Peculiar Tenure in the Parish of Broughton, Lincolnshire. The tenure by which lands are held in this parish, consists in the following ceremony, which takes place in the church every Palm-Sunday" A person enters the church-yard with a green silk purse, containing ten shillings, and a silver penny, tied at the end of a cart-whip, which he smacks thrice in the porch, and continues there till the second lesson begins; when he goes into the church, and smacks the whip three times over the clergyman's head. After kneeling before the desk, during the reading of the lesson, he presents the minister with the purse, and then retiring to the choir, waits the re mainder of the service. Humanity of a Raven. A few years back a Raven was kept at the Red-Lion, Hungerford: a gentleman's chaise, in turning into the yard, ran over the leg of his Newfoundland-dog, and while examining the injury done, Ralph was evidently a concerned spectator. When the dog was tied up, under the manger of the horses, Ralph attended upon him with particular kindness. This was so marked, that it was observed to the hostler, who said, that he had been bred from his pin-feather, in intimacy with a dog; that the affection between them was mutual; and that all the neighbourhood had been witnesses of the acts of fondness they had conferred upon each other. This dog also had his leg broke, and during the long time he was confined, Ralph waited upon, and carried him provisions daily! By accident, the hostler shut the stabledoor, and Ralph was deprived of the company of his friend the whole night, but in the morning, the bottom of the door was found so pecked, that Ralph would, in another hour, have made his own entrance-port. Judicial Combat. An able and interesting paper, as to the origin of the Trial by Battle, having appeared in our last number, we think the following view of the ceremony adopted on such heart-appalling tests cannot fail to interest :-" The forms of trial being completed, if it appeared that the resources of human sagacity were unequal to the discovery of the truth, the two combatants, with crucifixes in their hands, were led into the lists by sponsors appointed for the occasion, being dressed in tunics of leather, or linen, and armed according to their condition; that is to say, if persons of low rank, with a stick and a shield; and if knights, with all the usual armour and weapons. They then mounted a scaffold, on which were seated the judges and the marshal. There, an ecclesiastic having previously explained to them the dreadful consequences of perjury, they were ordered to kneel, and to swear three several times on the holy evangelists, the one, that the accused was really guilty of the crime imputed to him; the other, that his accuser was a false and disloyal traitor, and that he lied in his throat. They also swore that they were not provided with any amulet or charm which could give them an unfair advantage. They then descended from the scaffold; the marshal threw down his glove: the herald cried, Do your duty, and the combat began. The unsuccessful champion being considered as criminal, he was instantly delivered over to the executioner, and hanged; unless the king thought fit to remit this sentence, in which case he was stripped of his armour, piece by piece, was led backwards out of the lists, and then out-lawed, and declared infamous. A champion who fell in the combat, was stripped naked, and his body either hanged on a gibbet, or treated with every sort of indignity. Every part of his armour was broken in pieces, and even his horse was condemned to a strange sort of degradation, having his tail cut off, and thrown on a dunghill. During the combat, the spectators were prohibited, under the severest penalties, from making any noise, or using any gestures, that might encourage or dismay either of the combatants. Persons incapable of supporting their own cause by force of arms, as women, minors, infirm persons, or ecclesiastics, were permittted to have champions, whose zeal in the cause they undertook to defend, was effectually secured, by subjecting them, if unsuccessful, to the same punishments which were incurred by the principals. It occasionally happened, that disputes which were totally unconnected with the decision of any criminal or civil process, were decided by judicial combats, merely because they appeared so embarrassing, as to be incapable of any other determination. Thus, in the empire, they undertook to decide a great question of jurisprudence; and, in Spain, the respective merits of the Roman and Mozarabic liturgies, &c. Those who wish for more information on this subject, will find it in Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws.' Origin of St. Swithin. BLOUNT tells us, that St. Swithin, a holy bishop of Winchester, about the year 860, was called the Weeping St. Swithin, for that, his feast, Præsepe and Aselli, rainy