Coucou, cerner la Terre qui est sous le pied droit de celui qui l'entend, et la repandre dans les Maisons afin d'enchasser les puces."

To the same purpose is the subsequent passage from "Cælii Calcagnini Encomium Pulicis," in a work entitled " Dissertationum ludicrarum & Amonitatum Scriptores Varii," 12mo. Lugd. Batav. 1644, p. 81:

"Conscii arcanorum Naturæ, ubi primum Cuculum avem canentem audivere, quicquid pulveris est sub vestigio dextro colligunt, atque in hunc usum servant: quum enim pulicum tædium eos ceperit, pulverem eum aspergunt: ex quo obsequiosi illi Contubernales commeatum sibi datum intelligentes, non minas, non jurgia, non digladationes expectantes, protinus excedunt & contubernium relinquunt.'

In the north, and perhaps all over England, it is vulgarly accounted to be an unlucky omen if you have no money in your pocket when you hear the cuckoo for the first time in a season.

"Augurium et omen ex Cuculi cantantis vicibus interruptis de annis vitiæ superstitis, antiquum, sed vanum.' Cæsarius Heisterbachcensis, lib. v. cap. 17, as cited by Schilter in his Glossar. Teutonicum (Thesaurus, tom. iii.), p. 521.

Green, the quaint author of "A Quip for an upstart Courtier," 4to. Lond. 1620, calls a cuckoo the Cuckold's Quirister: "It was just at that time when the Cuckold's Quirister began to bewray April Gentlemen with his never-changed notes." Fol. 1, a.

The Morning Post" newspaper of May 17th, 1821, says: "A singular custom prevails in Shropshire at this period of the year, which is peculiar to that county. As soon as the first Cuckoo has been heard, all the labouring classes leave work, if in the middle of the day, and the time is devoted to mirth and jollity over what is called the Cuckoo Ale."

There is a vulgar error in natural history in supposing the substance vulgarly called Cuckoo-spit" to proceed from the exhalation of the earth, from the extravasated juice of plants, or a hardened dew. According to the account of a writer in the "Gent. Mag." for July, 1794, p. 602, it really proceeds from a small insect, which encloses itself within it, with an oblong obtuse body, a large head, and

small eyes.

The animal emits the spume from many parts of its body, undergoes its changes within it, then bursts into a winged state, and flies abroad in search of its mate; it is particularly innoxious; has four wings, the two external ones of a dusky brown, marked with two white spots.

From the subsequent passage in Green's work just quoted, it should seem that this substance was somehow or other vulgarly considered as emblematical of cuckoldom : "There was loyal Lavender, but that was full of Cuckow-spittes, to show that women's light thoughts make their husbands heavy heads."

The following passage is in that most rare tract, "Plaine Percevall, the Peace-maker of England," 4to. b. l. Signat. B. 2: "You say true, Sal sapit omnia; and Service without Salt, by the rite of England, is a Cuckold's fee if he claim it."

Mr. Steevens, commenting on the mention of Columbine in " "Hamlet," says: "From the Caltha Poetarum, 1599, it should seem as if this flower was the emblem of cuckoldom: 'The blue cornuted Columbine,

Like to the crooked horns of Acheloy." "Columbine," says another of the commentators, S. W., " was an emblem of Cuckoldom on account of the horns of its Nectaria, which are remarkable in this plant. Aquilegia, in Linnæus's Genera, 684."

See

A third commentator, Mr. Holt White, "The Columbine was emblematical of says: forsaken lovers:

'The Columbine, in tawny often taken, Is then ascrib'd to such as are forsaken. Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, B. I. song ii. 1613." See Reed's edit. of Shaksp. 1803, vol. xviii. p. 296.

Among the witticisms on cuckolds that occur in our old plays, &c., must not be omitted the following in "Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks," 4to. Lond. 1636, Signat. I. 2: "Why, my good Father, what should you do with a Wife?

Would you be crested? Will you needs thrust your head

In one of Vulcan's Helmets? Will you perforce

Weare a City Cap, and a Court Feather?”

Chaucer, in his " Prosopopeia of Jealousie,' brings her in with a garland of gold yellow, and a cuckoo sitting on her fist. (a)

The following expression for "being jealous" is found in Ritson's Old Songs, 8vo. Lond. 1792, p. 112:

"The married Man cannot do so:
If he be merie and toy with any,
His Wife will frowne and words give manye:
Her yellow Hose she strait will put on."

