do to archæological science by depositing printed copies of their works in the British Museum and the Library of the Society of Antiquaries?

PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE OPEN AIR.

Being most desirous to acquire sufficient knowledge of one or other of the various systems of photography, to enable me to take thoroughly accurate views of certain antiquarian remains, I wished to put myself under the tuition of some artist competent to instruct me. I called upon several, but, upon explaining the object I had in view, and stating that most of the antiquities I was anxious to copy lay far removed from human habitations, a doubt was raised as to the possibility of rendering photography available under such circumstances, unless I carried a tent along with me, in which, shaded from the light, the process of rendering sympathetic any of the various kinds of prepared paper, and of afterwards fixing the picture, could be performed. This, however, would be extremely inconvenient, and I would feel much indebted to any of your correspondents who would do me the favour to point out any system by which the tent could be dispensed with. Being a perfect novice in the art, I am not aware whether the same objection applies to Daguerre's method; that is, whether such an amount of shade is necessary; but if in this respect it were manageable, my feeling would be in favour of employing it, as, from all I can learn, an amateur would be much more likely to obtain good pictures by it, after shorter practice, than by any of the manifold systems in which prepared paper or albumenised glass is used. But, in short, what I wish to know is, what system would be most convenient, most easily acquired, and best adapted for the purpose I have in view? If any gentleman will kindly enlighten me on this point, he will perhaps be good enough also to inform me where the best portable apparatus can be obtained, and what treatise most clearly explains the process he may recommend to me?

A. H. R.

[We gladly insert this Query, in hopes that Dr. Diamond, whose specimens exhibited at Lord Rosse's soirées during the last season attracted such general admiration, will kindly give our correspondent the benefit of his great experience upon this very interesting subject.]

FOLK LORE.

The Application of Toads to Cancers.—Are there any well-authenticated cases of cures resulting from the application of toads to cancers? The naturalists of eighty years ago considered that the land-toad (Rubeta) possessed the property of sucking out the poison of the disease; and some remarkable "facts" are brought forward in proof of

the assertion. Do any medical men or quacks of the present day, in their treatment of cancer, prescribe "the toad as before"? or is this merely a bit of Folk Lore? CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A.

Salt-Box.-When entering a house in Wales, and purchasing some of the furniture, the property of a former occupant, a Welsh gentleman told me I must purchase the salt-box. I bid for that valuable piece of furniture, and no one attempted to bid against me. I was afterwards told ill-luck would follow me if I had not bought the salt-box. Whence this association of salt and good fortune? R. W. F. Bath.

go

Spitting for Luck, &c.-During my boyhood it was a common practice with children, when they saw a grey horse, to "spit three times," and " where the spit goes" (as the initiating phrase expressed it), in order to be lucky. The modus operandi was to eject spittle as far from the operator as possible, and for him to take his stand for the second ejection upon the spot where the first emission fell; and so for the third. The practice, notwithstanding the progress of education, has not entirely died out, as I find my own children have been taught the charm, or whatever it may be called. Can any of your correspondents explain the origin of this custom?

For two persons to wash their hands in the same water is deemed a cause of strife, unless the second person spits in the water. Whence the origin of this?

It is considered unlucky for a person to walk under a ladder, unless he spits three times. Can this be explained?

To spill salt on the table is considered unlucky. These matters are curious, and I should much like to see them elucidated. Ks. Plymouth.

Minor Notes.

Cromwell Family.- A few years since I copied the inclosed from the Register of Burials for the parish of Felsted, Essex :

"1623.

"Robertus Cromwell filius honorandi viri Mtis Olivari Cromwell et Elizabethæ uxoris ejus sepultus

fuit 31° die Maii, [et] Robertus fuit eximia spei juvenis, deum timens supra multos."

There was a tradition in the parish that this Robert was buried in the church porch, but I could find no trace of a monument.*Was he a son or nephew of the Protector?

