There is a curious little book entitled Divers Crab-tree Lectures that Shrews read to their Husbands (1639), which has a woodcut facing the frontispiece, representing a woman beating her husband with a ladle. It is called "Skimmington and her Husband." The cut is repeated in a chapter entitled "Skimmington's Lecture to her Husband, which is the errand Scold," with some verses wherein occur the following pithy lines

"But all shall not serve thee,

For have at thy pate,

My Ladle of the Crab-tree

Shall teach thee to cogge and to prate."

Thus it would seem that the word "Skimmington" signified an arrant scold, most probably being derived from the name of some woman of great notoriety in that line, even as the word Sandwich has been derived from the earl of that name; add to this the overcoat nominally associated with the Earl of Chesterfield. Douce derives it from the skimming-ladle; and in an old dictionary, the date of which I am unable to determine, it is defined to be "a sort of burlesque procession in ridicule of a Man who suffers himself to be beat by his Wife."

King's Miscellany Poems (1776) contain this curious passage—

"When the young people ride the Skimmington,
There is a general trembling in a Town,
Not only he for whom the person rides
Suffers, but they sweep other doors besides ;
And by that Hieroglyphic does appear

That the good Woman is the Master there."

Apparently in this ludicrous procession intended to shame some notoriously tame husband, who suffered his wife to wear the breeches, it was part of the ceremony to sweep before his door; and if, in the course of its progress, it stopped at any other door and swept there too, it was a pretty broad hint that there were more shrews in the town than one.

In Gloucestershire also it had the same designation.

There is a curious print entitled An exact Representation of the humorous Procession of the Richmond Wedding of Abram Kendrick and Mary Westurn 17**; in which two grenadiers lead the way, followed by men bearing the flag with a crown on it, and four men with hand-bells. These are succeeded by one carrying a block-head with a hat and wig on it, and a pair of horns, and another bearing a ladle. The pipe and tabor, hautboy and fiddle, contribute their share; and then come the bridegroom in a chair, his attendants provided with holly-hocks, and the bride with her attendants similarly provided. The usual bridal retinue closes the procession.

In Strype's edition of Stow we read: "1562. Shrove Monday, at Charing-Cross was a Man carried of four Men: and before him a Bagpipe playing, a Shawm, and a Drum beating, and twenty Links burning about him. The cause was, his next neighbour's wife beat her Husband: it being so ordered that the next should ride about the place to expose her."

In Lupton's Too good to be true (1580) Siquila says: "In some places with us, if a Woman beat her Husband, the Man that dwelleth next unto hir shall ride on a Cowlstaffe; and there is al the punishment she is like to have;" to which Omen responds: "That is rather an uncomly custome than a good order, for he that is in faintnesse is undecently used, and the unruly offendor is excused thereby. If this be all the punishment your Wives have that beate their simple husbandes, it is rather a boldning than a discouraging of some bolde and shamelesse Dames, to beate their simple husbandes, to make their next neyghbors (whom they spite) to ride on a Cowle staffe, rather rejoising and flearing at the riding of their neighbours, than sorrowing or repenting for beating of their husbands."

It is not easy to understand how it has come about that this word, which is generally derived from cuculus (a cuckoo), has been assigned to the injured husband, for it seems more properly to belong to the adulterer, the cuckoo being well known to be a bird that deposits its eggs in other birds' nests.

The Romans apparently used cuculus in its proper sense of adulterer, with equal propriety calling the cuckold himself curruca, or hedge-sparrow, which bird is well known to adopt the other's spurious offspring.

The cuckoo, says Johnson in his Dictionary, is said to suck the eggs of other birds, and lay her own to be hatched in their place; from which practice it was usual to alarm a husband at the approach of an adulterer by calling "cuckoo," which by mistake was in time applied to the husband; and Pennant's Zoology (1776) pronounces his note to be so uniform that his name in all languages seems to have been derived from it, and in all countries it is used in the same reproachful sense. The reproach, it is added, "seems to arise from this Bird making use of the bed or nest of another to deposit its eggs in; leaving the care of its young to a wrong parent: but Juvenal, with more justice, gives the infamy to the Bird in whose nest the suppositious Eggs were laid."

