were the most learned and skilful, therefore they were appointed ministers of state and legislators. The term Bardd is derived from Bâr, which in Welsh signifies the top, or eminence; also a bush, as the misseltoe of the oak is called Uchelfar, the high branch; or, Prenawyr, the celestial shrub. Likewise Bârr is a court of judicature; Barn, is judgment; Barnwr, a Judge; Breyr, and Barwn, is a Baron, a Lord, or President; hence a Bar-pleader, Barrister; Lord Chief Baron, Court Baron, &c. Cæsar informs us, that all decisions and controversies were decided by the British Druids, or DruidBards, who were a branch of that institution. The ancient law of this land was administered to the people upon the highest or most convenient hill of the district; and we find in King Howel's Laws, p. 123, the Lord or Judge is directed to sit with his back to the sun and storm, so that he might not be incommoded in his deliberation. Many of those ancient Gorseddau, or tribunal seats, still remain both in England and Wales, which fact is corroborated by the names of the following hills and mounts: Bryn-gwyn, the supreme tribunal, and Barnhill, or judgment hill, in Anglesey; Barr's-Court, in Gloucestershire; Malvern, or Moelvarn, the hill of Judgment, in Worcestershire; Moelburgh, or Marlborough mount, in Wiltshire; Tynwald hill, in the Isle of Man, (probably derived from Dyfnwal Moelmud, the great law-giver); Stanton Druw Bergmote Court, in Derbyshire; Bryn-Barlwm in South Wales; Eisteddfa Gurig; Parlas; Cader Bronwen, upon Berwyn, iu Meirionydd; Pen-bre; Moelfre; Breiddin Hill, in Montgomeryshire; and Breon; hence, probably, is derived the Brean Laws of the Irish. There are likewise a great number of christian names, as well as of places, derived from the same origin; such as Pâr; Barr; Bar-jesus; Bar-jonah; Bardus, the son of Druis; Barton; Bardolph; St. Baruch, and Barry Island, in Glamorganshire; Bardney Abbey, in Lincolnshire; Barbury Castle, in Wiltshire; Bard field, in Essex; a considerable demesne, which formerly was the land of a Bard. Also, from Cân, and Cell, comes Canghell, the singing-room, or chancel of a monastery, or church; and hence is derived Changhellawr, or Chancellor.-Celtic Remains, by Mr. Lewis Morris; Mr. Richards; and Mr. Owen's excellent Dictionaries; and see more in Mr. Cleland's curious Etymological Vocabulary. BELL SAVAGE INN, The Spectator has attempted to elucidate the origin of the Bell Savage Inn, by supposing that it was intended to record the finding of a beautiful female in the woods, called in French La belle Sauvage. This hypothesis is more ingenious than probable, and it is yet uncertain what really caused the name. Some have said that it arose from the inn belonging to Lady Arabelle Savage, and familiarly designated from her name, "Bell Savage's House," and hence represent that fact, (as rebusses were then very popular and fashionable), by a Bell and a Savage. BURYING-GROUNDS. The custom of burying dead persons in grounds set apart for that purpose was not established till the year 200. People before that time were interred in the highways, and ancient tombs are still to be seen in the roads leading to Rome. Hence these words so often repeated in epitaphs, "Sta, Viator."-Stop, Traveller. THE CAMERA OBSCURA. In a letter from Sir Henry Wotton to Lord Bacon is the following curious relation respecting Kepler, the celebrated astronomer and mathematician; to whom Sir Henry, then being ambassador to one of the princes of Germany, had made a visit. "I laid a night at Lintz, the metropolis of the higher Austria, but then in very low estate, having been newly taken by the Duke of Bavaria, who, blandiente fortună, was gone on to the late effects: there I found Kepler, a man famous in the sciences, as your lordship knows, to whom I purpose to convey from hence one of your books, that he may see we have some of our own that can honour our king, as well as he hath done with his carmonica. In this man's study I was much taken with the draught of a landscape on a piece of paper, methought masterly done; whereof inquiring the author, he betrayed by a smile it was himself, adding that he had done it, non tanquam pictor, sed tanquam mathematicus. This set me on fire; at last he told me how. He had a little back tent (of what stuff is not much importing), which he can suddenly set up where he will in a field, and it is convertible, like a wind mill, to all quarters at pleasure: capable of not much more than one man, as I conceive, and perhaps at no great ease; exactly close and dark, save at one hole, about an inch and a half in the diameter, to which he applies a long perspective trunk, with