the Duke de la Valiere's Catalogue, tom. i. p. 44, (Additions,) there is a part of a Calendar in which the following unlucky Days are noticed:

"Januar. iiii. Non. [10th] Dies ater et

Mar.

viii.

vi.

Jan. iiii.

nefastus.

Id. [25th] Dies ater et

nefastus.

Non. [10th] non est bonum
nugere. [7. nubere?]
Kal. [2nd] Dies ater."

"Sed et circa Dies injecta est animis Religio. Inde Dies nefasti, qui 'Arpgades Græcis, quibus iter, aut aliquid alicujus momenti indipisci, periculosum existimatur.” -"De quibus diebus faustis, aut infaustis, multa, Hesiodus nugas et Virgilius primo Georgicon. Quam scrupulosam superstitionem, sese illigantem delira formidine, damnat Apostolus ad Galatas. 4. Observatis dies, & menses, et tempora, et annos: metuo ne incassum circa vos me fatigaverim." Pet. Molinai Vates, p. 155.

(2) In "Preceptes, &c. left by William Lord Burghley to his Sonne," 8vo. Lond. 1636, p. 36, we read: "Though I think no day amisse to undertake any good enterprize or businesse in hande, yet have I observed some, and no meane clerks, very cautionarie to forbeare these three Mundayes in the yeare, which I leave to thine owne consideration, either to use or refuse; viz., 1. The first Munday in April, which Day Caine was born, and his brother Abel slaine. 2. The second Munday in August, which Day Sodome and Gomorrah were destroyed. 3. The last Munday in December, which day Judas was born, that betrayed our Saviour Christ."

Bishop Hall, in his Characters of Virtues and Vices, speaking of the superstitious man, observes: "If his journey began unawares on the dismal Day, he feares a mischiefe."

(3) In the Prognostication of Erra Pater, 1565, printed by Colwell, the unlucky Days

vary from these of Grafton. See more on this subject in Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 2, &c.

I find an observation on the 13th of December in the ancient Romish Calendar, which I have so often cited, (Decemb. xiii. prognostica Mensium per totum annum,) that on this Day prognostications of the months were drawn for the whole year. As also, that on the day of St. Barnabas, and on that of St. Simon and St. Jude, a tempest often arises. (Barnabæ Apost. Tempestas sæpe oritur.)

In the Schola Curiositatis, tom. ii. p. 236, we read: "Multi nolunt opus inchoare die Martis tanquam infausto die."

Many superstitious observations on Days may be found in a curious old book called "Practica Rusticorum," which I suspect to be an earlier edition of "The Husbandman's Practice," Svo. Lond. 1658, at the end of the Book of Knowledge of the same date.

(4) So, vol. xiv. p. 541, Parish of Forglen, Banffshire: "There are happy and unhappy days for beginning any undertaking. Thus few would choose to be married here on Friday, though it is the ordinary day in other quarters of the Church."

Ibid. vol. xv. p. 258, Parish of Monzie, County of Perth: The inhabitants are stated to be not entirely free of superstition. Lucky and unlucky Days, and Feet, are still attended to, especially about the end and beginning of the year. No person will be proclaimed for marriage in the end of one year, or even quarter of the year, and be married in the beginning of the next."

Ibid. vol. xxi. p. 148: "Lucky and unlucky Days, Dreams, and Omens, are still too much observed by the country people: but in this respect the meanest Christian far surpasses, in strength of mind, Gibbon's all-accomplished and philosophic Julian."

(5) Tooke's Russia, vol. i. p. 47. See, on this subject, Selden de Jure Nat. Gen. lib. iii. cap. 17, et Alexand. ab Alexandro genial. Dier. lib. iv. c. 20.

BOURNE, Chap. vi. of his Antiquitates Vulgares, tells us, there is a tradition among the common people that at the time of Cock-crowing the Mid-night Spirits forsake these lower regions, and go to their proper places. Hence it is that in the country villages, where the way of life requires more early labour, the inhabitants always go cheerfully to work at that time: whereas if they are called abroad sooner, they are apt to imagine everything they see or hear to be a wandering Ghost. Shakspeare has given us an excellent account of this vulgar notion in his Hamlet.

