tuate a name-many instances of which might be given; but those of Allen (in the case of the Mastership of Dulwich College) and the ensuing will be sufficient to attract the attention of the reader to this point. "Whereas the yearly meeting of the name of Adam hath of late, through the deficiency of the last stewards, been neglected; these are to give notice to all gentlemen and others that are of that name, that at William Adams', commonly called the Northern Alehouse, in St. Paul's alley, in St. Paul's churchyard, there will be a weekly meeting every Monday night of our name-sakes, between the hours of 6 and 8 of the clock in the evening, in order to choose stewards to revive our antient and annual feast." Dom. Intel. 1681. This was a genuine and spontaneous desire of honouring a name, and very different from the more prevalent custom of purchasing the consent of an individual to resign his own, and take the purchaser's.

It is well known that an Englishman ever detested a scolding female, and that our laws have provided a punishment calculated to repress the hateful custom of permitting the tongue to exercise the vengeance denied to the hands. The ducking-stool, placed near the banks of a pond, on which the offender was compelled to sit while it was plunged into the cool fluid, might be supposed a sufficient preventive of the practice of abuse;

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abuse; but I am afraid the lower classes, from time immemorial, relying upon the lenity of their hearers, have indulged pretty freely in speaking their minds. The Records of the Court of King's Bench furnish a case in the year 1681 of a Mrs. . Finch, a most notorious scold, thrice ducked for that offence previously, who appeared there on trial for a repetition of it, when the Court sentenced her on conviction to pay a fine of three marks, or be imprisoned till it was paid. The markets of London have always furnished the means of completely comprehending the use which may be made of our language where decency and the established rules of civilized society are not admitted, and Billingsgate fishwomen have ever had the unequivocal suffrages of the public as to the superior ability with which they maintain an angry argument, or revenge a real or supposed affront.

Xantippe, the wife of Socrates, is a sufficient proof in herself of the antiquity of scolding, and as the Kelts, the Romans, the Saxons, and the Normans, all scolded to a certainty, we must not be surprised that their descendants followed their

example. And lest the ladies of the present

day may

now,

be offended, and scold me and my book, I will acknowledge, that both foreign and English history furnish numberless proofs that gentlemen of all descriptions have imitated their mothers and wives, but with partial success only, not through

through want of ability, but because male scolds sometimes run the risk of immediate corporeal chastisement from their opponents, an amazing check on the attainment of excellence in this propensity.

A Parliament was held at Oxford in the beginning of 1681; and this circumstance enables me to notice a custom which has been very prevalent on all electioneering and some other occasions. since that year, whether it originated then or not. The representatives of London assembled at Guildhall on the 17th of March, for the purpose of commencing their journey, many of the citizens met them there, intending to acccompany them part of the way, together with others who were deputed to go to Oxford as a sort of council to the city members. "Some of our ingenious London weavers," says Smith's Protestant Intelligence, "had against this day contrived a very fine fancy, that is, a blue satin riband, having these words plainly and legibly wrought upon it, 'No Popery, no Slavery which being tied up in knots, were worn in the hats of the horsemen who accompanied our members."

The above intimations of what the public expected of the Government were practically demonstrated on another subject by a different and lower order of the people, who conceived pure ideas, but dreadfully mangled them in the execution. On the 17th day of April, some concurring

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curring circumstances having congregated a considerable number of persons in Moorfields about seven in the evening, it was suggested, that it would be extremely proper to level to the ground all those houses known to be the homes of loose women. This motion having been carried by acclamation, an attack was made upon one, in the neighbourhood of the Windmills; and in a quarter of an hour they had not only demolished the furniture and beds, and some parts of the mansion, but commenced an assault upon others; for, by this time, their forces were computed to be at least 3000 men. The operations of this well-meaning mob soon reached the officers of the police; who, assembling a strong guard, proceeded to the field, conducted by Mr. Sheriff Cornish; when a conflict of a different description occurred, which terminated with many wounds and fractures on both sides, but a complete victory on that of the police.

The second part of this work, relating to a pe riod almost within the memory of our fathers, will contain a chapter on eccentricity; which must serve as a specimen of that peculiar turn of mind in the long interval between the peopling of England and the year 1700; as little instruction or amusement can be derived from such facts as distinguished the manners of an anchorsmith, of Blackwall, who made his public entry to the Green-man, by Epping-forest, on Monday

the

the 18th of April, 1681. "The relation is as follows (say the Editors of the Loyal Protestant): First, he was rowed by water from Blackwall-stairs to Bow-bridge; where he was taken up, by the same wherry that carried him thither, by sixteen or twenty watermen; and two watermen were appointed to sit in the boat, to row him (or keep stroke, as they do in the water) upon the land, they being in their white shirts and blue caps; and the said Smith sat in the stern of the boat, smoking a pipe of tobacco, having above four hundred followers. And after they were known to be upon the road, a certain man met them with a winding-horn, and blew before him to the place of his landing; where he was received with much joy and acclamation of the children thereabouts, who never saw the like before."

The method of providing for the sudden and unexpected wants of part of the great community of England, and indeed of mankind, by briefs, did the original proposer honour: nor is it less honourable to the government of this nation, that they have been issued on almost every occasion which required general commiseration and charity for a very long period of our history. By this means, the inhabitants of Cornwall were invited to relieve those of the opposite extremity of the island, when in distress; and they were assured, their own case would be equally considered (if misfortune made it necessary) by those in the re

motest