It bereth no leaues tyll the day of Saynt Barnabe, And than that tree that standeth in the grounde Sproteth his leaues as fayre as any other tree." And Manningham, in his Diary, May 2, 1602, speaking of Glastonbury, says: "There is a walnut-tree which hath no leaues before Barnabies Day in June, and then it beginns to bud, and after becomes as forward as any other." The diarist was indebted for this piece of intelligence to a friend. According to the old style, this was Midsummer Day, and hence came the proverb: Barnaby bright, Barnaby bright The longest day and the shortest night." Barnaby bright is the popular name of the lady-bird in some localities, probably from this insect being seen more about St. Barnabas' Day than at any other. For two other curious particulars relative to this day the reader may be referred to the "Book of Days (June 11).” are un Barnacles. Suaverius refers to barnacles in his MS. Diary (1535), giving an account Scotish of English and customs, &c. : There are trees (he says) in Scotland from which birds is produced: he is told it doubtedly true; those birds which fall from the trees into water become animated, but those which fall to the ground do not; the figures of birds are found in the heart of the wood of the trees and on the root the birds themselves (which are very delicate eating) do not generate. "There are." (says Gerarde, in his "Herbal," edit. 1597, p. 1391) "in the North parts of Scotland certaine trees, whereon do grow shell-fishes, &c., &c., which, falling into the water, do become fowls, whom we call Barnakles, in the North of England Brant Geese, and in Lincolnshire Tree Geese,' &c. It seems hardly conceivable that so gross an error in natural history could so long have prevailed, as that the barnacle, a well known kind of shell-fish, which is found sticking on the bottom of ships, should when broken off become a species of goose. Yet old writers of the first credit in other respects have fallen into this mistaken and ridiculous notion: and we find no less an authority than Holinshed gravely declaring that with his own eyes he saw the feathers of these barnacles "hang out of the shell at least two inches." "That Scottish barnacle, if I might choose, That of a worme doth waxe a winged goose." Hall's l'irgid. iv. 2. nonce: I wrong the devil should I lick their bones. That fall is his; for when the Scots decease, Hell, like their nation, feeds on barnacles. A Scot, when from the gallows-tree got loose, Drops into Styx, and turns a Scotland goose." Cleveland's Rebel Scot, 1647. best account of these mythical The creatures is to be found in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song xxvii. Barnwell Fair. The reputation of this Fair does not seem to have been very good in Heywood's time, for in his "If you know not me,' ," &c., 1605, that writer makes Hobson say: "Bones a me, knave, thou'rt welcome. What's the news At bawdy Barnwell, and at Stourbridge fair?" The place was so called. says the editor of "England's Gazeteer," 1751, (enlarged from Adams' 'Index Villaris." 1690), "from the wells of children or bearns, because they used to meet here for sport on St. John's Eve; so that it came at last to be what is now called Midsummer Fair." It is to be concluded that the deplorable fire which, in 1727, committed dreadful havoc among the spectators at a puppetshow in a barn, happened at this season. The scene of one of Scogin's jests is laid at Barnwell Fair. Barring Out.—See Bromfield and Eton. But the usage does not seem to have been limited to these places. Bartholomew Baby. In describing “a zealous brother," Braithwaite "No season through all the yeere says: accounts hee more subject to abhomination than Bartholomew faire: their drums, hobbihorses, rattles, babies, iewtrumps, nay pigs and all, are wholly Iudaicall." The roasted pigs at St. Bartholomew's Fair are also noticed in "Poor Robin's Almanack" for 1677. "Poor Robin " for 1695 has this passage: "It also tells farmers what manner of wife they shall choose, not one trickt up with ribbens and knots like a Bartholomew Baby, for such an one will prove a Holy-day wife, all play and no work, And he who with such kind of wife is sped, Better to have one made of gingerbread." p. -Whimzies, 1631, p. 300. In Nabbes's "Totenham Court," 1638, 47, is the following: "I have pack't her up in't, like a Bartholomew-babie in a boxe. I warrant you for hurting her." Bartholomew, St., the Apostle. (August 24). 