thunderboltes, or lightning fierce, that every place doth smight."

In 1464 is a charge in the churchwardens' accounts of Sandwich for bread and drink for "ryngers in the great thunderyng." In the Burnynge of Paules Church in London, 1561, we find enumerated, among other Popish superstitions: "rinyinge the hallowed belle in great tempestes or lightninges" I have seen a tract, De Superstitiosis Campanarum pulsibus, ad eliciendas Preces, quibus placentur Fulmina, excogitatis Responsio: autore Gaspare Hombergio Vezlariense. 12mo. Franc, ad M. 1577.

Aubrey, in his Miscellanies, p. 148, says: "At Paris, when it begins to thunder and lighten, they do presently ring out the great bell at the Abbey of St. Germain, which they do believe makes it cease. The like was wont to be done heretofore in Wiltshire. When it thundered and lightened, they did ring St. Adelm's bell at Malmesbury Abbey. The curious do say that the ringing of bells exceedingly disturbs spirits."

[p.218]

Our forefathers, however, did not entirely trust to the ringing of bells for the dispersion of tempests, for in 1313 a cross, full of reliques of divers saints, was set on St. Paul's steeple, to preserve from all danger of tempests. I find the following in a newspaper: "Berlin, Nov. 3, 1783. It is long since the learned in natural history have apprised the world of the danger there is of ringing bells on the approach and duration of a thunder-storm. But how hard it is to root out popular prejudices! What sound reason could not effect, royal authority has brought about. His Majesty, by a late ordinance, directs that the prohibition against ringing bells, &c. on such occasions, be read publicly in all the churches throughout his dominions."

Dr. Francis Hering, in Certaine Rules, Directions, or Advertisments for this Time of pestilentiall Contagion, 1625, advises: "Let the bells in cities and townes be rung often, and the great ordnance discharged; thereby the aire is purified."

There is a passage in Fuller's History of Waltham Abbey, 1542, relative to the wages of bell-ringers it is preserved in the churchwardens' accounts: "Item, paid for the ringing at the prince his coming, a penny."¹⁴³ In Coates's History of Reading, 1802, p. 218, under the churchwardens' accounts of St. Laurence's parish, is the following article, sub anno 1514. "It. payd for a galon of ale, for the ryngers, at the death of the king of Scots, ijd." "Antient ceremonies used throughout the kingdome, continued from antiquity till the days of our last fathers, that whensoever any noble man or peere of the realme passed through any parish, all the bells were accustomed to be runge in honor of his person, and to give notice of the passage of such eminency and When their letters were upon occasions read in any assemblies, the commons present would move their bonnets, in token of reverence to their names and persons." Smith's Berkeley MSS. ii. 363.

At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the tolling of the great bell of St. Nicholas's church there has been from ancient times a signal for the burgesses to convene on guild-days, or on the [p.219] days of electing magistrates. It begins at nine o'clock in the morning, and with little or no intermission continues to toll till three o'clock, when they begin to elect the mayor, &c. Its beginning so early was doubtless intended to call together the several companies to their respective meeting-houses, in order to choose the former and latter electors, &c. A popular notion prevails, that it is for the old mayor's dying, as they call his going out of office the tolling as it were of his passing-bell.

Ruff head, in his preface to the Statutes at Large, speaking of the Folc-mote Comitatus, or Shire-mote, and the Folc-mote Civitatis vel Burgi, or Burg-mote, says: "Besides these annual meetings, if any sudden contingency happened, it was the duty of the aldermen of cities and boroughs to ring the bell called in English Mot-bell, in order to bring together the people to the burg-mote," &c. See Blount's Law Dictionary, v. Mot- bell.

The bells at Newcastle-upon-Tyne are muffled on the 30th of January every year. For this practice of muffling I find no precedent of antiquity. Their sound is by this means peculiarly plaintive.¹⁴⁴ The inhabitants of that town were par- [p.220] ticularly loyal during the parliamentary wars in the grand rebellion, which may account for the use of this custom, which probably began at the Restoration.

Misson, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 306, says: "Ringing of bells is one of their great delights, especially in the country. They have a particular way of doing this; but their chimes cannot be reckoned so much as of the same kind with those of Holland and the Low Countries."

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, x. 512, parish of Inverkeithing, co. Fife, we read: "In this parish is the castle of Rosyth, almost opposite to Hopeton House. It is built upon rock, and surrounded by the sea at full tide. Upon the south side, near the door, is this inscription, pretty entire and legible:

"In dev time drav yis cord ye bel to clink,
Qvhais mery voce varnis to meat and drink."

