fine linen cloth (called the Care-cloth) laid over their heads during the time of mass, till they received the benediction, and then were dismissed.

Bride-ale, called also Bride-bush, Bride-stuke, Bidding, and Bridewain.-Bride-ale, bride-bush, and bride-stake, are nearly synonymous terms, and all derived from the circumstance of the bride's selling ale on the wedding day, for which she received, by way of contribution, whatever handsome price the friends assembled on the occasion chose to pay her for it. A bush at the end of a pole or stake was the ancient badge of a country ale-house. Around this bride-stake, the guests are wont to dance as about a may-pole. The bride-ale appears to have been called in some places a bidding, from the circumstance of the bride and bridegroom's bidding, or inviting, the guests. In Cumberland it had the appellation of a bride-wain, a term which will be best explained by the following extract from the Glossary to Douglas's Virgil:-"There was a custom in the Highlands and north of Scotland, where new-married persons, who had no great stock, or others low in their fortune, brought carts and horses with them to the houses of their relations and friends, and received from them corn, meal, wool, or whatever else they could get."

Winning the Kail; in Scotland termed Broose, in Westmoreland called Riding for the Ribbon.-The Glossary to Burns' Scottish Poems describes "Broose" (a word which has the same meaning with "Kail") to be "a race at country weddings, who shall first reach the bridegroom's house on returning from church." The meaning of the words is every where strangely corrupted. "Broose" was originally, I take it for granted, the name of the prize on the above occasion, and not of the race itself: for whoever first reaches the house to bring home the good news, wins the "Kail," i.e., a smoking prize of spice broth, which stands ready prepared to reward the victor in this singular kind of race. This same kind of contest is called in Westmoreland "riding for the Ribbon.”

Torches used at Weddings.-At Rom ethe manner was, that two children should lead the bride, and a third bear before her a torch of white-thorn, in honour of Ceres. We have seen foreign prints of marriages, where torches are represented as carried in the procession. We know not whether this custom ever obtained in England, though from the following lines in Herrick's Hesperides, one might be tempted to think that it had:

Upon a Maid that dyed the day she was marryed.
"That morne which saw me made a bride,
The ev'ning witnest that I dy'd.

Those holy lights, wherewith they guide
Unto the bed the bashful bride,

In a small book entitled the Westmoreland Dialect, we are told that, "The ceremony being over, awe raaid haim fearfu' wele, an the youngans raaid for th' ribban, me cusin Betty banged awth lads, an gat it, for sure.'

Serv'd but as tapers for to burne,
And light my reliques to their urne.
This epitaph, which here you see,
Supplied the epithalamie."

Music at Weddings.-At the marriages of the Anglo-Saxons, the parties were attended to church by music. In the old history of John Newcombe, the wealthy chothier of Newbury, cited by Strutt, speaking of his marriage and the bride's going to church, the writer observes, "There was a noise of musicians that played all the way before her."

Dame Sibil Turfe, a character in Ben Jonson's play of the Tale of a Tub, is introduced reproaching her husband as follows; " A clod you shall be called, to let no music go afore your child to church, to chear her heart up!" and Scriben, seconding the good old dame's rebuke, adds, "She's ith' right, sir: for your wedding dinner is starved without music." The rejoicing by ringing of bells at marriages of any consequence, is every where common. On the fifth bell at the church of Kendal, in Westmoreland, is the following inscription alluding to this usage:

"In wedlock bands,

All ye who join with hands,

Your hearts unite;

So shall our tunefull tongues combine.
To laud the nuptial rite."§

Bride Favours.-A knot, among the ancient northern nations seems to have been the symbol of love, faith, and friendship, pointing out the indissoluble tie of affection and duty. Thus the ancient Runic inscriptions, as we gather from Hicks's Thesaurus, are in the form of a knot. Hence among the northern English and Scots, who still retain in a great measure the language and manners of the ancient Danes, that curious kind of knot, a mutual present between the lover and his mistress, which, being considered as the emblem of plighted fidelity, is therefore called a true-love knot; a name which is not derived, as one would naturally suppose it to be, from the words "true" and "love," but formed from the Danish verb, "Trulofa fidem do, I plight my troth or faith. Thus we read, in the Islandic Gospel, the following passage in the first chapter of St. Matthew, which

