OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
POPULAR ANTIQUITIES
OF
GREAT BRITAIN:

NOTES TO VOLUME 3

1. Witch is derived from the Dutch witchelen, which signifies whinnying and neighing like a horse: in a secondary sense, also, to foretell and prophesy; because the Germans, as Tacitus informs us, used to divine and foretell things to come by the whinnying and neighing of their horses. His words are "hinnitu et fremitu." In Glanvil's Sadducismus Triuraphatus, postcript, p. 12, witch is derived from the verb "to weet," to know, i.e. "the knowing woman," answering to the Latin Saga, which is of the same import. Wizard he makes to signify the same, with the difference only of sex.

2. The power of confining and bestowing is attributed to Eolus in the Odyssey. Calypso, in other places of the same work, is supposed to have been able to confer favourable winds. See Gent. Mag. for Jan. 1763, xxxiii. 13, with the signature of T. Row [the late Dr. Pegge].

3. In making these bargains, it is said, there was sometimes a great deal of haggling. The sum given to bind the bargain was sometimes a groat, at other times half-a-crown.

4. In Cotgrave's Treasury of Wit and Language, p. 263, we read:

"Thou art a soldier,
Followest the great duke, feed'st his victories,
As witches do their serviceable spirits,
Even with thy prodigal blood."

5. The Connoisseur, No. 109, says: "It is a common notion that a witch can make a voyage to the East Indies in an egg-shell, or take a journey of two or three hundred miles across the country on a broom-stick."

6. See more authorities in the notes upon Hudibras, III. i. 411-12; Grey's Notes on Shakespeare, ii. 140.

7. The witches' caldron is thus described by Olaus Magnus: "Olla autem omnium maleficarum commune solet esse instrumentum, quo succos, herbas, vermes, et exta decoquant, atque ea venefica dape ignavos ad vota alliciunt, et instar bullientis ollae, navium et equitum aut cursorum excitant celeritatem." Olai Magni Gent. Septentr. Hist. Brevis. p. 96.

8. See Servius on the 8th Eclogue of Virgil; Theocritus, Idyl. ii. 22; Hudibras, part II. canto ii. 1. 351. Ovid says:

"Devovet absentes, simulachraque cerea figit
Et miserum tenues in jecur urget acus." Heroid. Ep. vi. 1. 91.

See also Grafton's Chronicle, p. 587, where it is laid to the charge long others) of Roger Bolinbrook, a cunning necromancer, and Margery

9. It appears from the same work, iv. 7, sub anno 1589, that "one Mrs. Dier had practised conjuration against the queen, to work some mischief to her Majesty; for which she was brought into question; and accordingly her words and doings were sent to Popham, the queen's attorney, and Egerton, her solicitor, by Walsingham, the secretary, and Sir Thomas Heneage, her vice-chamberlain, for their judgment, whose opinion was that Mrs. Dier was not within the compass of the statute touching witchcraft, for that she did no act, and spake certain lewd speeches tending to that purpose, but neither set figure nor made pictures." Ibid. ii. 545, sub anno 1578, Strype says: "Whether it were the effect of magic, or proceeded from some natural cause, but the queen was in some part of this year under excessive anguish by pains of her teeth, insomuch that she took no rest for divers nights, and endured very great torment night and day."

10. "The wife of Marshal d'Ancre was apprehended, imprisoned, and beheaded for a witch, upon a surmise that she had enchanted the queen to dote upon her husband; and they say the young king's picture was found in her closet, in virgin wax, with one leg melted away. When asked by her judges what spells she had made use of to gain so powerful an ascendency over the queen, she replied, 'That ascendency only which strong minds ever gain over weak ones.'" Seward's Anecdotes of some Distinguished Persons, &c. iii. 215.

11. Son. 10; from Poems and Sonnets annexed to Astrophil and Stella,

12. Jorden, in his curious Treatise of the Suffocation of the Mother, 1603, p. 24, says: "Another policie Marcellus Donatus tells us of, which a physition used towardes the Countesse of Mantua, who, being in that disease which we call melancholia hypochondriaca, did verily believe that she was bewitched, and was cured by conveying of nayles, needles, feathers, and such like things into her close-stoole when she took physicke, making her believe that they came out of her bodie."

13. The editor of this work, April 26, 1813, counted no less than seventeen horseshoes in Monmouth street, nailed against the steps of doors. Five or six are all that now remain, 1841.

14. We read in Persius:

"Tune nigri Lemures ovoque pericula rupto." Sat. v. 185.

Among the wild Irish, "to eat an odd egg endangered the death of their horse." See Memorable Things noted in the Description of the World, p. 112. Ibid. p. 113, we read: "The hoofs of dead horses they accounted and held sacred."

15. Butler, in his Hudibras, part I. c. iii. 1. 343, alludes to this trial:

"He that gets her hy heart must say her
The back way, like a witch's prayer."

16. King James, in the work already quoted, adding his remarks on this mode of trying witches, says: "They cannot even shed tears, though women in general are like the crocodile, ready to weep upon every light occasion."

17. For an account of the ancient Ordeal by Cold Water, see Dugd. Orig. Juridiciales, p. 87.

18. Shakespeare, in Troilus and Cressida, act ii. sc. 1, says: "Thou stool for a witch." And Dr. Grey's Notes (ii. 236) afford us this comment on the passage: "In one way of trying a witch, they used to place her upon a chair or a stool, with her legs tied cross, that all the weight of her body might rest upon her seat, and by that means, after some time, the circulation of the blood would be much stopped, and her sitting would be as painful as the wooden horse; and she must continue in this pain twenty-four hours, without either sleep or meat; and it was no wonder that, when they were tired out with such an ungodly trial, they would confess themselves many times guilty to free themselves from such torture." See Dr. Hutchinson's Historical Essay on Witchcraft, p. 63.

19. In the Statistical Account of Scotland, parish of Loth, co. Sutherland, vi. 321, it is stated that the unhappy woman here alluded to was burnt at Dornoch, and that "the common people entertain strong prejudices against her relations to this day." From the same work, however, xv. 311, it should seem that the persecution of supposed witches is not yet entirely laid aside in the Orkneys. The minister of South Ronaldsay and Burray, two of those islands, says: "The existence of fairies and witches is seriously believed by some, who, in order to protect themselves from their attacks, draw imaginary circles, and place knives in the walls of houses. The worst consequence of this superstitious belief is, that, when a person loses a horse or cow, it sometimes happens that a poor woman in the neighbourhood is blamed, and knocked in some part of the head, above the breath, until the blood appears. But in these parishes there are many decent, honest, and sensible people who laugh at such absurdities, and treat them with deserved contempt."

20. The curious reader may also consult Andrew's Contin. of Henry's Hist, of Great Britain, 4to. 35, 196, 198, 207, 303, 374; a Discourse of the subtill Practises of Devilles by Witches and Sorcerers, by G. Gyffoid, 4to. Lond., 1587; a Philosophical Endeavour towards the Defence of the Being of Witches and Apparitions, in a letter to the much honoured Robert Hunt, Esq., by a member of the Royal Society, 4to. Lond. 1666; and an Historical Essay concerning witchcraft, by Francis Hutchinson, D.D., 8vo. Lond. 1718; the second chapter of which contains a chronological table of the executions or trials of supposed witches. An account of the New England witches will be found in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, vol. viii. p. 261. Among foreign publications, De Lamiis et Phitonicis Mulieribus ad illustrissimum Principem Dominum Sigismundum Archiducem Austrie Tractatus dulcherrimus, 4to. [1489] b. I.; Compendium Maleficarum, 4to. Mediol. 1626; Tractatus duo singulares de examine Sagarum super Aquam frigidam projectarum, 4to. Franc. et Lips, 1686; and Specimen Juridicum de nefando Lamiarum cum Diabolo Coitu, per J. Hen. Pott, 4to. Jenae, 1689. Some curious notes on witchcraft, illustrated by authorities from the classics, occur at the end of the 1st, 2d, and 3d acts of the Lancashire Witches, a comedy, by Thomas Shadwell, 4to. London, 1691. See also, Confessions of Witchcraft, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. i. pp. 167, 497, 498.

21. Compare Savary's Letters, vol. ii. p. 438.

22. A town only, not in England, being situated on the northern bank of the Tweed.

23. This Doctor Fian was registrar to the devil, and sundry times preached at North Baricke Kirke to a number of notorious witches; the very persons who in this work are said to have pretended to bewitch and drown his Majesty in the sea coming from Denmark.

24. Inajeu d'esprit, entitled Les Chats, 8vo. Rotterdam, 1728, there are some very curious particulars relating to these animals, which are detailed with no common degree of learning.

25. [Brand has here inserted several quotations respecting the laby in the eye, which have nothing to do with the subject. See an explanation of this phrase in Hallivvell's Dictionary, p. 129.]

26.See also Pandaemonium, or the Devil's Cloyster; proving the Existence of Witches, &c. 8vo. 1684; and Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, ii. 476.

27. This list could be continued indefinitely.

28. It was an article in the creed of popular superstition concerning witches to believe "that, when they are in hold, they must leave their DEVIL." See Holiday's old play of the Marriage of the Arts, 4to. 1630, signat. N. 4. "Erapescher qu'un sorcier," says M. Thiers, "ne sorte du logis ou il est, en mettant des balais a la porte de ce logis." Traite des Superstitions, p. 331.

29. ["D—n that old firelock, what a clatter he makes; curse him, he'll never be a conjurer for he wa'nt born dumb." History of Jack Connor. 1752, i. 233.]

30. Butler, in his Hudibras, has the following:

"With a sleight
Convey men's interest, and right,
From Stiles's pocket into Nokes's
As easily as hocus pocus." P. iii. c. iii. 1. 713.

Archbishop Tillotson tells us that "in all probability those common juggling words of hocus pocus are nothing else but a corruption of hoc est corpus, by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of transubstantiation, &c." Ser. xxvi. Discourse on Transubstant.

Vallancey, in his Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, No. xiii. 93, speaking of hocus pocus, derives it from the Irish "Coic, an omen, a mystery; and bais, the palm of the hand; whence is formed coiche-bais, legerdemain; Persice, choco-baz; whence the vulgar English hocus pocus." He is noticing the communication in former days between Ireland and the East.

"Hiccius doctius is a common term among our modern sleight-of-hand men. The origin of this is probably to be found among the old Roman Catholics. When the good people of this island were under their thraldom, their priests were looked up to with the greatest veneration, and their presence announced in the assemblies with the terms Hic est doctus tuc est doctus, and this probably is the origin of the modern corruption.

31."Wherein the major reproved the captain for suffering a sword he had given him to grow rusty; saying, 'Captain, captain, this sword did not use to he kept after this manner when it was mine.' This attention to the state of arms was a remnant of the major's professional duty when living."

32. The following is from Moresini Papatus, p. 7: "Apud alios turn poetas, turn historiographos, de magicis incantationibus, exorcismis, et curatione tarn hominum quam belluarum per carmina baud pauca habentur, sed horum impietatem omnium superat longe hac in re Papismus, bio enim supra Dei potestatem posse carmina, posse exorcismos affirmat ita ut nihil sit tarn obstrusum in ccelis quod exorcismis non pateat, nihil tam abditum in inferno quod non eruatur, nihil in terrarum silentio inclusum quod non eliciatur, nihil in hominum pectoribus conditum quod non reveletur, nihil ablatum quod non restituatur, et nihil quod habet orbis, sive insit, sive non, e quo daemon non ejiciatur."

