against the attack of snakes and alligators: on such an occasion the saphie is enclosed in a snake or alligator's skin, and tied round the ancle. Others have recourse to them in time of war, to protect their persons from hostile attacks: but the general use of these amulets is to prevent or cure bodily diseases, to preserve from hunger and thirst, and conciliate the favour of superior powers." He informs us in another place, that his landlord requested him to give him a lock of his hair to make a saphie, as he said he had been told it would give to the possessor all the knowledge of white men. Another person desired him to write a saphie Mr. Park furnished him with one containing the Lord's Prayer. He gave away several others. These saphies appear to have corresponded with the "chartes of health," mentioned in some of our own early writers. The same, speaking of a Mahometan negro who, with the ceremonial part of that religion, retained all his ancient superstition, says that, "in the midst of a dark wood he made a sign for the company to stop, and, taking hold of an hollow piece of bamboo that hung as an amulet round his neck, whistled very loud three times; this, he said, was to ascertain what success would attend the journey. He then dismounted, laid his spear across the road, and, having said a number of short prayers, concluded with three loud whistles; after which he listened for some time as if in expectation of an answer, and receiving none. said. the company might proceed without fear, as there was no danger. See Caracts, Charms, Magic, &c amulets against the disease. Hering has the following: "Perceiving many in this citie to weare about their necks, upon the region of the heart, certaine placents or amulets, (as preservatives against the pestilence), confected with arsenicke, my opinion is that they are so farre from effecting any good in that kinde, as a preservative, that they are very dangerous and hurtfull, if not pernitious, to those that weare them."-Preservative against the Pestilence, 1625, sign. B. 2 verso. Cotta inserts 66 A merrie historie of an approved famous spell for sore eyes. By many honest testimonies, it was a long time worne as a jewell about many necks, written in paper and enclosed in silke, never failing to do soveraigne good when all other helps were helplesse. No sight might dare to reade or open. At length a curious mind, while the patient slept, by stealth ripped open the mystical cover, and found the powerful characters Latin: 'Diabolus effodiat tibi oculos, impleat foramina ,,, stercoribus.' Short Discoverie, 1612, p. 49. In Wiltshire, a lemon stuck with pins, and in Lincolnshire the heart of an animal similarly treated, were, so lately as 1856, treated as amulets against witchcraft. Notes and Queries, 2nd S., i., 331, 415. It was a supposed remedy against witchcraft to put some of the bewitched person's water, with a quantity of pins, needles, and nails into a bottle, cork them up and set them before the fire, in order to confine the spirit: but this sometimes did not prove sufficient, as it would often force the cork out with a loud noise, like that of a pistol, and cast the contents of the bottle to a considerable height. In one of the Essays Anagram. An anagram has been of Montaigne, where he refers to the mar- defined to be "a divination by names, riage of Madame de Gurson, we see that called by the ancients Onomantia. The the fear of a spell being cast upon the Greeks referre this invention to Lycophcouple, when they had retired to their ron, who was one of those they called the chamber, was met, when the company had Seven Starres or Pleiades; afterwards (as assembled in the room, and the bride and witnesses Eustachius) there were divers bridegroom had partaken of the spiced Greek wits that disported themselves herewine, by Jacques Pelletier producing his in, as he which turned Atlas for his heavy amulet, which defeated the enchantment. burthen in supporting Heaven, into Douce has given wood engravings of se- Talas,, that is, wretched. Some will main veral Roman amulets: these were intended tain, that each man's fortune is written in against fascination in general, but more his name, which they call anagramatism particularly against that of the evil eye. or metragramatism: poetical liberty will Such, he observes, are still used in Spain not blush to use E. for E., V. for W., S. by women and children, precisely in the for Z. That amorous youth did very same manner as formerly among the queintly sure, (resolving a mysterious exRomans.