19-i 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 148. 



fuit 31° die Mail, [e<] Robertus fuit eximia; spei juvenis, 

 deum timens supra multos." 



There was a tradition in the parish that this 

 Kobert was burled in the church porch, but I 

 could find no trace of a monument.* Was he a son 

 or nephew of the Protector ? 



For the connexion of the Cromwell family with 

 Felsted, see Noble's Histoi-y. LIetaouo. 



'^ Macanlays Young Levite (Vol. i. passim). — 

 Here are three additional evidences of the truth 

 of Mr. Macaulay's picture to those given in 

 " N. & Q." The first describes the life at Wrest 

 in Bedfordshire, where Carew wrote, the seat of 

 Selden's Countess of Kent : 



" The Lord and Lady of this place delight 

 Rather to be in act than seem in sight ; 

 Instead of statues to adorn their wall, 

 They throng with living men their merry hall, 

 "Where at large tables fill'd with wholesome meats, 

 The servant tenant and kind neighbour eats. 

 Some of that rank, spun of a finer thread, 

 Are with the women, steward and chaplain fed 

 With daintier cates ; others of better note, 

 "Whom wealth, parts, office, or the herald's coat. 

 Have severed from the common, freely sit 

 At the Lord's table." 



Carew. To my friend G. N.,from Wrest. 



The instances from Gay and Pope, or rather 

 Swift, need no comment : 



" Cheese that the tables closing rites denies. 

 And bids me with th' unwilling chaplain rise." 



Gay, Trivia, 1716. 



" No sooner said, but from the hall 

 Rush chaplain, butler, dogs and all, 

 ' A rat, a rat, clap to the door.' " 

 Pope and Swift, Sixth Satire of Second Book of Horace. 



Peter Cunningham. 



Lifting at Easter. — A gentleman travelling by 

 railway, who had slept the previous night at the 

 hotel at Crewe, Avas on Easter Tuesday last seized 

 Ly a party of female servants, including an unc- 

 tuous kitchen-maid, forced into a chair, lifted from 

 the ground three times, and then kissed by each. 



This was in conformity with a custom in the 

 northern counties, which awards a similar privi- 

 lege to the men on Easter Monday, that is, of 

 lifting and kissing the women. 



The custom is mentioned in Brand's Popular 

 Antiquities, Ellis' ed. vol. i. p. 106., where it is 

 said, on the authority of The Gentleman's Maga- 

 zine for February, 1784, that lifting was originally 

 designed to represent our Saviour's resurrection. 



[* Wriglit, in his History of Essex, vol. ii. p. 57., 

 notices the monument, and has given the extract from 

 the burial register as the' inscription on it, bearing tlie 

 date of 1639. Robert was the Protector's first-born 

 son. — En.] 



The account proceeds : " The men lift the women 

 on Easter Monday, and the women the men on 

 Tuesday. One or more take hold of each leg, and 

 one or more of each arm, near the body, and lift 

 the person up in a horizontal position three times. 

 It is a rude, indecent, and dangerous diversion, 

 practised chiefly by the lower class of people. 

 Our magistrates constantly prohibit it by the bell- 

 man, but it subsists at the end of the town, and 

 the women have of late years converted It into a 

 money job. I believe it is chiefly confined to the 

 northern counties." 



Mr. Thomas Loggan, of Basinghall Street, in- 

 forms the world, through the Public Advertiser of 

 13th April, 1787, that he was lifted by the female- 

 servants of the Talbot, at Shrewsbury, and that 

 he had to pay a fee on the occasion. This the 

 gentleman at Crewe escaped. P. 



Remarkable Trees. — Affixed to a tree in the 

 beautiful and spacious park of Woburn Abbey, is 

 the following sonnet ; the tree, according to the 

 local tradition, being that upon which the last 

 abbot of that religious house was hung ; or, to- 

 borrow a pun from Professor Sedgwick, " They 

 took the abbot from his house, and suspended him."^ 



" O ! 'twas a ruthless deed, enough to pale 

 Freedom's bright fires, that doom'd to shameful death 

 Tliose that maintained their faith with latest breath. 

 And scorn'd beneath the despot's frown to quail ! 

 Yet 'twas a glorious hour when from the gaol 

 Of Papal tyranny the mind of man 

 Dared to break loose, and triumph in the ban 

 Of thunders warring in the distant gale ! 

 Yes, old memorial of the mitred monk. 

 Thou livest to flourish in a brighter day ; 

 Witli seeming joy, that pure and patriot vows 

 Are breath'd where superstition reign'd : thy trunk 

 Its glad green garlands wears, though in decay, 

 And pious red-breasts warble from thy boughs. 



B. B. Wiffm." 

 I am not aware whether these lines have ever 



been printed before. 



W. Spabeow Simpson, B.A. 



The Ember Weeks. — Wheatly says that some 

 derive the word Ember " from a German word 

 which signifies abstinence" [what is the German- 

 word here alluded to ?] ; some from embers being^ 

 the symbol of humiliation ; others from abstinence 

 from all food save cakes baked upon embers. He 

 gives the preference to Dr. Mareschal's conjecture, 

 which derives it from the Anglo-Saxon ymbren 

 (from ymb, afKpt, "about," and ryne, "to run"),, 

 a circuit or course : Ember days, i. e. fasts in 

 course. Bishop Sparrow only gives the Ember 

 cakes derivation, for which he quotes Tliomas 

 Becon. Mr. Deane (Serp. Wor., p. 329.) suggests 

 the Egyptian Amber, sacred, as tJie origin of the 

 word. Others again derive it from ffuepax. Had 

 comparative philology been earlier studied, these 



