superstitions concerning these little do- O qui meæ culine. -Bourne's Poematia, edit. 1764, p. 133. hicles near the gate leading from_Wind- | magicians: there is no doubt that our sor-street to Barnes on Lower Putney Common. The Wimbledon Cricket Club has periodically printed for the use of its members an account of the matches and scores since the establishment of the institution in 1871. Lord's Cricket Ground, still so celebrated, owed its name to Thos. Lord, one of the attendants at the White Conduit Club at the end of the 18th century. Lord subsequently_established the Marylebone Club, now Lord's. Smith, in his Book for a Rainy Day, 1861, tells us that in 1803 the Duke of Dorset, Lord Winchelsea, Lord Talbot, and others, played at this game in an open field near White Conduit House. The Marylebone Club appears to have been one of the more prominent institutions of this character in old days. In 1823 Henry Bentley printed "A correct Account of all the Cricket Matches which have been played by the Mary-le-Bone Club and all the other principal Matches from 1786 to 1822," and in 1825 appeared at Basingstoke a small duodecimo volume entitled "Laws of the game of Cricket as revised by the Cricket Club at St. Marylebone.' The encouragement of the game in Kent was largely due to Sir Horace Mann, the correspondent of Horace Walpole. Mann, with the Duke of Dorset and Lord Tanker ville, presidents of the Surrey and Hants Elevens, Sir William Draper and others, formed a committee, which met at the Star and Garter, in Pall Mall, and drew up rules for the game, about 1770. In the Kentish Gazette for April, 1794, is an advertisement of a game of cricket to be played under the auspices of Sir Horace Mann at Harrietsham on ponies. incidental particulars about the game and those who were distinguished as players under George II. and George III., may be gathered from the Notes by Scriblerus Maximus to an heroic poem entitled Cricket, published without date, and dedicated to John Earl of Sandwich (1729-92). The Kentish men appear at this time to have held high rank as cricketers. But the game had evidently been long ere this well established. The men of Wareham in Sussex, also acquired in the eighteenth century a great name for their proficiency in the sport. Lower's Compend. Hist. of Sussex, 1870, ii., 231. Dr. Furnivall informs me that he met, in a 17th century book, with the term yorker in the use of a ball, which is so pitched by the bowler as to strike the ground between the batsman's feet, and make it impossible for him to hit it. Comp. Cat and Dog, &c., and see Halliwell in v. ney was to be viewed in the same unfavvourable light. Dodsley's Old Plays, 1780, vi. 357. In the Spectator's day the voice of the cricket was held to be potent for good or evil. In Dryden and Lee's Edipus," it is even ranked with the owl and the raven, birds of the worst omen. To come to a more modern and intelligent writer, White of Selborne obhousewife's barometer, foretelling her serves to us: "they" (crickets)" are the when it will rain, and are prognostic sometimes, she thinks, of ill or good luck, of the death of a near relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being the constant companions of her solitary hours, they naturally become the objects of her Tender insects, that live superstition. Some abroad, either enjoy only the short period of one summer, or else doze away the cold, bers; but these residing, as it were, in a uncomfortable months in profound slumtorrid zone, are always alert and merry; heats of the dog-days. Though they are a good Christmas fire is to them like the frequently heard by day, yet it is their natural time of motion in the night." Cricket, The. Pliny mentions the cricket as much esteemed by the ancient Croquet. A game probably of French origin, as it is depicted in an engraving, dated 1624, by Callot, representing the players at Nancy in Lorraine at that time. It is said in some verses accompanying the series of prints, of which this forms one, to be a diversion of the spring of the year. A Wimbledon correspondent of Notes and Queries (Jan. 4, 1873), thus describes the illustration: straight walk, running between parterres, The scene of the pastime is a broad, and apparently 100 feet in length. either end is erected a single hoop, of width and height seemingly 21 feet. Several balls are grouped close At to one of these hoops, round which stand some players, mallet in hand; while, a few feet in front of the other hoop, another player is about to deliver a stroke, and is evidently aiming to send his ball up among its companions near the goal opposite him. Mallets, balls, hoops, and players, though on a minute scale, are all so distinctly drawn, that no mistake can occur in perceiving at a glance the action of performers and the instruments of performance. All the players are males; and in this respect most certainly the croquet which was going on before Callot's eyes at Nancy, in the Year of Grace, 1624, is sadly at a disadvantage, when compared with the modern reproduction. Cross.