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publication, printed at Cambridge in 1634*. It consists of 1. "Eclogæ tres Virgilianæ declinate; Tityrus, ad Pestifugium; Pollio, ad Postliminium; Gallus, ad Fastidium. 2. Corydon. Aufuga sive isgoodoxia Pastorilia Accipiendo Reverendo Patri ac domino Joanni Episcopo Roffensi per binos Scholæ Hadleianæ Alumnos recitata. Apr. 9. 1632. 3. Nisus verberans et vapulans decantatus per Musas vergiferas, juridicas."

The occasion of the latter was briefly this: the three sons of a Mr. Colman, of Payton-Hall, (Carbonius et Carbunculi) being admitted at Hadleigh school, one of them in less than two years, unprovoked, and unthreatened, ran away; but a few months after, in the absence of the master and scholars, thought proper to enter the school-room and filthily bedaub a wooden horse, used for the purpose of flagellation; seen, however, by one of the boys, and boasting of it afterwards to others. A week after, accompanied by a relation, he returned to repeat his pranks, but was then detected by his master, who very properly chastised him, but gently, giving him only four lashes. For this assault (as it was termed) an action was brought against him by the father, at Bury assizes, and the damages were laid at 401. This action Mr. Hawkins was obliged to defend, at great trouble and expence, and at last, before issue was joined, the plaintiff withdrew his plea. All the circumstances of this case, the law process, &c. are described with great elegance and humour; and several commendatory poems are prefixed.

1783, Nov.

XCIII. The Cell called Little Ease.

MR. URBAN,

THE account given in your Magazine for November last, of the closet called "Little Ease" in the church of St.

It appears by the register of Hadleigh, that "Mr. William Hawkins, curate, was buried June 29, 1637."

+ "From the level of the South Wall of St. Mary's Church, Leicester, near its centre, and coeval with it, is a closet formed partly by a protuberance, with loop holes, or oblong apertures in front, looking into the church-yard; backed, a few years ago, by a door, which I well remember, opening into the church; called by tradition "Little-ease," supposed to have been a place of discipline, where scarcely above one at a time could be admitted; and that only in an erect posture."

Mary in Leicester, brought to my mind a description I had formerly read in Anglia Sacra, Vol. II. p. 96, of the cell of St. Dunstan, adjoining to St. Mary's Church in Glastonbury; and, on revising the passage, I find, in some instances, a very striking similitude between the two buildings. Osberne, in his Life of Dunstan, styles it cellam, sive destinam, sive spelæum;" and Mr. Wharton, in a note, informs us, that "destina" means a small outward edifice contiguous to the wall of a greater, and that the word occurs in Bede's Eccles. Hist. I. 3. c. 17. and other writers. According to the Monkish historian, the cell was fabricated by Dunstan himself, and had rather the form of a sepulchre of the dead, than of an habitation for the living. He represents it to have been not more than five feet in length, and two and a half in breadth, and its height answerable to the stature of a man, provided he stood in the hole dug at the bottom of it, for that otherwise it would not be higher than a man's breast. The door seems to have opened into the church, as your correspondent remembers that of the closet at Leicester to have done; but there was this difference between the two edifices, that in the latter are loop-holes looking into the church-yard, whereas all the light the former received was through a window in the middle of the door. In this strait apartment Dunstan is said to have slept, as well as performed his devotions. Here also, whilst he was at work, his harp would play of itself for his amusement; and it was through the aperture of the door of this cell he was so lucky as to fasten his redhot pincers upon Satan's nose. But to wave the ridiculous parts of this legendary tale, it is plain from Osberne's rela tion, that small structures of this kind were erected very early in this country; and though Dunstan, and some other monks as rigid as himself, might, by way of mortification, dwell in these places of "Little Ease," yet (as the traditional notion with respect to that of Leicester imports) it is very probable they might be intended and applied as prisons, for the security or punishment of persons suspected or convicted of heinous offences.

1784, Jan.

Yours, &c.

W. and D.

XCIV. Emaciated Figures in Churches,

Jan. 19.

MR. URBAN, YOUR correspondent B. R. mentions a circumstance that has struck me as it seems to have done him. "In many of our cathedrals is exhibited, on a monument, a whole length recumbent figure of a man, naked, and very much emaciated: and this, the observer is told, is the figure of a certain bishop, who attempted to fast forty days and forty nights, and perished in the experiment." The repetition of this story, in different places, awakened my attention to it, and, upon recollection, I very much doubt whether such a figure ever appears, without having, on a more exalted part of the monument, another recumbent figure of a bishop, in pontificalibus. Now, if this be the case, I should incline to explain it thus. In days of yore I apprehend that, after the death of kings, prelates, and other considerable persons, their bodies were dressed in their official robes, and thus laid in their coffins; that the last mentioned figures are exact effigies of them in this state, and the first mentioned figures equally exact representations of their bodies before they were thus habited; for surely it cannot be deemed extraordinary, that the bodies of such persons, especially as the greater part of them were far advanced in years, should appear meagre and ema ciated after death, and this will be an answer to the question, what was designed by these last mentioned figures, if they are to be found any where, unaccompanied with the effigies in robes? I profess not, by any means, to speak in an authoritative style, but merely to throw out hints, which may engage the attention of some of your readers who are much better qualified to speak to the subject. Yours, &c.