66 of tape, or ribbin, in's hand, showing his art of legerdemaine, to the admiration and astonishment of a company of cockoloaches. Amongst these, you shall see a gray goose-cap, (as wise as the rest), with a what do ye lacke, in his mouth, stand in his boothe, shaking a rattle, or scraping on a fiddle, with which children are so taken, that they presentlie cry out for these fopperies and all these together make such a distracted noise, that you would thinck Babell were not comparable to it. Here there are also your gamesters in action: some turning of a whimsey, others throwing for pewter who can quickly dissolve a round shilling into a three halfepeny saucer. Long Lane at this time looks very faire, and puts out her best cloaths, with the wrong side outward, so turn'd for their better turning off: and Cloth Faire is now in great request: well fare the alehouses therein, yet better may a man fare, (but at a dearer rate) in the Pig-Market, alias Pasty-Nooke, or Pye-Corner, where pigges are al houres of the day on the stalls piping hot, and would cry (if they could speak), come eate me." The fat greasy hostesse in these houses instructs Nick Froth, her tapster, to aske a shilling more for a pig's head of a woman big with child, in regard of her longing, than of another ordinary cumer. Some of your cutpurses are in fee with cheating costermongers, who have a trick, now and then, to throw downe a basket of refuge peares, which prove choake-peares to those that shall loose their Hats or Cloakes in striving who shall gather fastest. ["Da was fe eahtoða dæg pæs kalendes Septembres, pe man au þa tid wurðað Sæ Bartholomei pas apoftoles, pa se eadiga mer Guðlac com to pære forefprecenan ftowe, to Cruwlande."-Anglo-Saxon Verfion of the Life of St. Guthlac, ed. Goodwin, p. 22-4.] Gough mentions an ancient custom at Croyland Abbey, of giving little knives to all comers on St. Bartholomew's Day. This abuse, he says. was abolished by Abbot John de Wisbech, in the time of Edward the Fourth, exempting both the abbot and convent from a great and needless expence. This custom originated in allusion to the knife, wherewith St. Bartholomew was flayed. Three of these knives were quartered with three of the whips so much used by St. Guthlac in one coat borne by this house. Mr. Hunter had great numbers of them, of different sizes, found at different times in the ruins of the abbey and in the river. We have engraved three from drawings in the Minute Books of the Spalding Society, in whose drawers one is still preserved. These are adopted as the device of a town-piece, called the 'Poores Halfepeny of Croyland,' 1670.". History of Croyland Abbey, p. 73. In Stephens' "Essayes and Characters," 1615. we read: "Like a booksellers shoppe on Bartholomew Day at London: the stalls of which are so adorn'd with Bibles and The pickpockets and cutpurses did not Prayer-bookes, that almost nothing is left within, but heathen knowledge." Bartholomew Fair. In a tract entitled, "Bartholomew Faire or variety of fancies," 1641, occurs this account: "Bartholomew Faire begins on the twentyfourth day of August, and is then of so vast an extent, that it is contained in no less than four several parishes, namely Christ Church, Great and Little St. Bartholomewes, and St. Sepulchres. Hither resort people of all sorts and conditions. Christ Church cloisters are now hung full of pictures. It is remarkable and worth your observation to beholde and heare the strange sights and confused noise in the faire. Here, a knave in a fooles coate, with a trumpet sounding, or on a drumme beating, invites you to see his puppets: there, a rogue like a wild woodman, or in an antick shape like an Incubus, desires your company to view his motion: on the other side, hocus pocus, with three yards Now farewell to the Faire: you who are wise, Preserve your purses, whilst you please your eyes. spare anyone. In "A Caveat for Cut- What secret consumptions and rascals Pepys, under date of August 25, 1663, says: "It seems this Lord Mayor (Sir John Robinson) begins again an old custome, that upon the three first days of Bartholomew Fayre, the first, there is a match of wrestling, which was done, and the Lord Mayor there and the Aldermen in Moorfields yesterday: second day, shooting; and to-morrow hunting. And this officer of course is to perform this ceremony of riding through the City. I think to proclaim or challenge any to shoot. It seems that the people of the fayre cry out upon it, as a great hindrance to them." Sir John Bramston, in his Autobiography, p. 315, under the date of 1688, refers to the annual custom by which the Lord Mayor proclaimed St. Bartholomew Fair on that Saint's Eve, and riding past Newgate was accustomed to receive from the keeper or governor a cup of sack. In