the Sortes Virgilianæ, or the opening at hazard of a copy of Virgil's Æneid, and reading a revelation of futurity in the first passage that struck the eye. From this general tendency of all classes, divination became a thriving trade, and almost every street had its cunning man, or cunning woman, who divined for the wise by astrological calculations, and for the ignorant by the oracle of the sieve and sheers. Sometimes, as in the cases of Dr. Forman and Mrs. Turner, the forbidden traffic of fortune-telling was a cover to the worse trades of pandering and poisoning. When the civil wars commenced, and every hour was fraught with some great event, this natural eagerness to anticipate the future became so intense that the stars were more eagerly studied than the diurnals, and Cavaliers and Roundheads thronged to the astrologers to learn the events of the succeeding week. Another favorite superstition of the period was, the exorcising of devils; when the possessed person began to spout Latin and other learned languages of which he was wholly ignorant, the Romish priest took the field against this erudite demon in full pontificals, and armed with holy water and the book of exorcisms. This piece of jugglery was a favorite practice of the popish clergy, and was one of the ways they took to recover their esteem with the multitude; when the unclean spirit refused to be dislodged by any other form of conjuration than that which they employed, the circumstance was adduced as an incontrovertible evidence that the church of Rome was the true church. Such practices, however, were not wholly confined to the Romish clergy: the Puritans took the alarm, and set up for exorcists in turn; and, as nervous diseases were abundant among them, they sometimes crowded round the bed of some crazy hypochondriac who was supposed to be possessed by a devil, and whom they stunned with prayers and adjurations. This popular belief in demon-possession had not even the merit of poetical dignity to apologize for its absurdities; the following names of some of the ejected devils may suffice to show of how prosaic and groveling a character it was in all respects: Lusty Dick and Hob, and Corner Cap and Puff, Purr and Flibberdigibbet, Wilkin and Smolkin, Lusty Jolly Jenkin, Pudding of Thame, Pour Dieu, Bonjour and Maho. It would have been fortunate for humanity if the credulity of the period had gone no farther; but the belief in witches, after the accession of James, became the master-superstition of the age. James had a personal quarrel against the whole race of witches: during his matrimonial voyage to Denmark they had baptized a cat, by which they had raised a storm that almost wrecked his ship; and, when he became king of England, he was as proud 1 Life of Lilly the Astrologer. 2 Foot out of the Snare, by John Gee, in Somers's Tracts, vol. iii. -Life of Baxter. 3 We learn from Froissart, Monstrelet, and other old chroniclers, that the devil was best propitiated by some choice piece of profanity; a parody upon the sacraments was therefore the usual way in which the sorcerers of the middle ages invoked his aid. Thus, the Host was sometimes administered to a toad, or other lothsome animal. After the Reformation, witches were supposed to desecrate the sacramental bread, and the rite of baptism, for the same purpose. of being Malleus Malificarum, as Defender of the Faith. He wrote, reasoned, and declaimed upon witchcraft; his courtiers and clergy, sufficiently apt for superstition, echoed the alarm, and the judges revived the application of the dormant statutes that had been enacted against sorceries and enchantments. And now commenced the only warfare of the pacific James-his warfare against old womenwhich was waged with great fury during the whole of his reign, and signalized by abundance of slaughter. The methods, too, of detecting the crime were strikingly characteristic of the age. If the impotent fury of a trembling beldame vented itself in imprecations against her persecutors, and if they afterward sustained any calamity in goods or person, this was proof that the woman was a witch. If she talked and mumbled to herself, under the dotage of old age, she was holding converse with invisible spirits, and therefore she was a witch. If a boy or girl sickened beyond the skill of some presumptuous village quack, he had only to declare that the patient was bewitched, upon which the child was worried for the name of the culprit, until some one was announced at hap-hazard. In all such cases the proof was sufficient for the condemnation and death of the accused. In process of time, professed witch-finders came into fashion-men who could detect the crime, although the cunning of Satan himself tried to hide it. Independently of witchmarks and imp-teats upon the person, they could discover an old woman's familiar spirit in the cat that slumbered by the fire, the mouse that rustled in the wall, or even the bird that chirped at the threshold. But the grand test was that of Hopkins, the prince of witch-finders, by which the suspected person was bound hand and foot and thrown into the water, when, if she sunk, there was of course an end of her, and if she swam, she only escaped the water to be put to death by fire. This miscreant, in the years 1645 and 1646, paraded from county to county like a lord chief justice, and if any magistrate was so humane or hardy as to interfere with his proceedings, he was threatened by Hopkins in the most imperious style. At last the murderer had his reward according to the strictest poetical justice: he was found guilty by his own ordeal, and subjected to the same doom as his victims. The extent to which his atrocities were carried may be learned from the fact, that in one year he hanged sixty witches in the county of Suffolk alone. While these legal massacres were thus in progress in