-Hall, in his "Characters," 1608, speaking of the superstitious man, says: Some wayes he will not go, and some he dares not; either there are bugs, or he faineth them. Every lanterne is a ghost, and every noise is of chaines. He knows not why, but his custom is to go a little about, and to leave the Cross still on the right hand." In Articles to be enquired of within the Archdeaconry of Yorke, 1640, I find the following:"Whether at the death of any there be praying for the dead at crosses, or places where crosses have been, in the way to the church." In "The Canterburian's SelfConviction,' 1640, chap. 6. is this passage: "They avow that signing with the signe of the Crosse at rysing or lying downe, at going out or coming in, at lighting of candles, closing of windowes, or any such action, is not only a pious and profitable ceremonie, but a very apostolick tradition." The following very curious "Old Wives' Prayer" is found in Herrick's "Hesperides," p. 205: "Holy-rood, come forth and shield Us ith' citie, and the field: Safely guard us, now and aye, From the blast that burns by day; And those sounds that us affright In the dead of dampish night. Drive all hurtful Feinds us fro, By the time the cocks first crow.' Pennant, in bis "Tours in Wales," says: "At the delivery of the bread and wine at the Sacrament, several, before they receive the bread or cup, though held out to them, will flourish a little with their thumb, something like making the figure of the Cross. They do it (the women mostly) when they say their prayers on their first coming to church.' In Boswell's "Life of Johnson," it is observed: "In days of superstition they thought that holding the poker before the fire would drive away the witch, who hindered the fire from burning, as it made the sign of the Cross." Cross and Pile.-See Heads and Tails. Cross Days.-These are the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday preceding Holy Thursday in Rogation Week. They are referred to under this name in the Plumpton Correspondence, under date of May 18, 1501. It appears that in North Wales, among the slate quarrymen of Penrhyn, there is a superstition still prevalent that, if any work is done on Ascension Day, some accidents will follow, and the Daily News of June 10, 1878, reports that "during last week thousands of men employed at the Welsh slate quarries here refused to work on Ascension Thursday." It adds: "A few years ago the agents persuaded the men to break through the superstitious observance, and there were accidents each year, a not unlikely occurrence, seeing the extent of the works carried on and the dangerous occupation of the men. This year, however, the men one and all refused to work." Cross in Writing.—I have no doubt but that this is a remain of Popery. Thus persons, who cannot write, are directed to make their marks, instead of signing their names, which is generally done in the form of a cross. From the form of a cross at the beginning of a horn-book, the alphabet is called the Christ-Cross row. The cross used in shop books Butler seems to derive from the same origin: "And some against all idolizing The cross in shop-books or baptizing." Hudibras, p. 3, c. 2, 1. 313. The round O of a milk-score is, if I mistake not, also marked with a cross for a shilling, though unnoted by Lluellin in a passage where he speaks of the barmaid writing "For a tester half a moone, And a great round O for a shilling.” A not unusual superscription to early letters was a cross with or without the word Jesus. Dalrymple, in his "Travels in Spain," says, that there "not a woman gets into a coach to go a hundred yards, nor a postillion on his horse, without crossing themselves. Even the tops of tavernbills and the directions of letters are marked with crosses." Cross-Legged. Sir Thomas Browne cites Pliny for the opinion of the ancients that to sit cross-legged was unlucky and improper, and Athenæus for the fact, that it was regarded as a practice which had power to hinder childbirth. Park, on the contrary, noted in his copy of Bourne and Brand: "To sit cross-legged, I have always understood, was intended to produce good or fortunate consequences. Hence it was employed as a charm at school by one boy who wished well for finding of which, by fair means, is supposed to be ominous of the finder's being first married." Crowdie is made by pour ring it a little. It is eaten with milk or butter. The more modern manner of preparing is described in the Muse Anglicana, 1689, ii., 86. Crow-Keeper.-See Nares, Glossary, in v., and Hazlitt's Proverbs, 1882, p. 181. another, in order to deprecate some punishment which both might tremble to have incurred the expectation of. At a cardtable, I have also caught some superstiti-ing boiling water over oat-meal and stirous players sitting cross-legged with a view of bringing good luck." It was a point of belief that a witch, by sitting cross-legged, could prevent a woman's delivery, and Heywood, in his "Silver Age," 1613, has bestowed on Juno this power, where the goddess hinders the labour of Alcmena. The dramatist followed the classical legend to a certain extent, while he made it conform to the superstitious creed of his own country. Flecknoe, speaking of your fanatick reformers, " "Had they their will, a bird should not fly in the air with its wings across, a ship with its crossyard sail upon the sea, nor prophane taylor sit cross-legged on his shop-board, or have cross-bottoms to winde his thread upon. This whimsical detestation of the cross-form, no doubt, took its rise from the odium at that time against everything derived from Popery. says: Cross Monday. In Bridges "History of Northamptonshire" are recorded various instances of having processions on Cross Monday. Cross Point.