had laid it, and placed between two millstones in the market-place of Shrewsbury, quartered, and hung upon the gates, after the barbarous fashion of the times. Otterbourne tells us that the courage of the brave Percy was much damped before the battle by an incident which marks the superstitious feeling of the times. When preparing for the field, he called for his favourite sword, and was informed that he had left it at the village of Berwick, where he had rested the previous night. Startled at the name of the place, he heaved a deep sigh, and exclaimed: 'Alas! then my death is near at hand, for a wizard once told me that I should not live long after I had seen Berwick, which I thought was the town in the north.-Yet will I not be cheaply won' When the king had put an end to the pursuit and slaughter, he returned thanks for his victory on the field of battle, and commanded the erection of the collegiate church of Battlefield, of which more than half is now in ruins. RAT LEGENDS. On the 22d day of July, in the year of our Lord 1376, according to old Verstegan, a terrible calamity befell the town of Hamel, in Brunswick: 'There came into the town of Hamel an old kind of companion, who, for the fantastical coat which he wore being wrought with sundry colours, was called the Pied Piper. This fellow, forsooth, offered the townsmen, for a certain sum of money, to rid the town of all the rats that were in it (for at that time the burghers were with that vermin greatly annoyed). The accord, in fine, being made, the Pied Piper, with a shrill pipe, went thorow all the streets, and forthwith the rats came all running out of the houses in great numbers after him; all which he led into the river of Weaser, and therein drowned them. This done, and no one rat more perceived to be left in the town, he afterward came to demand his reward according to his bargain; but being told that the bargain was not made with him in good earnest, to wit, with an opinion that he could be able to do such a feat, they cared not what they accorded unto, when they imagined it could never be deserved, and so never be demanded; but, nevertheless, seeing he had done such an unlikely thing indeed, they were content to give him a good reward; and so offered him far less than he looked for. He, therewith discontented, said he would have his full recompense according to his bargain; but they utterly denied to give it him. He threatened them with revenge; they bade him do his worst, whereupon he betakes him again to his pipe, and going thorow the streets as before, was followed by a number of boys out of one of the gates of the city, and coming to a little hill, there opened in the side thereof a wide hole, into the which himself and all the children did enter; and being entered, the hill did close up again, and became as before. A boy, that, being lame, came somewhat lagging behind the rest, seeing this that happened, returned presently back, and told what he had seen; forthwith began great lamentation among the parents for their children, and the men were sent out with all diligence, both by land and by water, to inquire if aught could be heard of them; but with all the inquiry they could possibly use, nothing more than is aforesaid could of them RAT LEGENDS. be understood. And this great wonder happened on the 22d day of July, in the year of our Lord 1376.'* The rat seems altogether a mystical sort of creature; at least, very mystical things are current everywhere regarding it. It is one of the simplest of these, that there are districts where rats do not dwell and cannot be introduced. Not only are we told by the credulous Hector Boece, that there are no rats in Buchan (Aberdeenshire), but a later and more intelligent author, Sir Robert Gordon, makes the same statement regarding Sutherlandshire: 'If,' says he, 'they come thither in ships from other parts, they die presently, how soon they do smell the air of that country? Sir Robert at the same time asserts, that the species abounds in the neighbouring province of Caithness. But this is not all. The reverend gentlemen who contributed to Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, about 1794, the articles on Morven and Roseneath, the one in the north, the other in the south of Argyleshire, avouch that rats have been introduced into those parishes in vain. The author of the article on Roseneath seems to have been something of a wag, though quite in earnest on the point of fact. 'From a prevailing opinion,' says he, that the soil of this parish is hostile to that animal, some years ago, a West India planter actually carried out to Jamaica several casks of Roseneath earth, with a view to kill the rats that were destroying his sugarcanes. It is said this had not the desired effect; so we lost a valuable export. Had the experiment succeeded, this would have been a new and profitable trade for the proprietors; but perhaps by this time, the parish of Roseneath might have been no more l' It was a prevalent notion in past ages, that you might extirpate rats by a persevering course of anathematising in rhyme. Reginald Scot says that the Irish thought they could rhyme any beast to death; but the notion was, in general, restricted to the rat. It is with reference to this belief, or practice, that Rosalind, in As You Like It, says: 'I