Notes and Queries, Number 43, August 24, 1850. Various
scholasticos insanum, inter sanos scholasticum."—Seneca, Controv. i 7., Excerpt. ex Controv. ii.
"Lord Chesterfield is a Wit among Lords, and a Lord among Wits."—Johnsoniana.
"[Greek: Ostis eim ego; Meton,
On oiden Hellas cho Kolonos.]"
"Under the Tropics is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath received our yoke."
"Pandite, atque aperite propere januam hanc Orci,
obsecro:
Nam equidem haud aliter esse duco: quippe quo
memo advenit
Nisi quem spes reliquêre omnes."
"Per me si va nella città dolente
Lasciate ogni speranza, voi che intrate."
FOLK LORE
Power of Prophecy.—MR. AUG. GUEST (Vol. ii., p. 116.) will perhaps accept—as a small tribute to his interesting communication on the subject of that "power of prophecy" which I apprehend to be still believed by many to exist during certain lucid intervals before death—a reference to Sir Henry Halford's Essay on the [Greek: Kausos] of Aretæus. (See Sir H. Halford's Essays and Orations read and delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, Lond. 1831, pp. 93. et seq.)
Bay Leaves at Funerals.—In some parts of Wales it is customary for funerals to be preceded by a female carrying bays, the leaves of which she sprinkles at intervals in the road which the corpse will traverse.
Query, Is this custom practised elsewhere; and what is the meaning and origin of the use of the bay?
Shoes (old) thrown for luck.—Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, observes, that it is accounted lucky by the vulgar to throw an old shoe after a person when they wish him to succeed in what he is going about. This custom is very prevalent in Norfolk whenever servants are going in search of new places; and especially when they are going to be married, a shoe is thrown after them as they proceed to church.
Some years ago, when the vessels engaged in the Greenland whale-fishery left Whitby, in Yorkshire, I observed the wives and friends of the sailors to throw old shoes at the ships as they passed the pier-head. Query, What is the origin of this practice?
Roasting Mice for Hooping-cough is also very common in Norfolk; but I am sorry to say that a more cruel superstitious practice is sometimes inflicted on the little animal; for it is not many years since I accidentally entered the kitchen in time to save a poor little mouse from being hung up by the tail and roasted alive, as the means of expelling the others of its race from the house. I trust that this barbarous practice will soon be forgotten.
The Story of Mr. Fox.—Your correspondent F.L., who has related the story of Sir Richard, surnamed Bloody, Baker, is, doubtless, aware of a similar tale with which Mr. Blakeway furnished my late friend James Boswell, and which the latter observed "is perhaps one of the most happy illustrations of Shakspeare that has appeared."—(Malone's Shakspeare, vol. vii. pp. 20. 163.)
The two narratives of Bloody Baker and Mr. Fox are substantially the same. Variations will naturally creep in when a story is related by word of mouth; for instance, the admonition over the chamber in Mr. Fox's house—
"Be bold, be bold! but not too bold
Lest that your heart's blood should run cold."
is altogether of a more dignified character than the similar warning given by the parrot, at p. 68. Each of these worthies, Baker and Fox, is seen bringing into his house the corpse of a murdered lady, whose hand falls into the lap of the concealed visitor; but in Fox's story the ornament on the hand is a rich bracelet, in Baker's a ring. The assassins are, in both stories, invited to the visitor's house, and upon Fox summary
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