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Old Customs.

For the Table Book.

HAGMENA.

The hagmena is an old custom observed in Yorkshire on new year’s eve. The keeper of the pinfold goes round the town, attended by a rabble at his heels, and knocking at certain doors, sings a barbarous song, according to the manner “of old king Henry’s days;” and at the end of every verse they shout “Hagman Heigh.”

When wood was chiefly used by our forefathers as fuel, this was the most proper season for the hagman, or wood-cutter, to remind his customers of his services, and solicit alms from them. The word “hag” is still used among us for a wood, and the “hagman” may be a compound name from his employment. Some give it a more sacred interpretation, as derived from the Greek ???a ???, the “holy month,” when the festivals of the church for our Saviour’s birth were celebrated. Formerly on the last day of December, the monks and friars used to make a plentiful harvest by begging from door to door, and reciting a kind of carol, at the end of every stave of which they introduced the words “agia mene,” alluding to the birth of Christ. A very different interpretation has, however, been given to it by one John Dixon, a Scotch presbyterian parson, when holding forth against this custom, in one of his sermons at Kelso—“Sirs, do you know what hagman signifies?—It is the devil to be in the house: that is the meaning of its Hebrew original.” It is most probably a corruption of some Saxon words, which length of time has rendered obsolete.

Old St. Luke’s Day.

On this day a fair is held in York for all sorts of small wares, though it is commonly called “Dish Fair,” from the quantity of wooden dishes, ladles, &c. brought to it. There was an old custom at this fair, of bearing a wooden ladle in a sling on two stangs, carried by four sturdy labourers, and each labourer supported by another. This, without doubt, was a ridicule on the meanness of the wares brought to this fair, small benefit accruing to the labourers at it. It is held by charter, granted 25th Jan., 17th Hen. VII.

St. Luke’s day is also known in York by the name of “Whip-Dog Day,” from a strange custom that schoolboys use there, of whipping all the dogs that are seen in the streets on that day. Whence this uncommon persecution took its rise is uncertain. The tradition of its origin seems very probable; that, in times of popery, a priest, celebrating mass at this festival in some church in York, unfortunately dropped the pix after consecration, which was forthwith snatched up suddenly and swallowed by a dog that laid under the altar. The profanation of this high mystery occasioned the death of the dog; the persecution, so begun, has since continued to this day, though now greatly abridged by the interference of some of the minor members of the honourable corporation, against the whole species in that city.

D. A. M.

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[II-849,
II-850]

CHAPMAN’S “ALL FOOLS.”

For the Table Book.

In Chapman’s “All Fools,” 1605, (as quoted, by Charles Lamb, in Table Book, vol. i. 192,) is the following passage, under the title of “Love’s Panegyric.”—

Chapman might be acquainted with Italian poets, but at all events the coincidence between the above and the following canzon, by Andrew Navagero, is remarkable. Navagero was the friend of Boscan, the Spanish poet: they became acquainted at Grenada, while Navagero was there ambassador from Venice. Boscan died before 1544; and, as he himself confesses, he learnt the sonnet and other Italian forms of poetry from Navagero.

Our version is made from the original in Dolce’s Collection of Rime Diverse, i. 98. It ought to be mentioned, that Boscan’s admission of his obligations to Navagero is to be found in the Introduction to the second book of his works.

December, 1827. J. P. C.

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NORWICH MOCK ELECTIONS.

To the Editor.