never was so berhymed since Pythagoras's time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember. So Another prevalent notion regarding rats was, that they had a presentiment of coming evil, and always deserted in time a ship about to be wrecked, or a house about to be flooded or burned. lately as 1854, it was seriously reported in a Scotch provincial newspaper that, the night before a town mill was burned, the rats belonging to the establishment were met migrating in a body to a neighbouring pease-field. The notion acquires importance as the basis of a new verb in the English language-to rat-much used in political party janglings. Mr Bewick, the ingenious wood-engraver, has put on record a fact regarding rats nearly as mystical as any of the above. He alleges that 'the skins of such of them as have been devoured in their holes [for they are cannibals to a sad extent] have frequently been found curiously turned inside out, every part of them being completely inverted, even to the ends of the toes. It may be added as a more pleasing trait of these too much despised animals, that they are, nevertheless, of a social turn, and have their sports and * Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, chap. iii. edit. 1673, p. 92. pastimes by themselves. They play at hide-andseek with each other, and have been known to hide themselves in the folds of linen, where they have remained quite still until their playmates have discovered them, in the same manner as kittens. Most readers will recollect the fable, where a young mouse suggests that the cat should have a bell fastened to his neck, so that his companions might be aware of her approach. This idea was scouted by one of their wise-heads, who asked, who was to HOUSEHOLD SUPERSTITIONS. tie the bell round the cat's neck? This experiment has actually been tried upon a rat. A bell was fastened round his neck, and he was replaced in his hole, with full expectation of his frightening the rest away; but it turned out that, instead of their continuing to be alarmed at his approach, he was heard for the space of a year to frolic and scamper with them.'** The profession of the rat-catcher is an old and a universal one. In Italy, in the seventeenth century, as we learn from Annibal Caracci's! illustrations of the Cries of Bologna, this kind of professional went about with a pole bearing a square flag, on which were representations of rats and mice. The Chinese rat-catcher carries, as the outward ensign of his craft, a cat in a bag. One of the many exquisite engravings of Cornelius Vischer (born at Haarlem, 1610), gives us the Dutch ratcatcher of that day with all his paraphernalia a sketch so lifelike and so characteristic that its fidelity cannot be doubted. Our artist here gives what we are happy to consider a tolerable transcript of this humorous print. In the original, the following inscription is given in prose form: Fele fugas mures: magnis si furibus arces [i. e. By the cat you put rats to flight. If you drive away little thieves by great ones, it is utter folly. Look at me; provided only a little coin is forth. coming, I will put both rats and cats to flight.'] HOUSEHOLD SUPERSTITIONS. If a fire does not burn well, and you want to 'draw it up,' you should set the poker across the hearth, with the fore part leaning across the top bar of the grate, and you will have a good fire-if you wait long enough; but you must not be unreasonable, and refuse to give time for the charm to work. For a charm it is, the poker and top bar combined, forming a cross, and so defeating the malice of the gnomes, who are jealous of our possession of their subterranean treasures; or else of the witches and demons, who preside over smoky chimneys. I had seen the thing done scores of times; and understanding that it was sup posed to create a draught, like a poor weak rationalist as I was, I once thought to improve the matter by setting up the shovel instead of the poker; but I Smith's Cries of London, 4to, 1839, p. 33. might as well have left it alone the fire wasn't to be taken in, or the witches balked, by such a shallow contrivance, and I was left in the cold. This poker-superstition is at least harmless, and we may admit that among those belonging to the household there are some which are positively beneficial-for example, those referring to the breakage of glass and crockery. You have a valuable mirror, we will say. Do you know what is its greatest safeguard from the handles of housemaids' brooms, &c.? It is the belief, that if a looking-glass is broken, there will be a death in the family within the year. This fear is, of course, most operative in small households, where there are but few persons to divide the risk with the delinquent. I once had a servant who was very much given to breaking glass and crockery. Plates and wine-glasses used to slip out of her hands, as if they had been soaped; even spoons (which it was hardly worth while to drop, for they would not break) came jingling to the ground in rapid succession. 'Let her buy something,' said the cook, and that will change the luck.' 'Decidedly,' said the mistress, 'it will be as well that she feel the inconvenience herself.' 