true." Brief Natural History, p. 89, Comp. Hazlitt's Proverbs, 1882, p. 228, where deafness is falsely ascribed to the adder in a popular saying. There is a vulgar error that the hare is one year a male and the other a female. That a wolf if he see a man first, suddenly strikes him dumb. To the relators this Scaliger wishes as many blows as at different times he has seen wolves without losing his voice. That there is a nation of pigmies, not above two or three feet high, and that they solemnly set themselves in battle array to fight against the cranes. Strabo thought this a fiction; but in our age geographical research has made us acquainted with nations of warlike dwarfs. A writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for June, 1771, refutes the following errors: asserting "that the Scorpion does not sting itself when surrounded by fire, and that its sting is not even venomous." "That the tarantula is not poisonous, and that music has no particular effects on persons bitten by it, more than on those stung by a wasp.' "That the lizard is not friendly to man in particular, much less does it awaken him on the approach of a serpent." "That the stroke of the cramp fish is not occasioned by a muscle.' "That the bite of the spider is not venomous,,, that it is found in Ireland too plentifully, that it has no dislike to fixing its web on Irish oak, and that it has no antipathy to the toad." "That the porcupine does not shoot out its quills for annoying his enemy; he only sheds them annually, as other feathered animals do." "That the jackall, commonly called the lion's provider, has no connection at all with the lion," &c. Barrington says, it is supposed to be penal to open a coal mine, or to kill a crow, within five miles of London as also to shoot with a wind-gun as to the wind-gun, he takes that to arise from a statute of Henry VII. prohibiting the use of a cross-bow without a licence; but this, I apprehend, refers to statute 6 Hen. VIII. It is also a vulgar error to suppose that there is a statute which obliges the owners of asses to crop their ears, lest the length of them should frighten the horses which they meet on the road.

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In the "Gentleman's Magazine " for September, 1734, we have the following from Bayle: "There is nothing strange in errors becoming universal, considering how little men consult their reason. What multitudes believe, one after another, that a man weighs more fasting than full; that a sheepskin drum bursts at the beat of a wolfskin drum; that young vipers destroy the old females when they come to the birth, (of which

Scaliger from his own experience asserted the falsehood) and strike the male dead at the instant of their conception, with many other truths of equal validity?" To these vulgar errors, adds Barrington, Observations on the Statutes, p. 474, may be added perhaps the notion, that a woman's marrying a man under the gallows, will save him from the execution. This probably arose from a wife having brought an appeal against the murderer of her husband; who afterwards, repenting the prosecution of her lover, not only forgave the offence, but was willing to marry the appellee. In the case of Margaret Clark, executed for firing her master's house in Southwark, 1680, it is said, at her execution, "there was a fellow who designed to marry her under the gallows (according to the antient laudable custome) but she being in hopes of a reprieve, seemed unwilling, but when the rope was about her neck, she cryed she was willing, and then the fellow's friends dissuaded him from marrying her; and so she lost her husband and her life together." But among some savage tribes a woman may save a person of the other sex, who has been taken prisoner, from a cruel death by demanding him in marriage. Captain Marryat has introduced this incident into one of his novels.

I may likewise add to these that any one may be put into the Crown office for no cause whatsoever, or the most trifling injury. It is a legal fiction rather than an error to describe those born or drowned at sea as parishioners of Stepney. Other vulgar errors are, that the old statutes have prohibited the planting of vineyards or the use of sawing mills, relating to which I cannot find any statute: they are however established in Scotland, to the very great advantage both of the proprietor and the country. One of Mr. Brand's correspondents sent him a notice of two other vulgar errors, viz. When a man designs to marry a woman who is in debt, if he take her from the hands of the priest, clothed only in her shift, it is supposed that he will not be liable to her engagements. The second is that there was no land tax before the reign of William the Third. Barrington supposes that an exemption granted to surgeons from serving on juries is the foundation of the vulgar error that a surgeon or butcher (from the barbarity of their business) may be challenged as jurors. Observations on the Statutes, 475. This is still a prevailing notion; and it may perhaps hardly be out of place to add that it is no vulgar error, but a matter of established and recognised usage, that no butcher, attorney, or (I think) brewer shall be placed on the commission of the peace.

