Cob Loaf Stealing. Compare Aston. Cob-Nút.-A game which consists in pitching at a row of nuts piled up in heaps of four, three at the bottom and one at the top of each heap. Halliwell in v. Coal. Thomas Hill, in his Natural | taking off their hats; it is there called and Artificial Conclusions, 1581, describes school-butter.' "The vertue of a rare cole, that is to be found but one hour in the day, and one day in the yeare." "Divers authors," he adds, "affirm concerning the verity and vertue of this cole, viz., that it is onely to be found upon Midsummer Eve, just at noon, under every root of plantine and of Cock. - A mode of evading the law mugwort; the effects whereof are wonder- against profane expressions, used both in ful for whosoever weareth or beareth the conversation and literature in James I.'s same about with them, shall be freed from time. It is common in the old plays. Comthe plague, fever, ague, and sundry other pare Nares, 1859, in v. The modern equidiseases. And one author especially writ-valent is Scott. Our youths say Great eth, and constantly averreth, that he Scott for Great God. never knew any that used to carry of this marvellous cole about them, who ever were to his knowledge sick of the plague, or (indeed) complained of any other maladie." Lupton observes, "It is certainly and constantly affirmed that on Midsummer Eve there is found, under the root of mugwort, a coal which saves or keeps them safe from the plague, carbuncle, lightning, the quartan ague, and from burning, that bear the same about them: and Mizaldus, the writer hereof, saith, that he doth hear that it is to be found the same day under the root of plantane, which I know to be of truth, for I have found them the same day under the root of plantane, which is especially and chiefly to be found at noon." Notable Things, first printed in 1579, ed. 1660, book ii. p. 59. The last summer, says Aubrey, on the day of St. John Baptist, 1694, I accidentally was walking in the pasture behind Montague House, (Bloomsbury); it was 12 o'clock, I saw there about two or three and twenty young women, most of them well habited, on their knees, very busy, as if they had been weeding. A young man told me that they were looking for a coal under the root of a plantain, to put under their heads that night, and they should dream who would be their husbands. It was to be that day and hour." Coat-Money. Glossary, 1881, in v. See Davis, Suppl. Cob or Cobbing.-A punishment used by seamen for petty offences or irregularities among themselves: it consists in bastanadoing the offender on the posteriors with a cobbing stick, or pipe staff; the number usually inflicted is a dozen. At the first stroke the executioner repeats the word watch, on which all persons present are to take off their hats, on pain of like punishment: the last stroke is always given as hard as possible, and is called the purse. Ashore, among soldiers, where this punishment is sometimes adopted, watch and the purse are not included in the number, but given over and above, or, in the vulgar phrase, free, gratis, for nothing. This piece of discipline is also inflicted in Ireland by the schoolboys on persons coming into the school without Cockal. The game played with the huckle or pastern bone of the sheep, instead of dice, corresponding with the ancient ludus talaris or astralagus. Compare Nares, Gloss. 1859, in v. In Levinus Lemnius, we read: "The antients used to play at cokall or casting of huckle bones, which is done with smooth sheeps bones. The Dutch call them pickelen, wherewith our young maids that are not yet ripe use to play for a husband, and young married folks despise these as soon as they are married. But young men used to contend one with another with a kind of bone taken forth of oxe-feet. The Dutch call them Coten, and they play with these at a set time of the year. Moreover cockles which the Dutch call Teelings are different from dice, for they are square with four sides, and dice have six. Cockals are used by maids amongst us, and do no wayes waste any ones estate. For either they passe away the time with them, or if they have time to be idle, they play for some small matter, as for chesnuts, filberds, pins, buttons, and some such Juncats."Occult Miracles of Nature, 1658, p. 768. In Kinder's translation from the same author of A Sanctuarie of Salvation, p. 144, these bones are called "Huckle-bones or coytes." In Polydore Vergil we have another description of