through the favour and countenance of persons eminent in philosophy, more schools are permitted. On festivals, at those churches where the feast of the Patron Saint is solemnized, the masters convene their scholars. The youth, on that occasion, dispute, some in the demonstrative way, and some logically. These produce their enthymemes, and those the more perfect syllogisms. Some, the better to shew their parts, are exercised in disputation, contending with one another; whilst others are put upon establishing some truth, by way of illustration. Some sophists endeavour to apply, on feigned topics, a vast heap and flow of words; others, to impose upon you with false conclusions. As to the orators, some with their rhetorical harangues, employ all their powers of persuasion, taking care to observe the precepts of art, and to omit nothing apposite to the subject. The boys of different schools wrangle with one another in verse, contending about the principles of grammar, or the perfect tenses and supines. Others there are, who, in epigrams, or other compositions in numbers, use all that low ribaldry we read of in the ancients; attacking their schoolmaster, but without mentioning names, with the old Fescennine licentiousness, and discharging their scoffs and sarcasms against them; touching the foibles of their schoolfellows, or perhaps of greater personages, with true Socratic wit, or biting them more keenly with a Theonine tooth: the audience, fully disposed to laugh, ' with curly nose ingeminate the peals.' "The followers of the several trades, the venders of various commodities, and the labourers of every kind, are daily to be found in the proper and distinct places, according to their employments. And, moreover, on the bank of the river, besides the wine sold in ships and vaults, there is a public eating-house or cook-shop.t Here, according to the season, you may find victuals of all kinds, roasted, baked, fried, or boiled. Fish, large and small, with coarse viands for the poorer sort, and more delicate ones for the rich, such as venison, fowls, and sinall birds. In case a friend should arrive at a citizen's house, much wearied with his journey, and chooses not to wait, an hungred as he is, for the buying and cooking of meat, 'The water's served, the bread's in baskets brought,' and recourse is immediately had to the bank above mentioned, where every thing desirable is instantly procured. No number so great, of teach school in the city of London without a license from Henry, [canon and] schoolmaster of St. Paul's, except the schoolmasters of St. MaryBow, and St. Martin's-le-Grand." This privilege was given to the said Henry, by Henry de Blois, the famous Bishop of Winchester, brother to the King. Vide Dugdale, ut sup. 'The names of many of our present streets, &c. may still be quoted in evidence of Fitz-Stephen's accuracy, viz., Corn-hill, Bread-street, Fishstreet-hill, Poultry, Vintry, Milk-street, Honey-lane, Wood-street, Hosier'slane, Cordwainer's-street, and many others. + Leland ("Collectanea," vol. iii. p. 421,) gives this plurally, "publicæ coquine," and Stow calls it, with much propriety, a common Cookery, or Cook's Row: vide London; p. 127, edit. 1618. In the margin is, "Cook's-Row, in Thames-street." " knights or strangers, can either enter the city, at any hour of day or night, or leave it, but all may be supplied with provisions; so that those have no occasion to fast too long, nor these to depart the city without their dinner. To this place, if they are so disposed, they resort, and there they regale themselves, every man according to his abilities. Those who have a mind to indulge, need not hanker after sturgeon, or a Guinea fowl, or a Gelinote de Bois; for there are delicacies enough to gratify their palates. It is a public eating-house, and is both highly convenient and useful to the city, and is a clear proof of its civilization. Hence, as we read in the Gorgias of Plato, juxta medicinam esse cocorum officium, simulachrum, et adulationem, quartæ particulæ civilitatis.'"+-vol. i. pp. 60-69. But the Reminiscences of Mr. Brayley are not confined to the mere local antiquities of the place, which he has undertaken to describe in its ancient state. He has peopled his curious scenes with their proper inhabitants-kings, poets, and citizens, march before us, in the costume of their age, and by the well-chosen incidents recorded of their lives and actions, we are enabled to form a striking idea of their characters. There is a richness of colouring in all the scenes of early English manners, and the men whose figures appear the most prominent on the stage, were marked by a certain boldness of feature, or a gentle heartiness of demeanour, which modern refinement has concealed under the more artificial courtesies of life. It is a pleasure to get back into the times when such men flourished. The poet always finds it necessary to transport himself to these periods of generous and chivalrous sentiment, and there is a morality and truth in their spirit which it does one a moral good often to contemplate, and take example from. Old London was great and rich, and filled with men proud of their free citizenship, and many a king and noble honoured the strength of the royal city, and offered their tribute of respect to its greatness and wealth. We might easily fill a very large space with extracts from the numerous