"Ber. It was about to speak, when the Cock

crew.

Hor. And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a dreadful summons. I have heard,

The Cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,

Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat

Awake the God of Day: and at his
warning,

Whether in Sea or Fire, in Earth or
Air,

The extravagant and erring Spirit hies To his confine, and of the truth herein, This present object made probation. Mar. It faded at the crowing of the Cock."(1)

Bourne, very seriously, in the above chapter, examines the fact, whether Spirits roam about in the night, or are obliged to go away at Cock-Crow: first citing from the Sacred Writings that good and evil Angels attend upon men; and proving thence also that there have been Apparitions of good and evil Spirits. He is of opinion that these can ordinarily have been nothing but the appearances of some of those Angels of Light or Darkness: "for," he adds, "I am far from thinking that either the Ghosts of the damned or the happy, either the Soul of a Dives or a Lazarus, returns here

any more." Their appearance in the night, he goes on to say, is linked to our idea of Apparitions. Night, indeed, by its awfulness and horror, naturally inclines the mind of man to these reflections, which are much heightened by the legendary stories of nurses and old women.

The traditions of all ages appropriate the appearance of Spirits to the night. The Jews had an opinion that hurtful Spirits walked about in the night. The same opinion obtained among the ancient Christians, who divided the night into four Watches, called the evening, midnight, cock-crowing, and the morning.

The opinion that Spirits fly away at Cockcrow is certainly very ancient, for we find it mentioned by the Christian poet Prudentius, who flourished in the beginning of the fourth century, as a tradition of common belief:

"Ferunt vagantes Dæmonas
Lætos tenebris noctium,
Gallo canente exterritos,
Sparsim timere & cedere
Invisa nam vicinitas

Lucis, salutis, numinis,
Rupto tenebrarum situ,
Noctis fugat satellites.
Hoc esse signum præscii
Norunt repromissæ spei,
Qua nos soporis Liberi
Speramus adventum Dei." (2)

Cassian, also, (3) who lived in the same century, mentioning a host of Devils who had been abroad in the night, says, that as soon as the morn approached, they all vanished and fled away; which further evinces that this was the current opinion of the time.

Bourne tells us he never met with any reasons assigned for the departure of Spirits at the Cock-crowing; "but," he adds, "there have been produced at that time of night

things of very memorable worth, which might perhaps raise the pious credulity of some men to imagine that there was something more in it than in other times. It was about the time of Cock-crowing when our Saviour was born, and the Angels sung the first Christmas Carol to the poor shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. Now it may be presumed, as the Saviour of the world was then born, and the heavenly Host had then descended to proclaim the news, that the Angels of Darkness would be terrified and confounded, and immediately fly away: and perhaps this consideration has partly been the foundation of this opinion." It was also about this time when our Saviour rose from the dead. "A third reason is, that Passage in the Book of Genesis, where Jacob wrestled with the Angel for a blessing; (a) where the Angel says unto him "Let me go, for the day breaketh."

Bourne, however, thinks this tradition seems more especially to have arisen from some particular circumstances attending the time of Cock-crowing; and which, as Prudentius, as before cited, seems to say, are an emblem of the approach of the Day of Resur

rection.

"The circumstances, therefore, of the time of Cock-crowing," he adds, "being so natural a figure and representation of the Morning of the Resurrection; the Night so shadow

ing out the Night of the grave; the third Watch being, as some suppose, the time our Saviour will come to Judgment at; the noise of the Cock awakening sleepy man, and telling him, as it were, the Night is far spent, the Day is at hand; representing so naturally the voice of the Arch-angel awakening the dead, and calling up the righteous to everlasting Day; so naturally does the time of Cock-crowing shadow out these things, that probably some good, well-meaning men might have been brought to believe that the very Devils themselves, when the Cock crew and reminded them of them, did fear and tremble, and shun the Light."

