CXXV. Antiquity of the use of the Ring in the Marriage Service. MR. URBAN, A CORRESPONDENT inquires the reason, why the ru bric of the marriage-service, in our Liturgy, directs the priest to take the ring, and to "deliver it to the man, to put it upon the fourth finger of the woman's left hand.” In answer to this inquiry I have to remark, that it appears from Aulus Gellius's entertaining Miscellany (lib. X. cap. 10,) that the ancient Greeks, and most of the Romans, wore their ring on this very finger: in digito sinistræ manus qui minimo est proximus. He adds, that Apion says, that a small nerve runs from this finger to the heart; and that, therefore, it was honoured with the office of bearing the ring on account of its connexion with that master-mover of the vital functions. Macrobius (Saturnal. lib. VII. cap. 13) assigns the same reason; but also quotes the opinion of Atteius Capito, that the right-hand was exempt from this office because it was much more used than the left-hand, and therefore the precious stones of the rings were liable to be broken; and that the finger of the left-hand was selected which, was the least used. The reasons here so gravely alleged are, perhaps, equally absurd. They serve, however, to shew the antiquity of the practice. It is well known that, when the empire became Christian, the clergy retained as many customs and usages as were indifferent, for the purpose of conciliating the minds of the people, and promoting the progress of their religion. Finding this practice established, they adopted it into their ritual; perhaps, from the supposed connexion of this hand with the heart, in token of sincerity; and to imply, that the contracting parties with their hands made also an interchange of hearts. That the ring was used by the Romans in marriage, see Juvenal, Sat. VI. ver. 27. It is well known with how much moderation and temper our Reformers proceeded in clearing the ritual from the corruptions of the church of Rome. Such usages as had received the sanction of the Catholic church before the springing up of the Papal usurpation, and such as were not unscriptural or idolatrous, they preserved. Hence the resemblance between the English Liturgy and the Romish Breviary, which ignorance, with her usual petulance, is ever forward to object to the church of England, is, in effect, highly honourable to her, inasmuch as it shews her reverence for primitive antiquity, her liberality in admitting reformation when indispensable, and her wisdom in rejecting needless innovation. How little the Reformation has varied our office of matrimony, may appear from a comparison of the following passage of Chaucer's Merchant's Tale with the opening exhortation to that office: "Ther speketh many a man of mariage, Of children, to the honour of God above, A little farther on, he describes the marriage ceremony, and alludes to two collects still in use; "But finally y-comen is the day That to the chirche bothe ben they went, For to receive the holy sacrament. Forth cometh the preest, with stole about his nekke, And bade hir be like Sara and Rebekke, In wisdome and in trouthe of mariage: And sayd his orisons, as is usage, And crouched hem, and bade God shuld hem blesse, Thus we see the great antiquity of some of our modern eeremonies; a subject on which I have elsewhere touched, and on which Dr. Taylor had made large collections. Indeed, if we may believe him," the present ceremony (now in fashion all over Europe,) of "saluting the bride" is to be - derived from the practice of the ancient Romans, among whom the husband and his relations used to salute the wife, in order to perceive whether she had been guilty of drinking wine, which they made equally criminal with adultery. The Doctor concludes: "If my reader was acquainted with but half the passages I could produce, wherein inodern customs, though somewhat alienated from their original design and institution, retain however so much of their old feature or complexion, as to claim an indisputable relation to some Roman or Grecian solemnity, he would not be startled, as perhaps he was, at the first mention of this opinion. I was tempted here to lay before him an instance or two of this sort, of which I have by me a plentiful collection; but was checked upon the reflection that I but very lately took him out of the road to shew him a prospect, and therefore rather chose to prosecute my journey, to which it is possible he may now have no objection." Elements of Civil Law, p. 357. I believe most readers will unite with me in lamenting that this learned writer followed his second thoughts in this instance, and will permit me to repeat my hopes that the collection above-mentioned may not be for ever concealed from the public eye. 1795, Sept. SCIOLUS CXXVI. Druidical Customs retained in Cornwall. MR. URBAN, I IT is a research no less interesting than amusing, to trace back several customs and expressions now used to their Druidical or Saxon original. I am informed by a friend, that an immemorial and peculiar custom prevails on the sea-coast of the Western extremity of Cornwall, of kindling large bonfires on the evening of June 24; and on the next day, the country people, assembling in great crowds, amuse themselves with excursions on the water. For the origin of this, no satisfactory reason can be given; therefore, conjecture is allowable, where certainty cannot be attained. cannot help thinking it the remains