Sir,—At Costessy, a small village, three miles on the west side of Norwich, there is an annual mock guild on Whit Tuesday. It takes its name from the annual mayor’s feast at Norwich, being called the City Guild. The corporation at Costessy is composed of the poor inhabitants under the patronage of the marquis of Stafford, who has a beautiful seat in this village. On this day a mock mayor is annually elected; he has a proper and appropriate costume, and is attended by a sword-bearer, with a sword of state of wood painted and gilt, two mace-bearers with gilt maces, with a long array of officers, down to the snapdragon of Norwich, of which they have a passable imitation. Their first procession is to the hall, where they are recognised by the noble family who generally support the expenses of the day, and the mock mayor and corporation are liberally regaled from the strong-beer cellar. They then march, preceded by a band of music, to the steward’s house, where the mock solemnities take place, and speeches are made, which, if not remarkable for their eloquence, afford great delight by their absurd attempts at being thought so. The new mayor being invested with the insignia of his office, a bright brass jack-chain about his neck, the procession is again renewed to a large barn at some distance, where the place being decorated with boughs, flowers, and other rural devices, a substantial dinner of roast-beef, plum-pudding, and other good things, with plenty of that strong liquor called at Norwich nogg—the word I have been told is a provincial contraction for “knock me down.”

The village is usually thronged with company from Norwich, and all the rural festivities attendant on country feasts take place. The noble family before mentioned promote the hilarity by their presence and munificence. The elder members of the body corporate continue at the festal board, in imitation of their prototypes in larger corporations, to a late hour; and some of them have been noticed for doing as much credit to the good cheer provided on the occasion, as any alderman at a turtle feast. There is no record of the origin of this institution, as none of the members of the corporation have the gift of reading or writing, but there are traces of it beyond the memory of any person now living, and it has been observed to have increased in splendour of late years.

The fishermen’s guild at Norwich has for some years been kept on the real guild-day. The procession consists of a great number, all fishermen or fishmongers, two of whom are very remarkable. The first [II-851,
II-852] is the mayor: the last I saw was a well-looking young man, with his face painted and his hair powdered, profusely adorned with a brass chain, a fishing-rod in his hand, and a very large gold-laced hat; he was supported on the shoulders of several of his brethren in a fishing-boat, in which he stood up and delivered his speech to the surrounding multitude, in a manner that did not disgrace him. The other personage was the king of the ocean. What their conceptions of Neptune were, it is as difficult to conceive as his appearance might be to describe. He was represented by a tall man, habited in a seaman-like manner, his outward robe composed of fishing-nets, a long flowing beard ill accorded with a full-dress court wig, which had formerly been the property of some eminent barrister, but had now changed its element, and from dealing out law on the land, its mystic powers were transferred to the water. In his right hand he carried his trident, the spears of which were formed of three pickled herrings. His Tritons sounded his praise on all kinds of discordant wind instruments, and Æolus blew startling blasts on a cracked French horn. The olfactory nerves of the auditors who were hardy enough to come in close contact with the procession, were assailed by “a very ancient and fish-like smell.” The merriment was rude and very hearty.

P. B.

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Old London Customs.

For the Table Book.

Paul’s Walkers—Hired Witnesses.

In the reigns of James I. and Charles I. a singular custom prevailed of the idle and dissolute part of the community assembling in the naves or other unemployed parts of large churches. The nave of St. Paul’s cathedral bore the name of Paul’s Walk; and so little was the sanctity of the place regarded, that if the description by an old author[517] is not exaggerated, the Royal Exchange at four o’clock does not present a greater scene of confusion. I carry the comparison no farther; the characters assembled in the church appear to have been very different to those composing the respectable assembly alluded to. The author referred to thus describes the place: “The noyse in it is like that of bees. It is the generall mint of all famous lies, which are here like the legends popery first coyn’d and stampt in the church. All inventions are empty’d here and not a few pockets.” “The visitants are all men without exceptions; but the principal inhabitants and possessors are stale knights, and captaines out of service; men of long rapiers and breeches.”

From the following passage in Hudibras[518] I should judge that the circular church in the Temple was the resort of characters of an equally bad description:

The cross-legged knights, it is almost needless to add, are the effigies of the mailed warriors, which still remain in fine preservation. The “pillar-rows in Lincoln’s Inn,” I apprehend, refer to the crypt, or open vault, beneath Inigo Jones’s chapel in Lincoln’s Inn, originally designed for an ambulatory.[519] It is singular to reflect on the entire change in the public manners within two centuries. If coeval authorities did not exist to prove the fact, who would believe in these days, that, in a civilized country, men were to be found within the very seats of law ready to perjure themselves for hire? or that juries and judges did not treat the practice and the encouraging of it with a prompt and just severity?

