ancient times without the walls of cities and towns. Lycurgus, he tells us, first introduced gravestones within the walls, and as it were brought home the ghosts to the very doors. Thus we compel horses that are apt to startle, to make the nearest possible approaches to the objects at which they have taken the alarm. Our author is certainly very right, when he tells us that church-yards are as little frequented by apparitions and ghosts as other places, and that therefore it is a weakness to be afraid of passing through them. Superstition however will always attend ignorance; and the night, as she continues to be the mother of dews, will also never fail of being the fruitful parent of chimerical fears*. When the sun sets, shadows, that shew'd at noon Dryden. The inconveniences complained of by our author in the first part of this chapter, we have had the pleasure of seeing remedied. With great decency and propriety the church-yards here are now all inclosed: they are no longer the receptacles of filth, or haunts of nightly lewdness; and the ashes of our friends and ancestors are suffered to remain (as he wished)" in greater quiet, " and more undisturbed peace." G * Now it is the time of night, CHAP. Shakespear CHAP. VIII. Of visiting Wells and Fountains: The original of this custom: The naming of them of great antiquity: The worship paid them by the Papists was gross idolatry. IN N the dark ages of Popery, it was a custom, if any well had an awful situation, and was seated in some lonely melancholy vale; if its water was clear and limpid, and beautifully margined with the tender grass; or if it was looked upon, as having a medicinal quality; to gift it to some Saint, and honour it with his name. Hence it is, that we have at this day wells and fountains called, some St John's, St Mary Magdalen's, St Mary's well, &c. To these kind of wells, the common people are accustomed to go, on a summer's evening, to refresh themselves with a walk after the toil of the day, to drink the water of the fountain, and enjoy the pleasing prospect of shade and stream. Now this custom, (though at this time of day, very commendable, and harmless, and innocent) seems to be the remains of that superstitious practice of the Papists, of paying ** Viridi si margine clauderet undas. Herba. Juven. Sat. 3. ado 66 66 adoration to wells and fountains: For they imagined there was some holiness and sanctity in them, and so worshipped them. In the canons of St Anselm, made in the year 1102, we find this superstitious practice in some measure forbid. *"Let no one attribute reverence or sanctity to a dead body, or a fountain, or "other things, (as sometimes is to our knowledge) without the bishop's authority." And in the 16th of the canons made in the reign of king Edgar, in the year 963, it is ordered, "That every priest industriously advance Christianity, and extinguish heathenism, and "forbid the worshipping of fountains, &c. Mr "Johnson says upon this canon, that the wor shipping of wells and fountains, was a super"stition which prevailed in this nation, till the age before the reformation: Nay, I cannot it is extinguished yet among the papists. "In the ages of dark popery it was thought "sufficient to forbid the honouring of wells "and fountains, without the bishop's approba❝tion." 66 66 say, The giving of names to wells, is of great antiquity: We find it a custom in the days of the old patriarchs. Abraham observed this custom; and therefore the well, which he G 2 *Johnson Consti. St Anselm. Can. 26. Johnson Consti. 960. reco recovered from the servants of Abimeleck, he * called Beer-sheba, or the Well of the Oath, because there they sware both of them. Thus also Isaac, when his herdsmen had found a well, and the herdsmen of Gerar had a contest with them about the right of it, † called the name of the well Esek, that is, Strife; because they strove with him. And he digged another well, and strove for that also, and he called the name of it Sitnah, that is, Hatred. And he removed from thence, and digged another well, and for that they strove not; and The called the name of it Rehoboth, that is, Room. And he said, for now the LORD hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. And we read it was at Jacob's well that JESUS talked with the woman of Samaria. To give names therefore to wells, is of an ancient standing; but to pay homage and worship to them, was never heard of among the people of GoD, till they sunk into gross idolatry, and became worshippers of stocks and stones: When the creature became worshipped instead of the Creator, then was this custom first introduced, in the ages of Popish ignorance and idolatry. There need be no question, but as this custom is practically heathenish, so it is also originally for the heathens were wont to worship streams *Gen. xxi, 31. + Ibid. 26. and and fountains, and to suppose that the nymphs, whom they imagined the goddesses of the waters, presided over them. As the papists have borrowed many of their silly and superstitious ceremonies from the religion of the heathens, so this in particular, a sottish, stupid, and abominable custom, they could borrow no where else. For we had no such custom, neither at any time the churches of GOD. OBSERVATIONS I ON CHAPTER VIII. Find little that may be added to our Author's account of the superstitious adoration of wells and fountains. There are interdictions of this superstition in the laws of King Canute also, preserved in Wheloc's edition of Bede's Church History.* I have frequently observed shreds, or bits of rags, upon the bushes that over-hang a well, in the road to Benton, a village in the neighbourhood of Newcastle. It is called the Rag Well. This name is undoubtedly of a very long standing: The spring has been visited for some disorder or other, and these rag-offerings are the reliques of the then prevailing popular superstition.-Thus Mr Pennant tells us, they visit the well of Spey, G-3 in *pædenrcype bið. † man peoppige oppe flôopazen. pýllar. oppe Fʊanas. &c. 5. Leges Canuti Regis. p. 108. |