England, the destruction of witches went on with still greater severity in Scotland, where such tortures were inflicted to extort confession from the wretched victims that even the death which followed was a relief. Nor did the death of James cool the zeal which his 1 The receipt for converting a peevish crone into a witch is thus hap pily expressed in the old play of the Witch of Edmonton: "Some call me witch; And, being ignorant of myself, they go folly had kindled; on the contrary, the persecution the wealthier classes of England of this age were became still more rampant under the Long Parlia- not a whit behind their ancestors; indeed, the arment, and between three and four thousand persons rival of the Danish king and his courtiers, in the are said to have been executed for witchcraft be- reign of James, greatly increased the national thirst, tween the years 1640 and the Restoration.1 insomuch that it was observed, the Danes had again conquered England. In the succeeding reign the cavaliers were as little famed for temperance as the courtiers of James. The English followed, also, very scrupulously, the Danish custom of drinking healths; and foreigners were astonished to find that, when a company amounted to some twenty or thirty, it was still expected that every guest should drink the health of each in rotation. Such festivals, of course, inflamed the love of quarrel; toasts were given which produced discussion or refusal to drink them, and if the over-heated parties did not immediately come to blows, still duels and bloodshed were the usual consequences. Sometimes, when a lady or an absent patron was toasted, the company pledged the toast upon their knees. Among other disgusting modes of drinking healths at this time, the toper sometimes mingled his own blood with the wine. It was fortunate that, while the aristocracy were thus becoming more vitiated, the common people had become more temperate than formerly, but, adds Stowe to this assertion, "it was not from abstinence, but necessity, ale and beer being small, and wines in price above their reach." As traffic increased and money became more abundant, it was to be expected that the science of good living would be carefully cultivated; cookery, accordingly, was now studied more than ever, but scarcely as yet with any improvements: in fact, the epicurism of the seventeenth century consisted chiefly in extravagant expense and villainous compounds." The following "receipt to make a herringpie," extracted from one of the cookery-books of the time, may satisfy the most craving appetite upon this subject: Take salt herrings, being watered; wash them between your hands, and you shall loose the fish from the skin; take off the skin whole, and lay them in a dish; then have a pound of almondpaste ready; mince the herrings and stamp them with the almond-paste, two of the milts or roes, five or six dates, some grated manchet, sugar, sack, rosewater, and saffron ; make the composition somewhat stiff, and fill the skins; put butter in the bottom of your pie, lay on the herring, and on them dates, gooseberries, currants, barberries, and butter; close it up, and bake it; being baked, liquor it with butter, verjuice, and sugar." Sometimes, however, the dishes, though equally fanciful, were of a more refined character: thus we read of "an artificial hen made of puff paste, with her wings displayed, sitting upon eggs of the same materials, where in each of them was inclosed a fat nightingale seasoned with pepper and ambergris."3 The same artificial taste prevailed in the preparation of the simplest materials of food; butter, cream, and marrow, ambergris, all kinds of spices, sugar, dried fruits, oranges, and lemons, entered largely into the composition of almost every dish. Several articles also appear to have been dressed, that would scarcely find admission into a modern English kitchen-such as snails, which were stewed or fried in a variety of ways with oil, spices, wine, vinegar, and eggs; and the legs of frogs, which were dressed into fricasees. On some occasions, therefore, a coarse and clownish dish was a pleasing variety. In the year 1661, a gathering of marquises, lords, knights, and squires took place at Newcastle, to celebrate a great anniversary, when, on account of the number of guests, each was required to bring his own dish of meat. Of course it was a sort of competition in which each strove for preeminence; but the specimen of Sir George Goring was reckoned a master-piece. It consisted of four huge brawny pigs, piping hot, bitted and harnessed with ropes of sausage, all tied to a monstrous bag-pudding." In variety of wines, and the copious use of them, 1 This fact is stated by Dr. Zachary Gray in his notes to Hudibras, vol. 1. p. 11 (edit. of 1474). The doctor asserts that he had seen a list of their names. See also Howel's State Trials, iv. 818, and Hutchinson's Essay on Witchcraft, p. 82. The Accomplished Cook, by Robert May, 8vo. London, 1685. 3 The Antiquary, a comedy, by Shackey Marmion, esq., 1641. + May. Letter of Philip Mainwaring to the Earl of Arundel, in Lodge's Illustrations, ini. 403. Greater temperance in eating and drinking naturally prevailed during the period of the commonwealth, from the ascendency of Puritan principles, which recommended simplicity and self-denial; and as so many of the leaders of the dominant party had risen from the ranks, the new style of living frequently assumed the character of the old Saxon coarseness. A republican simplicity especially prevailed in the banquets at Whitehall during Cromwell's administration, the plain fare of whose tables was the subject of many a sneer among the luxurious loyalists. An idea of his dinners may be formed from the following specimen of his lady's mode of baking a pig. The carcass was incased in a coating of clay, like one of his own Ironsides