then playing at dice. For besides, that therin is no maner of exercise of the body or minde, they which play thereat, must seeme to haue no portion of witte or cunnyng, if they will be called fayre players, or in some company auoyde the stabbe of a dagger, if they bee taken with any craftie conueyance." In "The Common Cries of London," an early Elizabethan ballad by W. Turner, there is a curious passage seeming to shew that the street-liawkers used sometimes to carry dice in their pockets either for amusement, or for the purpose of practising on some inexperienced customer: Ripe, cherry ripe! The costermonger cries; For to play at mumchance." Comp. London. Dr. Wilde left a sum of money by will, the interest of which was to be invested in the purchase of Bibles, which were to be tossed for every year at the Communion-table at the parish church at St. Ives, in Huntingdonshire, by six boys and six girls, being parishioners. The operation now takes place in the vestry. Jonson seems to have informed Drummond of Hawthornden in 1619, that at Christmas Eve, when Queen Elizabeth would play at dice, there were special ones provided for her, so that her highness might always win. Masson's Drummond, 1873, p. 94. Compare Cards. Dick o' Tuesday.-See Will o' the Wisp. Diet or Debates (The).-A social game at cards, played with a pack of 24. Twelve of the cards have costume figures. The inscriptions are in French, German, and English. The set before me appears to belong to 1830 or thereabouts. Dish Fair.-Drake tells us that "A Fair is always kept in Mickle Gate (York) on St. Luke's Day, for all sorts of small wares. It is commonly called Dish_ Fair, from the great quantity of wooden dishes, ladles, &c., brought to it. There is an old custom used at this fair of bearing a wooden ladle in a sling on two stangs about it, carried by four sturdy labourers, and each labourer was formerly supported by another. This, without doubt, is a ridicule on the meanness of the wares brought to this fair, small benefit accruing to the labourers at it. Held by Charter Jan. 25, an. Reg. Regis, Hen. vii. 17." Eboracum, p. 219. Distaff's (St.) or Rock Day.(January 7). So this day is jocularly termed by Herrick in his Hesperides, 1648, and by Henry Bold, in his Wit a Sporting, 1657, in some lines copied from the earlier writer. Divinations. Divinations differ from omens in this, that the omen is an indication of something that is to come to pass, which happens to a person, as it were by accident, without his seeking for it whereas divination is the obtaining of the knowledge of something future by some endeavour of his own, or means which he himself designedly makes use of for that end. There were among the ancients divinations by water, fire, earth, air; by the flight of birds, by lots, by Gaule enumedreams, by the wind, &c. rates as follows the several species of divination : "Stareomancy, or divining by the elements; äeromancy, or divining by the ayr; pyromancy, by fire; hydromancy, by water; geomancy, by earth; theomancy, pretending to divine by the revelation of the spirit, and by the Scriptures or word of God; dæmonomancy, by the suggestions of evill' dæmons, or devils; idolomancy, by idolls, images, figures; psychomancy, by men's souls, affections, wills, religious or morall dispositions; antinopomancy, by the entrails of men, women, and children; theriomancy, by beasts; ornithomancy, by birds; ichtyomancy, by fishes; botanomancy, by herbs; lithomancy, by stones; cleromancy, by lotts; orniromancy, by dreams; onomatomancy, by names; arithmancy, by numbers; logarithmancy, by logarithmes; sternomancy, from the breast to the belly; gastromancy, by the sound of or signs upon the belly; omphalomancy, by the navel; chiromancy, by the hands; pedomancy, by the feet; onychomancy, by the nayles; cephalonomancy, by brayling of an asses head; tuphramancy, by ashes; capnomancy, by smoak; livanomancy, by burning of frankincence; carromancy, by melting of wax; lecanomancy, by a basin of water; catoxtromancy, by looking glasses; chartomancy, by writing in pa(this is retained in chusing valenpers tines, &c.); "macharomancy, by knives or swords; christallomancy, by glasses; dactylomancy, by rings; coseinomancy, by sieves; axinomancy, by sawes; cattabomancy, by vessels of brasse or other metall; roadomancy, by starres; spatalomancy, by skins, bones, excrements; sciomancy, by shadows; astragalomancy, by dice; oinomancy, by wine; mancy, by figgs; typomancy, by the coagulation of cheese; alphitomancy, by meal, flower, or branne; critomancy, by grain or corn; alectomancy, by cocks or