ON Popular Antiquities: Including the whole of Antiquitates uulgares, WITH ADDENDA TO EVERY CHAPTER OF THAT WORK: AS ALSO AN APPENDIX, Containing such Articles on the Subject, as have been omitted by that Author, BY JOHN BRAND, A.B. OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD. Multitudo Vulgi, more magis quam judicio, post alium alius quasi prudentiorem sequitur. THE GENERAL PREFACE. TRADITION has in no Instance so clearly evinced her Faithfulness, as in the transmitting of vulgar Rites and popular Opinions. Of these, when we are desirous of tracing them backwards to their Origin, many lose themselves in Antiquity. They have indeed travelled down to us through a long Succession of Years, and the greatest part of them, it is not ́ improbable, will be of perpetual Observation: for the generality of Men look back with superstitious Veneration on the Ages of their Fore-fathers: And Authorities, that are grey with Time, seldom fail of commanding those filial Honours, 'claimed even by the Appearance of hoary old Age. Many of these it must be confessed are mutilated, and, as in the Remains of ancient Statuary, the Parts of not a few of them have been awkwardly transposed: they preserve, however, the principal Traits, that distinguished them in their origin. Things, composed of such flimsy Materials as the Fan |