the month is out." My authority asserted that through a number of years he has never known this fail. The month in which the change on a Sunday has occurred has been fine until the last day, when the flood came. The other saying is, "Look at the weathercock on St. Thomas's day at twelve o'clock, and see which way the wind is, and there it will stick for the next quarter," that is, three months. Can any of your readers confirm the above, and add any similar "weather rules?"
Birmingham.
Drills presaging Death (Vol. vii., p. 353.).—Your correspondent asks if the superstition he here alludes to in Norfolk is believed in other parts. I can give him a case in point in Berkshire:—Some twenty years ago an old gentleman died there, a near relative of my own; and on going down to his place, I was told by a farm overseer of his, that he was certain some of his lordship's family would die that season, as, in the last sowing, he had missed putting the seed in one row, which he showed me! "Who could disbelieve it now?" quoth the old man. I was then taken to the bee-hives, and at the door of every one this man knocked with his knuckles, and informed the occupants that they must now work for a new master, as their old one was gone to heaven. This, I believe, has been queried in your invaluable paper some time since. I only send it by the way. I know the same superstition is still extant in Cheshire, North Wales, and in some parts of Scotland.
Malta.
A friend supplies me with the information that before drills were invented, the labourers considered it unlucky to miss a "bout" in corn or seed sowing, will sometimes happened when "broadcast" was the only method. The ill-luck did not relate alone to a death in the family of the farmer or his dependents, but to losses of cattle or accidents. It is singular, however, that the superstition should have transferred itself to the drill; but it will be satisfactory to E. G. R. to learn that the process of tradition and superstition-manufacturing is not going on in the nineteenth century.
Superstition in Devonshire; Valentine's Day (Vol. v., pp. 55. 148.).—This, according to Forby, vol. ii. p. 403., once formed in Norfolk a part of the superstitious practices on St. Mark's Eve, not St. Valentine's, as mentioned by J. S. A., when the sheeted ghosts of those who should die that year (Mrs. Crowe would call them, I suppose, Doppelgängers) march in grisly array to the parish church.
The rhyme varies from J. S. A.'s:—
"Hempseed I sow:
Hempseed grow;
He that is my true love
Come after me, and mow."
and the Norfolk spectre is seen with a scythe, instead of a rake like his Devonshire compeer.
A NOTE ON GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
If I may argue from the silence of the latest edition of Gulliver's Travels, with Notes, with which I am acquainted, viz. that by W. C. Taylor, LL.D., Trinity College, Dublin, the Preface to which is dated May 1st, 1840, I may say that all the commentators on Swift—all, at least, down to that late date—have omitted to refer to a work containing incidents closely resembling some of those recorded in the "Voyage to Lilliput."
The work to which I allude is a little dramatical composition, the Bambocciata, or puppet-show, by Martelli, entitled The Sneezing of Hercules. Goldoni, in his Memoirs, has given us the following account of the manner in which he brought it out on the stage:
"Count Lantieri was very well satisfied with my father, for he was greatly recovered, and almost completely cured: his kindness was also extended to me, and to procure amusement for me he caused a puppet-show, which was almost abandoned, and which was very rich in figures and decorations, to be refitted.
"I profited by this, and amused the company by giving them a piece of a great man, expressly composed for wooden comedians. This was the Sneezing of Hercules, by Peter James Martelli, a Bolognese.
· · · · · · · · · ·
"The imagination of the author sent Hercules into the country of the pigmies. Those poor little creatures, frightened at the aspect of an animated mountain with legs and arms, ran and concealed themselves in holes. One day as Hercules had stretched himself out in the open field, and was sleeping tranquilly, the timid inhabitants issued out of their retreats, and, armed with prickles and rushes, mounted on the monstrous man, and covered him from head to foot, like flies when they fall on a piece of rotten meat. Hercules waked, and felt something in his nose, which made him sneeze; on which, his enemies tumbled down in all directions. This ends the piece.
"There is a plan, a progression, an intrigue, a catastrophe, and winding up; the style is good and well-supported; the thoughts and sentiments are all proportionate to the size of the personages. The verses even are short, and everything indicates pigmies.
"A gigantic puppet was requisite for Hercules; everything was well executed. The entertainment was productive of much pleasure; and I could lay a bet, that I am the only person who ever thought of executing the Bambocciata of Martelli."—Memoirs of Goldoni, translated by John Black, 2 vols., duod. vol. i. chap. 6.
It is certainly not necessary to point out here in what respects the adventures of Hercules, the animated mountain
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