1746; and in Marylebone before 1780: at the latter (Lord's Ground) is an old painting of the game, in which the bat has the bend of the club, which, it is thought, denotes cricket to have been a gradual improvement of the club and ball. A connexion is traceable between Cricket and Stool-ball, which is frequently mentioned by writers of three centuries, but without any proper definition of the game. It has been played in the north of England in our time, consisting in setting a stool upon the ground, and one of the players taking his place before it, while his antagonist, standing at a distance, tosses a ball with the intention of striking the stool; and this it is the business of the former to prevent by beating it away with the hand, reckoning one to the game for every stroke of the ball; if, on the contrary, it should be missed by the hand and touch the stool, the players change places. Now, the word Cricket, in Cartwright's Lady Errant, 1651, is a low stool with four legs: one of the characters says: I'll stand upon a cricket, and there make а Fluent orations. Now, may not the legs of the cricket have been the original of the wicket, and the club substituted for the hand, the bat; stool-ball was also played with more than one stool, and may have suggested doublewickets. Stool-ball was, however, oftener played by women than men; and D'Urfey, who mentions stool-ball, also names cricket. Cricket may be called our national game, and is played almost exclusively by the British: it has only been introduced into Scotland of late years. We have carried it into many parts of the world where the climate seems little suited to the exertion which it requires; as for example, Bengal. Love of Music. It is impossible to form any theory of the class of minds most susceptible of the influence of Music: facts stop and contradict us at every step. The question lies too close at the sanctuary of our being not to be overshadowed by its mystery. There are no given signs by which we can predicate that one man has music in his soul and another has not. Voltaire is commonly stated to have been a hater and despiser of the art of sounds; but there is perhaps as much evidence against the assertion, as for it, in his works. Gretry says of him, that he would sit with a discontented face whilst music was going on, which, considering what French music was in his time, might argue not a worse ear than his neighbours, but a better. But granting that Voltaire had no musical sympathies in him, and it goes against our conscience to think that he had, his friend and fellow-thinker, Frederick of Prussia, had them in a degree; and a man as unlike both as this world could offer, Dr. Chalmers, had none at all, except, of course, that he liked a Scotch air, as all Scotchmen appear to do. Then it may seem natural to our preconceived ideas that such a mind as Horace Walpole's should have no capacity for musical pleasure; but by what possible analogy was it that Charles Lamb's should have just as little? How came it to pass that Rousseau, the worthless ancestor of all Radicals, was an enthusiastic and profound musician-while Dr. Johnson, the type of old Toryism, did not know one tune from another; or that Luther pronounced music to be one of the best gifts of Heaven, and encouraged the study of it by precept and example; while Calvin and Knox persecuted it as a snare of the Evil One, and conscientiously condemned it to perpetual degradation in their churches? All we can say is, that the majority pay her homage-—that it is one of her heavenly attributes to link those natures together whom nothing else can unite. Men of the most opposite characters and lives that history can produce fraternise in music. If Alfred loved her, so did Nero; if Cœur de Lion was a sweet musician, so was Charles IX.; if George III. delighted in all music, especially in that of a sacred character, so did Henry VIII.; if the hero of our own times, Wellington, the motto of whose life was duty, was musical both by nature and by inheritance, his antagonist Napoleon at least hummed opera tunes. Oliver Cromwell bade a musician ask of him what favour he pleased. John Wesley remonstrated against leaving all the good tunes to the Devil. Every private family could quote some domestic torment and some domestic treasure, alike in nothing else but in love for music. There is no forming any system of judgment. There is no broad mark: young and old, high and low-passionate and meek-wise and foolishbabies, idiots, insane people-all, more or less, like music. At most, there are some who are indifferent, or fancy themselves so, as much for want of opportunity as of taste-some who don't care for bad music, and never hear good-if so hard a lot can be imagined--but there is only one class of men who condemn it, and those are fanatics; and there is only one order of beings, according to Luther, who hate it, and those are devils.