on this principle that, in M. Tillet's experiments, the girls who had been used to attend the oven, bore for ten minutes a heat which would raise Fahrenheit's thermometer to 280°. In our experiments, however, not one of us thought he suffered the greatest degree of heat that he was able to support." These experiments, interesting as they are, do not fully explain how much heat the human frame can absolutely bear ; we are all fearfully, variously, and wonderfully formed, our clay is different, and differently tempered. The writer of these pages is one who has no recollection of ever having been too hot in his life, he can stand as much heat as a cactus plant, while he has known others, who have stripped and bathed when a river has been skimmed over with ice: to them an hot summer is oppressive. STOCKS AND SCOLDING. "Hatred stirs up contention." Proverbs. "'Tis time to take enormity by the forehead, and brand it." BEN JONSON. Almost every reader of English history must know, there were in every parish a pair of stocks, for the punishment of profligate male offenders. Stocks are a very old specie of punishment; if the reader will turn to the sixteenth chapter of Acts, verse 24th, he will find that Paul and Silas were thus punished; and so also was Wolsey, (the after renowned Cardinal,) when at Magdalene College, Oxford; and so also were many of the followers of George Fox, (the early Friends.) I have also been informed, stocks have been found among the ruins of Pompeii. Thus, if antiquity is of any weight, there is plenty of that on their side. There is an ancient pair of stocks in Waltham Abbey church. There is also a pair of finger stocks, with a poor box attached, placed at the west-end of the north aisle of Ashby-de-la-Zouch church. They were also in a few great houses, and moveable ones for servants, and to those in the streets, there were generally attached whipping-posts. Near the stocks, was often fixed a sundial, a very convenient and very proper appendage, because the culprit imprisoned there, was either to be taken before a magistrate within the space of six hours, or be discharged. There was also provided to restrain that "unruly member," the tongue in woman, ducking stools. And there was law.for all this. For "a foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing." Proverbs. * At Cheylesmore, in the city of Coventry, where there was formerly a Any one would suppose that among this display, and, indeed, occasional punishment, all classes would have been the mildest speaking race the world ever produced. As mild as laundress's, who ought at all times to be quiet, their every day avocations being among sudorifics and soporifics, and thus exhibit the very pink of unbanity and suavity; but "urbanity, when separated from charity, is rather the law of war, than a treaty of peace." Manzoni. Alas! it was very different among the higher orders, who ought to have set a better example. But, as in the days of Anacharsis; the "laws are only cobwebs to catch flies, while the great wasps and bees break through." The great ones were seldom told to If not "Come to the Bar! and see if thou can'st defend "The bloody book of Law You yourself shall read in the bitter letter." It is well known, that the almost sainted virgin Queen, used to swear coarsely, and box with her stout fists, her pages and other attendants; and the ladies of the nobility followed her example! There was a very extraordinary lady, a sort of fac-simile of Elizabeth, who had a daughter Mary, who married Gilbert, the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury; she had a quarrel with Sir Thomas Stanhope, to whom she sent the following verbal message, fifteenth February, 1592: "My lady commandeth me to say thus much to you, that though you be more wretched, vile, and miserable, than any creature living, and for your wickedness, become more ugly in castellated mansion belonging to the heirs apparent to the erown, and to which place Edward III. granted a court leet, with power to adjudge such causes, as were usually determined before the justices of assize, for the County of Warwick. It appears from a MS. that "in 1422, a dooke stool was made upon the green, to punish scolders and chiders, as ye law wylls." One of these tongue silencers was, I am sorry to say, used at great Grims by, in Lincolnshire, so late as 1780. At Congleton, in Cheshire, they tried prevention as preferable to punishment; at that place there remains a bridle to restrain the scolding propensi ties of the softer sex. "At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a woman when convicted of this offence, was led about the streets by the hangman, with an instrument of iron bars fitted on her head like a helmet. A piece of sharp iron entered her mouth, and severely pricked her tongue, whenever the culprit attempted to move it." Child's History of Women. you, and with shape, than the vilest toad, and one to whom none of reputation would never vouchsafe to send any message; yet shee hath thought good to send thus much to you. That shee be contented that you should live, and doth no waies wish your death, but to this end, that all the plagues and miseries that may befall any man, may light upon such a caitiff as you are, and that you should live to have all friends forsake your out great repentance, which she looketh not for, because you hath been so bad you will be d-d perpetually to h-l fire." And with many other opprobrious and hateful words, which could not be well remembered, because the bearer would deliver it but once, as he said he was commanded; but said, if he failed in anything, it was in speaking more mildly, and not in such terms of disdain as was directed. Lodge's Illustrations. Thus verifying a very old remark that "women do not reason, but use epithets." It was most likely a lady of this description, that was the cause of the following maxim: "La langue des femmes est leur epee et elles ne la laissant pas rouilleur.