with which the Mosaic code is barren of rites and ceremonies. We stand amazed, on perusing it, at the enormous weight of a new yoke, which Holy Church, fabricating with her own hands, had imposed on her ancient devotees.' Yet the forgers of these shackles had artfully enough contrived to make them sit easy, by twisting flowers around them: dark as this picture, drawn by the pencil of gloomy Superstition, appeared upon the whole, yet was its deep shade in many places contrasted with pleasing lights. The calendar was crowded with Red-letter days, nominally, indeed, consecrated to saints, but which, by the encouragement of idleness and dissipation of manners, gave every kind of countenance to sinners. A profusion of childish rites, pageants, and ceremonies, diverted the attention of the people from the consideration of their real state, and kept them in humour, if it did not sometimes make them in love, with their slavish modes of worship. To the credit of our sensible and manly forefathers, they were among the first who felt the weight of this new and unnecessary yoke, and had spirit enough to throw it off. I have fortunately in my possession one of those ancient Roman calendars, of singular curiosity, which contains under the immoveable Feasts and Fasts (I regret much its silence on the moveable ones), a variety of brief observations, contributing not a little to the elucidation of many of our popular customs, and proving them to have been sent over from Rome, with Bulls, Indulgences, and other baubles, bartered, as it should seem, for our Peter-pence, by those who trafficked in spiritual merchandise from the continent. These I shall carefully translate (though in some places it is extremely difficult to render the very barbarous Latin in which they are written, the barbarity, brevity, and obscurity of which I fear the critic will think I have transfused into my own English), and lay before my reader, who will at once see and acknowledge their utility. A learned performance by a physician in the time of King James I, and dedicated to that monarch, is also luckily in my library: it is written in Latin, and entitled 'The Popedom, or 1 It is but justice to own that the modern Roman Catholics disclaim the greater number of those superstitious notions and ceremonies, equally the misfortune and disgrace of our forefathers in the dark ages. the Origin and Increase of Depravity in Religion;' containing a very masterly parallel between the rites, notions, &c., of Heathen, and those of Papal Rome. The copious extracts from this work with which I shall adorn and enlighten the following pages will form their truest commendation, and supersede my poor encomiums. When I call Gray to remembrance, the Poet of Humanity, who, had he left no other works behind him, would have transmitted his name to immortality by Reflections,' written among the little tombstones of the vulgar in a country churchyard, I am urged by no false shame to apologise for the seeming unimportance of my subject. The antiquities of the common people cannot be studied without acquiring some useful knowledge of mankind; and it may be truly said, in this instance, that by the chemical process of philosophy, even wisdom may be extracted from the follies and superstitions of our forefathers.2 1 66 Papatus, seu depravatæ Religionis Origo et Incrementum; summa fide diligentiaque e gentilitatis suæ fontibus eruta: ut fere nihil sit in hoc genus cultu, quod non sit promptum, ex hisce, meis reddere suis authoribus: ut restitutæ Evangelicæ Religionis, quam profitemur, simplicitas, fucis amotis, suam aliquando integritatem apud omnes testatam faciat per Thomam Moresinum Aberdonanum, Doctorem Medicum. Edinburgi excudebat Robertus Waldegrave, Typographus Regius, Anno M.D.XCIIII. Cum privilegio Regali." A small octavo: most extremely rare. 2 In the Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. ix. 8vo. Edinb. 1793, p. 253, parish of Clunie, co. of Perth, the inhabitants, we are told, “are not, as formerly, the dupes of superstitious credulity. Many old useless rites and ceremonies are laid aside. Little attention is paid to bug-bear tales. Superstitions, charms, and incantations have lost their power. Cats, hares, magpies, and old women cease to assume any other appearance than what nature has given them: and ghosts, goblins, witches, and fairies have relinquished the land." In the same volume, p. 328, parish of Tongland, co. of Kircudbright; from a statistical account of sixty or seventy years before, we learn that "the lower class in general were tainted strongly with superstitious sentiments and opinions, which had been transmitted down from one generation to another by tradition. They firmly believed in ghosts, hobgoblins, fairies, elves, witches, and wizards. These ghosts and spirits often appeared to them at night. They used many charms and incantations to preserve themselves, their cattle and houses, from the malevolence of witches, wizards, and evil spirits, and believed in the beneficial effects of these charms. They believed in lucky and unlucky days, and seasons in marrying or undertaking any important business. They frequently saw the devil, who made wicked attacks upon them when they were engaged in their religious exercises and acts of devotion. They believed in The People, of whom society is chiefly composed, and for whose good all superiority of rank, indispensably necessary, as it is in every government,1 is only a grant, made originally benevolent spirits, which they termed brownies, who went about in the night time and performed for them some part of their domestic labour, such as threshing and winnowing their corn, spinning and churning. They fixed branches of mountain ash, or narrow-leaved service tree, above the stakes of their cattle, to preserve them from the evil effects of elves and witches. All these superstitious opinions and observations, which they firmly believed, and powerfully influenced their actions, are of late years almost obliterated among the present generation." Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 482, parish of Wigton, co. of Wigton, "The spirit of credulity, which arises out of ignorance, and which overran the country, is now greatly worn away; and the belief in witches, in fairies, and other ideal beings, though not entirely discarded, is gradually dying out." 1 Degree being vizarded, Th' unwortbiest shows as fairly in the mask. The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, And posts, like the commandment of a king, What plagues, and what portents! what mutiny ! Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors, The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shak'd, The enterprise is sick! How could communities, Troilus and Cressida, Act i. Sc. iii. by mutual concession, is a respectable subject to every one who is the friend of man Pride, which, independent of the idea arising from the necessity of civil polity, has portioned out the human genus into such a variety of different and subordinate species, must be compelled to own that the lowest of these derives itself from an origin common to it with the highest of the kind. The well-known beautiful sentiment of Terence,— "Homo sum, humani nihil à me alienum puto," may be adopted, therefore, in this place, to persuade us that nothing can be foreign to our inquiry, much less beneath our notice, that concerns the smallest of the vulgar; of those little ones who occupy the lowest place, though by no means of the least importance, in the political arrangement of human beings. SOMERSET PLACE, LONDON ; J. B. 1 "These several particulars, if considered separately, may appear trifling; but taken altogether, they form no inconsiderable part of what (with only some slight variation,) the religion of the vulgar will always be, in every age, and in every stage of society, and indeed, whatever be the religion which they profess, unless they are so grossly stupid, or so flagitiously immoral, as to be incapable of feeling the restraints of any system of religion, whether rational or superstitious." Sir John Sinclair's Statist. Account of Scotland, vol. v. p. 85. |