Pliny tells us that vine-dressers were anciently called cuckoos, i.e., slothful, because they deferred cutting their vines till that bird began to sing, which was later than the right time; so that the same name may have been given to the unhappy persons under consideration, when, through disregard and neglect of their fair partners, they have caused them to go a gadding in search of more diligent and industrious companions.

The cuckoo has been long considered as a bird of omen. Gay's fourth pastoral notes the vulgar superstitions connected with its first song in spring

"When first the year I heard the Cuckoo sing,
And call with welcome note the budding Spring,

I straitway set a running with such haste,
Deb'rah that won the Smock scarce ran so fast,
Till spent for lack of breath, quite weary grown,
Upon a rising bank I sat adown,

And doft'd my Shoe, and by my troth, I swear
Therein I spy'd this yellow frizled Hair,*
As like to Lubberkin's in curl and hue,
As if upon his comely Pate it grew."

Still more extraordinary is one of Hill's Naturall and Artificiali Conclusions (1650): “A very easie and merry conceit to keep off Fleas from your Beds or Chambers. Plinie reporteth that if, when you first hear the Cuckow, you mark well where your right Foot standeth, and take up of that earth, the Fleas will by no means breed, either in your House or Chamber, where any of the same earth is thrown or scattered."

In the North, and perhaps all over England, it was commonly accounted to be an unlucky omen if you had no money in your pocket when you heard the cuckoo for the first time in a season.

Green, the quaint author of A Quip for an upstart Courtier (1620), calls a cuckoo the cuckold's quirister: "It was just at that time when the Cuckold's Quirister began to bewray April Gentlemen with his never-changed Notes ;" and another passage from the same writer represents the substance familiarly known as cuckoo-spit as emblematic of cuckoldom: "There was loyal lavender, but that was full of Cuckow-spittles, to shew that women's light thoughts make their husbands heavy heads."

There is a vulgar error in natural history according to which this substance is due to the exhalation of the earth, the extravasated juice of plants, or a hardened dew. According to the account of a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1794, it really proceeds from a small insect with oblong body, large head and small eyes, which encloses itself within it. After emitting the spume from various parts of its body, the insect undergoes its changes therein, and, bursting into a winged state, flies abroad in search of its mate.

Plaine Percevall, the Peace-maker of England, has: "You say true, Sal sapit omnia: and Service without Salt, by the rite of England, is a Cuckold's fee if he claim it."

Steevens, commenting on the mention of Columbine in Hamlet, says: "From the Caltha Poetarum 1599, it should seem as if this Flower was the emblem of Cuckoldom

'The blue cornuted Columbine,

Like to the crooked horns of Acheloy.''

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Columbine, says another, was an emblem of Cuckoldom on account of the horns of its Nectaria, which are remarkable in this plant;" while a third commentator, Mr Holt White, quoting from Browne's Britannia's Pastorals

Thus described in the Connoisseur: No. 56: "I got up last May Morning and went into the Fields to hear the Cuckoo; and, when I pulled off my left Shoe, I found a Hair in it, exactly the same colour with his.'

"The Columbine in tawny often taken,

Is then ascrib'd to such as are forsaken,"

maintains that it typified the forsaken lover.

Among the witticisms on cuckolds that occur in our old plays, must not be omitted the following in Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks (1636)—

Why, my good Father, what should you do with a Wife?
Would you be crested? Will you needs thrust your head
In one of Vulcan's Helmets? Will you perforce

Weare a City Cap, and a Court Feather?

Chaucer, in his Prosopopæia of Jealousie, introduces her with a garland of gold yellow, and a cuckoo sitting on her fist.