Dates about the building, 1561 and 1639. Yet "it cannot now be ascertained by whom it was built, or at what time."

The little carnival on Pancake Tuesday at Newcastle-on-Tyne commences by the same signal. A bell, usually called the Thief and Reever Bell, proclaims the two annual fairs of that town. A peculiar kind of alarm is given by a bell on accidents of fire. A bell is rung at six every morning, except Sundays and holidays, with a view, it should seem, of calling up the artisans to their daily employment.

THE CURFEW BELL.¹⁴⁵

THE following occurs in Peshall's History of the City of Oxford, p. 177: "The custom of ringing the bell at Carfax every night at eight o'clock (called Curfew Sell, or Cover-fire Bell), was by order of King Alfred, the restorer of our University, who ordained that all the inhabitants of Oxford should, at the ringing of that bell, cover up their fires and go to bed, which custom is observed to this day, and the bell as con- [p.221] stantly rings at eight, as Great Tom tolls at nine. It is also a custom added to the former, after the ringing and tolling this bell, to let the inhabitants know the day of the month by so many tolls." [There are few points in the ancient jurisprudence of England which are enveloped in more obscurity, or which have given rise to more conflicting opinions as to their origin and intention, than the couvre-feu law. Although there is no evidence to show that it originated with the Norman Conqueror, yet it appears certain that in 1068 he ordained that all people should put out their fires and lights at the eight o'clock bell, and go to bed. But that it was not intended as a badge of infamy is evident from the fact that the law was of equal obligation upon the foreign nobles of the court as upon the native-born Saxon serfs. And yet we find the name of curfew law employed as a by-word denoting the most odious tyranny, and historians, poets, and lawyers speaking of it as the acme of despotism levelled alone at the vanquished English. However well-intentioned the couvre-feu law may have been, it appears to have met with much opposition, as in 1103 we find Henry I. repealing the enactment of his father. Blackstone says that though it is mentioned a century afterwards, it is rather spoken of as a time of night than as a still subsisting custom. Thus Chaucer:

"The dede slepe, for every besinesse,
Fell on this carpenter, right as I gesse,
Aboute curfew time, or litel more."]

The curfew is commonly believed to have been of Norman origin.¹⁴⁶ A law was made by William the Conqueror that all people should put out their fires and lights at the eight o'clock bell, and go to bed. See Seymour's edit, of Stow's Survey of London, book i. cap. 15. The practice of this custom, we are [p.222] told, to its full extent, was observed during that and the following reign only. Thomson has inimitably described its tyranny:

"The shiv'ring wretches, at the curfew sound,
Dejected sunk into their sordid heds,
And, through the mournful gloom of ancient times,
Mus'd sad, or dreamt of better."

In the second mayoralty of Sir Henry Colet, Knt. (father of Dean Colet), A.D. 1495, and under his direction, the solemn charge was given to the Quest of Wardmote in every ward, as it stands printed in the Custumary of London. "Also yf ther be anye paryshe clerke that ryngeth curfewe after the curfewe be ronge at Bowe Chyrche, or Saint Brydes Chyrche, or Saint Gyles without Cripelgat, all suche to be presented." (Knight's Life of Dean Colet, p. 6.) In the Articles for the Sexton of Faversham, agreed upon and settled in 22 Hen. VIII. (preserved in Jacob's History, p. 172), we read: "Imprimis, the sexton, or his sufficient deputy, shall lye in the church steeple; and at eight o'clock every night shall ring the curfewe by the space of a quarter of an hour, with such bell as of old time hath been accustomed. In Lysons's Environs, i. 232, is the following extract from the Churchwardens' and Chamberlains' Accounts of Kingston-upon-Thames: "1651. For ringing the curfew bell for one year, & 1100." I find, however, in the old play of the Merry Devil of Edmonton, 4to. 1631, that the curfew was sometimes rung at nine o'clock ; thus the Sexton says: "Well, 'tis nine a clocke, 'tis time to ring curfew."

[Shakespeare seems to have laboured under some strange mistake respecting the hour of couvre-feu. In Measure for Measure, iv. 2, occurs the following:

"Duke. The best and wholesom'st spirits of the night
        Invellop you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?
Provost. None, since the curfew rung."

In this instance no particular time is specified, but in Romeo and Juliet, iv. 4, he makes Lord Capulet say:

"Come, stir, stir, stir, the second cock hath crow'd,
The curphew bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock."

And in other of his plays he fixes the time at a later hour. Thus in the Tempest, v. 1 , Prospero says:

"You, whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew."

