on it, and well painted and ornamented. When the new bridge of stone was erected, about 1754, this was taken away, and I lately saw the carved and gilt back of it nailed up by the shop of one Mr. Jackson, a whitesmith, in the Butcher Row, behind the town-hall, who offered it to me, but I did not know what to do with it. In October, 1776, I saw in the old town-hall a third Ducking-stool of plain oak, with an iron bar before it to confine the person in the seat: but I made no inquiries

about it. I mention these things as the practice seems now to be totally laid aside."

This was written about 1780. Mr. Cole died in 1782.

The stool is represented in a cut annexed to the Dumps, designed and engraved by Lud. du Guernier.

There is a wooden cut of one in the frontispiece of the popular penny history of "The Old Woman of Ratcliff Highway." (7)

(1) At a court of the manor of Edgeware, anno 1552, the inhabitants were presented for not having a Tumbrel and Cucking-stool. See Lysons's" Envir. of London," vol. ii. p. 244. This looks as if the punishments were different.

66

(*) The following extract from Cowel's Interpreter," in v. THEW, seems to prove (with the extract just quoted from Mr. Lysons's "Environs of London") that there was a difference between a Tumbrel and a Cuck

ing-stool or Thew. "Georgius Grey Comes Cantii clamat in maner. de Bushton & Ayton punire delinquentes contra Assisam Panis et Cervisiæ, per tres vices per amerciamenta, & quarta vice pistores per pilloriam, braciatores per tumbrellam, & rixatrices per Thewe, hoc est, ponere eas super scabellum vocat. a Cucking-stool. Pl. in Itin. apud Cestr. 14 Hen. VII."

(3) An Essayist in the "Gent. Mag." for May, 1732, vol. ii. p. 740, observes that "The stools of infamy are the Ducking-stool and the stool of repentance. The first was invented for taming female shrews. The stool of repentance is an ecclesiastical engine, of popish extraction, for the punishment of fornication and other immoralities, whereby the delinquent publicly takes shame to himself, and receives a solemn reprimand from the minister of the parish."

(4) Blount finds it called "le Goging Stole" in Cod. MS. "de Legibus, Statutis, & Consuetudinibus liberi Burgi Villæ de Mountgomery a tempore Hen. 2.," fol. 12 b.

He says it was in use even in our Saxon's time, by whom it was called Scealping-rtole, and described to be "Cathedra in qua rixosæ mulieres sedentes aquis demergebantur." It was a punishment inflicted also anciently upon brewers and bakers transgressing the laws.

Henry, in his " History of Great Britain," vol. i. p. 214, tells us that "In Germany, cowards, sluggards, debauchees, and prostitutes, were suffocated in mires and bogs," and adds, "it is not improbable that these useless members and pests of human society were punished in the same manner in this island:" asking at the same time, in a note, "Is not the Ducking-stool a relic of this last kind of punishment?"

In the "Promptorium Parvulorum," MS. Harl. 221, Brit. Mus. "Esgn, or CUKKYN," is interpreted by stercoriso: and in the "Domesday Survey," in the account of the City of Chester, vol. i. fol. 262 b, we read, "Vir sive mulier falsam mensuram in civitate faciens deprehensus, iiii. solid. emendab'. Similiter malam cervisiam faciens, aut in CATHEDRA ponebatur STERCORIS, aut iiii. solid. dab' prepotis." £. s. d.

(5)1572. The making of the
Cucking-stool 08 0

Iron work for the

Cole (MS. Brit. Mus. vol. xlii. p. 285) in his extracts from Mr. Tabor's book, among instances of Proceedings in the Vice-Chancellor's Court of Cambridge, 1st Eliz., gives

"Jane Johnson, adjudged to the Duckingestoole for scoulding, and commuted her pe

nance.

"Katherine Sanders, accused by the churchwardens of St. Andrewes for a common scold and slanderer of her neighbours, adjudged to the Ducking-stool."

There is an order of the corporation of Shrewsbury, 1669, that " A Ducking-stool be erected for the punishment of all scolds." See the History of the Town, 4to. 1779, p. 172.

