Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853

O. M

N. M. M. H. E. P. N. C."

He reads the first three letters "Deo Optimo Maximo," and says the subsequent line contains the initials of the following hexameter:

"Nunc mea, mox hujus, et postea nescio cujus,"

alluding to the successive descent of property from one generation to another.

Perhaps one of your readers may be enabled to tell me whether the above line be original, or copied, and from whom.

    P. H. Fisher.

Stroud.

The agreement referred to is no other than the famous treaty of peace between Alfred and Guthrun, whose name, by the substitution of an initial "L." for a "G.," among various other inaccuracies for which your correspondent is perhaps not responsible, has been disguised under the form of "Lvthrvnvs." The inscription itself forms the commencement of the treaty, which is stated, in Turner's Anglo-Saxons, book iv. ch. v., to be still extant. It is translated as follows, in Lambard's Αρχαιονομια, p. 36.:—

"Fœdus quod Aluredus & Gythrunus reges ex sapientum Anglorum, atque eorum omnium qui orientalem incolebant Angliam consulto ferierunt, in quod præterea singuli non solum de se ipsis, verum etiam de natis suis, ac nondum in lucem editis (quotquot saltem misericordiæ divinæ aut regiæ velint esse participes), jurarunt.

"Primo igitur ditionis nostræ fines ad Thamesim fluvium evehuntor: Inde ad Leam flumen profecti, ad fontem ejus deferuntor: tum rectà ad Bedfordiam porriguntor, ac denique per Usam fluvium porrecti ad viam Vetelingianam desinunto."

Another translation will be found in Wilkins's Leges Anglo-Saxonicæ, p. 47., and the Saxon original in both. As to the boundaries here defined, see note in Spelman's Alfred, p. 36.

At Cirencester Guthrun remained for twelve months after his baptism, according to his treaty with Alfred. (See Sim. Dunelm. de gestis Regum Anglorum, sub anno 879.)

    J. F. M.

CURIOUS CUSTOM OF RINGING BELLS FOR THE DEAD

(Vol. viii., p. 55.)

W. W., alluding to such a custom at Marshfield, Massachusets, asks "if this custom ever did, or does now exist in the mother country?" The curiosity is that your worthy Querist has never heard of it! Dating from Malta, it may be he has never been in our ringing island: for it must be known to every Englishman, that the custom, varying no doubt in different localities, exists in every parish in England.

The passing bell is of older date than the canon of our church, which directs "that when any is passing out of this life, a bell shall be tolled, and the minister shall not then slack to do his duty. And after the party's death, if it so fall out, then shall be rung no more than one short peal."

It is interesting to learn that our colonists keep up this custom of their mother country.

In this parish, the custom has been to ring as quickly after death as the sexton can be found; and the like prevails elsewhere. I have known persons, sensible of their approaching death, direct the bell at once to be tolled.

Durand, in his Rituals of the Roman Church, says: "For expiring persons bells must be tolled, that people may put up their prayers: this must be done twice for a woman, and thrice for a man." And such is still the general custom: either before or after the knell is rung, to toll three times three, or three times two, at intervals, to mark the sex.[6 - This custom of three tolls for a man, and two for a woman, is thus explained in an ancient Homily on Trinity Sunday:—"At the deth of a manne, three bells should be ronge as his knyll in worship of the Trinitie. And for a woman, who was the second person of the Trinitie, two bells should be ronge."]

"Defunctos plorare" is probably as old as any use of a bell; but there is every reason to believe that—

"the ringing of bells at the departure of the soul (to quote from Brewster's Ency.) originated in the darkest ages, but with a different view from that in which they are now employed. It was to avert the influence of Demons. But if the superstition of our ancestors did not originate in this imaginary virtue, while they preserved the practice, it is certain they believed the mere noise had the same effect; and as, according to their ideas, evil spirits were always hovering around to make a prey of departing souls, the tolling of bells struck them with terror. We may trace the practice of tolling bells during funerals to the like source. This has been practised from times of great antiquity: the bells being muffled, for the sake of greater solemnity, in the same way as drums are muffled at military funerals."