this game: "There is a game also that is played with the posterne bone in the hynder foote of a sheepe, oxe; gote, fallowe or redde dere, whiche in Latin is called Talus. It hath foure chaunces, the ace point, that is named Canis, or Caniculas, was one of the sides; he that cast it leyed doune a peny or so muche as the gamers were agreed on the other side was called Venus, that signifieth seven. He that cast the chaunce wan sixe and all that was layd doune for the castyng of Canis. The two other sides were called Chius and Senio. He that did throwe Chius wan three. And he that cast Senio gained four. This game (as I take it) is used of children in Northfolke, and they call it the chaunce bone; they play with three or foure of those bones together; it is either the same or very lyke to it." Langley's Abridg., fol. 1. Herrick seems to speak of cockall as a children's sport, played with points and pins. For farther information relating to this game, as played by the ancients, the reader may consult Joannis Meursii Ludibunda, sivi de Ludis Græcorum, 1625, p. 7, πάςςαλος and Dan Souterii "Palimedes," p. 81, but more particularly "I Tali ed altri Strumenti lusori degli antichi Romani discritti" da Fransecso de' Ficoroni, 1734. And for the Greek analogue St. John's Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, 1842, i., 160-1. Cockatrice or Basilisk. - Sir Thomas Browne informs us that the generation of a basilisk is supposed to proceed from a cock's egg hatched under a toad or serpent. A conceit which he observes is as monstrous as the brood itself. This writer endeavours to account for its killing at distance. a "It killeth at a distance-it poisoneth by the eye; and by priority of vision. Now that deleterious it may be at some distance, and destructive without corporal contaction, what uncertainty soever there be in the effect, there is no high improbability in the relation. For if plagues or pestilential atomes have been conveyed in the air from different regions: if men at a distance have infected each other: if the shadowes of some trees be noxious: if torpedoes deliver their opium at a dis. tance, and stupifie beyond themselves: we cannot reasonably deny that there may proceed from subtiller seeds more agile emanations, which contemn those laws, and invade at distance unexpected. Thus it is not impossible what is affirmed of this animal; the visible rayes of their eyes carrying forth the subtilest portion of their poison which, received by the eye of man or beast, infecteth first the brain and is from thence communicated unto the heart." He adds: "Our basilisk is generally described with legs, wings, a serpentine and winding taile, and a crist or comb somewhat like a cock. But the basilisk of elder times was a proper kind of serpent, not above three palmes long, as some account, and differenced from other serpents by advancing his head and some white marks or coronary spots upon the crown, as all authentic writers have delivered." A cockatrice hatched from a cock's egg is described by a foreign author as one of the terrors of the superstitious man, and as an omen of the most pernicious sort. Werenfel's "Dissertation on Superstition," transl. into Engl. p. 7. This reminds us of Dryden's lines: "Mischiefs are like the cockatrice's eye; If they see first, they kill; if seen, they die." Compare Nares, Glossary, 1859, in v. Cockchafer. I conclude that we must not allow the German children's invocation to the cockchafer or lady-bird (lady-bug or lady-cow) to rank among modes of predestination; but it may be perhaps, in its present form, the relic of an older and more serious superstition: "May-bug, May-bug, tell this to me, How many years my life is to be? One year, two years," &c. Or, as the Swiss couplet runs (translated): "O chafer, O chafer, fly off and awa', For milk, and for bread, and a silver spoon bra'." For which notices I am indebted to Mr. Atkinson. But there are variant versions. Comp. Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes, 6th ed. pp. 263, 272. Cock-Crow.