For, had you laid this brittle ware
On Dun, the old sure-footed Mare,
Though all the Ravens of the Hundred

With croaking had your tongue out-thunder'd,
Sure-footed Dun had kept his legs,

And you, good Woman, sav'd your Eggs."

Weighty is the observation of Defoe that "nothing is more contrary to good sense than imagining everything we see and hear is a prognostic of good or evil, except it be the belief that nothing is so."

CHILD'S CAUL;

OTHERWISE THE SILLY HOW, i.e., THE HOLY OR FORTUNATE CAP OR HOOD.

A

CAUL is a little membrane encompassing the head found on some children when born. It is thought to be a good omen to the child itself, and the vulgar opinion is that whoever obtains it by purchase will be fortunate and escape dangers. An instance of great fortune in one born with this coif is given by Elius Lampridius in his history of Diadumenus, who in after-life attained the sovereign dignity of the Empire. In the primitive ages of the Church this superstition was very prevalent; and St Chrysostom inveighs against it in several of his Homilies, the eloquent Father being especially severe against one Prœtus, a clergyman, who bought a caul from a midwife with a view to being fortunate.

"In Scotland," says Ruddiman in his Glossary to Douglas's Virgil, v. How, "the Women call a haly or sely How (ie., holy or fortunate Cap or Hood) a Film, or Membrane stretched over the Heads of Children new born, which is nothing else but a part of that which covers the Fœtus in the womb; and they give out that Children so born will be very fortunate." And as well in Scotland as in the north of England, a midwife is termed a howdy or howdy wife; the appellation, we take it, being a diminutive of How, and derived from this wellnigh obsolete opinion of old women. In France, it may be observed in passing, the superstition is proverbial; "être né coiffée" being used to denote that a person is extremely fortunate.

Besides its reputation for medical virtue in the case of diseases, a caul is held to be an infallible preservative against drowning; under which idea it used to be frequently advertised in the public papers and purchased by seamen. It was also sold by midwives to advocates, as being a special means of making them eloquent; and the membrane was further applied to the service of magic. According to Grose, the owner of a caul is enabled to know the state of health of the person who was born with it; the membrane's firmness and crispness denoting that he (or she) is alive and well, and its relaxation and flaccidity indicating either death or sickness.

Cauls are not often advertised for sale nowadays, but they used to be the subject of frequent newspaper announcement. Thus, in the

Morning Post of Saturday, 21st of August 1779, gentlemen of the Navy and others going long voyages to sea have their attention directed to the fact of a child's caul to be disposed of; inquiry to be made at the Bartlet Buildings Coffee House in Holborn; and a special intimation being added: "N.B. - To avoid unnecessary trouble, the price is twenty guineas." In the Daily Advertiser of July 1790 appeared a similar advertisement; and in the Times of 20th February 1813 we read: "A child's caul to be sold, in the highest perfection. Enquire at No. 2 Church street, Minories. To prevent trouble, price £12." A week later the Times had two advertisements of the same sort together

"CAUL-A child's caul to be sold. Enquire at No. 2 Greystoke Place, Fetter Lane;"

and

"To persons going to sea. A child's caul, in a perfect state, to be sold cheap. Apply at 5 Duke street, Manchester Square, where it may be

seen.

As to the stimulus to eloquence anciently associated with this mem brane, Douce observes that one is immediately struck with the affinity of the coif* worn by the judges to this practice of antiquity: and, to strengthen this opinion, it may be added that if the lawyers of old availed themselves of the popular superstition, or, falling into it themselves, gave large sums to win these cauls, it is but natural to suppose that they would be disposed to wear them.

Solent deinde pueri pileo insigniri naturali, quod obstetrices rapiunt et advocatis credulis vendunt, siquidem causidici hoc juvari dicuntur," writes Lampridius of Diadumenus; of which passage we have a version in Sir Thomas Browne, who refers to the life of Antoninus by Spartianus in support of the assertion "that children are sometimes born with this natural cap, which midwives were wom to sell to credulous lawyers, who held an opinion that it contributed to their promotion."