pullen; by gyromancy, syco by rounds or circles; lampadomancy, candles and lamps; and in one word for all, nagomancy or necromancy, by inspecting, consulting, and divining by, with or from the dead. was Borlase says that the Druids "besides the ominous appearance of the entrails, had several ways of divining. They divined by augury, that is, from the observations they made on the voices, flying, eating, mirth or sadness, health or sickness of birds." Antiq. of Cornwall, p. 133. A later writer tells us that Boadicea or Bonduca is said to have taken an omen with a hare, and that on that account this animal was eschewed as an article of food-a fact mentioned by Cæsar in his Commentaries. But he proceeds to mention that the hare not eaten by the Cymry in the tenth century. and was regarded as worthless, insomuch, that in the laws of Hoel Dda it was not protected as the goose was, by any fine; and there was a notion indeed that it changed its sex from year to year, becoming alternately a male and a female. Notes on Ancient Britain, by W. Barnes, 1858, p. 5. In Caxton's Description of England," we read: "It semeth of these men a grete wonder that in a boon of a wethers ryght sholder whan the fleshe is soden awaye and not rosted, they knowe what have be done, is done, and shall be done, as it were by spyryte of prophecye and a wonderful crafte. They telle what is done in ferre countres, tokenes of peas or of warre, the state of the royame, sleynge of men, and spousebreche, such thynges theye declare certayne of tokenes and sygnes that is in suche a sholder bone." Drayton mentions: "A diuination strange the Dutch-made- By th' shoulder of a ram from off the Which vsuallie they boile, the spadeboane being bar'd, Which when the wizard takes, and gazes there-vpon, Things long to come fore showes, as things done long agon." He alludes to a colony of Flemings in Pembrokeshire. Polyolbion, Song v., p. 81, 84-5. We are referred to Giraldus Cambrensis, i., cap. 11. Selden writes hereupon: "Under Hen. II., one William Mangunel, a gentleman of those parts, finding, by his skill of prediction, that his wife had played false with him, and conceiued by his own nephew, formally dresses the shoulder-bone of one of his own rammes; and, sitting at dinner, (pretending it to be taken out of his neighbours' flocke), requests his wife (equalling him in these divinations) to giue her judgment: she curiously observes, and at last with great laughter casts it from her; the gentleman importun ing her reason of so vehement an affection, receiues answer of her, that his wife, out of whose flocke that ram was taken, had by incestuous copulation with her husband's nephew fraughted herself with a yong one. Lay all together, and iuge, gentlewomen, the sequele of this cross accident. But why she could not as well diuine of whose flocke it was, as the other secret, when I haue more skill in osteomantie, I will tell you." Pennant gives an account of this sort of divination as used in Scotland and there called sleinanachd, or reading the speal bone, or the blade-bone of a shoulder of mutton, well scraped (Mr. Shaw says picked; no iron must touch it). When Lord Loudon, he says, was obliged to retreat before the rebels to the Isle of Skie, a common soldier, on the very moment the battle of Culloden was decided, proclaimed the victory at that distance, pretending to have discovered the event by looking through the bone. "Tour in Scotland," 1769, p. 155. See also his "Tour to the Hebrides," p. 282, for another instance of the use of the speal bone. The word speal is evidently derived from the French espaule, humerus. Hanway gives us to understand, that in Persia, too, they have a kind of divination by the bone of a sheep. Travels, i., 177. Owen, in his "Welch Dictionary," voce Cyniver, mentions "A play in which the youth of both sexes seek for an even-leaved sprig of the ash: and the first of either sex that finds one, calls out Cyniver, and is answered by the first of the other that succeeds; and these two, if the omen fails not, are to be joined in wedlock." Divination by arrows is ancient, according to Gibbon, and famous in the East. D. and F., 4°, ed. x., 345. Brooke, in his "Ghost of Richard the Third," 1614, figures the the ancient forms of divination to ascerking in his youth endeavouring by one of tain his destiny. The poem is, in imitation of the "Mirror for Magistrates," written in the first person: Then at the slaughter-house, with hungry sight, Vpon slaine beasts my sensuall part did feede; And (that which gentler natures might affright) I search'd their entrayles, as in