Butler, in his "Hudibras," in the following passage, informs us for what a singular purpose carvers used formerly to invoke the names of Cuckolds:

"Why should not Conscience have vacation,

As well as other Courts o' th' Nation;
Have equal power to adjourn,
Appoint Appearance and Retorn;
And make as nice distinction serve
To split a case, as those that carve,
Invoking Cuckolds' names, hit Joints?" &c.
Part II. Canto ii. 1. 317.

The practice has been already noticed (see vol. i. p. 207) from Dr. Nash's Notes, vol. iii. p. 220. In" Wit and Mirth improved, or a New Academy of Complements," (Title gone,) p. 95, the fourth Gossip says:

(a) In "The Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. vii. 8vo. Edinb. 1793, p. 600, parish of Muirkirk, Ayrshire, mention is made of the larger curlew, or whaup, a bird that announces the approach of spring, and calls to begin the labours of the garden. There is added; "Like the Cuckoo, it has little variety of notes, but it appears much earlier; and its view is the more pleasing, as it announces that the severity of the winter is past, and that the time of the singing of birds' is approaching;" with the following anecdote, most pleasantly illustrative of national prejudice: "A country gentleman from the west of Scotland, and who lived in a parish very similar to this both in soil and climate, being occasionally in England for a few weeks, was one delightful summer evening asked out to hear the Nightingale, his friend informing him, at the same time, that this bird was a native of England, and never to be heard in his own country. After he had listened with great attention for some time, upon being asked if he was not much delighted with the Nightingale, 'It's a' very gude,' replied the other, in the dialect of his own country, but I wad na' gie the 'wheeple of a Whaup for a' the Nightingales that ever sang.

"Lend me that Knife, and I'll cut up the Goose:

I am not right-let me turn edge and point.
Who must I think upon to hit the Joint?
My own Good Man? I think there's none
more fit.

He's in my thoughts, and now the Joint I hit."

In "Batt upon Batt," 4th edit. 4to. Lond. 1694, p. 4, I find the following passage:

"So when the Mistress cannot hit the Joynt, Which proves sometimes, you know, a difficult point,

Think on a Cuckold, straight the Gossips cry: But think on Batt's good Carving-knife say I;

That still nicks sure, without offence and
scandal:

Dull Blades may be beholden to their
Handle:

But those Batt makes are all so sharp, they

scorn

To be so charmed by his Neighbour's Horn."

In the "British Apollo," vol. ii. fol. Lond. 1708, Numb. 59, is the following query:

"When a person is joynting a piece of Meat, if he finds it difficult to joynt, he is bid to think of a Cuckold. I desire to know whence the Proverb?

"A. Thomas Webb, a carver to a Lord Mayor of London in King Charles the First's reign, was as famous for his being a cuckold as for his dexterity in carving: therefore what became a Proverb was used first as an Invocation, when any took upon him to carve.'

Mr. Kyrle, the Man of Ross, celebrated by Pope, had always company to dine with him on a market-day, and a goose, if it could be procured, was one of the dishes; which he claimed the privilege of carving himself. When any guest, ignorant of the etiquette of the table, offered to save him that trouble, he would exclaim, "Hold your hand, Man; if I am good for anything, it is for hitting Cuckold's Joints."

In Richard Flecknoe's "Diarium," &c. 8vo. 1656, p. 70, is the following:

"On Doctor Cuckold,

"Who so famous was of late, ·He was with finger(a) pointed at: What cannot learning do, and single state? "Being married, he so famous grew, As he was pointed at with two; What cannot learning and a wife now do?" (2) In "Paradoxical Assertions and Philosophical Problems, by R. H." 8vo. Lond. 1664, p. 5, "Why Cuckolds are said to wear Horns?" we read: "Is not this Monster said to wear the Horns because other Men with their two fore-fingers point and make Horns at him?" Ibid. p. 28: "Why the abused Husband is called Cuckold?" "Since Plautus wittily, and with more reason, calls the Adulterer, and not him whose wife is adulterated, Cuculum, the Cuckold, because he gets children on others' wives, which the credulous father believes his own: why should not he then that corrupts another Man's wife be rather called the Cuckow, for he sits and sings merrily whilst his Eggs are hatched by his neigh

bours' Hens?"