-Abridged from the Quarterly Review, No. 166. Playing on the Salt-box. The middle-aged reader may remember to have seen the odd performance with a rolling-pin and salt-box, beaten together, and the noise being modulated so as to resemble a sort of "music." It was formerly played by Merry-Andrews at country fairs; and in Croker's Boswell, we find Johnson praising the humour of Bonnell Thornton's burlesque Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, and repeating these lines :— In strains more exalted the salt-box shall join, And clattering, and battering, and clapping combine; Up and down leaps the flap, and with rattling rebounds. In a note, Mr. Croker quotes from Dr. Burney a passage which well illustrates this subject: : In 1769, I set for Smart and Newbury, Thornton's burlesque Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. It was performed at Ranelagh in masks, to a very crowded audience, as I was told; for I then resided in Norfolk. Beard sang the salt-box song, which was admirably accompanied on that instrument by Brent, the fencing-master; Skeggs on the broomstick as bassoon, and a remarkable performer on the Jew's harp, Buzzing twangs the iron lyre. Cleavers were cast in bell-metal for this entertainment. All the performers of the Old Woman's Oratory, employed by Foote, were, I believe, employed at Ranelagh on this occasion. The Cushion Dance. This once favourite dance appears to be of some antiquity: it is thus mentioned by Selden in his Table Talk, under "King of England :""The Court of England is much altered. At a solemn dancing, first you have the grave measures, then the Corrantoes and the Galliards, and this is kept up with ceremony; at length to French-more, [it should be Trenchmore,] and the cushion-dance, and then all the company dancelord and groom, lady and kitchen-maid, no distinction. So in our Court, in Queen Elizabeth's time, gravity and state were kept up. In King James's time things were pretty well. But in King Charles's time there was nothing but French-more and the cushion-dance, omnium gatherum, tolly polly, hoite come toite." In Playford's Dancing Master, &c., 1698, it is described as follows:- "This dance is begun by a single person, (either man or woman,) who, taking a cushion in hand, dances about the room, and at the end of the tune, stops and sings, 'This dance it will no further go;' the musician answers, I pray you, good sir, why say you so?' Man: 'Because Joan Sanderson will not come to.' Musician: She must come to, and she shall come to, and she must whether she will or no.' Then he lays down the cushion before a woman, on which she kneels, and he kisses her, singing 'Welcome Joan Sanderson, welcome, welcome.' Then she rises, takes up the cushion, and both dance, singing, 'Prinkum, prankum is a fine dance, and shall we go dance it once again?" Then making a stop, the woman sings as before, "This dance it will no further go.' Musician: I pray you, madam, why say you so ?' Woman: Because John Sanderson will not come to.' Musician: He must come to,' &c. (as before). And so she lays down the cushion before a man, who, kneeling upon it, salutes her, she singing, Welcome John Sanderson,' &c. Then he taking up the cushion, they dance round, singing as before, and thus they do till the whole company are taken into the ring. Then the cushion is laid before the first man, the woman singing, This dance,' &c. (as before), only instead of 'not come to,' they sing go fro;' and instead of 'Welcome John Sanderson,' 'farewell, farewell;' and so they go out one by one as they came in." According to Miss Baker's Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, the cushion dance is still continued, with some variations, by the humbler classes in the county of Northampton, and generally closes the evening's amusements. 