--Illustr. of Shakespear, 1807, i., pression of his love to Rose Hill) when in 493. Mungo Park, in his Travels, speak the border of a painted cloth he caused to ing of "certain charms or amulets called be painted as rudely as he had devised Saphies, which the negroes constantly grossly, a rose, a hill, an eye, a loaf, and a wear about them," says: "These saphies well, that is if you spell it, I love Rose are prayers or sentences from the Koran, Hill' well.'" Worcester, in his "Dicwhich the Mahometan priests write on tionary," gives a somewhat more satscraps of paper and self to the natives, isfactory account of the meaning of who suppose them to possess extraordi- the word and thing. "An Anagram, nary virtues. Some wear them to guard | he says, "is a word or sentence of apt significance, formed by trans- the posing the letters of another word or senas Est vir qui adest, formed from Pilate's question Quid est Veritas?" Mr. Of Anagrams," Wheatley's monograph 1862, should also be consulted, as well as the Editor's extensive Additions in the Antiquary. 66 Ancients. The governing body at Gray's Inn corresponding to the Benchers of the two Temples and Lincoln's Inn. Andrew's Day, St. (November 30). The patron saint of Scotland. The legend of St. Andrew, with that of St. Veronica, in Anglo-Saxon, has been edited for the Cambridge Antiquarian Society (8vo. series) by Mr. Goodwin. A Life of St. Andrew, from a MS. in the Bibliothéque Imperiale at Paris, is given in "Chronicles of the Picts and Scots," 1867. It is a mere summary or sketch. A second and more lengthy narrative, from Harl. MS., 4628, occurs in the same volume. The reduction to nudity in this case must not be supposed to have been intended (primarily, at least) as an act of indecency, but rather as a relict of paganism. The ancients, our own Saxon forefathers not excepted, seem to have made an absence of clothing in some instances part of their religious rites, and the same idea was found by early travellers prevailing among the inhabitants of the American continent. See Ourselves in Relation to a Deity and a Church, by the present Editor. 1897, pp. 92, 97. Luther savs, that on the evening of the Feast of St. Andrew, the young maidens in his country strip themselves naked; and, in order to learn what sort of husbands they shall have, they recite a prayer.-Colloquia Mensalia, part i. p. 232. The prayer was: "Deus Deus meus, O Sancte Andrea, effice ut bonum pium acquiram virum hodie mihi ostende qualis sit cui me in uxorem ducere debet." Naogeorgus probably alludes to the observances noticed above as to nudity, when he says: "To Andrew all the lovers and the lustie wooers come, Beleeving, through his ayde. and certain ceremonies done, (While as to him they presentes bring, and conjure all the night.) To have good lucke, and to obtaine their chiefe and sweete delight." We read, that many of the opulent citizens of Edinburgh resort to Dudingston parish, about a mile distant, in the summer months to solace themselves over one of the ancient homely dishes of Scotland, for which the place has heen long celebrated. The use of singed sheeps' head boiled or baked, so frequent in this village, is supposed to have arisen from the practice of slaughtering sheep fed on the neighbouring hill for the market, removing the carcases to the town, and leaving the head, &c., to be consumed in the place. Singed sheeps' heads are borne in the procession before the Scots in London on St. Andrew's Day. Hasted, speaking of the parish of Easling, says, that, "On St. Andrew's Day, Nov. 30, there is yearly a diverson called squirril-hunting in this and the neighbouring parishes, when the labourers and lower kind of people, assembling together, form a lawless rabble, and being accoutred with guns, poles, clubs, and other such weapons spend the greatest part of the day in parading through the woods and grounds, with loud shoutings; and, under the pretence of demolishing the squirrils, some few of which they kill, they destroy numbers of hares, pheasants, partridges, and in short whatever comes in their way, breaking down the hedges, and doing much other mischief, and in the evening betaking themselves to the alehouses, finish their career there, as is usual with such sort of gentry.". Hist. of Kent," folio ed. vol. ii. p. 757. At Stratton, in Cornwall, on this anniversary, at a very early hour a number of youths pass through the different parts of the town to the accompaniment of the blowing of a remarkably unmelodious horn, the fearful strumming of tin pans, &c., driving out, presumably, any evil spirits which haunt the place-greed, fraud, drunkenness, gluttony, and their companions. The hand-bell ringers follow, gently inviting more acceptable spirits content, fair play, temperance, chastity, and others. After a suitable pause, the church bells ring out, in peals of eight, a hearty welcome to these latter. Andrew's Well, St. Martin, speaking of the Isle of Lewis, says that, St. Andrews' Well, in the vil lage of Shadar, is by the vulgar natives made a test to know if a sick person will die of the distemper he labours under. They send one with a wooden dish, to bring some of the water to the patient, and if the dish, which is then laid softly upon the surface of the water, turn round sun-ways, they conclude that the patient will recover of that distemper; but if otherwise, that he will die." Western Islands of Scotland, p. 7. In a French version of the romance of Bevis of Hampton there is an allusion to the pilgrimage on foot to St. Andrew's Well as of equal efficacy to that to Mont St. Michel in Brittany for the removal of certain physical troubles. This was St. Andrew's, in Fifeshire. Michel, Les Ecossais en France, 1862, ii., 498. Angelica. 