St. Thomas’s Day Elections.

Previous to a court of common council, the members were formerly in the habit of assembling in the great hall of the Guildhall. When the hour of business arrived, one of the officers of the lord mayor’s household summoned them to their own chamber by the noise produced by moving an iron ring swiftly up and down a twisted or crankled bar of the same metal, which was affixed behind the door of the principal entrance to the passage leading to that part of the Guildhall styled, in civic language, the inner chambers. The custom was disused about forty years ago. The iron, I understand, remained until the demolition of the old doorway in the last general repair of the hall, when the giants descended from their stations without hearing [II-853,
II-854] the clock strike, and the new doorway was formed in a more convenient place. With the old-fashioned gallery, the invariable appendage to an ancient hall, which, until that period, occupied its proper place over the entrance, was destroyed that terror of idle apprentices, the prison of Little Ease. This gallery must be still remembered, as well as its shrill clock in a curious carved case. Its absence is not compensated by the perilous-looking balcony substituted for it on the opposite side, an object too trifling and frivolous for so fine a room as the civic common hall.

E. I. C.

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A DEFENCE OF SLANG.

For the Table Book.

“To think like wise men, and to talk like common people,” is a maxim that has long stood its ground. What is the language of “common people?” slang—ergo, every body ought to talk it. What is slang? Many will answer that it consists of words used only by the lowest and most ignorant classes of society, and that to employ them would be most ungenteel. First, then, we must inquire a little what it is to be genteel, and this involves the question, what is a gentleman? Etymologically, every body knows what is the meaning of the term; and Dekker, the old English play-poet, uses it in this sense, when in one of his best dramas he justly calls our Saviour

Dekker’s greatest contemporary, in reference to certain qualities he attributes to “man’s deadliest enemy,” tells us, though we are not bound to take his word for it, unless we like it,

in which he follows the opinion long before expressed by the Italian poet Pulci, in his Morgante Maggiore, (canto xxv. st. 161.)

Pulci seems so pleased with this discovery, (if it be one,) that he repeats it in nearly the same words (in the following canto, st. 83.)

The old bone-shoveller in Hamlet maintains that your only real and thorough gentlemen are your “gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers;” so that, after all, the authorities on this point are various and contradictory. If it be objected that slang (otherwise sometimes called flash) is employed very much by boxers and prize-fighters, teachers and practisers of “the noble science of self-defence,” one answer may be supplied by a quotation from Aristotle, which shows that he himself was well skilled in the art, and he gives instructions how important it is to hit straight instead of round, following up the blow by the weight of the body. His words upon this subject are quoted (with a very different purpose certainly) in the last number of the Edinburgh Review, (p. 279.) So that we need only refer to them. Another “old Grecian” might be instanced in favour of the use of slang, and even of incorrect grammar; for every scholar knows (and we know it who are no scholars) that Aristophanes in the first scene of his comedy, named in English The Clouds, makes his hero talk bad Greek, and employ language peculiar to the stable: the scholiasts assert that Phidippides ought to have said, even in his sleep, ? F??e ad??e?? instead of F???? ad??e??, which he uses. However, we are perhaps growing too learned, although it will be found in the end, (if not already in the beginning,) that this is a learned article, and ought perhaps to have been sent for publication in the Classical Journal.

What we seek to establish is this:—that the language of the ignorant is the language of the learned; or in less apparently paradoxical terms, that what is considered slang and unfit for “ears polite,” is in fact a language derived from the purest and most recondite sources. What is the chief recommendation of lady Morgan’s new novel?—for what do ladies of fashion and education chiefly admire it? Because the authoress takes such pains to show that she is acquainted with French, Italian, and even Latin, and introduces so many apt and inapt quotations. What is the principal advantage of modern conversation? That our “home-keeping youths” have no longer “homely wits,” and that they interlard their talk with scraps and words from continental tongues. Now if we can show that slang is compounded, in a great degree, of words derived from German, French, Italian, and Latin, shall we not establish that what is at present the language of the ignorant is in fact the language of the learned, and ought to be the language employed by all gentlemen pretending to education, and of all ladies pretending to [II-855,
II-856] blue-stocking attainments? We proceed to do so by a selection of a few of the principal words which are considered slang or flash, of which we shall show the etymology.