Wit and Drollery, 1682, p. 227, we have: "Now London Mayor, in Saddle new: Rides into fair of Bartholomew: He twirles his Chain, and looketh big, As he would fright the head of Pig: Which gaping lies on greasy stall Ladies were fond of attending Bartholomew Fair. In a little work printed in 1688, it is observed: "Some women are for merry-meetings, as Bessus was for duck; they are ingaged in a Circle of Idleness, where they turn round for the whole year, without the interruption of a serious hour, they know all the players names & are intimately acquainted with all the booths in Bartholomew Fair. The Lady's New Year's Gift, or Advice to a Daughter, p. 187. In 1711, an attempt was made without success to extend the duration of the fair to fourteen days, and a tract was published and specially addressed by the author to the civic authorities, to oppose and denounce the project. It is said, on the authority of Mrs. Piozzi, that, during a whole year, Andrew Johnson, the doctor's uncle, kept the ring here, where the boxing and wrestling took place, and was not once beaten. Perhaps his nephew inherited from him his burly appearance. In Current Notes for February. 1851, are some memoranda by Theodore Hook, from a copy of Ackermann's Microcosm of London, in one of which he notes the occupation of the site of Bartholomew Fair by Billingsgate Market. Charles Lamb, in one of his letters to Coleridge, speaks of the Wordsworths being in town, and of his having been their guide over the Fair, in September, 1802. Rimbault, in his "Book of Songs and Ballads." 1851, has printed from rare musical works two or three ballads illus. trative of the old usages and scenes at Bartholomew Fair. The entertainments appear, from all accounts, to have been of the most various description, with a view, doubtless, to the satisfaction of every taste. The puppet-shows and drolls included St. George and the Dragon, Guy of Warwick, Judith and Holofernes, Robin Hood (an opera), the Quaker's Opera, Susanna and the Elders, Dives and Lazarus, Punchinello, The Devil and the Pope, and the Whore of Babylon. The charac ter of the performances at Bartholomew Fair, a little later on, seems to have been singularly heterogeneous; for Strutt quotes a bill of the beginning of the eighteenth century, which announces that, "at Heatly's booth, over against the Cross Daggers, will be presented a little opera, called The old creation of the world, newly reviv'd, with the addition of the glorious battle obtained over the French and Spaniards by his Grace the Duke of Marlborough." During the reign of George II., the class of entertainment changed somewhat, if we are to judge from the contents of the "Stroler's Pacquet Opened," 1741, which purports to be a collection of the drolls played at Southwark and other fairs at that time. These pieces, sufficiently contemptible in their construction, were. in most cases, formed out of old dramas. Down to the year 1854 it was customary for the representative of the Merchant Taylors' Gild to proceed to Cloth Fair, which immediately joined Bartholomew Fair, and test the measures used for selling cloth there by the Company's silver yard. This very ancient practice expired with the institution. Hazlitt's Livery Companies of London, 1892, p. 280, where a facsimile of the yard is engraved. For a particular account of this fair the reader may be referred to Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair, by the late Professor Morley, 8v., 1859, with illustrations by Fairholt. Also see Hone's Every Day Book, i., 1572. Robin Hood and the Quaker's Opera were printed in 1730 and 1728 respectively with the music. more Basil. In the second part of the Secrets of Alexis of Piedmont, translated by W. Warde, 1563, there is this entry: To make that a woman shall eate of nothing that is set upon the table. "Take a little grene Basil, & when men bring the dishes to the table, pvt it vnderneth them, yt the woman perceiue it not for men saye that she will eate of none of that which is in the dishe where vnder the Basil lieth." The family of aromatic plants, so-called, has long been recognized among the Hindoos as of virtue in protection from malaria, like the Australian eucaliptus, and from the attack of the mosquito, and their great or posed efficacy in either case was naturally very important in tropical regions unprovided with other safeguards sup drest." from contagion with masses of decayed and occupies the Lady before she be animal and vegetable refuse. Basilisk. See Cockatrice. Basset. In a MS. song purporting to proceed from a lady of honour in Queen Flizabeth's days, the