LOVING-CUP CUSTOMS 313 side, when the one next to him rises, the one on the left of the Mayor still standing. Then the cup is passed across the table to him, when his left-hand neighbour stands : so that there are always three standing at the same timeone next to the person who drinks, and one opposite to him. Lichfield, it would therefore seem, must in ancient days have been a dangerous place to dine at-no less than two pledges being needed when a man drank from a two-handled cup in public. In many places the cover of the loving-cup is held over the head of the person drinking by his neighbours on his right and left hands. This, no doubt, was likewise protective in origin. The custom prevailed (I do not know if it is so still) at Queen's College, Oxford, for the scholars who wait upon their fellows to place their two thumbs on the table. The same ceremony, a writer says, is used in some parts of Germany whilst the superior drinks the health of the inferior. The inferior, during this, places his two thumbs on the table, and therefore is incapacitated from making any attempt upon the life of the person who is drinking. In order not to drink more than a fair share of the wine in the loving-cup, it was always the custom at Peterhouse, Cambridge, that no breath should be taken after the lips had once touched the rim; on breaking this rule a fine was imposed, usually the providing of another fill of the cup. In the early Victorian era it was the custom to bequeath mourning-rings to friends and relatives, some of which contained hair from the head of the dear departed. In some families a custom used to prevail which seems much more sensible. Instead of the customary mourning-ring, cups of family love bequeathed to the surviving children and grandchildren seem a pleasanter and more unselfish form of memento. Such are easily procured or made, and the custom might with advantage be followed to-day. In 1742 a dear old grandmother left a cup of love to each of her grandchildren, with a Latin inscription which roughly rendered was : "A grandmother a cup of love, Oft as they meet and drink may they And mingled with the ground." 1 In these strenuous, mercenary, calculating days we want more loving-cups. We want more old grandmothers to leave cups of love to their children and grandchildren. And why should these loving-cups be only bequeathed? Why should not many rich people give loving-cups in their lifetime, and live to see the enjoyment they would give, the happiness and kindly feeling they would engender? Just think what untold kindly feeling would be caused by occasionally passing round a loving-cup in a workhouse. Even a convict prison would be none the worse, I venture to say, for the presence on stated or star occasions of a lovingcup passing the round. All convicts are not bad. In the worst criminal are good traits. Loving-cups can only foster and encourage the good. It is a contradiction of terms to say a loving-cup can do evil. But then a loving-cup should be suitably endowed. It is no use leaving a loving-cup in your will unless you leave the wherewithal to fill it, and let the filling be generous and good, and in keeping with the beauty and intention of the vessel itself. To give and endow a loving-cup is comparatively a small matter. A few hundred pounds will furnish and for ever equip such a cup, and yet how few, if any, think of this simple and inexpensive way of affording an immense amount of innocent pleasure and happiness to a vast number of their fellows. "Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love"; and the loving-cup is just an attempt, feeble no doubt, 1 Notes and Queries, 2nd S., 7, p. 279. The Latin inscription ran: "10 Junii, 1742 Poculum Charitatis Nepotibus suis singulis et neptibus Ut quoties alii alios interviserent, Et memores quo affectu eos ipsa dellexit CIVIC MACES OF ST. IVES 315 but a noble one, to give a practical expression or illustration of that sentiment so truthfully and feelingly expressed by Sir Walter Scott. And if a motto be wanted for engraving on a loving-cup, perhaps these lines of Edwin Arnold, from his Light of Asia, will better meet that want than any other I know :"Have good-will To all that lives, letting unkindness die And greed and wrath; so that your lives be made But besides the famous Peace Loving-Cup the borough of St. Ives possesses two other pieces of ancient and interesting civic plate. The two silver maces-I weighed them and found them to be five and a half pounds together-are of silver, each beautifully chased and engraved with the coat of arms of the borough on top, and female figures in repoussé pierced work round the head. They have large dents upon them as though they had been forcibly used at some time as weapons. There were formerly but one policeman for the borough and two sergeants of mace who were constables. These latter made the tour of the town and visited the inns at closing-time, and were called out on special occasions to assist the policeman. Probably they always carried the maces with them, and used them on unruly citizens when occasion required. The Sir Francis Bassett who gave the massive silver loving-cup to St. Ives obtained for the borough its first charter in 1639, when it was made a municipality, with a mayor, recorder, and town clerk. In the accounts for 1639-40, which I looked up, I read: “Item. More given to Mr. Robert Arundle when he brought the cupp given by his Maister to our Towne £2 -a considerable gratuity for those days, when we read: "To Andrew Lawrie for his wages being Towne Clarke 8s."! The arms were thus blazoned for St. Ives: Argent an ivy branch, whole field vert. CHAPTER XXXII THE POWER OF SEVEN AND THE MAN WITH SEVEN WIVES STtions "As I was going to St. Ives I met a man with seven wives; Each cat had seven kits, Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, How many were there going to St. Ives?" NT. IVES holds a distinguished place in the recollecof the nursery. What calculating master and arithmetical miss has not toiled and laboured over the hopeless task of discovering the aggregate number of "kits, cats, sacks, and wives" journeying towards the ancient borough of St. Ia? Children are early instructed in the history of this puzzling gentleman who met so many powers of seven on his way to St. Ives, and in the plaintive narrative, according to which the sisters and brothers of Wordsworth's little maid are positively affirmed and reaffirmed to have been seven in all." When they get a little older they are told not to cry, lest they should frighten nurse out of her seven senses. If this awful threat be of no avail, they are solaced with the soothing account of the "Seven Wise Men," a description of the "Seven Wonders of the World," or the prodigy in the "Seven-league Boots"; and are warned to avoid having things about them "all sixes and sevens." But even to grown-up people seven is a number of much solemnity. The innocent gentleman from the country who once upon a time strayed into that charming locality "Where to seven streets seven dials count the day, had probably an opportunity of remembering the number seven through gloomy reminiscences of the loss of his own |