with their hawks and hounds, and their bugle horns in silken bawderies. "In the last age every gentleman-like man kept a sparrow-hawke, and a priest kept a hobby, as Dame Julien Berners teaches us (who wrote a treatise on field sports in Henry VIth's time). "It was a diversion for young gentlemen to man sparrow-hawks and morlines. "Before the Reformation there were no poor's rates, the charitable doles given at the religious houses, and the church ale in every parish, did the business. "In every parish there was a church-house, to which belonged spits, potts, &c. for dressing provision. Here the housekeepers met, and were merry, and gave their charity. The young people came there too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts, &c. Mr. A. Wood assures me there were few or no alms-houses before the time of Henry VIII.; that at Oxon, opposite Christ church, was one of the most antient in England. "In every church was a poor's box, and the like at great inns. "Before the wake or feast of the dedication of the church, they sat there all night, fasting and praying, viz. on the eve of the wake. "In the Easter holydays was the clerks ale for his benefit, and the solace of the neighborhood. "In these times, besides the jollitys above mentioned, they had their pilgrimages to several shrines, 1 shrines, as to Walsingham, Canterbury, Glastonbury, Bromholm, &c. Then the crusades to the holy wars were magnificent and splendid, and gave rise to the adventures of knights-errant and romances. The solemnity attending processions in and about churches, and the perambulations in the fields, were great diversions also of those times. "Glass windows in churches and gentlemen's houses were rare before the time of Henry VIII. In my own remembrance, before the civil wars, copyholders and poor people had none. In Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, and Salop, it is so still. About 90 years ago, noblemen's and gentlemen's coats were of the fashion of the beadles and yeomen of the guard, (i. e.) gather'd at the middle. The benchers in the inns of court yet retain that fashion in the make of their gowns. "Captain Silas Taylor says, that, in days of yore, when a church was to be built, they watched and prayed on the vigil of the dedication, and took that part of the horizon when the sun arose for the East, which makes that variation, so that few stand true except those built between the two equinoxes. "I have experimented some churches, and found the line to point to the horizon where the sun rises on the day of that Saint to whom the church is dedicated. "In Scotland, especially among the Highland ers, the women make a curtesy to the new moon, and our English women in this country have a touch of this. Some of them sitting astride on a gate or stile the first evening the new moon appears, and say, 'A fine moon; God bless her!" The like I observed in Hertfordshire. "The Britains received the knowledge of husbandry from the Romans. The foot and the acre which we yet use is the nearest to them. In our West Country, and, I believe, in the North, they give no wages to the shepherd; but he has the keeping so many sheep with his master's flock. "Plautus hints at this in his Asinaria, act iii. s. 1. Etiam Opilio,' &c. "The Normans brought with them into England civility and building, which, though it was Gothic, was yet magnificent. Upon any Upon any occasion of bustling in those days, great lords sounded their trumpets, and summoned those that held under them. Old Sir Walter Long of Draycot kept a trumpeter, rode with thirty servants and retainers: hence the sheriff's trumpets at this day. No younger brothers then were to betake themselves to trade, but were churchmen or retainers to great men. "From the time of Erasmus to about 20 years last past, the learning was downright pedantry. The conversation and habits of those times were as starcht as their bands and square beards, and gravity was then taken for wisdom. The doc tors tors in those days were but old boys, when quibbles passed for wit even in their sermons. "The gentry and citizens had little learning of any kind, and their way of breeding up their children was suitable to the rest. They were as severe to their children as their schoolmasters, and their schoolmasters as severe as masters of the house of correction. The child perfectly loathed the sight of the parent as the slave his torture. Gentlemen of thirty or forty years old were to stand like mutes and fools bareheaded before their parents, and the daughters (well grown women) were to stand at the cupboard-side during the whole time of the proud mother's visits, unless (as the fashion was) leave was desired forsooth that a cushion should be given them to kneel upon, brought them by the serving-man, after they had done sufficient penance in standing. "The boys (I mean young fellows) had their foreheads turned up, and stiffened with spittle; they were to stand mannerly forsooth, thus the foretop ordered as before, with one hand at the band-string, the other behind the breech or codpeice. "The gentlemen then had prodigious fans, as is to be seen in old pictures, like that instrument which is used to drive feathers; and it had a handle at least one half as long, with which their daughters oftentimes were corrected. "Sir !! "Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice, rode the circuit with such a fan; Sir William Dugdale told me he was an eye-witness of it. "The Earl of Manchester also used such a fan; but the fathers and mothers slasht their daughters, in the time of their besom discipline, when they were perfect women. "At Oxford (and, I believe, also at Cambridge), the rod was frequently used by the tutors and deans; and Dr. Potter of Trinity College, I knew right well, whipt his pupil with his sword by his side, when he came to take his leave of him to go to the Inns of Court." END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. Printed by J. Nichols and Son, |