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tury, wore a very different Aspect when viewed through the Gloom that prevailed in the seventh or eighth.

I should trespass upon the patience of my Reader, were I to enumerate all the Books I have consulted on this Occasion; to which, however, I shall take care in their proper Places to refer: but I own myself under particular Obligations to Durand's Ritual of Divine Offices; a Work inimical to every Idea of rational Worship, but to the Enquirer into the Origin of our popular Ceremonies, an invaluable Magazine of the most interesting Intelligence. I would stile this Performance the great Ceremonial Law of the Romanists, in Comparison with which the Mosaic Code is barren of Rights and Ceremo→ nies. We stand amazed on perusing it at the enormous Weight of a new Yoke which holy Church fabricating with her own Hands has imposed on her servile Devotees.

Yet the Forgers of these Shackles had artfully 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 it was its deep Shade contrasted with pleasing Light.

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

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new and unnecessary Yoke, and had Spirit enough to throw it off.

I have fortunately in my Possession one of those antient Romish 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, Iudulgencies, and other Baubles, bartered, as it should seem, for our Peter-pence, by those who trafficked in spiritual Merchandize from the Continent.

These I shall carefully translate (though in some Places it is extremely difficult to render the very barbarous Latin, of which I fear the Critic will think I have transfused the Barbarity, Brevity, and Obscurity into my own English) and lay before my Reader, who will at once see and acknowledge their Utility.

A learned Performance, by a Doctor Moresin in the Time of James I. and dedicated to that Monarch, is also luckily in my Possession. It is written in Latin, and entitled "The Origin and Increase of Depravity in Reli gion;" 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 1 shall adorn the subsequent Pages will be their own Eulogy, and supersede my poor Encomiums.

When I call to remembrance the Poet of * Humanity, who has transmitted his Name to Immortality, by Reflections written among the little Tomb-stones of the Vulgar, in a Country Church-Yard; I am urged by no false

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Shame to apologize for the seeming Unimportance of my Subject.

The Antiquities of the Common People cannot be stu died without acquiring some useful Knowledge of Mankind. By the chemical Process of Philosophy, even Wisdom may be extracted from the Follies and Superstitions of our Forefathers.

The People, of whom Society is chiefly composed, and for whose good, Superiority of Rank is only a Grant made originally 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 beautiful Sentiment of Te

rence:

"Homo sum, húmani nihil à me alienum puto,"

may be adopted therefore in this Place, to persuade us that nothing can be foreign to our Enquiry, which concerns the smallest of the Vulgar; of those little ones, who occupy the lowest Place in the political Arrangement of human Beings.

Westgate Street, Newcastle,

Nov. 27, 1776.

J. B.

N. B. Here follow Mr. Bourne's Title-Page, Dedi

cation, and Preface.

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Antiquitates Vulgares;

OR, THE

ANTIQUITIES

OF THE

Common People.

GIVING

An Account of several of their OPINIONS and CEREMONIES.

WITH

Proper REFLECTIONS upon each of them; shewing which may be retain❜d, and which ought to be laid aside.

By HENRY BOURNE, M. A. Curate of the Parochial Chapel of All-Saint's in Newcastle upon Tyne.

NEWCASTLE,

Printed by J. WHITE for the AUTHOR.

MDCCXXV.

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