Part 2
The custom mentioned by L. L. L. still prevails in the Weald of Surrey and Sussex; probably through all the southern counties; but certainly in the Isle of Wight, where the writer only the other day, on noticing an empty apiary in the grounds of a villa, was told that the country people attributed its desertion to the bees not having had this formal notice of their master's death.
The same superstition is practised in some parts of France, when a mistress of the house dies; the formula being much like our English one, _i.e._ to tap thrice on the hive, repeating these words, "Petits abeilles, votre maîtresse est morte."
A. D.
_Bees invited to Funerals.--North Side of Churchyards._--At Bradfield, a primitive village on the edge of the moors, in the parish of Ecclesfield, I was informed by a person of much intelligence, that a custom has obtained in the district from time immemorial--"for hundreds of years" was the expression used--of inviting bees to funerals; and that an instance could be produced of the superstition having been practised even within the last year. What is done is this. When a death occurs, a person is appointed to call the neighbours to the funeral, who delivers the invitations in one form of words: "You are invited to the funeral of A. B., which is to take place at such an hour, on such a day; and there will be dinner on table at----o'clock." And if it should happen that bees were kept in the garden of the house where the corpse lies (not an unlikely thing near moors), the messenger is instructed to address the same invitation to the bees in their hives; because it is considered that, if this compliment be omitted, the bees will die.
I asked the sexton of Bradfield why, in a churchyard that was rather crowded with graves, there was no appearance of either mound or tombstone on the north side? His only answer was, "It's mostly them 'at died i' t' workhus is buried at t' backside o' t' church." An instance, but no explanation of the prejudice entertained against the north side of churchyards.
ALFRED GATTY.
In answer to your correspondent L. L. L. respecting bee etiquette, I can inform him, from my personal observation, that the ceremony of informing the bees of their owner's death is in full force in Ashborne, Derbyshire, Hinton, Wilts, and even in the highly intellectual city of Oxford. The ceremony is the same in all these places. Three taps are made on the hives with the house-key, while the informant repeats: "Bees, bees, bees, your master is dead, and you must work for ----," naming the future owner. A piece of black crape is then fastened to the hive. Many bee owners think it is politic to inform the bees of the death of a relation: but in this case they never give the name, but the degree of relationship; as "your master's brother, sister, aunt, &c. is dead." On weddings the bees always expect to be informed of the auspicious event, and to have their hive decorated with a wedding favour.
J. G. WOOD.
Oxford.
_Ashton Faggot: A Devonshire Custom._--The ashton faggot is burned on Christmas eve. The faggot is composed entirely of ash timber, and the separate sticks or branches are securely bound together with ash bands. The faggot is made as large as can conveniently be burned in the fireplace, or rather upon the floor, grates not being in use. A numerous company is generally assembled to spend the evening in games and amusement, the diversion being heightened as the faggot blazes on the hearth, as a quart of cider is considered due, and is called for, and served upon the bursting of every hoop or band bound round the faggot. The timber being green and elastic, each band generally bursts open with a smart report when the individual stick or hoop has been partially burned through.
_Offerings to the Apple-trees: Devonshire Superstition._--It was a custom in Devonshire, and probably in some of the adjoining counties also, to perform the following ceremonial on Old Christmas Eve, or Twelfth Day, namely: In the evening the farmer's family and friends being assembled, hot wheat-flour cakes were introduced, with cider; and this was served round to the company, the cake being dipped in the cider, and then eaten. As the evening wore on, the assembled company adjourned into the orchard, some one bearing hot cake and cider as an offering to the principal tree in the orchard; the cake was deposited on a fork of the tree, and the cider was then thrown over it, the men firing off muskets, fowling-pieces, pistols, &c., the women, girls, and boys shouting and screaming to the trees with all the excitement of young Indians the following rhyme:--
"Bear blue, apples and pears enoug'; Barn fulls, bag fulls, sack fulls. Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!"
Query, Do these customs prevail to this day either in Devonshire or in other European countries?