1859, in v. See Nares, Glossary, Angels or Genii. Bourne says: The Egyptians believed that every man nad three angels attending him: the Pythagoreans, that every man had two; the Romans, that there was a good and evil genius." Butler's "Angel bad or tutelar." Every man," says Sheridan in his notes to "Persius," (2d. edit. 1739, p. 28) "" was supposed by the ancients at his birth to have two Genii, as messengers between the gods and him. They were supposed to be private monitors, who by their insinuations disposed us either to good or evil actions; they were also supposed to be not only reporters of our crimes in this life, but registers of them against our trial in the next, whence they had the name of Manes given them." Few are ignorant that Apollo and Minerva presided over Athens, Bacchus and Hercules over Boeotian Thebes, Juno over Carthage, Venus over Cyprus and Paphos, Apollo over Rhodes: Mars was the tutelar god of Rome, as Neptune of Tænarus; Diana presided over Crete, &c., &c. St. Peter succeeded to Mars at the revolution of the religious Creed of Rome. He now presides over the castle of St. Angelo, as Mars did over the the ancient Capitol. Hereupon Symmachus, Against the Christians, says: "The divine Being has distributed various Guardians to cities, and that as souls are communicated to infants at their birth, so particular genii are assigned to particular societies of men." Moresin tells us that Papal Rome, in imitation of this tenet of Gentilism, has fabricated such kinds of genii for guardians and defenders of cities and people. Thus she has assigned St. Andrew to Scotland, St. George to England, St. Denis to France, St. Egidius to Edinburgh, St. Nicholas to Aberdeen. Popery has in many respects closely copied the heathen mythology. She has the supreme being for Jupiter, she has substituted angels for genii, and the souls of saints for heroes, retaining all kinds of dæmons. Against these pests she has carefully provided her antidotes. She exorcises them out of waters, she rids the air of them by ringing her hallowed bells, &c. The Romanists have similarly assigned tutelar gods to each member of the body: as, for instance, the arms were under the guardianship of Juno, the breast, of Neptune, the waist, of Mars, the reins, of Venus; and so on." The following extract from "Curiosities, or the Cabinet of Nature," by Robert Basset, 1637, p. 228, informs us of a very singular office assigned by ancient superstition to the good Genii of Infants. The book is by way of question and answer : "Q. Wherefore is it that the childe cryes when the absent nurses brests doe pricke and ake?"A. That by dayly experience is found to be so, so that by that the nurse is hastened home to the infant to supply the defect and the reason is that either at that very instant that the infant hath finished its concoction, the breasts are replenished, and, for want of drawing, the milke paines the breast, as it is seen likewise in milch cattell: or rather the good genius of the infant seemeth by that means to sollicite or trouble the nurse in the infants behalfe: which reason seemeth the more firme and probable, because sometimes sooner, sometimes later, the child cryeth, neither is the state of nurse and infant alwayes the same." The Negroes believe that the concerns of the world are committed by the Almighty to the superintendence and direction of subordinate spirits, over whom they suppose that certain magical ceremonies have great influence. A white fowl suspended to the branch of a particular tree, a snake's head, or a few handsful of fruit, are offerings to deprecate the favour of these tutelary agents. Aneling.—Among the articles of expense at the funeral of Sir John Rudstone, Mayor of London, 1531, given by Strutt, we find the following charges: "Item to the priests at his ennelling, 98. Od. to poor folke in almys, £1 5s. Od.; 22 days to 6 poor folke. 2s. Od.: 26 days to a poore folke, 8d." Ennelling is the extreme unction. Comp. Nares, Glossary, 1859, in v. Anne's Well, near Nottingham, St.-Deering says: "By a custom time beyond memory, the Mayor and Aldermen of Nottingham and their wives have been used on Monday in Easter week, morning prayers ended, to march from the town to St. Anne's Well, having the town waits to play before them, and attended by all the Clothing and their wives, i.e., such as have been Sheriffs, and ever after wear scarlet gowns, together with the officers of the town, and many other burgesses and gentlemen," &c.