1784, Jan.

MR. URBAN,

E.

Burbach, April 23.

MANY observations having been lately made in your Magazine by different correspondents in relation to the emaciated figures, so frequently found in our cathedrals connected with the monuments of bishops, abbots, &c. for I am clear it was not confined to these only, having seen the same device under the figure of a lusty well-fed knight; I shall be much pleased if my brother antiquaries will admit the following reasons as conclusive on this subject.

During my travels on the continent, a predilection for matters of antiquity made me seldom pass by any cathedral or old abbey without an interior visit. In several of both these denominations, I repeatedly found the same figure attached to some capital monument, with this difference, that the conductor or monk himself, appointed to shew the premises, never annexed the improbable story of fasting*, &c. I remember seeing one of this kind in the church belonging to the priory of Celestin monks at Heverle, near the town of Louvain in Brabant. I was particularly directed to this figure as an object worthy of my curiosity; it is placed over a monument of a Duke de Croy, and represents a cadaver in the same state nearly as in our English cathedrals, with this horrible yet admirable singularity, that the worms are seen in various parts destroying the body; it is of the finest white marble, and executed in the most masterly manner; yet being so natural and such a melancholy object, few people give it that attention it deserves. From hence I would infer, that, whatever might give rise to the same story told in most of our cathedral or monastic churches, it cannot be applicable to all, but seems to have been the taste of the sculptors of that age, and no improper picture of death and the corruptibility of the body, at the same time conveying an useful though humiliating lesson to persons of high dignity. I sincerely wish that all fabulous traditions may be exploded; and for that reason I felt a secret satisfaction on visiting once more, at my last journey to London, the tombs in Westminster abbey, that the verger no longer amuses the gaping vulgar with the idle story of the lady who died by the prick of a needle in her finger, when it is evident to the most common judgment, that the figure is pointing to a death's head below.

1784, May.

Observator.

As

XCV. Ancient Customs elucidated.

1. The Feast of Yule.-Mothering Sunday.

MR. URBAN,

Jan. 7.

a correspondent of yours is desirous, amongst other

In Canterbury cathedral there is a like emaciated figure under the fine monument of Abp. Chicheley, of whom no such story is recorded,

As to

customs, of knowing the original of regaling on furmety on what he calls "Mothering Sunday," I have here sent you what has occurred to me towards tracing it out. "Mothering Sunday," of which another correspondent confesses his ignorance, and which indeed I never heard of before, I suppose it may be some Sunday near Christmas, and has reference to the winter solstice, the night of which was called by our ancestors Mother-night, as they reckoned the beginning of their years from thence. But be this as it will, I know it is a custom in the northern counties to have furmety, or frumity, as the common people there call it, on Christmas-eve; however the word be pronounced, it is probably derived from frumentum, wheat. It is made of what is called in a certain town in Yorkshire "kreed wheat," or whole grains first boiled plump and soft, and then put into and boiled in milk sweetened and spiced. One of the principal feasts among the northern nations was the Juul, afterwards called Yule, about the shortest day; which, as Mr. Mallet observest, bore a great resemblance to the Roman Saturnalia, feasts instituted in memory of Noah, who, as Mr. Bryant has shewn, was the real Saturn, and, from the light he has thrown on this subject, the Juul might have a greater affinity with them than Mr. Mallet was aware. In almost all the ancient nations, anniversary seasons were observed in commemoration of something or other relating to Noah or the deluge: but in process of time the originals were forgotten by many of them, and they were diverted to other purposes, which has occasioned some perplexity. In September the Egyptians, Canaanites, and others, made bitter lamentations for the dead Osiris, Jammuz, Adonis, Serapis, or Apis, on the bier, by all which names Noah was denoted; and this was in commemoration of his being at that time shut up in the ark. They also observed a festivity in commemoration of his coming out again, when they ran about in a wild disorderly manner, making great exclamations with other demonstrations of frantic mirth. Besides which there seems to me to have been another celebrated, as the Romans did their Saturnalia, in December, when all were considered on a level, like master, like man; and this was to express the social manner in which Noah lived about this time with his family in the ark, when the great storms and tempests had ceased, and all the oppressors and

* On this head let the curious reader consult "The Furmetary," a delectable poem of the facetious Dr. King. SCRIBLERIUS.

↑ Northern Antiquities, vol. L p. 150.

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