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BIRMINGHAM TRAVELLING-1742. [Advertisement from Walker's Birmingham paper, Monday April 12th 1742. No 20] THE LITCHFIELD AND BIRMINGHAN STAGE-COACH set out this morning [Mosday] from the Rose Inn at Holbour bridge, London, and will be at the house of Mr. Francis Cox, the Angel and Hen and Chickens, in the high town, Birmingham, on Wednesdaynext to dinner, and goes the same afternoon to Litchfield, and returni to Birmingham on Thursday morning breakfast, and gets to London on Satu day night, and so will continue ever week regularly, with a good coach a able horses.

A NOTED SURGEON.

[From a Lancashire paper, about the year 1778.]

ELLEN HAYTHORNTHWAITE, the wife of Robert Haythornthwaite, of Dicklin green, near Whitewell, in the forest of Bowland, Lancashire, is supposed to be one of the best Surgeons in the country; she has performed several amazing cures, given up for incurable by the Whitworth doctors, and others.

As for Asthmas, Coughs, Fevers, and all internal disorders, she will not prescribe a large quantity of drugs, and yet effectually cure, if curable; but as for burns, scalds, fractured skulls, bruises, and all external wounds, she will in a very little time make a perfect cure, if they come to her before they are mortified.

N. B. She will take nothing in hand if she finds it incurable.

Her charges are also very moderate, twelve pence a week, if they come to her. She travels none abroad.

The following can testify of her excellent remedies, with many others too te dious to mention.

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July 1831.

The parsons of the old Fleet, and of May fair, were noted for their celebration of private marriages; and it appears that the village of Hampstead was not less remarkable for conveniences of that kind to couples who wished to increase their happiness by a little air and exercise: About the beginning of the last century there stood, near the Wells, a place called Sion chapel, which seems to have been the property of the keeper of the adjoining tavern, by the following advertisement from a newspaper of 1716: it will be seen what temptations were held out to such parties as should keep their wedding dinner in his gardens.

"8th September 1716.-SION CHAPEL AT HAMPSTEAD, being a private and pleasure place, many persons of the best fashion have lately been married there. Now, as a minister is obliged constantly to attend, this is to give notice, that all persons bringing a licence, and who shall

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In 1794 the minister of Eskdalemuir, in the county of Dumfries, mentions an annual fair held time out of mind at the meeting of the Black and White Esks, now entirely laid aside. At that fair it was the custom for unmarried persons of both sexes to choose a companion, according to their liking, with whom they were to live till that time next year. This was called "hand-fasting," or hand in fist. If they were pleased with each other at that time, then they continued together for life: if not, they separated, and were free to make another choice as at the first. The fruit of the connexion, if there were any, was always attached to the disaffected person. In later times, when this part of the country belonged to the Abbacy of Melrose, a priest, to whom they gave the name of "Book i'bosom," either because he carried in his bosom a Bible, or perhaps a register of the marriages, came from time to time to confirm the marriages.

In the Isle of Portland, near Weymouth, where the inhabitants seldom or never intermarry with any on the mainland, young women betroth themselves to lovers of the same place, and allow them the privileges of husbands, with the certainty of being made wives the moment that the consequences of their intimacy become apparent.

[This usage I ascertained, upon the spot, to prevail in 1817, and was assured, by respectable married females of the place, that only one instance of the engagement not being fulfilled by a young man had occurred within their memory, and in that case the offender was driven

by the inhabitants with ignominy from W. H.]

the island.

Breaking a Piece of Money.

It was anciently customary to break a piece of gold or silver in token of a verbal

contract of marriage and promises of love; one half whereof was kept by the woman, while the other part remained with the man. The Dialogue between Kitty and Filbert in the "What d'ye call it," by Gay, illustrates the usage:— Yet, Justices, permit us, ere we part,

To break this Ninepence as you've broke our heart."

Filbert (breaking the ninepence)-As this divides, thus are we torn in twain.

Kitty (joining the pieces)-And, as this thus may we meet again.

meets,

In "The Country Wake," a comedy by Dogget, 4to., London, 1696, Act v. sc. i., Hob, who fancies he is dying, before he makes his last will and testimony, as he calls it, when his mother desires him to try to speak to Mary, "for she is thy wife, and no other," answers, "I know I'm sure to her and I do own it before you all; I ask't her the question last Lammas, and at Allhallow's-tide we broke a piece of money; and if I had lived till last Sunday we had been ask'd in the church." Mr. Douce's MS. Notes say: "Analogous to the interchangement of rings seems the custom of breaking a piece of money. An example of this occurs in 'Bateman's Tragedy,' a wellknown penny history, chap. v." A lawbook, Swinburne on Spousals," p. 10, says: "Some spousals are contracted by signs, as the giving and receiving a ring, others by words."