6 To return to the antiquity of this dance, Heywood, in 1600, makes one of the characters in A Woman Killed with Kindness, "call for the cushion dance." Taylor, in 1630, mentions, as one of "many provocatory dances," the cushion dance. It was well known in Holland in the early part of the seventeenth century, and an interesting engraving of it be seen in the emblems of John de Brunnes, Amsterdam, 1624. may Anderson's Scotch Pills. These celebrated Pills, perhaps the oldest patent medicine in existence, were first made by Dr. Patrick Anderson, who practised in Edinburgh in 1618, and was subsequently appointed physician to Charles I. He wrote a tract called the Colde Spring of Kinghorne Craig, and left a poem, and a Historie of Scotland; besides a work called Grana Angelica, 8vo. Edinb., concerning the nature and use of the famous Anderson's Pills. A person named Inglis sold these Pills in 1690, "at the Golden Unicorn, over against the Maypole, in the Strand;" and here, to this day, is No. 65, Inglis's Warehouse for the sale of Dr. Anderson's Scotch Pills. Like all successes, the Pills have been grossly counterfeited. "There are," says Tom Brown, "at least half a score of pretenders to Anderson's Scotch Pills, and the Lord knows who has the true preparation." They consist of Barbadoes aloes, with a proportion of jalap, and oil of anise-seed.-See Dr. Macaulay's Medical Dictionary. Royal Wet-nurses. In 1774, there were on the pension-list a number of ex-royal Wetnurses, whose pensions amounted to 16007. per annum. These officials, after the expiration of their periods of service, received 1007. a year, if they had nursed the younger children of the Royal family. The retiring pension of a nurse to the Prince of Wales or the Princess Royal amounted to 400l. a year.-Dr. Doran's Notes to Walpole's Last Journals. Figs in Medicine. The medicinal use of Figs is of Scriptural antiquity. The first cataplasm on record is that which was used by Hezekiah, who lived 260 years before Hippocrates. "And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs, and they took it, and laid it on the boil; and he recovered." The Gout. The Scotch formerly regarded the gout as a fit punishment for the luxurious living of the English; but this morale is sadly spoiled by the Gout existing among the poor and temperate Feroe Islanders. This is attributed to their imprudence in throwing themselves on their beds to rest without pulling off their clothes, when they come home wet; the excessive heat of their apartments, and the bad custom of sitting close to the fire, dispose them to be gouty, when exposed to the least cold or sharpness of wind. The Elder. To be crowned with Elder was, anciently, a disgrace. In an old play, we read: You may make doves of vultures, roses of nettles, laurel for a garland, or elder for a disgrace." Probably, this was owing to the anecdote which Shakspeare has noticed that Judas was hanged on a tree of that kind: as, in Love's Labour Lost. Well follow'd; Judas was hanged on an elder. This legend of Judas, however it originated, was generally received. Ben Jonson, in Every Man out of his Humour, has, "he shall be your Judas, and you shall be his elder-tree to hang on;" and Nixon, in his Strange Footpost, says: "Our gardens will prosper the better when they have in them not one of those elders, whereupon so many covetous Judases hang themselves." Shakspeare also makes it an emblem of grief:Grow patience, And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine His perishing root, with the increasing vine.-Cymbeline. That is, let grief, the elder, cease to entwine its root with patience, the vine. Eldern is an archaism taken from the elder-tree. According to Grose, the elder is supposed to possess the virtue of protecting persons bearing a branch of it from the charm of witches and wizards; which popular superstition, (Miss Baker thinks,) is the probable reason why so many of these trees are planted by the sides of our rural cottages. Sir James Smith, speaking of the elder, says that our uncertain summer is established by the time that it is in full flower, and entirely gone when its berries are ripe. Rue. The placing of Rue upon the bench of the dock in the Central Criminal Court, in the Old Bailey, has generally been attributed to the properties of that plant in preventing fever, infection, and fainting; and its use for this purpose has been dated from the time of the gaol distemper in the above court, May, 1750. But its use has been referred to other sources. Miller tells us that Rue was anciently named in English Herb Grace, or Herb of Grace." Warburton says it had the latter name from its having been used in exorcisms. When Ophelia, in Hamlet, says to the Queen, "There's rue for you, and here's some for me; we may call it Herb of Grace o' Sundays;"-the fair moralist has no reference to this plant being used in exorcisms performed in churches on Sundays; but means only that the Queen may, with peculiar propriety on Sundays, when she solicits pardon for that crime which she has so much occasion to rue and repent of, call her rue herb of grace. It was, indeed, the common name for rue |