-The ancients, because the cock gives notice of the approach and break of day, have, with a propriety equal to any thing in their mythology, dedicated him the emblem of watchfulness, from the this bird to Apollo. They have also made circumstance of his summoning men to their business by his crowing, and have therefore dedicated him also to Mercury. the "Herald of the Morn." With the lark he may be poetically styled Philostra tus, giving an account of the Apparition of Achilles' Shade to Apollonius Tyaneus, says, that it vanished with a little glimmer as soon as the cock crowed. "Vit. Apol." vol. iv. p. 16. Reed's "Shakespear," vol. vol. iv. p. 16. Bourne very seriously examines the fact whether spirits roam or are obligel about in the night, The tra to go away at cock-crow. ditions of all ages appropriate the appearance of spirits to the night. The Jews had an opinion that hurtful spirits walked about in the night. The same opinion obtained among the ancient Christians, who divided the night into four watches called the evening, midnight, cock-crowing, and the morning. The opinion that spirits fly away at cock-crow is certainly very ancient, for we find it mentioned by the Christian poet Prudentius, who flourished in the beginning of the fourth century, as a tradition of common belief: "They say the wandering powers, that The silent darkness of the night, And all in fear do take their flight. Th' approach divine of hated day, And drives the midnight ghosts away. Of what precedes our lasting bliss, That morn when graves give up their dead In certain hope to meet their God." Bourne tells us he never met with any reasons assigned for the departure of spirits at the cock-crowing; but," he adds, "there have been produced at that "The morning cocke crew loud; And at the sound it shrunk in haste away And vanish'd from our sight." Allot, in " England's Parnassus," 1600, printed the two following lines from Drayton's "Endimion and Phoebe, (1593)." "And now the cocke, the morning's trumpeter, Plaid hunts up for the day-starre to appeare." Where Gray has followed our poet: No more shall rouse them from their "But soft, methinks I scent the morn- And again, "The glow-worm shows the matin to be near. time of night, things of very memorable | Spenser writes: 66 In the prose Life of St. Guthlac, Hermit of Crowland, by one Felix, circa 749, there is the following passage: "It happened one night, when it was the time of cockcrowing, and the blessed man Guthlac fell to his morning prayers, he was suddenly entranced in light slumber—." I quote from Mr. Goodwin's translation of the Anglo-Saxon original. The following is from Chaucer's Assemble of Foules," f. 235: "The tame ruddocke and the coward kite, The cocke, that horologe is of Thropes lite." In the "Merry Devil of Edmonton," 1608: "More watchfull than the day-proclay ming cocke." It appears from a passage in "Romeo and Juliet," that Shakespear means that they were carousing till three o'clock: The second cock has crow'd, The curfew-bell has toll'd; 'tis three o'clock." Perhaps Tusser makes this point clear: above six, With pause to his neighbour to answer betwix : At three aclocke thicker, and then as ye knowe, Like all in to mattens neere day they doo crowe; At midnight, at three, and an hour yer day, They utter their language as well as they By a passage in "Macbeth," we were clok, Yea, and I shall not lye, till after the first cok." "The cock crows and the morn grows on, When 'tis decreed I must be gone." -Hudibras, Canto i. p. iii. In Blair's Grave is a passage which seems to form an exception from the general time of cock-crowing: "Some say, that ever 'gainst that sea son comes, Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long. And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time." Bourne tells us, there is a tradition among the common people that at the time of cock-crowing the midnight spirits forsake these lower regions, and go to their proper places. Hence it is that in the country villages, where the way of life requires more early labour, the inhabitants always go cheerfully to work at that time : whereas if they are called abroad sooner, they | are apt to imagine everything they see or hear to be a wandering ghost. Shakespear has given us an excellent account of this vulgar notion in his "Hamlet." The present writer suggested long since that the early village cock" of Shakespear should be early village clock, as the word chanticleer has been given, and cock in the passage is a pleonasm. See my edition of W. Browne, 1868, i., 197. Peter Suavenius, who visited Scotland about 1535, relates in his MS. Diary that there is a place there, eight miles in circuit, where the cocks never crow. : Cock-Fighting.