It appears to have been formerly a custom, also, for those who were betrothed to wear some flower as an external and conspicuous mark of their mutual engage ment. Spenser, in his "Shepherd's Calendar," says,

"Bring coronations and sops in wine
Worn of paramours."

Sops in wine were a species of flowers among the smaller kind of single gilliflowers or pinks.*

CREELING.

In 1792 the minister of Galston, in Ayrshire, mentions a singular custom there: "When a young man wishes to pay his addresses to his sweetheart, instead of going to her father's, and professing his passion, he goes to a public-house,

• Brand.

and, having let the landlady into the secret of his attachment, the object of bi wishes is immediately sent for, who se dom refuses to come. She is entertained with ale and whisky, or brandy; and the marriage is concluded on. The second day after the marriage a "creeling," as t is called, takes place. The young wedde. pair, with their friends, assemble in convenient spot. A small creel, or baske is prepared for the occasion, into whic they put some stones: the young me carry it alternately, and allow themselve to be caught by the maidens, who have: kiss when they succeed. After a gre deal of innocent mirth and pleasant the creel falls at length to the young b band's share, who is obliged to carry generally for a long time, none of the young women having compassion up him. At last his fair mate kindly lieves him from his burden; and her co plaisance, in this particular, is consider as a proof of her satisfaction with the choice she has made. The creel g round again; more merriment succeed and all the company dine together, a talk over the feats of the field,*

TRUE-LOVERS-KNOTS.

Among the ancient northern nations: knot seems to have been the symbol indissoluble love, faith, and friendship Hence the ancient runic inscriptions Hickes's, are in the form of a knot; and hence, among the northern English and Scots, who still retain, in a great mea sure,the language and manners of the ar cient Danes, that curious kind of knot which is a mutual present between the lover and his mistress, and which, being considered as the emblem of plighted fidelity, is therefore called "a true-love knot:" a name which is not derived, as words "true" and "love," but formed may be naturally supposed, from the from the Danish verb "trulofa," fidem de, I plight my troth, or faith. Thus, in the Islandic Gospels, the following passage in the first chapter of St. Matthew con firms, beyond à doubt, the sense here given-" til einrar Meyar er trulofad var einum Manne," &c. ; i. e. to a virgin es poused; that is, who was promised, or had engaged herself to Hence, evidently, the "bride favors,"

* Brand.

a man, &c.

or the "top-knots," at marriages, which have been considered as emblems of the ties of duty and affection between the bride and her spouse, have been derived. In Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody, 1611," are the following verses :

The True Love's Knot.

Love is the linke, the knot, the band of unity, And all that love do love with their beloved to be:

Love only did decree

To change his kind in me.

For though I loved with all the powers of my mind,

And though my restles thoughts their rest in her did finde,

Yet are my hopes declinde

Sith she is most unkinde.

For since her beauties sun my fruitles hope did breede,

By absence from that sun I hop't to sterve that weede;

Though absence did, indeede,
My hopes not sterve, but feede.

For when I shift my place, like to the stricken deere,

I cannot shift the shaft which in my side I beare:

By me it resteth there,

The cause is not else where.

So have I seene the sicke to turne and turne againe,

As if that outward change could ease his in

ward paine :

But still, alas! in vaine,

The fit doth still remaine.

Yet goodnes is the spring from whence this ill doth grow,

For goodnes caused the love, which great respect did owe,

Respect true love did show
True love thus wrought my woe.

Gay, in his Pastoral called "the Spell," describes the rustic manner of knitting the true-love-knot:

As Lubberkin once slept beneath a tree, I twitched his dangling garter from his knee; He wist not when the hempen string I drew, Now mine I quickly doff of Inkle blue ; Together fast I tye the garters twaine, And, while I knit the knot, repeat this strainThree times a true-love's knot I tye secure : Firm be the knot, firm may his love endure.

