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Sometimes people died wholesale of pestilence, and the Longboroughregister mentions a fresh way of death, "the swat called NewAcquaintance, alias Stoupe Knave, and know thy master." Anothermalady was 'the posting swet, that posted from towne to townethrough England.' The plague of 1591 was imported in bales of clothfrom the Levant, just as British commerce still patriotically triesto introduce cholera in cargoes of Egyptian rags. The register ofMalpas, in Cheshire (Aug. 24, 1625), has this strange story of theplague:-

"Richard Dawson being sicke of the plague, and perceiving he mustdie at yt time, arose out of his bed, and made his grave, and causedhis nefew, John Dawson, to cast strawe into the grave which was notfarre from the house, and went and lay'd him down in the say'dgrave, and caused clothes to be lay'd uppon and so dep'ted out ofthis world; this he did because he was a strong man, and heavierthan his said nefew and another wench were able to bury."

And John Dawson died, and Rose Smyth, the "wench" already spoken of,died, the last of the household.

Old customs survive in the parish registers. Scolding wives wereducked, and in Kingston-on-Thames, 1572, the register tells how thesexton's wife "was sett on a new cukking-stoole, and brought toTemes brydge, and there had three duckings over head and eres,because she was a common scold and fighter." The cucking-stool, avery elaborate engine of the law, cost 1L. 3S. 4D. Men were duckedfor beating their wives, and if that custom were revived theprofession of cucking-stool maker would become busy and lucrative.Penances of a graver sort are on record in the registers. MargaretSherioux, in Croydon (1597), was ordered to stand three market daysin the town, and three Sundays in the church, in a white sheet. Thesin imputed to her was a dreadful one. "She stood one Saturday, andone Sunday, and died the next." Innocent or guilty, this world wasno longer a fit abiding-place for Margaret Sherioux. Occasionallythe keeper of the register entered any event which seemed out of thecommon. Thus the register of St. Nicholas, Durham (1568), has thiscontribution to natural history:-

"A certaine Italian brought into the cittie of Durham a very greatestrange and monstrous serpent, in length sixteen feet, in quantitieand dimentions greater than a greate horse, which was taken andkilled by special policie, in Ethiopia within the Turkas dominions.But before it was killed, it had devoured (as is credibly thought)more than 1,000 persons, and destroyed a great country."

This must have been a descendant of the monster that would haveeaten Andromeda, and was slain by Perseus in the country of theblameless Ethiopians. Collections of money are recordedoccasionally, as in 1680, when no less than one pound eightshillings was contributed "for redemption of Christians (taken by yeTurkish pyrates) out of Turkish slavery." Two hundred years ago theTurk was pretty "unspeakable" still. Of all blundering Dogberries,the most confused kept (in 1670) the parish register at MeltonMowbray:-

"Here [he writes] is a bill of Burton Lazareth's people, which wasburied, and which was and maried above 10 years old, for because theclarke was dead, and therefore they was not set down according asthey was, but they all set down sure enough one among another herein this place."

"They all set down sure enough," nor does it matter much now to knowwhom they married, and how long they lived in Melton Mowbray. Thefollowing entry sufficed for the great Villiers that expired "in theworst inn's worst room,"--"Kirkby Moorside, Yorkshire, 1687.Georges vilaris Lord dooke of Bookingham, bur. 17. April."

"So much for Buckingham!"

THE ROWFANT BOOKSBALLADE EN GUISE DE RONDEAU

The Rowfant books, how fair they shew,The Quarto quaint, the Aldine tall,Print, autograph, portfolio!Back from the outer air they call,The athletes from the Tennis ball,This Rhymer from his rod and hooks,Would I could sing them one and all,The Rowfant books!

The Rowfant books! In sun and snowThey're dear, but most when tempests fall;The folio towers above the rowAs once, o'er minor prophets,--Saul!What jolly jest books and what small"Dear dumpy Twelves" to fill the nooks.You do not find on every stallThe Rowfant books!

The Rowfant books! These long agoWere chained within some College hall;These manuscripts retain the glowOf many a coloured capitalWhile yet the Satires keep their gall,While the Pastissier puzzles cooks,Theirs is a joy that does not pall,The Rowfant books!

ENVOI.

The Rowfant books,--ah magicalAs famed Armida's "golden looks,"They hold the rhymer for their thrall,The Rowfant books.

TO F. L.

I mind that Forest Shepherd's saw,For, when men preached of Heaven, quoth he,"It's a' that's bricht, and a' that's braw,But Bourhope's guid eneuch for me!"