The Lord Chancellor sends a notice to this, effect to any new borough, which has to forward for his approval the list of candidates.

Ethelberg, St., or Alburg's Day. (October 11). Fosbrooke mentions, amidst the annual store of provision at Barking Nunnery, "wheat and milk for Frimite upon St. Alburg's Day."

Ethelreda, St., otherwise St. Audrey, or Auldrey, whence it is alleged that we get the word tawdry, because at the Saint's Fair held at various places, Ely included, on the 17th October, a great deal of cheap finery was offered for sale. This holy lady is said to have died from a swelling in her throat occasioned by the divine anger at her vanity, when young, in wearing fine necklaces; but the story also goes, that she was on religious grounds peculiarly abstemious in her use of water for washing purposes.

Eton School. At Eton College, in place of a boy-bishop and his crozier, they introduced a captain and an ensign, replacing the religious by a sort of military element, and the chieftain of the band conducted his followers to a scene of action in the open air, where no consecrated walls were in danger of being profaned, and where the gay striplings could at least exhibit their wonted pleasantries with more propriety of character. The exacting of money from the spectators and passengers, for the use of the principal, remained much the same, but, it seems, no evidence has been transmitted whether the deacons then, as the saltbearers did afterwards, made an offer of a little salt in return when they demanded the annual subsidy. I have been so fortunate, however, as to discover, in some degree, a similar use of salt, that is, an emblematical one; among the scholars of a foreign university, at the well-known ceremony of Deposition, in a publication dated at Strasburg in Alsace, so late as A.D. 1666. The consideration of every other emblem used the above occasion, and explained in that work, being foreign to my purpose, I shall confine myself to that of the salt alone, which one of the heads of the college explains thus to the young academicians: "With regard to the ceremony of salt," says the writer of the account of the Strasburg Depositio," "the sentiments and opinions both of divines and phliosophers concur in making salt the emblem of wisdom or learning; and that, not only on account of what it is composed of, but also with respect to the several uses to which it is applied. As to its component parts, as it consists of the purest matter, so ought

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wisdom to be pure, sound, immaculate, and incorruptible: and similar to the effects which salt produces upon bodies, ought to be those of wisdom and learning upon the mind." There are twenty plates illustrating the several stages of the Depositio. The last represents the giving of the salt, which a person is holding on a plate in his left hand, and with his right hand about to put a pinch of it upon the tongue of each Beanus or Freshman. A glass holding wine (I suppose), is standing near him. which is much to our purpose; for even Underneath is the following couplet, the use of wine was not altogether unknown in our Montem procession at Eton :

"Sal Sophiæ gustate, bibatis vinaque
læta,

Augeat immensus VOS in utrisque
Deus !"

In another part of the oration he tells them, "This rite of salt is a pledge or earnest which you give that you will most strenuously apply yourselves to the study of good arts, and as earnestly devote yourselves to the several duties of your vocation." How obvious is it then to make the same application of the use of salt in the old ceremony at Eton! Here, too, is said to have been formerly one of the pleasantries of the salt-bearers to fill any boorish looking countryman's mouth with it, if, after he has given them a trifle, he asked for anything in return, to the no small entertainment of the spectators.

I should conjecture that Salt Hill was the central place where anciently all the festivities used on this occasion were and annually displayed, here only, it should seem, the salt circumstance it has undoubtedly had was originally distributed, from which its name. See the "Status Schola Etonensis," 1560, Mense Januarii. I have heard it asserted, but find no papal times there was an exclusive grant foundation of the fact, that in the to Eton College, from the Pope, to sell In a letter from John Byrom to John consecrated salt for making holy water. Aubrey, 1693, the writer informs his correspondent that he had heard of the college holding certain lands by the custom of salting. He thought that the practice was to be traced to the Scriptural quotation: "Ye are the salt of the earth," and to the idea of purification. Aubrey's Letters, &c., 1813, ii., 168. The custom of having a procession of the scholars can be clearly proved as far back as the reign of Elizabeth, who, when she visited this College, desired to see an account of all

