184 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"d S. VIII. Sept. 3. '59, 



the Catalogue, " who ever he may chance to be," 

 was a Man; and a little examination into Lee's 

 volume compiled (or at least edited) by him, 

 will convince us that he also was " a Man," and 

 what is often termed a " character." His advice 

 to youths in the " matter of Decencie " seems 

 very droll to modern ears. 



" 9. In yawning howl not ; but if thou beest con- 

 strained to yawn, by all means, for that time being, 

 speak not, nor gape wide mouthed, but shut thy mouth 

 with thy hand, or with thy handkerchief, if it be need- 

 full. 



" 10. When thou blowest thy Nose, make not thy 

 Nose sound like a Trumpet, and after look not within 

 thy handkerchief. 



" 14. Hearing thy Master, or likewise the Preacher, 

 wriggle not thyselt; as seeming unable to contain thy 

 self within thy skin, making shew thy self to be the 

 knowing and sufficient person, to the misprice of others." 



Lee was partial to a still and immovable de- 

 portment, and continually requests the yduths — 



" 21. Neither to shake thy head, feet, or legs. Rowl 

 not thine eyes. Lift not one of thine eyebrows higher 

 han the other. Wry not thy mouth." 



He gives a curious piece of information as to 

 the use of Thee and Thou. You, Lee says, should 

 be used to persons of lesser rank, and Thee and 

 Thou to friends and superiors. His ideas of dress 

 were very precise. 



" Carr}' not about tlsee any sweet smell, wear not thy 

 hat too high on thy head, nor too close on thine eyes, 

 not in the fashion of swaggerers and jesters." 



" Untruss riot thy self in company," Lee es- 

 pecially requests ; and he farther remarks that 

 it is proper to " comb one's head once a day, yet 

 not too curiously," 



A handkerchief, it appears, when clean and 

 '_' scarcely made use thereof," it v/as quite proper, 

 indeed fashionable, to present to a friend who 

 might seem of a sudden to require the use of 

 one. 



« In the time of Mirth, or at the Table, speak not of 

 melancholick things, of wounds, of sculs, of death," 



Lee very properly remarks ; adding also farther 

 on — 



" Being set at the Table, scratch not thyself .... 

 Knock no bones upon thy Bread, or trencher ; to speak 

 better, it is the counsel of the most wise, that it is not 

 fit to handle bones, and much less to mouth them." 



And many other curious sentences does this 

 odd^ old bookseller give us for our proper be- 

 haviour. The simplicity of his note upon Printing 

 is very amusing : — 



" Printing, an art invented by John Guttenberge, 

 and being so usefuU is still much practised." 



^ Cotton's Ttjpographical Gazetteer will, probably, 

 give much information about the old local printers 

 and booksellers. But there is one who attained a 

 notoriety far exceeding any of his London com- 

 peers, — Leonard Lichfield, Printer to the Uni- 



versity of Oxford from 1642 to 1680. His cha- 

 racter as author, bookseller, and weathercock 

 politician will form the subject of another paper. 

 John Camden Hotten. 



THE BADGE OF POVERTY. 



By a rigorous act of parliament, passed in the 

 year 1697, the 8 & 9 Will. III., it was required that 

 all persons in receipt of parochial relief should wear 

 a badge bearing a large roman P, together with the 

 first letter of the name of the parish or place to 

 which they belonged, cut, either in red or blue 

 cloth, upon the shoulder of the right sleeve of the 

 uppermost garment in an open and visible man- 

 ner, as by the churchwardens and overseers it 

 should be directed. If any person refused to 

 wear this badge, it was lawful for any justice of 

 the peace to punish by ordering their allowance 

 from the parish to be abridged, suspended, or 

 withdrawn. And in extreme cases, in which the 

 honest pauper, whose mind revolted at the thought 

 of wearing this ignominious badge, which alike 

 proclaimed abroad his poverty and dependence, 

 pertinaciously refused to do so, a magistrate might 

 commit such an offender to the house of correc- 

 tion, there to be whipt and kept imprisoned for 

 any period not exceeding twenty-one days. As 

 the object of this statute (repealed by 50 Geo. HI. 

 c. 52.) was that the money raised for the relief of 

 the impotent and poor should not be consumed by 

 idle, sturdy, and disorderly beggars, the church- 

 wardens and overseers were liable to a fine of 20s. 

 if they administered relief to any one who had not 

 the badge of poverty upon his shoulder. This 

 disgraceful mark seems to have been worn by the 

 out- door poor of one parish at least, before it was 

 made compulsory by act of parliament; for we 

 find the vestry of St. James, Clerkenwell, in 1695, 

 oi'dering " that no pensioners shall have their pen- 

 sions paid to them unless they wear their badges 

 upon the outside of their garments so as it may 

 be seen." If they offended once or twice in this 

 particular their allowance was suspended, but the 

 third time the pension was entirely taken away. 

 The parish beadle turned informer against these 

 poor culprits ; and for the first offence he brought 

 to light he received %d., for the second \1d. If 

 the parish Bumble was not hawk-eyed enough to 

 discover the missing badge from the shoulder of 

 some poor pensioner, to make him look out 

 sharper in future, he was himself mulcted of half- 

 a-crown for the first oversight, and five shillings 

 for the second. 



Does not the foregoing illustrate and explain a 

 phrase which has long been in colloquial use, "the 

 badge of poverty"? W. J. Pinks. 