Blowin—“an unfortunate girl,” in the language of the police-offices. This is a very old word in English, and it is derived from blÜhen, German, to bloom or blossom. Some may think that it comes from the German adjective blau. The Germans speak of a blue-eye, as we talk of a black-eye, and every body is aware that blowins are frequently thus ornamented.

To fib—a term in boxing. It means, to clasp an antagonist round the neck with one arm, and to punish him with the other hand. It is from the Italian fibbia, a clasp or buckle. The Italian verb affibiare is used by Casti precisely in this sense:—Gli affibia un gran ceffon. (Nov. xliii. st. 65.)

Fogle—a handkerchief—properly and strictly a handkerchief with a bird’s eye pattern upon it. From the German vogel, a bird.

Gam—the leg. Liston has introduced this word upon the stage, when in Lubin Log he tells old Brown that he is “stiffish about the gams.” We have it either from the French jambe, or the Italian gamba.

Leary—cunning or wary. Correctly it ought to be written lehry. The derivation of it is the German lehre, learning or warning. The authorities for this word are not older than the time of James I.

Max—gin. Evidently from the Latin maximus, in reference to the strength and goodness of the liquor.

To nim—to take, snatch, or seize. It is used by Chaucer—“well of English undefiled.” It is derived from the Saxon niman, whence also the German nehmen, to take. We have it in the every-day adjective, nimble. The name of the corporal in Shakspeare’s Henry V. ought to be spelled Nim, and not Nym, (as the commentators ignorantly give it,) from his furtive propensity.

Pal—a companion. It is perhaps going too far to fetch this word from the Persian palaker, a comrade. It rather originates in the famous story told by Boccacio, Chaucer, Dryden, &c. &c. of the friendship of Palamon and Arcyte; pal being only a familiar abbreviation of Palamon, to denote an intimate friend.

To prig—to rob or steal. It is doubtful whether this word be originally Spanish or Italian. Preguntar in Spanish is to demand, and robbing on the highway is demanding money or life. Priega in Italian is a petition—a mode of committing theft without personal violence. In English the word to prig is now applied chiefly to picking pockets, owing to the degeneracy of modern rogues: a prig is a pick-pocket.

Sappy—foolish, weak. Clearly from the Latin sapio—lucus À non lucendo.

Seedy—shabby—worn out: a term used to indicate the decayed condition of one who has seen better days: it refers principally to the state of his apparel: thus a coat which has once been handsome, when it is old is called seedy, and the wearer is said to look seedy. It is only a corruption of the French ci-devant—formerly; with an ellipsis of the last syllable. It has no reference to running to seed, as is commonly supposed.

Spoony—silly or stupid—is used both as a substantive and as an adjective. Some have conjectured that it owes its origin to the wooden spoon at Cambridge, the lowest honour conferred by that university, the individual gaining it being entitled to no other, rather from his dulness than his ignorance. Its etymology is in fact to be found in the Italian word saponÉ, soap; and it is a well-known phrase that “a stupid fellow wants his brains washing with soap-suds.”

Spree—fun, joke—is from the French esprit, as every body must be aware in an instant.

Togs—dress—from the Latin toga, the robe worn by Roman citizens. Toggery means properly a great coat, but it is also used generally for the apparel.

We might go through the whole vocabulary in the same way, and prove that some terms are even derived from the Hebrew, through the medium of the Jews; but the preceding “elegant extracts” will be sufficient. It is to be regretted that the Rev. J. H. Todd has been so hasty in publishing his second edition of Johnson’s Dictionary, or he might, and no doubt would, after what we have said, include many words not now to be found there, and which we contend are the chief ornaments of our vernacular. Perhaps it would be worth his while to add a supplement, and we shall be happy to render him any assistance.

