Many years ago there was published at Canterbury a periodi cal work called The Kentish Register. In the No. for September, 1793, there is a ludicrous letter, signed "Agricola," addressed to Sir John Sinclair, then President of the Royal Agricultural Society; and in that letter there is frequent mention made of "Doctor Dobbs, of Doncaster, and his horse Nobbs." In the Parish Register, of Doncaster, there is this entry :— 1723, Feb. 10. "Dorothy Dove, gentlewoman, bur.” Doctor Daniel Dove, of Doncaster, and his horse Nobbs, form. the subjects of a paper in "The Nonpareil, or the Quintessence of Wit and Humour," published in 1757. There is a story told somewhere of "Doctor Dobbs and his horse Nobbs." The horse Nobbs was left, one cold night, outside a cottage, whilst the Doctor was within officiating as accoucheur (I believe); when he was ready to start, and came out, he found the horse apparently dead. The Doctor was miles from home, and, as the horse was dead, and the night dark, in place of walking home, he, with his host, dragged the horse into the kitchen and skinned him, by way of passing the time profitably. But, lo! when the skinning was finished, the horse gave signs of returning animation. What was to be done? Doctor Dobbs, fertile in resources, got sheepskins and sewed them on Nobbs, and completely clothed him therein; and-mirabile dictu!—the skins became attached to the flesh, Nobbs recovered, and from thenceforward carried a woolly coat, duly shorn every summer, to the profit of Doctor Dobbs, and to the wonder and admiration of the neighborhood. It appears from the preface to the last edition of The Doctor, &c., that the story of Dr. Daniel Dove and his horse was one well known in Southey's domestic circle. A letter is there quoted, written by Southey to Mrs. Southey (then Miss Caroline Bowles), in which he says: There is a story of Dr. D. D. of D. and of his horse Nobs, which has, I believe, been made into a Hawker's Book. Coleridge used to tell it, and the humor lay in making it as long-winded as possible; it suited, however, my long-windedness better than his, and I was frequently called upon for it by those who enjoyed it, and sometimes I volunteered it, when Coleridge pro. tested against its being told. DECEITFULNESS OF LOVE. 1 The following lines, written about 1600, have probably never been published, and are well worthy of preservation :--- DECEITFULNESS OF LOVE. Go, sit by the summer sea, Where the flood hasteth. Mark how o'er ocean's breast Rolls the hoar billow's crest; Such is his heart's unrest Who of love tasteth. Griev'st thou that hearts should change? Lo! where life reigneth, Or the free sight doth range, What long remaineth? Spring with her flow'rs doth die; Fast fades the gilded sky; And the full moon on high Ceaselessly waneth. Smile, then, ye sage and wise; And if love sever Bonds which thy soul doth prize, Such does it ever! Deep as the rolling seas, Soft as the twilight breeze, But of more than these Boast could it never! DIVINATION BY, OR TOSSING OF, COFFEE GROUNDS. The following curious advertisement is in the Dublin Weekly Journal, June 11, 1726. This species of divination is mentioned in a note to Ellis's edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 620, and reference made to the first volume of the Gentleman's Magazine (1731), p. 108, where an extract is made from the Weekly Register, March 20, No. 90, relating some occurrences the author met with in a visit he lately paid to a lady: Whom he surprised and her company in close cabal over their coffee, the rest very intent upon one whom, by her address and intelligence, he guessed was a tire-woman [Mrs. Cherry?], to which she added the secret of divining by coffee grounds. She was then in full inspiration, and with much solemnity observing the atoms round the cup; on the one hand sat a widow, on the other a maiden lady. They assured him that every cast of the cup is a picture of all one's life to come, and every transaction and circumstance is delineated with the exactest certainty," &c. The same practice is noticed in The Connoisseur, No. 56, where a girl is represented divining to find out of what rank her husband should be: I have seen him several times in coffee grounds with a sword by his side; and he was once at the bottom of a tea-cup in a coach and six, with two footmen behind it. In the following advertisement one cannot but be struck