-Bailey tells us that the origin of this sport was derived from the Athenians on the following occasion when Themistocles was marching his army against the Persians, he, by the way, espying two cocks fighting, caused his army to behold them, and addressed them as follows: " Behold, these do not fight for their household gods, for the monuments of their ancestors, nor for glory, nor for liberty, nor for the safety of their children, but only because the one will not give way unto the other." This so encouraged the Grecians that they fought strenuously and obtained the victory over the Persians; upon which cock-fighting was by a particular law ordained to be annually practised by the Athenians. Cock-fighting was an institution partly religious and partly political at Athens, and was continued there for the purpose of improving the seeds of valour in the minds of the Athenian youth. But it was afterwards abused and perverted, both there and in other parts of Greece, to a common pastime and amusement, without any moral, political, or religious intention, | It and as it is now followed and practiced amongst us. Men have long availed themselves of the antipathy which one cock shows to another, and have encouraged that natural hatred with arts that may be said to disgrace human reason. Pegge has proved that though the ancient Greeks piqued themselves on their politeness, calling all other nations barbarous, yet they were the authors of this cruel and inhuman mode of diversion. The inhabitants of Delos were great lovers of this sport; and Tanagra, a city of Boeotia, the Isle of | Rhodes, Chalcis in Eubea and the country of Media, were famous for their generous |and magnanimous race of chickens. appears that the Greeks had some method of preparing the birds for battle. An account of the origin of this custom amongst the Athenians may be seen in Elian," lib. ii. cap. xxviii. It may be worth noting that George Wilson, in his "Commendation of cocks and cock-fighting," 1607, endeavours to show that cock-fighting was before the coming of Christ. Lord Northampton says: "The Romaines tooke the crowing of a cocke for an abode of victory, though no philosopher be ignorant that this procedeth of a gallant lustinesse upon the first digestion." Defensative, 1583, sign. T. 2 verso. It is probable that cock-fighting was first introduced into this island by the Romans; the bird itself was here before Cæsar's arrival. Bell. Gall. v. sect. 12. 66 Fitzstephen is the first of our writers ing it as the sport of school boys on that mentions cock-fighting, describ Shrove-Tuesday. The cock-pit, it seems, was the school, and the master was the comptroller and director of the sport. Fitzstephen writes: "that we may begin with the pastimes of the boys (as we have all been boys), annually on the day which is called Shrove-Tuesday, the boys of the respective schools bring to the masters each one his fighting-cock, and they are indulged all the morning with seeing their cocks fight in the school-room." Ed. 1772, p. 45. In the statutes of St. Paul's School, A.D. 1518, the following clause occurs: will they use no cock-fighting nor ridinge about of victorye, nor disputing at St. Bartilemewe, which is but foolish babling and losse of time." Knight's Life of Dean Colet, p. 362. From this time, at least, the diversion, however absurd and even impious, was continued among us. It was followed, though disapproved and prohibited in the 39 Edw. III. also in the reign of Henry VIII. and in 1569. It has been called by some a royal diversion, and, as every one knows, the cock-pit at Whitehall was erected by Henry VIII. for the more magnificent celebration of the sport. It was prohibited, however, by an Act of March 31, 1654. Moresin informs us that the Papists derived this custom of exhibit. ing cockfights on one day every year from the Athenians, and from an institution of Themistocles. "Cal. Rhod." lib. ix. variar lect. cap. xlvi. idem Pargami fiebat. Alex. ab. Alex. lib. v. cap. 8., Papatus, p. 66. The Fathers of the Church inveigh with great warmth against the spectacles of the arena, the wanton shedding of human blood in sport; one would have thought that with that of the gladiators, cock-fighting would also have been discarded under the mild and human Genius of Christianity. But, as Pegge observes, it was reserved for this enlightened æra to practice it with new and aggravated circumstances of cruelty. In the Privy Purse Expences of Henry VII., under 1493, there is the entry : March 2. To Master Bray, for rewardes to them that brought cokkes at Shrovetide at Westmr., £1." In the middle of the 