constellations, rise cosmically, and commonly cause rain. Gay, in his Trivia, mentions, "How if, on Swithin's Feast, the welkin lours, The following is said to be the origin of the old adage, “If it rain on St. Swithin's day, there will be rain, more or less, for forty-five successive days." In the year 865, St. Swithin, bishop of Winchester, to which rank he was raised by King Ethelwolfe, the Dane, dying, was canonized by the then Pope. He was singular for his desire to be buried in the open church-yard, and not in the chancel of the minster, as was usual with other bishops; which request was complied with; but the monks, on his being canonized, taking it into their heads that it was disgraceful for the saint to lie in the open church-yard, resolved to remove his body into the choir, which was to have been done with solemn procession on the 15th of July. It rained, however, so violently on that day, and for forty days succeeding, as had hardly ever been known, which made them set aside their design as heretical and blasphemous: and, instead, they erected a chapel over his grave, at which many miracles are said to have been wrought.-Brand's Popular Antiquities. Poiesia. To the Editors of the Northern Star. THE following elegant verses on the death of Homonæa, the wife of Atimetus, (a lady of great beauty, who died in the year 401,) will, I hope, be thought worthy of insertion in your amusing Miscellany. I have lately seen a French translation of them, which, though on the whole well written, is very deficient in that pathos so conspicuous in the original, owing, perhaps, more to the nature of the language than to any want of ability in the transslator. From the spirited translations which have been already given in the Northern Star by your poetical correspondents, I am induced to hope that some of them will favour your readers with these beautiful lines in an English dress. SI pensare animas sinerent crudelia fata, At nunc, quod possum, fugiam lucemque deosque, Parce tuam, conjux, flėtu quassare juventam, Fataque morendo solicitare mea, Nil prosunt lacrumæ, nec possunt fata moveri, Parce, ita non unquam similem experiare dolorem, Ta, qui securâ procedis mente, parumper Cui formam Paphia et Charites tribuêre decoram, Quam Pallas cunctis artibus eruduit; Nondum bis denos ætas compleverat annos, Injecêre manus invida fata mihi; Nec pro me queror ;- hoc morte est mihi tristius ipsâ, Your classical readers will perceive the great effect produced by throwing the first part of this epitaph into the form of a dialogue between Atimetus and his beloved Homonæa: the tenderness with which, in the first six lines, he bewails the approaching death of the object of his affections, as well as the anxiety which Homonæa shows in her endeavours to console him, and the fervour with which she prays that the years of happiness she might naturally have expected to enjoy, may be added to his, whom she leaves behind, are admirable proofs of the poet's skill in delineating the tenderer emotions of the soul. Where so many beauties are discoverable, it may be difficult to point out what is most striking; if, however, I may be allowed to hazard an opinion, I should say that the description of the mental and personal accomplishments of Homonæa contained in the 19th and 20th lines, though it may have been equalled, has seldom been surpassed. Leeds, July, 1818. To the Editors of the Northern Star. SIGMA. THE following production of a Reverend Gentleman, at present resident in this neighbourhood, has been much admired by those who have seen it, but as only few have had that opportunity, owing to its not having been published, you will oblige myself, and others of your readers, by inserting it in your Magazine. Woodhouse, near Leeds. ELEGY ON KIRKSTALL ABBEY. L. Fair monument, a temple still thou art! The seasons here their sweetest offerings bring, Calm seat of nameless charms! no strife of tongues, What time the ruins wave in summer green, To drink the pure enchantment as it flows. And oft shall holy Contemplation stray Delighted thro' this melancholy vale; And sacred visions glide o'er all the way, In dazzling light t' adorn the poet's tale, She looks-and with the magic of her eye, The desolated shades are changed and gone; Or evening gathers o'er the ascending groves, Sometimes he chants aloud, moved by the scene, Perchance he listens to the distant plaint Of shepherd's lute, incautious of the snare ; Th' insidious notes subdue the enchanted saint, While memory paints the image of the fair, "Ah! hush!" he cries, ('twixt fondness and alarm The unheeded beads drop from his trembling hand,) "I may not parley with this dreadful charm,—— "Twould wrench from virtue her sublime command, "I know it well-a song of her, whose name, “Oh dang’rous world, where strong temptations range "Full wide and searching as the boundless air; "Is sweet retirement thus? Then 'tis not strange |