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the antient ceremonies observed there from its foundation to that period, in the number of which it appears that an annual procession of the scholars was one, and that at such times verses were repeated, and sums of money were gathered from the public for a dinner, &c., to which fund was added the small pittances extorted from the boys who were recently admitted, by those of a longer standing." Mr. Cambridge, an old Etonian, informed Mr. Brand, August 9th, 1794, that, in his time, the salt-bearers and scouts carried, each of them, salt in a handkerchief, and made every person take a pinch out of it before they gave their contributions. In Huggett's MSS. Collections for the History of Windsor and Eton College is the following account of "Ad Montem" "The present manner is widely different from the simplicity of its first institution. Now the Sales Epigrammatum are changed into the Sal purum; and it is a play-day without exercise. Here is a procession of the school quite in the military way. The scholars of the superior classes dress in the proper regimentals of captain, lieutenant, &c., which they borrow or hire from London on the occasion. The procession is likewise in the military order, with drums, trumpets, &c. They then march three times round the schoolyard, and from thence to Salt Hill, on which one of the scholars, dress'd in black and with a band, as chaplain, reads certain prayers: after which a dinner dressed in the College kitchen is provided by the captain for his guests at the inn there; the rest getting a dinner for themselves at the other houses for entertainment. But long before the procession begins, two of the scholars called salt-bearers, dressed in white, with a handkerchief of salt in their hands, and attended each with some sturdy young fellow hired for the occasion, go round the College, and through the town, and from thence up into the high road, and offering salt to all, but scarce leaving it to their choice whether they will give or not for money they will have, if possible, and that even from servants. The fifth and sixth forms dine with the captain. The noblemen usually do, and many other scholars whose friends are willing to be at the expence. The price of the dinner to each is 10s. 6d. and 2s. 6d. more for salt-money. Every scholar gives a shilling for salt, the noblemen more. At this time also they gather the recent money, which is from every scholar that has been entered within the year. Dinner being over, they march back in the order as before into the school yard, and with the third round the ceremony is concluded. The motto on the ensign

colours is, "Pro More et Monte.' Every scholar, who is no officer, marches with a long pole, focii or two and two. At the same time and place the head-master of the school makes a dinner at his own expence for his acquaintance, assistants, &c. Of late years the captain has cleared, after all expences are paid, upwards of £100. The Montem day used to be fixed for the first Tuesday in Hilary Term, which begins January 23rd. In the year 1759, the day was altered to Tuesday in the Whitsun week (which was then June 5th); the Whitsun holidays having a few years before been altered from five weeks holiday at election. This procession to Montem is every third year, and sometimes oftener." In one of the "Public Advertisers," in 1778, is the oldest printed account of the ceremony I have been able to find. It was then biennial: On Tuesday, being Whit Tuesday, the gentlemen of Eton School went, as usual, in military procession to Salt Hill. This custom of walking to the Hill returns every second year, and generally collects together a great deal of company of all ranks. The King and Queen, in their phaeton, met the procession at Arbor-hill, in Slough-road. When they halted, the flag was flourished by the ensign. The boys went, according to custom, round the mill, &c. The parson and clark were then called, and there these temporary ecclesiasticks went through the usual Latin service, which was not interrupted, though delayed for some time by the laughter that was excited by the antiquated appearance of the clerk, who had dressed himself according to the ton of 1745, and acted his part with as minute a consistency as he had dressed the character. The procession began at halfpast twelve from Eton. The collection was an extraordinary good one, as their Majesties gave, each of them, fifty guineas. Warton has preserved the form of the acquittance given by a Boy-bishop to the receiver of his subsidy, then amounting to the considerable sum of £3 15s. 1d. ob. The sum collected at the Montem on Whit-Tuesday, 1790, was full £500. This sum went to the captain, who was the senior of the collegers at the time of the ceremony. The motto for that year was "Pro More et Monte." Their majesties presented each a purse of fifty guineas. The fancy dresses of the salt bearers and their deputies, who were called scouts, were usually of different coloured silks, and very expensive. Formerly the dresses used in this procession were obtained from the theatres. In the "Gentleman's Magazine" for June, 1793, is the following account of the Montem procession for that year:-' On Whit