-See Horse-Trick. Cross-Questions.—Said to be a game by Nares, Glossary, in v. Perhaps allied to Questions and Commands, and to Cross-Questions and Cross-Answers. Compare Hazlitt's Handbook and Bibl. Coll. v. Breton, and Children's Games suprâ. Cross Ruff. This is a species of ruff, a game at cards. There was ruff (q.v.), double-ruff, and cross-ruff. In A Notable Discovery of Cosenage, 1591, the preface states, among other matters, how the author, going into the West of England, found at a country ale-house half-adozen farmers playing at cross-ruff, and hoped to win all their money, when he found to his disappointment that they had read Greene's exposure of conycatchers, and were on their guard. This, with others, is quoted in Poor Robin's Almanac " for 1693: "Christmas to hungry stomachs gives relief, With mutton, pork, pies, pasties, and roast beef: And men at cards spend many idle hours, At loadum, whisk, cross-ruff, put, and all-fours." Crowdie.-In Scotland, Eden says, they used to eat crowdie on Shrove Tuesday, as in England they did pancakes. He adds: "On this day there is always put into the bason or porringer, out of which the unmarried folks are to eat, a ring, the Cry. See Auctions, where the employment of the Preco or Crier is recorded. But the cry was used on a multifarious diversity of occasions: 1, for the announcement of the issue of new money; 2, for the publication of the decrees of Councils; 3, for the advertisement of plays to be performed; 4, for the recovery of lost property; 5, for proclaiming the approach of royal or high personages to their seats; 6, for the notification of any local event, not only prior to typography and journalism, but down to the present time in some rural districts. In ancient times the crier or usher carried, not a bell, but a trumpet. Lacroix, Mœurs et Usages, 1872, p. 337; Hazlitt's Venetian Republic, 1900, ii., 355, 457; Hazlitt's Monograph on Shakespear, 1902, p. 103. The heraldic Oyez and the legal Oyer and Terminer are evolutions from the ancient use of the cry in manifold cases; and Oyentia is a feudal term for the public indication of the time for paying a periodical tribute. Maigne D'Arnis Lexicon Media et Infimæ Latinitatis, 1856, in v. Cry Coke. To cry Coke is in vulgar language synonymous with crying PecCoke, says Ruddiman, in his Glossary Douglas's "Virgil," the sound which Cocks utter, especiwhen ally they from beaten, Skinner which of opinion they have the name of Cock. is are Crying the Mare.-There is a harvest sport in Hertfordshire, called "Crying the Mare" (it is the same in Shropshire), when the reapers tie together the tops of the last blades of corn, which is throw their sickles at it, and he who cuts Mare, and standing at some distance, and good cheer. I was informed of the the knot, has the prize, with acclamations following custom on this occasion at Hitchin in the same county where each farmer his corn, while the people run after him drives furiously home with the last load of with bowls full of water in order to throw on it: this is also accompanied with great shouting. Blount tells us farther that "after the knot is cut, then they cry with a loud voice three times, I have her.' Others answer, as many times, 'What have you?'-'Amare, a mare, a mare.' Crying the Nack.-A harvest custom in Dorsetshire and Devonshire. A correspondent of Notes and Queries writes: "I was present last year at a farm in North Devon where the curious old custom of "calling the nack was observed. The reapers were gathered round a pond, where they sang three times, first in low tones, gradually increasing in loudness, the words: : 66 Arnack, arnack, arnack, We haven, we haven, we haven, Whose is she?' thrice also. J. B. | cucking-stool was an engine invented for owner three (naming the times).- the punishment of scolds and unquiet Whither will you send her?''To J. à women, by ducking them in the water, Nicks,' (naming some neighbour who has after having placed them in a stool or not all his corn reaped); then they all chair fixed at the end of a long pole, by shout three times, and so the ceremony which they were immerged in some muddy ends with good cheer. "In Yorkshire upon or stinking pond. Blount tells us that the like occasion they have a Harvest some think it a corruption from ducking Dame, in Bedfordshire a Jack and a stool, but that others derive it from Gill." Choaking Stool. Though of the most remote antiquity, it is now, it should seem, totally disused. An essayist in the "Gentleman's Magazine," for May, 1732, observes that "The stools of infamy are the ducking stool, and the stool of repentance. The first was invented for taming female shrews. Lysons gives us a curious extract from the churchwardens' and chamberlain's accounts at Kingston-uponThames in 1572, which contains a bill of expenses for making one of these cucking stools, which, he says, must have been much in use formerly, as there are frequent entries of money paid for its repair. Environs, i., 233. Blakehis History of Shrewsbury, 1779, p. 172, furnishes the subjoined entries:"1572. The making of the cucking stool, 8s. ; iron work for the same, 3s. ; timber for the same, 7s. 6d. ; 3 brasses for the same and three wheels, 4s. 10d." There is an order of the Corporation of Shrewsbury, 1669, that "A ducking stool be erected, for the punishment of all scolds." Borlase tells us that: "Among the punishments inflicted in Cornwall, of old time, was that of the cocking-stool, a seat of infamy where strumpets and scolds, with bare foot and head, were condemned to abide the derision of those that passed by, for such time as the bailiffs of manors, tion, did appoint. Nat. Hist. of Cornwall, which had the privilege of such jurisdicP. 