Anonymiana.

THE JEWS-HARp.

The Jews-trump, or, as it is more generally pronounced, the Jew-trump, seems to take its name from the nation of the Jews, and is vulgarly believed to be one of their instruments of music. Dr. Littleton renders Jews-trump by sistrum Judaicum. But there is not any such musical instrument as this described by the authors that treat of the Jewish music. In short, this instrument is a mere boy's plaything, and incapable of itself of being joined either with a voice or any other instrument. The present orthography seems to be a corruption of the French, jeu-trump, a trump to play with and in the Belgick, or Low-Dutch, from whence come many of our toys, a tromp is a rattle for children. Sometimes they will call it a Jews-harp; and another etymon given of it is Jaws-harp, because the place where it is played upon is between the jaws. It is an instrument used in St. Kilda. (Martin, p. 73.)

QUID PRO QUO.

"Give you a Rowland for an Oliver." This is reckoned a proverb of late standing, being commonly referred to Oliver Cromwell, as if he were the Oliver here intended but it is of greater antiquity than the protector; for it is met with in Hail's Chronicle, in the reign of Edward IV. In short, Rolland and Oliver were two of Charlemagne's peers. (See Ames's Hist. of Printing, p. 47, and Ariosto.) Rolando and Orlando are the same name; Turpin calling him Roland, and Ariosto Rolando.

FATHER AND SON.

"Happy is the son whose father is gone to the devil," is an old saying. It is not grounded on the supposition, that such a father by his iniquitous dealings must have accumulated wealth; but is a satirical hint on the times when popery prevailed here so much, that the priests and monks had engrossed the three professions of law, physic, and divinity; when, therefore, by the procurement either of the confessor, the physician, or the lawyer, a good part of the father's effects were pretty sure to go to the church; and when, if nothing of that kind happened, these agents were cer tain to defame him, and adjudge that such a man must undoubtedly be damned.

LIVING WELL.

"If you would live well for a week, ki a hog; if you would live well for a month, marry; if you would live well all your life, turn priest." This is an old proverb; but by turning priest is not barely meant becoming an ecclesiastic, but it alludes to the celibacy of the Romish clergy, and is as much as to say, do not marry at all.

COUNTRY DANCES.

The term "country dance" is a corrup tion of the French contre danse, by which they mean that which we call a country. dance, or a dance by many persons placed opposite one to another: it is not from contrée, but contre.

THE VINE.

The Romans had so much concern with the vine and its fruit, that there are more terms belonging to it, and its parts, its culture, products, and other appurtenances, than to any other tree :

Vitis, the tree; palmes, the branch; pampinus, the leaf; racemus, a bunch of grapes; uva, the grape; capreolus, a tendril; vindemia, the vintage; vinum, wine; acinus, the grape-stone.

POSTHUMOUS HONOUR.

Joshua Barnes, the famous Greek professor of Cambridge, was remarkable for a very extensive memory; but his judgment was not exact: and when he died, one wrote for him this

Epitaph.

Hic jacet Joshua Barnes, felicissimæ memoriæ, expectans judicium.

THE KING'S ARMS.

When Charles II. was going home one night drunk, and leaning upon the shoulders of Sedley and Rochester, one of them asked him what he imagined his subjects would think if they could behold him in that pickle.. "Think!" said the king, "that I am my arms, supported by two beasts."

one. A Tunbridge or Seven-Oaks coach passes within a short half mile, and the Westerham coach within the same distance. If a delightful two hours' lounging walk from Bromley be desired, take the turning from the Swan at Bromley to Beckenham church; go through the church-yard over a stile, keep the meadow foot-path, cross the Wickham road, and wander by hedge-row elms, as your will and the country-folk direct you, till you arrive at Hayes Common; then make for the lower or left-hand side of the common, and leaving the mill on the right, get into the cottaged lane. At a few hundred yards past the sheepwash, formed in a little dell by the Ravensbourne, at the end of the open rise, stands "Keston Cross."