with the piety (?) of Mrs. Cherry, who declined business till prayers were over at St. Peter's Church (a proof of daily prayers, by the way, in 1726), as well as with the economy with which she exercised her profession :— Advice is hereby given that there is lately arrived in this city the famous Mrs. Cherry, the only gentlewoman truly learned in that occult science of tossing of coffee grounds; who has with uninterrupted success for some time past practised to the general satisfaction of her female visitants. She is to be heard of at Mrs. C―ks, or at Mrs. Q-ts, in Angier Street, Dublin. Her hours are after prayers are done at St. Peter's Church, till dinner. N. B.-She never requires more than one ounce of coffee from a single gentlewoman, and so proportionable for a second or third person, but not to exceed that number at any one time. KISSING. Kissing would seem to have been the usual method of salutation in England in former times. According to Chalondylus, Whenever an invited guest entered the house of his friend, he invariably saluted his wife and daughters, as a common act of courtesy. Chaucer often alludes to it. Thus, the Frere in the Sompnour's Tale, upon the entrance of the mistress of the house into the room where her husband and he were together : ariseth up ful curtisly, And hire embraceth in his armes narwe, And kisseth hire swete, and chirketh as a sparwe With his lippes. Robert de Brunne says the custom formed part of the ceremony of drinking healths :— That sais wasseille drinkis of the cup, Kiss and his felow he gives it up. On this subject, Collet's Relics of Literature contains the following passage: Dr. Pierius Winsemius, historiographer to their High Mightinesses the States of Friesland, in his Chronijck van Frieslandt, 1622, tells us that the pleasant practice of kissing was utterly "unpractised and unknown" in England, till the fair princess Rouix (Rowena), the daughter of King Hengist of Friezland, "pressed the beaker with her lipkens, and saluted the amorous Vortigern with a husjen (a little kiss)." John Bunyan condemns the practice in his Grace Abounding: The common salutation of women I abhor; it is odious to me in whomsoever I see it. When I have seen good men salute those women that they have visited, or that have visited them, I have made my objection against it; and when they have answered that it was but a piece of civility, I have told them that it was not a comely sight. Some, indeed, have urged the holy kiss; but then I have asked them why they made balks? why they did salute the most handsome, and let the ill-favored ones go? Before Bunyan, we find in Whytford's Type of Perfection, 1532, the following passage :— It becometh not, therefore, the personnes religious to follow the manere of secular persones, that in theyr congresses or commune metynges, or departyngs, done use to kysse, take hands, or such other touchings that good religious persones shulde utterly avoyde. The custom is thought to have gone out about the time of the Restoration. Peter Heylin says it had for some time before been unfashionable in France. Its abandonment in England might have formed part of that French code of politeness which Charles II. introduced on his return. Traces of it are to be found in the Spectator. Thus, Rustic Sprightly (No. 240) appeals for "judgment for or against kissing by way of civility or salutation," complaining that whereas, before, he "never came in public but he saluted them, though in great assemblies, all around." Now, since "the unhappy arrival of a courtier," who was content with "a profound bow," there is "no young gentlewoman has been kissed." The practice seems to have been regarded by foreigners as peculiarly English. Thus Cavendish, in his Life of Wolsey, says:—— I being in a fair great dining chamber (in a castle belonging to "M. Crequi, a nobleman born") I attended my Lady's coming; and after she came thither out of her own chamber, she received me most gently, like one of noble estate, having a train of twelve gentlewomen. And when she with her train came all out, she said to me, Forasmuch, quoth she, as ye be an Englishman, whose custom is in your country to kiss all ladies and gentlewomen without offence, and although it be not so here in this realm [France, t. Hen. VIII.] yet will I be so bold to kiss you, and so shall all my maidens. By means whereof, I kissed my Lady and all her women. |