innocent child that comes between them.

:

But it is more

pleasant that sometimes the children's quarrel is revenged by the dogs for many times they are so superstitious as to dare to beat the dog that comes between them, who turning again upon him that smites him, sends him from seeking a vain remedy, to seek a real physician indeed."

It was anciently the custom for the sponsors at christenings to offer gilt spoons as presents to the child: these spoons were called Apostle spoons, because the figures of the twelve Apostles were chased or carved on the tops of the handles. Opulent sponsors gave the whole twelve. Those in middling circumstances gave four; and the poorer sort contented themselves with the gift of one, exhibiting the figure of any saint in honour of whom the child received its name. It is in allusion to this custom that when Cranmer professes to be unworthy of being sponsor to the young Princess, Shakespeare makes the King reply, "Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons." In the year 1560, we find entered in the books of the Stationers' Company: "A spoyne, the gyfte of Master Reginold Wolfe, all gylte, with the pycture of St. John." Ben Jonson, also, in his Bartholomew Fair, mentions spoons of this kind: "And all this for the hope of a couple of Apostle spoons and a cup to eat caudle in."- So, in Middleton's Comedy of a Chaste Maid of Cheapside, 1620. "Second Gossip. What has he given her? What is it, Gossip ?—Third Gos. A faire high-standing cup and two great postle spoons, one of them gilt." Again, in Sir William Davenant's Comedy of the Wits, 1639:

"My pendants, carcanets, and rings,

My christening caudle-cup and spoons,
Are dissolved into that lump."

Again, in the Noble Gentleman, by Beaumont and Fletcher :

"I'll be a gossip. Bewford,

I have an odd Apostle spoon."

Gossips, 1666, Poems, 1683, p. 113, we

"Since friends are scarce, and neighbours many,

Who will lend mouths, but not a penny,

I (if you grant not a supply)

Must e'en provide a chrisome pye :"

i. e. serve up the child in a pie. Our author is pleasant on

the failure of the old custom of giving Apostle spoons, &c., at christenings:

"Especially since gossips now

Eat more at christnings, than bestow.'
Formerly when they used to troul
Gilt bowls of sack, they gave the bowl
Two spoons at least; an use ill kept;
'Tis well now if our own be left."

With respect to the "crisome pye," it is well known that "crisome signifies properly the white cloth, which is set by the minister of baptism upon the head of a child newly anointed with chrism (a kind of hallowed ointment used by Roman Catholics in the sacrament of baptism and for certain other unctions, composed of oyl and balm) after his baptism. Now it is vulgarly taken for the white cloth put about or upon a child newly christened, in token of his baptism; wherewith the women used to shroud the child, if dying within the month; otherwise it is usually brought to church at the day of purification."2 Blount's Glossographia, in v.

We find, ibid., under Natal or Natalitious Gifts, among the Grecians, "the fifth day after the child's birth, the neighbours sent in gifts or small tokens; from which custom, that among Christians of the godfathers sending gifts to the baptised infant is thought to have flown; and that also of the neighbours sending gifts to the mother of it, as is still used in North Wales.' In the Comforts of Wooing, p. 163, "The godmother hearing when the child's to be coated, brings it a gilt coral, a silver spoon, and porringer, and a brave new tankard

1 M. Stevenson, in the Twelve Moneths, 1661, p. 37, speaking of the month of August, observes: "The new wheat makes the gossips cake, and the bride-cup is carried above the heads of the whole parish.'

2 In Strype, i. 215, a.d. 1560, it is said to have been enjoined that, "to avoid contention, let the curate have the value of the chrisome, not under the value of 4d. and above as they can agree, and as the state of the parents may require." In the account of Dunton church, in Barnstable Hundred, in Morant's Essex, i. 219, is the following remark: "Here has been a custom, time out of mind, at the churching of a woman, for her to give a white cambric handkerchief to the minister as an offering. This is observed by Mr. Lewis in his History of the Isle of Thanet, where the same custom is kept up." In Articles to be inquired of in Chichester Diocese, A.D. 1638, occurs the following: "Doth the woman who is to be arched use the ancient accustomed habit in such cases, with a white veil erchiefe upon her head?"

of the same metal. The godfathers come too, the one with a whole piece of flowered silk, the other with a set of gilt spoons, the gifts of Lord Mayors at several times.'

In Howe's edition of Stow's Chronicle, 1631, p. 1039, speaking of the life and reign of King James, he observes: "At this time, and for many yeares before, it was not the use and custome (as now it is) for godfathers and godmothers generally to give plate at the baptisme of children (as spoones, cupps, and such like), but onely to give christening shirts, with little bands and cuffs, wrought either with silke or blew threed, the best of them, for chiefe persons weare, edged with a small lace of blacke silke and gold, the highest price of which for great men's children was seldom above a noble, and the common sort, two, three, or foure, and five shillings a piece.”

