Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

Irish prince that caused shields and targets | it became soon that of learned men and of of pure silver to be fabricated at Airgidros; which with chariots and fine horses he bestowed on the most intrepid of his soldiers, as the reward of merit. This mode of honour was not peculiar to the Irish nation; since we read that Solomon caused three hundred targets of beaten gold and thirty shields of the same metal to be made for similar purposes."-O'HALLORAN.

[Moran the Wise.]

"So great was the reputation of Moran for wisdom and justice, that the gold collar he wore round his neck was used by all his successors, and so wonderful were the effects attributed to it, that the people were taught to believe that whoever gave a wrong decree with this round his neck, was sure to be compressed by it, in proportion to his diverging from the line of truth; but in every other instance it would hang loose and easy.

"The supposed virtue of this collar was a wonderful preservative from perjury and prevarication, for no witness would venture into a court to support a bad cause, as he apprehended the effects of it, if placed round his neck. This cannot be better illustrated than by observing that, even at this day, to swear dar an Joadh Mhoran, by the collar of Moran, is deemed a most solemn appeal." -Ibid.

[Introduction of Coffee at Constantinople.]

"THEY had no knowledge of coffee, and there existed not any place where it was sold at Constantinople and in all Romillia before the year 962 of the Hegira. It was then that two individuals, the one a native of Damascus, named Okems, and the other of Aleppo, named Hakem, came to Constantinople, and opened each in the quarter Takhtecalah a great shop, and began to sell this liquor. This shop was at first the rendezvous of indolent people and idlers, but

wits; they formed parties in twenty or thirty places of this shop. Among those who frequented it some occupied themselves in reading books, others in playing at trictrac and at chess, others finally carried new poetry, and discussed upon the sciences. As it cost them only a few aspers, those who wished to bring their friends together instead of giving them entertainments, regaled them there with coffee, and did thus their business cheaply. The people out of employ who were at Constantinople to solicit places, the Cadies, the Mouderris, and all those who having nothing to do retired into a corner, came to meet there, saying that they found no place where they could amuse themselves thus. Finally this shop was so frequented that they could find no place to sit down, the reputation of the coffee increased to such a point that many distinguished persons, excepting those who were invested with dignities, came there without reserve. The Imans, the Mouezins, and the devotees of profession, began to cry that the people ran to the coffee-house, and that nobody came to the mosques. The Oulemas above all pronounced openly against this liquor, and maintained that it was much better to go to the tavern than to the coffeehouse. The waiz or preachers made great efforts to prohibit this liquor. The Mufty's pretending that all that which was roasted in such a manner as to be converted into coal was prohibited by the law, gave authentique decisions in this sense. Under the reign of Mourad III. the prohibitions were renewed; but some amateurs obtained from the officers of the police Soubachis permission to sell this liquor in the back shops and in the dead alleys hid from the eyes of the public. Since this time the use spread so much that they ceased to prohibit it. The Preachers and the Muftys having changed their opinion, declared that this substance was not carbonized, and that it might be taken to the Ckeikhs, the Oulemas, the Viziers, and all the grandees took it without distinction: it came to a point

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

James Parnel at Colchester. 1655. "He was put into the Hole in the Wall, a room much like to a Baker's oven; for the walls of that building, which is indeed a direful nest, are of an excessive thickness, as I have seen myself, having been in the Hole where this pious young man ended his days, as will be said by and by. Being confined in the said hole, which was as I remember about twelve foot high from the ground, and the ladder too short by six feet; he must climb up and down by a rope on a broken wall, which he was forced to do to fetch his victuals, or for other necessities: for though his friends would have given him a cord and a basket to draw up his victuals in, yet such was the malice of his keepers that they would not suffer it.

Continuing in this moist hole, his limbs grew benumbed; and thus it once happened, that as he was climbing up the ladder with his victuals in one hand, and come to the top thereof, catching at the rope with his other, he missed the same, and fell down upon the stones, whereby he was exceedingly wounded in his head, and his body so bruised that he was taken up for dead. Then they put him into a hole underneath the other; for there were two rows of such

vaulted holes in the wall. This hole was called the oven, and so little, that some Baker's ovens were bigger, though not so high. Here the door being shut was scarcely any air, there being no window or hole.

"And after he was a little recovered from his fall, they would not suffer him to take the air, though he was almost spent for want of breath; and though some of his friends, viz. William Talcot, and Edward Grant, did offer their bond of forty pounds to the Justice, Henry Barrington, and another, whose name was Thomas Shortland, to lye body for body, that Parnel might but have liberty to come to W. Talcot's house, and return when recovered, yet this was denied, nay, so immoveable were they set against him, that when it was desired that he might walk a little sometimes in the yard they would not grant it by any means, and once the door of the hole being open, and he coming forth and walking in a narrow yard between two high walls, so incensed the jailor that he locked up the hole, and shut him out in the yard all night, being in the coldest time of the winter. This hard

imprisonment did so weaken him, that after ten or eleven months he fell sick and died. At his departure there were with him, Thomas Shortland, and Ann Langley: and it was one of these (that came often to him) who long after brought me into this hole where he died."-SEWEL'S History of the Quakers.