    H. T. Ellacombe.

Rectory, Clyst St. George.

At St. James' Church, Hull, on the occurrence of a death in the parish, a bell is tolled quickly for about the space of ten minutes; and before ceasing, nine knells given if the deceased be a man, six if a woman, and three if a child. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the custom is now almost peculiar to the north of England; but in ancient times it must have been very general according to Durandus, who has the following in his Rationale, lib. i. cap. 4. 13.:

"Verum aliquo moriente, campanæ debent pulsari; ut populus hoc audiens, oret pro illo. Pro muliere quidem bis, pro eo quod invenit asperitatem.... Pro viro vero ter pulsator.... Si autem clericus sit, tot vicibus simpulsatur, quot ordines habuit ipse. Ad ultimum vero compulsari debet cum omnibus campanis, ut ita sciat populus pro quo sit orandum."—Mr. Strutt's Man. and Cust., iii. 176.

Also a passage is quoted from an old English Homily, ending with:

"At the deth of a manne three bellis shulde be ronge, as his knyll, in worscheppe of the Trinetee; and for a womanne, who was the secunde persone of the Trinetee, two bellis should be rungen."

In addition to the intention of the "passing-bell," afforded by Durandus above, it has been thought that it was rung to drive away the evil spirits, supposed to stand at the foot of the bed ready to seize the soul, that it might "gain start." Wynkyn de Worde, in his Golden Legend, speaks of the dislike of spirits to bells. In alluding to this subject, Wheatly, in his work on the Book of Common Prayer, chap. xi. sec. viii. 3., says:

"Our Church, in imitation of the Saints of former ages, calls in the minister, and others who are at hand, to assist their brother in his last extremity."

The 67th canon enjoins that, "when any one is passing out of this life, a bell shall be tolled, and the minister shall not then slack to do his duty. And after the party's death, if it so fall out, there shall be rung no more than one short peal."

Several other quotations might be adduced (vid. Brand's Antiq., vol. ii. pp. 203, 204. from which much of the above has been derived) to show that "one short peal" was ordered only to be rung after the Reformation: the custom of signifying the sex of the deceased by a certain number of knells must be a relic, therefore, of very ancient usage, and unauthorised by the Church.

    R. W. Elliot.

Clifton.

WHO FIRST THOUGHT OF TABLE-TURNING?

(Vol. viii., p. 57.)

Respecting the origin of this curious phenomenon in America, I am not able to give your correspondent, J. G. T. of Hagley, any information; but it may interest him and others among the readers of "N. & Q." to have some account of what appears to be the first recorded experiment, made in Europe, of table-moving. These experiments are related in the supplement (now lying before me) to the Allgemeine Zeitung of April 4, by Dr. K. Andrée, who writes from Bremen on the subject. His letter is dated March 30, and begins by stating that the whole town had been for eight days preceding in a state of most peculiar excitement, owing to a phenomenon which entirely absorbed the attention of all, and about which no one had ever thought before the arrival of the American steam-ship "Washington" from New York. Dr. Andrée proceeds to relate that the information respecting table-moving was communicated in a letter, brought through that ship, from a native of Bremen, residing in New York, to his sister, who was living in Bremen, and who, in her correspondence with her brother, had been rallying him about the American spirit-rappings, and other Yankee humbug, as she styled it, so rampant in the United States. Her brother instanced this table-moving, performed in America, as no delusion, but as a fact, which might be verified by any one; and then gave some directions for making the experiment, which was forthwith attempted at the lady's house in Bremen, and with perfect success, in the presence of a large company. In a few days the marvellous feat, the accounts of which flew like wildfire all over the country, was executed by hundreds of experimenters in Bremen. The subject was one precisely adapted to excite the attention and curiosity of the imaginative and wonder-loving Germans; and, accordingly, in a few days after, a notice of the strange phenomenon appeared in The Times, in a letter from Vienna, and, through the medium of the leading journal, the facts and experiments became rapidly diffused over the world, and have been repeated and commented upon ten thousand fold. As the experiment and its results are now brought within the domain of practical science, we may hope to see them soon freed from the obscurity and uncertainty which still envelope them, and assigned to their proper place in the wondrous system of "Him, in whom we live, and move, and have our being."

