BRIDLE as being preserved in the vestry of Walton Church; it had, according to a previous account, the source of which is now forgotten, been "presented to the parish, more than two hundred years since, by a person of some consequence at that period, whose name was Chester, with the date 1633, and the following inscription:

Chester presents Walton with a bridle

To curb women's tongues that talk too idle. Its presentation arose from the circumstance of the individual whose name it bears losing a valuable estate through the instrumentality of a gossiping lying woman. When this note was taken does not appear; the gossip's bridle has since "become so corroded, the inscription cannot now be read, only some few indications of letters remaining."

The skeleton helmet, here shown, "is made of thin

iron, and so contrived as to pass over and about the head, when the whole clasps together, and is fastened at the back of the neck, by a small padlock. The bridle bit, as it is called, is a flat piece of iron, about two inches broad, passes into the mouth, and keeps down the tongue by its pressure: an aperture in front admits the nose to pass through. The woodcut exhibits the bridle opened

before being placed on the head of the delinquent. Ralph Gardiner, of Chirton, in his England's Grievance discovered in the Coal Trade and the Tyrannical Oppression of the Corporation Magistrates of Newcastle-uponTyne, 1655, 4to., chap. lv., notices the prevalence of the use of the brank in that town.

John Willis, of Ipswich, upon his oath, said that he, this deponent, was in Newcastle, and he there saw one Ann

* Topographical History of Surrey, vol. ii. p. 331.

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Biddlestone drawn through the streets by an officer of the same Corporation holding a rope in his hand, the other end fastened to an engine called the branks,' which is like a crown, it being of iron, which was musled over the head and face, with a great gap or tongue of iron, which forced into the magistrates do inflict upon chiding and scoulding woher mouth, forced the blood out; and that is the punishment men, and that he hath often seen the like done to others."

Gardiner further mentions, "Scoulds are to be duck'd over head and ears into the water in a ducking stool;" he adds:

These are practices as are not granted by their Charter law, and are repugnant to the known laws of England. These punishments, as he was informed, were but gentle admonitions, to what they knew was acted by other magistrates of Newcastle.

sentation of a brank or scold's bridle, yet extant among In Current Notes, vol. i. p. 45, is inserted the represome old armour in the Guildhall, Worcester, said to have been formerly in use in that city, and probably of the date of Henry the Seventh's reign. It is, however, extremely doubtful if the civic records can render any notices of its use as a punishment at so early a period. In some instances, it would appear, when too old to walk, or infirm, the brank was placed on the head, and the scold secured in the market or some public place, against a post, to attract the public gaze,† thus

Plot, describing the customs of Staffordshire in his time, cynically observes, "Lastly, we come to the acts that re

which, as elsewhere, the

spect mankind, amongst how auldo Mary Curtis civility of precedence longu was & raked for must be allowed to the Skandle

women, and that as well

in punishments as favours. For the former whereof they have such a peculiar artifice at Newcastle-underLyme, and Walsall, for correcting of scolds, which it does, too, so effectually, and so very safely, that I look upon it as much to be preferred to the Cucking-stoole,

Gardiner illustrates this now obsolete custom by an engraving, that Brand copied into his History of Newcastleupon-Tyne, 1789, vol. ii., p. 192. He added, "the brank was then preserved in the Town Court." A recent letter from Mr. John Adamson, to the Editor, intimates, "the corporation still retain it."

Kindly communicated by a correspondent from Yarmouth, from a manuscript of the seventeenth century in his possession; with no other particular than the intimation here retained,-"How oulde Mary Curtys tongue was branked for skandle," a sketch doubtless made at the time by some adept observer of "Current Notes."

Jan. the 15th, 1613.

Receaued by vs, the Stewarde and poore prisoners in the hole of Wood Street Compter, from the Worp" the Wardmote Inquest of St. Dunstan's in ye West, the some of three shillings for our reliefe, ffor wch wee praise God, and pray for all our good benefactors.

iijs. HENRY MARKS, Steward. Received the 15th of January, 1613, by vs the poore prisoners of Ludgate, from the Wardmote Enquest of the parishe of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, by the hands of Mr. William Shackley and Mr. Richard Wootton, the sum of two shillings and eightpence, for which we praise God, and pray for all or benefactors. ijs. viiid.

ALPHONSE IREMONGER. The xyth of January, 1613. Receaued the daie and yeare aboue written by vs, the poore prisoners in the hole of the Pultrie Compter, from the Wor the Wardmote Enquest of St. Dunstan's-in-theWest, the some of Three Shillings, by the hands of William Shackley and Richard Wotton.

For we wee geue God thanks and daiely praie for all of good benefactors. EDMOND CATCHES, Steward.

LETITIA'S CHARMS.

VERSES BY CAROLAN, THE BLIND Bard. Translated from the Irish.