[The Doom of One who despises his Soul.]

"VIRI quidam aliquando sederunt in tabernâ, honesti quod ad externam formam, et biberunt, cumque mero incaluissent, cœperunt de variis, et illatus est sermo quid futurum sit post hanc vitam? Tunc unus, Vanissimé, inquit, à nostris parochis decipimur, qui dicunt animas sine corporibus vivere post ruinam. Hoc dicto in risum omnibus concitatis, advenit homo staturæ ingentis, et illis accumbens vinum poscit, bibit, quæritque quis sermo sit inter ipsos? De ani

HOARE - SIR JAMES WARE.

mabus, ait, idem qui supra. Si quis esset qui meam vellet emere, foro optimo eam darem, et de precio in communi omnibus ad bibendum. Tunc cachinnantibus omnibus, ille qui supervenerat, talem mercem equidem quæro, paratus sum eam emere, dic quanti dabis? et ille elato vultu, tanti, inquit. Convenit; solvit emtor, statum precium biberunt pleno calice omnes lætabundi, non curante illo quod animam suam vendidisset. Sub vesperam, Tempus est, ait emtor, ut quisque ad propria revertatur. Vos tamen combibones, antequam separemur, ferte judicium: si quis equum emerit capistro alligatum, annon cum equo in jus ementis cederet et capistrum? cunctis annuentibus, absque morâ venditorem, quæstionis et responsionis horrore trementem, animâ et corpore, cunctis videntibus sursum abripit, et ad inferna præcipitat."-SPHINX.

[Brachanus's Four and Twenty Daughters.] "A POWERFUL and noble personage, by name Brachanus, was in ancient times the ruler of the province of Brecheinoc, and from whom it derived this name. The British histories testify that he had four and twenty daughters, all of whom, dedicated from their youth to religious observances, happily ended their lives in sanctity. There are many churches in Wales distinguished by their names, one of which, situated on the summit of a hill near Brecheinoc, and not far from the castle of Aberhodni, is called the church of St. Almedha, after the name of the holy virgin who, refusing there the hand of an earthly spouse, married the Eternal King and triumphed in a happy martyrdom; to whose honour a solemn feast is annually held in the beginning of August, and attended by a large concourse of people from a considerable distance, when those persons who labour under various diseases, through the merits of the blessed virgin, receive their wished for health. The circumstances which occur at every anniversary appear to me remarkable. You may

365

see men and girls, now in the church, now in the churchyard, now in the dance, which is led round the churchyard with a song, on a sudden falling on the ground as in a trance, then jumping up as in a frenzy, and representing with their hands and feet, before the people, whatever work they have unlawfully done on feast days; you may see one man put his hand to the plough, and another as it were goad on the oxen, mitigating their sense of labour by the usual rude song: one man imitating the profession of a shoemaker; another that of tanner. Now you may see a girl with a distaff, drawing out the thread and winding it again on the spindle, another walking, and arranging the threads for the web; another as it were throwing the shuttle, and seeming to weave. On being brought into the church, and led up to the altar with their oblations, you will be astonished to see them suddenly awakened, and coming to themselves. Thus by the divine mercy, which rejoices in the conversion, not in the death of sinners, many persons from the conviction of their senses are on these feast days corrected and amended."-HOARE'S Giraldus, vol. 1, p. 35.

[Irish Custom of Colouring Linen with

Saffron.]

"THE Irish had a custom of colouring all their linen apparel with saffron, to save the charges of washing, as Sir Richard Cox would have us believe; though more probably they used that practice by way of ornament, as the Picts and Britons coloured their bodies. They wore their shirts and smocks of an immoderate size, thirteen or fourteen yards of cloath in each; but to reform these customs the statute 28 Henry VIII. was made, whereby they were prohibited under a penalty from wearing any shirt, smock, kerchor, bendel (i. e. a fillet), neckerchor, mocket (a handkerchor), or linen cap coloured or dyed with saffron, or to wear in their shirts or smocks above 7 yards of

366

LANCELOT DU LAC-PERCIVAL.

cloath, to be measured according to the King's | had left it in his drawing; a thing, said the standard."-SIR JAMES WARE.

stranger, which is worthy of admiration, and which being considered, moves one to tears, and makes one imagine piously a thought for the greater glory of the Virgin, which in having left holding her Son to hold a sinner who, perhaps, if he had fallen, would have been damned."-QUÆRE?

[ocr errors]

the Castle.]

