Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 403, December 5, 1829», sayfa 3

MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS

SINGING OF PSALMS

This has been a very ancient custom both among the Jews and Christians. St. Paul mentions this practice, which has continued in all succeeding ages, with some variations as to mode and circumstance; for so long as immediate inspiration lasted, the preacher, &c. frequently gave out a hymn; and when this ceased, proper portions of scripture were selected, or agreeable hymns thereto composed; but by the council of Laodicea, it was ordered that no private composition should be used in church; the council also ordered that the psalms should no longer be one continued service, but that proper lessons should be interposed to prevent the people being tired. At first the whole congregation bore a part, singing all together; afterwards the manner was altered, and they sung alternately, some repeating one verse, and some another. After the emperors became Christians, and persecution ceased, singing grew much more into use, so that not only in the churches but also in private houses, the ancient music not being quite lost, they diversified into various sorts of harmony, and altered into soft, strong, gay, sad, grave, or passionate, &c. Choice was always made of that which agreed with the majesty and purity of religion, avoiding soft and effeminate airs; in some churches they ordered the psalms to be pronounced with so small an alteration of voice, that it was little more than plain speaking, like the reading of psalms in our cathedrals, &c. at this day; but in process of time, instrumental music was introduced first amongst the Greeks.

Pope Gregory the Great refined upon the church music and made it more exact and harmonious; and that it might be general, he established singing schools at Rome, wherein persons were educated to be sent to the distant churches, and where it has remained ever since; only among the reformed there are various ways of performing, and even in the same church, particularly that of England, in which parish churches differ much from cathedrals; but most dissenters comply with this part of worship in some form or other.

HALBERT H.

SKIMINGTON RIDING

(To the Editor of the Mirror.)

Having noticed a description of an exhibition called "Skimington Riding," in the present volume of the MIRROR, and your correspondent being at a loss for the origin of such a title, allow me to observe, that it appears to me that it originated from a skimmer being always used (as I have heard from very good authority it is) as the leading instrument towards making the various sounds usual on such occasions. I think it, therefore, very probable it took its rise from the utensil skimmer, and would be more properly called Skimmerting Riding.

Dorset

FELIX.

RECONCILIATION

At Lynn Regis, Norfolk, on every first Monday of the month, the mayor, aldermen, magistrates, and preachers, meet to hear and determine controversies between the inhabitants in an amicable manner, to prevent lawsuits. This custom was first established in 1583, and is called the Feast of Reconciliation.

HALBERT H.

ANCIENT SUPERSTITION RESPECTING FELLING OAKS

In the Magna Britannia, the author in his Account of the Hundred of Croydon, says, "Our historians take notice of two things in this parish, which may not be convenient to us to omit, viz. a great wood called Norwood, belonging to the archbishops, wherein was anciently a tree called the vicar's oak, where four parishes met, as it were in a point. It is said to have consisted wholly of oaks, and among them was one that bore mistletoe, which some persons were so hardy as to cut for the gain of selling it to the apothecaries of London, leaving a branch of it to sprout out; but they proved unfortunate after it, for one of them fell lame, and others lost an eye. At length in the year 1678, a certain man, notwithstanding he was warned against it, upon the account of what the others had suffered, adventured to cut the tree down, and he soon after broke his leg. To fell oaks hath long been counted fatal, and such as believe it produce the instance of the Earl of Winchelsea, who having felled a curious grove of oaks, soon after found his countess dead in her bed suddenly, and his eldest son, the Lord Maidstone, was killed at sea by a cannon ball."

P.T.W.

THE MODERN GREEKS

Have preserved dances in honour of Flora. The wives and maidens of the village gather and scatter flowers, and bedeck themselves from head to foot. She who leads the dance, more ornamented than the others, represents Flora and the Spring, whose return the hymn they sing announces; one of them sings—

 
"Welcome sweet nymph,
Goddess of the month of May."
 

In the Grecian villages, and among the Bulgarians, they still observe the feast of Ceres. When harvest is almost ripe, they go dancing to the sound of the lyre, and visit the fields, whence they return with their heads ornamented with wheat ears, interwoven with the hair. Embroidering is the occupation of the Grecian women; to the Greeks we owe this art, which is exceedingly ancient among them, and has been carried to the highest degree of perfection. Enter the chamber of a Grecian girl, and you will see blinds at the window, and no other furniture than a sofa, and a chest inlaid with ivory, in which are kept silk, needles, and articles for embroidery. Apologues, tales, and romances, owe their origin to Greece. The modern Greeks love tales and fables, and have received them from the Orientals and Arabs, with as much eagerness as they formerly adopted them from the Egyptians. The old women love always to relate, and the young pique themselves on repeating those they have learnt, or can make, from such incidents as happen within their knowledge. The Greeks at present have no fixed time for the celebration of marriages, like the ancients; among whom the ceremony was performed in the month of January. Formerly the bride was bought by real services done to the father; which was afterwards reduced to presents, and to this time the custom is continued, though the presents are arbitrary. The man is not obliged to purchase the woman he marries, but, on the contrary, receives a portion with her equal to her condition. It is on the famous shield of Achilles that Homer has described a marriage procession—

 
Here sacred pomp and genial feast delight,
And solemn dance and hymeneal rite.
Along the streets the new made bride is led,
With torches flaming to the nuptial bed;
The youthful dancers in a circle bound
To the saft lute and cittern's silver sound,
Through the fair streets the matrons in a row,
Stand in their porches, and enjoy the show.
 

POPE.

The same pomp, procession, and music, are still in use. Dancers, musicians, and singers, who chant the Epithalamium, go before the bride; loaded with ornaments, her eyes downcast, and herself sustained by women, or two near relations, she walks extremely slow. Formerly the bride wore a red or yellow veil. The Arminians do so still; this was to hide the blush of modesty, the embarrassment, and the tears of the young virgin. The bright torch of Hymen is not forgotten among the modern Greeks. It is carried before the new married couple into the nuptial chamber, where it burns till it is consumed, and it would be an ill omen were it by any accident extinguished, wherefore it is watched with as much care as of old was the sacred fire of the vestals. Arrived at the church, the bride and bridegroom each wear a crown, which, during the ceremony, the priest changes, by giving the crown of the bridegroom to the bride, and that of the bride to the bridegroom, which custom is also derived from the ancients.

I must not forget an essential ceremony which the Greeks have preserved, which is the cup of wine given to the bridegroom as a token of adoption; it was the symbol of contract and alliance. The bride drank from the same cup, which afterwards passed round to the relations and guests. They dance and sing all night, but the companions of the bride are excluded—they feast among themselves in separate apartments, far from the tumult of the nuptials. The modern Greeks, like the ancient, on the nuptial day, decorate their doors with green branches and garlands of flowers.

W.G.C.

THE KING'S COCK CROWER

Among the customs which formerly prevailed in this country during the season of Lent, was the following:—An officer denominated the King's Cock Crower, crowed the hour each night, within the precincts of the palace, instead of proclaiming it in the manner of the late watchmen. This absurd ceremony did not fall into disuse till the reign of George I.

C.J.T.