303. A certificate of the punishment of an incorrigible scold by ducking, dated 1673, and addressed by the churchwardens of Waddington, co. York, to Thomas Parker, Esq., of Browsholme, hereditary bowbearer of Bolland Forest under the Duke of Buccleuch, is to be seen in "Current Notes " for December, 1855. After which they all laughed and shouted. Cucking, or Goging Stool.Called also a tumbrel, tribuch, and trebuchet; also a thewe. In the "Prompto; rium Parvulorum," Esyn, or Cukkyn," is interpreted by stercoriso: and in the Domesday Survey," in the account of the City of Chester," we read: "Vir sive mulier falsam mensuram in civitate faciens deprehensus, iiii. solid. emendab'. Similiter malam servisiam faciens, aut in Cathedrâ, ponebatur Stercoris, aut iiii. solid. dab' prepositis." See Cowel in v. ex Carta Joh. regis, dat. 11 Jun. anno regni 1. It is called thewe in Lambarde's "Eirenarcha," lib. i. c. 12. The following extract from Cowel, in v. Thew, (with the extract just quoted from Lysons) seems to prove this: Georgius Grey Comes Cantii clamat in maner, de Bushton & Ayton punire delinquentes contra Assisam Panis et Corvisiæ, per tres vices per amerciamenta, & quarta vice Pistores per Pilloriam, Braciatores per Tumbrellam, & Rixatrices per Thewe, hoc est, ponere eas super scabellum vocat, a Cucking Stool. Pl. in Itin. apud Cestr. 14 Hen. VII." But comp. Stool of Repentance, infrâ. The way, in In Skene's "Regiam Majestatem, ch. 69, this punishment occurs 28 having been used anciently in Scot land: speaking of Browsters, i.e., "Wemen quha brewes aill to be sauld it is said, "gif she makes gude ail, that is sufficient. Bot gif she makes evill ail, contrair to the use and consuetude of the burgh, and is convict thereof, she sall pay ane unlaw of aucht shillinges, or sal suffer the justice of the burgh, that is, she sall be put upon the cock-stule, and the aill sall be distributed to the pure folke." Braithwaite, speaking of a Xantippean, says: "He (her husband) vowes therefore to bring her in all disgrace to the cucking-| be seen within a few years on the banks of stoole and shee vowes againe to bring him the Stour at Fordwich in Kent. Some adwith all contempt, to the stoole of repent-ditional particulars, illustrating this obsoance." Whimzies, 1631, p. 182. In one lete usage, but to the same purport, were of the jest-books, there is the following printed in Willis's "Current Notes" for anecdote : Some gentlemen travelling, February and April, 1854. See Wright and and coming near to a town, saw an old Fairholt's Archaeological Album, 1845, p. woman spinning near the ducking stool: 49-54, and Halliwell's Dict., 1860, in v. one, to make the company merry, asked Morant, speaking of Canuden, in the hunthe good woman what that chair was made dred of Rochford, mentions "Cuckingstole for? Said she, you know what it is. In- Croft, as given for the maintenance of a deed, said he, not I, unless it be the chair light in this church, as appears by inquisiyou use to spin in. No, no, said she, you tion, 10 Eliz." Essex, 1., 317. know it to be otherwise: have you not heard that it is the cradle your good mother hath often layn in ?" New Help to These stools Discourse, 1684, p. 216. seem to have been in common use when Misson, the French traveller, visited this country, and when Gay wrote his Pastorals they are thus described by the latter: "I'll speed me to the pond, where the high stool On the long plank hangs o'er the muddy pool, That stool, the dread of every scolding Misson says: "La maniere de punir les CUCKING STOOL. Cuckold. I know not how this word, which is generally derived from cuculus, a cuckoo, has happened to be given to the injured husband, for it seems more properly to belong to the adulterer, the cuckoo being well known to be a bird that deposits its eggs in other bird's nests. The Romans seemed to have used this cuculus in its proper sense as the adulterer, calling with equal propriety the cuckold himself Carruca or hedge - sparrow, which bird is well known to adopt the other's spurious offspring. Richardson and Worcester, in their Dictionaries, endorse Tooke's etymology of cuckold, which seems, after all, to be the correct one, namely, cucol, from the Italian cucolo, a cuckoo; the word should be cucol, as in some of our old writers, and not cucold (or cuckold), and we get the word from the past participle of the English verb formed from the Italian substantive : cucolo, cucol, cucol'd. Douce says: "That the word cuculus was a term of reproach amongst the antients there is not the least doubt, and that it was used in the sense of our cuckold is equally clear. Plautus has so |