which I hope may be in good time, you would not be very merry.

2d Woman. Lord, what a down look he has ! 1st Woman. Aye, and what a cloud in his forehead, goody Twattle, mark that

2d Woman. Aye, and such frowning wrinkles, I warrant you, not so much as a smile from him.

Footpad. Smile, quoth she! Tho' tis sport for you, 'tis none for me, I assure you.

1st Woman. Aye, but 'tis so long before you are hanged.

1st Woman. By my truly, methinks now he is a very proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day. Footpad. Aye, so are all that are hanged; the gal. lows adds a great deal of grace to one's person.

2d Woman. I vow he is a lovely man; 'tis pity he ✨ should be taken away, as they say, in the flower of his age.

1st Officer. Come, dispatch, dispatch; what a plague shall we stay all day, and neglect our business, to hang one thief?

2d Officer. Pray, be hanged quickly, Sir; for I am to go to a Fair hard by.

1st Officer. And I am to meet some friends to drir.k out a stand of ale by and by.

1st Woman. Nay, pray let him speak, and die like a Christian.

2d Woman. O, I have heard brave speeches at this place before.

Footpad. Well, good people-if I may be bold to call you so this Pulpit was not of my chusing. I shall shortly preach mortality to you without speaking, therefore pray take example by me, and then I know what will become of ye. I will be, I say, your memento mori, hoping you will all follow me.

1st Fellow. O he speaks rarely.
2d Fellow. Aye, does Latin it.

Footpad. I have been too covetous, and at last taken for it, and am very sorry for it. I have been a great sinner, and condemned for it, which grieves me not a little, that I made not my escape, and so I heartily repent it, and so I die with this true confession.

1st Woman (weeping). Mercy on him, for a better man was never hanged.

2d Woman. So true and hearty repentance, and so pious.

2d Fellow. Help him up higher on the ladder. Now you are above us all.

Footpad. Truly I desire you were all equal with me; I have no pride in this world.

1st Fellow. Will you not sing, Sir, before you are hanged?

Footpad. Yes, I have been preparing for you these

many years.

1st Woman. Mercy on him, and save his better part. 2d Woman. You see what we must all come to. (horn blows a reprieve.)

Officer. A reprieve! how came that?

Post. My Lady Hanghty procured it.

Footpad. I will always say, while I live, that her Ladyship is a civil person.

1st Fellow. Pish, what must he not be hanged now? 2d Fellow. What, did we come all this way for this? 1st Woman. Take all this pains to see nothing? Footpad. Very pious good people, I shall shew you no sport this day.

[From "Mamamouchi," a Comedy, by Edward Ravenscroft, 1675.

Foolish Lender.

Hangman. Come, are you ready?

Debt. By no means; you shall have it, or I vow➡, Cred. Well, Sir, as you please.

Cred. Another time one hundred

Debt. O, that was to send into France to my wife to bring her over, but the Queen would not part with her then; and since, she is fallen sick

Cred. Alas!

Debt. But pretty well recovered

neas

Debt. Just as can be; a very good account. Put down two hundred more, which I will borrow of you

by Mr. Warton (note on Comus, line 709) to be fur in general; but this interpretation is negatived by the terms of the present

it will be no inconvenience to you

Cred. Euh, not in the least

Debt. It is to make up a sum of two thousand pounds, which I am about to lay up in houses I have bought; but if it incommode you, I can have it elsewhere

Cred. O, by no means...

Dear sir,-Dr. Whitaker, in his "History of Craven," makes several extracts from the Compotus of Bolton in Craven, a folio of a thousand pages, kept by the monastery; which book begins in 1290 and ends in 1325. On one item, "In fururâ de Buget, vs.," the doctor has the following note, which may be interesting to others besides the lovers of the delightful science of heraldry.

"In Furura de Buget. In the middle ages, fur of different species formed an elegant and comfortable appendage, not only to professional habits, but to the ordinary dress of both sexes, from the sovereign to the private gentleman. Beneath the latter rank, none but the coarsest kinds were ever in use, which they certainly wore; for Chaucer, who intended to clothe his personification of Avarice in the garb of Poverty, allows her, notwithstanding, 6 a burnette

cote, furred with no meniveere, but with a furre rough of lambe skynnes, hevy and blacke.' (Rom. Ros.) The different sorts enumerated in the Compotus are, the buget, or budge, gris, de ventre leporino, the white fur of the hare's belly, and de pellibus agni

may have been, it is unknown to Du Cange, who has, with immense labour and erudition, collected every thing known on the subject in the middle ages. It was certainly scarce and expensive, being used for the lining of the prior's (Bolton) hood alone. After all, I suspect it to have been the skin of the Lithuanian weasel.* Even as late as Dr. Caiius's time, the hoods of the regent masters of arts of Cambridge were lined 'pelle arminâ seu Lituana candidâ.' Lituan is sometimes used by the old writers on heraldry as synonymous with ermine. If I am right in my conjecture, therefore, budge so nearly resembled ermine, that either skin might be used indifferently as a badge of the same academical rank. And this accounts for Milton's epithet budge,' as applied to doctors, whose congregation robes at Cambridge are still faced with ermine. Gris, I think, was the skin of the grey, or badger. The sleeves of Chaucer's monk, 'a fayre prelate,' who was gayly and expensively habited, were purfited with gris' and have a fine specimen of this fur in the form in the head of a bishop in painted glass, I of a tippet about the neck.