— Hist. of Nottingham, 125. Anthony of Egypt or Thebes, St. This eminent man, sometimes called The Great, has been occasionally confounded with his namesake of Padua, and the error appears to be of old standing, as there are early representations, where the Egyptian saint is exhibited with a firebrand in his hand, with flames beneath him, and a black hog, the symbol of gluttony and sensuality, under his feet, so that he may have been regarded as the archenemy of the qualities characteristic of the animal, rather than as the patron or protector of it. In the "Memoirs of Arthur Wilson," the historian and dramatist, written by himself, the erysipelas is called St. Anthony's fire, and such continues to be its common or vulgar name; it has received certain others; Ignis sacer, rual des artus, ergot, &c., and it was not unknown to the ancients. In the Cleveland country, the disease, instead of St. Anthony's fire, is known as Wildfire. The alleged reason was that the people of Dauphiny, cured by the saint of this complaint, gave it his name; but the real fact seems to be, that the disease sprang from his penury and physical undernourishment, and that the sufferers in this province were apt to be cured by being received into the Abbey of St. Antoine at Vienne, where they were properly fed. Sir John Bramston notes the death of his daughter-in-law Elizabeth Mountford, 9th December, 1689, and describes this complaint, to which she seems to have succumbed. "She had been very ill," he says, "with a distemper called St. Anthonie's fier, her eyes, nose, face, and head swelled vastly; at length it took her tongue and throat."-Autobiography, p. 348. A writer in the Globe newspaper, March 6th, 1899, observes: "One of the most picturesque customs in Mexico is that of blessing animals, called the blessings of San Antonio. The poorer class take their domestic animals of all kinds, dogs, cats, parrots, sheep, horses, burros, &c., to be sprinkled with holy water, and to receive through the priest St. Anthony's blessing. It is the custom of the common class to clean and bedeck their animals specially for this blessing. Dogs are gaily decorated with ribbons tied around their necks. Sheep are washed thoroughly until their fleece is as white as snow, and then taken to the father to be blessed. The beaks of the parrots are gilded. Horses and burros are adorned with garlands. Anthony of Padua, St., Abbot and Confessor. Riley furnishes the substance of the oath exacted in 1311, 4. Edward III., from the Renter as to the swine of the House of St. Anthony or Antonine, whereby that official was restrained from making the privilege enjoyed by such animals a cover for begging or alms, and from putting bells round their necks, or suffering others to do so in regard to their property to the extent of his power. Memorials of London Life, 1868, p. 83. Davis, Suppl. Glossary, 1881, P. 19. The exemption from the ordinary regulations in regard to vagrant swine also prevailed in mediæval times with perhaps greater latitude. Hazlitt's Venetian Republic, 1900, ii., 352. Bale, in his Kynge Johan," says: "Lete Saynt Antoynes hogge be had in some regarde." There is an early notice of the legend of St. Anthony and the pigs to be found in the "Book of Days" under January 17. In Apostle Spoons. It was anciently the custom for the sponsors at christenings to offer gilt spoons as presents to the child: these spoons were called Apostle spoons, because the figures of the twelve Apostles were chased or carved on the tops of the handles. Opulent sponsors gave the whole twelve. Those in middling circumstances gave four; and the poorer sort contented themselves with the gift of one, exhibiting the figure of any saint in honour of whom the child received its name. It is in allusion to this custom that when Cranmer professes to be unworthy of being sponsor to the young Princess, Shakespear makes the King reply, “Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons. In the year 1560, we find entered in the books of the Stationers' Company: "A spoyne, the gyfte of Master Reginold Wolfe, all gylte, with the pycture of St. John." Ben Jonson also, in his "Bartholomew Fair," mentions spoons of this kind: "And all this for the hope of a couple of Apostle spoons and a cup to eat caudle in." So, in Middleton's "Chaste Maid in Cheapside," 1630: "Second Gossip: What has he given her? What is it, Gossip? Third Gossip: A faire highstanding cup and two great postle spoons, one of them gilt." Again, in Davenant's "Wits," 1636: "My pendants, carcanets, and rings, My christening caudle-cup and spoons, Are dissolved into that lump." Beaumont and Fletcher: Again, in the "Noble Gentleman," by "I'll be a gossip. Bewford, I have an odd Apostle spoon." Shipman, in his " Gossips," is pleasant on the failure of the custom of giving Apostle spoons, &c., at christenings: Especially since Gossips now Eat more at christenings than bestow. Formerly, when they us'd to troul Gilt bowls of sack, they gave the