33. The learned Moresin traces thus to its origin the popular superstition relative to the coming again, as it is commonly called, or Walking of Spirits: "Animarum ad nos regressus ita est ex Manilio lib. i. Astroiu cap. 7, de lacteo circulo:

'An major densa stellarum turba corona.
Contexit flammas, et crasso lumine candet,
Et fulgore nitet collato clarior orbis.
An fortes animae, dignataque nomina ccelo
Corporibus resoluta suis, terrseque remissa.
Hue migrant ex orbe, suumque habitantia coelum:
Ethereos vivunt annos, mundoque fruuntur.'

"Lege Palingenesiam Pythagoricum apud Ovid, in Metam. et est observatum Fabij Pont. Max. disciplina, ut atro die manibus parentare non liceret, ne infesti manes fierent. Alex, ab Alex. lib. v. cap. 26. Haec cum legerent papani, et his alia apud alios similia, voluerunt et suorum defunctorum animas ad eos reverti, et nunc certiores facere rerum earum, quae turn in ccelis, turn apud inferos geruntur, nunc autem terrere domesticos insanis artibus: sed quod sint foeminae fcecundae factae his technis novit omnis mundus." Papatus, p. 11.

34. "I know thee well; I heare the watchfull dogs,
        With hollow howling, tell of thy approach;
        The lights burne dim, affrighted with thy presence:
        And this distempered and tempestuous night
        Tells me the ayre is troubled with some devill."
                        Merry Devil of Edmonton, 4to. 1631.

"Ghosts never walk till after midnight, if
I may believe my grannam."
        Beaumont and Fletcher. Lover's Progress, act iv.

35. See several curious charms against thieves in Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, b. ii. c. 17, and particularly St. Adelbert's curse against them. That celebrated curse in Tristram Shandy, which is an original one, still remaining Rochester Cathedral, is nothing to this, which is perhaps the most complete of its kind.

36. Upon the subject of exorcising, the following books may be consulted with advantage: Fustis Daeraonum, cui adjicitur Flagellum Daemonurn, 12mo. Venet. 1608 (a prohibited book among the Roman Catholics): and Practica Exorcistarum F. Valerii Polidori Patavini ad Dsemones et Maleficia de Christi Fidelibus expellendum: 12mo. Venet. 1606. From this last, Bourne's form has been taken.

37. In Dr. Jordan's Dedication of his curious treatise of the Suffocation of the Mother, 4to. Lond. 1603, to the College of Physicians in London, he says: "It behoveth us, as to be zealous in the truth, so to be wise in discerning truth from counterfeiting, and naturall causes from supernatural power. I doe not deny but there may be both possessions, and obsessions, and witchcraft, &c., and dispossession also through the prayers and supplications of God's servants, which is the only meanes left unto us for our reliefe in that case. But such examples being verye rare now a-dayes, I would in the feare of God advise men to be very circumspect in pronouncing of a possession; both because the impostures be many, and the effects of naturall diseases be strange to such as have not looked thoroughly into them." Baxter, in his World of Spirits, p. 223, observes that "devils have a greater game to play invisibly than by apparitions, happy world, if they did not do a hundred thousand times more hurt by the baits of pleasure, lust, and honour, and by pride, and love of money, and sensuality, than they do by witches!"

38. He died 19th December, 1606, aged 76.

39. Died 20th September, 1615. See Nash's account of the family monuments in Leigh Church.

40. This manor includes the hamlets of Alfrick and Llusley.

41. See a Dissertation on the Gipsies, being an Historical Inquiry concerning the manner of Life, Economy, Customs, and Conditions of these People in Europe, and their Origin, written in German by Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellman, translated into English by Matthew Raper, Esq., F.R.S. and A.S., 4to. Lond. 1787, dedicated to Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., P.R.S.

42. Yet Bellonius, who met great droves of gipsies in Egypt in villages on the banks of the Nile, where they were accounted strangers and wanderers from foreign parts, as with us, affirms that they are no Egyptians. Observat. lib. ii. It seems pretty clear that the first of the gipsies were Asiatic, brought hither by the Crusaders, on their return from the holy wars, but to these it is objected that there is no trace of them to be found in history at that time. Ralph Volaterranus affirms that they first proceeded, or strolled, from among the Uxi, a people of Persia. Sir Thomas Browne cites Polydore Vergil as accounting them originally Syrians: Philip Bergoinas as deriving them from Chaldea: Æneas Sylvius, as from some part of Tartary: Bellonius, as from Wallachia and Bulgaria: and Aventinus as fetching them from the confines of Hungary. He adds that "they have been banished by most Christian princes. The great Turk at least tolerates them near the imperial city: he is said to employ them as spies: they were banished as such by the Emperor Charles the Fifth.

43. See upon the subject of gipsies the following books: Pasquier, Recherches de la France, p. 392: Dictionnaire des Origines, v. Bohemiens; De Pauw, Recherches sur les Egyptiens, i. 169; Camerarii Horae Subsecivae; Gent. Mag. 1783, liii. 1009; ibid. 1787, lvii. 897. Anecdotes of the Fife gipsies will be found in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, ii. pp. 282, 523. On the gipsies of Hesse Darmstadt, ibid. ii. 409. Other notices concerning the Scottish gipsies in the same work, i. 43, 65, 66, 154, 167.

44. Sir Thomas Browne, ut supra, p. 287, says: "Their first appearance was in Germany since the year 1400. Nor were they observed before in other parts of Europe, as is deducible from Munster, Genebrard, Crantsius, and Ortelius."

45. Spelman's portrait of the gipsy fraternity in his time, which seems to have been taken ad vivum, is as follows: "EGYPTIANI. Erronum irajostorumque genus nequissimum: in Continente ortum, sed ad Britannias nostras et Europam reliquam pervolaus: nigredine deformes, excoctisole, immundi veste, et usu rerum omnium ftedi. Foeminae, cum stratis et parvulis, jumento invehuntur. Literas circumferunt principum, ut innoxius illis permittatur transitus. Oriuntur quippe et in nostra et in omni regione, spurci hujusmodi nebulones, qui sui similes in gymnasium sceleris adsciscentes; vultum, cultum, moresque supradictos silii inducunt. Linguam (ut exotici magis videautur) fictitiam blaterant, provinciasque vicatim pervagantes, auguriis et furtis, imposturis et technarum millibus plebeculam rodunt et illudunt, linguam hanc German! Rotwelch, quasi rubrurn Wallicum, id est Barbarismum; Angli Canting nuncupant."

46. In the Gent. Mag. for Oct. 1785, vol. Iv, p. 765, we read: "In a Privy Seal Book at Edinburgh, No. xiv. fol. 59, is this entry: 'Letters of Defence and Concurrence to John Fall, Lord and Earl of Little Egypt, for assisting him in the execution of Justice upon his Company, conform to the laws of Egypt, Feb. 15, 1540.'" These are supposed to have been a gang of Gipsies associated together in defiance of the state, under Fall as their head or king; and these the articles of association for their internal government, mutual defence, and security, the embroiled and infirm state of the Scotch nation at that time not permitting them to repress or restrain a combination of vagrants who had got above the laws and erected themselves into a separate community as a set of banditti.

47. An essayist in the Gent. Mag. for May, 1732, vol. ii. p. 740, observes that "the stools of infamy are the ducking-stool and the stool of repentance. The first was invented for taming female shrews. The stool of repentance is an ecclesiastical engine, of popish extraction, for the punishment of fornication and other immoralities, whereby the delinquent publicly takes shame to himself, and receives a solemn reprimand from the minister of the parish." A very curious extract from a MS. in the Bodleian Library bearing on this subject may be seen in Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 285.

48. Blount finds it called "le Goging Stole" in Cod. MS. "de Legibus, Statutis, et Consuetudinibus liberi Burgi Villas de Mountgomery a ternpore Hen. 2," fol. 12 b.

He says it was in use even in our Saxons' time, by whom it was called Scealpins-r-tole, and described to be "Cathedra in qua rixosaj mulieres sedentes aquis demergebantur." It was a punishment inflicted also anciently upon brewers and bakers transgressing the laws.

49. At a court of the manor of Edgeware, anno 1552, the inhabitants were presented for not having a tumbrel and cucking-stool. See Lysons's Envir. of London, vol. ii. p. 244. This looks as if the punishments were different.

50. The following extract from Cowel's Interpreter, in v. THEW, seems to prove (with the extract just quoted from Mr. Lysons's Environs of London) that there was a difference between a tumbrel and a cucking-stool or thew. "Georgius Grey Comes Cantii clamat in manner, de Bushton et Ayton punire delinquentes contra Assisam Panis et Cervisiae, per tres vices per amerciamenta, et quarta vice pistores per pillorianij braciatores per tumbrellam, et rixatrices per thewe, hoc est, ponere eas super scabeilum vocat. a cucking-stool. PI. in Itin. apud Cestr. 14 Henry VII."

51. Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall, viii. 201, speaking of the wars of the Emperor Maurice against the Avars, A.D., 595, tells us that, on setting out, "he (the emperor) solicited, without success, a miraculous answer to his nocturnal prayers. His mind was confounded by the death of a favourite horse, the encounter of a wild boar, a storm of wind and rain, and the birth of a monstrous child; and he forgot that the best of omens is to unsheathe our sword in defence of our country. He returned to Constantinople, and exchanged the thoughts of war for those of devotion." Apposite is the following from Joh. Sarisber. de Nugis Curialium, fol. 27: "Rusticanum et forte Ofelli Proverbium est Qui somniis et auguriis credit, nunquam fore securum. Ego sententiam et verissimam et fidelissimam puto. Quid enim refert ad consequentiam rerum, si quis semel aut amplius sternutaverit? Quid si oscitaverit? His mens nugis incauta seducitur, sed fidelis nequaquam acquiescit."

52. Omens are also noticed by Moulin: "Satan summus fallendi artifex, propensione hominum ad scrutanda futura abutitur ad eos ludificandos: eosque exagitans falsis ominibus et vanis terriculamentis, aut inani spe lactans, multis erroribus implicat. Hujus seductionis species sunt infinitae et vanitas inexplicabilis, casum vertens in praesagia et capiens auguria de futuris ex bestiis, aquis, oculis, fumo, stellis, fronte, manibus, somniis, vibratione palpebrae, sortibus, jactis, &c., ad quae praesagia homines bardi stupent attoniti: inquisitores futurorum negligentes praesentia." Petri Molinai Yates, p. 151.

53. "In Scotland," says Ruddiman in his dlossary to Douglas's Virgil v. How, "the women call a holy or sely How (i.e. holy or fortunate cap or hood), a film, or membrane, stretched over the heads of children new born, which is nothing else but a part of that which covers the foetus in the womb; and they give out that children so born will be very fortunate."

54. "Quelques enfans viennent au monde avec une pellicule qui leur couvre le teste, que Ton appelle du nom de coeffe, et que l'on croit estre une marque de bonheur. Ce qui a donne lieu au proverbe Francois, selon lequel on dit d'un homme heureux, qu'il est ne coeffe. On a vu autrefois des avocats assez simples pour s'imaginer que cette coeffe pouvoit beaucoup contribuer a les rendre eloquents, pouvou qu'ils la portassent dans leur sein. "Elius Lampridius en parle dans la vie d'Antonin Diadumene, mais se phylactere estant si disproportionne a l'effet qu'on luy attribue, s'il le produisoit, ce ne pourroit estre que par le ministere du demon, qui voudroft bien faire de sa fausse eloquence a ceux qu'il coeffe de la sorte." Traite des Superstitions, &c., 12mo. Par. 1679, i. 316.

55. "Il est ne coiffe.