In Harwood's "History of Lichfield," p. 383, in the year 1578, we find a charge "For making a Cuckstool with appurtenances, Es." () Misson, in his "Travels in England," p. 40, thus describes the Cucking-stool. It may with justice be observed of this author that no popular custom escaped his notice: "Chaise. La maniere de punir les femmes querelleuses et debauchées est asssez plaisante en Angleterre.

"On attache une Chaise à bras à l'extremité de deux especes de solives, longues de douze ou quinze pieds et dans un eloiguement parallele, en sorte que ces deux pieces de bois embrassent, par leur deux bouts voisins, la Chaise qui est entre deux, & qui y est attachée par le côte comme avec un essieu, de telle maniere, qu'elle a du Jen, et qu'elle demeure toujours dans l'etat naturel & horisontal auquel une Chaise doit être afin qu'on puisse s'asseoir dessus, soit qu'on l'éleve, soit qu'on l'abaisse. On dressee un pôteau sur le bord d'un etang ou d'une rivierre, & sur ce poteau on pose, presque en equilibre, la double piece de bois à une des extremitez de laquelle la Chaise se trouve au dessus de l'eau. On met la femme dans cette Chaise, et on la plonge ainsi autant de fois qu'il a été ordonné, pour rafraichir un peu sa chaleur immoderée." See Ozell's Transl. p. 65.

In "Whimzies, or a New Cast of Characters," 12mo. Lond. 1631, p. 182, speaking of a Xantippean, the author says: "He (her husband) vowes therefore to bring her in all disgrace to the Cucking-stoole; and she vowes againe to bringe him, with all contempt, to the stoole of repentance."

In "The New Help to Discourse," 3rd edit. 12mo. 1684, p. 216, we read:

"On a Ducking-stool.

"Some gentlemen travelling, and coming near to a town, saw an old woman spinning near the Ducking-stool: one, to make the company merry, asked the good woman what that chair was made for? Said she, you know what it is. Indeed, said he, not I, unless it be the chair you use to spin in. No, no, said she, you know it to be otherwise: have you not heard that it is the cradle your good mother has often layn in ?"

In "Miscellaneous Poems, &c., by Benjamin West, of Weedon Beck, Northamptonshire," 8vo. 1780, p. 84, is preserved a copy of verses, said to have been written near sixty years ago, entitled "The Ducking Stool." The description runs thus:

"There stands, my friend, in yonder pool,
An engine call'd a Ducking-stool:
By legal pow'r commanded down,
The joy and terror of the town,
If jarring females kindle strife,
Give language foul, or lug the coif;
If noisy dames should once begin
To drive the house with horrid din,
Away, you cry, you'll grace the stool,
We'll teach you how your tongue to rule.
The fair offender fills the seat,
In sullen pomp, profoundly great.

* * *** *

Down in the deep the stool descends,
But here, at first, we miss our ends;
She mounts again, and rages more
Than ever vixen did before.
So, throwing water on the fire
Will make it but burn up the higher.
If so, my friend, pray let her take
A second turn into the lake,
And, rather than your patience lose,
Thrice and again repeat the dose.
No brawling wives, no furious wenches,
No fire so hot but water quenches.

In Prior's skilful lines we see
For these another recipe:
A certain lady, we are told,
(A lady too, and yet a scold)
Was very much reliev'd, you'll say,
By water, yet a different way;

A mouthful of the same she'd take,
Sure not to scold, if not to speak."

A note informs us, "To the honour of the fair sex in the neighbourhood of R****y, this machine has been taken down (as useless) several years."

(7) Borlase, in his "Natural History of Cornwall," p. 303, tells us : "Among the punishments inflicted in Cornwall, of old time, was that of the Cocking-stool, a seat of infamy where strumpets and scolds, with bare foot and head, were condemned to abide the derision of those that passed by, for such time as the bailiffs of manors, which had the privilege of such jurisdiction, did appoint."

Morant, in his "History of Essex," vol. i. p. 317, speaking of Canuden, in the hundred

of Rochford, mentions "Cukingstole Croft, as given for the maintenance of a light in this church; as appears by inquisition, 10 Eliz.'