For the connexion of the Cromwell family with Felsted, see Noble's History. METAOUO. Macaulay's Young Levite (Vol. i. passim).— Here are three additional evidences of the truth of Mr. Macaulay's picture to those given in "N. & Q." The first describes the life at Wrest in Bedfordshire, where Carew wrote, the seat of Selden's Countess of Kent:

"The Lord and Lady of this place delight
Rather to be in act than seem in sight;
Instead of statues to adorn their wall,
They throng with living men their merry hall,
Where at large tables fill'd with wholesome meats,
The servant tenant and kind neighbour eats.
Some of that rank, spun of a finer thread,
Are with the women, steward and chaplain fed
With daintier cates; others of better note,
Whom wealth, parts, office, or the herald's coat,
Have severed from the common, freely sit
At the Lord's table."

Carew. To my friend G. N., from Wrest. The instances from Gay and Pope, or rather Swift, need no comment:

"Cheese that the tables closing rites denies, And bids me with th' unwilling chaplain rise." Gay, Trivia, 1716. "No sooner said, but from the hall Rush chaplain, butler, dogs and all, A rat, a rat, clap to the door."" Pope and Swift, Sixth Satire of Second Book of Horace. PETER CUNNINGHAM.

Lifting at Easter. - A gentleman travelling by railway, who had slept the previous night at the hotel at Crewe, was on Easter Tuesday last seized by a party of female servants, including an unctuous kitchen-maid, forced into a chair, lifted from the ground three times, and then kissed by each.

This was in conformity with a custom in the northern counties, which awards a similar privilege to the men on Easter Monday, that is, of lifting and kissing the women.

The custom is mentioned in Brand's Popular Antiquities, Ellis' ed. vol. i. p. 106., where it is said, on the authority of The Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1794, that lifting was originally designed to represent our Saviour's resurrection.

[* Wright, in his History of Essex, vol. ii. p. 57., notices the monument, and has given the extract from the burial register as the inscription on it, bearing the date of 1639. Robert was the Protector's first-born son.-ED.]

The account proceeds: "The men lift the women on Easter Monday, and the women the men on Tuesday. One or more take hold of each leg, and one or more of each arm, near the body, and lift the person up in a horizontal position three times. It is a rude, indecent, and dangerous diversion, practised chiefly by the lower class of people. Our magistrates constantly prohibit it by the bellman, but it subsists at the end of the town, and the women have of late years converted it into a money job. I believe it is chiefly confined to the northern counties."

Mr. Thomas Loggan, of Basinghall Street, informs the world, through the Public Advertiser of 13th April, 1787, that he was lifted by the female servants of the Talbot, at Shrewsbury, and that he had to pay a fee on the occasion. This the gentleman at Crewe escaped. P.

Remarkable Trees. Affixed to a tree in the beautiful and spacious park of Woburn Abbey, is the following sonnet; the tree, according to the local tradition, being that upon which the last abbot of that religious house was hung; or, to borrow a pun from Professor Sedgwick, "They took the abbot from his house, and suspended him." "O! 'twas a ruthless deed, enough to pale

Freedom's bright fires, that doom'd to shameful death
Those that maintained their faith with latest breath,
And scorn'd beneath the despot's frown to quail!
Yet 'twas a glorious hour when from the gaol
Of Papal tyranny the mind of man
Dared to break loose, and triumph in the ban
Of thunders warring in the distant gale!
Yes, old memorial of the mitred monk,
Thou livest to flourish in a brighter day;
With seeming joy, that pure and patriot vows
Are breath'd where superstition reign'd: thy trunk
Its glad green garlands wears, though in decay,
And pious red-breasts warble from thy boughs.
B. B. Wiffen."

I am not aware whether these lines have ever

been printed before.

