Retrospective Gleanings.
Reading edition
CHILTERN HUNDREDS.
The three Hundreds of Desborough, Stoke, and Burnham, in Bucks, are called the "Chiltern Hundreds," and take their name from the Chalk Hills which run through Bucks and the neighbouring counties. The property of these Hundreds remaining in the Crown, a Steward is appointed at a salary of 20s. and all fees, which nominal office is accepted by any Member of Parliament who wishes to vacate his seat.
PEG TANKARDS.
At Braintree and Booking, in Essex, when topers partake of a pot of ale, it is divided into three parts or draughts, the first of which is called neckum, the second sinkum, and the third swankum. In Bailey's Dictionary, swank is said to be "that remainder of liquor at the bottom of a tankard, pot, or cup, which is just sufficient for one draught, which it is not accounted good manners to divide with the left-hand man, and according to the quantity is called either a large or little swank."
CHIMNEYS.
Has the precise period been ascertained when chimneys upon the present mode were first constructed in England? It was apparently not sooner than Henry the Eighth's time; for Leland, when he visited Bolton Castle, in Yorkshire, seems to have been greatly surprised by the novelty and ingenuity of the contrivance. "One thing (says he) I much notyd in the haull of Bolton, how chimneys was conveyed by tunnills made in the sydds of the waulls, betwixt the lights; and by this meanes is the smoke of the harthe wonder strangely convayed."
The front of St. John's Hospital at Lichfield, presents one of the most curious ancient specimens extant of this part of our early domestic architecture. This building was erected 1495, but it is possible that the remarkable chimneys may have been subsequently added.
OLD LONDON.
(For the Mirror.)
In a collection of Epigrams written by Thomas Freeman, of Gloucestershire, and published in 1014, is the following, entitled "London's Progresse:"—
"Why, how nowe, Babell, whither wilt thou build? I see old Holbourne, Charing Crosse, the Strand, Are going to St. Giles's in-the-field, Saint Katerne, she takes Wapping by the hand, "And Hogsdon will to Hygate ere't be long, London has got a great way from the streame, I thinke she means to go to Islington, To eate a dish of strawberries and creame. The City's sure in progresse I surmise, Or going to revell it in some disorder, Without the Walls, without the Liberties, Where she neede feare nor Mayor nor Recorder. Well! say she do, 'twere pretty, yet 'tis pitty A Middlesex Bailiff should arrest the Citty."
W.C.R.R.
AVVER.
(For the Mirror.)
The word "Avver" has doubtless the same origin as the German word "Hafer" "Haber" which signifies in English, oat.
In some parts of Germany a pap of oatmeal "Haferbrei" is very common as breakfast of the lower classes. Of "Haferbrod" oatbread, I only heard in 1816, when the other sorts of grain were so very scarce in Germany.
A German and Constant Reader of the Mirror.
THE HALCYON
(For the Mirror.)
So often alluded to by the poets, is the bird called the King Fisher. It was believed by the ancients that while the female brooded over the eggs, the sea and weather remained calm and unruffled; hence arose the expression of Halcyon days.
R.N.
SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
(For the Mirror.)
Woolsthorp, Lincolnshire, a little village on the great north road between Stamford and Grantham, is memorable as the birthplace of that illustrious philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton. The house in which he was born, is a kind of farmhouse, built of stone, and is, or was lately standing. The learned Dr. Stukely visited it in 1721, and was showed the inside of it by the country people; in a letter to Dr. Mead on this occasion, he says, "They led me up stairs, and showed me Sir Isaac's study, where I suppose he studied when in the country, in his younger days, as perhaps, when he visited his mother from the university. I observed the shelves were of his own making, being pieces of deal boxes, which probably he sent his books and clothes down in upon these occasions."