R. R.
POETICAL IMITATION.
It has always been a pleasing office of criticism, to observe how often an excellent thought, having sprung from some master mind, or from some inferior mind in a happy moment, has been used by succeeding writers.
Homer,
"à quo, ceu fonte perenni, Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis,"
has, in _Il._ v. 406. _et seq._, the following lines:
"[Greek: Nêpios, oude to oide kata phrena Tydeos hyios Hotti mal' ou dênaios, hos athanatoisi machoito, Oude ti min paides poti gounasi pappazousin, Elthont' ek polemoio kai ainês dêïotêtos]."
"The son of Tydeus is foolish and rash, nor is aware that he who fights with the immortals is not long-lived, and that _no children, as he returns from war and strife, gather round his knees to call him father_."
The idea of children saluting their parent at his knees, has been adopted, and accompanied with various additions, by several subsequent authors. Among the writers in Homer's language, however, we find no imitation of it, unless the following lines of Callimachus can be regarded as taken from it:
"[Greek: Patros ephezomenê gonatessi Pais eti kourizousa, tade proseeipe gonêa, Dos moi partheniên aiônion, appa, phylassein]."
"She (_Diana_), yet a child, sitting sportively on the knees of her father, said to him, Allow me, dear parent, to preserve a perpetual virginity."
In the Latin writers the thought occurs several times. The first in whom it is found is Lucretius:
"At jam non domus adcipiet te læta, neque uxor Optuma, nec dulces obcurrent oscula natei Præripere, et tacitâ pectus dulcedine tangent."
III. 907.
"But thy cheerful home shall no more receive thee, nor thy excellent wife; nor shall thy sweet children run to snatch kisses from thee, and touch thy breast with secret delight."
In whose steps Virgil treads:
"Interea _dulces pendent circum oscula nati_; Casta pudicitiam servat domus."--_Geo._ II. 523.
"His cares are eased with intervals of bliss; His little children climbing for a kiss, Welcome their father's late return at night; His faithful bed is crown'd with chaste delight."
Dryden.
(Virgil liked the expression _dulces nati_. He has
"Nec mihi jam patriam antiquam spes ulla videndi, Nec _dulces natos_ exoptatumque parentem."
_Æn._ II. 137.
"Nec _dulces natos_, Veneris nec præmia nôris?"
_Æn._ IV. 33.
"Sed tota in _dulces_ consument ubera _natos_."
_Geo._ III. 178.)
Statius, doubtless, had both Lucretius and Virgil in his view, when he wrote,
"Rursus et ex illis soboles nova; grexque protervus Nunc _humeris irreptet avi_, nunc agmine blando Certatim placidæ _concurrat ad oscula_ Pollæ."
_Silv._ III. i. 179.
"Again from them springs a new race; a forward little troop, which sometimes climb on the shoulders of their grandfather, and sometimes, in pleasing congress, run to catch a kiss from the gentle Polla."
Seneca, _Thyest._ I. 145., has another imitation:
"Exceptus gladio parvulus impio, Dum _currit patrium natus ad osculum_, Immatura focis victima concidit."
"The little Pelops, met by the impious sword, while he was running to receive his father's kiss, fell a premature victim on the hearth."
Claudian, _Rapt. Proserp._ III. 173., has another:
"Hæc post cunabula dulci Ferre sinu, summoque Jovi deducere parvam Sueverat, _et genibus ludentem aptare paternis_."
"She was accustomed to bear the little infant, after it had slept in its cradle, in her fragrant bosom, to present it to almighty Jove, and to place it sporting on its father's knees."
But the best adaptations and expansions of the thought have been among the writers of our own country. The earliest allusion to it, I believe, occurs in Thomson's description of the traveller lost in the snow:
"In vain for him th' officious wife prepares The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm; In vain his little children, peeping out Into the mingling storm, demand their sire With tears of artless innocence! Alas! Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold, Nor friends, nor sacred home."--_Winter_, 311.