Beneath the green deep-bosomed hillsThat guard Saint Mary's Loch it lies,The silence of the pasture fillsThat shepherd's homely paradise.

Enough for him his mountain lake,His glen the burn went singing through,And Rowfant, when the thrushes wake,May well seem good enough for you.

For all is old, and tried, and dear,And all is fair, and round aboutThe brook that murmurs from the mereIs dimpled with the rising trout.

But when the skies of shorter daysAre dark and all the ways are mire,How bright upon your books the blazeGleams from the cheerful study fire,

On quartos where our fathers read,Enthralled, the book of Shakespeare's play,On all that Poe could dream of dread,And all that Herrick sang of gay!

Fair first editions, duly prized,Above them all, methinks, I rateThe tome where Walton's hand revisedHis wonderful receipts for bait!

Happy, who rich in toys like theseForgets a weary nation's ills,Who from his study window seesThe circle of the Sussex hills!

SOME JAPANESE BOGIE-BOOKS

There is or used to be a poem for infant minds of a ratherPharisaical character, which was popular in the nursery when I was ayoungster. It ran something like this:-.

I thank my stars that I was bornA little British child.

Perhaps these were not the very words, but that was decidedly thesentiment. Look at the Japanese infants, from the pencil of thefamous Hokusai. Though they are not British, were there ever twojollier, happier small creatures? Did Leech, or Mr. Du Maurier, orAndrea della Robbia ever present a more delightful view of innocent,well-pleased childhood? Well, these Japanese children, if they arein the least inclined to be timid or nervous, must have an awfultime of it at night in the dark, and when they make that eerie"northwest passage" bedwards through the darkling house of which Mr.Stevenson sings the perils and the emotions. All of us who did notsuffer under parents brought up on the views of Mr. Herbert Spencerhave endured, in childhood, a good deal from ghosts. But it isnothing to what Japanese children bear, for our ghosts are to thespectres of Japan as moonlight is to sunlight, or as water untowhisky. Personally I may say that few people have been plagued bythe terror that walketh in darkness more than myself. At the earlyage of ten I had the tales of the ingenious Mr. Edgar Poe and ofCharlotte Bronte "put into my hands" by a cousin who had served as aBashi Bazouk, and knew not the meaning of fear. But I DID, andperhaps even Nelson would have found out "what fear was," or the boyin the Norse tale would have "learned to shiver," if he had beenleft alone to peruse 'Jane Eyre,' and the 'Black Cat,' and the 'Fallof the House of Usher,' as I was. Every night I expected to wake upin my coffin, having been prematurely buried; or to hear sighs inthe area, followed by light, unsteady footsteps on the stairs, andthen to see a lady all in a white shroud stained with blood and claystagger into my room, the victim of too rapid interment. As to thenotion that my respected kinsman had a mad wife concealed on thepremises, and that a lunatic aunt, black in the face with suppressedmania, would burst into my chamber, it was comparatively a harmlessfancy, and not particularly disturbing. Between these and the'Yellow Dwarf,' who (though only the invention of the CountessD'Aulnoy) might frighten a nervous infant into hysterics, Ipersonally had as bad a time of it in the night watches as any happyBritish child has survived. But our ogres are nothing to the bogieswhich make not only night but day terrible to the studious infantsof Japan and China.

Chinese ghosts are probably much the same as Japanese ghosts. TheJapanese have borrowed most things, including apparitions andawesome sprites and grisly fiends, from the Chinese, and then haveimproved on the original model. Now we have a very full, complete,and horror-striking account of Chinese harnts (as the country peoplein Tennessee call them) from Mr. Herbert Giles, who has translatedscores of Chinese ghost stories in his 'Strange Tales from a ChineseStudio' (De la Rue, 1880). Mr. Giles's volumes prove that China isthe place for Messrs. Gurney and Myers, the secretaries of thePsychical Society.

Ghosts do not live a hole-and-corner life in China, but boldly comeout and take their part in the pleasures and business of life. Ithas always been a question with me whether ghosts, in a hauntedhouse, appear when there is no audience. What does the spectre inthe tapestried chamber do when the house is NOT full, and no guestis put in the room to bury strangers in, the haunted room? Does theghost sulk and complain that there is "no house," and refuse torehearse his little performance, in a conscientious anddisinterestedly artistic spirit, when deprived of the artist's truepleasure, the awakening of sympathetic emotion in the mind of thespectator? We give too little thought and sympathy to ghosts, whoin our old castles and country houses often find no one to appear tofrom year's end to year's-end. Only now and then is a guest placedin the "haunted room." Then I like to fancy the glee of the lady ingreen or the radiant boy, or the headless man, or the old gentlemanin snuff-coloured clothes, as he, or she, recognises the presence ofa spectator, and prepares to give his or her best effects in thefamiliar style.