'Oh, I didn't mean that, ma'am,' was the reply; 'I meant that it would change the luck.' Well, have you broken anything more?' I asked, a few days after this conversation. No, sir,' the girl answered, I hav'nt broken nothing since I bout the 'tater dish.' Unluckily, however, this was too good to last; the breaking recommenced, and we were obliged to part. If you break two things, you will break a third. A neighbour saw one of her servants take up a coarse earthenware basin, and deliberately throw it down upon the brick floor. What did you do that for?' asked the mistress. Because, ma'am, I'd broke tew things,' answered the servant, so I thout the third 'd better be this here, pointing to the remains of the least valuable piece of pottery in the establishment, which had been sacrificed to glut the vengeance of the offended Ceramic deities. Suffolk JULY 23. C. W. J. St Apollinaris, bishop of Ravenna, martyr, 1st century. St Liborius, bishop of Mans, confessor, about 397. Born-Godfrey Olearius, the younger, German divine, 1672, Leipsic. Died.-St Bridget of Sweden, 1373; Sir Robert Sherley, English military adventurer in Persia, 1627; Richard Gilson, artist, 1690; Gilles Menage, grammarian and versifier, 1692, Paris; Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais, first husband of the Empress Josephine, guillotined, 1794; Jean Francois Vauvilliers, eminent French scholar, 1800, St Petersburg; Arthur Wolfe, Lord Kilwarden, murdered by the populace in Dublin, 1803; Mrs Elizabeth Hamilton, authoress of the Cottagers of Glenburnie, 1816, Harrowgate. ST BRIDGET OF SWEDEN. Birgir, widow of Ulpho, Prince of Nericia, died on the 23d of July 1372, and, a few years after wards, was canonised by Pope Boniface IX., under the appellation of St Bridget of Sweden. Unlike most other saints, there seems to have been little more miraculous in her character and career, than the simple fact, that she was a pious woman, a scholar, and writer on religious subjects, at a ST BRIDGET OF SWEDEN. period of general barbarism. She founded the monastic order of Bridgetines, peculiar of its kind, as it included both nuns and monks under the same roof. The regular establishment of a house of Bridgetines numbered sixty nuns, thirteen monks, four deacons, and eight lay-brothers; the lady-abbess controlling and superintending the whole. The mortified and religious life to which they had bound themselves, by the most solemn engagements, was supposed to render the mixed inmates of these convents superior to temptation, and free from the slightest suspicion of evil. Strange stories, nevertheless, have been told of these communities, and the greater part, if not all, of the convents of the order that now exist, are of one sex alone. There is an ancient wood-cut, formerly in the possession of Earl Spencer, representing St Bridget of Sweden writing her works. A pilgrim's staff, hat, and scrip, raised behind her, alluded to her many pilgrimages. The letters S.P.Q.R., in the upper corner, denoted that she died at Rome. The lion of Sweden, and crown at her feet, shewed that she was a princess of that country, as well as her contempt for worldly dignities. A legend above her head consisted of a brief invocation in German: O, Brigita, bit Got fur uns !'-O, Bridget, pray to God for us! A striking illustration of the inherent vitality of extreme weakness, not unfrequently met with, both in the moral and physical world, is exhibited in the history of the first and only house of Bridgetines established in England. About 1420, Henry V., as a memorial of the battle of Agincourt, founded the Bridgetine House of Sion, on that pleasant bank of the Thames, now so well known by the palatial residence of the Duke of Northumberland. And there, with broad lands, fisheries, mill-sites, watercourses, and other valuable endowments, the establishment the female part consisting principally of ladies of rank-flourished in peace and plenty till the dissolution of monasteries in 1539. Even then the inmates were not thrown helpless on the world; all were allowed pensions, more or less according to their stations, from Dame Agnes Jordan, the abbess, who received £200 per annum, for life, down to the humble lay-brother, whose yearly dole was £2, 13s. 4d. The community thus broken up, did not all separate. A few holding together, joined a convent of their order at Dermond, in Flanders; from whence they were brought back, and triumphantly reinstated in their original residence of Sion, by Queen Mary, in 1557. Of those who had remained in England at the dissolution, few were found, after a lapse of eighteen years, to join their old community. dead; some, renouncing their ancient faith, or yielding to the dictates of nature, had married. As old Fuller quaintly phrases it, the elder nuns were in their graves, the younger in the arms of their husbands;' but with the addition of new members, the proper number was again made up. But scarcely had they been settled in their ancient abode, ere the accession of Elizabeth once more dissolved the establishment; and at this second dissolution, all the nuns, with the exception of the abbess, left England, to seek a place of rest and refuge at Dermond." The convent at Dermond being too poor to support so many, the Duchess of Parma gave the English nuns a monastery in Some were Zealand, to which they transferred the House of Sion; but the place being unendowed and unhealthy, poverty and sickness