Merrie England in the Olden Time. George Daniel

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       ** The erection of upright stone crosses is generally

       supposed to have dated its origin from the custom which the

       first Christians in this island adopted of inscribing the

       Druid stones with a cross, that the worship of the converted

       idolator might be transferred from the idol to the emblem of

       his faith; and afterwards the Saxon kings frequently erected

       crosses previously to a battle, at which public prayers were

       offered up for victory. After the Norman conquest crosses

       became common, and were erected in market-places, to induce

       honesty by the sanction of religion: in churchyards, to

       inspire devout and pious feelings; in streets, for the

       deposit of a corpse when borne to its last home; and for

       various other purposes. Here the beggar stationed himself,

       and asked alms in the name of Him who suffered on the cross.

       They were used for landmarks, that men might learn to

       respect and hold sacred the boundaries of another's

       property. Du Cange says that crosses were erected in the

       14th Richard II. as landmarks to define the boundaries

       between Kesteven and Holland. They were placed on public

       roads as a check to thieves, and to regulate processions. At

       the Reformation (?!! ) most of the crosses throughout the

       kingdom were destroyed, when the sweeping injunction of

       Bishop Horne was formally promulgated at his Visitation in

       1571, that all images of the Trinity in glass windows, or

       other places of the church, be put out and extinguished,

       together with the stone cross in the churchyard! We devoutly

       hope, as Dr. Johnson hoped of John Knox, that Bishop Horne

       was buried in a cross-road.

      The sleek rogue read his Bible * upside down, and hated his neighbour: his piety was pelf; his godliness gluttony.

      * “They like none but sanctified and shuttle-headed weavers,

       long-winded boxmakers, and thorough-stitching cobblers,

       thumping felt-makers, jerking coachmen, and round-headed

       button-makers, which spoyle Bibles while they thumb over the

       leaves with their greasie fingers, and sit by the fireside

       scumming their porridge-pot, while their zeal seethes over

       in applications and interpretations of Scripture delivered

       to their ignorant wives and handmaids, with the name and

       title of deare brethren and especially beloved sisters.”—

       The doleful Lamentation of Cheapside Crosse, or Old England

       sick of the Staggers, 1641.

      His grace * was as long as his face. The gnat, like Macbeth's “Amen,” stuck in his throat; but the camel slid down merrily. What a weary, working-day world would this have been under his unhospitable dominion! ** How unlovely and lachrymose! how sectarian and sinister! A bumper of bitters, to be swallowed with a rising gorge, and a wry face! All literature would have resolved itself into—

      * One Lady D'Arcy, a well-jointured, puritanical widow,

       having invited the next heir in the entail to dine with her,

       asked him to say grace. The young gentleman, thinking that

       her ladyship had lived quite long enough, expressed his

       wishes thus graciously:—