Before reaching this place on my first visit to it, the country people had indiscri minately called it "Keston Cross" and "Keston mark;" and lacking all intelligible information from them respecting the reason for its being so named, I puzzled myself with conjectures, as to whether it was the site of a cross of memorial, a market cross, a preaching cross, or what other kind of cross. It was somewhat of disappointment to me, when, in an angle of a cross-road, instead of some ur.cient vestige, there appeared a commodious, respectable, and comfortable-looking house of accommodation for man and horse; and, swinging high in air, its sign, the red cross, heraldically, a cross gules; its form being, on reference to old Randle Holme, "a cross molyne, invertant;" to describe which, on the same authority, it may be said, that "this cross much resembles the molyne, or pomette; saving in this, the 'cut, or sawed ends, so turn themselves inward that they appear to be escrowles rolled up. Some term it molyne, the ends rolled up So much for the sign, which I take to be a forgotten memorial of some old boundary stone, or land-mark, in the form of a cross, long since removed from the spot, and perhaps after it had become a 66 stump-cross;" which crosses were of so ancient date, that the Christians, ignorantly supposing them to have been dedicated to idolatrous purposes, religiously destroyed them, and their ancient names were soon forgotten: "this may be the reason why so many broken crosses were called stump-crosses."+ The observation is scarcely a digression; for the house and sign, commonly called "Keston Cross," or "Keston mark," stand

Academy of Armory.

Fosbroke's Ency. of Antiquities,

on a site, which, for reasons that will appear by and by, the antiquary deems sacred. The annexed representation shows the direction of the roads, and the star * in the corner the angular situation of the house, cut out of Holwood, the estate of the late Mr. Pitt, which is bounded by the Farnborough and Westerham roads, and commands from the grounds of the enclosure the finest view towards the weald of Kent in this part of the county.

Farnboro and 7 Oakes

66

"Keston Cross" I call "head-quarters," because in this house you will find yourself "at home." You may sparkle forth to many remarkable spots in the vicinage, and then return and take your "corporal refection," and go in and out at will; or you may sit at your ease, and do nothing but contemplate in quiet; or, in short, you may do just as you like. Of course this is said to gentle" readers; and I presume the Table Book has no others: certain it is, that ungentle persons are unwelcome visitors, and not likely to visit again at " Keston Cross." Its occupant, Mr. S. Younghis name is beneath his sign-will not be regarded by any one, who does himself the pleasure to call at his house, as a common landlord. If you see him seated beside the door, you estimate him at least of that order one of whom, on his travels, the chamberlain at the inn at Rochester describes to Gadshill as worthy his particular notice "a franklin in the weald of Kent, that hath three hundred marks with him in gold-one that hath abundance of charge too."* You take Mr. Young for a country gentleman; and, if you company with him, may perhaps hear him tell, as many a

Henry IV. act ii. sc. 1.

I lerned never rhetorike certain;

Thing that I speke it mote be bare and plain :
I slept never on the mount of Pernaso,
Ne lerned Marcus Tullius Cicero.
Colours ne know I non, withouten drede,
But swiche colours as growen in the mede,
Or elles swiche as men die with, or peint ;
Colours of rhetorike ben to me queinte ;
My spirit feleth not of swiche matere:
But if you
lust my tale shul
ye here.

In brief, if you 66 put up" at the "Red Cross," and invite Mr. Young's society, you will find him

a franklin faire und free,

That entertaines with comely courteous glee.t

The house itself is not one of your bold looking inns, that if you enter you assure yourself of paying toll at, in regard of its roystering appearance, in addition to every item in your bill; but one in which you have no objection to be" at charges," in virtue of its cheerful, promising air. You will find these more reasonable perhaps than you expect, and you will not find any article presented to you of an inferior quality. In respect therefore of its selfcommendations and Incality, the "Cross" at Keston is suggested as a point d'appui to any who essay from town for a few hours of fresh air and comfort, and with a desire of leisurely observing scenery altogether new to most London residents.

The classical ancients had inns and public-houses. Nothing is a stronger proof of the size and populousness of the city of Herculaneum, which was destroyed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius on the 24th of August, A. D. 79, than its nine hundred public-houses. A placard or inscription, discovered on the wall of a house in that ruined city, was a bill for letting one of its public-houses on lease; and hence, it appears that they had galleries at the top, and balconies, or green arbours, and baths. The dining-rooms were in the upper story. Although it was the custom of the Romans to recline at their meals, yet when they refreshed themselves at these places they sat. The landlord had a particular dress, and landladies wore a succinct, or tucked up dress, and brought the wine in vases for

The Frankelein's prologue. Chaucer. + Spenser.

drinking vessels as with us, and sometimes the flaggons were chained to posts. In the inns on the roads there were both hot and cold meats. Until the time of Nero, inns provided every kind of delicacy: that emperor restricted them to boiled vegetables. Tiberius prohibited their selling any baker's goods.

The company frequenting the ancient public-houses were usually artificers, saifors, drunken galli, thieves, &c.

