CROSSES.

THE use of Crosses was exceedingly various in the olden time; hence no little confusion has arisen, and there appears to be some reason for concluding that they were not always of the same form or of the same material, but that these varied according to the purpose for which they were designed. They were often employed to mark the spot where any singular instance of God's mercy had been shown; and yet more frequently as a memorial of the traveller murdered by robbers, or of any one who had met with a violent death, and who, from his rank in life or the peculiar circumstances of the case, excited a more than usual interest. They were also erected where the corpse of any great personage had rested when being carried to the grave, for in those days the dead were prodigious travellers, and we often find them removing more than once or twice from what in their case would be erroneously called the final resting place. One object of these rests was that the bystanders and attendants might pray for the soul of the departed. Occasionally Crosses were erected in churchyards, to remind the people of the benefit vouchsafed tous by the Cross of our Saviour; and in yet earlier

times they were raised at most places of public concourse, or at the meeting of three or four highways. At these Crossesit was customary for mendicants to station themselves, and solicit charity for Christ's sake; whence they say in the north of England, when a person has been extremely urgent, " he begged like a cripple at a Cross." Penances were very commonly finished at Crosses; and as this was attended with weeping and the usual marks of contrition, they were commonly called Weeping Crosses. To this circumstance many allusions are made in our elder dramatists, the phrase generally assuming the form, that the person spoken of "would end at Weeping Cross," meaning of course that his conduct would end in vexation and repentance. Thus in the old comedy of EASTWARD HOE -"My daughter, his ladie, was sent Eastward by land to a castle of his i' the aire (in what region I know not), and, as I heare, was glad to take up her lodging in her coach, she and her two waiting women, her maide, and her mother, like three snailes in a shel, and the coachman a top on 'hem, I thinke. Since, they have all found the way backe againe by Weeping Cross."-Eastward Hoe, Sig. F. 3.

ALE-HOUSES.

IN THE OLDEN TIME.

Ox no subject is Dekker more vehement than the abuses of ale-houses; and to judge from his account, this crying evil of our own days existed to the same extent in the time of our forefathers. His satire is curious too from the hints of old customs scattered throughout it, and for which we should in vain seek for an explanation elsewhere. What follows is the most important part of a whole chapter upon this subject, and in his own words :'Not to meddle with the acts and statutes of all our former kings, what did King James, anno 1, against these exorbitants? It was then enacted, that whereas the ancient, true, and principall use of innes, ale-houses, and victualing houses, was for the receipt, reliefe, and lodging, of way-fayring people, to supply the wants of such as are not able by greater quantities to make their provisions of victualls, and not to harbour idle fellowes to consume their money and time in drunkennesse; it was therefore enacted that for every offence committed by any innekeeper, ale-house keeper, or victualer, they should forfeit ten shillings to the use of the poore. If these forfeits were truely paid, as they are truely made, the poore in some parish would be as merry as the rich.

"But now, for all this act, and for all the other statutes for the same purpose established since, how many parishes in England, how many in and about London, especially throughout all the suburbs, doe like ilands swim as it were in hot waters, strong beere, and headstrong ale! For to such a height is this sinne of drinking growne, that coblers, tinkers, pedlers, porters, all trades, all professions, sit tippling all day, all night, singing, dancing when they can stand-laughing, cursing, swearing, fighting.

“A whole street is in some places but a continuous alehouse; not a shop to be seen between a red lattice and a red lattice; * no workers but all drinkers; not a tradesman at his occupation, for every tradesman keeps in that place an ale-house. It is an easier life, a lazier life, a trade more gainful; no such commings in as those of the tap, insomuch that in most of the suburbian outroads the best men there that command the reste-the Grand Signors of the parish, as constables, head-boroughs, and other officers—are common ale-house keepers; and he that can lay in most guylest of beere, and be furnished

* That is, between ale-house and ale-house. Every reader of Shakspeare must recollect the way in which Falstaff's page describes the red nose of Bardolph.—“ He called me even now, my Lord, through a red lattice, and I could see no part of his face from the window." The indefatigable Malone and Douce have multiplied instances of the use of lattices painted red in ale-houses, and hence it often came to signify the ale-house itself, from its being in a manner peculiar to them. The most explicit instance of this kind, that I remember to have met with, is in "The Christmas Ordinary," by W. R., a Private Show, as the author calls it, but in fact a sort of Masque. 66 Where Red Lattice doth shine,

'Tis an outward sign

Good Ale is a Traffic within ;

It will drown your woe,

And thaw the old snow

That grows on a frosty chin." Scene 5.

"Guyles"-i. e. gills.

with the strongest ale, and headiest liquors, carryes the bucklers away from all his fellowes.*

"Now because the fashion of downright blowes in the ignoble schoole of drinking is growne stale, wickedness has invented new sorts of weapons to bewitch men—that love such kind of play-to goe reeling to destruction. In some places they have little Jacks† tipt with silver, and hung with small silver bells-these are called the Gyngle Boys-to ring peales of drunkenness. In other places they have shallow brown bowles, which they call Whiskins. Then you have another brewing, call'd Huff's Ale, at which, because no man must have but a pot at a sitting and so begone, the restraint makes men more eager to come on, so that by this policie one may huffe it foure or five times a day.

"These quaffings hurt thousands, and undoe many poore men, who would all follow their labours, but now live in beggary; their wives-unlesse they tipple hard too, as for the most part they doe by their evill examples, -starving at home, and their ragged children begging abroad. Then in some places instead of full quarts they have jugs of a pint and a halfe, with long necks embroydered, with froth cans not a wine pint for a penny; demycans, of draughts a piece; and a device of six earthen pipes, or hollow funnells, all into one, every funnell holding two spoonfulls." English Villanies, bl. 1. sig. J. 3.

*It would appear from this allusion, as well as from so many others in the old dramatists, that in the fight with bucklers, the bucklers themselves were considered the prize of victory. Thus to "give up the bucklers or to lay down the bucklers," was to yield, as to "bear away the bucklers" was to win. Steevens in his notes on Shakspeare has accumulated a multitude of illustrative passages. ✦ Jack, or Black Jacks,—pitchers of leather so called.

i. e. containing as much as would be taken off at an ordinary draught.