The Athenian Oracle speaks of the superstition extending to the length of believing that those who were born with cauls were exemp from the miseries and calamities of humanity; their good fortune including even invulnerability, provided they were always careful carry the membrane about with them; nay, if it were lost or stolet the benefit of it would be transferred to the holder of it. In Digby's Elvira, Don Zancho inquires—

"Were we not born with cauls upon our heads,

Think'st thou, Chicken, to come off twice arow
Thus rarely from such dangerous adventures?"

"In token or signe that all Justices are thus graduate (ie., Serjee) at Law)," writes Dugdale, "every of them always, whilst he sitteth i King's Court, weareth a white Coif of Silk, which is the principal and Insignment of habit, wherewith Serjeants at Law in their creation are dece and neither the Justice, nor yet the Serjeant, shall ever put off the Q no not in the King's presence, though he be in talk with his Majesties

ness."

So also in the Alchymist of Jonson, Face says—

"Yes; and that

Yo' were born with a cawl o' your head;

while in Melton's Astrologaster we have the record

“That if a child be borne with a cawle on his head he shall be very fortunate." *

Sir Thomas Browne's explanation of the phenomenon runs thus

"To speak strictly, the effect is natural, and thus to be conceived: the Infant hath three Teguments, or membranaceous Filmes which cover it in the womb, i.e., the Corion, Amnios, and Allantois; the Corion is the outward membrane, wherein are implanted the Veins, Arteries, and umbilical Vessels, whereby its nourishment is conveyed; the Allantois, a thin coat, seated under the Corion, wherein are received the watery separations conveyed by the Urachus, that the acrimony thereof should not offend the skin: the Amnios is a general investment, containing the sudorous, or thin serosity perspirable through the skin. Now about the time when the Infant breaketh these coverings, it sometimes carrieth with it, about the head, a part of the Amnios or neerest Coat: which, saith Spigelius, either proceedeth from the toughness of the membrane or weaknesse of the Infant that cannot get clear thereof, and therefore herein significations are natural and concluding upon the Infant, but not to be extended unto magical signalities, or any other person."

According to Lemnius, if the caul be of a blackish colour, it is an omen of ill fortune to the child, whereas a reddish one betokens everything that is good. "There is an old opinion," he observes, "not only prevalent amongst the common and ignorant people, but also amongst men of great note and physicians also, how that children born with a caul over their faces are born with an omen or sign of good or bad luck whereas they know not that this is common to all, and that the child in the womb was defended by three membranes." The vulgar saying, "You are a lucky man; you were wrapped up in a part of your mother's smock," probably originated in this superstition. Akin to that phrase is the reference in the Athenian Oracle to it as that shirt."

In Willis's Mount Tabor (1639) we read—

"Ther was one special remarkable thing concerning myself, who being my arents' first Son, but their second Child (they having a Daughter before me), hen I came into the World, my head, face, and foreparts of the body, were 1 covered over with a thin kell or skin, wrought like an artificial Veile; as so my eldest Sonne, being likewise my second Childe, was borne with the te extraordinary covering: our Midwives and Gossips holding such Children come so veiled into the World, to be very fortunate (as they call it), there

Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy quotes from Guianerius (De Ægritu ie Matris) a story of "a silly jealous fellowe that, seeing his child new me included in a kell, thought sure a Franciscan that used to come to his ase was the father of it-it was so like a friar's cowle-and thereupon eatened the friar to kill him."

being not one childe amongst many hundreds that are so borne; and this to fall out in the same manner both to the Father and the Sonne being much more rare."

In Waller's Advice to a Painter (1681) occurs the annexed passage

"Barking Bear-ward

Whom pray'e dont forget to paint with's Staff,
Just at this green Bear's Tail,-

Watching (as carefull Neat-herds do their Kine)
Lest he should eat her nauseous Secundine.

Then draw a Haw-thorn Bush, and let him place
The Heam upon't, with faith, that the next Race
May Females prove;"

the explanation of the passage being that it is an allusion to "a little piece of superstition which the country people use, carefully attending their calving cows lest they should eat their after-burthen, which they commonly throw upon a hawthorn bush with stedfast belief that they shall have a cow-calf the next year after;" and the word "heam" being explained to mean "the same in beasts as the secundine or skin that the young is wrapped in."