But this is a less pointed imitation than that of Gray, which succeeded it. Gray had his eye on Lucretius:
"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share."
Next followed Collins, in his Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands, who, however, seems to have had Thomson chiefly in view:
"For him, in vain, his anxious wife shall wait, Or wander forth to meet him on his way; For him, in vain, at to-fall of the day, His babes shall linger at th' unclosing gate: Ah! ne'er shall he return."
To him succeeded Dyer:
"The little smiling cottage, when at eve He meets his rosy children at the door, Prattling their welcomes, and his honest wife, -------------------------------- intent To cheer his hunger after labour hard."
__Fleece_, Book I. 120._
Burns has a picture equal to any of these:
"At length his lonely cot appears in view Beneath the shelter of an aged tree: _Th' expectant wee things, todlin', stacher through To meet their dad with flichterin' noise and glee:_ His wee-bit ingle blinkin' bonnilie, His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile, _The lisping infant prattling on his knee_, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil."
_Cotter's Saturday Night._
Burns may have taken the thought from Gray, or some other English source. But he has not disgraced it by his mode of treating it.
Allen Ramsay, in his _Gentle Shepherd_, has a very pretty allusion to children, which I have not at hand to consult, but which concludes with,
"While all they ettle at, their greatest wis', Is to be made o', and obtain a kiss."
J. S. W.
Stockwell.
A GLOUCESTER DITTY.
(_From an Old Broadside without date._)
Come, my very merry gentle people, only list a minute, For tho' my song may not be long there's something comic in it; A stranger I, yet, by the bye, I've ventured in my ditty, To say a word at parting, just in praise of Gloucester city.
The Romans they this city built, and many folks came down here, Kings Richard, Henry, John, and Ned, did visit Glo'ster town here; King William dined each Christmas here, and Glo'ster folks it pleases, To know the food he relished most was double Berkeley cheeses.
The ladies, Heaven bless 'em all! as sure as I've a nose on, In former times had only thorns and skewers to stick their clothes on; No damsel then was worth a pin, whate'er it might have cost her, Till gentle Johnny Tilsby came, and invented pins in Glo'ster.
Your fine cathedral when I saw, tho' much I was delighted, Yet in the whisp'ring gallery I got most sadly frighted; Some question there I asked myself, when not a soul was near me, And suddenly an answer came, as if the walls could hear me.
The Severn full of salmon fine enriches low and high land, And then, for more variety, you've got a little island; Of which I've read a Taylor's Tale, a dozen verses long, sirs, And may I go to Old Harry, if it's not a clever song, sirs.
George Ridler's oven, I've been told, contains some curious jokes, sirs, And much of it is said by many Glo'ster folks, sirs; But ovens now are serious things, and from my soul I wish, sirs, Your ovens here many ne'er want bread to fill the poor man's dish, sirs.
Now if you will but all forgive this slight attempt at rhyme, sirs, I'll promise, like the little boys, to mend another time, sirs; May health, with every blessing, join this company to foster, Till, with your leave, some future time I come again to Glo'ster.
GEORGE RIDLER'S OVEN.
(_From a Broadside._)
The stwons that built George Ridler's oven, And thauy keum from the Bleakeley's Quaar; And George he wur a jolly old mon, And his yead it grawed above his yare.
One thing of George Ridler I must commend, And that wur vur a notable theng; He meud his braags avoore he died, Wi' ony dree brothers his zons should zeng.
There's Dick the Treble and John the Mean, (Let ev'ry mon zeng in his auwn pleace) And George he wur the elder brother, And therevoore he would zeng the Beass.
Mine Hostess' moid (and her neaum 'twur Nell), A pretty wench, and I loved her well; I loved her well, good reazun whoy, Because zhe loved my dog and I.
My dog is good to catch a hen, A duck or goose is vood vor men; And where good company I spy, O thether gwoes my dog and I.
My mother told I when I wur young, If I did vollow the strong beer pwoot, That drenk would pruv my auverdrow, And meaak me vear the thread bare cwoart.
