612 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 139. 



was formerly called Care or Carle Sunday, as may 

 be yet seen in some of our old almanacks. They 

 are called carlings, probably, as we call the pre- 

 sents at ftxirs, fairings. Marshal, in his Obser- 

 vations on the Saxon Gospels, tells us that " the 

 Friday on which Christ was crucified is called in 

 German both Gute Freytag and Carr Frey tag ; " 

 that the word karr signifies a satisfaction for a 

 fine or penalty; and that Care or Carr Sunday 

 was not unknown to the English in his time, at 

 least to such as lived among old people in the 

 country. 



In the old Roman calendar I find it observed on 

 this day (the 12th of March), that a dole is made 

 of soft beans. 1 can hardly entertain a doubt but 

 that our custom is derived from hence. It was 

 usual among the Komanists to give away beans in 

 the doles at funerals ; it was also a rite in the 

 funeral ceremonies of heathen Rome. There is a 

 great deal of learning in Erasmus's Adages con- 

 cerning the religious use of hcans, which were 

 thought to belong to the dead. An observation 

 which he gives us of Pliny concerning Pythagoras's 

 interdiction of the pulse, is highly remarkable. 

 It is " that beans contain the souls of the dead." 

 For which cause also they were used in the Pa- 

 rentalia. Plutarch also, he tells us, held that 

 pulse to be of the highest efficacy for invoking 

 the manes. Ridiculous and absurd as these su- 

 perstitions may appear, it is yet certain that our 

 carlings deduce their origin from thence. On the 

 interdiction of this pulse by Pythagoras, the fol- 

 lowing occurs in Spencer De Leg. Hebr., lib. i. 

 p. 1154.: — 



" Quid enlm Pythagoras, ejusque praeccptores, 

 ^ligypti Mystae, adeo legutninum, fabarum imprimis, 

 esum et aspectum fugerent ; nisi quod clbi mortuorum 

 coeniset exequlisproprii,adeoquepolluti et abominandi, 

 liaberentur," &c. — Brand's Observations on Popular 

 Antiquities, Ellis's ed., vol. i. pp. 95 — 99. 



In the notes in loco is mentioned " a practice 

 of the Greek church, not yet out of use, to set 

 boyled come before the singers at their com- 

 memorations of the dead," v. Gregorii Opusc, 

 p. 128. The length of this reply will not admit 

 of my here enumerating the other emblems of the 

 resurrection of the body used by the fathers and 

 other writers. I shall therefore conclude with an 

 extract from Rennel's Geographical St/stem of 

 Herodotus, p. 632., relating to the Pythagorean 

 prohibition of beans : — 



" The Bengalese have the Nt/mphcea nelumho in their 

 lakes and inundations; and its fruit certainly resembles 

 at all points that of the second species of water-lily 

 described by Herodotus ; that is, it has the form of 

 the orbicular wasp's nest ; and contains kernels of the 

 size and shape of a small bean. Amongst the Bramins 

 this plant is held sacred; but the kernels, which are of 

 a better flavour than almonds, are almost universally 

 eaten by the Hindoos. 



" It may, however, be a question whether it has al- 

 ways been the case ; and whether in the lapse of time 

 that has taken place since the days of Pythagoras (who 

 is supposed to have visited India, as well as Chaldsa, 

 Persia, and Egypt), a relaxation in discipline may not 

 have occasioned the law to be dispensed with ; instances 

 enough of a like kind being to be met with elsewhere. 

 Kyamos in the Greek language appears to signify, not 

 only a bean, but also the fruit or bean of the Nymphcea 

 nelumho. Is it not probable then that the mystery of 

 the famous inhibition of Pythagoras, an enigma of 

 which neither the ancients nor the moderns have hi- 

 therto been able to give a rational solution, may be dis- 

 covered in those curious records of Sanscrit erudition, 

 which the meritorious labours of some of our country- 

 men in India are gradually bringing to light?" 



BiBLIOTHECAR. ChETHAM^ 



HAKT AND MOHCN. 



(Vol. v., p. 466.) 



In Downes' Roscius Anglicanus, edit. 1789, men- 

 tion is made of these two actors, thus : 



" Hart was apprentice to Robinson, an actor who 

 lived before the Civil Wars ; he afterwards had a cap- 

 tain's commission, and fought for Charles I. He acted 

 women's parts when a boy. 



" Mohun was brought up under Robinson, as Hart 

 and others were : in his youth he acted Bellamente, 

 in Love's Cruelti/, which part he retained after the 

 Restoration." — Page 10. 



It appears to have been the practice of the old. 

 actors — the " master actors," as they were called 

 — to take youths as apprentices, and to initiate 

 them in female characters, as a preparatory step 

 towards something weightier. Richard Robinson, 

 above-mentioned, circa 1616, usually performed 

 female characters himself.'^ In 1647 his name 

 occurs, with several others, prefixed to the dedi- 

 cation of the first folio edition of Fletcher's Plays. 

 He served in the king's army in the civil wars, 

 and was killed in an engagement by Harrison, 

 who refused him quarter, and who was afterwards 

 hanged at Charing Cross. 



The patent of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 

 of which Mr. Hart and Major Mohun fornied 

 part of the company, having descended from 

 Thomas to Charles Killigrew — 



" In 1 682 he joined it to Dr. Davenant's patent, 

 whose company acted then in Dorset Garden, which, 

 upon the union, were created the King's Company: 

 after which Mr. Hart acted no more, having a pension 

 to the day of his death from the United Company. I 

 must not omit to mention the parts in several plays of 

 some of the actors, wherein they excelled in the per- 

 formance of them. First, Mr. Hart, in the part of 

 Arbaces, in King and no King ; Amintor, in the Maid's 

 Tragedy: Othello; Hollo; Brutus, in Julius Ccesar ; 

 Alexander. Towards the latter end of his acting, if he 



* See The Devil is an Ass, Act II. Sc. 8. 