compelled them to abandon it, and they were fortunate enough to obtain a house and church near Antwerp. Here the fugitives thought they had at last found a shelter and a home, but they soon were undeceived. In a popular tumult, their house and furniture were destroyed, and only by a timely flight did they themselves escape insult and injury from the rudest of the populace. Their next establishment was at Mechlin, where they lived for seven years, till that city was taken by the Prince of Orange. In the misery and confusion consequent thereon, the nuns were accidentally discovered by some English officers in the service of the prince, who preserved and protected them; and learning that they might find a shelter at Rouen, the officers, though of the reformed faith, protected their countrywomen in all honour and safety to Antwerp, and provided them with a passage to France. Arriving at Rouen in 1589, the sisters of Sion, though sunk in poverty, had another brief rest, till that city was besieged by Henry IV. At its capture, their house was confiscated, but they were assisted to hire a ship to convey them to Lisbon. They arrived at Lisbon in 1594, and were well received; soon finding themselves comfortably situated, with a pension from the king of Spain, a church, monastery, and other endowments. With the exception of being burned out in 1651, and the demolition of their convent by the great earthquake in 1755, the nuns of Sion, continually recruited by accessions from the British Islands, lived at Lisbon, in peaceful and easy circumstances, till the revolutionary wars of 1809. In that year, ten of them fled for refuge to England; and receiving a small pension from government, managed to subsist, through various vicissitudes and changes of residence, till finally dispersed by death and other causes. But those who remained at Lisbon, after suffering great privations-their convent being made an hospital for the Duke of Wellington's army-recovered all their former privileges at the end of the war; and being joined by several English ladies, became a flourishing community. The last scene of this eventful history is not the least strange, nor can it be better or more concisely told, than in the following paragraph from a London newspaper, published in September 1861: NUNS PER LISBON STEAMER.-The Sultan, on Saturday, brought over twelve nuns of the ancient convent of Sion House, who return to England, having purchased an establishment at Spetisbury, in Dorsetshire. The sisters bring with them the antique stone cross which formerly stood over the gateway of Sion House at Isleworth, also several ancient statues which adorned the original church, and a portrait of Henry V. of England, their founder, which is said to be a likeness, and to have been painted during the monarch's lifetime. This order of Bridgetines has been settled at Lisbon since the year 1595; but there being now more religious liberty in England than in Portugal, and more prospects here for the prosperity of the order, the sisterhood have determined to return to their native land. The Duke of Northumberland, to whose ancestors the ancient Sion House, with its lands, was granted by Henry VIII., has given the SIR ROBERT SHERLEY. poor nuns a handsome donation to assist them in defraying the expenses of their journey and change of establishment.' SIR ROBERT SHERLEY. Among the remarkable travellers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, not the least so was the youngest son of Sir Thomas Sherley, of Wistenston, in Sussex. A love of adventure seems to have inspired both himself and his elder brother, Sir Anthony, from an early age; for who in those days could fail to be roused when the discoveries of Columbus, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other adventurous seamen were the daily topic? As soon as Robert Sherley was of sufficient age he set off on his travels, and wishing to understand the politics of various European courts, he attached himself to their sovereigns, and, for five years, was employed by them in various missions. The Emperor Rodolf, of Germany, was so much satisfied by the talents he evinced on one of his embassies, that he created him a count of the empire. His brother Anthony had, during this time, been in Persia, and thither Robert followed him, and was introduced at the court. The king, acknowledging the abilities of the stranger who had arrived, made him a general of artillery, and for ten years he fought against the Turks with distinguished bravery; bringing the newest improvements in cannon and arms generally under the notice of the government; but, at the same time, getting into considerable trouble through the envy of the Persian nobles, who could not bear to see honours showered upon a stranger. A life in the east cannot be passed without romance, and so it fell out that the valour and noble conduct of Sir Robert inflamed the hearts of many a fair Persian, but above all of Teresia, the daughter of Ismay Hawn, prince of the city of Hercassia Major, whose sister was one of the queens of Persia. Much difficulty and opposition did the true lovers meet with, but at length they were married. After this, Sir Robert seems to have left the army, and returned to his former life as ambassador to various countries; among the rest, to Rome, where he