for these occasions consisted in the claimants' kneeling on two sharppointed stones in the churchyard, and there, after solemn chanting and other rites performed by the convent, taking the following oath :— "You shall swear by custom of confession,

That you

ne'er made nuptial transgression;
Nor, since you were married man and wife,
By household brawls or contentious strife,
Or otherwise, at bed or board,

Offended each other in deed or in word;
Or since the parish clerk said 'Amen!'
Wished yourselves unmarried again;
Or in a twelvemonth and a day
Repented in thought any way;

But continued true in thought and desire,
As when you joined hands in holy choir.
If to these conditions, without all fear,
Of your own accord you will freely swear,
A whole gammon of bacon you shall receive,
And bear it hence with love and good leave;
For this is our custom at Dunmow, well known,

Though the pleasure be ours, the bacon's your own."

This curious custom was originated by Robert Fitz-Walter, in the year 1244, and the earliest recorded claim for the "Flitch of Bacon" was, according to Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, in 1445, since when to 1855 it had only been demanded five times. The last claimants previous to 1855 were John Shakeshanks and his wife, 20 June, 1751, who made a large sum by selling slices of the flitch to witnesses of the ceremony (5000 persons). Flitches were awarded to Mr. and Mrs. Barlow, of Chipping-Ongar, and the Chevalier Chatelaine and his lady, 19 July, 1855. The lord of the manor opposed the revival, but Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, the celebrated novelist, and some friends defrayed the expense, and superintended the ceremonials. A flitch was awarded in the year 1860.

THE ORIGINAL BLUEBEARD.

THE original Bluebeard of the popular nursery tale was the famous Gilles, Marquis de Laval, Marshal of France, and a general of great intrepidity. He greatly distinguished himself in the reigns of Charles VI. and VII., but tarnished his glory by the most cruel murders and licentiousness of every kind. His revenues were princely, but his prodigalities were sufficient to render an emperor a bankrupt. Wherever he went, he had in his suite a seraglio, a company of players, a band of musicians, a society of sorcerers, packs of dogs of various kinds, and above two hundred horses. Mezery, an author of high repute, says that he encouraged and maintained men, who called themselves sorcerers, to discover hidden treasure; and corrupted young persons of both sexes to attach themselves to him, and after

wards killed them, for the sake of their blood, which was requisite to form his charms and incantations. He was, at length, for a state crime to the Duke of Brittany, sentenced to be burned alive in a field in Nantes, in the year 1440, but the Duke of Brittany, who was present at his execution, so far mitigated the sentence, that he was first strangled, and then burned, and his ashes buried.

TAVERN SIGNS.

THE Bull and Gate" and "Bull and Mouth" are well-known corruptions of "Boulogne-gate" and "Boulogne-mouth;" but that of the Bag of Nails," at Chelsea, is still more curious, being derived from "Bacchanals." The "Bell Savage Inn" was once the property of Arabella Savage, and familiarly called, "Bell Savage's Inn," probably represented by a bell and a savage, which was a rebus for her name. On any extraordinary occasion, the tavern keepers have not been backward to commemorate it on their signposts. At the Union with Scotland, the Crown with the Rose and Thistle adorned our taverns; and, on the accession of our present royal family, the White Horse of Hanover prevailed.

The "Boar's Head" tavern in Eastcheap, London, makes a conspicuous figure in Shakspeare's plays; and was standing in the latter part of last century. Under the sign was written, "THIS IS THE OLDEST TAVERN IN LONDON." There are extant among the small pieces called tradesmen's tokens, some used for change in this tavern, which are probably of the date of Elizabeth, antecedent to the copper coinage.

WASSAIL.

THIS was a liquor made of roasted apples, sugar, and ale, with bowls of which our forefathers were used to welcome in the New Year :

"Wassail! wassail! all o'er the town;
Our toast it is white, our ale it is brown ;
Our bowl it is made of a maplin tree;
We be good fellows all: I drink to thee!”

THE VICAR OF BRAY.

FULLER, in his Church History, gives the following account of this remarkable personage :

The vivacious Vicar of Bray, living under King Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, was first a papist, then a protestant, then a papist, and then a protestant again. He had seen some martyrs burned (some two miles off) at Windsor, and found this fire too hot for his tender temper. The vicar, being taxed by one for being a turncoat and an inconsistent changeling," Not so (said

he), for I always kept my principle, which is this,-to live and die the Vicar of Bray."

:

THE GLEE-MAIDEN.

THE jongeleurs, or jugglers, as we learn from the elaborate work of the late Mr. Strutt on the sports and pastimes of the people of England, used to call in the aid of various assistants to render these performances as captivating as possible. The glee-maiden was a necessary attendant. Her duty was tumbling and dancing; and therefore the Anglo-Saxon version of Saint Mark's gospel states that the daughter of Herodias vaulted or tumbled before King Herod. In Scotland, these poor creatures seem, even at a late period, to have been bondswomen to their masters; as appears from a case reported by Fountainhall :—“ Reid, the mountebank, pursues Scott of Harden and his lady, for stealing away from him a little girl, called the tumbling lassie, that danced upon his stage; and he claimed damages, and produced a contract, whereby he bought her from her mother for £30 Scots. But we have no slaves in Scotland, and mothers cannot sell their bairns, and physicians attested the employment of tumbling would kill her; and her joints were now grown stiff, and she declined to return; though she was at least a 'prentice, and so could not run away from her master, yet some cited Moses' law, that if a servant shelter himself with thee against the master's cruelty, thou shalt surely not deliver him up. The lords, renitente cancellario, assoilzied Harden on the 27th January, 1687."