bowl; Two spoons at least; an use ill kept; 'Tis well now if our own be left." Comp. Nares, Glossary, 1859, and Halliwell's Dict., 1860, in vv. Apparitions. "The Chylde of Bristowe," the romances of "Sir Ama das " and The Avowynge of King Arthur," Shakespear's Shakespear's "Hamlet," the ballad of "William and Margaret," Dryden's "Cymon and Iphigenia ' "(a very ancient fiction in a comparatively modern dress), may be mentioned in passing, as fair samples of the various shapes which the inhabitants of the Land of Shadows have taken from time to time at the bid ding of poets, playwrights, novelists, and balladmongers. Scott has sufficiently demonstrated, in his "Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft," that the appearance of spectres to persons in their sleep, and even otherwise, can in most cases be explained on the most common-place medical principles, and originates in mental illusions engendered by undue indulgence or constitutional debility. A great deal of learning in connection with our popular superstitions generally is in that work most entertainingly conveyed to us: but I do not feel that I should be rendering any substantial service by transplanting thence to these pages detached passages illustrative of the immediate subject. The "Letters" should be read in their full integrity, for they are among the most admirable things Scott has left. In connection with the subject of apparitions, may be cited the visions of the Holy Maid of Kent, and the vision of John Darley, a Carthusian monk. The history of the former is perhaps too familiar to need any recapitulation here. Darley relates that, as he was atending upon the death-bed of Father Raby, in the year 1534, he said to the expiring man: "Good Father Raby, if the dead can visit the living, I beseech you to pay a visit to me by and by" and Raby answered, "Yes," immediately after which he drew his last breath. But on the same afternoon about five o'clock, as Darley was meditating in his cell, the departed man suddenly appeared to him in a monk's habit, and said to him, Why do you not follow our father?" "And I replied," Darley tellse us, Why?' He said, 'Because he is a martyr in heaven next to the angels.' Then I said," says Darley: "Where are all our other fathers who did like him?' He answered and said' They are all pretty well, but not as well as he is.' And then I asked him how he was, and he said 'Pretty well.' And I said, 'Father, 666 66 I shall I pray for you?' To which he replied, "I am as well as need be, but prayer is at all times good,' and with these words he vanished.' On the following Saturday, at five o'clock in the morning, Father Raby reappeared, having this time a long white beard and a white staff in his hand. "Whereupon, says Darley, "I was afraid, but he, leaning on his staff, said to me, 'I am sorry that I did not live to become a martyr;' and I an. swered, that I thought he was as well as though he had been a martyr. But he said, Nay, for my Lord of Rochester and our father were next to the angels.' asked What else?' He replied, 'The angels of peace lamented and mourned unceasingly and again he vanished." The "Lord of Rochester" was, of course, Bishop Fisher. A curious and interesting account of the pretended visions of Elizabeth Barton, whose case excited so strong a sensation in the reign of Henry VIII., will be found in Mr. Thomas Wright's Collection of Original Letters. On the Suppression of the Monasteries, 1843. In "The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington," 1601, Matilda feels the man who has been sent by King John to poison her and the abbess, and says: "Are ye not fiends, but mortal bodies, then ?" The author of the popular ballad of "William and Margaret (quoted in the "Knight of the Burning Pestle," 1613), in describing Margaret's ghost, says: In is "Her face was like an April morn, Clad in a wintry cloud: And clay-cold was her lily hand, That held her sable shroud." Aubrey's Miscellanies, 1696, there the well-known tradition of Lady Diana Rich, daughter of the Earl of Holland, beholding her own apparition, as she walked in her father's garden at Kensington, in the day-time, shortly before her death, and of her sister experiencing the same thing prior to her decease. The former lady was in bad health at the time, a fact which may partly account for the circumstance. It may be recollected that at an abbey not far from the residence of Sir Roger de Coverley was an elm walk, where one of the footmen of Sir Roger saw a black horse without a head, and accordingly the butler was against anyone going there after sunset. In this legend have we the germ of Captain Mayne Reade's Headless Horseman? Gay has left us a pretty tale of an apparition. The golden mark being found in bed is indeed after the indelicate manner of Swift, or rather is another instance of the obligation of our more modern writers to the ancient storybooks), but yet is one of those happy |