went in 1609, and was received with every mark of distinction, magnificent entertainments being given to him. He then came to England, bringing his wife with him, who must have been much astonished with the manners of a country which probably none of her countrywomen had ever seen before. They were, however, received with great favour by James I., and especially by Henry, Prince of Wales, a young man always ready to welcome enterprising countrymen. Here his wife presented him with a son on the 4th of November 1611, on which occasion the happy father wrote the following letter to the prince, requesting him to stand godfather: 'MOST RENOWNEDE PRINCE-The great hounors and favors it hath pleased your Highnes to use towards me, hathe embouldede me to wrighte thes fewe lyns, which shal be to beseeche your Highnes to Christen a sonn which God hath geven me. Your Highnes in this shal make your servant happy, whose whole loudginge is to doe your Highnes some segniolated servis worthy to be esteemed in your Prinsly breast. I have not the pen of Sissero [Cicero], yet want I not menes to sownde your Highnesse's worthy prayses into the ears of forran nattions and mighty princes; and I assure myselfe your high-borne sperrit thirstes after Fame, the period of great princes' ambissiones. And further I will ever be your Highnes' most humbele and observaunt servant, ROBERT SHERLEY.' This letter certainly does not give us a very high opinion of the ambassador's learning. He was said to be a famous general, but a wretched scholar; his patience was more philosophical than his intellect, having small acquaintance with the muses. Many cities he saw, many hills climbed over, and tasted many waters; yet Athens, Parnassus, Hippocrene, were strangers to him: his notion prompted him to other employments.' Yet in spite of this, the prince gave his godchild his own name, the queen taking the office of godmother; and when the father returned to Persia, he left his little boy under her care. Sherley was again in England in 1624, but with very sad results. A quarrel arose between him and the Persian ambassador, which caused the king to send them both back to Persia, to reconcile their differences. Whether the ambassador felt himself in the wrong, and durst not face his master, certain it is that he poisoned himself on the way; and Sir Robert being unable to gain a hearing and proper satisfaction from the court, died of a broken heart at the age of sixty-three. There is a portrait of him at Petworth, in his Persian dress; for it seems that he liked to appear in England in these foreign garments, as more graceful and picturesque than his national garb. GILLES MENAGE. Menage, in the earlier part of his life, was a lawyer, but though eminently successful as a pleader, he entered the church to acquire more leisure for his favourite pursuit of literature. A curious trial, on which he was engaged, affords a remarkable instance of justice overtaking a criminal, in what may be termed an unjust manner. A country priest, of a notoriously violent and vicious character, had a dispute about moneymatters with the tax-collector of the district; who soon afterwards disappearing, a strong suspicion arose that he had been murdered by the priest. About the same time, a man was executed for highway robbery, and his body gibbeted in chains by the roadside, as a warning to others. The relations of the highwayman came one night and took the body down, with the intention of burying it; but, being frightened by a passing patrol, they could do no more than sink it in a pond, not far from the priest's residence. Some fishermen, when drawing their nets, found the body, and the neighbours applying their previous suspicions to the then much disfigured body of the highwayman, alleged that it was that of the tax-collector. The priest was arrested, tried, and condemned, solemnly protesting against the injustice of his sentence, but, when the day of execution arrived, he admitted that he had perpetrated the crime for which he was about to suffer. Nevertheless, he said, I am unjustly condemned, for the tax-collector's body, with that of his dog, still lies buried in my garden, where I killed them both. On search being made, the bodies of the man and dog were found in the place described by the priest; and subsequent inquiries brought to light the secret of the body found in the pond. RICHARD GIBSON. RICHARD GIBSON. was miniature-painter, in every sense of the phrase, as well as court-dwarf, to Charles I.; his wife, Ann Shepherd, was court-dwarf to Queen Henrietta Maria. Her majesty encouraged a marriage between these two clever but diminutive persons; the king giving away the bride, the queen presenting her with a diamond ring; while Waller, the court-poet, celebrated the nuptials in one of his prettiest poems. 'Design or chance make others wive, To him, for whom Heaven seemed to frame The conclusion of the poem is very elegant. The marriage was an eminently happy one. The little couple had nine children, five of whom lived to years of maturity, and full ordinary stature. Gibson had the honour of being drawing-master to Queen Mary and her sister Queen Anne. His works were much valued, and one of them was the innocent cause of a tragical event. This painting, representing the parable of the lost sheep, was |