16th century we find the gentlemen of Yorkshire keenly interested in this sport, and there is a letter from Sir Henry Savile to William Plumpton, Esq., announcing "a meeting of cocks" at Sheffield, to which their common acquaintance were expected to come, save from more or less considerable distances. It was a match between Lancashire, Derbyshire, and Hallamshire. Plumpton Correspondence, 1839, pp. 250-1. Stubbes, in his "Anatomie of Abuses," 1583, inveighs against cock-fighting, which in his day seems to have been practiced on the Sabbath in England: "Cock Fightyng in Ailgna [Anglia]. "Besides these exercises, they flock thicke and threefolde to the cockfightes, an exercise nothing inferiour to the rest, where nothing is vsed, but swearing, forswearing, deceit, fraud, collusion, cosenage, skoldyng, railyng, conuitious talkyng, fightyng, brawlyng, quarrelyng, drinkyng, and whoryng, and whiche is worst of all, robbing of one an other of their goodes, and that not by direct, but indirecte meanes and attempts. And yet to blaunche and set out these mischeefs withall, (as though they were vertues), they haue their appointed waies and set houres when these deuilries must be exercised. They haue houses erected to that purpose flagges and ensignes hanged out, to giue notice of it to others, and proclamation goes out, to proclame the same, to the ende that many maie come to the dedication of this solemne feast of mischeefe." It is odd enough, that the poverty of Roger Ascham, who was preceptor to Queen Elizabeth, and one of the most learned persons of his time, was attributed by the no less learned Camden to dicing and cock-fighting! It appears that James I. was remarkably fond of cock-fighting. Breton, in his Fantasticks, 1626, says under Aug.: "I had a touch at your recreations before, and that your cock may not kick your coyn out of your pocket, I shall give you some marks to choose a good one by; Know, then, that the best characters desirable in a fighting cock, are his shape, colour, courage. and sharp heel; for his shape, the middle size is ever accounted best, because they be now most matchable strong, nimble, and ready for your pleasure in his batel; and so the exceeding little cock is as hard to match, and is commonly weak and tedious in his maner of fighting; he would be of a proud and upright shape, with a small head, like a spar-hawk, quick large eye, and a strong back crooked, and big at the setting on, and in colour suitable to the plume of his feathers, as black, yellow, or reddish; the beam of his legs would be very strong, and according to his plume, blew, gray, or yellow; his spurs long, rough and sharp, and a little bending, and looking inward; for his colour, the gray pyle, the yellow pyle, or the red with the blanck breast, is esteemed the best, the pyde is not so good, and the white and dun are the worst; if it be red about the head like scarlet, it is a sign of lust, strength, and courage; but if it be pale, it is a signe of sickness and faintness; for his courage, you shall observe it in his walk, by his treading, and in the pride of his going, and in his pen by his oft-crowing; for the sharpness of his heel, it is only seen in his fighting; for what cock is said to be sharp or narrow heel'd, which every time he risketh, he hitteth and draws blood of his adversary, gilding his spurs in blood, and threatening at every blow an end of the battel. I wish you such a Cock." I have quoted this interesting passage from Stevenson's Twelve Months, 1661, but it is the same work as Breton's under a different title. Of this sport, as it was conducted in London in 1669, an Italian resident has left a graphic account. "The places made for the cock-fights are a sort of little theatre, where the spectators sit all round on steps under cover. At the bottom of these is a round table six braccia in diameter, or thereabouts, and raised about two braccia from the ground; it is covered with matting all stained with the blood of cocks. The days on which they are going to have the contests are always advertised by large printed bills, stuck up at all the corners of the streets, and distributed through the city. When a large crowd of people has been got together, two cocks are brought out in sacks by two of those men whose business it is to breed them and look after them. One of these men goes in at one side of the theatre, and the other at the opposite entrance, and having taken their cocks out of the bags, |