Strype in his Annals of the Reformation, i. 196, a.d. 1559, informs us that "on the 27th of October that year, the Prince of Sweden, the Lord Robert and the Lady Marchioness of Northampton, stood sureties at the christening of Sir Thomas Chamberlayne's son, who was baptised at St. Benet's church, at Paul's Wharf. The church was hung with cloth of arras; and, after the christening, were brought wafers, comfits, and divers banquetting dishes, and hypocras and Muscadine wine, to entertain the guests.'

There was formerly a custom of having sermons at christenings. I had the honour of presenting to the Earl of Leicester one preached at the baptism of Theophilus Earl of Huntingdon.

The well-known toy, with bells, &c., and a piece of coral at the end, which is generally suspended from the necks of infants to assist them in cutting their teeth, is with the greatest probability supposed to have had its origin in an ancient superstition, which considered coral as an amulet or defensative against fascination; for this we have the authority of Pliny: Aruspices religiosum coralli gestamen amoliendis periculis arbitrantur; et surculi infantiæ alligati tutelam habere creduntur." It was thought, too, to preserve and fasten the teeth in men. Reginald Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, p. 166, says: "The coral preserveth such as bear it from fascination or bewitching, and in this respect they are hanged about children's necks. But from whence that superstition is derived, or who invented the lye, I know not; but I see

how ready the people are to give credit thereunto by the multitude of corrals that were employed."

Stevens informs us that there appears to have been an old superstition that coral would change its colour and look pale when the wearer of it was sick. So in the Three Ladies of London, 1584:

"You may say jet will take up a straw,

Amber will make one fat,

CORAL will look pale when you be sick, and
Chrystal will stanch blood."

In Bartholomeus de Proprietatibus Rerum, edit. 1536, fol. 229, we read: " 'Wytches tell, that this stone (coral) withstondeth lyghtenynge. It putteth of lyghtenyng, whirlewynde, tempeste and stormes fro shyppes and houses that it is in.— The red (coral) helpeth ayenst the fendes gyle and scorne, and ayenst divers wonderous doyng, and multiplieth fruite, and spedeth begynnyng and ending of causes and of nedes."

Coles, in his Adam in Eden, speaking of coral, says: "It helpeth children to breed their teeth, their gums being rubbed therewith; and to that purpose they have it fastened at the ends of their mantles." And Plat, in his Jewel-House of Art and Nature, p. 232, says: "Coral is good to be hanged about children's necks, as well to rub their gums as to preserve them from the falling sickness; it hath also some special sympathy with nature, for the best coral, being worn about the neck, will turn pale and wan if the party that wears it be sick, and comes to its former colour again as they recover health."

In a most rare work, entitled the French Garden for English Ladyes and Gentlewomen to walke in or a Sommer Dayes Labour, &c., by Peter Erondell and John Fabre, 1621, in a dialogue relative to the dress of a child, we have another proof of the long continuance of this custom : "You need not give him his corall with the small golden chayne, for I beleeve it is better to let him sleepe untill the afternoone."

In a curious old book, 12mo. 1554, entitled A Short Description of Antichrist, is this passage: "I note all their Popishe traditions of confirmacion of yonge children with oynting of oyle and creame, and with a ragge knitte about the necke of the younge babe."

[Good Friday and Easter Sunday are both considered lucky days for changing the caps of young children. If a child tooths first in the upper jaw, it is considered ominous of its dying in its infancy.]

BETROTHING CUSTOMS.

MOST profusely various have been the different rites, ceremonies, and customs, adopted by the several nations of the Christian world, on the performance of that most sacred of institutions, by which the Maker of mankind has directed us to transmit our race. The inhabitants of this island do not appear to have been exceeded by any other people on this occasion.

Before we enter upon the discussion of these, it will be necessary to consider distinctly the several ceremonies peculiar to betrothing by a verbal contract of marriage, and promises of love previously to the marriage union.

There was a remarkable kind of marriage-contract among the ancient Danes called hand-festing. It is mentioned in Ray's Glossarium Northanhymbricum, in his collection of local words. Strong traces of this remain in our villages in many parts of the kingdom. I have been more than once assured from credible authority on Portland Island, that something very like it is still practised there very generally, where the inhabitants seldom or never intermarry with any on the main-land, and where the young women, selecting lovers of the same place (but with what previous rites, ceremonies, or engagements, I could never learn), account it no disgrace to allow them every favour, and that, too, from the fullest confidence of being made wives the moment such consequences of their stolen embraces begin to be too visible to be any longer concealed.

In the Christen State of Matrimony, 1543, p. 43, we read: "Yet in thys thynge also must I warne everye reasonable and

1 "Hand-fæstning, promissio, quæ fit stipulata manu, sive cives fidem suam principi spondeant, sive mutuam inter se, matrimonium inituri, a phrasi fæsta hand, quæ notat dextram dextræ jungere."-Glossar. SuioGothicum, auctore I. Ihre in voce. Vid. ibid. in v. Bröllop, Brudkaup.