siastics were apt to luxuriate in the use of "It seems that, in the middle ages, ecclebeautiful and costly furs: Ovium itaque gibelini (sables) martores exquiruntur et et agnorum despiciuntur exuvia; ermelini, vulpes. This vanity was checked by an English sumptuary law-Statutum est ne quis escarleto, in Anglorum gente, sabelino,

I have since discovered that budge is the same with "shanks," one of the many kinds of fur enumerated in the statute of the 24th Hen. VIII.; that is, a very delicate white skin stripped from the legs of a fine haired kid, and almost equal in value, as well as in appearance, to ermine. It is not impossible that the name may have been derived from the verb "budge," as the legs are the instruments of locomotion. See Minshew, in voce Furre. Note to second edit. Whitaker's Craven.

+ In the dialect of Craven, cornfactors or millers are called badgers. Why is this?-the derivation in Mr. Carr's work, "Hora Momenta Craven," Teut. Ratsen discurrere, seems to me very far-fetched. I am inclined to think that millers obtained the name from the colour of their clothes. T. Q. M.

'Sables, ermines, et vair, et gris.'

Vair was the skin of the Mus Ponticus, a kind of weasel, the same animal with the ermine, but in a different state, i. e. killed in summer when the belly was white and the back brown, whence it obtained the name of Varia. The ancient mineveere was 'minuta varia,' or fur composed of these diminutive skins; and Drayton was learned and accurate when he gave his well-dressed shepherd 'mittons of bauson's skin; that is, of gris, and a hood of mineveere. With respect to sables, I have only to add, that from their grave and sober elegance, they were retained as tippets in the habits of bishops and other dignitaries in England to the time of queen Elizabeth, when they gave place to a similar ornament of silk, the origin of the present scarf, which continued to be called a tippet till the reign of Charles II. See Baxter's life, where we find that puritan, when sworn in king's chaplain, refusing to wear the tippet."

I am, &c.

T. Q. M.

BUDGE BACHELORS.-BUDGE- ;

ROW.

In the old lord mayors' processions of London, there were, in the first division, the "budge bachelors marching in measured order." These budge-bachelors go in the "Lord Mayor's Show" to the present day, dressed in blue gowns trimmed with budge coloured fur, white. Bishop Corbet, in his "Iter Boreale," speaks of

----♣ most officious drudge,

His face and gown drawn out with the same budge ¡ implying, that his beard and habit were of like colour. Budge-row, Cannon-street, according to Stow, was so called of budgefur, and of skinners dwelling there."

Mittons are gloves with no fingers, having only a place for the thumb. They are much worn in Craven, and the Scotch shepherds, many of whom are constantly there, earn a little money by the sale of them: they knit them with common wood skewers. T. Q. M. + See the "London Pageant" of 1680, in "Hone on Mysteries.",

As You Like it.

But

Mr. Chalmers, in his edition of Shakspeare, gives the following annotation on the preceding passage :—“ A quintain was a post, or butt, set up for several kinds of martial exercises, against which they threw their darts, and exercised their arms. all the commentators are at variance about this word, and have illustrated their opinions with cuts, for which we must refer the reader to the new edition, 21 vols. 8vo." Ben, the satirical sorrel Ben Jonson, thus notices this same quintin, quintain, or gwyntyn, as the Welsh spell it :

- At quintin he

In honour of his bridal-tee,

Hath challenged either wide countee;
Come cut and long taile, for there be
Six batchelors as bold as he,
Adjuting to his company,

And each one hath his livery.

The word gwyntyn literally meant vane, and was corrupted by the English into quintin, or quintain. Thus, we may naturally suppose, that this ancient custom, and more particularly bridal game, was borrowed by the Britons from the Welsh,

who had it from the Romans on their invasion of England. It is mentioned by Minshew, as being a sport held every fifth the last of the T20, used on the fifth or year among the Olympic games, or it was last day of the Olympics: it is supposed to be a Roman game, and left in this island ever since their time.

Dr. Kennet, in his "Parochial Antiquities," from Dr. Plot, says, that at the village of Blackthorn, through which the Roman road lay, they use it at their weddings to this day, on the common green, with much solemnity and mirth.*

Dr. Johnson says, I know not from whence it is derived; Minshew deduces it from quintus, and calls it a game celebrated every fifth year; palus quintanus, and from quintaine, French. It is, says he, an upright post, on the top of which a cross-post turned upon a pin; at one end of the cross-post was a broad board, and at the other a heavy sand-bag; the play was, to ride against the broad end with a lance, and pass by before the sand-bag, coming round, should strike the tilter to the ground. Sir Henry Spelman, who was a spectator of the game, coincides with this account, and says, " by which means, striking at the board, whirls round the bag and endangers the striker." At weddings, in England and Wales, it was a constant amusement, and so generally practised in the latter country, that it may almost be said to class with their sports

and manners.