The Ancients, because the Cock gives notice of the approach and break of day, have, with a propriety equal to anything in their Mythology, dedicated this Bird to Apollo. They have also made him the Emblem of Watchfulness, from the circumstance of his summoning men to their business by his crowing, and have therefore dedicated him also to Mercury. With the Lark he may be poetically styled the "Herald of the Morn." (4)

The Day, civil and political, has been divided into thirteen parts. (5) The after-midnight and the dead of the night are the most solemn of them all, and have therefore, it should seem, been appropriated by ancient superstition to the walking of Spirits.

(2) The passage is thus translated in Bourne, ut supra:

"They say the wandering powers that love The silent darkness of the night,

At Cock-crowing give o'er to rove,
And all in fear do take their flight.
The approaching salutary morn,

Th' approach divine of hated day,
Makes darkness to its place return,
And drives the midnight ghosts away.
They know that this an emblem is
Of what precedes our lasting bliss,

That morn when graves give up their dead
In certain hope to meet their God."

says:

Dr. Farmer, citing Bourne in this place, "And he quotes on this occasion, as all his predecessors had done, the well-known lines from the first hymn of Prudentius. I know not whose translation he gives us, but there is an old one by Heywood. The pious Chansons, the Hymns and Carols which Shakspeare mentions presently, were usually copied from the elder Christian poets." Reed's edit. of Shaksp. 1803, vol. xviii. p. 21.

(3) "Aurora itaque superveniente, cum omnis hæc ab oculis evanisset Dæmonum multitudo." Cass. Coll. viii. c. 16.

Thus the Ghost in Hamlet:

"But soft, methinks I scent the morning

air

Philostratus, giving an account of the Apparition of Achilles' Shade to Apollonius Tyaneus, says, that it vanished with a little glimmer as soon as the Cock crowed. Vit. Apol. iv. 16. See Reed's edit. of Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 23.

The following is cited, ibid., from Spenser: "The morning Cock crew loud; And at the sound it shrunk in haste away, And vanish'd from our sight."

So Butler, in his Hudibras, Canto I. p. iii. 1. 1553:

"The Cock crows and the morning grows on, When 'tis decreed I must be gone.' Thus also Blair, in his "Grave:""The Tale Of horrid Apparition, tall and ghastly, That walks at dead of night or takes his stand

O'er some new-open'd Grave; and, strange to tell,

Evanishes at crowing of the Cock."

(4) In England's Parnassus, 8vo. 1600, I find the two following lines ascribed to Drayton, but know not in which of his poems they are found :—

"And now the Cocke, the morning's trumpeter, Play'd Hunt's up for the Day-Star to appear."

VOL. II.

Mr. Gray has imitated our poet: "The Cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed."

Reed's ed. of Shak. vol. xviii. p. 23.

The following is from Chaucer's Assemblie of Foules, fol. 235 :—

"The tame Ruddocke and the coward Kite, The Cocke, that horologe is of Thropes lite." (a)

Thus, in the Merry Devil of Edmonton, 4to. 1631:

"More watchfull than the day-proclayming Cocke."

(5) 1. After midnight. 2. Cock-crow. 3. The space between the first Cock-crow and break of day. 4. The Dawn of the Morning. 5. Morning. 6. Noon. 7. Afternoon. 8. Sunset. 9. Twilight. 10. Evening. 11. Candle-time. 12. Bed-time. 13. The Dead of the Night.

The Church of Rome made four nocturnal vigils: the Conticinium, Gallicinium or Cock-crow, Intempestum, and Antelucinum. Durand. de Nocturnis.

There is a curious Discourse on the ancient Divisions of the Night and the Day, in Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i. 223 et seq. p. By a passage in Macbeth, "we were carousing till the second Cock," it should seem to appear as if there were two separate times of Cock-crowing. The commentators, however, say nothing of this. They explain the passage as follows:-"Till the second Cock::Cock-crowing." So in King Lear-" He begins at Curfew, and walks till the first Cock."

