[vi]

man's life, offering phenomena in the prattle of childhood, the ardour of youth and adolescence, the graver inquiry of manhood, and the meditation of old age, with its cheerful contemplation of "rest unto the soul." In this section, the thoughts of the physician, the moralist, the speculative philosopher, and the poet, have been alike laid under contribution.* To these are added sections on some salient points of the Philosophy and Science of our own time, as exemplified in the Economic Arts.

Throughout the work I have sought to epitomise, and aimed at that condensation which is "the result of time, and experience which rejects what is no longer essential." In these days of rapid book-multiplication, old Fuller's saying is as much to the purpose as when he wrote, "it is a vanity to persuade the world one hath much learning by getting a great library." May 1859. I. T.

*The Author desires here to acknowledge that he has received much assistance in this chapter from the experiences of several Correspondents of Notes and Queries.

*The whole design, of which the present Volume may be considered a portion, now consists of

THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN, First Series

VOL.

1

It is proposed to complete the Work (D.V.) by the publication of a second Volume of Curiosities of Science at no very distant period. Meanwhile it should be explained that each of the above volumes is complete in itself.

PUPPET-SHOW: PUNCH AND JUDY.

At pp. 52-57 will be found an attempt to trace the history of this renowned street-play, which is

by authority allowed

To please the giddy gaping crowd,

as it did some two centuries since, in our metropolis. Since the above was penned, the writer's attention has been drawn* to what appears to be evidence of the existence, upwards of four centuries since, of the representation of a puppet-show identical with our modern Punch and Judy. This occurs in the manuscript of the French romance of Alexander, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which was written and illuminated in the fourteenth century. It is drawn with great distinctness, the figures bearing a strong resemblance to the modern portraits of Punch and Judy; the drapery of the lower portion of the puppet-show is richly coloured, and the figures of the children are drawn with much spirit. Strutt has copied several illustrations of his work on British Sports and Pastimes from the above manuscript; yet he has strangely overlooked this specimen, although he describes the modern Punch and Judy. Another illumination of a puppet-show occurs a few folios on⚫ ward, but differs in the puppets.

THE CHILD'S WINDMILL

is engraved beneath the puppet-show. This toy is of great antiquity: it consists of two short sticks, with pieces of paper at the extremities attached crosswise to a longer stick; the cross is made to turn freely, and is caused to whirl round by running with it extended against the wind. It occurs as an illustration of childhood in a block-print of the "Seven Ages of Man," engraved about the middle of the fifteenth century, and now in the British Museum. Strutt states, the paper windmill has been seen in a painting nearly five hundred years old, with this difference only, that the sails are square. Fosbroke thought that he had seen it upon some classical marbles. It is now occasionally seen for sale in our streets; but we remember a time when its appearance was much more frequent.

The Vignette.

THRIFT OR CHRISTMAS BOX.

This specimen has been engraved from Mr. Roach Smith's Collection, now in the British Museum. It will be found described at page 31. The original is probably an apprentice's earthen Christmas-box, which closely resembles the Roman Paganalia, for the reception of contributions at rural festivals; from which custom, with certain changes, is said to have been derived Christmas-boxes. Those described in the Second Series of Pompeiana are earthen boxes, into which money was slipped through a hole. Aubrey found one filled with Roman denarii.

* As one of the illustrations, by F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A., of a series of able papers on the Domestic Manners of the English during the Middle Ages, by Thomas Wright, F.S.A., &c.,-in the Art-Journal.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

OLD ENGLISH Manners, CeremonIES, AND CUSTOMS*

OLDEN MEALS AND HOUSEWIFERY

PUNCH AND JUDY, OLD PLAYS, PAGEANTS, AND MUSIC

ENGLISH LAWS, LEGAL CUSTOMS, PRIVILEGES, AND DIGNITIES

MONEY, WEIGHTS, AND MEASURES

-1

32

52

62

111

*Note to "The Spindle and Distaff," pp. 1-6.-A short time since, there died at
Reay, in Scotland, Margaret Sutherland, relict of the late Mr. Hugh Farquhar,
or Mackay, aged 100. She is stated to have excelled in using the distaff and
spindle, which she continued to use almost to her end, being the last in Caithness
who employed those ancient instruments.