of an ancient Druidical festival, celebrated on Midsummer-day, to implore the friendly influence of Heaven on their fields, compounded with that of the first of May, when the Druids kindled large fires on all their sacred places, and on the tops of all their cairns, in honour of Bel, or Belinus, the name by which they distinguished the sun, whose revolving course had again clothed the earth with beauty, and diffused joy and gladness through the creation. Their water-parties on the 24th prove, that they consider the summer season as now so fully established, that they are not afraid to commit themselves to the mercy of the waves. If we reflect on the rooted animosity which subsisted between the Romans and Druids, and that the latter, on being expelled from their former residences, found, together with the miserable remnants of the Britons, an asylum in the naturally-fortified parts of the island, we shall not be surprised at their customs having been faintly handed down through such a long succession of ages. That Cornwall was one of their retreats is sufficiently proved by the numerous remains of their circular temples, cromlechs, cairns, &c. though of the sacred groves in which they were embosomed no vestiges now remain. We all know the avidity with which mankind adhere to, and with what reluctance they lay aside, usages delivered down to them by their ancestors, and familiar to themselves. And, when we farther consider the inveterate hatred with which the Romans endeavoured to extirpate the Druidical customs, it is not wonderful that this very circumstance should have 'been the means of fixing them more deeply in those places where they were preserved; as persecution has in all cases a natural tendency to strengthen what it is its wish to eradicate. Nay even in the eleventh century, when Christianity was become the national religion, the people were so attached to their ancient superstitions, that we find a law of Canute the Great strictly prohibiting all his subjects from paying adoration to the sun, moon, sacred groves and woods, hallowed hills and fountains. If then this propensity to idolatry could not be rooted out of those parts of the kingdom exposed to the continual influx of foreigners, and the horrors of frequent war, how much more must it have flourished in Cornwall, and those parts, where the Druids long preserved their authority and influence! It may then be fairly inferred, that, from their remote situation, and comparative insignificancy with the rest of England, they preserved those religious solemnities unmolested; and, corrupted as they must naturally be by long usage and tradition, yet are handed down to us to this day with evident marks of a Druidical origin. Our holy festival of Christmas retains in some parts of this island, particularly in Lincolnshire, the Saxon appellation of Yule, which was a peculiar solemnity, celebrated about the winter solstice, in honour of Thor, the son of Odin, and frequently conducted, according to the genius of our Saxon ancestors, with the utmost excess of feasting, drinking, &c. 4795, April, DRUIDICUS, CXXVII. Signification of Sempecta and Ferculum. MR. URBAN, IN your last volume an inquiry was made after an earlier use of the word Sempecta than is to be found in Ingulphus's account of Croyland abbey. Not any notice having been since taken of it in your Miscellany, I am induced to repeat the question; and may I be allowed the freedom of submitting it to the attention of your learned correspondent at Winchester, than whom I am not apprized of any person more likely to make a satisfactory report? L. E. seems too hastily to have advanced that Sempecta frequently occurs in the Monkish writers. Antiquariolus, at p. 383, of the present volume, has properly referred the Historian of Evesham Abbey to Ainsworth, instead of Dufresne, for the meaning of Ferculum, but İ rather think that the true rendering of it is a dish or mess, and not a meal; because the members of the great religious houses were careful to have a constant and copious supply for their tables of flesh, fish, and fowl. Well known is the facetious Fuller's (Hist. of Abbeys, b. vi. p. 299) pleasant and true story of the method pursued by King Henry VIII. to bring to a relish of a sirloin of beef an abbot of Reading, "whose weak and squeezie stomach, from a too free indulgence in many choice and high-seasoned viands, would hardly digest the wing of a small rabbit or chicken." And, by one of the statutes of Archbishop Winchelsey for the better government of the members of Christ-church, Canterbury, a restriction to one dish was imposed as a penalty on an offending brother, who, by words or needless actions, should interrupt the lecture enjoined to be read during a meal': "Item, refectione durante, omnes monachi ad lectionem aures inclinent, nulla intersigna nisi ad refectionem necessaria interim facientes. Et qui contrafecerit, in ipso refectorio in crastino comedens, pane, et potagio, et uno duntaxat ferculo sit, contentus; et si id postea iteret, solo pane ac potagio se ibidem reficiat illo die; ac totiens pœnam ipsam sustineat quotiens delictum hujusmodi præsumpserit iterare." (Wilkins Concil. ii. p. 246.) Nor were the secular brethren of the hospital of St. Cross, at Winchester, stinted in general to one mess; for, each of the thirteen had daily a loaf of good wheat bread; a sufficient quantity of pottage; three messes at dinner, namely, |