"Cela se dit dun homme heureux, a qui tout rif, a qui les biens viennent en dormant, et sans les avoir merites: comme on 1'exprima il y a quelque temps dans ce joly rondeau.

"Coiffe d'un froc bien raffine
Et revetu d'un doyenne,
Qui luy raporte de quoy frire,
fc Frere rene devient messire,
Et vif comme un determine
Un prelat riche et fortune
Sous un bonnet enlumine
En est, si je 1'ose ainsi dire Coiffe.

Ce n'est pas que frere rene
D'aucun merite soit orne,
Qu'il soit docte, ou qu'il sache ecrire,
Ni qu'il ait tant le mot pour rire,
Mais c'est seulement, qu'il est ne Coiffe.

"Outre les tuniques ordinaires qui envelopent l'enfant dans le ventre de sa mere, il s'en trouve quelquefois uue, qui luy couvre la teste en forme de casque, ou de capuchon, si justement et si fortement, qu'en sortant il ne la peut rompre, et qu'il naist coiffe. Voyes Riolan, du Laurens, et ies autres anatomistes: on croit que les enfans qui naissent de la sorte sont heureux, et la superstition attribue a cette coiffure d'etranges vertus. Je dis, la superstition et credulite, non pas d'hier, nt d'aujourd' hui, mais des les temps des derniers empereurs : car Mius Lampridius, en la vie d'Antonin, surnomme Diadumene, remarque, que cet empereur, qui naquit avec une bande, ou peau sur le front, en forme de diademe, et d'ou il prit son nom, joiiit d'une perpetuelle felicite durant tout le cours de son regne, et de sa vie: et il ajoute, que les sages femmes vendoient bien cher cette coiffe aux avocats qui croyoient que la portant sur eux, ils acqueroient une force de persuader, a laquelle, les juges et les auditeurs ne pouvoient resister. Les sorciers mesmes, s'en servoient a diverses sortes de malefices, comme il se voit dans les Notes de Balsamon, sur les Conciles ; ou il reporte divers canons, condamnans ceux qui se servoient de cela, soit a bonne, soit a mauvaise fin. Voyes M. Saumaise, et, sur tout, Casaubon, en leurs Commentaires sur les Ecrivains de 1'Histoire Auguste."

56. "Guianerius, cap. xxxvi. de Ægritud. Matr. speakes of a silly jealous fellowe, that seeing his child newborne included in a kell, thought sure a Franciscan that used to come to his house was the father of it, is was so like a frier's cowle, and thereupon threatened the frier to kill him." Burton's Anat. of Melancholy, 4to. Oxf. 1621, p. 688.

57. So Levinus Lemnius, in his Occult Miracles of Nature, tells us, lib. ii. cap. 8, that if this caul be of a blackish colour it is an omen of ill fortune to the child, but if of a reddish one it betokens every thing that is good. He observes: "That there is an old opinion, not only prevalent amongst the common and ignorant people, but also amongst men of great note, and physicians also, how that children born with a caul over their faces are born with an omen, or sign of good or bad luck: when as they know not that this is common to all, and that the child in the womb was defended by three membranes." English translat. fol. Lond. 1658, p. 105.

58. Dugdale, in his Origines Judiciales, p. 112, says: "In token or signe that all justices are thus graduate (i.e. serjeants-at-law), every of them always, whilst he sitteth in the king's court, wearing a white coif of silk, which is the principal and chief insignment of hahit, wherewith serjeants-at-law in their creation are decked; and neither the justice, nor yet the serjeant, shall ever put off the quoif, no not in the king's presence, though he be in talk with his majesties highness."

59. "She spoke: Telemachus then sneez'd aloud;
        Constraint, his nostril echo'd through the crowd.
        The smiling queen the happy omen blest:
        So may these impious fall, by fate opprest."
                                                    Odyss. B. xviii.

60. In the Convivia of G. Pictorius, Basil, 1554, p. 273, is the following curious passage relative to sneezing: "Cr. Sed nares mihi pruriunt et sternutandum est. Ho. Age gratias, nam salva res est et bonum omen. Cr. Qui dura? Ho. Quod uxorem tuam feliciter parituram sternutatio praesagiat. Nam rei, cujus inter sternutandum mentio fit, bonum successurn sternutatio significat maxime si ad symposii fuerit initiuin, quoniam ad medium, dirum praenuntiat. Homerus exemplo est, qui Telemacho sternutante malum procis Penelopes futurum ab Ulysse praedixit; et Xenophon, qui dum sternutasset inter concionandum ad milites, totius exercitus se futurum speravit ducem et sic casus dedit. Sed Hyppise quod sternutando dens excidisset, futures calamitatis augurium rati sunt. Oen. Et alias quoque sternutando habuerunt observationes antiquitus. Nam si esset matutina sternutatio, nefanda ominari dicebant et rei incceptandre irritos conatus. Si vero meridiana, potissimum a dextris, saluberrimi auspicii et symbolum veritatis et prognosticum quandoque liberationis a metu insidiarum. Cr. Hiuc fortassis obrepit ut sternutanti salutem precamur. Oen. Sic Tiberium Caesarem statuisse fama est, qui sternutationem sacram rem arbitratus est et dixit, salute optata, averti omne quod nefandurn aut dirum immineat."

61. "Sternutamenta inter Auguria Plinius (lib. ii. cap. 7) recenset; et cur illud pro numine potiusquam tussis et gravedo habeatur, Aristotles, sectione xxxiii. Problematum Quaest. 7, inquirit, addens deinceps Sternutamentum potissiraum observandum esse, cum rem aliquam exordimur; igitur quia inter omina habitum, ut Dii bone verterent, sternuenti salus ab audientibus imprecata est quomodo memorat Petronius de Eumolpo quod sternutantem Gitona salverejusserit; et quidam apud Apuleium, Metamor. 1. 9, sonum sternutationis accipiens, solito sermone salutem ei, a gud putabat profectum imprecatur, et iterate rursum et frequentato saepius. Traductus itaque sine dubio ab Ethnicis ad Christianos mos est; licet velint Historic! recentiores, et eos inter Sigonius Historiarum de Regno Italia libro primo, quod pestilentia anno quingentesimo nonagesimo szeviente, cum sternutarent; Consuetudinem inductam esse, ut sternutantibus salutem precando, presidium multi repente spiritum emitterent, cum qusererent." Bartholini de Causis contemptae a Danis adhuc Gentilibus Mortis, lib. iii. c. iii. p. 677.

62. This custom is universally observed in Portugal. It would be considered as a great breach of good manners to omit it. Bishop Hall, in his Characters of Vertues and Vices, speaking of the superstitious man, says, "And when he neeseth, thinks them not his friends that uncover not."

63. The following notes on this subject were communicated by the Rev. Stephen Weston, B.D., F.S.A.: "[Greek], De Ominatione sternutaria.

"Sternutationera pro Daemonic habuit Socrates. [Greek], Aristot. in Problem. [Greek], Victoria signum. Plutarch in Themist. ut supra; unde lepide Aristophanes in Equitibus [Greek]. v. 635.

"Sternutantibus apprecabantur antiqui solenne illud [Greek], unde Epigr. Ammiani in hominem cum pravo naso, i.e. longissimo. 'When he sneezes he never cries God save, because his ear is so far from his nose that he cannot hear himself sneeze.' Vid. Rhodig. de Ammiano, 1. xvii. c. 11. '[Greek], &c. Aristot. Problem, sect, xxxiii. 9.

"Meridianae Stern utationes faustae matutinae infelices. Plin. 1. xxviii. c. 2. de Caus. Sternut.
Aureus argutum sternuit, omen amor. Propert. 2, 234.
Odyss. Hom. p. v. 541. [Greek] ubi vid. Schol.
Catullus Epigr. 45. Dextram sternuit ad probationem."

64. It is said that Tiberius, the emperor, otherwise a very sour man, would perform this rite most punctually to others, and expect the same from others to himself.

65. Petronius Arbiter, who lived before them both, has these words: "Gyton collectione spiritus plenus, ter continuo ita sternutavit ut grabatum concuteret, ad quern motum Eumolpus conversus, salvere Gytona jubet."

66. When consulting about their retreat, it chanced that one of them sneezed, at the noise whereof the rest of the soldiers called upon Jupiter Soter.

67.  '[Greek]. Thus translated by Greek:

"O happy bridegroom ! Thee a lucky sneeze
To Sparta welcom'd."

So also in the seventh Idyllium, 1. 96.:

"The Loves sneezed on Smichid."
[Greek].
Antholog. Gr. ex recens. Brunckii. 8vo. Lips. 1794, ill. 95.

68. He adds: "Some finding, depending it, effects to ensue; others ascribing hereto as a cause, what perhaps but casually or inconnexedly succeeded; they might proceed into forms of speeches, felicitating the good and deprecating the evil to follow."

69. A writer in the Gent. Mag. for Sept. 1751, vol. xxi. p. 411, wittily observes that "dreams have for many ages been esteemed as the noblest resources at a dead lift; the dreams of Homer were held in such esteem that they were styled golden dreams; and among the Grecians we find a whole country using no other way for information but going to sleep. The Oropians, and all the votaries of Amphiaraus, are proofs of this assertion, as may be seen in Pausan. Attic."

70. In Moresini Papatus, p. 162, we read: "Somniandi modus Franciscanorum hinc duxit originem. Antiqui moris fuit oracula et futurorum praescientiam quibusdam adhibitis sacris per insomnia dari: qui mos talis erat, ut victim as ceederent, mox sacrificio peracto sub pellibus caesarum ovium incubantes, somnia captarent, eaque lymphatica insomnia verissimos exitus sortiri. Alex, ab Alex. lib. iii. c. 26. Et monachi super storea cubant in qua alius frater ecstaticus fuerat somniatus, sacrificat missam, preces et jejunia adhibet, inde ut communiter fit de amoribus per somnia consulit, redditque responsa pro occurrentibus spectris," &c. Bartholinus de Causis contempts a Danis, &c. Mortis, p. 678, says "Itaque divinationem ex somniis apud omnes propemodum gentes expetitam fuisse certissimum, licet quaedam magis pra; aliis ei fuerint deditae. Septentrionales veteres sagaci somniorum interpretatione pollentes fuisse, Arngrirnus annotavit; in tantum sane eorum fuerunt observantes, ut pleraque quae sibi obversabantur, momentosa crecliderint et perfectam idcirco ab eis futurorum hauriendam cognitionem." In the same work, p. 677: 'Pronunciante apud Ordericum Vitalem Gulielmo Rege dicto Rufo, somnia stertentium sibi referri indignante, quod Anglorum ritus fuerit, pro sternutatione et somnio vetularum, dimittere iter suum, seu negotium."

71. [Obligingly communicated to the publisher by Mr. Robert Bond, of Gloucester, with several other superstitions of that locality, which will be found under their respective heads. The one given above is not confined to the neighbourhood of Gloucester, but is more or less prevalent in every county in England.]

72. Histoire d'Angleterre, p. 18. Vallancey offers us testimony to the same purpose.

73. So Pet. Molinaei Vates, p. 154: "Si salinum in mensa evertatur, ominosum est."

74. The same author, in his Tour in Wales, tells us that "a tune called 'Gosteg yr Halen, or the Prelude of the Salt,' was always played whenever the salt-cellar was placed before King Arthur's knights at his Round Table."

75. Grose says, on this subject: "To scatter salt, by overturning the vessel in which it is contained, is very unlucky, and portends quarrelling with a friend, or fracture of a bone, sprain, or other bodily misfortune. Indeed this may in some measure be averted by throwing a small quantity of it over one's head. It is also unlucky to help another person to salt. To whom the ill luck is to happen does not seem to be settled."