The facetious qualities of the ape soon rendered him an acceptable addition to the strolling band of the jongleur. Ben Jonson, in his splenetic introduction to the comedy of "Bartholomew Fair," is at pains to inform the audience," that he has ne'er a sword and buckler man in his fair, nor a juggler, with a well-educated ape, to come over the chain for the King of England, and back again for the prince, and sit still on his haunches for the pope and the King of Spain."-Scott.

A CURIOUS OLD LONDON CUSTOM.

IN the year 1705, Robert Dowe by his will gave an annual sum of 1 6s. 8d. to the sexton of St. Sepulchre, upon condition that a bell should be tolled, and the following words said to the prisoners in Newgate on the night preceding their execution:

"All you that in the condemned hole do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die.
Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near
That you before the Almighty must appear;
Examine well yourselves; in time repent,
That you may not to eternal flames be sent ;
And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord alone have mercy on your souls."

On the night before executions take place, a person presents himself

at the prison door, on the part of the sexton, and offers to perform the prescribed service, but is refused admission, and told that his services are not required. The sum, £1 6s. 8d., is derived from property in Smithfield, and is still continued to be paid to the sexton.

THE BEDAWIN, ROMANTIC AND REALISTIC. "EASTERN life" has become with us in Europe almost synonymous with a life of romance, poetry, houris, and flowers, of gorgeous raiment and matchless steeds, of jewels and luxury. What can be more romantic-in print-than the tameless son of the desert, free as air, chivalrous as Bayard, mounted on his priceless mare, returning from a successful onslaught on his foes, to lay the spoils of shawls from Khorassan and Kashmir, silks from Damascus, and gold filigree work from Cairo, at the feet of the dark-browed maiden whose gazelle-like eyes have caused more havoc in the desert than ever did the arrows of Abu Zayd the invincible? Are not the pearls of the harem said to be peerless in beauty and grace, and their wondrous loveliness to overpower the senses like the air heavy with scent of orange flowers and jessamine beneath their own sunny sky? Have not the "Arabian Nights" taught us that rubies as big as pigeon's eggs, and pearls the size of raspberries, are common; while gold is dross to be scattered broadcast to gaping crowds by the princes of Islam? Alas! that truth, with one stroke of a realistic pen, should destroy this dream of poetry! Let us see the Bedawin as he is. Living under hair tents, in squalor, filth, and ignorance, his chivalry degenerates into simple freebooting; his priceless mare is—exceptis excipiendis—a scraggy, thin-chested, drooping-flanked beast, capable, by some peculiar provision of nature unknown to the horse of civilization, of going long wearisome journeys, with little water and less food; her pace, however, is little more than three miles and a half per hour, and if pressed, she soon fails. The Bedawin's dark-eyed love is perhaps not ugly at twelve years old, but at twenty she is perfectly hideous, and looks forty. From earliest girlhood she is brought up as a hewer of wood and drawerof water. For the first seven or eight years of their lives, all the childre play about the ragged tents in happy community of ideas with the kidsand lambs, puppies, chickens, calves, and camelets. After that they tend the flocks; at ten or twelve the girls marry, and the boys, so soon as they are grown up, leave all toil to the women and children, as unworthy of their manly dignity. A successful foray raises them in the social scale, as a grand coup on the bourse or stock exchange does in more civilized lands. Though wealth be power everywhere, it is nowhere more potent than in the East, where competitive examinations and compulsory education are equally unknown. Still, a good word may be said for the Bedawin in districts where contact with Europeans has not spoilt them. They are then hospitable after their fashion, always offering a meal to the passing traveller, and though they will do their best to overreach and cheat in making a bargain, yet once the affair settled and their word given, a breach of faith is seldom

I may say never, known. As to the veiled beauties of the harem, we must trust to the perhaps somewhat ex parte descriptions of European ladies, and such stray glimpses as chance may show. Neither of them carry out the ideas of loveliness implanted by the "Arabian Nights," and one who has lived in the native quarters of Eastern towns will be well aware that the fair sex is cursed with a most vile shrewish tongue, and makes use of undiluted Billingsgate on the slightest provocation, in tones which force themselves to be heard by all the neighbours.— Tyrwhitt Drake's Reports, Palestine Exploration Fund.

SIR DAVID LINDSAY, THE POET, DESIRING THE OFFICE OF TAILOR TO THE KING.

ALIKE celebrated for his courage and his wit, Lindsay was no stickler at ceremony when in his mood. On one occasion, when the king was surrounded by a numerous train of nobility and prelates, Lindsay approached the monarch with due reverence and solemnity, and began to prefer a humble petition to be installed in an office which was then vacant. "I have," said the knight, "servit your grace long, and look to be rewarded as others are; and now your maister taylor, at the pleasure of God, is departit; wherefore I would desire your grace to bestowe this little benefit upon me." The king replied, that he was amazed at such a request from a man who could neither shape nor sew. "Sir King," rejoined the poet, "that makes nae matter, for you have given bishopricks and benefices to mony ane standin heir about you, and yet they can nouther teach nor preach; and why may not I be as weil your taylor, though I can nouther shape nor sew? seein teachinge and preachinge are nae less requisite to their vocation than shapinge and sewinge to ane taylor."-Mackie's Castles, etc., of Mary of Scotland.

LACONIC AND SENTIMENTAL CURIOSITIES.

OF GOOD MEN.

THE parts and signs of goodness are many. If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them. If he be compassionate towards the afflictions of others, it shows that his heart is like the noble tree that is wounded itself when it gives balm. If he easily pardons and remits offences, it shows that his mind is planted above injuries, so that he cannot be shot. If he be thankful for small benefits, it shows that he weighs men's minds, and not their trash.-Bacon's Essays.