a convex glass fitted to the said hole; and the concave taken out at the other end, which extendeth to about the middle of this erected tent; through which the visible radiations of all without are intromitted, falling upon a paper which is accommodated to receive them; and so he traceth them with his pen in their natural appearance, turning his little tent round by degrees till he hath designed the whole aspect of the field. This I have described to your lordship, because I think there might be good use made of it for chorography; for otherwise to make landscapes by it were illiberal: though surely no painter can do them so precisely." CHEQUERS. White and red, or blue and red Chequers, even now form an ornament of many public-houses, being painted in front on either door-post. These chequers are nothing more than a remnant of the lattices, which formerly performed the office of glass in our ale-house windows, and which in time became a sort of sign for such places. The bars of the lattice were of various colours, crossed something like trellis-work, and in deed the whole is very sufficiently portrayed by the Chequer, which has usurped its place as a sign, though useless in any other respect. Allusions to the lattice are scattered abundantly through the pages of our old dramatists, who in fact are excellent historians of the manners and habits of their own time. Thus Ben Jonson, in Every Man in his Humour, Act 3, Scene 3: "Cob. I dwell, sir, at the sign of the Water Tankard, hard by the Green Lattice: I have paid scot and lot there any time these eighteen years. Clem. To the Green Lattice? Cob. No, sir; to the parish. Marry, I have seldom scap'd scot-free at the Lattice." Hence Green Lattice, or as it is now improperly called, Green Lettuce Lane, in the city. Thus too Serjeant Hall, in the Tatler, directs a letter to his brother, "at the Red Lettuce (Lattice) in Butcher's Row." Again, we have in Shakspeare, Henry IV. Part II. Act 2, Scene 2. : Page. He called me even now, my lord, through a Red Lattice, and I could discern no part of his face from the window; at last I spied his eyes, and methought he had made two holes in the alewife's new petticoat, and peeped through." CHESS. The term Check-mate arose from the Persian schahmat, and was introduced by the Moors into Europe, and by them delivered to the Spaniards, with the game of chess; for, in the Persian, schah signifies a king, and mat, slaughter; to which latter also the Hebrew agrees. CHURCH BELLS. The invention of bells, such as are hung in the towers or steeples of Christian churches, is, by Polydore Virgil and others, ascribed to Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, a city of Campania, about the year 400. It is said that the names Nola and Campanæ, the one referring to the city, the other to the country, were for that reason given to them. In the time of Clothair, king of France, and in the year 610, the army of the king was frighted from the siege of the city of Sens, by ringing the bells of St. Stephen's church. In the times of popery, bells were baptized and anointed, Oleo Chrismatis; they were exorcised, and blessed by the bishop, from a belief that when these ceremonies were performed, they had power to drive the devil out of the air, to calm tempests, to extinguish fire, and even to recreate the dead. The ritual for these ceremonies is contained in the Roman Pontifical; and it was usual in their baptism to give each bell the name of some saint. In Chauncey's History of Hertfordshire, page 383, is the relation of the baptism of a set of bells in Italy with great ceremony, a short time before the writing of that book. By an old chartulary, once in possession of Weever the antiquary, it appears that the bells of the priory of Little Dunmow, in Essex, were, anno 1501, new cast, and baptised by the following names : Prima in honore Sancti Michaelis Archangeli. Quinta in honore Sancta Trinitatis, et omnium Sanctorum. The bells at Osney Abbey, near Oxford, were very famous their names were Douce, Clement, Austin, Hautecter (potius Hautcleri), Gabriel, and John.-Appendix to Hearne's Collection of Discourses by Antiquaries, No. 11. Near Old Windsor is a public-house, vulgarly called the Bells of Bosely. This house was originally built for the accommodation of bargemen and others, navigating the river Thames between London and Oxford. It has a sign of six Bells, i. e. the Bells of Osney. In the Funeral Monuments of Weever are the following particulars relating to bells. "Bells had frequently these inscriptions on them: "Funera plango, fulgura frango, sabbata pango. Excito lentos, dissipo ventos, paco cruentos."-Page 122. |