76. "The Lydians, Persians, and Thracians, esteerae not soothsaying by birds, but by powring of wine upon the ground, upon their cloathes, with certain superstitious praiers to their gods that their warres should have good successe." Lloyd's Stratagems of Jerusalem, 4to. 1602, signat. P.P.

77. The following is in St. Foix, Essais sur Paris, tom. v. p. 145: "Auguste, cet empereur qui gouverna avec tant de sagesse, et dont leregne fut si florissant, restoit immobile et consterne lorsqu'il lui arrivoit par megarde de mettre le soulier droit au pied gauche, et le soulier gauche au pied droit."

78. The following curious passage occurs in Bynaeus on the shoe of the Hebrews, lib. ii.: "Solea sive calceo aliquem csedere olim contemptus atque contumeliae rem fuisse habitam quod varia scriptorum veterum loca ostendunt." "Over Edom will I cast out my shoe," p. 353. As does the subsequent, p. 358: "Apud Arabes calceum sibi detractum in alium jacere, servandae fidei signum et pignus esse certissiraum." So is the following to our purpose, ibid. p. 360: "An mos iste obtinuerit apud Hebraeos veteres, ut reges, cum urbem aliquem. obsiderent, calceum in earn proji-cerent, in signum pertinacis propositi non solvendae obsidionis, priusquam urbs sit redacta in potestatem, omnino non liquet. De Chirotheca quoque non memini me quicquara legisse." Ibid. lib. i. p. 179, I read the following: "Balduinus observat veteres, cum calceamenta pedibus inducerent, eaque pressius adstringerent, si quando corrigiam contingeret effringi, malum omen credidisse, adeo ut suscepta negotia desererent, uti diserte testatur Cicero in Divinatione, ubi sic ait: 'Quae si suscipiamus, pedis offensio nobis et abruptio, corrigise et sternutamenta ertmt observanda,' &c., atque illud omen veteres portendere credidisse, rem susceptain baud feliciter progressuram aut sinistro aliquo casu impediendam."

79. See the Idol of the Clownes, p. 19. In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. x. 8vo. Edinb. 1794, p. 543, parish of Campbelton, in Argyleshire, the following curious anecdote occurs: "We read of a king of the Isle of Man sending his shoes to his Majesty of Dublin, requiring him to carry them before his people on a high festival, or expect his vengeance." This good Dublinian king discovers a spirit of humanity and wisdom rarely found in better times. His subjects urged him not to submit to the indignity of bearing the Manksman's shoes. I had rather, said he, "not only bear but eat them, than that one province of Ireland should bear the desolation of war."

80. "Some magicians (being curious to find out by the help of a looking-glasse, or a glasse viall full of water, a thiefe that lies hidden) make choyce of young maides, or boyes uupolluted, to discerne therein those images or sights which a person denied cannot see. Bodin, in the third book of his Daemonomachia, chap. 3, reporteth that in his time there was at Thoulouse a certain Portugais, who shewed within a boy's naile things that were hidden. And he addeth that God had expressely forbidden that none should worship the stone of imagination. His opinion is that this stone of imagination or adoration (for so expoundeth he the first verse of the 26th chapter of Leviticus, where he speaketh of the idoll, the graven image, and the painted stone) was smooth and cleare as a looking-glasse, wherein they saw certaine images or sights, of which they enquired after the things hidden. In our time conjurers use chrystall, calling the divination chrystallomantia, or onycomantia, in the which, after they have rubbed one of the nayles of their fingers, or a piece of chrystall, they utter I know not what words, and they call a boy that is pure and no way corrupted, to see therein that which they require, as the same Bodin doth also make mention." Molle's Living Librarie, 1612, p. 2.

81. The following occurs in Delrio, Disquisit. Magic, lib. iv. chap. 2, quaest 7, sect. 3, p. 594: "Genus divinationis captoptromanticum: quo augures in splendent cuspide, velut in crystallo vel ungue, futura inspiciebant." So, also, ibid. p. 576: "[Greek], quae rerum quaesitarum figuras in speculis exhibet politis: in usu fuit D. Juliano Imper. (Spartianus in Juliano)." Consult also Pausanias, Coelius Rhodoginus, and Potter's Greek Antiquities, vol. i. p. 350. Potter says: "When divination by water was performed with a looking-glass it was called catoptromancy: sometimes they dipped a looking-glass into the water, when they desired to know what would become of a sick person: for as he looked well or ill in the glass, accordingly they presumed of his future condition. Sometimes, also, glasses were used, and the images of what should happen, without water." Mr. Douce's manuscript notes add that "washing hands in the same water is said to forebode a quarrel."

82. Pliny's words are: "Absentes tinnitu aurium praesentire sermones de se receptum est." In Petri Molinaei Vates, p. 218, we read: "Si cui aures tinniunt, indicium est alibi de eo sermones fieri." I find the following on this in Delrio, Disquisit. Magic, p. 473: "Quidam sonitum spontaneum auris dextra vel sinistrae observant, ut si haec tintinet, inimicum, si ilia, amicum, nostri putent memoriam turn recolere; de quo Aristaenetus in Epist. amatoria: [Greek], nonne auris tibi resonabat quando tui lachrymans recordabar; et alicui hue pertinere videatur illud Lesbyae Vatis a Veronensi conversum, 'Sonitus suopte tintinant aures.' Quod ilia [Greek]: et apertius incertus quidam, sed antiquus (iuter Catalect. Virg.):

'Garrula quid totis resonas mihi noctibus auris
Nescio quern dicis nunc meminisse inei.'"

The subsequent occurs in Roberti Keuchenii Crepundia, p. 113, "Aurium tinnitus:

"Laudor et adverso, sonat auris, laedor ab ore;
Dextra bono tinnit murraure, lasva malo.
Non inoror hoc, sed inoffensum tamen arceo vulgus;
Cur scio, me fama nolle loquente loqui."

83. In Molinsei Vates, we read: "Si palpebra exiliit, ominosum est," p. 218. In the Shepherd's Starre, &c., 4to. 1591, a paraphrase upon the third of the Canticles of Theocritus, dialoguewise, Corydon says: "But my right eie watreth; 'tis a sign of somewhat: do I see her yet?"

84. It is said, ibid: "Si servulus sub centone crepuit, ominosum est."

83a. I found the following in Roberti Keuchenii Crepundia, p. 214:

"Tres stillce sanyuinece.

"Cur nova stillantes designant funere guttae,
Fatidicumque trias sanguinis omen habet?
Parce superstitio: numero deus impare gaudet,
Et numero gaudens impare vivit homo."

"That your nose may never bleed only three drops at a time," is found among the omens deprecated in Holiday's Marriage of the Arts, 1636.

84a. Grose says, that "a person being suddenly taken with a shivering is a sign that some one has just then walked over the spot of their future grave. Probably all persons are not subject to this sensation, otherwise the inhabitants of those parishes whose burial-grounds lie in the common footpath would live in one continued fit of shaking."

85. In the Secret Memoirs of Mr. Duncan Campbell, 8vo. Lond. 1732, p. 60, we read in the chapter of omens: "Others have thought themselves secure of receiving money if their hands itched."

86. "That a yellow death-mould may never appeare upon your hand, or any part of your body," occurs among the omens introduced in Barton Holiday's TEXNOFAMIA, signat. E b. I suppose by death-mould our author means death-mole.

87. In the Schola Curiositatis, we read: "Vetant ungues prsescindere aut indusiura mutare die Veneris, ne fortunam aut valetudineia in discrimeu ponant." Tom. ii. p. 336.

88. The following is from Roberti Keuchenii Crepundia, p. 211: "Fungi facernarum.

"Aeris huraenti crepitans uligine fungus
Si quid habet flaramis ominis, auster erit."

89.  "Me oft has fancy, ludicrous and wild,
        Sooth'd with a waking dream of houses, tow'rs,
        Trees, churches, and strange visages express'd
        In the red cinders, while with poring eye
        I gaz'd, myself creating what I saw.
        Nor less amus'd have I quiescent watch'd
        The sooty films that play upon the bars
        Pendulous, and foreboding in the view
        Of superstition, prophesy my sly,
        Though still deceiv'd, some stranger's near approach"
                        Cowper's Poems: Winter Evening.

90. The following occurs in Roberti Keuchenii Crepundia, p. 113: "Canum ululatus.

"Pracfica nox, aliquam portendunt nubila mortem:
A cane, praeviso funere disce mori."

The subsequent, which is found ibid. p. 211, informs us that when dogs rolled themselves in the dust it was a sign of wind: "Canis in pulvere volutans

"Praescla ventorum, se volvit odora canum vis:
Numine difflatur pulveris instar homo."

91. "Felium perigrinarum egressum, ingressum. ... Ex felis vel canis transcursu qui inauspicati habebantur." Casaubonus, p. 341, ad Theophrasti Characteres. Fabricii Bibliogr. Antiq. p. 421, edit. 1716.

92. In Pet Molinaei Vates, p. 155, we read: "Apud Romanes soricis vox audita, turbabat comitia. Domitores orbis ex stridore muris pendebant. Valerius Maximus, lib. i. cap. 3, haec habet. Occentus soricis auditus, Fabio Maximo Dictaturam, Caio Flarninio Magisteriura, equitum deponendi causam praebuit;" and again, p. 219, "Homines qui ex salino, aut muribus aut cineribus capiunt omina, Deum in scriptura loquentem non audiunt."

93.  "Felis sternutans.
        Crastina nupturae lux est prosperrima sponsae:
        Felix fele bonum sternuit omen amor."
                Roberti Keuchenii Crepundia, p. 413.

94. Cicero, in his Second Book on Divination, 27, observes: "Nos autem ita leves, atque inconsiderati sumus, ut, si mures corroserint aliquid, quorum est opus hoc unum, monstrum putemus? Ante vero Marsicum bellum quod Clypeos Lanuvii mures rosissent, maxumum id portentum haruspices esse dixerunt. Quasi vero quicquam intersit, mures, diem noctem aliquid rodentes, scuta an cribra corroserint. Nam si ista sequimur; quod Platonis Politian nuper apud me mures corroserint, de republica debui pertimescere : aut si Epicuri de Voluptate liber corrosus esset, putarem Annonam in macello cariorem fore. Cum vestis a soricibus roditur, plus timere suspicionem futuri mali, quam praesens damnum dolere. Unde illud eleganter dictum est Catonis, qui cum esset consultus a quodaUi, qui sibi erosas esse Caligas diceret a soricibus respondit, non esse illud monstrum; sed vere monstrum habendum fuisse, si sorices a Caligis roderentur." Delrio, Disquisit. Magic, p. 473.

95.  "Ad Grillum.
        A qui meae culinse
        Argutulus choraules,
        Et hospes es canorus
        Quacunque commoreri
        Felicitatis omen."
            Bourne, Poematia, edit, 1764, p. 133.

96. See Halliwell's Popular Rhymes, p. 102.

97. [Mac Taggart makes the following characteristic allusion to this belief. "CUTTY WRAN. The wren, the nimble little bird; how quick it will peep out of the hole of an old foggy dyke, and catch a passing butterfly. Manks herring-fishers dare not go to sea without one of these birds taken dead with them, for fear of disasters and storms. Their tradition is of a sea sprit that hunted the herring tack, attended always by storms, and at last it assumed the figure of a wren and flew away. So they think when they have a dead wren with them, all is snug. The poor bird has a sad life of it in that singular island. When one is seen at any time, scores of Manksmen start and hunt it down." Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopaedia, p. 157.]

