In Lysons' Environs of London, in the Churchwarden's Book of Children, there is the following: 1670. Spent at perambulation dinner. Given to the boys that were whipt........ THE PASSING BELL. £3 10 0 The passing bell, so called, because the defunct has passed from one state to another, owes its origin to an idea of sanctity attached to bells by the early Romanists, who believed that the sound of these holy instruments of percussion, actually drove the devil away from the soul of the departing Christian. Durand, who flourished about the end of the twelfth century, tells us in his Rationale, “when any one is dying, bells must be tolled, that the people may put up their prayers; twice for a woman, and thrice for a man; if for a clergyman, as many times as he had orders; and, at the conclusion, a peal on all the bells, to distinguish the quality of the person for whom the people are to put up their prayers. A bell too must be rung when the corpse is conducted to church, and during the bringing it out of the church to the grave." "Come list and hark, the bell doth toll For some but now departing soul, Whom even now those ominous fowle, Lament; hark! I hear the wilde wolfe howle In this black night that seems to scowle, All these my black book shall enscrole. For hark! still still the bell doth toll CHIMES. Rape of Lucrece. "How sweet the tuneful bells responsive peal! When by my native streams, in life's fair prime, The sounds of joy once heard, and heard no more." Besides the common way of tolling bells, there is also a ringing, which is a kind of chimes used on various occasions in token of * Written at Ostend, July 22, 1787. joy. This ringing prevails in no country so much as in England, where it is a kind of diversion, and, for a piece of money, any one may have a peal. On this account it is that England is called the "ringing island." Chimes are something very different, and much more musical; there is not a town in all the Netherlands without them, being an invention of that country. The chimes at Copenhagen are one of the finest sets in all Europe; but the inhabitants, from a pertinacious fondness for old things, or the badness of their ear, do not like them so well as the old ones, which were destroyed by a conflagration. OUTLAWRY. 66 Some may derive the antiquity of Outlawry from Cain, who for the murder of his brother, was, as it were, out of the protection of the law; or, as the ancient English would say, a friendless man;" however, although we cannot ascend so high as Cain, certain it is, that this kind of punishment is very ancient, for Cæsar, speaking of the Druids, saith thus-" Whoever he is that obeys not their sentence, they forbid him their sacrifices, which is amongst them the most grievous of punishments; for they who are thus interdicted, are accounted in the number of the most impious and wicked,-all people shunning them, and refusing their conversation, lest they should receive damage by the infection thereof; nor is justice to be afforded them at their desire, nor any honour allowed unto them." Bracton describes the nature of our English outlawry thus:"When any person is outlawed justly, and according to the law of the land, let us see what he suffers by this his outlawry, if after the first summons he doth not appear. First, therefore, be it known, he forfeits his country and the kingdom, and becometh a banished man, such an one as the English call utlaugh; but anciently they had wont to call him 'a friendless man,' whereby it seemeth he forfeiteth his friends, so that if, after such outlawry and expulsion, any one shall willingly give him food, and entertain him, or knowingly converse with him in any sort whatever, or shall shelter him and hide him, he is to undergo the same punishment as the person outlawed ought to do, which is to lose all his goods, and also his life, unless it please the king to be more merciful to him," &c. CARVING AT TABLE BY LADIES. This custom, Verstegan says, originated among our Saxon ancestors, and the title of lady sprung from this office; as laford, or loafgiver (now lord), was so called from his maintaining a number of dependants; so leaf-dian or loaf-dian, i. e., loaf-server, is the origin of lady, she serving it to the guests. GAMMON OF BACON AT EASTER. Drake, in his "Shakspeare and his Times," says, the custom of eating a gammon of bacon at Easter, still maintained in some parts of England, is founded on the abhorrence our forefathers thought proper to express, in that way, towards the Jews at the season of commemorating the resurrection. EPPING HUNT. Fitzstephen informs us, that the hunting at Epping and round London at Easter time, commenced in 1226, when King Henry III. confirmed to the citizens of London free warren, or liberty to hunt a circuit about their city, in the warren of Staines, Hainhault* forest, &c.; and in ancient times the lord mayor, aldermen, and corporation, attended by a due number of their constituents, availed themselves of this right of chase in solemn guise. PETER PENCE. The popular name of an impost otherwise termed "the fee of Rome;" originally a voluntary offer by the faithful to the see of Rome, afterwards a due levied in various amounts from every house or family in a country. Peter pence were paid in France, Poland, and other countries. In England, this tax was recognised by the Norman laws of William the Conqueror. Edward III. discontinued the payment when the popes resided at Avignon, but it was afterwards revived and finally ceased in the reign of Henry VIII. NIGHTLY