supposed speaker, enumerating her virtues and claims to reford," printed in "Collectanea Curiosa, spectful remembrance, says: "I never bought cantharides, Ingredient good in Passett, Nor ever stript me to my stayes To play ye Punt att Bassett." Sir Samuel Tuke, in the Adventures of Five Hours, 1671, an adaptation from Calderon, speaks of the chairmen as engaged a las pintas, the same game as this, where Diego is made to say: They are deeply engaged A las pintas, and will not leave their game, They swear, for all the dons in Seville. -Hazlitt's Dodsley, xv. 265. Bastard. A species of wine. Compare examples from old writers in Nares, Glossary, 1859, in v. Bats. Willsford supplies this item of intelligence: "Bats, or flying mice, come out of their holes quickly after sunset, and sporting themselves in the open air, premonstrates fair and calm weather.' Nature's Secrets, 1658, p. 134. Compare Weather Omens. Battledore or Shuttle-cock.It is as old as the fourteenth century. Skelton has the expression, "Not worth a shyttle cocke." Strutt, in his "Sports and Pastimes, illustrates it by a drawing of that period lent to him by Douce. Manningham, in his Diary, Feb. 1602-3, notes: The play at shuttlecocke is become soe much in request at Court, that the making shuttlecocks is almost growne to a trade in London." Manningham relates an odd anecdote in connection about Lady Effingham. Armin, in the Two Maids of More-Clacke," 1609, says: "To play at shuttlecock methinkes is the game now. It was a favourite amusement with Prince Henry, who died in 1612. In his "Hora Vacivæ," 1646, Hall observes: "Shittle-Cock requires a nimble armo, with a quick and waking eye; 'twere fit for students, and not so vehement as that waving of a stoole, so commended by Lessius." A somewhat similar amusement is mentioned in the Journal of the Asiatic Society for 1835, as followed in Bengal. The game is now known as Battledore and Shuttlecock, and is almost exclusively a juvenile recreation, though it is sometimes played by grown-up persons in the country on wet indoor days. Stevenson, in his Twelve Months, 1661, urder October, says: 66 The Shuttle-cock and Battledore is a good house exercise, Battle Royal. See Cock-Fighting. the Privileges of the University of Ox Bawdry..-Wallis, in his essays on notices that by a charter of 37 Hen. VI. the Chancellor had the power of banishing to a distance of not more than ten miles all whores, and of imprisoning thera if they returned. The subsequent extract from a proclamation of Henry VIII., April 13, year 37, will be thought curious: "Furthermore his Majesty straightlie chargeth and commandeth that all such Householders as, under the name of Baudes, have kept the notable and marked Houses, and knowne Hosteries, for the said evill disposed persons, that is to saie, such Householders as do inhabite the Houses whited and painted, with Signes on the front, for a token of the said Houses, shal avoyd with bagge and baggage, before the feast of Easter next comyng, upon paine of like punishment, at the Kings Majesties will and pleasure." The punishment for this offence was riding in a cart through the parish where it was committed, and sometimes through the adjoining ones also, with a paper attached to the back or front of the dress, descriptive of the particulars, and a basin ringing before them to draw the attention of the people to their disgrace. Occasionally the culprit went on horseback. The examples given by Stowe and others of this class of chastisement are not only very numerous; but we cannot fail to be struck by the great frequency of cases, where parents were guilty of the crime towards their own offspring, and of the respectable position of many of those who were implicated. The publication of the delinquency on a sheet of paper pinned to the person was common to many other crimes, such as perjury, &c., but then it seems to have been more usually fixed over the culprit's head. In 1560-1 a woman who had sold fish contrary to law, was led of Bridewell with a garland on her head, about London on horseback by the beadle strung with these fish, and others hanging from the saddle, both before and behind her. In Strype's edition of Stow, 1720, Book i. p. 258, we read, that in the year 1555, "An ill woman, who kept the Greyhound in Westminster, was carted about the city, and the Abbot's servant (bearing her good will) took her out of the cart, as it seems, before she had finisht her punishment, who was presently whipped at the same cart's tail for his pains." In 1556, "" were carted two men and three women. One of these men was a bawd, for bringing women