|
Page xxiv:-
a great measure superseded: and I know not that there can be
a more remarkable passage in the history of rural
civilization, than the substitution of hedges in the place
of the rude metes and boundaries so generally
used in former times; and thus rendering the watchers of
cattle needless, as well as giving beauty to the country
itself. I doubt not but there have been almost always hedges
in some places, and indeed there are many remaining that
bear the marks of great antiquity, but the neatness and
beauty of them is a very modern improvement at least in
these parts. There are, besides, many other circumstances
which serve to prove, that agriculture, in the beginning of
the present age, wore a sort of face which it had preserved
without any material alteration in the North of England for
some centuries. Amongst the circumstances which led to this
change, I should act very unfairly if I did not mention the
introduction of potatoes, as of a food that has superseded
the old-fashioned dishes (such almost as AEneas Sylvius met
with on the borders) so entirely as in a manner to render
their names, and the manner in which they were cooked,
obsolete, even in so short a space of time as that of fifty
or sixty years.
|
|
Waving a great number of things relative to this subject,
because there may be found in every place customs sufficient
to fill a volume, I shall just mention one or two which are
generally known, though their origin is not much attended
to, nor perhaps can ever be known with certainty: That of
blessing a person who sneezes would almost seem, from that
passage in Homer where Penelope addresses Telemachus upon
such an occasion, to be of Graecian origin; though tradition
says it arose during a plague which commonly began with
sneezing, and was a mode of wishing that this might not be a
forerunner of the malady. The virtue of uneven numbers
plainly sprung up in the medical world; and indeed the
phrases that still remain in so many countries respecting
them, however rude and vulgar, refer obviously to the
empiric superstition from whence they originated. Religion
has given birth to far more trifles, which are still alive,
than any thing else, though they are at this day matters of
sport; nor will any one who considers the genius of former
times be hard to perswade, that even St. Agnes's Fast, the
efficacy of bride-cake on dreams, the ceremony of tossing a
stocking in the bed-chamber of a newly-married couple, and
twenty other modes of prognostication belonging to the
young, and still more belonging to the aged, were in former
times of some importance, especially when he is told that
there are some silly minds that repose some confidence in
them yet: and indeed if we make reference to times and
prejudices, why may not the meeting of the flames of two
nuts thrown into the fire, each of which is supposed to
represent a person, as fairly betoken the union of those
persons, as the parting of the flame that arose from the
funeral pyre of Eteocles and Polynices betokened the hatred
of those brothers? The method of divination amongst the
ancient Germans, as we find it in Tacitus, was by no means
more complex, and not a little resembled this, as well in
the few circumstances belonging to each, as in their common
simplicity.
Having thus made mention of Tacitus, it occurs to me to take
notice, by means of his information, of a few things more
which shew the effect that similarity of circumstances has
on the manners of distant nations. The Germans, like the
Borderers of whom I have been speaking, made atonement for
blood by means of cattle: Like all the inhabitants of the
more solitary places, even though robbers, such as the Arabs
and Moss-Troopers, they thought it infamous to deny the
rites of hospitality to any man of whatever nation: The
borderers, as well as the Germans, went armed to every kind
of business, and even to their feasts; and in the same
manner their quarrels were generally terminated by bloodshed
instead of abusive language. Ale also was the beverage of
the Germans, as it is now and has long been of the English:
But the most remarkable resemblance now left is that of the
sport which Tacitus describes as the only one with which the
Germans were acquainted, and of which a correct copy, as far
as we can judge, may be seen in the sword-dance that
is still in vogue in some places contiguous to the Borders.
Has it been preserved by imitation, or revived by chance?
The funeral howl has been raised in most parts of the world
by the heroes of Homer and Virgil, as well as by the women
of Germany and Ireland. That animation which the Germans
derived, and that omen which they drew from the force and
echo of their
|
Lakes Guides menu.