W. SPARROW SIMPSON, B.A.

The Ember Weeks.- Wheatly says that some derive the word Ember "from a German word which signifies abstinence" [what is the German word here alluded to?]; some from embers being the symbol of humiliation; others from abstinence from all food save cakes baked upon embers. He gives the preference to Dr. Mareschal's conjecture, which derives it from the Anglo-Saxon ymbren (from ymb, aμpı, “about," and ryne, "to run"), a circuit or course: Ember days, i. e. fasts in course. Bishop Sparrow only gives the Ember cakes derivation, for which he quotes Thomas Becon. Mr. Deane (Serp. Wor., p. 329.) suggests the Egyptian Amber, sacred, as the origin of the word. Others again derive it from epa. Had comparative philology been earlier studied, these

ingenious conjectures might have been saved. The word Ember is really a corruption of Quatuor tempora (just as Caresme or Carême is of Quadragesima). We have got it through the Dutch Quatertemper, or Quatemper, and Germ. Quatember Woche. I have met some note or other on the word ayyapeúa, which occurs St. Matt. v. 41., xxvii. 32.; St. Mark xv. 21., in which it is stated that the Germans call the Ember Weeks Angaries, because on those weeks the vassals pay their quitÉIRIONNACH. rents, services, &c. to their lords.

Shakspeare Folios-Would it not be interesting to the lovers of Shakspeare if there was a record in your pages of the "whereabouts" of the first folios, with their dimensions and condition? I cannot but think the various owners would be gratified to contribute such an account. The Notes might be kept back until a tolerably complete list was written, and then inserted in your columns. It perhaps might not be displeasing to many if a list even of the four editions was made out. I shall be glad to give an account of those in my possession. BONSALL.

Queries.

UNCOVERING THE HEAD AND UNCOVERING THE

FEET.

Amongst many contradictory_customs distinguishing the Oriental from the European, is that of uncovering the feet instead of the head, as a mark of reverence or respect.

The Orientals have high authority for their custom (see Exodus iii. 5.), and we find it widely spread; the Levites officiated in the Tabernacle with naked feet; the Druids, I believe, performed their sacred duties with naked feet; the Egyptian priests allowed no one to enter their temples without uncovering their feet: whether the Greeks, Romans, and other nations of antiquity observed the same rule, I know not. In modern times we find it general throughout the East, excepting, perhaps, the Hindoo-Chinese nations; though even among them I think the Siamese put off their shoes on approaching the presence of any great man. Traces of it may exist in Europe among Roman Catholics, in the form of barefooted friars, pilgrims, and penances, &c., and traces of it have existed even in the New World. The Peruvians, we are told, put off their shoes when approaching the boundaries of their Sun Temple, the Inca alone retaining his as far as the door, where he also bared his feet before entering the holy place (See Harris's Collection, vol. i. p. 82. fol.). Clavigero tells us that no one could enter the Palace of Motezuma without first pulling off his shoes and stockings at the gate. (Cullen's Translation, vol. i. p. 211. 4to.)

In Lewis and Clarke's Travels is the description

of their reception by a Shoshonee chief, with whom they smoked the "pipe of peace :'

"The chief then produced his pipe and tobacco, the warriors all pulled off their mocassins, and our party was requested to take off their own," &c.

I have omitted to note page, but think about 260., ed. 4to. I have several other notices of American but cannot just now refer to them. Indians uncovering their feet on solemn occasions,

If all mankind spread from a common centre, a centre where this custom of uncovering the feet in token of reverence, &c. prevailed, and had even been ordered by the Lord, as above quoted, whence does it arise that all European nations (and European only), rejecting the usages of their forefathers, and the command of God, have adopted so opposite a practice; and whilst polluting their holy places by standing on them with covered feet, are further guilty of the indecency (to say no worse of it), in the eyes of an Oriental, of uncovering the head? Why St. Paul should write to the Corinthians that every man praying, &c. with his head covered, dishonoureth his head (1 Cor. xi. 5.), although he offers a sort of explanation, verse 7., I do not exactly understand; unless because it was in the spirit of the people addressed, for the Greeks prayed with uncovered heads.

Whence comes this practice of uncovering the head in our places of worship at any and at all times; by what law is it enjoined? The 18th Ecclesiastical Canon (the only one bearing on the subject) ordains that all people shall be uncovered during divine service, except such as be sick, and they shall be permitted to wear a night-cap or coif;" no other exception, no exception in favour of officiating priest; and yet some dignitaries of our church habitually appear in black skull-caps (coif?).

66

Much remains to be said on the subject of uncovering heads and feet, but at present I am sensible of having trespassed so unconscionably, that I must express as briefly as possible my hope that some of your very numerous and learned correspondents will kindly answer the Queries respecting it. A. C. M.