December, 1827. Philologus.

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DIVINATION BY FLOWERS.

To the Editor.

Sir,—There is a love custom still observed in the village of Sutton Bangor, Wilts—Two [II-857,
II-858] flowers that have not blossomed are paired, and put by themselves—as many pairs as there are sweethearts in the neighbourhood, and tall and short as the respective sweethearts are. The initials of their names are attached to the stamens, and they are ranged in order in a hayloft or stable, in perfect secrecy, except to those who manage and watch their ominous growth. If, after ten days, any flower twines the other, it is settled as a match; if any flower turns a contrary way, it indicates a want of affection; if any flower blossoms, it denotes early offspring; if any flower dies suddenly, it is a token of the party’s death; if any flower wears a downcast appearance, sickness is indicated. True it is that flowers, from their very nature, assume all these positions; and in the situation described, their influence upon villagers is considerable. I was once a party interested, now

I am
A Flowerbud.

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WALTHAM, ESSEX.

To the Editor.

Sir,—The following epitaph is upon a plain gravestone in the church-yard of Waltham Abbey. Having some point, it may perhaps be acceptable for the Table Book. I was told that the memory of the worthy curate is still held in great esteem by the inhabitants of that place.

Rev. Isaac Colnett,
Fifteen years curate of this Parish,
Died March 1, 1801—Aged 43 years.

Surely common decency, if they are deficient in antiquarian feeling, should induce the inhabitants of Waltham Cross to take some measures, if not to restore, at least to preserve from further decay and dilapidation the remains of that beautiful monument of conjugal affection, the cross erected by Edward I. It is now in a sad disgraceful state.

I am, &c.
Z.

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FULBOURN, CAMBRIDGE.

All Saints’ and St. Vigor’s Bells.

To the Editor.

On a visit to a friend at Fulbourn we strolled to the site whereon All Saints’ church formerly stood, and his portfolio furnished me with the subjoined memoranda, which by your fostering care may be preserved.

I am, sir, &c.

Cambridge, May, 1826. T. N.

Trinity Sunday, 1766.

This morning at five o’clock the steeple of All Saints’ church fell down. An act of parliament passed the 22d May, 1775, to unite the service in St. Vigor’s church, and to enable the vicar and churchwardens to sell the materials and the bells, towards repairing the church of St. Vigor’s—the amount was 150l. 0s. 6d. The two broken bells were sold towards the expenses; the other three, with the two of St. Vigor’s, and the saints’ bell, were new cast by E. Arnold at St. Neot’s Hunt’s, and six new bells were put up on the 9th of May, 1776. The subscription amounted to 141l.; the bells cost 262l. 2s. 3d.; the frames 45l., the six new ropes 1l. 15s.; making together the sum of 308l. 17s. 3d.

The poor inhabitants were so attached to the old bells, that they frequently watched them in the evening, lest they should be carried away and sold; for the broken bells lay among the ruins of All Saints’ church. At last their fears subsiding, they neglected their watching, and the churchwardens set a waggon in Monk’s barn, (hard by,) and carried away two of them in the night, delivering them to the Cambridge waggon for St. Neot’s, and returning before morning, which occasioned the following

This ballad is said to have been the production of one William Rolfe, a labourer. It was probably written soon after the act passed. The new peal was brought home on the 9th of May, 1776, so that it was not a year from the passing of the act to the casting of the bells.

After the bill had been perused by counsel, Mr. Edward Hancock, the rector’s churchwarden, conducted it through both houses of parliament without the expense of a solicitor; sir John Cotton, one of the members for the county, forwarding it in the different stages through the House of Commons. So earnest were the populace about the bells, (when they were satisfied they were to have a new peal of six,) that after they were loaded they drew them a furlong or more before the horses were put to the waggon. The tenor was cast in G sharp, or old A. Mr. Edmund Andrews Salisbury rode on the great bell, when it was drawn up within the steeple, and his was the first death this bell was rung for; he was buried 8th July, 1776. The motto on this bell is—

Mr. Charles Dawson was the author of the complete peal of Plain Bob, called “The Fulbourn Surprise” with 154 bobs, and two singles, and 720 changes. The peal was opened December 7, 1789.