    John Macray.

Oxford.

SCOTCHMEN IN POLAND

(Vol. vii., pp. 475. 600.)

"Religious freedom was at that time [the middle of the sixteenth century] enjoyed in Poland to a degree unknown in any other part of Europe, where generally the Protestants were persecuted by the Romanists, or the Romanists by the Protestants. This freedom, united to commercial advantages, and a wide field for the exercise of various talents, attracted to Poland crowds of foreigners, who fled their native land on account of religious persecution; and many of whom became, by their industry and talents, very useful citizens of their adopted country. There were at Cracow, Vilna, Posen, &c., Italian and French Protestant congregations. A great number of Scotch settled in different parts of Poland; and there were Scotch Protestant congregations not only in the above-mentioned towns, but also in other places, and a particularly numerous one at Kieydany, a little town of Lithuania, belonging to the Princes Radziwill. Amongst the Scotch families settled in Poland, the principal were the Bonars, who arrived in that country before the Reformation, but became its most zealous adherents. This family rose, by its wealth, and the great merit of several of its members, to the highest dignities of the state, but became extinct during the seventeenth century. There are even now in Poland many families of Scotch descent belonging to the class of nobles; as, for instance, the Haliburtons, Wilsons, Ferguses, Stuarts, Haslers, Watsons, &c. Two Protestant clergymen of Scotch origin, Forsyth and Inglis, have composed some sacred poetry. But the most conspicuous of all the Polish Scotchmen is undoubtedly Dr. John Johnstone [born in Poland 1603, died 1675], perhaps the most remarkable writer of the seventeenth century on natural history. It seems, indeed, that there is a mysterious link connecting the two distant countries; because, if many Scotsmen had in bygone days sought and found a second fatherland in Poland, a strong and active sympathy for the sufferings of the last-named country, and her exiled children, has been evinced in our own times by the natives of Scotland in general, and by some of the most distinguished amongst them in particular. Thus it was an eminent bard of Caledonia, the gifted author of The Pleasures of Hope, who, when

'Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime,'

has thrown, by his immortal strains, over the fall of her liberty, a halo of glory which will remain unfaded as long as the English language lasts. The name of Thomas Campbell is venerated throughout all Poland; but there is also another Scotch name [Lord Dudley Stuart] which is enshrined in the heart of every true Pole."—From Count Valerian Krasinski's Sketch of the Religious History of the Sclavonic Nations, p. 167.: Edinburgh, Johnstone and Hunter, 1851.

    J. K.

ANTICIPATORY USE OF THE CROSS

(Vol. vii., pp. 548. 629.)

I think The Writer of "Communications with the Unseen World" would have some difficulty in referring to the works on which he based the statement that "it was a tradition in Mexico that when that form (the cross) should be victorious, the old religion should disappear, and that a similar tradition attached to it at Alexandria." He doubtless made the statement from memory, and unintentionally confounded two distinct facts, viz. that the Mexicans worshipped the cross, and had prophetic intimations of the downfall of their nation and religion by the oppression of bearded strangers from the East. The quotation by Mr. Peacock at p. 549., quoted also in Purchas' Pilgrims, vol. v., proves, as do other authorities, that the cross was worshipped in Mexico prior to the Spanish invasion, and therefore it was impossible that the belief mentioned by The Writer, &c. could have prevailed.

On the first discovery of Yucatan,—