Now in China and Japan certainly a ghost does not wait till peopleenter the haunted room: a ghost, like a person of fashion, "goeseverywhere." Moreover, he has this artistic excellence, that veryoften you don't know him from an embodied person. He counterfeitsmortality so cleverly that he (the ghost) has been known topersonate a candidate for honours, and pass an examination for him.A pleasing example of this kind, illustrating the limitations ofghosts, is told in Mr. Giles's book. A gentleman of Huai Shangnamed Chou-t'ien-i had arrived at the age of fifty, but his familyconsisted of but one son, a fine boy, "strangely averse from study,"as if there were anything strange in THAT. One day the sondisappeared mysteriously, as people do from West Ham. In a year hecame back, said he had been detained in a Taoist monastery, and, toall men's amazement, took to his books. Next year he obtained isB.A. degree, a First Class. All the neighbourhood was overjoyed,for Huai Shang was like Pembroke College (Oxford), where, accordingto the poet, "First Class men are few and far between." It was whoshould have the honour of giving his daughter as bride to thisintellectual marvel. A very nice girl was selected, but mostunexpectedly the B.A. would not marry. This nearly broke hisfather's heart. The old gentleman knew, according to Chinesebelief, that if he had no grandchild there would be no one in thenext generation to feed his own ghost and pay it all the littleneedful attentions. "Picture then the father naming and insistingon the day;" till K'o-ch'ang, B.A., got up and ran away. His mothertried to detain him, when his clothes "came off in her hand," andthe bachelor vanished! Next day appeared the real flesh and bloodson, who had been kidnapped and enslaved. The genuine K'o-ch'angwas overjoyed to hear of his approaching nuptials. The rites wereduly celebrated, and in less than a year the old gentleman welcomedhis much-longed-for grand child. But, oddly enough, K'o-ch'ang,though very jolly and universally beloved, was as stupid as ever,and read nothing but the sporting intelligence in the newspapers.It was now universally admitted that the learned K'o-ch'ang had beenan impostor, a clever ghost. It follows that ghosts can take a verygood degree; but ladies need not be afraid of marrying ghosts, owingto the inveterate shyness of these learned spectres.

The Chinese ghost is by no means always a malevolent person, as,indeed, has already been made clear from the affecting narrative ofthe ghost who passed an examination. Even the spectre which answersin China to the statue in 'Don Juan,' the statue which acceptsinvitations to dinner, is anything but a malevolent guest. So muchmay be gathered from the story of Chu and Lu. Chu was anundergraduate of great courage and bodily vigour, but dull of wit.He was a married man, and his children (as in the old Oxford legend)often rushed into their mother's presence, shouting, "Mamma! mammalpapa's been plucked again!" Once it chanced that Chu was at a wineparty, and the negus (a favourite beverage of the Celestials) haddone its work. His young friends betted Chu a bird's-nest dinnerthat he would not go to the nearest temple, enter the room devotedto coloured sculptures representing the torments of Purgatory, andcarry off the image of the Chinese judge of the dead, their Osirisor Rhadamanthus. Off went old Chu, and soon returned with theaugust effigy (which wore "a green face, a red beard, and a hideousexpression") in his arms. The other men were frightened, and beggedChu to restore his worship to his place on the infernal bench.Before carrying back the worthy magistrate, Chu poured a libation onthe ground and said, "Whenever your excellency feels so disposed, Ishall be glad to take a cup of wine with you in a friendly way."That very night, as Chu was taking a stirrup cup before going tobed, the ghost of the awful judge came to the door and entered. Chupromptly put the kettle on, mixed the negus, and made a night of itwith the festive fiend. Their friendship was never interrupted fromthat moment. The judge even gave Chu a new heart (literally)whereby he was enabled to pass examinations; for the heart, inChina, is the seat of all the intellectual faculties. For Mrs. Chu,a plain woman with a fine figure, the ghost provided a new head, ofa handsome girl recently slain by a robber. Even after Chu's deaththe genial spectre did not neglect him, but obtained for him anappointment as registrar in the next world, with a certain rankattached.