In "The Regiam Majestatem," by Sir John Skene, this punishment occurs as having been used anciently in Scotland: under "Burrow Lawes," chap. lxix., speaking of Browsters, i. e. “Wemen quha brewes aill to be sauld," it is said-" gif she makes gude-ail, that is sufficient. Bot gif she makes evill ail, contrair to the use and consuetude of the burgh, and is convict thereof, she sall pay ane unlaw of aucht shillinges, or sal suffer the justice of the burgh, that is, she sall be put upon the Cock-stule, and the aill sall be distributed to the folke." pure

THEY have an artifice at Newcastle-underLyme and Walsall, says Dr. Plott, in his "History of Staffordshire," p. 389, for correcting of scolds, which it does too, so effectually and so very safely, that I look upon it as much to be preferred to the Cucking-stoole, which not only endangers the health of the party, but also gives the tongue liberty 'twixt every dipp; to neither of which this is at all liable: it being such a bridle for the tongue as not only quite deprives them of speech, but brings shame for the transgression and humility thereupon before 'tis taken off: which being put upon the offender by order

of the magistrate, and fastened with a padlock behind, she is led round the town by an officer, to her shame, nor is it taken off till after the party begins to show all external signes imaginable of humiliation and amend

ment.

Dr. Plott, in a copper-plate annexed, gives a representation of a pair of Branks. They still preserve a pair in the town court at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where the same custom once prevailed. See Gardiner's" England's Grievance of the Coal Trade," and my History of that Town, vol. ii. p. 192.

It appears from Gardiner's "England's Grievance in Relation to the Coal Trade," that in the time of the Commonwealth the magistrates of Newcastle-upon-Tyne punished scolds with the Branks (just described), and drunkards by making them carry a tub with

holes in the sides for the arms to pass through, called the Drunkard's Cloak, through the streets of that town.

See my

"History of Newcastle," wherein is also given a representation of it in a copperplate, vol. ii. p. 192.

Cic. de Divinat. lib. i. sect. 46.

THE Word Omen is well known to signify a sign, good or bad, or a prognostic. It may be defined to be that indication of something future, which we get as it were by accident, and without our seeking for.

A superstitious regard to Omens seems anciently to have made very considerable additions to the common load of human infelicity. They are now pretty generally disregarded, and we look back with perfect secu

rity and indifference on those trivial and truly ridiculous accidents which alternately afforded matter of joy and sorrow to our ancestors. () Omens appear to have been so numerous that we must despair of ever being

:

able to recover them all and to evince that in all ages men have been self-tormentors, the bad Omens fill a catalogue infinitely more extensive than that of the good.

(1) Gibbon, in his "Decline and Fall," &c., vol. viii. p. 201, speaking of the wars of the Emperor Maurice against the Avars, A.D. 595, tells us that, on setting out, " he (the Emperor) solicited, without success, a miraculous answer to his nocturnal prayers. His mind was confounded by the death of a favourite horse, the encounter of a wild boar, a storm of wind and rain, and the birth of a monstrous child; and he forgot that the best of omens is to unsheath our sword in the defence of our country. He returned to Constantinople, and exchanged the thoughts of war for those of devotion."

Apposite is the following from Joh. Sarisber. de Nugis Curialium, fol. 27: "Rusticanum et fortè Ofelli Proverbium est-Qui Somniis et Auguriis credit, nunquam fore securum. Ego Sententiam et verissimam et fidelissimam puto. Quid enim refert ad consequentiam rerum, si quis semel aut amplius sternutaverit? Quid si oscitaverit? His mens nugis incauta seducitur, sed fidelis nequaquam acquiescit."

"Omens and Prognostications of things," says Bourne, Antiq. Vulg. p. 20, " are still in the mouths of all, though only observed by the vulgar. In country places especially they are in great repute, and are the directors of several actions of life, being looked upon as presages of things future, or the determiners of present good or evil." He specifies several, and derives them with the greatest probability from the heathens, whose observation of these he deduces also from the practice of the Jews, with whom it was a custom to ask signs. He concludes all such observations at present to be sinful and diabolical.

The following lines, which have more truth than poetry in them, are from "Wythers's