antque vos his pastores. Signum crucis Christi Jesu, in nomine Dei summi, per Dominum—” I will add the "oratio which was used on the occasion of shaving a virgin beard: "Deus cujus spiritu creatura omnis adulta congaudet, exaudi preces nostras super hunc famulum tuum juvenilis ætatis decore lætantem, et primis auspiciis adtondendum; exaudi, Domine, ut in omnibus protectionis tuæ munitus auxilio, cœlestem benedictionem accipiat, et præsentis vitæ presidiis gaudeat et æterne, per The former of these offices represents the superstition of the Anglo-Saxon Church in all its grossness: the latter, though it may excite a smile, ought, however, to be regarded with respect, as one of those tendernesses of religious care with which the Church in old times watched over the lives of its members. "For PAGE 1, ACT I., SCENE I. you shall know that what by ale or wine To man is done, that acorns do to swine." This effect is owing probably to a process of fermentation taking place in the acorn, after it has lain some time on the ground in wet and warm weather. PAGE 44,, ACT I., SCENE VI. “And frankly with a pleasant laugh held out "Her arrow hand."-WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. PAGE 82, ACT II., SCENE II. "A love that clings not, nor is exigent," &c. In case it should occur to any readers that they have seen this passage before, it may be well to mention that I have quoted it in a previous publication, without having thought it necessary to say in that place that the quotation was from an MS. of my own. 66 Keep the King's peace? If longer than three minutes I keep it, may I die in my bed like a cow." I have been induced here to preserve a flower of speech recorded in one of the chronicles of the time, though perhaps a little more peculiar than what I should otherwise have employed. I pray thee that thou shorten not my days, This is borrowed from "The Revenger's Tragedy," by Cyril Tourneur. “Forgive me, Heaven, to call my mother wicked! I cannot honour her." PAGE 117, ACT III., SCENE I. "The wind when first he rose and went abroad Where, wandering volatile from kind to kind, Did he solicit, and from her he drew A voice so constant, soft, and lowly deep, Perhaps I have been indebted here, though if so, I was unconscious of it at the time, to a well-known passage in 'Gebir.' At all events, that passage cannot be too often quoted, and I will transcribe it here : : "But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue In the Sun's palace-porch, where, when unyoked, Its polish'd lips to your attentive ear, And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there." PAGE 157, ACT III., SCENE VII. "Cumba is my gage, And by the crown of his head I know the times. The tonsure was enforced upon the Secular Clergy, as well as on the Regulars; and as the Anglo-Saxons were very proud of their hair, this was a point of discipline which sometimes gave rise to difficulties. PAGE 172, ACT III., SCENE VIII. "He bids you know that in this land this day He finds more fat than bones, more monks than soldiers." I have taken the words of Fuller: "Indeed one may safely affirm that the multitude of monasteries invited the invasion and facilitated the conquest of the Danes over England..... because England had at this time more flesh or fat than bones, wherein the strength of a body consists; more monks than military men."- Church History, Book II., S. 51. PAGE 211, ACT V., SCENE II. "But now I wax old, Sick, sorry, and cold, Like muck upon mould I have taken the liberty to borrow this from the "Processus Noe," one of the Towneley Mysteries, printed by the Surtees Society. In another place I have taken a mode of expression from the following lines in the “Mactatio Abel :" "Felowes, here I you forbede To make nother nose nor cry: The Devylle hang hym up to dry." |