In Ritson's collection of Ancient Songs (1792) occurs this metaphor for jealousy

"The married Man cannot do so,

If he be merie and toy with any,

His Wife will frowne and words give manye:
Her yellow Hose she strait will put on."

Butler's Hudibras makes mention of the singular purpose for which carvers used formerly to invoke the names of cuckolds

'Why should not Conscience have vacation,

As well as other Courts o' th' Nation;

Have equal power to adjourn,
Appoint Appearance and Retorn;
And make as nice distinction serve

To split a case, as those that carve,

Invoking Cuckold's names, hit Joints ;” &c.

The practice has been already noticed under the head of Michaelmas Goose. I may add here that in Wit and Mirth Improved, the fourth gossip says—

"Lend me that Knife, and I'll cut up the Goose:

I am not right, let me turn edge and point.

Who must I think upon to hit the Joint!

My own Good Man? I think there's none more fit,
He's in my thoughts, and now the Joint I hit;"

and in Batt upon Batt (1694) occurs the following

"So when the Mistress cannot hit the Joynt,

Which proves sometimes you know a diff'cult point,
Think on a Cuckold, straight the Gossips cry:
But think on Batt's good Carving-knife say I;
That still nicks sure, without offence and scandal:
Dull Blades may be beholden to their Handle;
But those Batt makes are all so sharp, they scorn
To be so charmed by his Neighbour's Horn."

In the British Apollo (1708), to the inquiry as to the origin of the proverb it is answered

"Thomas Web, a Carver to a Lord Mayor of London in King

Charles the First's reign, was famous for his being a Cuckold, as for his dexterity in carving: therefore what became a Proverb was used first as an Invocation, when any took upon him to carve." In Flecknoe's Diarium (1656) we have these lines

"On Doctor Cuckold.

"Who so famous was of late,

He was with finger pointed at:

What cannot learning do, and single state?

"Being married, he so famous grew,

As he was pointed at with two:

What cannot learning and a Wife now do?"

Nevertheless, it is supposed that the word cuculus somehow gave rise to the name of cuckold. Though the cuckoo lays in nests not its own, the etymology may still hold; for lawyers tell us that the honours and disgrace of man and wife are reciprocal, the one partaking of all the other has. Thus the lubricity of the woman is thrown upon the man, and her dishonesty thought his dishonour; and he, being the head of the wife, and being thus abused by her, acquires the name of cuckold from cuckoo; which nestling of old was the type of a cowardly, idle and stupid fellow, and so became the appellation of those who neglected to dress and prune their vines in due season.

In Heath's Paradoxical Assertions (1664), the question why cuckolds are said to wear horns is answered: Because other men with their two forefingers point and make horns at them; and the further inquiry as to why the abused husband is branded with that verbal reproach provokes the comment that, Plautus having wittily and more reasonably called the adulterer (and not him whose wife is adulterated) cuculum, or cuckold, on the ground that he begets children on other men's wives whom the credulous fathers take to be their own, the corrupter of female virtue should rather be called the cuckoo," for he sits and sings merrily whilst his eggs are hatched by his neighbours' hens."

Douce, however, maintains that there cannot be the least doubt of the word cuculus having been a term of reproach with the ancients, in the sense of our "cuckold." Plautus so employs it more than once. In the Asinaria he makes a woman speak of her husband thus— Ac etiam cubat Cuculus, surgi, amator, i domum ;

and again

Cano capite te Cuculum uxor domum exlustris rapit.

So also in the Pseudolus Quid fles, Cuculi? cannot possibly bear any other sense. Horace in his Magna compellans voce cucullum certainly used the word as it is explained by Pliny in the passage already cited, and the conclusion there drawn seems to be that which best reconciles the more modern sense of the term. It is moreover supported by a note in the Variorum Horace, taken from the Historia Mirabilium of Carystius, published in 1619, which runs thus

Cuculum credi supposititios adsciscere pullos, quod enim sit timidus et defendendi impar, cum etiam a minimis velli avibus. Avis autem