In Roberts's "Popular Antiquities of Wales," there is the following account of this ancient manly amusement. "On the day of the ceremony, the nuptial presents having previously been made, and the marriage privately celebrated at an early hour, the signal to the friends of the bridegroom was given by the piper, who was always present on these occasions, and mounted on a horse trained for the purpose; and the cavalcade being all mounted, set off at full speed, with the piper playing in the midst of them, for the house of the bride. The friends of the bride in the mean time having raised various obstructions to prevent their access to the house of the bride, such as ropes of straw across the road, blocking up the regular one, &c., and the quintain; the rider in passing struck the flat side, and if not dexterous was overtaken, and perhaps dismounted, by the sand-bag, and became a fair object for

* Vide also Mat. Paris; and Strype's "History of London," vol. i. 1st part, page 249, who delineates its figure.

† Page 162,

laughter. The gwyntyn was also guarded by champions of the opposite party; who, if it was passed successfully, challenged the adventurers to a trial of skill at one of the four and twenty games-a challenge which could not be declined; and hence to guard the gwyntyn was a service of high adventure."

In Henry the Third's time, or about the year 1253, it was much in fashion in almost every part of the kingdom: this game was sometimes played, by hanging a shield upon a staff fixed in the ground, and the skilful squire riding by struck the shield in such a manner as to detach it from its ligatures; but this was of a less dangerous nature, and only used when the quintain could not be obtained.

缎

There was another, but more hazardous manner, to those who were not skilled by habit in the use of the lance and javelin. It consisted of two large poles being drove into the ground, far enough apart to allow a man on horseback to ride full speed between them: at the top of these was an immense heavy sand-bag, fixed on a pivot, so as to swing freely round, and backward and forward, with amazing rapidity: this the young aspirant for chivalric honours delighted in, as a grand treat for the display of his personal bravery and contempt for danger. He commenced by reining in his steed opposite to the sand-bag, then dashing away at full speed, at the same time hurling the javelin at the bag with considerable force, and passing between the poles before it could resume its original position. Many of the squires and yeomen of Richard with the Lion-heart, held it in great esteem; and they would often pass through the supporters, regain their javelin, return back before the bag had sufficient time to fall, and ride bravely off without a single blow from this heavy instrument of pleasure. He who executed this feat in a handsome manner was declared victor, and the prize to which he became entitled was a peacock.

In the princely fête given by sir Rhys ap Thomas, in honour of his being admitted companion of the illustrious order of the Garter, it is mentioned thus:-" When they had dined they went to visit eache captaine in his quarters, wheare they found everie man in action, some wrestling, some hurling at the barr, some taking of the pike, some running at the quintaine, &c." Dr. Watts thus explains it :-" A ludicrous and

• Mill's History of Chivalry.

sportive way of tilting or running on horseback at some mark hung on high, moveable, and turning round; which, while the riders strike at with lances, unless they ride quickly off, the versatile beam strikes upon their shoulders.”

I earnestly recommend for the perusal of the reader, (if he delights in "merie deedes an' greenewoodee sportes, inn thee brighte formes of ladees highh, immersed in uncouthe donjons, by treacherouse kings, greate lords, an' mightee knights,") the tale of "Castle Baynard," in which he will find many very interesting customs, and more particularly, an excellent delineation of the above game. The author of this delightful little story is Hal Willis, who is possessed of considerable talent, and a knowledge of our ancestorial manners.

F. C. N.

A FARTHING LORD.

Lord Braco, an ancestor of the earl of Fife, was remarkable for practising that celebrated rule, "Get all you can, and keep all you get." One day, walking down the avenue from his house, he saw a farthing lying at his feet, which he took up and carefully cleaned. A beggar passing at the same time, entreated his lordship would give him the farthing, saying, it was not worth a nobleman's attention. "Fin' a farthing to yoursel', puir body," replied his lordship, and carefully put the coin into his breeches pocket.

In addition to being his own farthing fin'er, his lordship was his own factor and rent-collector. A tenant who called upon him to pay his rent happened to be deficient a single farthing. This amount could not be excused; and the farmer had to seek the farthing. When the business was adjusted, the countryman said to his lordship, "Now Braco, I wou'd gie ye a shillin' for a sight o' a' the goud an' siller ye hae."—" Weel, mon," replied Braco, "it's no cost ye ony mair;" and accordingly, for and in consideration of the aforesaid sum, in hand first well and truly paid, his lordship exhibited several iron boxes filled with gold and silver coin. "Now," says the farmer, "I'm as rich as yoursel', Braco."-" Aye, mon!" said his lordship, "how can that be?""Because I've seen it-an' you can do nae mair."