98. [In 1842, no less than four sets were observed in the town of Douglas, each party blowing a horn.]

99.[From Train's Isle of Man, a most interesting work, of which we shall have more to say under the article Charms.]

100. Alex, ab Alexandra, lib. v. c, 13, p. 685, has the following passage: "Lepus quoque occurrens in via, infortunatum iter praesagit et ominosum." In Bebelii Facetiae, edit, 4to. 1516, sig. E iij., we read: "Vetus est superstitio et falsa credulitas rusticorum, ut si cui mane lepus transverso itinere obvius venerit, malum aliquid illi hoe die portendi." Gaule, in his Mag-astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, p. 181, ranks among vain observations and superstitious ominations thereupon, "a hare crossing the way" as also "the swine grunting."

101. Borlase, in his Antiq. of Cornwall, p. 135, tells us of a remarkable way of divining related of Boadicea, Queen of the Britons when she had harangued her soldiers to spirit them up against the Romans, she opened her bosom and let go a hare, which she had there concealed, that the augurs might thence proceed to divine. The frighted animal made such turnings and windings in her course, as, according to the then rules of judging, prognosticated happy success. The joyful multitude made loud huzzas; Boadicea seized the opportunity, approved their ardour, led them straight to their enemies, and gained the victory."

102.Gaule, in his Mag-astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, p. 312, mentions this superstition: "Meeting of monks is commonly accounted as an ill omen, and so much the rather if it be early in the morning: because these kind of men live for the most part by the suddain death of men; as vultures do by slaughters." The following occurs in Pet. Molinsei Vates, p. 154: "Si egredienti domo summo mane primus occurrit ./Ethiops, aut claudus, ominosum est. ... Ex quibuslibet rebus superstitio captat auguria, casum vertens in omen."

103. Gaule, in his Mag-astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, p. 181, holds it as a vain observation "to bode good or bad luck from the rising up on the right or left side; from lifting the left leg over the threshold, at first going out of doors; from the meeting of a beggar or a priest the first in a morning; the meeting of a virgin or a harlot first; the running in of a child betwixt two friends; the justling one another at unawares; one treading upon another's toes; to meet one fasting that is lame, or defective in any member; to wash in the same water after another."

104. Thus Butler, in his Hudibras, p. ii. canto iii. 1. 707:

"The Roman senate, when within
The city walls an owl was seen,
Did cause their clergy with lustrations
(Our synod calls humiliations)
The round-fac'd prodigy t' avert
From doing town and country hurt."

"According to the author of the Æneid, the solitary owl foretold the tragical end of the unhappy Dido." See Macaulay's St. Kilda, p. 176.

"Suetonius," he tells us, "who took it into his head to relate all the imaginary prodigies that preceded the deaths of his twelve Caesars, never misses an opportunity so favourable of doing justice to the prophetical character of some one bird or other. It is surprising that Tacitus should have given into the same folly."

105. Thus Alex, ab Alexandro, lib. v. c. 13, p. 680: "Maxime vero abominatus est bubo, tristis et dira avis, voce funesta et gemitu, qui formidolosa, dirasque necessitates et magnos moles instare portendit."

Macaulay, above quoted, p. 171, observes: "On the unmeaning actions or idleness of such silly birds; on their silence, singing, chirping, chattering, and croaking; on their feeding or abstinence; on their flying to the right hand or left was founded an art: which from a low and simple beginning grew to an immense height, and gained a surprising degree of credit in a deluded world."

106. The owl is called also, by Pliny, "inauspicata et funebris avis:" by Ovid, "dirum mortalibus omen:" by Lucan, "sinister bubo:" and by Claudian, " infestus bubo."

In Petri Molinaei Vates, p. 154, we read: "Si noctua sub noctem audiatur, ominosum est."

107. Gaule, in his Mag-astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, p. 181, inserts among vain observations and superstitious ominations thereupon, "A crow lighting on the right hand or the left."

108. "The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,
        And chattering pies in dismal discords sung."
                                        Henry VI. act v. sc. 6.

Also in Macbeth:

"Augurs, and understood relations, have
By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth
The secretst man of blood."

On which Steevens observes: "In Cotgrave's Dictionary a magpie is called magatapie." So in the Night Raven, a Satirical Collection, &c.:

"I neither tattle with jackdaw
Or maggot-pye on thatch'd house straw."

Magot-pie is the original name of the bird; magot being the familiar appellation given to pies, as we say Robin to a redbreast, Tom to a titmouse, Philip to a sparrow, &c. The modern mag is the abbreviation of the ancient magot, a word which we had from the French. See Halliwell, p. 536.

In the Supplement to Johnson and Steevens's Shakespeare, 8vo. Lond. 1780, ii. 706, it is said that the magpie is called, in the west, to this hour, a magatipie, and the import of the augury is determined by the number of the birds that are seen together: "One for sorrow; two for mirth; three for a wedding; four for death." Mr. Park, in a note in his copy of Bourne and Brand's Popular Antiquities, p. 88, says that this regulation of the magpie omens is found also in Lincolnshire. He adds that the prognostic of sorrow is thought to be averted by turning thrice round.

109. The following is from Glossarium Suio-Gothicura, auctore I. Ihre, fol. Upsalise, 1769, v. Skata, ii. 565: "Skata, Pica. Quum illius plurimus in auguriis usus fuerit, v. Plinii Hist. Nat. lib. x. 18, interque aves sinisterioris ominis semper locum invenerit, unde etiam videmus, veteris superstitionis tenacem plebem nostram volucrem hanc stabuloriim portis expansis alis suspendere, ut, quod ait Apuleius, suo corpore luat illud infortunium quod aliis portendit: arbitror a scada nocere, A.S. scathian, nomen illi inditum fuisse. Vocatur alias Skjura, forte a garritu, ut etiam Latine Garrulus nuncupabatur." Such is the opinion of the common people in Sweden. The same Glossary, v. Thuesnek, the cry of the lapwing, tells us that "in the south and west of Scotland this bird is much detested, though not reckoned ominous. As it frequents solitary places, its haunts were frequently intruded upon by the fugitive Presbyterians, during the persecution which they suffered in the disgraceful and tyrannical reigns of Charles the Second and James the Second, when they were often discovered by the clamours of the lapwing."

110. "Gallorum gallinaceorum cucurritum intempestivum. Gallinarum subitum e tecto casum," p. 2. Gaule, in his Mag-astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, p. 181, enumerating vain observations and superstitious ominations thereupon, has not overlooked "the cock's crowing unseasonably."

A flam more senseless than the roguery
Of old aruspicy and aug'ry,
That out of garbages of cattle
Presag'd th' events of truce or battle;
From flight of birds or chickens pecking
Success of great'st attempts would reckon."
                            P. ii. canto iii. 1. 29.

111. In Bartholomaeus, De Proprietatibus Rerum (printed by Th. Berthelet, 27th Hen. VIII.), lib. xviii. fol. 314, speaking of Pliny, we read: "Also he saythe, spynners (spiders) ben tokens of divynation and of knowing what wether shal fal, for oft by weders that shal fal, some spin and weve higher or lower. Also he saythe, that multytute of spymiers is token of raoche reyne."

112. Cicero, in his second book on Divination, 28, observes: "Quidam et interpres portentorum non inscite respondisse dicitur ei, qui cum ad cum retulisset quasi ostentura, quod anguis domi vectem circumjectus fuisset. Turn esset, inquit, ostentum, si anguem vectis circumplicavisset. Hoc ille response satis aperte declaravit, nihil habendum esse portentum quod fieri posset." He adds, 29: "C. Gracchus ad M, Pomponium scripsit, duobus anguibus domi coraprehensis, haruspices a patre convocatos. Qui inagis anguibus, quam lacertis, quam muribus? Quia sunt hsec quotidiana, angues non item. Quasi vero referat, quod fieri potest quam id saepe fiat? Ego tamen miror, si emissio feminse anguis mortem adferebat Ti. Graccho, emissio autem maris anguis erat mortifera Corneliae, cur alteram utram emiserit : nihil enim scribit respondisse haruspices, si neuter anguis emissus esset, quid esset futurum. At mors insecuta Gracchum est. Causa quidem, credo, aliqua morbi gravioris, non emissione serpentis: neqne enim tanta est infelicitas haruspicuni, ut ne casu quidera unquam fiat, quod futurum illi esse dixerint."

113. In the Living Library, 1621, p. 284, we read: "There bee some princes of Germanic that have particular and apparent presages and tokens, full of noise, before or about the day of their death, as extraordinarie roaring of lions and barking of dogs, fearful noises and bustlings by night in castles, striking of clocks, and tolling of bels at undue times and howres, and other warnings, whereof none could give any reason." Delrio, in his Disquisitiones Magicae, p. 592, has the following: "In Bohemia spectrum foemineum vestitu lugubri apparere solet in arce quadam illustris familiae, antequam una ex conjugibus doiuinorum illoruin e vita decedat."

114. I conjecture this northern vulgar word to be a corruption of whiff, a sudden and vehement blast, which Davies thinks is derived from the Welsh chwyth, halitus, anhelitus, flatus. See Lye's Junius's Etymolog. in verbo. The spirit is supposed to glide swiftly by. Thus, in the Glossary of Lancashire words and phrases, "wrapt by" is explained "went swiftly by." See a View of the Lancashire Dialect, 8vo. March 1763.

115. In the same volume and page of the Statistical Account of Scotland, is another anecdote, which shows with what indifference death is sometimes contemplated. "James Mackie, by trade, a wright, was asked by a neighbour for what purpose some fine deal that he observed in his barn. 'It is timber for my coffin,' quoth James. 'Sure,' replies the neighbour, 'you mean not to make your own coffin;' you have neither resolution nor ability for the task. 'Hoot away, man!' says James, 'if I were once begun, I'll soon ca't by hand.' The hand, but not the heart, failed him, and he left the task of making it to a younger operator."

This calls to my remembrance what certainly happened in a village in the county of Durham, where it is the etiquette for a person not to go out of the house till the burial of a near relation. An honest simple countryman, whose wife lay a corpse in his house, was seen walking slowly up the village. A neighbour ran to him, and asked, "Where, in heaven, John, are you going?" "To the joiner's shop," said poor John, "to see them make my wife's coffin; it will be a little diversion for me."

116. "Who can alleage," says the author of the Living Librarie, &c., fol. Lond. 1621, p. 283, "any certaine and firme reason why the blood runnes out of the wounds of a man murdred, long after the murder committed, if the murderer be brought before the dead bodie? Galeotus Martius, Jeronymus Maggius, Marsilius Ficinus, Valleriola, Joubert, and others, have offered to say something thereof." The same author immediately asks also: 'Who (I pray you) can shew why, if a desperate bodie hang himselfe, suddenly there arise tempests and whirlewinds in the aire?"

117. In Petri Molinaei Vates, p. 154, we read: "Si visitans aegrum, lapidem inventum per viara attollat, et sub lapide inveniatur vermis se movens, aut formica vivens, faustum omen est, et indicium fore ut aeger convalescat, si nihil invenitur, res est conclamata, et certa mors, ut docet Buchardus Decretorum, lib. xix."

118. "Audio enim non licere cuiquam mortalium in nave neque ungue neque capillos deponere, nisi quum pelago ventus irascitur." Petron. 369, edit. Mich. Hadrianid. And Juvenal, Sat. xii. 1. 81, says: "Tum stagnante sinu, gaudent ubi vertice raso Garrula securi narrate pericula naut."

