King John gave several lands, at Kepperton and Atterton, in Kent, to Solomon Attefeld, to be held by this singular service—that as often as the king should be pleased to cross the sea, the said Solomon, or his heirs, should be obliged to go with him, to hold his majesty's head, if there should be occasion for it, "that is, if he should be sea-sick;" and it appears, by the record in the Tower, that this same office of head-holding was actually performed in the reign of Edward the First.

J.R.S

"AS BAD AS PLOUGHING WITH DOGS."

(To the Editor.)

Famed as your miscellany is for local and provincial terms, customs, and proverbs, I have often wondered never to have met with therein this old comparative north country proverb—"As bad as ploughing with dogs;" which evidently originated from the Farm-house; for when ploughmen (through necessity) have a new or awkward horse taken into their team, by which they are hindered and hampered, they frequently observe, "This is as bad as ploughing with dogs." This proverb is in the country so common, that it is applied to anything difficult or abstruse: even at a rubber at whist, I have heard the minor party execrate the business in these words, "It is as bad as ploughing with dogs," give it up for lost, change chairs, cut for partners, and begin a new game.

H.B.A

CROESUS.—A DRAMATIC SKETCH

(For the Mirror.)

Cyrus, Courtiers, and Officers of State. Croesus bound upon the funeral pile which is guarded by Persian soldiers, several of them bearing lighted torches, which they are about to apply to the pile.

Croesus.—O, Solon, Solon, Solon. Cyrus.—Whom calls he on? Attendant.—Solon, the sage. Croesus.—How true thy words No man is happy till he knows his end. Cyrus.—Can Solon help thee? Croesus.—He hath taught me that Which it were well for kings to know. Cyrus.—Unbind him—we would hear it. Croesus.—The fame of Solon having spread o'er Greece, We sent for him to Sardis. Robed in purple, We and our court received him: costly gems Bedecked us—glittering in golden beds, We told him of our riches. He was moved not. We showed him our vast palace, hall, and chamber, Cellar and attic not omitting— Statues and urns, and tapestry of gold, Carpets and furniture, and Grecian paintings, Diamonds and sapphires, rubies, emeralds, And pearls, that would have dazzled eagles' sight. Lastly, our treasury!—we showed him Lydia's wealth! And then exulting, asked him, whom of all men That in the course of his long travels he had seen He thought most happy?—He replied, "One Tellus, an Athenian citizen, Of little fortune, and of less ambition, Who lived in ignorance of penury, And ever saw his country flourish; His children were esteemed—he lived to see His children's children—then he fell in battle, A patriot, a hero, and a martyr!" Whom next?—I asked, "Two Argive brothers, Whose pious pattern of fraternal love And filial duty and affection, Is worthy of example and remembrance. Their mother was a priestess of the queen Of the supreme and mighty Jupiter! And she besought her goddess to send down The best of blessings on her duteous sons. Her prayers were heard—they slept and died!" Then you account me not among the happy? To which the sage gave answer— "King of Lydia! Our philosophy Is but ill suited to the courts of kings. We do not glory in our own prosperity, Nor yet admire the happiness of others. All bliss is brief and superficial, And should not be accounted as a good, But that which lasts unto our being's end. The life of man is threescore years and ten, Which being summed in the whole amount Unto some thousands of swift-winged days, Of which there are not two alike; So those which are to come, being unknown, Are but a series of accidents: Therefore esteem we no man happy, But him whose happiness continues to the end! We cannot win the prize until the contest's o'er!." Cyrus.—Solon hath saved one king And taught another! Torchmen, we reprieve The captive Croesus.

CYMBELINE

PAUL'S CROSS

(For the Mirror.)

"–Friers and faytours have fonden such questions To plese with the proud men, sith the pestilence time,4 And preachen at St. Paul's, for pure envi fo clarkes, That praiers have no powre the pestilence to lette."

Piers Plowman's Visions.

The early celebrity of Paul's Cross, as the greatest seat of pulpit eloquence, is evinced in the lines above quoted, which give us to understand that the most subtle and abstract questions in theology were handled here by the Friars, in opposition to the secular clergy, almost at the first settlement of that popular order of preachers in England.

Of the custom of preaching at crosses it is difficult to trace the origin; it was doubtless far more remote than the period alluded to, and Pennant thinks, at first accidental. The sanctity of this species of pillar, he observes, often caused a considerable resort of people to pay their devotion to the great object of their erection. A preacher, seeing a large concourse might be seized by a sudden impulse, ascend the steps, and deliver out his pious advice from a station so fit to inspire attention, and so conveniently formed for the purpose. The example might be followed till the practice became established by custom.

The famous Paul's Cross, like many others in various parts of the kingdom (afterwards converted to the same purpose,) was doubtless at first a mere common cross, and might be coeval with the Church. When it was covered and used as a pulpit cross, we are not informed. Stowe describes it in his time, "as a pulpit-crosse of timber, mounted upon steppes of stone, and covered with leade, standing in the church-yard, the very antiquitie whereof was to him unknowne." We hear of its being in use as early as the year 1259, when Henry III., in person commanded the mayor to swear before him every stripling of twelve years old and upwards, to be true to him and his heirs. Here in 1299, Ralph de Baldoc, dean of St. Paul's, cursed all those who had searched, in the church, of St. Martin in the Fields, for a hoard of gold, &c. Before this cross in 1483, was brought, divested of all her splendour, Jane Shore, the charitable, the merry concubine of Edward IV., and, after his death, of his favourite, the unfortunate Lord Hastings. After the loss of her protectors, she fell a victim to the malice of crook-backed Richard. He was disappointed (by her excellent defence) of convicting her of witchcraft, and confederating with her lover to destroy him. He then attacked her on the weak side of frailty. This was undeniable. He consigned her to the severity of the church: she was carried to the bishop's palace, clothed in a white sheet, with a taper in her hand, and from thence conducted to the cathedral, and the cross, before which she made a confession of her only fault. Every other virtue bloomed in this ill-fated fair with the fullest vigour. She could not resist the solicitations of a youthful monarch, the handsomest man of his time. On his death she was reduced to necessity, scorned by the world, and cast off by her husband, with whom she was paired in her childish years, and forced to fling herself into the arms of Hastings. "In her penance she went," says Holinshed "in countenance and pase demure, so womanlie, that, albeit she were out of all araie, save her kirtle onlie, yet went she so faire and lovelie, namelie, while the woondering of the people cast a comlie rud in hir cheeks, (of which she before had most misse) that hir great shame won hir much praise among those that were more amorous of hir bodie than curious of hir soule." She lived to a great age, but in great distress and miserable poverty; deserted even by those to whom she had, during prosperity, done the most essential services.

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 492, June 4, 1831

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G.K

SINGULAR TENURE

J.R.S

"AS BAD AS PLOUGHING WITH DOGS."

(To the Editor.)

H.B.A

CROESUS.—A DRAMATIC SKETCH

(For the Mirror.)

CYMBELINE

PAUL'S CROSS

(For the Mirror.)

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