* How this grand quarrel ended, I regret I cannot inform the reader. For although, as Burton writes, "I would willingly wink at a fair lady's faults, yet I am bound by the laws of history to tell the truth;" but as "fury as its fatigues," and consequently requires rest. I expect Sir Thomas took no notice of it. A writer of his time thus advises in cases like the present, "This is the way to make a women dum, To sit and smile, and laugh her out, and not a word but mum.' This remarkable termagant, showed great decision of character, and that is a quality of some consequence, even in women, howbeit it may at times be too forcible. Mrs. A. J. Graves, the talented authoress of "Women in America," remarks: 66 women, who have been described as "fine by defect and beautifully weak," are incapable of deep enduring affection; for this beautiful weakness enters as well into the emotions of the heart, as the operations of the mind. Mere animal tranquillity is not amiability, for true amiability is spiritual loveliness; the graces of the mind and heart exhibited in action," of this I expect there cannot be two opinions; and I also think that the remark sometimes made of mankind, will also apply to the softer sex, and to a certain degree, may be excused, "those who love sincerely, will often hate bitterly ;" but they should be "The tongue of a woman is her sword, and she seldom gives it time to rust.' more than usually cautious that they do not act spitefully, for it has been decided, that "A small unkindness is a great offence." The English court does not seem to have improved down to Charles II. (During James I.'s time, he delighted in giving nick-names, which have been defined to be "condensed calumnies." He called his tool, Buckingham, Steenie-and Steenie called him dear dad, and gossip, and your sow-ship.) Aubrey, (1678) says, "till this time the court itself was unpolished and unmannered. King James I.'s court was so far from being civil to women, that the ladies, nay the queen herself, could hardly pass by the king's apartment without receiving some affront." Charles II. had a quarrel with Lady Castlemaine; he called her a jade: she, in return, called him a fool," and like a queen she swore." The first English phrase his French wife learned was, lie, which she applied to him-Pepys. Although one cannot help lamenting the grossness and vulgarity, yet one must approve of their sincerity, for the words were all well applied. The levity and careless indifference of the court, is strikingly exemplified by Pepys, who states, that on the evening of that day of everlasting disgrace, while the Dutch fleet had blocked up the mouth of the Thames, and burned the English Fleet at Sheerness, June, 1667. This besotted imp of a king supped with his jade, Lady Castlemaine, at the Duchess of Monmouth's where the company diverted themselves with Moth-hunting: and next day, when he attended the council, he did not even affect a decent show of interest in public affairs, for instead of attending to what was doing, he would play with his favourite dog. To his many other contemptible follies, he was such a dog fool, that he used to have them actually breed in his bed-room, till it became disgustingly offensive. "Ill reason they, who to the common line, TURBULENCE. "A loose and depraved people love laws and a constitution like themWILLIAM PENN. selves" Machiavel writes, "virtue and prosperity begets rest; rest idleness; idleness riot; riot destruction; from which we come again to laws, good laws engender virtuous actions." From Drake's Shakspeare, we learn, that the police was neglected even in Queen Elizabeth's time. A sufficient number of watchmen, constables, and justices of the peace, were not much wanting during the greater part of this century; according to Attorney General Noy's pleadings of Lincoln's Inn, (1632) there were female justices of the peace! And in Westmoreland, there was a lady who served, by hereditary right, the office of High-Sheriff. The watchmen were armed with halberds, called bills, and a lantern, and sometimes a bell. The city watch, after the great fire in 1666, was altered. The city was divided into four parts, each to be provided with eight hundred leather buckets, fifty ladders, and as many hand squirts as would furnish two for each parish.* The watch were directed to meet at eight, and perambulate till seven in the morning; and every householder, upon cry of fire, was to place a sufficient man at his door well armed, and hang out a light, if in the night time, upon default to forfeit twenty shillings. But the Justices were open to bribery, and then were called basket justices. A member of the house of commons describes one as an animal, who, for half a dozen chickens, would readily dispense with a dozen penal laws."-D'Ewes' Journal House of Commons. In the year 1581, "Queen Elizabeth took a ride to Islington, then a pleasant village near London; there were many beggars, rogues, and masterless vagabonds. She sent off one of her footmen to the lord mayor, who immediately issued warrants, and took seventy-four; whereof, some were blind, and great usurers, and very rich; and they were sent off to be punished in Bridewell."-Drake. There were, at that time, a set of rogues called coney-catchers; these were cheats, who fell upon the young and unwary, but did not use violence. Massinger alludes to them in his play of the "Renegado," "All's come out, sirs! We are smok'd for being coney-catchers; Hollingshead says, the number all over England, were estimated at 10,000. They attended the fairs, plundered fowl houses, poultry-yards, and linen that was drying upon the hedges; they used a cant language; indeed, all the tricks and * See vol. i. page 245; in Saint Dionysius' church there are two still preserved. |