June 26. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



603 



looked upon with respect, and treated with the 

 greatest consideration, proving incontestably that, 



" Mad as Christians used to be 

 About the seventeenth century, 

 There's others to be had 



In this the nineteenth just as bad." 



On this occasion the job proved a tough one, 

 and it was not till a late hour that Prov. set off on 

 Lis road home. It was a pitchy dark night, and 

 somehow or other the preacher and his nag con- 

 trived to lose their way among the green lanes, 

 and it was not till they had floundered about for 

 some time that our hero discerned (as is usual in 

 such cases) a light gleaming through the thick 

 foliage before him, which he incontinently discovers 

 to proceed from a solitary dwelling in the middle 

 of the woods. Of course he dismounts, and knocks 

 at the door ; and of course it was opened by a 

 suspicious-looking old woman in toggery which it 

 would do Mr. James's heart good to depict. To 

 his request for a night's lodging, she yielded a 

 ready assent — too ready, Prov. thought; for it 

 seemed from her manner as though he had been 

 expected. Pie was shown into a bed-room, and 

 was proceeding to divest himself of his garments, 

 when he hears a knock at the door, and a voice 

 asked him to come down to supper. Prov. made 

 answer that he didn't want any, that he was in 

 bed, and that moreover he was engaged at his 

 devotions ; but presently the messenger returned, 

 and declared that if he did not join the company 

 downstairs, they would come and sup with him. 

 Poor Prov. quaked with fright, but thought it 

 politic to cloak his fears, so followed the servant 

 to the house-room, where there were a number of 

 people sitting round a table plentifully laden with 

 good things. All of them were little " shrivelled 

 up " old men ; and, as the chairman motioned 

 Prov. to a vacant seat, they all regarded him with 

 a stare that made him feel the reverse of jolly. 

 Although he is well acquainted with the neigh- 

 bourhood, he recognises none of them. The meal 

 proceeded in solemn silence : look which way he 

 would, he encounters the gaze of his companions, 

 who appear to scowl at him with an expression of 

 fiendish hate. Dreadful surmises flit across his 

 brain. Suddenly his attention becomes directed 

 to the posterior portion of the gentleman next 

 him. " By Jove ! he has a tail. Yes, he has ; 

 and so has his neighbour, and so have they all." 

 He fancies too he can trace a resemblance between 

 the individual who sits at the head of the table, 

 and the fiend of the morning's exorcism. All is 

 now clear as a pike-stafi". It is a decided case of 

 trepan.^ That dark fellow on the right has to 

 complain of a forcible ejection from a comfortable 

 dwelling in the portly corpus of Master Muggins 

 the miller; and he on the left is the identical 

 demon who got into Farmer Nelson's cow, and 



gave our hero a world of trouble to get him out. 

 He is in the power of the incubi, whom he has 

 been so long warring against. Not a moment is 

 to be lost, for already they are whispering toge- 

 ther, and the scowls get fiercer and fiercer. What 

 is to be done ? A monk would have had recourse 

 to his breviary ; Prov. thought of his hymn-book. 

 " Brethren," says he, " it is usual wi' us at the 

 hecnd of a feast to ax a blessing." 



" A blessing quotha ! and to us .'" roared the 

 fiends. " Ha ! ha ! Yea ! yea ! " said Prov. ; and 

 instanter he out with that spirit-stirring stanza of 

 " immortal John :" 



" Jesus the name, high over all, 

 In hell, or earth, or sky, 

 Angels and men before Hlra fall,] 

 And devils fear and fly !" 



Who shall depict the scene while these words 

 were being uttered ? The old men turn all sorts 

 of colours, from green to blue, and blue to green, 

 and back again to their original hue. At the last 

 line, the uproar becomes terrible; and, amidst 

 shouts of fiendish wailing, the whole company re- 

 solve themselves into a thin blue smoke, in which 

 state they career up the chimney, taking with 

 them a bran new chimney-pot, and leaving behind 

 a most ofiensive odour of lucifer matches. Prov. 

 saw no more ; he fainted. 



Some scandalous fellows spread abroad a report 

 that the morning's sun discovered our valiant 

 vessel snugly ensconced in a dry ditch ; but as he 

 always denounced strong waters, and was more- 

 over a leading member of the Steeple "United 

 Totals," I, for one, do not believe it. From the 

 examples already given, I trust your readers will 

 think with me that these old-world relics are 

 worth preserving. I hope they will not be back- 

 ward in the good work. A few more years, and 

 the scheme of an English work on the plan of 

 Grimm's will be impracticable. The romance-lore, 

 both oral and written, which erewhile delighted 

 the cottager, is growing out of date. The prosy 

 narrative of " How John the serving-man wedded 

 an earl's daughter, and became a squire of high 

 degree;" and the less placid, but still intolerably 

 dull feats of the " Seven Champions, " have no 

 charms for him now. He has outgrown the old 

 chap-book literature, and afiectionates the highly 

 seasoned atrocities of the Old Bailey school ; 

 which, to the disgrace of the legislature, are allowed 

 to p6ison the minds of our labouring community 

 with their weekly broad-sheets of crime and ob- 

 scenity. Even those prime old favourites, the 

 Robin Hood Garland and Shepherd's Kalendar^ 

 with its quaint letter-press and grim woodcuts, 

 are getting out of fashion, and beginning to be 

 missed from their accustomed nook beside the 

 family Bible. T. Sxfij&iiBEEO. 