them to reade (Like th' ancient bards) what fate should thence betide." Lilly the astrologer made, it should seem by the desire of Charles I. an experiment, to know in what quarter of the nation the King might be most safe, after he should have effected his escape, and not be discovered until he himself pleased. Madame Whorewood was deputed to receive Lilly's judgment. He seems to have had high fees, for he owns he got on this occasion | twenty pieces of gold. It seems to have been believed that there was some divination, or other supernatural medium, by which the robbers of orchards might be detected, for in "Cataplus, a Mock Poem," 1672, the writer says of the Sibyl: master, We cannot have an apple in the orchard, But straight some fairy longs for 't." Of course, however, in this particular case, the fairies are counterfeit, like those in the "Merry Wives of Windsor "; while in the story in A C. Mery Talys, 1526, folio v. the depredators are mistaken for evil spirits. Charms or spells for divining purposes are, or not very long ago at least were, made by our peasantry in various districts from the blades of the oat, wheat, and even, according to Miss Baker, of the reed. Clare describes the special uses of these in his Shepherd's Calendar. It is still a common amusement with girls to ascertain, as they pretend, whom they are going to marry, to take some description of grass, and to count the spiral fronds, saying: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich man, Poor man, Beggar man, Thief, Anglo-Saxons and Danes embraced the Christian religion, the clergy were commanded by the canons to preach very frequently against diviners, sorcerers, auguries, omens, charms, incantations, and all the filth of the wicked and dotages of the Gentiles." Hist. of Gr. Britain, ii., 550, 4°, ed. He cites Johnson's Eccl. Canons, A.D. 747, c. 3. Divining Rod.-Not only the Chaldeans used rods for divination, but almost every nation, which has pretended to that science, has practised the same method. Herodotus mentions it as a custom of the Scythians, Ammianus Marcellinus, of a tribe of that nation, the Alani, and Tacitus of the old Germans. Bartholinus, p. 676. Divination by the rod or wand is mentioned in the prophecy of Ezekiel. infected with the like superstition: "My Hosea, too, reproaches the Jews as being their staff declareth unto them." We read people ask counsel at their stocks, and in the Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1751: "So early as Agricola the divining rod was in much request, and has obtained great credit for its discovering where to dig for metals and springs of water; for some years past its reputation has been on the decline, but lately it has been revived with great success by an ingenious gentleman who from numerous experiments hath good reason to believe its effects to be more than imagination. He says that hazel and willow rods, he has by experience found, will actually answer with all persons in a good state of health, if they are used with moderation and at some distance of time, and after meals, when the operator is in good spirits. The hazel, willow, and elm are all attracted by springs of water: some persons have the virtue intermittently; the rod in their hands will attract one half hour, and repel the next. The rod is attracted by all metals, coals, amber, and lime stone, but with different degrees of strength. The best rods are those from the hazel or nut tree, as they are pliant and tough, and cut in the winter months. A shoot that terminates equally forked is to be preferred, about two feet and a half long; but as such a forked rod is rarely to be met with, be tied together with thread, and will antwo single ones, of a length and size, may swer as well as the other." It has been alleged that "the experiment of a hazel's tendency to a vein of lead ore is limited to St. John Baptist's Eve, and that with an hazel of that same year's growth." Athenian Oracle, Suppl., 234. Gay describes some other rustic methods of divination with hazel nuts, and he mentions two other kinds by the lady-fly and by apple-parings. Pennant mentions that this was still employed and credited within his memory, and was supposed, by having a sympathy with the hidden ore, to supersede the "Virgula divina. Some sorcerers do boast they have a rod, hazel's tendency to a vein of lead ore, seam or stratum of coal, &c., seems to be a vestige of this rod divination. The virgula divina, or baculus divinatorius, is a forked branch in the form of a Y, cut off an hazel or apple-stick of twelve months' Sat-growth by means whereof