Mr. Douce's manuscript notes, however, on the former edition of this work, say: "That the wordCuculus' was a term of reproach amongst the ancients there is not the least doubt, and that it was used in the sense of

our

Cuckold' is equally clear. Plautus has so introduced it on more than one occasion. In his 'Asinaria' he makes a woman thus speak of her husband :

'Ac etiam cubat Cuculus, surge, amator, i domum:'

and again:

'Cano capite te Cuculum Uxor domum exlustris rapit.'

Asinaria, act v. sc. 2. And yet in another place, viz. the 'Pseudolus,' act i. sc. 1, where Pseudolus says to Callidorus, 'Quid fles, Cucule?' the above sense is out of the question, and it is to be taken merely as a term of reproach. Horace certainly uses the word as it is explained by Pliny in the passage already given, and the conclusion there drawn appears to be that which best reconciles the more modern sense

(a) Digito demonstrare.

of the term, being likewise supported by a note in the Variorum Horace."

"Cuculum credi supposititios adsciscere pullos, quod enim sit timidus, et defendendi impar, cum etiam a minimis velli avibus. Avis autem quæ pullos ipsius rapiunt suos ejicere, eo quod cuculi pullus sit elegans." Antigoni Carystii Hist. Mirabilium, 4to.

1619.

The application of the above passage to our use of the word Cuckold, as connected with the cuckoo, is, that the husband, timid, and incapable of protecting his honour, like that bird, is called by its name, and thus converted into an object of contempt and derision.

"Curuca, avis quæ alienos pullos nutrit. Currucare, aliquem currucam facere ejus violando uxorem." Vetus Glossar. inter MSS. Bernens. vide Sinneri Catal., tom. i. p. 412.

(3) I find the following most spirited invective against the pernicious vice on which the above popular sayings are founded, in Cotgrave's English Treasury of Wit and Language," 8vo. Lond. 1655, p. 136:

66

"He that dares violate the husband's honour,

The husband's curse stick to him, a tame cuckold:

His wife be fair and young; but most dishonest:

Most impudent, and have no feeling of it, No conscience to reclaim her from a

monster.

Let her lie by him, like a flattering ruin, And at one instant kill both name and

honour:

Let him be lost, no eye to weep his end, And find no earth that's base enough to bury him."

(4) Mr. Douce's MS. Notes on this passage, in a copy of the former edition of the Popular Antiquities, say: "The judicious and humane observation which closes this chapter must afford pleasure to every feeling mind: and it is difficult, upon a first examination of the subject, to account for the disgrace that usually attends the man whose misfortunes should seem rather to deserve commiseration. But the actual chastisement of the husband, hereafter mentioned, seems to have been inflicted under the idea that a man who

neglects the proper government and coercion of his wife, which are vested in him by law, by such negligence contributes rather to encourage than prevent a crime disgraceful to society, and becomes himself a particeps criminis, and deserving the whole of the punishment, from which the frailty of the woman, and, above all, a tenderness towards the sex, seems to exempt her altogether."

It is possible that upon the strength of the above, or some such argument, Venette, the author of the "Tableau de l'Amour Con

jugal," says: "Quoyque l'on dise, je ne trouve point injuste, ce qui l'on ordonnoit, et ce que l'on pratiquoit mesme autrefois à Paris, lorsque l'impudicité d'une femme etoit averci. On faisoit monter le Mari sur un âne, duquel il tenoit la queue à la main, sa femme menoit l'âne, et un heraut crioit par les rues L'on en fera de mesme a celui qui le fera. Un presque semblable coûtume etoit établie en Catalogne. Le Mari payoit l'amande quand la femme etoit convaincue d'adultare, comme si parla on eust dû plûtost imputer la faute au Mari qu'à la femme."

In the "Athenian Oracle," vol. ii. p. 359, it is remarked of Cuckoldry, "The Romans were honourable, and yet Pompey, Cæsar, Augustus, Lucullus, Cato, and others, had this fate, but not its infamy and scandal. For a vicious action ought to be only imputed to the author, and so ought the shame and dishonour which follow it. He only that consents and is pimp to his own cuckoldry is really infamous and base."

The following singular passage is in Green's "Quip for an upstart Courtier," 4to. Lond. 1620:" Questioning," says he, "why these women were so cholericke, he pointed to a bush of nettles: Marry, quoth he, they have severally watered this bush, and the virtue of them is to force a woman that has done so to be as peevish for a whole day, and as waspish, as if she had been stung in the brow with a hornet." Perhaps the origin of this wellknown superstitious observation must be referred to a curious method of detecting the loss of female honour noticed in "Naturall and Artificiall Conclusions, by Thomas Hill," 8vo. Lond. 1650, art. lxxix.