Chess was played, and the abacus, or chess-board, was made oblong. Hence came the common painted post still at the doors of our own public-houses, the sign of the chequer or chequers.* Sir William Hamilton presented to the Antiquarian Society a view of a street in Pompeii, another Italian city destroyed by Vesuvius, which contains the sign of the chequers, from whence there can be no doubt that it was a common one among the Romans.

The Anglo-Saxons had the eala-hus, alehouse, win-hus, wine-house, and cumen-hus, or inn. Inns, however, were by no means common houses for travellers. In the time of Edward I. lord Berkeley's farm-houses Travellers were used for that purpose. were accustomed to inquire for hospitable persons, and even go to the king's palaces for refreshment. John Rous, an old traveller, who mentions a celebrated inn on the Warwick road, was yet obliged to go another way for want of accommodation.f

Mr. Brand supposes, that the chequers, at this time a common sign of a publichouse, was originally intended for a kind of draught-board, called "tables," and that it showed that there that game might be and the similarity to a lattice, it was corplayed. From their colour, which was red, ruptly called the red lettuce, a word frequently used by ancient writers to signify

an alehouse. He observes, that this designation of an alehouse is not altogether lost, though the original meaning of the word is, the sign being converted into a green lettuce; of which an instance occurs in Brownlow-street, Holborn,

Fosbroke's Ency. of Antiquities, Ibid.

It were needless to multiply examples of this sign beyond one in Shakspeare. Falstaff's page, speaking of Bardolph, says, "He called me even now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could see no part of his face from the window."

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for June 1793, says, "It has been related to me by a very noble personage, that in the reign of Philip and Mary the then earl of Arundel had a grant to license publichouses, and part of the armorial bearings of that noble family is a chequered board: wherefore the publican, to show that he had a license, put out that mark as part of his sign." On this, Mr. Brand inquires why the publicans take but a part of the Arundel arms, and why this part rather than any other? Another writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for September 1794, says, "I think it was the great earl Warrenne, if not, some descendant or heir near him, not beyond the time of Rufus, had an exclusive power of granting licenses to sell beer that his agent might collect the tax more readily, the door-posts were painted in chequers; the arms of Warren then, and to this day." We may, however, reasonably refer all these "modern instances to ancient times; and derive the publican's sign of the chequers from the great authors of many of our present usages, the old Ro

mans.

Mons. Jorevin, a French traveller, who journeyed through England in the reign of Charles II., stopped at the Stag inn, at Worcester, in the High-street, and he describes the entertainment of himself and a friend with whom he supped, so as to acquaint us somewhat with the entertainments in inns at that time. "During supper he (his friend) sent for a band of music, consisting of all sorts of instruments: among these the harp is the most esteemed by the English. According to the custom of the country the landladies sup with the stranrers and passengers, and if they have daugh

ters they are also of the company, to entertain the guests at table with pleasant conceits, where they drink as much as the men. But what is to me the most disgusting in all this is, that when one drinks the health of any person in company, the custom of the country does not permit you to drink more than half the cup, which is filled up, and presented to him or her the supper being finished, they set on the whose health you have drank. Moreover, table half a dozen pipes and a packet of tobacco for smoking, which is a general custom, as well among women as men, who think that without tobacco one cannot live in England, because, say they, it dissipates the evil humours of the brain." It appears from a "Character of England," printed in 1659, "that the ladies of greatest quality suffered themselves to be treated in these taverns, and that they drank their crowned cups roundly, danced after the fiddle, and exceeded the bounds of propriety in their carousals."

If a description of Scottish manners, printed about fifty years ago, may be relied on, it was then a fashion with females at Edinburgh to frequent a sort of publichouse in that city. The writer says: "January 15, 1775.-A few evenings ago I had the pleasure of being asked to one of these entertainments by a lady. At that time I was not acquainted with this scene of high life below stairs;' and therefore, when she mentioned the word 'oyster-cellar,' I imagined I must have mistaken the place of invitation: she repeated it, however, and I found it was not my business to make objections; so agreed immediately. I waited with great impatience till the hour arrived, and when the clock struck away I went, and inquired if the lady was there.

O yes,' cried the woman, she has been here an hour, or more.' The door opened, and I had the pleasure of being ushered in, not to one lady, as I expected, but to a large and brilliant company of both sexes, most of whom I had the honour of being acquainted with. The large table, round which they were seated, was covered with dishes full of oysters and pots of porter. For a long time I could not suppose that this was the only entertainment we were to have, and I sat waiting in expectation of a repast that was never to make its appearance. The table was cleared, and glasses introduced. The ladies were now asked whether they would choose brandy or rum punch? I thought this question an odd one, but I was soon informed by the gen