Dec. 22. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



497 



" She went up Lincoln and down Lincoln, 

 And all about Lincoln street, 

 With her small wand in her right hand, 

 Thinking of her child to meet. 



" She went till she came to the old Jew's gate, 

 Slic knocke'd with the ring ; 

 Who should be so read}' as th' old Jew herself 

 To rise and let her in. 



" ' What news, fair maid? what news, fair maid? 

 What news have you brought to me ? ' 



" ' Have you seen any of my child to-day. 

 Or any of the rest of my kin ? ' 

 • No, I've seen none of your child to-day, 

 Nor none of the rest of your kin.' " 



I am very anxious to complete tlils ballad from 

 Northamptonshire; an<l I again renew my request 

 tiiat some of your correspondents will endeavour 

 to supply Avhat is deficient. The "old lacemaker" 

 would Lave given more, but she could not. The 

 pure Saxon of this ballad is beautiful. 13. II. C. 



DR. DODD S " SERMON ON MALT. 



(Vol. xii., p. 383.) 



The following version of the story alluded to 

 by your correspondent Y. B. N. J. is to be found 

 in the Penny Magazine, vol. i. p. 7. It is given 

 without any authority, but as he may not have 

 the work at hand I give the extract entire : 



"A Quaint Sermon. 



" Mr. Dodd was a minister who lived, many years ago, 

 a few miles from Cambridge ; and having several times 

 been preaching against drunkenness, some of the Cam- 

 bridge scholars (conscience, which is sharper than ten 

 thousand witnesses, being their monitor) were very much 

 offended, and thought he made reflections on them. 

 Some time after, Mr. Dodd was walking towards Cam- 

 bridge, and met some of the gownsmen, who, as soon aa 

 they saw him at a distance, resolved to make some ridicule 

 of him. As soon as he came up, they accosted him with 

 ' Your servant, Sir ! ' He replied, ' Your servant, gentle- 

 men.' They asked him if he had not been pi-eaching 

 very much against drunkenness of late? He answered 

 in the aflirmative. They then told him they had a 

 favour to beg of him, and it was that he wouldpreach a 

 sermon to them there, from a text they should choose. 

 He argued that it was an imposition, for a man ought to 

 have some consideration before preaching. They said 

 they would not put up with a denial, and insisted upon 

 his preaching immediately (in a hollow ti'ee which stood 

 by the road side) from the word MALT. He then began : 

 ' Beloved, let me crave your attention. I am a little 

 man — come at a short notice — to preach a short sermon 

 — from a short text — to a thin congregation — in an 

 unworthy pulpit. Beloved, my text is Malt. I cannot 

 divide it into sentences, there being none ; nor into words, 

 there being but one ; I must therefore, of necessity, divide 

 it into letters, which I tind in my text to be these four — 

 M. A. L. T. M. is moral, A. is allegorical, L. is literal, 

 T. is theological. The moral is to teach you rustics good 

 manners ; therefore, M., my masters, A., all of you, 



No. 321.] 



L., leave off, T., tippling. The allegorical is, when one 

 thing is spoken of, and another meant. The thing spoken 

 of is malt. The thing meant is the spirit of malt, which 

 you rustics make, M., your meat. A., your apparel, 

 L., your liberty, and T., your trust. The literal is, ac- 

 cording to the letters, M., much. A., ale, L., little, T., trust. 

 The theological is, according to the effects it works in 

 some, M., murder ; in others, A., adulterj' ; in all, L., loose- 

 ness of life ; and in many, T., treachery. I shall conclude 

 the subject, first, by way of exhortation. M., mj' masters, 

 A., all of you, L., listen, T., to my text. Second, by way 

 of caution. M., my masters, A., .ill of you, L., look for, 

 T., the truth. Third, by way of communicating the truth, 

 which is this : a drunkard is the annoj^ance of modesty ; 

 the spoil of civility ; the destruction of reason ; the rob- 

 ber's agent ; the alehouse's benefactor ; his wife's sorrow ; 

 his children's trouble; his own shame; his neighbour's 

 scoff; a walking swill-bowl ; the picture of a beast; the 

 monster of a man ! " 



It seems very improbable that the Mr. Dodd, 

 the author of the above impromptu sermon, 

 should be the Dr. Dodd so notorious for his for- 

 geries and death.* Advena. 



Maidenhead. 



If your correspondent wishes to refresh his 

 memory by a reperusal of this quaint sermon, I 

 beg to refer him to the Penny Magazine, O. S. 

 vol. i. p. 6. Of its author I am not able to give 

 any particulars ; he is there described as " a min- 

 ister who lived many years ago a few miles from 

 Cambridge," and was a different pei'sonage, I 

 should imagine, from the unfortunate minister of 

 the same name. 



The mention of this humorous discourse re- 

 minds me of a congenial piece of wit, which I 

 extract from Edinburgh Fugitive Pieces, by 

 W. Creech, F.R.S., 1815, p. 226. : 



" Abridgment of a sermon, which took up an hour in 

 delivering, from these words : — ' Man is born to trouble.' 

 ' My Friends, 



'The 'subject falls naturally to be divided into four 

 heads : 



1. Man's entrance into the world. 



2. His pi'ogress through the world. 



[* Two versions of this sermon are preserved in the 

 Sloane MSS., kindly forwarded to us by Mk. Hopper, 

 who states that " neither of them indicates the name of 

 the preacher." The preacher, however, was John Dod, 

 generally styled the Decalogist, from his celebrated Ex- 

 position of the Ten Commandments, born at Shocklach in 

 Cheshire" in 1555; educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, 

 of which he was elected Fellow in 1585. He was succes- 

 sively minister of Hanwell in Oxfordshire, Fenny Dray- 

 ton in Leicestershire, and Canons Ashby and Fawsley in 

 Northamptonshire ; though occasionally silenced for non- 

 conformity at each of them. He died at the advanced 

 age of ninety years, and was buried at Fawsley, Aug. 19, 

 1645. Fuller characterises him as "by nature a witty, 

 by industry a learned, bj' grace a godlj' divine." His life 

 M'as written by Samuel Clarke, and there is a scarce por- 

 trait of him, set. ninety, with four English verses, en- 

 graved by T. Cross. Consult Clarke's Martyrology ; Ful- 

 ler's Worthies and Church History ; Neal's History of the 

 Puritans; and Baker's Northamptonshire, vol. i. p. 388.] 