§ In Swinburne's account of the gypsies, in his Journey through Calabria, is the following remark: "At their weddings they carry torches, and have paranymphs to give the bride away, with many other unusual rites." Lamps and flambeaux are in use at present at Japanese weddings. "The nuptial torch," (says the author of Hymen, &c., an account of marriage ceremonies of different nations,)" used by the Greeks and Romans, has a striking conformity to the flambeaux of the Japanese. The most considerable difference is, that, amongst the Romans, this torch was carried before the bride by one of her virgin attendants; and among the Greeks, that office was performed by the bride's mother. In the Greek church, the bridegroom and bride enter the church with lighted wax tapers in their hands.” ~ ****

confirms beyond a doubt, the sense here given-" til ein rar Meyar er trulofad var einum Manne," &c., i. e. to a Virgin espoused, that is, who was promised, or had engaged herself, to a man, &c.

Hence evidently the bride-favours or the top-knots at marriages, which had been considered as emblems of the ties of duty and affection between the bride and her spouse, have been derived.

Bride-favours appear to have been worn by the peasantry of France, on similar occasions, on the arm. In England, these knots of ribbons were distributed in great abundance formerly, even at the marriages of persons of the first distinction. They were worn on the hat, (the gentleman's, we suppose,) and consisted of ribbons of various colours. If we mistake not, white ribbons are the only ones used at present. To this variety of colours in the bride-favours used formerly, the following passage, wherein lady Haughty addresses Morose, in Jonson's play of the Silent Woman, evidently alludes:

Let us know your bride's colours and your's at least."

The bride-favours have not been omitted in the northern provincial poem of "The Collier's Wedding."

"The blithsome, buxom, country maids,
With knots of ribands at their beads,
And pinners flutt'ring in the wind,
That fan before and toss behind, &c."

And, speaking of the youth, with the bridegroom, it says,-
"Like streamers in the painted sky,

At every breast the favours fly."

Bride Maids.-The use of bride-maids at weddings appears as old as the time of the Anglo-Saxons; among whom, as Strutt informs us, "the bride was led by a matron, who was called the bride's woman, followed by a company of young maidens, who were called the bride's maids."

The bride-maids and bridegroom men are both mentioned by the author of the Convivial Antiquities, in his description of rites at marriages in his country and time.

In later times it was among the offices of the bride-maids to lead the bridegroom to church, as it was the duty of the bridegroom men to conduct the bride thither.

This has not been overlooked in the provincial poem of the Collier's Wedding :

"Two lusty lads, well drest and strong,
Stepp'd out to lead the bride along:
And two young maids, of equal size,

As soon the bridegroom's hand surprise."

Bridegroom Men.-These appear anciently to have had the title of Bride Knights. Those who led the bride to church were always bachelors but she was to be conducted home by two married persons. Polydore Virgil, who wrote in the time of Henry the Eighth, informs us that a third married man, in coming home from church, preceded the bride, bearing, instead of a torch, a vessel of silver or

gold. Moresin relates, that to the bachelors and married men who fed the bride to and from the church, she was wont to present gloves for that service during the time of dinner.

In a curious old book called, "The Fifteen Comforts of Marriage," á conference is introduced at p. 44, 46, and 48, concerning bridal colours in dressing up the bridal-bed, by bridemaids:-Not (say they) with yellow ribbands, these are the emblems of jealousy nor with feuillemort, which signifies fading love; but with true blue, that signifies constancy, as green denotes youth: put them both together, and there's youthful constancy.-One proposed blue and black, which signifies constancy till death; but that was objected to, as these colours will never match.--Violet was proposed, as signifying religion this was objected to as being too grave; and at last they concluded to mingle gold tissue with grass green, which latter signifies youthfal jolity. For the bride's favour, (top-knots and garters,) the bride proposed blue, gold colour, popinjay green, lemon colour; but they objected to gold colour, as signifying avarice, and to popinjay green, as indicating wantonness. The younger bride-maid proposed mixture, flame-colour, willow, and milk white. The second objected to it, as willow signifies forsaken. It was settled that red signifies justice, and sea-green inconstancy. The milliner at last fixed the colours: for the Favours, blue, red, peach-colour, and orange-tawny; for the young ladies' Top-knots, grass-green and milk-white; and for the garters, a perfect yellow, signifying honour and joy.

