almost opposite to Hopetoun House, which, being erected upon the rock, is encompassed by the sea at full tide. On the south side, near

the door, is this inscription in a tolerable state of completeness and legibility

"In dev time drav yis Cord ye Bel to clink

Qvhais mery voce varnis to Meat and Drink."

The dates about the building are 1561 and 1639.

WATCHING WITH THE DEAD, CALLED IN THE NORTH OF
ENGLAND THE LAKE-WAKE.

The word lake-wake is plainly derived from the Anglo-Saxon lic or lice, a corpse, and wacce, a wake, vigil, or watching; in which sense it is used by Chaucer in his Knight's Tale—

Thus also, under the word Walkin, in Ruddiman's Glossary to Douglas's Virgil, we read: "Proper Like Wakes (Scotch) are the Meetings of the Friends of the deceased, a night or nights before the Burial."

They were wont, writes Bourne, to sit by the corpse from the time of death till its exportation to the grave, either in the house it lay in, or in the church itself; and for proof of this statement he cites St Austin, as to the watching the dead body of his mother Monica; and Gregory of Tours, as to that of St Ambrose, whose body was carried into the church the same hour he died.

This ancient custom, according to Jamieson, most probably originated from a silly superstition as to the danger of a corpse being carried off by some of the agents of the invisible world, or exposed to the ominous liberties of brute animals. But, as that writer observes, it is certainly a decent and proper one, because of the possibility of the person, considered as dead, being only in a swoon. Whatever was the original design, however, the lik-wake seems to have very early degenerated into a scene of festivity extremely incongruous to the melancholy occasion.

Pennant's description of Highland ceremonies gives the lake wake as a ceremony used at funerals. "The Evening after the death of any person, the Relations or Friends of the deceased meet at the House attended by a Bag-pipe or Fiddle: the nearest of kin, be it wife, son, or daughter, opens a melancholy Ball, dancing, and greeting, ie., crying violently at the same time; and this continues till daylight, but with such Gambols and Frolicks among the younger part of the Company, that the loss which occasioned them is often more than supplied by the consequences of that night. If the Corps remain unburied for two nights the same rites are renewed. Thus, Scythian like they rejoice at the deliverance of their Friends out of this Life of

"Misery." The coranich or singing at funerals he represents as being still in use in some places. "The Songs are generally in praise of the deceased, or a recital of the valiant deeds of their ancestors."

In North Wales, says the same writer dealing with the manners of the eighteenth century, "the Night before a dead body is to be interred, the friends and neighbours of the deceased resort to the House the corpse is in, each bringing with him some small present of Bread, Meat, Drink (if the family be something poor); but more especially Candles, whatever the Family be: and this Night is called wyl nôs, whereby the country people seem to mean a Watching Night. Their going to such a House, they say is, i wilior corph, i.e., to watch the corpse; but wylo signifies to weep and lament, and so wyl nôs may be a night of lamentation. While they stay together on that night they are either singing Psalms, or reading some part of the Holy Scriptures.

"Whenever any body comes into a Room where a dead Body lyes, especially the wyl nôs and the day of its Interment, the first thing he does, he falls on his knees by the Corps, and says the Lord's Prayer."

In The Irish Hudibras, a burlesque of Virgil's story of Æneas going down to visit his father in the shades (1689), is the following description of what is called in the margin "An Irish Wake”

“ To their own Sports, (the Masses ended,)
The Mourners now are recommended.
Some for their pastime count their Beads,

Some scratch their Breech, some louse their Heads;
Some sit and chat, some laugh, some weep;

Some sing Cronans, * and some do sleep;

Some pray; and with their prayers mix curses;
Some vermin pick, and some pick purses;

Some court, some scold, some blow, some puff,

Some take Tobacco, some take snuff;

Some play the Trump, some trot the Hay,
Some at Macham,+ some Noddy play;
With all the Games they can devise;
And (when occasion serves 'em) cries.
Thus did mix their Grief and Sorrow,
Yesterday bury'd, kill'd to-morrow."