people have pretended to discover mines or springs, &c., under ground. The method of using it is this: the person who bears it, walking very slowly over the places where he suspects mines or spring may be, the effluvia exhaling from the metals, or vapour from the water impregnating the wood, makes it dip or incline, which is the sign of a discovery. The manner was, to hold the rod with both hands horizontally, and to go along the tract of land where the lode was supposed to lie, until the rod bent of itself, which at once indiin-cated the presence of the desired metal. Such an experiment is known to have been made, in perfect good faith, not stated in 1866 that it was still employed many years since. Mr. Baring-Gould in Wiltshire (and on the Continent) for this purpose. See Vallemont "Physique Occulte, ou Traité de la Baguette Divinatoire; et de son utilité pour la decouverte des sources de l'eau de rivières, de Trésors cachez, &c." 1693. Also Lilly's "History of his Life and Times," p. 32, for a curious experiment (which he confesses however to have failed in) to discover hidden treasure by the hazel rod. As regards the discovery of springs underground by this process, the belief in it is said still to have survived in Normandy in 1874. Vaux de Vire, of Jean le Houx, by Muirhead, 1875, Sheppard's Epigr. 1651, p. 141. I find the following account from Theophylact on the subject of rabdomanteia or rod divination: "They set up two staffs; and having whispered some verses and incantations, the staffs fell by the operation of dæmons. Then they considered which way each of them fell, forward, backward, to the right or left hand, and agreeably gave responses, having made use of the fall of their staffs for their signs." Bell's MS. Discourse on Witchcraft, 1705, p. 41. In Camerarius we read: "No man can tell why forked sticks of hazill (rather than sticks of other trees growing upon the very same places) are fit to shew the places where the veines of gold and silver are, the sticke bending itselfe in the places, at the bottome, where the same veines are." Living Librarie, 1621, p. 283. In the "Gentleman's Magazine "for February, 1752, it is observed: "M. Linnæus, when he was upon his voyage to Scania, hearing his secretary highly extol the virtues of his divining wand, and willing to convince him of its insufficiency, and for that purpose concealed a purse of one hundred ducats under a ranunculus, which grew by itself in a meadow, and bid the Secretary find it if he could. The wand discovered nothing, and M. Linnæus mark was soon trampled down by the company who were present; so that when M. Linnæus went to finish the experiment by fetching the gold himself, he was utterly at a loss where to seek it. The man with the wand assisted him, and he pronounced that it could not lie the way they were going, but quite the contrary: so pursued the direction of his wand, and actually dug out the gold. M. Linnæus adds, that such another experiment would be sufficient to make a proselyte of him." The notion, still prevalent in the North and other mining districts of England, of the p. xvi. lusus nature of ash tree bough, resembling With the divining rod seems connected a the litui of the Roman augurs and the Christian pastoral staff, which still obtains a place, if not on this account I know not why, in the catalogue of popular superstitions. In the last century Brand himself saw one of these, which he thought extremely beautiful and curious, in the house of an old woman at Beer Alston, in Devonshire, of whom he would most gladly have purchased it; but she declined parting with it on any account, thinking it would be unlucky to do so. Gostling has some observations on this subject. He thinks the lituus or staff with the crook at one end, which the augurs of old carried as badges of their profession and instruments in the superstitious exercise of it, was not made of metal, but of the substance above mentioned. Whether, says he, to call it a work of art or nature may be doubted: some were probably of the former kind: others Hogarth, in his Analysis of Beauty," calls lusus naturæ, found in plants of different sorts, and in one of the plates to that work gives a specimen of a very elegant one, a branch of ash. I should rather, continues he, style it a distemper or distortion of nature; for it seems the effect of a wound by some insect which, piercing to the heart of the plant with its proboscis, poisons that, while the bark remains uninjured, and proceeds in its growth, but formed into various stripes, Hatness and curves, for want of the support which Nature designed it. The beauty some of these arrive at might well consecrate them to the mysterious fopperies of heathenism, and their rarity occasion imitation of them by art. The pastoral staff of the Church of Rome seems to have been formed from the vegetable litui, though the general idea is, I know, that it is an imitation of the shepherd's crook. The engravings given in the Antiquarian Repertory are of carved branches of the ash. Antiq. Repert., 1807, ii., 164. Moresin, in his "Papatus,' 0. 