Seeing in your list of "Books Wanted" mention made of Clare's Poems, feap. 8vo., last edit, induces me to send the following Notes and Queries respecting this gifted but unfortunate man. Of his writings I possess: Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, 1820; The Village Minstrel, and other Poems, 2 vols. 1821, (this work was bound in 1 vol., and lettered Poetic Souvenir, a few years since, to make it sell); The Rural Muse, 1835. Have these been republished collectively since 1835, with pieces composed by Clare in lucid intervals during his abode at Northampton?

In the Rural Muse there is a piece called the "Vanities of Life?" How far is this original? In Chambers' Journal for August, 1846, several stanzas of it are printed as quotations from "The Soul's Errand;" but neither the quotation, nor the collection of ballads from which it is taken, are in my possession. Are there any other instances in which John Clare has adopted others' productions as his own?

Should other instances be discovered, judgment must not be severe; since, sometime ago, one feature of Clare's affliction was that he believed himself to be the author of all the poems of which he had heard, and bitterly complained that his works should be published in the names of Milton, Shakspeare, Byron, &c. A. H. COWPER.

SCHONER'S ACCOUNT OF THE BRITISH ISLES.

The following account of the Britisli islands is found, and is all that is found, in the Opusculum Geographicum of John Schoner of Carlstadt, pub

lished in 1551. If any of your readers know of an earlier edition, I should like to have the particu lars of it.

Hybernia, quæ et Irlandia insula, ab hyberno tempore appellata, maxime pabulosa, nullum animal noxium gignit, multum fertilis, subest gradibus 100. 54.0. "Anglia, quæ et Albion, insula Britannica, olim cam inhabitarunt gigantes, populus intrepidus in bello, optimique sagittarii, lupos non gignit, nec illatos nutrit, idcirco vagum pecus et sine custode securum. Ejus præcipua civitas est Cantuaria, quæ apud Ptole. ex conjectura Davernum vocatur, subest gradibus 22.50. 52. 10. Huc adnavigatur ex Callas civit. Flandriæ.

"Scotia, pars septentrionalior Albionis insulæ, tenui freto sive fluvio ab Anglia dirempta. Natura invidi et contemptores cæterorum mortalium, plus nimio nobilitatem suam ostentantes, mendaces, nec pacem colunt ut Angli, mendicantes circa divorum templa, lapides in elemosinam a pretereuntibus colligunt in usum ignis, nam lignis caret, habet civitates præcipuas S. Andreas 16.15.57.50. S. Joannes 15.40.59. 55."

M.

THE CRYSTAL PALACE- WHO DESIGNED IT? In one of the carlier editions of Loudon's Ency clopædia of Gardening (that of 1822), at p. 926., paragraph 1600, there occurs the following very remarkable passage:

"Indeed there is hardly any limit to the extent to which this sort of light roof might not be carried: several acres, even a whole country residence, might be covered in this way, by the use of hollow cast-iron for the water which fell on the roof. columns as props, which might serve also as conduits . . The plan of such a roof might either be flat ridges, or octagon or hexagon cones, with a supporting column at each angle, raised to the height of a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet from the ground, to admit of the tallest oriental trees, &c. The great majority of readers will no doubt consider these ideas as sufficiently extravagant; but there is no limit to human improvement; and few things afford a greater proof of it than the comforts and luxuries man receives from the use of glass."

In later editions of the work this passage was suppressed, the author having probably deemed his idea altogether too extravagant for realisation; but if the originator of the Crystal Palace had never met with the above-quoted suggestions of a brother gardener, we must only consider his happy idea as one of those startling "coincidences" so summarily disposed of by Mr. Puff in The Critic, and "all that can be said is, that two people happened to hit on the same thought." Such coincidences are not uncommon among poets. Virgil, as every schoolboy knows, had reason to complain of them, and some very remarkable instances of them have at times appeared in your pages. If Shakspeare had the start of Puff, we must accord to Loudon precedency of Paxton; though surely, if Sir Joseph was aware of a prior claim