"WHEN the Damsel saw the Seneschal before her, who was the man in the world whom she hated the most, her heart was inflamed and her countenance kindled, and she made answer to him haughtily like an angry woman, Certes, Seneschal, since I have known myself I never saw thing whereof I was more joyful than I am to have thee in my power, for well do I now mean to take vengeance for being exiled and disinherited by means of thee. Thereupon she made his hands and feet be tied, and those of his companion also, and her men knew not yet what she would do with them. And she commanded that the petrary (la perriere) should be placed right against the tent of her uncle, for I chuse (said she) that he should know in what manner I will teach his knights to fly. As soon as the Damsel had thus commanded them they who were within did accordingly; for they put the two knights in the petrary and sent them on high over the walls of the castle."-LANCELOT DU LAC, p. 2, ff. 23.

[The Painter and the Virgin.] "CONCERNING Images which the heretics contemn, I will tell a story, which a traveller from the land in which it happened related to me, which appears to me most worthy to be known by the devotees of the virgin of any that I have ever heard or read of. He [Knights set in the Petrary, and hoisted over told me that in the chapel of a church a famous painter was painting a picture of the Virgin, and having painted the face, the shoulders, and one arm, he was sketching the hand with which she held the most precious Child, when the scaffold upon which he stood, and on which he had his colours, got loose from the timbers which supported it by means of two holes in the wall. The frightened painter, seeing it give way, and that he should be precipitated to the ground, which was so deep that he would have been dashed to pieces, cried out to the most holy image which he was painting, Virgin hold me! O astonishing miracle, scarce had the trembling tongue pronounced these words when the compassionate lady put forth the painted arm from the wall and caught the painter by his and held him firm. The scaffold came to the ground with the colours which were in large pots, and there being fire also to keep them melting, because the picture was in distemper, made so great a noise that the people of the church thought at least that the roof of the chapel had fallen from its foundation and come to the ground; but perceiving what it was, and having come out to see if there was any remedy for the soul of the painter, for of his body they thought nothing, they lifted up their eyes and saw the Virgin, although not finished, with one arm out of the wall holding the man. They all cried out Misericordia! and praised our peerless intercessor, they put ladders, and having brought him to the ground, the arm withdrew and returned to the wall as the painter

[ocr errors]

[The Preux Chevaliers and the Knights

Mamelot.]

THE Romance of PERCIVAL mentions a distinction in Arthur's court between the Preux Chevalliers, and those who, not having yet entitled themselves to that distinction were called Knights Mamelot.

"Avant en la salle se sevient les chevalliers qui alors furent chevalliers Mamelot

JACQUELINE - PERCIVAL.

367

nommez; et estoit ceste coustume establye, | Begllirick, one of the captains, was reserved que au jour que le Roy court tenoit ja nul to be at the Countess's discretion: who, a table ne se seoit; mais sur chappes et sur notwithstanding, had leave given him to go manteaulx mengeoient sans nappes, ne sans and visit his friends, having past his word aulchun linge; et pour ceste cause on cong- and oath to return to prison within a month, noissoit lequel fust le meilleur ou le pire. the which having performed according to Celluy qui chevallier Mamelot estoit, fust his promise, he was in the night buried qui son seigneur rescoux navoit en aulchun alive under one of the platforms of the lieu de mort, ou de prison; ou quil navoit castle."-History of the Netherlands, p. 137. son corps en adventure mis, tant quil eust en armes conquis chevallier que fust renomme en forest, en que, ou en plainne, ou eust une pucelle recousse, chambriere, dame ou damoiselle, ou de honte delivrée dont elle fust blasmée a tort, devant la majeste du roy Arthus; ou eust en luy tant de vertu quil eust telle prouesse faict par laquelle il deust estre mis au nombre des preux Chevalliers qui en la Court devant le Roy estoient assis, et mis en prys et renommee."-ff. 166.

[Horrid Barbarity.]

1423. JACQUELINE, Countess of Henault, sent Floris of Kishock with men to surprise the town of Schoonhourn, the which he effected happily through the assistance of some townsmen well affected to the said lady but he could not recover the castle without a siege of six weeks, at the end whereof he forced them to yield to have their goods and lives saved: only Albert

[The Damoselle and Alardin du Lac.]

A DAMSEL who falls in love with Alardin du Lac at first sight, seeing him from a window tells him of a tournament which is about to be held. "Alardin fust lors fort joyeulx quant par la pucelle entend que si vaillans et preux se deuvent a la jouste trouver, et de la joye quil en eust faisoit son cheval pour saillir si hault quil sembloit qui vollast ce que tant pleust a la pucelle que le cueur au ventre luy dance; tant est ja la pucelle de lamour du chevallier esprinse quelle ne sçait tenir maniere, tantost paslist, tantost tressue, et souvent luy mue la coulleur, regardant le beau chevallier auquel elle a donne son cueur et octroye par bonne amour; et pour secretement faire ceste chose asscavoir a Alardin pas singe, luy donna la manche de sa cotte que nous appellons mancherons, de quoy il feist ung confanon ou banerolle a sa lance.”—PERCIVAL, ff. 83.

« AnteriorContinuar »