119. "Lunae corniculationera, solis nuhilura ortum, stellarum trajectiones in acre." Papatus, p. 21.

120. In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xiii. 557, parish of Lochcarron, co. Ross, we read: "Everything almost is reckoned a sign of rain. It there be a warm or hot day, we shall soon have rain; if a crow begin to chatter, she is calling for rain; if the clouds be heavy, or if there be a mist upon the top of the hills, we shall see rain. In a word, a Highlander may make anything a sign of rain, and there is no danger he shall fail in his prognostication."

121. A swan is likewise considered a harbinger of inclement weather.

122. ['The following, communicated by Mr. R. Bond, of Gloucester, was received too late for insertion under its proper heading in Vol. I.: "A circumstance which occurred in my presence on Saturday evening last (the 31st of March), brought to my recollection a superstitious notion which I have often heard repeated. A lady (in the common acceptation of the term) requested of a seedsman that she might be then furnished with various flower-seeds, 'for,' she added, 'I must not omit sowing them to-morrow.' 'May I inquire,' exclaimed the astonished shopman, 'if there is any particular reason for your making choice of that day?' 'Yes,' was the answer; 'it is because to-morrow is Palm Sunday, and the advantage to be derived from sowing on that day is, that the flowers will be sure to come double.'"]

123. So Potter, in his Greek Antiquities, i. 346, tells us that among the Greeks "it was customary to spit three times into their bosoms at the sight of a madman, or one troubled with an epilepsy." He refers to this passage of Theocritus, Idyll, xx. v. 11, for illustration. This, he adds, they did in defiance, as it were, of the omen; for spitting was a sign of the greatest contempt and aversion: whence, [Greek], i.e. to spit, is put for[Greek], i.e. to contemn, as the scholiast of Sophocles observes upon these words, in Antigone, v. 666. '[Greek]. Spit on him as an enemy.'

See also Potter, i. 358. Delrio, in his Disquisit. Magic, p. 391, mentions that some think the following passage in Albius Tibullus, lib. i. Eleg. 2, is to be referred to this:

"Hunc puer, hunc juvenis, tuba circumstetit arcta,
Despuit in molles, et sibi quisque sinus."

And thus Persius upon the custom of nurses spitting upon children:

"Ecce avia, aut metuens divum matertera, cunis,
Exemit puerum, frontetnque atque uda labella
Infami digito, et lustralibus ante salivis
Expiat, urentes oculos inhibere perita." Sat. ii. 1. 31.

124."Fascinationes saliva jejuna repelli, veteri superstitione creditum est." Alex, ab Alexandro.

125. "Numero Deus impare gaudet. Aut quemcumque superorum, juxta Pythagoreos, qui ternarium numerum perfectum summo Deo assignant, a quo initium, et medium, et finis est: aut revera Hecaten dicit, cujus triplex potestas esse perhibetur: unde est tria virginis ora Dianee. Quamvis omnium prope Deorum potestas triplici signo ostendatur, ut Jovis trifidum fulmen, Neptuni tridens, Plutonis canis triceps. Apollo idem sol, idem liber, vel quod omnia ternario numero continentur, ut Parcae, Furiae, Hercules etiam trinoctio conceptus. Musae ternae: aut impari quemadmodumcumque: nam septem chordae, septem planetae, septem dies nominibus Deorum, septem stellae in septentrione, et multa his similia: et impaf numerus immortalis, quia dividi integer non potest, par numerus mortalis, quia dividi potest; licet Varro dicat Pythagoreos putare imparem numerum habere finem, parem esse infinitum; ideo medendi causa multarumque rerum impares nmneros servari." Servius in P. Virgil. Eclog. viii. ed. varior. In Censorinus De Die Natali, 8vo. Cantab. 1695, p. 121, is the following passage: "Ea superstitione que impar numerus plenus et magis faustus habebatur." On which is this note, p. 124: "Vid. Servium ad illud Virgilii Eclog. viii. 'Numero Deus impare gaudet.' Macrob. lib. i. Satnrnal. cap. xiii. Solin. cap. iii." In Ravenscroft's comedy of Mamamouchi, or the Citizen turn'd Gentleman, 1675, p. 32, Trickmore, habited as a physician, says: "Let the number of his bleedings and purgations be odd, numero Deus impare gaudet."

126. So Petri Molinaei Vates, p. 219: "Si in convivio sunt tredecim convivae, creditur intra annum aliquem de istis moriturum; totidem enim personae accumbebant mensae, quando Christus celebravit eucharistiam pridie quam mortuus est. Sic inter superstitiosos trigesimus numerus ominosus est, quia Christus triginta denariis venditus est."

127. We read in the Traite des Superstitions, &c., par M. Jean Baptiste Thiers, 12mo. 1679, i. 436-7: "Plusieurs croyent qu'en France les septiemes gardens, nez de legitimes manages, sans que la suitte des sept ait, este interrompue par la naissance d'aucune fille, peuvent aussi guerir des fievres tierces, des fievres quartes, et raesme des ecrouelles, apres avoir jeune trois ou neuf jours avant que de toucher les malades. Mais ils font trop de fond sur le nombre septenaire, en attribuant au septieme garcon, preferablement a tous autres, une puissance qu'il y a autant de raison d'attribuer au sixieme ou au huitieme, sur le nombre de trois, et sur celuy de neuf, pour ne pas s'engager dans la superstition. Joint que de trois que je connois de ces septiemes gar9ons, il y en a deux qui ne guerissent de rien, et que le troisieme m'a avoiie de bonne foy qu'il avoit en autrefois la reputation de guerir de quantite des maux, quoique en effet il n'ait jamais guery d'aucun. C'est pourquoy Monsieur du Laurent a grande raison de rejetter ce pretendu pouvoir, et de le mettre au rang des fables, en ce qui concerne la guerison des ecroiielles. 'Commentitia sunt,' dit il, 'quae vulgus narrat omnes qui septimi nati sunt, nulla interveniente sorore in tota ditione Regis Franciae curare struraas in nomine Domini et Sancti Marculfi, si ternis aut novenis diebus jejuni contigerint; quasi, ait Paschalius, sic hoc vestigium divinum legis Salicae excludentis feminas.'" The following occurs in Delrio's Disquisit. Magic, lib. i. c. 3, qu. 4, p. 26: "Tale curationis donum; sed a febribus tantum sanandi, habere putantur in Flandria, quotquot nati sunt ipso die parasceues et quotquot, nullo foemineo foetu intercedente, septimi masculi legitimo thoro sunt uati."

128. Among the ancient Druids "the generality of diseases were attempted to be cured by charms and incantations." See Vallancey's Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, ii. 247.

129. It should be Abracadabra. On the subject of amulets much information may be obtained from an Academical Dissertation, published in 1710, at Halle, in Saxony, by Mart. Fr. Blumles. Abracadabra is curiously illustrated in p. 19, accompanied by two or three etymologies of the word.

130. Numerous charms and incantations occur in the Harleian Manuscript, No. 273, "Charme pur sang estauncher," "Charme pour dolour de playe," "Charme pur fievre," fol. 112, b. "Charme pur festre, e pur cancre, e per gute. Gallice," fol. 213. "Carmen sive incantatio pro fcemina parturiente," ibid. "Ut oves capias, incantatio." "Ut sorides, &c., non noceant garbas," fol. 215. "Hec est conjuracio contra mures quse nascuntur in horreo, et ne destruant bladum; et contra volucrcs et venues terra ne destruant segetes," fol. 215, b.

131. In the Statistical Account of Scotland, iii. 609, parish of Newparish: "There is a quick thorn, of a very antique appearance, for which the people have a superstitious veneration. They have a mortal dread to lop off or cut any part of it, and affirm, with a religious horror, that some persons, who had the temerity to hurt it, were afterwards severely punished for their sacrilege."

132. The canker is a painful affection of the lips very prevalent amongst children.

133. [The original document, of which the above is a literal copy, was about forty years since presented to a gentleman (well known to me) by a person who had received many marks of kindness from him, and to evince his gratitude for the same, he resolved on transferring to him the gift he so highly prized, to wit, the power of healing those several maladies by a repetition of the incantation, and otherwise conforming to the specified directions. The recipient, on his part, imagined he had an invaluable boon conferred upon him, and hundreds were the persons who flocked to him to solicit an exercise of his miraculous gift, amongst whom were young and old, rich and poor; sometimes persons entreating it for themselves, sometimes parents entreating it for their children; and, strange as it may appear, I have known an instance of a surgeon having sent his child to be charmed for the canker. The possessor of the charms dying in 1837, they immediately fell into disuse; for the son, on whom they devolved, doubting their efficacy, gave them to me, thinking I might wish to preserve them as a curiosity."]

134. [For this most singular instance of superstition, the publisher is indebted to the kindness of his friend Dr. Train, whose well-directed and antiring energy in the pursuit of legendary lore has been recorded in several of the pages of Sir Walter Scott.

The Publisher avails himself of this occasion to acknowledge the interest Dr. Train has taken in this edition of Brand, and to thank him for several interesting contributions, as well as for permission to make extracts from his valuable 'History of the Isle of Man.']

135. The following is from the Glossarium Suio-Goth. of Prof. Ihre, ii 135: "Mara, Incubus, Ephialtes, Angl. Nightmare. Nympham aliquam cui hoc nomen fuerit, pro Dea cultam esse a septentrionalibus narrat Wastovius in viti aquilonia, nescio quo auctore. De vocis origine multi multa tradunt, sed quae specie pleraque carent. Armorice mor notat somnum brevem et crebro turbatum, mori somnum ejusmodi capere (v. Pelletier in Dict. Britannique) quae hue apprime facere videntur. Alias observavit Schilterus, more pro diabolo vel malo daemone apud veteres Alemannos usurpari. Marlock, plica, quae saepe capillos horainum contorquet. Verisimile est, credidisse superstitiosam vetustatem, istiusmodi plicas incubi insultibus esse adscribendas. Richey 1. c. a Mdhre, equa, nominis rationem petit, quum equorum caudse similem in modum ssepe complicatas sint."

136. See also vol. i. pages 150-1.

137. It is said in Gerrard's Herbal, (Johnson's edition, p. 1428): "That the Arbor Judce is thought to be that whereon Judas hanged himself, and not upon the elder-tree, as it is vulgarly said." I am clear that the mushrooms or excrescences of the elder-tree, called Auricula Judae in Latin, and commonly rendered "Jews' eares," ought to be translated Judas' ears, from the popular superstition above mentioned. Coles, in his Adam in Eden, speaking of "Jewes eares," says: "It is called, in Latine, Fungus Sambucinum and Auricula Judae: some having supposed the elder-tree to be that whereon Judas hanged himself, and that, ever since, these mushroomes, like unto eares, have grown thereon, which I will not persuade you to believe." See also his Introduction to the Knowledge of Plants, p. 40. In Paradoxical Assertions and Philosophical Problems, by R. H., 1669, Second Part, p. 2, is a silly question: "Why Jews are said to stink naturally? Is it because the Jews' ears grow on stinking elder (which tree that fox-headed Judas was falsly supposed to have hanged himself on), and so that natural stink hath been entailed on them and their posterities as it were ex traduce?" In the epilogue to Lilly's Alexander and Campaspe, written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a passage is found which implies that elder was given at that time as a token of disgrace: "Laurel for a garland, or ealder for a disgrace." Coles, in his Introduction to the Knowledge of Plants, p. 63, tells us: "That parsley was bestowed upon those that overcame in the Grecian games, in token of victory." So also Bartholomaeus, De Proprietatibus Rerum, lib. xvii. fol. 249: De apio. Somtyme victours had garlondes of it, as Isydore sayth, lib. xvii., Hercules made him fyrste garlondes of this herbe." I find the following in Green's second part of Conny-catching: "Would in a braverie weare parsley in his hat."