SNEEZING.

From the remotest antiquity sneezing has been held to be ominous. Thus we read in the Odyssey

"She spoke: Telemachus then sneez'd aloud;
Constrain'd, his nostril echo'd through the crowd.
The smiling queen the happy omen blest :
So may these impious fall, by Fate opprest;"

the comment of Eustathius being that sneezing to the left was unlucky, whereas sneezing to the right was propitious.

Xenophon having ended a speech to his soldiers with the words, "We have many reasons to hope for preservation," one of his hearers sneezed; whereupon the whole army, accepting the omen, forthwith paid adoration to the gods, after which Xenophon resumed his discourse with the observation, "Since, my fellow-soldiers, at the mention of your preservation Jupiter has sent this omen," &c.

"Two or three neses," we read in the Vulgaria of Hormannus, "be holsom: one is a shrewd token;" and, according to Scot, if any one sneezes twice a night for three nights in succession, it is to be accepted as a sign that one of the members of the household is on the point of death, or that some other loss is about to occur, or some very striking advantage.

Prometheus, we learn from Ross's Arcana Microcosmi, was the first that wished well to the sneezer, when the man he made of clay fell into a fit of sternutation upon the approach of the celestial fire he had stolen from the sun; and this, says Ross, is the origin of the Gentile custom of saluting the sneezer. They used also to worship the head

sternutation, as being a divine part and seat of the senses and cogitation."

One of Aristotle's problems is, why sneezing from noon to midnight is good, but from night to noon unlucky; and St Austin tells us that the ancients were wont to go to bed again if they sneezed in the act of pulling on their shoes.

The Rabbinical account of sneezing is very singular. According to Buxtorf's Chaldee Lexicon, it was a mortal sign even from the first man, until it was taken off by the special supplication of Jacob; "from whence, as a thankful acknowledgment, this salutation first began and was after continued by the expression of Tobim Chaiim, or Vita Bona! by standers-by, upon all occasions of sneezing."

When Themistocles sacrificed in his gallery on the eve of battle with Xerxes, one of the assistants on his right hand sneezed. Thereupon, says Plutarch, the soothsayer Euphrantides presaged the overthrow of the Persians.

There can be no doubt that the custom of invoking blessings on those who sneeze has been derived to the Christian world, where it generally prevails, from heathenism. Sigonius, absurdly enough, inclines in his History of Italy to deduce it from a pestilence that broke out in the time of Gregory the Great, which proved mortal to all who sneezed.* But there is ample evidence of its superior antiquity. Apuleius mentions it three centuries before, as also does Pliny in his problem Cur sternutantes salutantur; Petronius describes it; Cœlius Rhodoginus has an example of it among the Greeks in the time of the younger Cyrus; it occurs as an omen in the 18th idyl of Theocritus; and it is alluded to in an epigram in the Greek Anthology.

Of the Emperor Tiberius it is recorded that, though otherwise a very sour man, he was most punctual in his salutation of others, and that he expected the same attention to himself; and, when the ten thousand were assembled in consultation about their retreat, a sneeze had the effect of making the warriors instantly invoke Jupiter Soter.

Indeed, the prevalence of the practice in the remotest parts of Africa and the East is attested by our earliest navigators. When the King of Mesopotamia sneezes, acclamations ensue throughout his dominions; and the Siamese tender the salutation, "Long life to you!" their belief being that one of the judges of hell keeps a register in which is recorded the duration of men's lives, and that when he opens it and inspects any particular leaf, all those whose names happen to be entered thereon never fail to sneeze immediately. So also of the Persians; Hanway tells us that sneezing is reckoned a happy omen, especially when often repeated; and we read in Codignus that, as in Mesopotamia, the sneeze of the Emperor of Monomotapha evoked the acclamations of the city.

In Langley's Abridgement of Polydore Vergil we read : "There was a Plage wherby many as they neezed dyed sodeynly, whereof it grew into a Custome, hat they that were present when any man neezed should say, God helpe you. A like deadly plage was sometyme in yawning, wherefore Menne used to fence hemselves with the Signe of the Crosse: bothe whiche Customes we reteyne tyl at this day."