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And in King Lear, iii. 4, Edgar exclaims: "This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks to the first cock."]

In Bridges's History of Northamptonshire, i. 110, speaking of Byfield church, the author tells us: "A bell is rung here at four in the morning, and at eight in the evening, for which the clerk hath 20s. yearly paid him by the rector." A bell was formerly rung at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, also, at four in the morning.

In Hutchins's Dorset, ii. 267, the author, speaking of Mapouder church, mentions land given "to find a man to ring the morning and curfeu bell throughout the year." Also (ibid. p. 422), under Ibberton, is mentioned one acre given for ringing the eight o'clock bell, and 4 for ringing the morning bell. Macaulay, in his History of Claybrook, 1791, p. 128, says: "The custom of ringing curfew, which is still kept up at Claybrook, has probably obtained without intermission since the days of the Norman Conqueror." [It is probable in the middle ages some superstitious regard was paid to the ringing of the couvre-feu, for we find that land was occasionally left to pay for the ringing of the couvre-feu bell. This feeling appears not to have been altogether extinct, even so late as the close of the sixteenth century, for in Bishop Hall's Fourth Satire occurs the following:

"Who ever gives a paire of velvet shooes
To th' Holy Rood, or liberally allowes
But a new rope to ring the couvre-feu bell,
But he desires that his great deed may dwell,
Or graven in the chancel window glasse,
Or in his lasting tombe of plated brasse."

We find the couvre-feu mentioned as a common and approved regulation. It was used in most of the monasteries and towns of the north of Europe, the intent being merely to prevent the accidents of fires. All the common houses consisted at this time of timber. Moscow, therefore, being built with this material, generally suffers once in twenty years. That this happened equally in London Fitzstephen proves: "Solse pestes Lundoniee sunt stultorum immodica potatio, et frequens incendium." The Saxon Chronicle also makes frequent mention of towns being burned, which might be expected for the same reason, the Saxon term for building being jetimbjaian.

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The Hon. Dames Barrington, in his Observations on the Ancient Statutes, p. 153, tells us: "Curfew is written curphour in an old Scottish poem, published in 1770, with many others from the MS. of George Bannatyne, who collected them in the year 1568. It is observed in the annotations on these poems, that by act 144, parl. 13, Jam. I., this bell was to be rung in boroughs at nine in the evening; and that the hour was afterwards changed to ten, at the solicitation of the wife of James Stewart, the favourite of James the Sixth."

There is a narrow street in the town of Perth, in Scotland, still called Couvre-feu Row, leading west to the Black Friars, where the couvre-feu bell gave warning to the inhabitants to cover their fires and go to rest when the clock struck ten. Muses' Threnodie, note, p. 89.

"At Ripon, in Yorkshire, at nine o'clock every evening, a man blows a large horn at the Market Cross, and then at the mayor's door." Gent. Mag. for Aug. 1790, lx. 719.

[The curfew bell is still tolled at Hastings at eight o'clock in the evening, from Michaelmas to Lady Day.

The bell-ringing in the city of London is not to be invariably attributed to the curfew, but in numerous instances to bequests in wills for the purpose. In the parish of St. Mary-le-Bow, one Mr. Donne, a mercer and citizen of London, had devised two tenements in Bow lane (then called Hosier lane), for the ringing of the tenor bell of Bow church (now the most celebrated peal in the kingdom), at six o'clock in the morning and eight o'clock in the evening. Mr. Lott, after considerable research for this will, has at last discovered it in the Hustings' Court of London, The early ringing was supposed to be for the purpose of waking up the London apprentices. The poetical remonstrance of these personages to the parish clerk of Bow, in consequence of his neglect of his duty, is thus recorded by Stow:

"Clerk of the Bow bell,
With thy yellow locks,
For thy late ringing,
Thy' head shall have knocks."

The clerk of that day was a match for his young complain-ants, and replied in equal poetical vein

"Children of Cheap,
Hold you all still,
For you shall hear the Bow bell
Rung at your will."

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Mr. N. Gould, F.S.A., informs us that, during his parochial reign, he had kept the beadle to a strict performance of this duty, which is performed to this day. Mr. Gould describes, in a humorous vein, his ascent to the summit of the steeple, on the back of the dragon, during the repairs of 1820, and refuted the alleged fulfilment of the old prophecy of the visits of the Exchange grasshopper and dragon of Bow, the latter having never quitted the country during the repairs. We may also notice a bequest in Spitalfields, for matinal and evening bell-ringing; and another provincial bequest for the same purpose, by a