138. Lupton, in his fifth book of Notable Things, edit. 1660, p. 182, says: "Make powder of the flowers of elder, gathered on a Midsummer-day, being before well-dryed, and use a spoonfull thereof in a good draught of borage water, morning and evening, first and last, for the space of a month, and it will make you seem young a great while."

139.Communicated by Mr. Robert Bond, of Gloucester.

140. The following illustration of the barbarous practice of inclosing field-mice was received by Mr. Brand, in a letter from Robt. Studley Vidal, Esq., of Cornborough, near Bideford, a gentleman to whom he was much indebted for incidental information on the local customs of Devonshire, dated May 9, 1806:

"An usage of the superstitious kind has just come under my notice, and which, as the pen is in my hand, I will shortly describe, though I rather think it is not peculiar to these parts. A neighbour of mine, on examining his sheep the other day, found that one of them had entirely lost the use of its hinder parts. On seeing it I expressed an opinion that the animal must have received a blow across the back, or some other sort of violence which had injured the spinal marrow, and thus rendered it paralytic; but I was soon given to understand that my remarks only served to prove how little I knew of country affairs, for that the affection of the sheep was nothing uncommon, and that the cause of it was well known, namely, a mouse having crept over its back. I could not but smile at the idea; which my instructor considering as a mark of incredulity, he proceeded very gravely to inform me that I should be convinced of the truth of what he said by the means which he would use to restore the animal, and which were never known to fail. He accordingly despatched his people here and there in quest of a field-mouse; and, having procured one, he told me that he should carry it to a particular tree at some distance, and, inclosing it within a hollow in the trunk, leave it there to perish. He further informed me that he should bring back some of the branches of the tree with him, for the purpose of their being drawn now and then across the sheep's back; and concluded by assuring me, with a very scientific look, that I should soon be convinced of the efficacy of this process, for that, as soon as the poor devoted mouse had yielded up his life a prey to famine, the sheep would be restored to its former strength and vigour. I can, however, state with certainty, that the sheep was not at all benefited by this mysterious sacrifice of the mouse. The tree, I find, is of the sort called witch-elm, or witch-hazel."

141. Two brass pins, he adds, were carefully laid across each other on the top edge of this stone, for oracular purposes. See Nat. Hist, of Cornwall, p. 179.

142. "The origin of the hell," says Mr. Stuart, "is to be referred to the remote ages of the Celtic churches, whose ministers spoke a dialect of that language. Ara Trode, one of the most ancient Icelandic historians, tells us, in his second chapter, that when the Norwegians first planted a colony in Ireland, about the year 870, 'Eo tempore erat Islandia silvis concreta, in medio montium et littorum; tum erant hie viri Christiani, quos Norwegi Papas appellant; et illi peregre profecti sunt, ex eo quod nollent esse hie cum viris ethnicis, et relinquehant post se nolas et haculos: ex illo poterat discerni quod essent viri Christiani.' Nola and bajula both signify hand-bells. See Ducange. Giraldus Cambrensis, who visited Ireland about the end of the twelfth century, speaks thus of these relics of superstition: 'Hoc non praetereundum puro, quod campanas, bajulas, baculnsque sanctorum ex superiore parte recurvos, auro et argento aut sere confectos, tarn Hibernue et Scotise quam et Givalliae populus et clerus in magna reerentia habere solet; ita ut juramenta supra haec, longe magis quam super Evangelia, et prsestare vereantur et perjurare. Ex vi enim quodam occulta, et iis quasi divinitus insita, nee non et vindicta (cujus praecipue sancti illi appetibiles esse videntur) plerumque puniuntur contemptores.' He elsewhere speaks of a bell in Ireland, endowed with the same locomotive powers as that of St. Fillan. Topog. Hiber. 1. iii. c. 33, and 1. ii. c. 23. For, in the eighteenth century, it is curious to meet with things which astonished Giraldus, the most credulous of mortals in the twelfth. St. Fillan is said to have died in 649. In the tenth year of his reign Robert de Bruce granted the church of Killin, in Glendochart, to the abbey of Inchaffray, on condition that one of the canons should officiate in the kirk of Strathfillan."

143. In a most curious and rare book, entitled a Werke for Householders, &c., by a professed brother of Syon, Richard Whitforde, 8vo. Lond. 1537, signat. C, mention is made of a charm then in use, as follows: "The charmer taketh a pece of whyt brede, and sayth over that breade the Pater Noster, and maketh a crosse upon the breade; then doth he ley that pece of breade unto the toth that aketh, or unto any sore; tournynge the crosse unto the sore or dysease, and so is the persone healed." Whitforde inveighs against this as "evill and damnable."

144. In Pope's Memoirs of P. P., Clerk of the Parish, Works, vol. vi. p. 246, is the following: "The next chapter relates how he discovered a thief with a Bible and key, and experimented verses of the psalms that had cured agues."

145. [Obligingly communicated to the publisher by an anonymous correspondent at Edinburgh.]

146. Mr. Douce's MS. Notes say: "Rings made from coffin-hinges are supposed to prevent the cramp. See Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. v. Scower. The ceremonies of blessing cramp-rings on Good Friday will be found in Wdldcon's Literary Museum."

147. The best and most interesting particulars respecting the king's evil will be found in Mr. Pettigrew's work on Medical Superstitions, 8vo.

148. In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xiv. 210, parishes of Kilfynichen and Kilviceuen, co. of Argyll, we read: "A man in I. of the name of Mr. Innis, touches for the king's evil. He is the seventh son; and it is firmly believed in the country that he has this gift of curing. He touches or rubs over the sore with his hand, two Thursdays and two Sundays successively, in the name of the Trinity, and says, 'It is God that cures.' He asks nothing for his trouble. It is believed if he did, there would be no cure. He is often sent for out of the country; and, though he asks nothing, yet the patients, or their friends, make him presents. He is perfectly illiterate, and says he does not know how the cure is effected, but that God is pleased to work it in consequence of his touch." The same supposed quality of curing the king's evil by touch in a seventh male child, has been before noticed among the charms in Odd Numbers. See an account of Mr. Valentine Greatrakes' stroking for different disorders, in the Gent. Mag. for Jan. 1779, xlix. 22.

149. "Thou hast practis'd on her with foul charms; Abus'd her delicate youth with drugs, or minerals that waken motion." Act i. sc. 2.

Again, sc. 3;

"She is abus'd, stol'n from me, and corrupted
By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks."

And again:

"I therefore vouch again,
That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
Or with some dram conjur'd to this effect,
He wrought upon her."

150. The superstition of holding the poker before the fire to drive away the witch has been already noticed. Whatever may be the reason, it is a certain fact that setting up a poker before a fire has a wonderful effect in causing it to burn.

151. In the Athenian Oracle, i. 158, is preserved the following charm to stop bleeding at the nose, and all other hemorrhages in the country:

"In the blood of Adam sin was taken,
In the blood of Christ it was all to shaken,
And by the same bleed I do the charge,
That the blood of run no longer at large."

152. Bishop of Chichester. Born in 1591. Died 1669. There is an edition of his poems in 1657. Another in 1664, entitled, Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes, and Sonets, 8vo.

153. In a most rare piece, entitled Diogenes in his Singularitie: wherein is comprehended his merrie baighting, fit for all men's benefits: christened by him a Nettle for nice Noses: by T. L. of Lincolne's Inne, gent. 1591, at London, printed by W. Hoskins and John Danter, for John Busbie, 4to. p. 2, b, is the following passage: "You beare the feather of a phoenix in your bosome against all wethers and thunders, laurel to escape lightning." &c.

154.Gaule, in his Mag-astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, p. 192, inquires "whether pericepts, amulets, prsefiscinals, phylacteries, niceteries, ligatures, suspensions, charms, and spells, had ever been used, applyed, or carryed about, but for magick and astrologie? Their supposed efficacy (in curing diseases and preventing of perils) being taught from their fabrication, configuration, and confection, under such and such sydereal aspects, conjunctions, constellations." His preceding observations upon alchemy are too pointed and sensible not to be retained: "Whether alchymie (that enticing yet nice harlot) had made so many fooles and beggars, had she not clothed or painted herself with such astrological phrases and magical practises? But I let this kitchen magick or chimney astrology passe. The sweltering drudges and smoaky scullions of it (if they may not bring in new fuel to the fire) are soon taught (by their past observed folly) to connate their own late repentance. But if they will obstinately persist, in hope to sell their smoak, let others beware how they buy it too dear."

155. See a prodigious variety of these divinations, alphabetically enumerated and explained, in Fabricii Bibliographia Antiquaria, cap. xxi. Consult also Potter's Greek Antiq. vol. i. pp. 348 et seq.

156. Moresin, in his Papatus, p. 126, says: "Pedum episcopale est litms augurum, de quo Livius, i."

157. Dr. Welwood says that King Charles the First and Lord Falkland, being in the Bodleian Library, made this experiment of their future fortunes, and met with passages equally ominous to each. Aubrey, however, in his manuscript on the Remains of Gentilism, tells the story of consulting the Virgilian lots differently. He says: "In December, 1648, King Charles the First being in great trouble, and prisoner at Carisbrooke, or to be brought to London to his tryal, Charles, Prince of Wales, being then at Paris, and in profound sorrow for his father, Mr. Abraham Cowley went to wayte on him. His Highnesse asked him whether he would play at cards, to divert his sad thoughts. Mr. Cowley replied he did not care to play at cards, but if his Highness pleased they would use sortes Viryiliancs (Mr. Cowley always had a Virgil in his pocket); the Prince liked the proposal, and pricked a pin in the fourth book of the Æneid, &c. The Prince understood not Latin well, and desired Mr. Cowley to translate the verses, which he did admirably well."

158. "At belloaudacis populi vexatus et armis,
        Finibus extorris, complexu avulsus luli,
        Auxilium imploret, videatque indigna suorum
        Funera; nee, cum se sub leges pacis iniquae
        Tradiderit; regno aut optata luce fruatur;
        Sed cadat ante diem: mediaque inhumatus arena."
                                Æneid., lib. iv. 1. 615.

159. "Gerraanos veteres ex hinnitu etfremitu equorum cepisse auguria, nee ulli auspicio majorem fidem adhibitam, testatur Tacitus, lib. de Moribus Gerraanorum." Pet. Molinaei Vates, p. 218.

160. Of this, he says, "we meet with a very curious example, in the account given by Matthew Paris of the marriage of Frederick, Emperor of Germany, and Isabella, sister of Henry III., A.D. 1235. 'Nocte vero prima qua concubuit imperator cum ea, noluit earn carnaliter cognoscere, donee competens hora ab astrologis ei nunciaretur.' M. Paris, p. 285, ad ann. 1235." See Henry, vol. iv. p. 577.

161. On this face or look divination I find the following passage in Bartholinus on the Causes of Contempt of Death amongst the Heathen Danes, p. 683: 'Ex facie, seu fronte, ut de praedictione ex manuum inspectione nihil dicam, contingendorum alteri casuum notitiam hauriebant. De qua ex partium corporis consideratione oriunda divinatione sic commentatur in secundum librum Saxonis Brynolfias Svenonius: Quasi non falleret hoc argumentum de vultu conjectandi, sic illo veteres, loco non uno, confidentur invenio usos: et praeter Hniamenta, atque cuticulae tincturam, aliud nescio quid spirituale in vultu notasse, quod nos etiamnum evip, genium vocitanms?'"

