Note 44 — THE ENGLISHMAN'S FIRESIDE.

See Popular Errors Explained. New edit. p. 42. 1858. The old custom of ringing the curfew-bell is retained in several villages and towns. (See Mr. Syer Cuming's paper in the Journal of the British Archæological Association, vol. iv. p. 153. Also, Notes and Queries, vols. ii. iii. iv. vi. vii. viii.) In proof that the custom cannot justly be considered an evidence of an unworthy state of subjection, is the fact that the obligation to extinguish fires and lights at a certain hour was imposed upon his subjects by David I. King of Scotland, in his Leges Burgarum; and in this case no one ever imagined that it conveyed any sign of infamy or servitude. Curfew-ringing is common in the south of Scotland, at Kelso, and other towns in Roxburghshire, which appears to prove that it cannot have originated with the Norman Conqueror.