In England these knots of ribands were formerly distributed in great abundance as bride favors, even at the marriages of persons of the first distinction. They were worn at the hat, and consisted of ribands of various colors. M. Misson,

in his Travels in England, printed in 1696, says, 66 Formerly, in France, they gave Livrees de Nôces, which was a knot of ribands, to be worn by the guests upon their arms; but that is practised now only among peasants. In England it is done still amongst the greatest noblemen. These ribands they call 'favors,' and give them not only to those that are at the wedding, but to five hundred people besides. T'other day, when the eldest son of M. de Overkerque married the duke of Ormond's sister, they dispensed a whole inundation of those little favors: nothing else was here to be met with, from the hat of the king down to that of the meanest servant." Ozell, in a note to his translation of Misson, says: "The colors, gold, silver, carnation, and white. favor was a pretty large knot, of several This is worn upon the hat for some weeks." The only color for wedding-favors at this time [1831] is white.

The bride favors have not been omitted in "The Collier's Wedding," a northern provincial poem:

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

The same poem, speaking of the youth attending the bridegroom, says,

Like streamers in the painted sky,
At every breast the favors fly.

Bridal Colors.

In a curious old book "The fifteen Comforts of Marriage," a conference is introduced concerning bridal colors in dressing up the bridal-bed by the bridemaids.- -"Not, say they, with yellow ribbands, these are the emblems of jealousy fading love-but with true blue, that -not with Fueille mort,' that signifies signifies constancy, and green denotes youth-put them both together, and there's youthful constancy. One proposed blue and black, that signifies constancy till death; but that was objected to as those colors will never match. Violet was proposed as signifying religion: this was objected to as being too grave: and at last they concluded to mingle a gold tissue with grass green, which latter signifies youthful jollity. For the bride's favors, top-knots, and garters, the bride proposed blue, gold color, lemoncolor, &c. Gold-color was objected to as signifying avarice. The younger bride

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And (like her beauty) ravishing, and pure.
The weaker bodie, still the stronger soule.
When good endeavours do her powers applie,
Her love draws nearest man's felicitie.
O what a treasure is a virtuous wife,
Discrete and loving: not one gift on earth
Makes a man's life so highly bound to
heaven;

She gives him double forces, to endure
And to enjoy; by being one with him,
Feeling his joies and griefes with equal sense;
And like the twines Hippocrates reports,
If he fetch sighs, she draws her breath as
short:

If he lament, she melts herself in teares :
If he be glad, she triumphs; if he stirre,
She moves his way; in all things his sweet
ape:

And is, in alterations passing strange,
Himselfe divinely varied without change.
Gold is right precious; but his price infects
With pride and avarice; authority lifts
Hats from men's heads; and bows the strong-
est knees,

Yet cannot bend in rule the weakest hearts;
Musick delights but one sense; nor choice

meats;

One quickly fades, the other stir to sinne;
But a true wife, both sense and soul delights,
And mixeth not her good with any ill;
Her virtues, ruling hearts, all powers command;
All store without her leaves a man but poore;
And with her, povertie's exceeding store;
No time is tedious with her; her true worth
Makes a true husband thinke his arms enfold
(With her alone) a compleate world of golde.
Chapman, 1606.

CONJUGAL FELICITY.

love; but, when a man dwells in love then the breasts of his wife are pleasant as the droppings upon the hill of llermon, her eyes are fair as the light of heaven; she is a fountain sealed, and he can quench his thirst, and ease his cares, and lay his sorrows down upon her lap, and can retire home to his sanctuary and refectory, and his gardens of sweetness and chaste refreshments. No man can tell, but he that loves his children, how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their ne cessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society.—Jeremy Taylor.

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Warm and uncalculating, they're more wise— More sense than extasy of theirs denotes— More of the stuff have they of paradiseAnd more the music of the warbling throats Of choirs whose anthem round th' Eternal floats

Than all that bards e'er feign; or tuneful skill

Has e'er struck forth from artificial notes:Theirs is that language, ignorant of ill, Born from a perfect harmony of

will.

power

C. Lloyd, 1821.

There is nothing can please a man without love and if a man be weary of the wise discourses of the Apostles, and of the innocency of an even and a private fortune, or hates peace, or a fruitful year, he hath reaped thorns and thistles from the choicest flowers of paradise; for September 8.-Day breaks nothing can sweeten felicity itself, but

* Brand.

Sun rises

and

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Late crocus, and naked crocus blow.

8 35

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Twilight ends

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