162. The following, on the presaging of the mind, occurs in Bartholinus, p. 681: "Sed rara erat ex ostensis atque prodigiis quae infrequentia accidebant, divinatio: ilia coramunior quse prsesagientis animi debebatur sagacitati. Tullius his verbis in primo de divinatione libro contendit: 'Inest igitur in animis praesagitio extrinsecus injecta, atque inclusa divinitus.'" He had before observed: "Neque enim illud verbura temere consuetude approbavisset, si ea res nulla esset omnino. Praesagibat animus, frustra me ire, quum exirem domo. Sagire enim, sentire acute est: ex quo sagse anus, quia multa scire volunt: et sagaces dicti canes. Is igitur, qui ante sagit, quam oblata res est, dicitur preesagire, id est, futura ante sentire.''

163. His history is in his name, [Greek], being said to have carried our Saviour, when a child, over an arm of the sea.

164. A Brief Natural History, &c., with Refutations of Vulgar Errours, by Eugenius Philalethes, 8vo. Lond. 1669, p. 87.

165. The following is Pliny's description of the snake-egg, a poetical version of part of which has been quoted in p. 148, from Mason's Caractacus: "Praeterea est ovorum genus in magna Galliarum fama, omissum Graecis. Angues innuraeri aestate convoluti, salivis faucium cor porumque spumis artifici complexu gloraerantur, anguinum appellatur. Druidae sibilis id dicunt in sublime jactari, sagoque oportere intercipi, ne tellurem attingat. Profugere raptorem equo: serpentes enim insequi, donee arceantur amnis alicujus interventu. Experimentum ejus esse, si contra aquas fluitet vel auro vinctum. Atque, ut est magorum solertia occultandis fraudibus sagax, certa luna capiendum censent, tanquam congruere operationem earn serpentium, humani sit arbitrii. Vidi equidem ovum mali orbiculati modici magnitudine, crusta cartilaginis, velut acetabulis brachiorum polypi crefms, msigne Druidis. Ad victorias litium, ac regum aditus, mire laudatur: tant vanitatis, ut habentem id in lite in sinu equitem Romanum e Vecontiis, a Divo Claudio principe interemptum non ob aliud sciam." Edit. Harduin, lib. xxix. 12.

166. "Should a glass-house fire be kept up, without extinction, for a longer term than seven years, there is no doubt but that a salamander would be generated in the cinders. This very rational idea is much more generally credited than wise men would readily believe." Anecdotes, &c., Ancient and Modern, by James Petit Andrews, p. 359.

167. Scaliger asserts the falsity of this from his own experience and observation.

168. I may likewise add to these, that any one may be put into the Crown Office for no cause whatsoever, or the most trifling injury. It is also a very prevailing error, that those who are born at sea belong to Stepney parish.

169. The following legend, intended to honour the Virgin Mother, is given in a Short Relation of the River Nile, &c., 12mo. Loud. 1672, p. 87. The writer says: "Eating some dates with an old man, but a credulous Christian, he said, 'that the letter remained upon the stone of a date for a remembrance that our blessed lady, the Virgin, with her divine babe in her arms, resting herself at the foot of a palm tree, (which inclined her branches and offered a cluster of dates to her Creatour,) our lady plucked some of the dates, and eating them, satisfied with the taste and flavour, cried out in amazement, Oh ! how sweet they are! This exchumation engraved the letter O, the first word of her speech, upon the date, stone, which, being very hard, better preserved it.'"

170. So Sandford, Genealog. Hist. p. 317. On this mistake the following dialogue in Elyot's Fruits of the French, part ii. p. 165, and which seems to throw some light on the disputed origin of the saying in the title, was founded:

"What ancient monument is this?
It is, as some say, of Duke Humphrie of Gloucester,
Who is buried here.
They say that he hath commonly his lieftenant
Here in Paules, to know if there be
Any newes from Fraunce or other strange Countries.
'Tis true, my friend ; and also he hath
His steward, who inviteth the bringers of
These news to take the paines to dine with His grace."

171. ["Now let me tell you, it's better dining with a farmer upon such like cheer, than it is to dine with Duke Humphrey." Poor Robin, 1746."]

172. In Ainsworth's Dictionary, "a miller's thumb [the fish] is rendered capita, cephalus fluvialis Capito is explained, ibid. "Qui magno est capite, unde et piscis ita dictus, [1] ajolthead, [2] also a kind of codfish, a pollard." In Cotgrave's French Dictionary, "a miller's thumb," the fish, is rendered "cabot, teste d'asne, musnier."

173. Shaw, in his History of Staffordshire, vol. ii. pt. i., p. 20, speaking of some provincialisms of the south of Staffordshire, respecting measures, quantities, &c. says: "Strike is now the same thing with bushel, though formerly two strikes were reckoned to a bushel; for the old custom having been to measure up grain in a half-bushel measure, each time of striking off was deemed a strike, and thus two strikes made one bushel; but this is now become obsolete, bushel measures being in use; or if a half-bushel be used, it is deemed a half-strike; at present, therefore, strike and bushel are synonymous terms. The grosser articles are heaped, but grain is stricken off with the strait edge of a strip of board, called a strickless; this level measure of grain is here provincially termed strike and strickless."

174. To an inquiry after the occasion of "a vapour which by mariners is called a corpo zanto, usually accompanying a storm, "in the British Apollo, vol. Hi. (fol. Lond. 1710), No. 94, there is the following answer; "A. Whenever this meteor is seen, it is an argument that the tempest which it accompanied was caused by a sulphureous spirit, rarifying and violently moving the clouds. For the cause of the fire is a sulphureous and bituminous matter, driven downwards by the impetuous motion of the air, and kindled by much agitation. Sometimes there are several of these seen in the same tempest, wandering about in various motions, as other ignes fatui do, though sometimes they appear to rest upon the sails or masts of the ship; but for the most part they leap upwards and downwards without any intermission, making a flame like the faint burning of a candle. If five of them are seen near together, they are called by the Portuguese cora de nostra senhora, and are looked upon as a sure sign that the storm is almost over."

175. A friend of the editor, towards the latter end of October 1813, coming from Guernsey to Southampton in the packet, saw one of these appearances on the spindle of the vane at the mast-head, in a gale of wind, near the Needles. The captain of the vessel, in the English sailor's style, upon his inquiring concerning it, called it a complaisance.

176. In Thomas Heyrick's Submarine Voyage, 4to, Camb. 1691, p. 2, we read:

"For lo! a suddain storm did rend the air;
The sullen Heaven, curling in frowns its brow,
Did dire presaging omens show;
Ill-boding Helena atone was there."

177. Mr. Wrighte's MS. has the following also: "Hoc certum satis, cum ejusmodi faculae ardentes olim insidissent super capita Castoris et Pollucis ad expeditionem Argonauticam, exinde dioscuri in Deos indigites relati et tanquam, solida et sola maris nurnina ab omnibus navigantibus summa in veneratione habiti, cumque procellis suborientibus tempestas immineat, astraque ilia ab olim ominosa antennis incubent, Castorem et Pollucem in auxillium adesse nemo dubitat." Hence Gregory adds, that through the superstition of ancient sailors the signs of Castor and Pollux were placed on the prows of ships.

So, in a Wonderful History of all the Storms, Hurricanes, Earthquakes, &c., 8vo., Lond. 1704, p. 82, there occurs the following account "of fiery impressions that appear mostly at sea, called by mariners Castor and Pollux; when thin clammy vapours, arising from the salt water and ugly slime, hover over the sea. they, by the motion in the winds and hot blasts, are often fired; these impressions will oftentimes cleave to the masts and ropes of ships, by reason of their clamminess and glutinous substance, and the mariners by experience find that when but one flame appears it is the forerunner of a storm; but when two are seen near together, they betoken faire weather and good lucke in a voyage. The naturall cause why these may foretell fair or foul weather is, that one flame alone may forewarn a tempest, forasmuch as the matter being joyn'd and not dissolved, so it is like that the matter of the tempest, which never wanteth, as wind and clouds, is still together, and not dissipate, so it is likely a storm is engendering; but two flames appearing together denote that the exhalation is divided, which is very thick, and so the thick matter of the tempest is dissolved and scattered abroad, by the same cause that the flame is divided; therefore no violent storm can ensue, but rather a calm is promised."

178. In Cotgrave we read: "Feu d'Helene, Feu S. Herine, St. Helen's or St. Herme's Fire; a meteor that often appears at sea: looke furole." "Furole, a little blaze of fire appearing by night on the tops of souldiers' lances, or at sea on the sayle yards, where it whirles, and leapes in a moment from one place to another. Some mariners call it St. Herme's Fire; if it come double, 'tis held a signe of good lucke, if single otherwise."

Among the apothegmes at the end of Herbert's Remains, 12mo. Lond. 1652, p. 194, is the following: "After a great fight there came to the camp of Gonsalvo, the great captain, a gentleman, proudly horsed and armed. Diego de Mendoza asked the great captain, Who's this? who answered, 'Tis St. Ermyn, that never appears but after a storm."

179.  "Audivi saepius a Buckingamiensibus meis tale quid ([Greek]) nebulonibus desperatis accidens ad regium carcerem Ailesburiensem,ubi nocte praeeunte judicis adventum, prodigiosa quaedam flammula apparere solet in carcere, illis omnibus fatalis a quibus visitur. Unusquisque enim ex incarceratis cui contigit hanc flammulam (quern vocant the Waf) conspexisse, actum est de illo; nihilque in posterum expectat praeter patibulum. Non adeo sum infeliciter peritus ut haec ex propria experientia affirmare ausim; at ex oppidanis ipsis diligenter didici ; iisque hominibus fide dignis." Gregory's MS. in Mr. Wrighte's possession. In this curious work, the ignis fatuus is thus explained: "Hujusmodi flammulas philosophi ad meteora traducunt, causantes exhalationem adinfimam aeris regionem elevatam, ibique per antiperistasin accensam (garatum leges) quae dum ascendere nititur, frigore mediae regionis depellitur, et apparet quasi saltans loca decliviora quaerens, unde et ad aquas sequentem ducit, saepe etiam in magnis tempestatibus aut velis aifigitur aut praecedit vel sequitur. Meteorol. fol. 50. Stellulas istas sic a philosophis fabrefactas, ne non sibi aliisve quid altum sapere videantur, vocaverunt ignes fatuos."

180. It is with great deference to the opinion of modern philosophers that I make the observation, but I cannot help suspecting that what our plain forefathers, in the unenlightened ages, attributed to supernatural agency, to elves and fairies, as being otherwise unable to account for or explain it, it is at present the fashion to ascribe to I know not what "electric fluid;" or to huddle it up, as in this instance, under the vague idea of something "of an electric nature."

181. The account adds: "It was formerly thought, and is still by the superstitious believed, to have something ominous in its nature, and to presage death and other misfortunes. There have been instances of people being decoyed by these lights into marshy places, where they have perished; whence the names of ignis fatuus, Will with a wisp, and Jack with a lanthorn, as if this appearance was an evil spirit which took delight in doing mischief of that kind."

182. White, in his Peripateticall Institutions, p. 156, calls the fiery dragon "a weaker kind of lightning. Its livid colour and its falling without noise and slowly, demonstrate a great mixture of watry exhalation in it. ... 'Tis sufficient for its shape, that it has some resemblance of a not the expresse figure."

183. From Train's Account of the Isle of Man, vol. ii.