126, says: "Pedum Episcopale est Litui Augurum, de quo Livius, i." 66 Divisions of Time.-The day, civil and political, has been divided into thirteen parts. The after-midnight and the dead of the night are the most solemn of them all, and have therefore, it should seem, been appropriated by ancient superstition to the walking of spirits. 1. After midnight. 2. Cock-crow. 3. The space between the first cock-crow and break of day. 4. The dawn of the morning. 5. Morning. 6. Noon. 7. Afternoon. 8. Sunset. 9. Twilight. 10. Evening. 11. Candle-time. 12. Bed-time. 13. The dead of the night. The Church of Rome, according to Durandus De Nocturnis, made four nocturnal vigils: the conticinium, gallicinium or cock-crow, intempestum, and antelucinum. There is a curious discourse on this subject in Peck's "Desiderata Curiosa," vol. i. p. 223, et seq. The distribution of the day into two equal terms of twelve hours ante and post meri diem was in early times only partially observed. Hazlitt's Venetian Republic, 1900, ii., 607. Dog.—An opinion prevails that the howling of a dog by night in a neighbourhood is a presage of death to any that are sick in it. Keuchenii Crepundia, 113. Dogs have been known to stand and howl over the bodies of their masters, when they have been murdered, or died an accidental or sudden death: taking such note of what is past, is an instance of great sensibility in this faithful animal, without supposing that it has in the smallest degree any prescience of the future. Keuchenius adds, that when dogs rolled themselves in the dust, it was a sign of wind; which is also mentioned by Gaule and Willsford in their often-quoted works. The latter observes: "Dogs tumbling and wal lowing themselves much and often upon the earth, if their guts rumble and stink very much, are signs of rain or wind for certain." Shakespear, in Henry VI., part iii., act v. sc. 6, ranks this among omens: "The owl shriek'd at thy birth-an evil sign! The night-crow cry'd, aboding luckless time; Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees." Home speaks of this portent as a sign of death; which, adds Alexander Ross, is "plaine by historie and experience." Demonologie, 1650, p. 60. Grose substantiates this view, and indeed the superstition is still a common one among all classes of people. The following passage is cited in Poole's English Parnassus, 1657, v. Omens: 'The air that night was fill'd with dismal groans, And people oft awaked with the howls Of wolves and fatal dogs." "Julius Obsequens sheweth" (says Alexander Ross) that there was an extraordinary howling of dogs before the sedition in Rome, about the dictatorship of Pompey: he sheweth also, (c. 127) that before the civil wars between Augustus and Antonius, among many other prodigies, there was great howling of dogs near the house of Lepidus the Pontifice. Camerarius tells us that some German princes have certain tokens and peculiar presages of their deaths, amongst others are the howling of dogs. Capitolinus tells us that the dogs by their howling presaged the death of Maximinus. Pausanias (in Messe) relates that before the destruction of the Messenians, the dogs brake out into a more fierce howling than ordinary; and we read in Fincelius that in the year 1553, some weeks before the overthrow of the Saxons, the dogs in Mysina flocked together, and used strange howlings in the woods and fields. The ing the Roman calamities in the Pharsalike howling is observed by Virgil, presaglick War. So Statius and Lucan to the same purpose." this belief, Defoe clearly leant to unaccountable as it might ing was spontaneous. Mem. of Duncan seem,' ," in cases, of course, where the howlCampbel, 1732, p. 76. Homer, in the Odyssey," makes the dogs of Eumæus remains invisible to Telemachus. I scarcely cognize Minerva, while the goddess reknow if Douce thought that this was an evidence that the ancients credited the animal with the faculty of seeing ghosts: but the heathen divinities were endowed with the power of manifesting themselves to any particular person in a company, without being seen by the others. In the |