A less overcharged account of the wake is contained in the Glossary to Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent: "In Ireland a Wake is a midnight meeting, held professedly for the indulgence of holy sorrow, but usually it is converted into orgies of unholy joy. When an Irish man or woman of the lower order dies, the straw which composed his bed, whether it has been contained in a bag to form a mattress, or simply spread upon the earthen floor, is immediately taken out of the house, and burned before the cabin door, the family at the same time setting up the death howl. The ears and eyes of the neighbours being thus alarmed, they flock to the house of the

• Songs,

+ A game at cards.

deceased, and by their vociferous sympathy excite and at the same time sooth the sorrows of the family.

"It is curious to observe how good and bad are mingled in human institutions. In countries which were thinly inhabited, this custom prevented private attempts against the lives of individuals, and formed a kind of Coroner's Inquest upon the body which had recently expired, and burning the straw upon which the sick man lay became a simple preservative against infection. At night the dead body is waked; that is to say, all the friends and neighbours of the deceased collect in a barn or stable, where the corpse is laid upon some boards, or an unhinged door, supported upon stools, the face exposed, the rest of the body covered with a white sheet. Round the body are stuck in brass Candlesticks, which have been borrowed perhaps at five miles distance, as many candles as the poor person can beg or borrow, observing always to have an odd number. Pipes and Tobacco are first distributed, and then, according to the ability of the deceased, Cakes and Ale, and sometimes Whiskey, are dealt to the company

'Deal on, deal on, my merry men all,
Deal on your Cakes and your Wine,
For whatever is dealt at her funeral to-day

Shall be dealt to-morrow at mine.'

"After a fit of universal Sorrow, and the comfort of an universal dram, the scandal of the neighbourhood, as in higher Circles, occupies the company. The young lads and lasses romp with one another; and when the fathers and mothers are at last overcome with sleep and whiskey (vino et somno) the youth become more enterprizing and are frequently successful. It is said that more matches are made at Wakes than at Weddings."

That watching with the corpse was an ancient custom everywhere practised, numerous passages from ecclesiastical writers might be cited to prove, could there be any doubt of the antiquity of a practice which, owing its origin to the tenderest affections of human nature, has perhaps on that account been used from the infancy of Time.

In the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1771 it is said of a girl who was killed by lightning in Ireland, that she could not be waked within doors; an expression which is explained as alluding to a custom among the Irish of dressing their dead in their best clothes, to receive as many visitors as please to see them; and this is called keeping their wake. The corpse of this girl, it seems, was so offensive that this ceremony could not be performed within doors.

Hutchinson, speaking of the parish of Whitbeck in Cumberland, says: "People always keep wake with the dead;" and in the Statistical Account of Scotland we read of the Parish of Cruden in Aberdeenshire: "Of all those who attended the Late Wake of a person who died of a putrid Feaver, not one escaped catching the infection;" a note adding that the late wake is a practice common to many parts of Scotland, and not yet exploded in that parish, of people sitting up all night with the corpse in the chamber of the deceased. So also of the Parish of Campsie, in Stirling, we read:

"It was customary for them to have at least two Lyke-Wakes (the Corpse being kept two nights before the Interment) where the young Neighbours watched the Corpse, being merry or sorrowful, according to the situation or rank of the deceased."

As to the Isle of Man, Waldron testifies that "When a person dies, several of his acquaintance come to sit up with him, which they call the Wake. The Clerk of the Parish is obliged to sing a Psalm, in which all the Company join; and after that they begin some pastime to divert themselves, having strong beer and tobacco allowed them in great plenty. This is a custom borrowed from the Irish, as indeed are many others much in fashion with them."

To Jamieson's Dictionary we owe the information that the Lik Wake is retained in Sweden, where it is called Wakstuga, from wak-a to watch, and perhaps stuga, a room, an apartment, or cottage; and the quotation from Ihre reflecting that, although these wakes should be dedicated to the contemplation of our mortality, they have been generally passed in plays and compotations, whence they were prohibited in public edicts.