entertaining histories, which have been collected by our author in illustration of the earlier history of the metropolis, but we must be contented with selecting one or two of those, which are in themselves best adapted to explain the nature of his work. The following will show something of the state of popular feeling and manners previous to the sixteenth century, at which period many of the Mons. Dacier interprets une Gelinote de Strype calls it "the rare Godwit of Iönia." pendix, p. 13. Bois, by the "Red Game ;” This passage, says Mr. Pegg, I have not attempted to translate, as, upon comparing it with the author [Platonis Georgias, p. 135, Routh], it appears to be maimed and imperfect, and unless some better manuscript will assist us, incurable. Strype translates it thus:-"Next to the physician's art is the trade of cooks, the image and flattery of the fourth part of a city."' old and picturesque customs of the people began to be lost in the cities and to retire into the small towns and villages, from which, in another age or two, they were also destined to be expelled by an improving but too cold and unfeeling a spirit. The description which is here given of the ceremony practised in the merriest of the summer months, is characteristic of the early poetical temperament of the English people. It is taken from the Anatomie of Abuses, by Stubbes, a puritan writer, who too severely judged whatever practices contradicted his own ideas of religious severity. "But their cheefest jewell they bring from thence is their Maie Poole, whiche they bring home with greate veneration, as thus. They have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe havying a sweete nosegay of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home this Maie Poole, which is covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bounde rounde aboute with stringes, from the top to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with twoo or three hundred men, women, and children followying it, with greate devotion. And thus beyng reared up, with handkerchiefes and flagges streamyng on the toppe, they strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene boughes about it, sett up Sommer haules, Bowers, and Arbours hard by it: and then they fall to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute it, as the Heathen people did at the dedication of their Idolles, whereof this is a perfect patterne, or rather the thyng itself." 'Customs are continued for ages after their real origin has been forgotten, or, otherwise, so amalgamated with " baser matter" that no analysis can discover the primary germ. Thus, probably, it has fared with the practice of setting up the May Pole, although it may seem to bear relationship to one species of the corrupt worship of antiquity, to which an allusion only can now be made. In the middle ages, crowned with gay wreaths, and decorated with variegated festoons of blooming flowers, it was regarded as an emblem of the genial productiveness of Spring, and the sports and dances which accompanied the festivity, were the emanations of gratitude for the blessings of returning vegetation and fruitfulness. " "It was the great object," says the compiler of that useful and amusing, but somewhat too garrulous" Guide to the year," the "Every Day Book," -" with some of the more rigid among our early reformers, to suppress amusements, especially May-Poles; and these "Idols" of the people were got down as zeal grew fierce, and got up as it grew coole, till, after various ups and downs, these favourites of the populace were, by the Parliament, on the 6th of April, 1644, thus provided against: "The lords and commons do further order and ordain, that all and singular May-poles, that are or shall be erected, shall be taken down, and removed by the constables, boss-holders, tithing-men, petty constables, and churchwardens of the parishes, where the same may be, and that no May-pole be hereafter set up, erected, or suffered to be set up, within this kingdom of England, or dominion of Wales; the said officers to be fined five shillings weekly till the said May-poles be taken down." Long previously to this Ordinance, such great interruption had been given to the May Games and Sunday diversions of the people, that James the First, on returning from Scotland through Lancashire, in 1615, judged it requisite to issue a Proclamation, forbidding any interference with the lawful Recreation of his subjects, either in "Dancing, Archery, Vaulting, &c. or in having May Games, Whitson Ales, and Morris Dances, and the setting up of May Poles, and other sports therewith used, so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of Divine Service." In the following year, that Proclamation was extended to all parts of the kingdom; and it was again ordered to be enforced by Charles the First, (together with the observance of Wakes, or Feasts, on the anniversary dedication of churches) by his letters mandatory, dated at Westminster, on the 18th of October, 1633. This command the King ordered to be promulgated by Episcopal authority, through all the Parish Churches of every Diocess, but it so greatly excited the displeasure of the Puritans, that they afterwards used it as an argument for expelling the Bishops from the House of Peers, and condemning Archbishop Laud.'vol. iii. pp. 247-249. With one more extract, from the