Again in the Twelve Mery Jestes of the Widow Edith, 1573:

"The time they pas merely til ten of the clok,

Yea, and I shall not lye, till after the first Cok."

It appears from a passage in Romeo and Juliet, that Shakspeare means that they were carousing till three o'clock :

(a) i. e. The Clock of the Villages.

Ꭰ

"The second Cock has crow'd, The Curfew-bell has toll'd; 't is three o'clock."

See Reed's edit. of Shaks. 1803, vol. x. p. 123.

Perhaps Tusser makes this point clear,"Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie," 4to. Lond. 1585, p. 126:

"Cocke croweth at midnight, times few above six,

With pause to his neighbour to answer betwix:

At three aclocke thicker, and then as ye knowe,

Like all in to mattens neere day they doo

crowe;

At midnight, at three, and an hour yer day,

They utter their language as well as they may."

The following very curious "Old Wives Prayer" is found in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 205:

"Holy-rood, come forth and shield

Usi' th' citie and the field;
Safely guard us, now and aye,
From the blast that burns by day;
And those sounds that us affright
In the dead of dampish night.
Drive all hurtful fiends us fro,
By the time the Cocks first crow."

Vanes on the tops of steeples were anciently made in the form of a Cock, (called from hence Weather-Cocks,) and put up, in papal times, to remind the clergy of watchfulness. "In summitate Crucis, quæ Companario vulgò imponitur, Galli Gallinacei effugi solet Figura, quæ Ecclesiarum Rectores Vigilantiæ admoneat."-Du Cange, Gloss.

I find the following on this subject in "A Helpe to Discourse," 12mo. Lond. 1633:—

Q. Wherefore on the top of Church Steeples is the Cocke set upon the Crosse, of a long continuance ?

"A. The flocks of Jesuits will answer you. For instruction: that whilst aloft we behold the Crosse and the Cocke standing thereon, we may remember our sinnes, and with Peter seeke and obtaine mercy: as though without this dumbe Cocke, which many will not

hearken to, untill he crow, the Scriptures were not a sufficient larum."

The following occurs in Johnson and Steevens's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 242: "The inconstancy of the French was always the subject of satire. I have read a Dissertation written to prove that the index of the wind upon our steeples was made in form of a Cock to ridicule the French for their frequent changes."-JOHNSON.

A writer, dating Wisbech, May 7, in the St. James's Chronicle, June 10th, 1777, says that "the intention of the original Cock-Vane was derived from the Cock's Crowing when St. Peter had denied his Lord, meaning by this device to forbid all schism in the Church, which might arise amongst her members by their departing from her Communion, and denying the established principles of her Faith. But though this invention was, in all probability, of popish original, and a man who often changes his opinion is known by the appellation of a weather-cock, I would hint to the advocates of that unreformed Church, that neither this intention, nor the antiquity of this little device, can afford any matter for religious argument."

A writer in the Gent. Mag. for January 1737, vol. vii. p. 7, says: "Levity and inconstancy of temper is a general reproach upon the French. The Cock upon the steeple (set up in contempt and derision of that nation on some violation of peace, or breach of alliance) naturally represents these ill qualities." This derivation, however, seems to be as illiberal as it is groundless.

In the Minute Book of the Society of Antiquaries, vol. i. p. 105, we read: "29 Jan. 1723-4, Mr. Norroy (Peter Le Neve) brought a Script from Gramaye, Historia Brabantiæ, Bruxell. p. 14, showing that the manner of adorning the tops of Steeples with a Cross and a Cock is derived from the GOTHS, who bore that as their warlike ensign."

"The Lyon hath an antipathy with the Cocke, especially of the game; one reason is, because he sees him commonly with his crowne on his head, while Princes commonly are jealous of each other. Some say because be presumes to come into his presence booted and spurred, contrary to the law in court.