It may be necessary here to deprecate the frowns of our fair countrywomen of the

eighteenth century on reading the simple processes of their ancestors to detect the loss of female honour. Yet who knows what powerful auxiliaries even these ridiculous superstitions may have proved, in the dark ages, to what is of such consequence to the happiness of society,-I mean the virtue of women?

I have, however, heard this accounted for otherwise: from females having been stung with nettles in the attitude of the sex on a certain occasion, called, in the Glossary to Douglas's Virgil, "couring, ut mulieres solent ad mingendum."

Park, in his "Travels in the Interior of Africa," speaking of Kolor, a considerable town, near the entrance to which was a sort of masquerade-habit hanging upon a tree, made of the bark of trees, which, he was told, belonged to Mumbo Jumbo, says: "This is a strange bugbear, common in all the Mandingo towns, and employed by the Pagan natives in keeping the women in subjection; for, as they are not restricted in the number of their wives, every one marries as many as he can conveniently maintain, and it often happens that the ladies disagree among themselves: family quarrels sometimes rise to such a height that the voice of the husband is disregarded in the tumult. Then the interposition of Mumbo Jumbo is invoked, and is always decisive. This strange minister of justice, this sovereign arbiter of domestic strife, disguised in his masquerade attire, and armed with the rod of public authority, announces his coming by loud and dismal screams in the adjacent woods. He begins as soon as it is dark to enter the town, and proceeds to a place where all the inhabitants are assembled to meet him.

"The appearance of Mumbo Jumbo, it may be supposed, is unpleasing to the African ladies; but they dare not refuse to appear when summoned, and the ceremony commences with dancing and singing, which continues till midnight, when Mumbo seizes on the offender. The unfortunate victim, being stripped naked, is tied to a post, and severely Scourged with Mumbo's rod, amidst the shouts and derision of the whole assembly: and it is remarkable that the rest of the women are very clamorous and outrageous in their abuse of their unfortunate sister, till daylight puts an end to this disgusting revelry."

THE word "Passing," as used here, signifies clearly the same as "departing," that is, passing from life to death. (1) So that even from the name we may gather that it was the intention in tolling a Passing-Bell to pray for the person dying, and who was not yet dead.

As for the title of "SOUL-BELL," if that bell is so called which they toll after a person's breath is out, and mean by it that it is a call upon us to pray for the soul of the deceased person, I know not how the Church of England can be defended against the charge of those who, in this instance, would seem to tax us with praying for the dead.

Bourne considers the custom as old as the use of bells themselves in Christian churches, i. e. about the seventh century. Bede, in his "Ecclesiastical History," speaking of the death of the Abbess of St. Hilda, tells us that one of the sisters of a distant monastery, as she was sleeping, (2) thought she heard the well-known sound of that bell which called them to prayers when any of them had departed this life. Bourne thinks the custom originated in the Roman Catholic idea of the prevalency of prayers for the dead.

The

abbess above mentioned had no sooner heard this than she raised all the sisters, and called them into the church, where she exhorted them to pray fervently, and sing a requiem for the soul of their mother.

The same author contends that this bell, contrary to the present custom, should be

tolled before the person's departure, that good men might give him their prayers, adding, that, if they do no good to the departing sinner, they at least evince the disinterested charity of the person that prefers them. (8)

I cannot agree with Bourne in thinking that the ceremony of tolling a bell on this occasion was as ancient as the use of bells, which were first intended as signals to convene the people to their public devotions. It has more probably been an after-invention of superstition. Thus praying for the dying was improved upon into praying for the dead.

Durand, who flourished about the end of the twelfth century, tells us, in his Rationale, (4) "when any one is dying bells must be tolled, that the people may put up their prayers; twice for a woman and thrice for a man: if for a clergyman, as many times as he had Orders; and at the conclusion a peal on all the bells, to distinguish the quality of the person for whom the people are to put up their prayers. A bell, too, must be rung

while the corpse is conducted to church, and during the bringing it out of the church to the grave." This seems to account for a custom still preserved in the North of England, of making numeral distinctions at the conclusion of this ceremony: i. e. nine knells for a man, six for a woman, and three for a child, which are undoubtedly the vestiges of this ancient injunction of popery.

I have not been able to ascertain precisely the date of the useful invention of bells. The