in his coat-of-mail, and in this state it was stewed among the hot ashes of the stoke-hole. Scotch collops also formed one of the standing dishes of her cookery. We are also informed that she ate marrowpuddings at breakfast; while her youngest daughter, the Lady Frances, delighted in a sausage made of hog's liver. Cromwell, with the stomach of a soldier, despised French cookery and elaborate dishes, and at his state dinners these were placed upon his table chiefly for show. After a feast of this kind, much boisterous merriment generally prevailed, but it was harmless, and even dignified, compared with the gross outrages of a royal banquet in the reign of James or the festivals of the cavaliers in the time of his son. The London civic feasts during the commonwealth were also of a very decorous character: in one, which was given to Fairfax and Crom 1 Harrington's Nuge. 2 Character of England in Somers's Tracts, vol. vii. 3 Court and Kitchen of Mrs. Joan Cromwell, in Secret Hist. of James I., ii. 499. well, the dishes were all of a substantial character, billiards, musical entertainments, dancing, masks, suited to military appetites; no healths were drank, and the only music that enlivened the banquet was that of trumpets and drums.1 balls, plays, and evening club-meetings. When more active exercise was desirable, they rode into the country, or hunted with the lord mayor's pack of dogs, when the common-hunt (one of the mayor's officers) set out for the purpose. The range for this healthful amusement was sufficiently extensive, as the London citizens had the privilege, by their charter, of hunting in Middlesex, Hertfordshire, the Chilterns, and Kent. While such amusements were characteristic of the respectable merchants and tradesmen, those of the London mob consisted of foot-ball, wrestling, cudgel-playing, nine-pins, shovel-board, cricket, stow-ball, quoits, ringing of bells, pitching-the-bar, bull and bear-baiting, throwing-at-cocks, and lying at ale-houses.1 The popular sports and games, from the gradual change that had taken place in the manner of living, had been always contracting within a narrower circle; and from the reign of Charles I. to the Restoration few persons had either inclination or oppor- | tunity for those amusements that had formerly been universal. James, who followed every species of venery, delighted in hawking-a sport, in the costume appropriated to which he was often drawn by the artists of the period; and this royal predilection gave a momentary revival to a recreation that was otherwise on the point of extinction. Tennis was one of the favorite amusements of his son, Prince The same degree of improvement that had taken Henry, as it was of the courtiers in general. The place in England during the sixteenth and sevengame of pall-mall was as yet a novelty; but when teenth centuries had been by no means realized in it was played, the competition was so keen, that Scotland. A factious and selfish aristocracy, inthose who engaged in it frequently stripped to their testine feuds, civil commotions, national poverty, a shirts. Another old game, which was still a favor- population composed of different races, and generite, was that of the balloon—a large ball of leather, ally animated by opposing interests, and, above all, which was inflated with air by a vent, and then ban- the struggle for centuries which Scotland had maindied by the players with the hand. Billiards was tained with a powerful rival, had impressed certain also one of those fashionable games which were now characteristics of barbarism upon the people that beginning to supersede the more boisterous sports could not be easily or quickly eradicated. In that of the preceding century. In spite of change, how-country, therefore, we still discover, during at least ever, the pristine, national love of blood-shedding the earlier part of the present period, much of the still remained, and the English nobility and gentry same rudeness that had been prevalent in the thirstill flocked with rapture to the exhibitions of bear- teenth and fourteenth centuries. baiting and cock-fighting, and wagered large sums upon the issue. The Puritans, amid their dislike of those sports which they reckoned cruel and sinful, very properly abhorred above all things a bear-ter to the ranks above and beneath them. But, as baiting; and, therefore, Cromwell, Pride, and Hewson, that they might remove the popular temptation, slew all the bears-an exploit that gave rise to the poem of Hudibras. We learn from the Book of Sports that the common amusements of the English peasantry of this period were dancing, leaping, vaulting, archery, May-games, May-poles, Whitsun-ales, moricedances, and the decoration of churches with rushes and branches, which last practice was a favorite recreation of the women. All these pastimes were not only declared to be lawful on Sunday, but they were also enjoined upon all church-going people after divine service. The games prohibited on that day were bear and bull-baiting, interludes, and bowling. The bowling-greens of England excited the admiration of foreigners, being superior to any thing of the kind seen abroad. Such was also the case with the English horse-races, which had now increased in splendor and importance; and, as the breed of horses had been greatly improved by the practice, their mettle was not spared, and furious riding and driving were now among the characteristics of an Englishman. As for the games and recreations of the citizens, these had necessarily to be accommodated to the exigencies of a metropolitan life, and consisted in cock-fighting, bowling, tables, cards, dice, In England, by the beginning of the present period, the middle classes had assumed their proper position in society, and imparted a healthful charac yet, this important portion of society was nearly 2 Mair. |