Special acknowledgment is due to the Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries
for his admirable paper on the Distaff and the Spindle, which has furnished the
staple of the first article in the present volume.

THINGS

NOT GENERALLY KNOWN.

(SECOND SERIES.)

Old English Manners, Ceremonies, and
Customs.

THE DISTAFF AND THE SPINDLE.

THESE implements appear to have been anciently the type and symbol and the insignia of the softer sex in nearly every age and country.

They are not unfrequently mentioned by the oldest authorities. Homer speaks of golden spindles as fitting presents for ladies of the highest rank; and Herodotus tells us that Euelthon's last and most significant gift to Pheretime was a golden spindle and a distaff with wool.

A very early allusion to spinning with the distaff and spindle occurs in Proverbs, the allusion being derived by Solomon from a still older authority: "She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff" (Prov. xxxi. 19). It shows, also, that the distaff was used by the Jewish women; although, from the representations on the tombs of Benihassen, the Egyptians appear to have spun their thread without it. One group of women spinners represents them as using a spindle in each hand, a proficiency which does not appear to have been ever attained by the moderns (Rosellini). A male spinner, in the same moment, uses both hands to the spindle. These representations show also that the Egyptians affixed the vorticellum, or whirl, to the upper part of the spindle, contrary to the practice of other nations. Nevertheless, in the picture of Leda on the walls of Pompeii, represented in the Museo Borbonico, we find two spindles and a calathus, but no distaff; moreover, the whirls of the spindle are affixed to the upper part, in the Egyptian manner; a very remarkable peculiarity, well deserving the attention of the archæologist.

SECOND SERIES.

B

Minerva, as the instructress of man in all the useful arts, is fabled as the author of the distaff and spindle; hence, as Apollodorus informs us, the Palladium held in its right hand a spear, and a distaff and spindle in the left. Tertullian, however, says that the ancients ascribed the invention of spinning to Mercury. These traditions may perhaps be reconciled by the fact, that the spinning of wool, although as old as the days of Homer, was a later invention than that of flax, since the fibre of the latter would the more readily suggest its application.

Pliny, on the authority of an eye-witness, reports that the distaff and spindle of Tanaquil, or Caia, the wife of Tarquinius Priscus, was long preserved in the Temple of Sangus, whilst the royal robe she had made for Servius Tullius was preserved in the Temple of Fortune. Hence, he continues, it was the custom to carry before the Roman bride a distaff charged with flax, and a spindle likewise furnished.

Plutarch says that the name Thalassius, chaunted at the nuptials of the ancient Greeks, had reference to the word for spinning; and that when the bride was introduced to her new home, she brought with her a distaff and spindle, and hung her husband's door with woollen yarn.

From Pliny we learn that a rural law in Italy forbade the women to use their distaffs abroad, or even to carry them openly; it being considered a bad omen to meet them thus employed. A similar superstition once obtained in France, and may have been derived from the Roman conquerors.

Many passages from the ancient poets might be cited in which the mode of spinning is described. It may suffice to name Catullus, who describes the Parcæ spinning the web of destiny; and Martial styles the Fates "lanifica sorores."

Among the many beautiful coins of Tarentum in Calabria, are several representing the mythic hero Taras holding a spindle with the yarn wound upon it, which may allude to the manufacture of flax, wool, and especially the purple cloth for which the Tarentines were so famous. Strabo especially mentions the glossy wool of Tarentum.

Descending to later times, we find the distaff and the spindle still more conspicuous as the distinguishing badge of the female sex. Among our Saxon ancestors, the " spear half" and the "spindle half" expressed the male and the female line; and the spear and the spindle are to this day found in their graves. It was the same with the Thuringians; and among the Franks, the choice of a sword or a distaff decided the fate of a free woman who had attached herself to a slave.*

Kersey, in his Dictionarium, 2d edit. 1715, has: "Distaff, an instrument used in spinning. The crown of France never falls to the distaff, i.e. is never inherited by women."