WITH pleasure I sing of the maid,

Whose beauty and wit doth excel;
My Letty, the fairest shall lead-

From beauties shall bear off the bell.
Her neck to the swan I'll compare,
Her face to the brightness of day,
And is he not bless'd who shall share
In the charms her bosom display.
"Tis thus the fair maid I commend,

Whose words are than music more sweet; No bliss can on woman attend,

But with thee, dear Letty, we meet.

ORIGIN OF JACK THE GIANT Killer.

THE sheet legends and chap books, which formerly was the business of the Company of flying-stationers, to disseminate every where, are now fast disappearing, the old printers of these matters are all gone, and the that no printer finds it deserving his attention to produce fashion of modern reading, is to reject them altogether, so copies which may be sold at the smallest possible prices.

When our forefathers, the Saxons, came into this island, they found here monuments of an earlier population, as cromlechs, vast entrenchments, and other similar products of immense labour, as well as Roman buildings and towns. With the character and uses of the latter, they were perfectly well acquainted; but they looked with much greater reverence on cromlechs, burrows, and indeed on all earthworks, of which the origin had taught them to attribute such structures to the priwas not very apparent, because their own superstitions, meval giants of their mythology, who were objects of dread even to the gods themselves. They believed, that the ground on which they stood was under the immediate protection of beings of a higher order than humanity, who frequented them at the silent hour of night, and whose anger it was perilous to provoke. The Saxons brought with them numberless mythic traditions and stories relating to their gods and heroes, which they had transmitted through ages of which no historical notices remain, and the scene of which, had been successively placed in every country where they had effected a settlement. Many of their legends and stories had thus become located in England, when the introduction of Christianity caused a sudden change in the general belief of the people, and what were merely nothing more than mythic personages, were at length designated as the real heroes of former days, or, as bad spirits were considered as so many devils, or messengers of evil. These mythic traditions still current as romances, continued under altered forms as romances of chivalry, and under various subsequent degradations, were more recently hawked about the towns and villages, through every street, and at every cotter's door, in the degraded category of penny chap-books and nursery tales. Amid these gradations, and in this debased manner, the mighty deeds of the god Thor against the giants of Jotenheim, became transformed into the exploits of Jack the Giant-killer!

With the peasantry, to whom these changes and literary vicissitudes were wholly unknown, the earlier legends continued intimately connected with certain localities, and the names of Woden, Thor, and the rest, were traditionally current, and their stories so frequently handed down, with very slight or little transformation, at periods when they had ceased to be recognised in more cultivated society, or were forgotten amid their refinements. The giant races of the Northern and Teutome mythology were termed Jotens or Yotens, in AngloSaxon Eotenas. To them, the early Anglo-Saxon poetry attributed operations of immense power or remoteness of antiquity-the mounds and earthworks of ancient times, as well as the weapons and other articles found

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an Irish rhymester,

The toads went pop, the frogs went hop

Slap dash into the water;

And the snakes committed suicide,

To save themselves from slaughter.

AN extraordinary value appears of late to be placed on the productions of this Modern English Artist, and there seems to be an increasing anxiety among collectors to possess one or more of his paintings. Turner painted for Mr. John Broadhurst, now of Campden Hill, Ken

He built a church in Dublin town,
And on it put a steeple ;

is also found on a Dublin trader's token-Richard Greenwood, Merchant, High Street, Dublin; engraved in Snelling's second additional plate to Simon, fig. 7. This unlucky contre-tems seems to place it before 1679, the latest date that Dr. Smith has noticed on any other Dublin token; otherwise the probability would be, the now named St. Patrick's pence and halfpence were struck during the seige of Limerick, at the Mint then controlled by Walter Plunkett, with the re-struck gunmoney sixpences, designated Hibernias, 1691. On the ECCE GREX pieces, the shield bearing three castles or towers, has induced the presumption they were struck at Dublin, but the same device, the three castles, is upon several of the Limerick trading tokens, of which none are dated later than 1679.

Mr. Lindsay, in his View of the Coinage of Ireland, has placed these pieces to the reign of Charles the First; this the writer imagines has arisen from the deficiency of a due consideration of the general appearance of the coins; it is true, the brass introduced on the copper blank is found on the farthings of that King, and again on the pewter Irish money of James the Second, 1690, but as no record is extant directing the addition of the brass on any intermediate pieces, the finding it on all the St. Patrick's halfpence, seems to appropriate them to the period of the fallen monarch.

as it is otherwise named, the Guardship at the Nore; the Harbour of Dieppe in 1826; and the Cologne, with boats full of figures, on the Rhine, the tower of St. For the first, Turner is said to have received three Martin's Church seen above the City-walls, in 1827. hundred guineas; and for each of the latter, four hundred guineas.

him to send them for sale in July, 1828, to Mr. Phillips, Some distaste on the part of Mr. Broadhurst, induced in Bond Street, at whose rooms they were bought in for seven hundred pounds. The proprietor not caring about their retention, was disposed to let them go at that sum, and directed his agents, Messrs. Harris, Pearce and Biggs, No. 31, Conduit Street, to effect the sale; advertisements appeared, and while Lord Wharncliffe was hesitating, Mr. Wadmore, then of Chapel Street, Edgeware Road, became the purchaser on August 2nd in that year, of the three pictures for 7001. Sixteen years since Mr. Wadmore was desirous of disposing of the Dieppe and the Cologne for eight hundred guineas, giving as a reason his wish to occupy their space with smaller pictures, the proffer was not acof pictures by old Masters and modern English artists cepted; and since his decease, Mr. Wadmore's collection 6th inst. The Cologne produced two thousand guineas, was sold by Messrs. Christie and Manson on the 5th and and the Dieppe, 1850 guineas; both bought for Mr. Naylor of Liverpool; and the Sheerness, possibly the best picture of the three, 1530 guineas, bought for Mr. Foster of Birmingham.