Garlands at Weddings:-Nuptial garlands are of the most remote antiquity. They appear to have been equally used by the Jews and the Heathens.

K

Among the Anglo-Saxons, after the benediction in the church, both the bride and bridegroom were adorned with crowns of flowers, kept in the church for that purpose.

In the Eastern church, the chaplets used on these occasions appear to have been blessed.

The nuptial garlands were sometimes made of myrtle.

In England, in the time of Henry the Eighth, the bride wore a garland of corn-ears, sometimes one of flowers.

Gloves at Weddings:-The giving of gloves at marriages is a custom of remote antiquity.

The following notice of them occurs in a letter to Mr. Winwood from Sir Dudley Carleton, dated London, 1604, concerning the manner of celebrating the marriage between Sir Philip Herbert and the Lady Susan: "No ceremony was omitted of bride-cakes, points, garters, and gloves."

In Ben Jonson's play of the Silent Woman, Lady Haughty observes to Morose, "We see no ensigns of a wedding here, no character of a bridale; where be our skarves and our gloves?"

The custom of giving away gloves at weddings occurs in the old play of "The Miseries of inforced Marriage." White gloves still continue to be presented to the guests on this occasion. The following is an extract of the late Rev. Dr. Lort's: "At Wrexham in Flintshire, on occasion of the marriage of the surgeon and apothecary of the

place, August 1785, I saw at the doors of his own and neighbour's houses, throughout the street where he lived, large boughs and posts of trees, that had been cut down and fixed there, filled with white paper, cut in the shape of women's gloves and of white ribbons."

The following is in Parkinson's Garden of Flowers: "The bayleaves are necessary both for civil uses and for physic, yea, both for the sick and for the sound, both for the living and the dead. It serveth to adorn the house of God as well as man-to crown or encircle, as with a garland, the heads of the living, and to sticke and decke forth the bodies of the dead; so that from the cradle to the grave we have still use of it, we have still need of it." Ibid.--" Rosemary is almost of as great use as bayes, as well for civil as physical purposes: for civil uses, as all doe know, at weddings, funerals, &c. to bestow among friends.”.

It should seem, by the following passage in Clavell's Recantation of an Ill-led Life, that anciently this present was made by such prisoners as received pardon after condemnation. It occurs in his Dedication "To the impartial Judges of his Majesties Bench, my Lord Chief Justice and his other three honourable Assistants."

"Those pardon'd men, who taste their prince's loves

(As married to new life) do give you gloves," &c.

Clavell was a highwayman, who had just received the king's pardon. He dates from the King's Bench Prison, October, 1627.-Fuller in his "Mixt Contemplations on these Times," says, "It passeth for a general report of what was customary in former times, that the sheriff of the county used to present the judge with a pair of white gloves, at those which we call mayden assizes, viz. when no malefactor is put to death therein."

Can the eustom of dropping or sending the glove, as the signal of a challenge, have been derived from the circumstance of its being the cover of the band, and therefore put for the hand itself?—The giving of the hand, is well known to intimate that the person who does so will not deceive, but stand to his agreement.-To" shake hands upon it," would not, it should seem, be very delicate in an agreement to fight, and therefore gloves may, possibly, have been deputed as substitutes -We may, perhaps, trace the same idea in wedding gloves.

Wedding Ring.-Among the customs used at marriages, those of the ring and bride-cake seem of the most remote antiquity. Confarreation and the ring were used anciently as binding ceremonies by the heathen, in making agreements, grants, &c., whence they have doubtless been derived to the most solemn of our engagements. The supposed heathen origin of our marriage ring had well nigh caused the abolition of it during the time of the commonwealth.

The wedding ring is worn on the fourth finger of the left hand, because it was anciently believed, though the opinion has been justly exploded by the anatomists of modern times, that a small artery ran

In the north of England, a custom still prevails, at maiden assizes, ie when no prisoner is capitally convicted, to present the judges, &c. with white gloves.