Remains of Gentilion and Judaism. By John Aubrey, F.L.S., 1686.87.
Edited and annotated by James Britten, F.L.S. (Published for the Folk-Lore Society, by Solihull, Peyton, and Co.)—This curious manuscript of Aubroy's has never before been published in its entirety, though extracts of some of its most interesting contents have been made from time to time, both by Sir Henry Ellis and Mr. W. J. Tholes. Mr. Britten gives it to the world in a complete edition, on which ho has bestowed much labour, and which ho has enriched with notes, possessing, as might have been expected, no little value of their own. A very curious record it is of bygone customs and super- etitions, none of them, by the way, more remarkable than the "Sin.
ater,"—a functionary who used to attend at funerals, and for a shilling and a "square meal" would take upon him the sins of the deceased. There was probably no thought of the remission of spiritual penalties. The survivors thought eo secure themselves from possible annoyance from the dead man. If he were relieved by the "Sin-eater" he would not, they believe, be driven to " walk." Aubrey, who died early in the eighteenth century, often remarks, of some custom, "before the warren" they did so and so ; and, indeed, states explicitly that tho Civil War swept away many of those old beliefs and observances. The illustrations from English sources of Roman superstitions aro very curious. Aubrey has col- lected some noticeable illustrations of the "Pesti." Martial, too, suggests some curious analogies. In one place (where, by the way, to is a misprint for tit), the Roman poet laughs at the belief that hare's Bosh makes those who eat it handsome. "It has been thought," says Levinus, "ex leporis esu exhilaresoore homines, atquo aliquid venue- tatis formaequo elegantioris concipere," A propos of hares, hero is a curious bit of "experience." "It is found by experience that when one keeps a hare alive, and feedeth him till he have occasion to oat him, if he tellea before he kilos him that he will doe so, the hare will thereupon be found dead, having killed himself." We should say that it is "found by experience" that you cannot keep a hare alive in this way, whatever you may say or not say to him, The Latin, we may remark, might have been more correctly printed. There are three or four mistakes in this one extract about the hare.
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