to strangers. One of the women kept the Bell in Gracechurch D Bull beside London-stone; both bawds and whores." In 1559, "The wife of Henry Glyn, goldsmith, was carted about London for "being bawd to her own daughter." It is remarked with much probability in a Note upon Dekker's "Honest Whore," that it was formerly a custom for the Peace-officers to make search after women of ill-fame on Shrove-Tuesday, and to confine them during the season of Lent. So, Sensuality says in Nabbes' masque of "Microcosmus," act 5: "But now welcome a Cart or a Shrove-Tuesday's tragedy." Overbury, in his "Characters," speaking of "a Maquerela, in plaine English, a bawde," says: Nothing daunts her so much as the approach of Shrove-Tuesday." Ibid., speaking of "a roaring boy," he observes, that "he is a supervisor of brothels, and in them is a more unlawful reformer of vice than prentices on Shrove-Tuesday." In Dekker's play of "Match Me in London," Bilbo says, 'I'll beate down the doore, and put him in mind of Shrove-Tuesday, the fatall day for doores to be broke open." The punishment of people of evil fame at this season seems to have been one of the chief sports of the apprentices. In a Satyre against Separatists, 1642, we read: The Prentises-for they Who, if upon Shrove-Tuesday, or MayDay, Beat an old Bawd or fright poor Whores they could, Thought themselves greater than their Founder Lud, They'r mounted high, contemn the humble play. Of Trap or Football on a Holiday Bay Tree. Parkinson writes: "The Bay-leaves are necessary both for civil uses and for physic, yea, both for the sick and for the sound, both for the living and for the dead. It serveth to adorne the House of God as well as man to crowne or encircle, as with a garland, the heads of the living, and to sticke and decke forth the bodies of the dead: so that, from the cradle to the grave, we have still use of it, we have still need of it." Paradisus Terrestris, 1629, p. 426. In "A strange Metamorphosis of Man," &c., 1634, it is observed, that "hee (the Bay) is fit for halls and stately roomes, where if there be a wedding kept, or such like feast, he will be sure to take a place more eminent then the rest. He is a notable smell-feast, and is so good a fellow in them, that almost it is no feast without him. He is a great companion with the Rosemary, who is as good a gossip in all feasts as he is a trencher-man." Among death omens the withering of bay trees was, according to Shakespear, reckoned one. Thus in Richard II: "Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay. The bay trees in our country are all wither'd—” Upon which Steevens observes that "Some of these prodigies are found in Holinshed, 'In this yeare, in a manner throughout all the realme of England, old Baie Trees withered, &c. "" This we also learn from Lupton, "Neyther falling sycknes, neyther devyll, will infest or hurt one in that place whereas a bay tree is. The Romaynes calle it the Plant of the good Angell," &c. Sir Thomas Browne observes that the Christian custom of decking the coffin with bay is a most elegant emblem. It is said that this tree, when seemingly dead, will revive from the root, and its dry leaves resume their wonted verdure. William Browne, in a sonnet to Cœlia, evidently alludes to some ancient love-omen or portent, still current in his time, in connexion with the rind of the laurel : "Fair Laurell, that the onelye witnes art To that discourse, which vnderneath thy shade Our griefe swolne brosts did lovinglie impart With vowes made: as true as ere Religion If (forced by our sighs) the flame shall fly Of our kinde love, and get within thy rind, Be warye, gentle Baye, & shrieke not bye, When thou dost such vnusuall feruor finde." Hazlitt's edit. ii., 288. Beadsmen.-See Blue-Gowns. Beans, Religlous use of. The choosing of a person King or Queen by a bean found in a piece of a divided cake, was formerly a common Christmas gambol at the English and Scotish Courts, and in both English Universities. "Mos inolevit et viget apud plurimas nationes, ut in profesto Epiphaniæ, seu trium Regum, in quaque familia seu alia Societate, sorte vel alio fortuito modo eligant sibi Regem, et convivantes unà ac genialiter viventes, bibente rege, acclamant: Rex, bibit, bibit Rex, indicta multa qui non clamaverit." See the "Sylva Sermonum jucundissimorum," 8vo. Bas. 1568, pp. 73, 246.Douce. In Ben Jonson's "" Masque of Christmas," the character of Baby-Cake is attended by "an Usher bearing a great cake with a bean and a pease.' These beans, it should seem from the following passage in Burton's " Anatomy of Melancholy" were hallowed. He is enumerat |