OLD-WORLD LORE. 
235 
the nineteenth century.” “The reader, before he can enjoy it” — we cannot 
do better than make Mr. Morris’s words our own — “must cast away the ex- 
ploded theory of the invincible and wilful ignorance of the days when it was 
written ; the people of that time were eagerly desirous for knowledge, and 
their teachers were mostly single-hearted and intelligent men, of a diligence and 
laboriousness almost past belief.” The author was an English Franciscan, who 
wrote in the middle of the thirteenth century, probably before 1260; it was 
translated into French in 1372, and into Dutch, Spanish, and English in 1397. 
The book was thus a product of the century which, according to Mr. Frederick 
Harrison, “ was in nothing one-sided and in nothing discordant. There was 
one common end, one ritual, one worship, one sacred language, one church, a 
single code of manners, a uniform scheme of society, a common system of educa- 
tion, an accepted type of beauty, a universal art, something like a recognised 
standard of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True.”* 
The curious contemporary beliefs regarding various branches of the subjects 
mentioned in the title are set forth in simple forcible language with a directness 
which sometimes raises a smile. We have only space for one extract — that in 
which the author describes the cat : — “ He is in youth swift, pliant, and merry, 
and leapeth and reseth [rushethj on everything that is tofore him : and is led 
by a straw, and playeth therewith : and is a right, heavy beast in age and full 
sleepy, and lieth slyly in wait for mice : and is aware where they be more by 
smell than by sight, and hunteth and reseth on them in privy places ; and when 
he taketh a mouse he playeth therewith, and eateth him after the play. In time 
of love is hard fighting for wives, and one scratcheth and rendeth the other 
grievously with biting and with claws. And he maketh a ruthful noise and 
gshatful when one profifereth to fight with another : and unneth [hardly] is hurt 
when he is thrown down ofif an high place. And when he hath a fair skin, he is 
as it were proud thereof, and goeth fast about : and when his skin is burnt, then 
he bideth at home, and is oft for his fair skin taken of the skinner, and slain 
and flayed.” 
There are notes on the authors quoted by Bartholomew, also a bibliography, 
a glossary, and an excellent index, so that nothing is wanting to make the work a 
valuable addition to any library. 
Mr. Elliot Stock also sends us another old-world book in the shape of Mr. 
R. C. Hope’s Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England (7s. 6d. ). Mr. Hope is 
well known as a worker in the history of the bygone times, and in this, “ the fir.'-t 
systematic attempt ” to bring together the traditionary lore connected with wells, 
rivers, springs and lakes, he brings to our notice a very varied and interesting collec- 
tion of facts. Works of this kind are, from their nature, always more or less incomplete, 
and we think it would have been well if Mr. Hope had brought his information a 
little more up to date. Which of the customs narrated by him still hold a place 
in popular observance? The Derbyshire “well-dressings” certainly do; yet he 
quotes no more recent account of the Buxton festival than one published in 1846 
in “ a local newspaper,” and of the still more famous one at Tissington a scarcely 
more recent description is given. The day or season of many of these observances 
(Buxton, Barlow, and others) is not mentioned. Mr. Hope is, to say the least of 
it, by no means definite in his references : “ a correspondent of the Gentleman' s 
JMagazine," for example, is very inadequate, and so are “ Penrith Observer ” and 
“ Denham Tracts.” And he might surely have ascertained for himself something 
about St. Gore’s Well in Kensington Gardens, of which he writes : “This well 
is said to be still visited by the faithful, who believe in the virtues of its waters,” 
and have told us more about so once-popular a resort as Bagnigge Wells than 
“two springs discovered 1767 — the one chalybeate, the other aperient.” The 
book is, however, a very interesting one. 
Fortnightly Revieti,, Sept., 1891. 