WATCH. The curfew bell was commanded by William the Conqueror to be nightly rung at eight o'clock, as a warning or command, that all people should then put out their fires and lights, and continued throughout the realm till the time of Henry I., when Stow says, "that it followed, by reason of warres within the realme, that many men gave themselves up to robbery and murders in the night." It appears that the city of London was subject to these disorders till 1253, when Henry III. commanded watches to be kept in the cities and borough towns for the preservation of the peace; and further, that if from that time any murder or robbery was committed, the town in which it was done should be liable to the damages thereof. Such was the origin of the Nightly Watch. What is now called Epping Forest, was formerly a part of the Forest of Hainhault. PRESENTATION OF LORD MAYOR OF LONDON TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR. King John granted to the citizens of London a charter, empowering them to choose their own mayor, yet by the same power they were generally obliged to present him to the king for his approbation, or, in his absence, to his justiciary; this custom still remaining, he is yearly presented to the lord chancellor, which many of the citizens regard as a needless ceremony; 'twill not be improper, says Maitland, to acquaint all who are of that mind, that this confirming power is so essential, that without it a mere stranger could act as well. COUNTING OF HOB-NAILS, &c. The year 1235 is memorable for a little city incident, which has contrived to transmit its remembrance to our times, by means of an annual ceremony at swearing-in the sheriff, September 30, before the cursitor barons of the exchequer, which is performed with much solemnity by one of the aldermen, in presence of the lord mayor, who goes into, and continues in the court covered. One Walter le Bruin, a farrier, obtained a grant from the crown of a certain spot of ground in the Strand, in the parish of Clement Danes, whereon to erect a forge for carrying on his business. For this the city was to pay annually an acknowledgment, or quit rent, of six horse-shoes, with the nails appertaining, at the King's Exchequer, Westminster. The forge and manufactory exist no longer, but the acknowledgment, after a lapse of so many ages, continues still to be paid. BONE-FIRES. In earlier times they made fires of bones in commemoration of John the Baptist, who, it is said, drove away many dragons when in the wilderness by the burning of bones-" of which they have a great dislike." From this circumstance our bone-fires, although made of wood, derive their cognomen. FEAST OF ASSES. The feast of asses in France was held in honour of Balaam's ass, when the clergy, at Christmas, walked in procession, dressed so as to represent the prophets. Suppressed early-before 1445. HOAXING. The first hoax of a modern kind on record was practised by a wag in the reign of Queen Anne. It appeared in the papers of that time : "A well-dressed man rode down the king's road from Fulham at a most furious rate, commanding each turnpike to be thrown open, as he was a messenger conveying the news of the queen's sudden death. The alarm instantly spread into every quarter of the city; the trained bands, who were on their parade, desisted from their exercise, furled their colours, and returned home with their arms reversed. The shopkeepers began to collect their sables, when the jest was discovered-not the author of it." GOES OF LIQUOR. The tavern called the Queen's Head, in Duke's Court, Bow Street, was once kept by a facetious individual of the name of Jupp. Two celebrated characters, Annesley Shay and Bob Todrington, a sporting man (caricatured by old Dighton, and nicknamed by him the " knowing one," from his having converted to his own use a large sum of money intrusted to him by the noted Dick England, who was compelled to fly the country, having shot Mr. Rolls in a duel which had a fatal termination), met one evening at the above place, went to the bar, and asked for half-a-quartern each, with a little cold water. In course of time they drank four-and-twenty, when Shay said to the other, "Now we'll go." "O no!” replied he, “ we'll have another, and then go." This did not satisfy the Hibernians, and they continued drinking on till three in the morning, when they both agreed to Go, so that under the idea of going they made a long stay, and this was the origin of drinking or calling for Goes; but another, determined to eke out the measure his own way, used to call for a quartern at a time, and these in the exercise of his humour he called stays. TARRING AND FEATHERING. 66 This custom, which had grown into disuse until just prior to the old American war, when it was revived with great avidity to the cost of our custom-house officers on the other side of the Atlantic, takes its data or origin from the following:-Holinshed says, that in the reign of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, it was enacted, "If any man be taken with theft or pickery, and therein convicted, he shall have his head polled, and hot pitch poured on his pate, and upon that feathers of some pillow or cushion shaken aloft, that he may thereby be known as a thief, and at the next arrivals of the ships to any land, be put forth of the company to seek his adventures, without all hope of return to his fellows." By the Act of 3d Edward I., cap. 4, and 4th of the same king, cap. 2, it is enacted, that if a man, a dog, or a cat, escape alive |