My dog has gotten sich a troick, To visit moids when thoiy be zick; When thoiy be zick and loik to die, O, thether gwoes my dog and I.
When I have dree zixpences under my thumb, O, then I be welcome wherever I keum; But when I have none, O then I pass by, 'Tis poverty pearts good company.
If I should die as it may hap, My greauve shall be under the green yeal tap; In voulded earmes there wool us lie, Cheek by jowl, my dog and I.
The foregoing is a very famous old Gloucestershire ballad, corrected according to the fragments of a MS. found in the Speech-house of Dean several centuries ago, and used to be sung at the meetings of the Gloucestershire Society, a charitable institution held at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand.
Both these ballads are literally copied from the Broadsides.
H. G. D.
THE CAXTON COFFER.
The biographers of Caxton may be divided into two classes; those who wrote before the publication of the _Typographical antiquities_, A.D. 1749, and those who wrote after that date. The same distinction may be made with regard to those who have incidentally noticed his life or publications.
The principal writers of the first period are Leland, Bale, Stow, Pits, Fuller, Nicolson, Middleton, Birch, Oldys, Lewis and Tanner. At the present moment, I must content myself with a critical remark on the mode in which Leland has been so often quoted. The first passage contains the expression to which I allude.
(1.) "Gulielmus Caxodunus, _Angliæ prototypographus_, hæc, aut similia his, Anglice refert" etc.
(2.) "Quanquam priusquam id, quod modo sum pollicitus, præstitero, non alienum meo erit instituto palam facere _Gulielmum Caxodunum_, hominem nec indiligentem, nec indoctum, _et quem constat primum_ LONDINI _artem exercuisse typographicam_, Chauceri opera, quotquot vel pretio vel precibus comparare potuit, in unum volumen collegisse."
The incidental expression _Angliæ prototypographus_ has been considered as a proof that Leland discredited the typographical claims of Oxford. The second quotation conveys an opposite notion. I tax no one, however, with unfairness, but ascribe the oversight to reliance on the _Index scriptorum à Joanne Lelando laudatorum_, which refers only to the first quotation.
BOLTON CORNEY.
Minor Notes.
_Note on the Duration of Reigns._--As Mr. Clinton and others have endeavoured to invalidate Newton's conclusions with respect to the length of reigns, by examples from modern history, I have made a Note on that subject which may be of use. Taking in the times which may be supposed most to resemble those to which the question refers, we find in England, from Alfred to the Conquest, 13 kings in 166 years:
From 1066 to 1272 8 kings 206 yrs. From 1272 to 1837 27 " 565 "
An average on the whole of 19-1/2 years.
If we add the time from Egbert, 5 kings, 73 yrs., the average becomes 19 yrs.
The average from 1272 is only 21.
In France 559 to 814 18 kings 255 yrs. " 814 1830 47 " 1016 "
Average 19-1/2.
Average from 814 only 21-1/2.
In Germany 840 to 1835 50 emper. 995 yrs. Average not 20.
Turks 1299 to 1808, 30 sover. 509 yrs. Average 17.
Scotland 1057 to 1567, 20 kings 510 yrs. Average 25-1/2
Spain 1479 to 1833, 14 kings 354 yrs. Average 25.
Portugal 1102 to 1826, 27 kings 724 yrs. Average not 21.
Denmark 1157 to 1839, 28 kings 672 yrs. Average 25.
Russia 1722 to 1825, 9 sover. 103 yrs. Average 11-1/2 yrs.
Total: 294 sovereigns, 6085 years; being an average of about 20-2/3, although including the latest times. It is evidently unfair to take recent times only, as Hales, Clinton, &c. do.
ALTRON.
_Cock and Bull Story._--One of your correspondents, in a late reply (Vol. iv., p. 243.), alludes to "a marvellous or _cock and bull_ story." Query, as to the origin of this saying. From an early number of the _Phonetic Journal_ made the following Note.
