of the farmer's son for shooting a partridge, and to give him his gun again.

"Paid the apothecary for curing an old woman that confessed herself a witch.

"Gave away my favourite dog, for biting a beggar.

"Made the minister of the parish and a whig justice of one mind, by putting them upon explaining their notions to one another.

"Mem. To turn off Peter for shooting a doe while she was eating acorns out of his hand.

"When my neighbour John, who hath often injured me, comes to make his request to-morrow: "Mem. I have forgiven him.

"Laid up my chariot, and sold my horses, to relieve the poor in a scarcity of corn.

"In the same year remitted to my tenants a fifth part of their rents.

"As I was airing to-day I fell into a thought that warmed my heart, and shall, I hope, be the better for it as long as I live.

"Mem. To charge my son in private to erect no monument for me; but not to put this in my last will."

No 623. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1714.

Sed mihi vel tellus optem priùs ima dehiscat ;
Vel pater omnipotens adigat me fulmine ad umbras,
Palientes umbras Erebi, noctemque profundam,
Ante, pudor, quam te violem, aut tua jura resolvum.
Ille meos, primus qui me sibi junxit, amores
Abstulit; ille habeat secum, servetque sepulcro.
VIRG. En. iv. 24.

But first let yawning earth a passage rend,
And let me thro' the dark abyss descend;
First let avenging Jove, with flames from high,
Drive down this body to the nether sky,
Condemn'd with ghosts in endless night to lie;
Before I break the plighted faith I gave;
No: he who had my vows shall ever have;

For whom I lov'd on earth, I worship in the grave.

DRYDEN.

I AM obliged to my friend the love-casuist for the following curious piece of antiquity, which, I shall communicate to the public in his own words.

MR. SPECTATOR,

'You may remember that I lately transmitted to you an account of an ancient custom in the manors of East and West Enborne, in the county of Berks, and elsewhere. "If a customary tenant die, the widow shall have what the law calls her freebench, in all his copyhold lands, dum sola et casta fuerit; that is, while she lives single and chaste; but if she commit incontinency, she forfeits her estate; yet if she will come into the court riding backward upon a black ram, with his tail in

her hand, and say the words following, the steward is bound by the custom to re-admit her to her freebench.

'Here I am,

Riding upon a black ram,
Like a whore as I am;
And for my crincum crancum
Have lost my bincum bancum ;

And for my tail's game,

Have done this worldly shame;

Therefore I pray you, Mr. Steward, let me have my land again.'

After having informed you that my lord Coke observes, that this is the most frail and slippery tenure of any in England, I shall tell you, since the writing of that letter, I have, according to my promise, been at great pains in searching out the records of the black ram; and have at last met with the proceedings of the court-baron, held in that behalf, for the space of a whole day. The record saith, that a strict inquisition having been made into the right of the tenants to their several estates, by a crafty old steward, he found that many of the lands of the manor were, by default of the several widows, forfeited to the lord, and accordingly would have entered on the premises: upon which the good women demanded the "benefit of the ram," The steward, after having perused their several pleas, adjourned the court to Barnaby-bright,* that they might have day enough before them.

The court being set, and filled with a great concourse of people, who came from all parts to see the solemnity the first who entered was the widow. Frontly, who had made her appearance in the last year's cavalcade. The register observes that finding

* Then the eleventh, now the twenty-second of June, being the longest day in the year.

it an easy pad-ram, and foreseeing she might have further occasion for it, she purchased it of the steward.

Mrs. Sarah Dainty, relict of Mr. John Dainty, who was the greatest prude of the parish, came next in the procession. She at first made some difficulty of taking the tail in her hand; and was 'observed, in pronouncing the form of penance, to soften the two most emphatical words into clincum clancum ; but the steward took care to make her speak plain English before he would let her have her land again.

The third widow that was brought to this worldly shame, being mounted upon a vicious ram, had the misfortune to be thrown by him; upon which she hoped to be excused from going through the rest of the ceremony; but the steward being well versed in the law, observed very wisely upon this occasion, that the breaking of the rope does not hinder the execution of the criminal.

The fourth lady upon record was the widow Ogle, a famous coquette, who had kept half a score young fellows off and on for the space of two years; but having been more kind to her carter John, she was introduced with the huzzas of all her lovers about her.

'Mrs. Sable appearing in her weeds, which were very new and fresh, and of the same colour with her whimsical palfrey, made a very decent figure in the solemnity.

'Another, who had been summoned to make her appearance, was excused by the steward, as well knowing in his heart, that the good squire himself had qualified her for the ram.

'Mrs. Quick, having nothing to the indictment, pleaded her belly. membered that she made the same

object against But it was reexcuse the year

before. Upon which the steward observed, that she might so contrive it, as never to do the service of the manor.

"The widow Fidget being cited into court, insisted that she had done no more since the death of her husband than what she used to do in his lifetime; and withal desired Mr. Steward to consider his own wife's case if he should chance to die before her.

'The next in order was a dowager of a very corpulent make, who would have been excused as not finding any ram that was able to carry her; upon which the steward commuted her punishment, and ordered her to make her entry upon a black ox.

The widow Maskwell, a woman who had long lived with a most unblemished character, having turned off her old chamber-maid in a pet, was by that revengeful creature brought in upon the black ram nine times the same day.

• Several widows of the neighbourhood, being brought upon their trial, they shewed that they did not hold of the manor, and were discharged accordingly.

A pretty young creature, who closed the procession, came ambling in, with so bewitching an air, that the steward was observed to cast a sheep's eye upon her, and married her within a month after the death of his wife.

N. B. Mrs. Touchwood appeared, according to summons, but had nothing laid to her charge; having lived irreproachably since the decease of her husband, who left her a widow in the sixty-ninth year of her age.

'I am, Sir, &c.'