miscellaneous part of the work, we must conclude our notice of its very amusing contents. The following is a lively description of one of the fashionable lounges for the gentlemen about Town, in the early part of the seventeenth century: 'At the period when Decker wrote, (viz. about 1609,) as well as for many years after, St. Paul's Church was the regular lounging-place for all idlers, and hunters after news, as well, indeed, as men of almost every profession, including cheats, usurers, and knights of the post. It was, likewise, a seat of traffic and negotiation; even money lenders had their stations there, and the font itself, if credit may be given to a black-letter tract, on the Detestable use of Dice-play," printed early in Elizabeth's reign, was made a place for the advance and payment of loans, and the sealing of indentures and obligations for the security of the monies borrowed! 'Innumerable allusions to the humours of Paul's Walks may be found in old plays, and pamphlets, commencing, perhaps, during the sovereignty of Elizabeth, and terminating only with the conflagration of 1666, in *Greene, in the opening of his "Theeves falling out, True-men come by their goods," says "What news? is the language, at first meetings, used in all countries. At court, is the morning's salutation, and noone's table-talke; by night it is stale. In citty, it is more common than What doe you lack?' and, in the countrey, whistling at plough is not of greater antiquity. Walke in the middle of Paul's, and gentlemen's teeth walke not faster at ordinaries, than there a whole day together about enquiry after News.'' + Ben Jonson, in his "character" of Shift, in "Every Man out of his Humour," calls him "A Thred-bare Sharke," whose profession is skeldring and odling, his banke Poules, and his Warehouse Pict-hatch.” -Speaking of Shift, in the opening scene of the 3rd Act, which the dramatist has laid in "the middle isle in Paules," Cordatus, in reply to Macilente's question-" And what makes he in Paules now?" says "Troth, as you see, for the advancement of a Si quis, or two; wherein he hath so varied himselfe, that if any one of them take, he may hull up and downe i'the humourous world, a little longer." 2 which the church was destroyed. But the best general picture of the scene, is unquestionably that of Bishop Earle, who in his "Microcosmographia," published in 1629, thus pourtrays it. "Paul's Walke is the land's Epitome, or you may cal it the lesser Ile of Great Brittaine. It is more than this, the whole World's map, which you may here discerne in its perfectest motion, iustling and turning. It is a heape of stones and men, with a vast confusion of languages, and, were the steeple not sanctified, nothing liker Babel. The noyse in it is like that of Bees, a strange humming or buzze, mixt of walking, tongues, and feet; it is a kind of still roare, or loud whisper. It is the great Exchange of all discourse, and no businesse whatsoever but is here stirring and afoot. It is the Synod of all pates politicke, joynted and laid together in most serious posture, and they are not half so busie at the Parliament. It is the Anticke of tailes to tailes and backes to backes, and for vizards you need go no further than faces. It is the Market of young Lecturers, whom you may cheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general Mint of all famous lies, which are here, like the legends of Popery, first coyn'd and stampt in the Church. All inventions are emptyed here, and not few pockets. The best sign of a Temple in it is, that it is the theves sanctuary, which robbe more safely in the croud than a wilderness, whilst every searcher is a bush to hide them. It is the other expence of the day, after playes, taverne, and a bawdy-house, and men have still some oathes left to sweare here. It is the eares brothell, and satisfies their lusts and ytch. The visitants are all men without exceptions, but the principall inhabitants are stale Knights and Captaines out of service, men of long rapiers and breeches, which after all turne merchants here and trafficke for newes. Some make it a preface to their dinner, and trauel for a stomache; but thriftier men make it their ordinarie, and boorde here very cheape. Of all such places, it is least haunted with hobgoblins, for if a ghost would walk more, he could not." The character of Mr. Brayley's work will be tolerably understood by what we have already said of its contents, but we may add, that it deserves a place in every library, both public and private. The mass of useful and interesting information which it contains does the greatest honour to the learning and research of the author, who richly merits the praise of having done much to redeem the name of an antiquarian from the obloquy which sometimes attaches to it, from the aspersions of the vulgum profanum. We trust he will again appear before us, as a wide and various field of inquiry is still before him, and the talents he has displayed in his present undertaking, makes his labours and further exertions a sort of public debt. NOTICES. ART. XII.—The Influence of Physical Education in producing and confirming, in Females, Deformity of the Spine. By E. W. Duffin, Surgeon. 8vo. pp. 135, London: Swire. 1829. THIS is a very intelligent, practical, popular, and at the same time a scientific work, upon a subject which daily increases in interest, in pro |