Dr. Burgess, a Methodist preacher, who often indulged in pointed remarks, perceiving some young men attending his preaching, whose behaviour plainly showed that amusement was their only object, turned his discourse, and addressed himself particularly to them as follows:--
"Young men, I know you are come to hear a story, and I will tell you one. There was once a man, a cock, and a bull, who, being intimate, agreed to travel together. They had not gone far on their journey when they found themselves on the brink of a river, which they had determined to cross, but could discover neither bridge nor ferry. After a consultation it was agreed the cock should first make the attempt of crossing the water, which he did without much difficulty; the bull afterwards plunged into the stream, and by mere strength waded through. The man, not being able to swim, was afraid to follow his companions; and while they were encouraging him from the other side to get over, he was observed to cut some osiers which grew by the water-side. Perhaps you imagine these were intended to form a vehicle for conveying him across the river? No such thing, I assure you. What other purpose could he design them for? I will tell you, young men; it was to lash the backs of those fools who chose to hear a story of a cock and a bull, rather than the word of God."
PHILIP S. KING.
"_Multa renascentur_," _&c._--To show how stories are made standing dishes with what we may call _current sauce_ (no pun intended), take the following:--If we believe anything to have happened in our own day, that is, in Liverpool or Castlereagh time, it is the anecdote of the borough-monger who would answer nothing to the excuses of the minister, except "There are five of us." This story was told as an old one in the _Telegraph_ in 1798; and a long dialogue was given between Lord Falmouth, who wanted the Captaincy of the Yeomen of the Guard, and Henry Pelham, who had promised it elsewhere. To all the poor minister could say, the peer could only answer, "There are _seven_ of us." I hope that, in an age when coincidences are sought for, Wordsworth will not be suspected of plagiarism.
Again, what reader of gossip does not know that when George III. went to Weymouth, the Mayor, in making his address, mistook the private directions of his prompter for parts of his address, and gave it the King as follows:--"Hold up your head, and look like a man--what the ---- do you mean?... By ----, Sir, you'll ruin us all." This story was told in a newspaper in 1797, as having happened between James II. and the Mayor of Winchester.
In the _Monthly Magazine_ in 1798, is a paper on peculiarities of expression, among which are several which we flatter ourselves belong to our own time. For instance, "to _cut_ a person," which was then current: some tried to change it into _spear_, but failed. Also, to _vote_, as in "he voted it a bad lounge;" and the words _bore_, _done up_, _dished_, &c.; not forgetting _spilt_ for "upset" in a carriage.
The parliamentary phrases of "catching the speaker's eye," "being upon his legs," "meeting the ideas of the house," "committing himself," "taking shame to himself," "being free to confess," "putting a question roundly," "answering it fairly," "pushing an investigation," are all noted as then worthy of remark. And, if we are to trust the article cited, the word _truism_ was born and bred in the House of Commons, in the sense of a forcible and undeniable truth. And the same origin is given to the idiom "in my own mind" as in "I feel no doubt, in my own mind,..."
M.
_Corruptions recognised as acknowledged Words._--I recollect two curious historical instances of mere vulgar mis-pronunciation, which have established themselves in use; perhaps others of your readers may mention more, which it would be interesting to trace to their origin.
_Massaniello_ is universally recognised as the name of the celebrated Neapolitan insurrectionist, who at one time nearly overturned the government of that kingdom. How few who use the word are aware that "Mas-Aniello" is but a corruption of _Thomas Aniello_, so pronounced by his vulgar companions, and now raised to the dignity of an historical name.
_Hougoumont_ is a conspicuous feature of the great field of Waterloo, and a name familiarly used in speaking of the famous battle; in course of time it will be forgotten that this is a mere mistake, said to have originated with the great general who achieved the victory, catching up from the peasantry around, the sound of _Chateau Goumont_, the real name of the little rural demesne in question. Nobody doubts, however, the right of the "Great Duke" to call a place he has made so famous by any name he might please to apply, and so _Hougoumont_ it will remain while history lasts.
A. B. R.
Queries.
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND BOTHWELL'S CONFESSION.