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ST. THOMAS’S DAY.
Mr. Day’s Short Day.

Mr. Thomas Day, of D——t, Wilts, used, when living, to give his workmen on St. Thomas’s Day a holiday, a short pint of his ale, an ounce of short-cut tobacco, and a short pipe, in remembrance of his name. “For,” said he,—in a couplet decidedly his own,—

Puceron.

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A PAGE FROM MY NOTE BOOK.

For the Table Book.

Election Bribery.

The first instance that occurs of this practice was so early as 13 Eliz., when one Thomas Longe (being a simple man of small capacity to serve in parliament) acknowledged that he had given the returning officer and others of the borough for which he was chosen FOUR POUNDS, to be returned member, and was for that premium elected. But for this offence the borough was amerced, the member was removed, and the officer was fined and imprisoned.—4 Inst. 23. Hale of Parl. 112. Com. Journ. 10 and 11 May, 1571.

Wonder-working Precedents.

“Unless,” said vice chancellor Leach, (11th March, 1826, in Mendizabal v. Machado,) “Unless I am bound hand and foot by precedents, I will not follow such a practice.”

Mem.

Blackstone, speaking of apprenticeships, says, “They are useful to the commonwealth, by employing of youth, and learning them to be early industrious.”

The same author says, “These payments (alluding to first fruits) were only due if the heir was of full age, but if he was under the age of twenty-one being a male, or fourteen being a female, the lord was entitled to the wardship of the heir, and was called the guardian in chivalry.”—Comm. book ii. c. 5. p. 67.

Dower.

The seisin of the husband, for a transitory instant only, when the same act which gives him the estate conveys it also out of him again, (as where, by a fine, land is granted to a man, and he immediately renders it back by the same fine,) such a seisin will not entitle the wife to dower: for the land was merely in transitu, and never rested in the husband, the grant and render being one continued act. But if the land abides in him for the interval of but a single moment, it seems that the wife shall be endowed thereof.—Black. Comm. book ii. c. 8. p. 132.

The author adds in a note: “This doctrine was extended very far by a jury in Wales, where the father and son were both [II-861,
II-862] hanged in one cart, but the son was supposed to have survived the father, by appearing to struggle longest; whereby he became seised of an estate in fee by survivorship, in consequence of which seisin his widow had a verdict for her dower.”—Cro. Eliz. 503.[520]

Note for the Editor.—“An unintentional imitation” may sound something like a solecism, although a very little reflection will prove it to be far otherwise. I had been reading Don Juan till I had it by heart, and nightly spouted to the moon Julia’s letter and the invocation to the isles of Greece. I had a love fracas; a reconciliation, as one of the two alternative natural consequences, took place, and the foregoing were part of some propitiatory measures that effected it. At the time of writing them I had no more idea of imitating Byron, than has my Lord Chief Justice Best, in his charge to the jury in a newspaper cause, or crim. con. I wrote them rapidly, scarcely lifting my pen till they were finished, and certainly without bestowing a word or thought on any thing, except the image I pursued; but my mind had received a deep impression from my late reading, and my thoughts assumed the form they did from it, unknown to me. Some months afterwards, I was reciting the passage from Byron alluded to; I had heard something like it; I repeated it: I was more struck; I rack’d my brain and my lady’s letter-box, and made this discovery.

J. J. K.

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Original Poetry.

For the Table Book.

W. M. W.

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W. M. W.

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W. M. W.

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[II-863,
II-864]

Original Poetry.

For the Table Book.

The accompanying lines were written in allusion to that beautiful Gem of Dagley’s which Mr. Croly (page 21 of the vol.) supposes a Diana, and which Tassie’s Catalogue describes as such. I have, however, made bold to address her in her no less popular character of

EURYDICE.

Virg. Georg. IV.