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In the same sale were three pictures by Thomas Webster, R.A., all painted within the last twenty years; the Il Penseroso,' a man seated in the stocks; the the third, Sketching from Nature,' painted in 1837. Dirty Boy,' a beautiful composition of four figures; and The last represented the artist seated, sketching the portrait of a peasant, in a red cap, an old woman at a fireplace, and three peasants near a window, the scene in reality representing the artist's home, and being the portraits of himself, his father, mother, and sister. The first sold for 250 guineas; the second, for 330 guineas; and the third, for 340 guineas; yet Mr. Wadmore obtained them from the now duly appreciated Royal Academician at thirty guineas each. Such is the result of a just discrimination, and an opportune patronage of the painters of our day.

No. XLII.]

ELECTRIC TELEgraph in SEVENTEENTH CENtury. FAMIANUS STRADA, in his Prolusiones Academicæ, a series of poetical pieces, written in the names and styles of several of the more eminent Latin poets, printed at Cologne in 1625, refers to an incident so remarkable, that Addison, in the 119th number of the Guardian, 1713, makes it a subject of particular notice. The passage is in these words:

Strada, in the person of Lucretius, gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends, by the help of a certain loadstone; which had such virtue in it, that if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other, though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time and in the same manner. He tells us, that the two friends, being each of them possessed of one of these needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing it with the four-and-twenty letters, in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed one of the needles on each of these plates, in such a manner that it could move round without impediment, so as to touch any of the four-and-twenty letters. Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this their invention. Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write any thing to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words which he had occasion for, making a little pause at the end of every word or sentence to avoid confusion. The friend in the meanwhile saw his own sympathetic needle moving of itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By this means they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant over cities or mountains, seas or deserts.

Substituting a set of connecting wires for the "loadstone" of the above paragraph, you have here the whole working of the electric telegraph as realised in modern times, shadowed forth in the fancies of a poet, more than two hundred years ago; thus confirming the saying of the wise man, "there is no new thing under the

[JUNE, 1854.

FIRST ENGLISH VISIT TO HERACLEA. THE following letter, as it affords much interesting detail relative to the condition of Heraclea, or Herculaneum, is also evidence of the earliest date when any of our countrymen ventured within its ruins.

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"Naples, May 12, 1730.

The same day I accompanied my friend to a village called Resina, about six miles from this city, and three miles from the foot of Mount Vesuvius. The occasion was this: Dr. Hay, an elderly gentleman, who had several times made the tour of Italy, and who had resided here, from London, nine years, told us one evening in conversation, that in this village called Resina, within a court-yard, was a well nearly one hundred feet deep, and that just at the surface of the water was an entrance into a city, or large town, where we might see streets, palaces, and part of an amphitheatre. You may imagine how this was received by us, who had never heard the least mention of such a discovery, and how improbable to us it must have appeared. Dr. Hay, however, insisted on the truth of it, and informed us, that about fifteen years since, happening to lodge at Portici, near, or within half a mile of the said village, and being curious in searching after antiquities, he found workmen employed by the Duke de Boufflers, who had accidentally made this discovery, and that everything at that time being made commodious, he, Dr. Hay, had the curiosity to descend by a ladder of ropes, but did not venture himself among the ruins.*

"In our way thither we called at the house of an English gentleman, who accompanied us, but being somewhat late, and the seeming impossibility of the

The city of Heraclea, that was founded sixty years before the siege of Troy, after enduring for 1420 years, was destroyed by an earthquake and an eruption from Mount Vesuvius, in the first year of the Emperor Titus, on August 24th, A.D. 79. Partial discoveries of stone, some short time before 1684, induced other researches, which led to further results in 1689; but the discovery referred to, by Dr. Hay, was in 1711, by the Prince D'Elbœuf, not the Duke de Boufflers; and most interesting particulars are embodied in the Marquis de Venuti's account of the discovery by him of the ancient theatre at Heraclea in 1738. This account notices facts quite confirmatory of the letter; nothing, however, is known to the Editor, of T. E., whose initials are attached to the original. Of Venuti's volume, dated Brixiæ, die xvi. Martii 1748, there win, jun., at the Rose, in Paternoster Row, 1750, 8vo., but is a translation by Wickes Skurray, printed for R. Baldis now excessively difficult to procure.

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