374 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 23. 
custom which appears to have long existed. In 
the Memorials of John Ray, published by the Ray 
Society, p. 131., there is the following entry in his 
second Itinerary : — 
«July the 26th, 1661, we began our journey north- 
wards from Cambridge, and that day, passing through 
Huntingdon and Stilton, we rode as far as Peterborough 
twenty-five miles. There I first heard the Cathedral 
service. The choristers made us pay money for coming 
into the choir with our spurs on.” 
East Wincu. 
[The following note from The Book of the Court will 
serve to illustrate the curious custom referred to by 
our correspondent : — 
“In The Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII. 
edited by Sir Harris Nicolas, there occur several 
entries of payments made to the choristers of Windsor 
‘in rewarde for the king’s spurs’; which the editor 
supposes to mean ‘money paid to redeem the king’s 
spurs, which had become the fee of the choristers at 
Windsor, perhaps at installations, or at the annual 
celebration of St. George’s feast.’ No notice of the 
subject occurs in Ashmole’s or Anstis’s History of the 
Order of the Garter. Mr. Markland, quoting a note 
to Gifford’s edition of Ben Jonson, vol, ii, p.49., says, 
‘In the time of Ben Jonson, in consequence of the 
interruptions to Divine Service occasioned by the 
ringing of the spurs worn by persons walking and 
transacting business in cathedrals, and especially in 
St. Paul’s, a small fine was imposed on them, called 
“spur-money,” the exaction of which was committed 
to the beadles and singing-boys.’ This practice, and 
to which, probably, the items in Henry’s household- 
book bear reference, still obtains, or, at least, did till 
very lately, in the Chapel Royal and other choirs. 
Our informant himself claimed the penalty, in West- 
minster Abbey, from Dr. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, 
and received from him an eighteenpenny bank token 
as the fine. He likewise claimed the penalty from the 
King of Hanover (then Duke of Cumberland), for 
entering the choir of the Abbey in his spurs. But 
His Royal Highness, who had been installed there, 
excused himself with great readiness, pleading ‘his 
right to wear his spurs in that church, inasmuch as it 
was the place where they were first put on him !’— See 
further, European Mag., vol. iii. p. 16.”] 
MINIMUM DE MALIS, 
(From the Latin of Buchanan.) 
Calenus owed a single pound, which yet 
With all my dunning I could never get. 
Tired of fair words, whose falsehood I foresaw, 
T hied to Aulus, learned in the law. 
He heard my story, bade me “ Never fear, 
There was no doubt—no case could be more 
clear :— 
He'd do the needful in the proper place, 
And give his best attention to the case.” 
And this he may have done—for it appears 
To have been his business for the last ten years, 
Though on his pains ten times ten pounds bestow’d 
Have not regain’d that one Calenus owed. 
Now, fearful lest this unproductive strife 
Consume at once my fortune and my life, 
I take the only course I can pursue, 
And shun my debtor and my lawyer too. 
I’ve no more hope from promises or laws, 
And heartily renounce both debt and cause — 
But if with either rogue I’ve more to do, 
I'll surely choose my debtor of the two ; 
For though I credit not the lies he tells, 
At least he gives me what the other sells. 
Rourvs. 
Epigram on Louis XIV.—I find the following 
epigram among some old papers. ‘The emperor 
would be Leopold L., the king Louis XIV. 
Epigram by the Emperor, 1666, and the King of France. 
Bella fugis, sequeris bellas, pugnaque repugnas, 
Et bellatori sunt tibi bella tori. 
Imbelles imbellis amas, totusque videris 
Mars ad opus Veneris, Martis ad arma Venus. 
J.H.L. 
Macaulay's Young Levite.—I met, the other 
day, with a rather curious confirmation of a pas- 
sage in Macaulay's History of England, which has 
been more assailed perhaps than any other. 
In his character of the clergy, Macaulay says, 
they frequently married domestics and retainers 
of great houses —a statement which has grievously 
excited the wrath of Mr. Babington and other 
champions. In a little book, once very popular, 
first published in 1628, with the title Microcosmo- 
graphie, or a Piece of the World discovered, and 
which is known to have been written by John 
Earle, after the Restoration Bishop of Worcester 
and then of Salisbury, is the following passage. 
It occurs in what the author calls a character of 
“a young raw preacher.” 
«You shall know him by his narrow velvet cape and 
| serge facing, and his ruffe, next his hire, the shortest 
thing about him. . . . His friends, and much paine- 
fulnesse, may preferre him to thirtie pounds a yeere, 
and this meanes, to a chamber-maide: with whom we 
leave him now in the bonds of wedlocke. Next Sun- 
day you shall have him againe.” 
The same little book contains many very curi- 
ous and valuable illustrations of contemporary 
manners, especially in the universities. 
That the usage Macaulay refers to was not un- 
common, we find from a passage in the Woman- 
Hater, by Beaumont and Fletcher (1607), Act IU. 
Se. 3. 
Lazarillo says, — 
«« Farewell ye courtly chaplains that be there! 
All good attend you! May you never more 
Marry your patron’s lady’s waiting-woman !” 
LT 
Trin. Coll. Camb., March 16. 1850, 
SSS es ; 
