The People, of whom society is chiefly composed, and for whose good all superiority of rank, indispensably necessary, as it is in every government,' is only a grant, made originally benevolent spirits, which they termed brownies, who went about in the night time and performed for them some part of their domestic labour, such as threshing and winnowing their corn, spinning and churning. They fixed branches of mountain ash, or narrow-leaved service tree, above the stakes of their cattle, to preserve them from the evil effects of elves and witches. All these superstitious opinions and observations, which they firmly believed, and powerfully influenced their actions, are of late years almost obliterated among the present generation." Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 482, parish of Wigton, co. of Wigton, "The spirit of credulity, which arises out of ignorance, and which overran the country, is now greatly worn away; and the belief in witches, in fairies, and other ideal beings, though not entirely discarded, is gradually dying out." 1 "Degree being vizarded, Th' unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order: And posts, like the commandment of a king, What plagues, and what portents! what mutiny! Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors, The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shak'd, The enterprise is sick! How could communities, Troilus and Cressida, Act i. Sc. iii. by mutual concession, is a respectable subject to every one who is the friend of man Pride, which, independent of the idea arising from the necessity of civil polity, has portioned out the human genus into such a variety of different and subordinate species, must be compelled to own that the lowest of these derives itself from an origin common to it with the highest of the kind. The well-known beautiful sentiment of Terence,— "Homo sum, humani nihil à me alienum puto," may be adopted, therefore, in this place, to persuade us that nothing can be foreign to our inquiry, much less beneath our notice, that concerns the smallest of the vulgar; of those little ones who occupy the lowest place, though by no means of the least importance, in the political arrangement of human beings. SOMERSET PLACE, LONDON; J. B. 1 "These several particulars, if considered separately, may appear trifling; but taken altogether, they form no inconsiderable part of what (with only some slight variation,) the religion of the vulgar will always be, in every age, and in every stage of society, and indeed, whatever be the religion which they profess, unless they are so grossly stupid, or so flagitiously immoral, as to be incapable of feeling the restraints of any system of religion, whether rational or superstitious." Sir John Sinclair's Statist. Account of Scotland, vol. v. p. 85. OBSERVATIONS ON POPULAR ANTIQUITIES. NEW YEAR'S EVE. Enter Wassel, like a neat sempster and songster, her page bearing a brown bowl, drest with ribbons and rosemary, before her.-BEN JONSON. THERE was an ancient custom, which is yet retained in many places, on New Year's Eve: young women went about with a Wassail Bowl of spiced ale, with some sort of verses that were sung by them as they went from door to door. Wassail is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Was hæl, Be in health. It were unnecessary to add, that they accepted little presents on the occasion, from the houses at which they stopped to pay this annual congratulation. "The Wassail Bowl," says Warton, "is Shakspeare's Gossip's Bowl, in the Midsummer Night's Dream. The composition was ale, nutmeg, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs or apples. It was also called Lamb's Wool." (Warton's ed. of Milton's Poems, Lond. 1785, 8vo, p. 51, note.) See also the Beggar's Bush, act iv. sc. 4, and the following in Polwhele's Old English Gent., p. 117,— "A massy bowl, to deck the jovial day, Flash'd from its ample round a sunlike ray. It welcomed with Lamb's Wool the rising year." |