156 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



(;2nds. N06O., Feb. 21.'57. 



were omitted, and the people desired to say after 

 the Gospel was named, " Glory be to Thee, O 

 Lord." 



2. But the Nicene Creed, by the present ru- 

 bric, is to iollow immediately after the Gospel is 

 ended. Archbishop Laud, however, in the Scot- 

 tish Liturgy introduced the Verse now in occasional 

 use, " Thanks be to Thee, O Lord, for this Thy 

 holy Gospel." It is enjoined by the Twenty-ninth 

 Canon of the Church in Scotland, a.d. 1838. Such 

 was my statement, which, with every respect for 

 Mr. Ei^lacombb, i must repeat. I am not aware 

 of any instance of the occurrence of any similar 

 Doxology in this place ; probably Laud derived it 

 from Bishop Andrewes, who seems to have in- 

 serted here the Gradual formerly sung between 

 the Epistle and the Gospel. In the Liturgy of 

 St. Chrysostom, after the Epistle the priest said 

 ElprivT) aol, and the deacon 1o(pia, while the choir 

 responded "Alleluia." The Latin Church pre- 

 scribed a Verse, wiiile the priest or deacon went 

 up the steps of the roodloft to sing the Gospel. 

 Bishop Andrewes, in his Notes on the Communion 

 Office, suggests " 'T/xvoXoyia, post Evangelium, 

 Graduale;" whilst the priest goes up fiom the 

 door of the choir to read the Nicene Creed. So 

 Bishop Cosin quotes him. While in the Lambeth 

 MS. are subjoined to the rubric " The Epistle and 

 Gospel being ended, shall be said the Creed," these 

 words, " Ad Laus Tibi, Domine." Bishop Cosin, 

 in his suggestions of corrections in the Book of 

 Common Frayer, which appear to have been made 

 in the time of Charles 1., observes, — 



" Neither is there any order after the naming of the 

 Gospel for the people to say ' Glory be to Thee, O Lord,' 

 as hath been accustomed, and was specially ordered in 

 King Edward's time, together witli * Thanks be given to 

 God,' at the end of the Gospel. For uniformity and ad- 

 vancement of our devotions herein, that order would be 

 fitly here renewed." 



And he proposed a rubric to this effect : " At 

 the end of the Gospel, he that readeth it shall say, 

 ' Thanks be to Thee, O Lord.' " Hooker {Eccles. 

 Pol. v. XXX. 3.) mentions the " Glory be to the 

 Lord," under the form of " uttering certain words 

 of acclamation." See Keble's edition, ii. 178. 



Mackenzie Walcott, M.A. 



MIDW1VE8 AND MAN-MIDWIVES. 



(2'"^ S. iii. 120.) 



Since I forwar.led the Note to "N. & Q." on 

 the above subject, I remembered that Mercier, 

 in his Tableau de Paris, had something to say 

 thereon. On referring to the work in question, 1 

 find more details than you would care to insert ; 

 but the substance of the historical matter amounts 

 to this: — At the commencement of the seven- 

 teenth century, "accoucheurs" were scarcely 



known in France. Ladies of the royal families of 

 Europe were the last to abandon the old fashion 

 of employing women on the occasions referred to. 

 Generally speaking, the matrons accepted the 

 change of men for women reluctantly ; but be- 

 came reconciled to it, by the superior aliility and 

 knowledge of the male practitioners. Down to 

 the end of the last century, Spanish husbands 

 had a considerable repugnance for a man who 

 exercised this useful office. They agreed with the 

 learned Hequet, who, at the beginning of the cen- 

 tury, published a work entitled : De VIndecenca 

 aux Hommes d'accoucher les Femmes. 



A law of Henry II. awarded death as the 

 penalty to be paid by any girl who, expecting to 

 become a mother, should conceal the fact. The 

 law still existed, but it was laughed at, in Mer- 

 cier's time. In 1783, he gives these curious 

 details : — 



" Elle (la fille) dit qu'elle va k la campagne ; raais elle 

 n'a pas besoin de sortir de la ville, meme du quartier, pour 

 se cacher et faire ses couches. Chaque rue olFre une sage- 

 femme qui re9oit les fiUes grosses. Uii meme appartement 

 est divise en quatre chambres egales, au nioyen de 

 cloisons, et chacune habite sa cellule, et n'est' point vue 

 de sa voisine. L'appartement est distribud de maniere 

 qu'elles demeurent inconnues I'une h, I'autre. Ellas se 

 parlent sans se voir." 



It was a singular rule of French law which de- 

 creed death against the concealment of a birth, 

 that the door of a midwife who received patients 

 at her own house could not be forced, without a 

 warrant from the highest authorities. The or- 

 dinary fee paid by these abandoned Ariadnes was 

 twelve francs a day. The "lady of the house" 

 took the trouble of presenting the child for bap- 

 tism. The priest was so accustomed to see her, 

 that he recorded "illegitimate" without thinking 

 of asking any questions. Mercier ascribes to these 

 women, to the Foundling Hospital, and the Hotel 

 Dieu, where poorer French patients were re- 

 ceived, the rareness of infanticide in France. He 

 adds, as a remarkable fact : — 



" C'est de voir quelquefois la fille d'une sage-femme 

 servir sa mfere dans des fonctions qui reveillent certaines 

 idees, et au milieu de tant d'exemples de foiblesses, con- 

 server sa chastet^ intacte. Si elle tombe dans le pi<5ge, 

 ce ne sera pas faute d'avoir eu sous ses yeux des motifs 

 propres h la retenir sur le bord du precipice ; " 



— an opinion which cannot be disputed. 



J. DoRAN. 



Purver^s Translation of the Bible, sometimes 

 called " The Quakers Bible" (2'"' S. iii. 108.) — 

 J. C. Rdst will find a good account of Purver and 

 his translation of the Bible in a periodical called 

 The British Friend, chiefly devoted to the inter- 

 ests of the Society of Friends, No. IV., Glasgow, 

 4th Month, 29th, 1843. Mr. Rust is in error 