Durandus cites one of the ancient Councils to prove not only that psalms were wont to be sung, when the corpse was conducted to church, but that the ancients watched on the night before the burial, and spent the vigil in singing psalms.

Among the primitive Christians the corpse, it would seem, was sometimes kept four days. Thus we find that Pelagia, in the Life of Gregory of Tours, requests of her son, "ne eam ante diem quartum sepeliret.'

The abuse of this vigil, or lake wake, is of pretty old standing. The tenth canon of the provincial synod held in London in the reign of Edward III. (writes Collier), "endeavours to prevent the disorders committed at people's Watching a Corps before Burial. Here the Synod takes notice that the design of people's meeting together upon such occasions was to join their prayers for the benefit of the dead person; that this antient and serviceable usage was overgrown with Superstition and turned into a convenience for theft and debauchery: therefore, for a remedy against this disorder, 'tis decreed that, upon the death of any person, none should be allowed to watch before the Corpse in a private House, excepting near Relations and Friends of the deceased, and such as offered to repeat a set number of Psalms for the benefit of his Soul." The penalty annexed was excommunication. This abuse is also mentioned in Becon's Reliques of Rome (1563), and it forms an item in the Catalogue of Crimes that were anciently cursed with bell, book, and candle.

Bourne complains of the sport, drinking, and lewdness that prevailed at these lake wakes in his time. They still continue to resemble too much the ancient Bacchanalian orgies. If the inconsiderate wretches who abuse such solemn meetings think at all, they must think with epicurean licentiousness that, since life is so uncertain, no opportunity should be neglected of transmitting it, and that the loss, by the death of one relation, should be made up by the birth of another.

LAYING OUT OR STREEKING THE BODY.

Durandus gives a tolerably exact account of some of the ceremonies used on occasion of laying out the body, as they are at present practised in the North of England, where the laying out is called Streeking. He mentions the closing of the eyes and lips, and the decent washing, dressing, and wrapping up in a winding sheet or linen shroud.

In Orkney, according to Gough, funeral ceremonies are much the same as in Scotland; the corpse being laid out after being stretched on a board till it is coffined for burial. He professes his inability, however, to explain why they lock up all the cats of the house, and cover all the looking-glasses as soon as any person dies, and represents that they themselves can render no adequate reason.

But surely it is not difficult to assign a reason for locking up the cats on the occasion. Obviously it is to prevent their making any depredations upon the corpse, which it is known they would attempt to do if not prevented.

The inhabitants of the Parish of Monquhitter, we learn, held that "it disturbed the Ghost of the dead, and was fatal to the living, if a Tear was allowed to fall on a Winding Sheet. What was the intention of this, but to prevent the effects of a Wild or Frantic Sorrow? If a Cat was permitted to leap over a Corpse, it portended Misfortune. The meaning of this was to prevent that carnivorous Animal from coming near the Body of the deceased, lest, when the Watchers were asleep, it should endeavour to prey upon it." These notions appear to have been called in Scotland" Frets."

In Wits, Fits, and Fancies (1614), is an allusion to the practice : "One said to a little Child, whose Father died that Morning, and was layd out in a Coffin in the Kitchen, Alas! my pretty Child, thy Father is now in heaven: the Child answered, Nay, that he is not for he is yet in the Kitchen."

Laying out the corpse is an office always performed by women, who claim the linen and other articles about the person of the deceased at the time of performing the ceremony; and it is thought to be very unlucky to the friends of the person departed, to keep back any portion of these perquisites. The women subsequently give these away by small divisions; and those who obtain any part of it think it an omen or presage of future good fortune to them or theirs.

The face-cloth, too, is of great antiquity. According to Strutt, after the closing of the eyes and lips, a linen cloth was put over the face of the deceased. Thus we are told that Henry IV., in his last illness, seeming to be dead, "his Chamberlain covered his face with a Linen Cloth."

Misson mentions "the washing the Body throughly clean, and shaving it, if it be a man, and his beard be grown during his sickness ;'

*To streek, to expand, or stretch out, from the Anglo-Saxon repecan, extendere. A streeking board is that on which they stretch out and compose the limbs of the dead body.