FUNERALS IN CUMBERLAND.
To the Editor.
Sir,—It is usual at the funeral of a person, especially of a householder, to invite persons to attend the ceremony; and in Carlisle, for instance, this is done on the day of interment by the bellman, who, in a solemn and subdued tone of voice, announces, that “all friends and neighbours of ——, deceased, are requested to take notice, that the body will be lifted at —— o’clock, to be interred at —— church.” On this occasion the relatives and persons, invited by note, repair to the dwelling of the deceased, where they usually partake of a cold collation, with wine, &c.; and at the outside of the door a table is set out, bountifully replenished with bread and cheese, ale and spirits, when “all friends and neighbours” partake as they think proper. When the preparations for moving are completed, the procession is accompanied by those persons who are disposed to pay their last mark of respect to the memory of the deceased. This custom, it has been remarked, gives an opportunity for “that indulgence which ought to belong to the marriage feast, and that it is a practice savouring of the gothic and barbarous manners of our unpolished ancestors.” With deference to the writer’s opinion, I would say that the custom is worthy of imitation, and that the assembling together of persons who have only this opportunity of expressing their respect for the memory of the deceased, cannot fail to engage the mind to useful reflections, and is a great contrast to the heartless mode of conducting interments in many other places, where the attendants frequently do not exceed half a dozen.
The procession used often to be preceded by the parish clerk and singers, who sang a portion of the Psalms until they arrived at the church. This part of the ceremony is now, I understand, seldom performed.
I am,
Newcastle upon Tyne,
Yours, &c.
August, 1827.
W. C.
BIDDEN WEDDINGS
In Cumberland.
Sir,—It was a prevalent custom to have “bidden weddings” when a couple of respectability and of slender means were on the eve of marriage; in this case they gave publicity to their intentions through the medium of the “Cumberland Pacquet,” a paper published at Whitehaven, and which about twenty-nine years ago was the only newspaper printed in the county. The editor, Mr. John Ware, used to set off the invitation in a novel and amusing manner, which never failed to ensure a large meeting, and frequently the contributions made on the occasion, by the visitors, were of so much importance to the new married couple, that by care and industry they were enabled to make so good “a fend as niver to look ahint them.”[357]
A long absence from the county precludes me from stating whether this “good old custom” continues to be practised: perhaps some of your readers will favour you with additional information on this subject, and if they would also describe any other customs peculiar to this county, it would to me, at least, be acceptable.
The following is a copy of an advertisement, as it appeared in the Cumberland Pacquet in a number for June, 1803:—
A PUBLIC BRIDAL.
JONATHAN and GRACE MUSGRAVE purpose having a PUBLIC BRIDAL, at Low Lorton Bridge End, near Cockermouth, on THURSDAY, the 16th of June, 1803; when they will be glad to see their Friends, and all who may please to favour them with their Company;—for whose Amusement there will be various RACES, for Prizes of different Kinds; and amongst others, a Saddle, and Bridle; and a Silver-tipt Hunting Horn, for Hounds to run for.—There will also be Leaping, Wrestling, &c. &c.
☞ Commodious ROOMS are likewise engaged for DANCING PARTIES, in the Evening.
Come, haste to the BRIDAL!—to Joys we invite You,
Which, help’d by the Season, to please You can’t fail:
But should LOVE, MIRTH, and SPRING strive in vain to delight You,
You’ve still the mild Comforts of Lorton’s sweet Vale.
And where does the Goddess more charmingly revel?
Where, Zephyr dispense a more health-chearing Gale,
Than where the pure Cocker, meandring the Level,
Adorns the calm Prospects of Lorton’s sweet Vale?
To the BRIDAL then come;—taste the Sweets of our Valley;
Your Visit, good Cheer and kind Welcome shall hail.
Round the Standard of Old English Custom, we’ll rally,—
And be blest in Love, Friendship, and Lorton’s sweet Vale.
With this, the conclusion of the “bridal bidding,” I conclude, Sir,
Your constant reader,
W. C.
Newcastle upon Tyne,
August, 1827.
[357] An endeavour as to render any additional assistance unnecessary.
Discoveries
OF THE
ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.
No. VIII.
The Milky Way.
That lucid whitish zone in the firmament among the fixed stars, which we call the “Milky Way,” was supposed by the Pythagoreans to have once been the sun’s path, wherein he had left that trace of white, which we now observe there. The Peripatetics asserted, after Aristotle, that it was formed of exhalations, suspended high in air. These were gross mistakes; but all the ancients were not mistaken. Democritus, without the aid of a telescope, preceded Galileo in remarking, that “what we call the milky way, contained in it an innumerable quantity of fixed stars, the mixture of whose distant rays occasioned the whiteness which we thus denominate;” or, to express it in Plutarch’s words, it was “the united brightness of an immense number of stars.”
The Fixed Stars—Plurality of Worlds.
The conceptions of the ancients respecting the fixed stars were not less clear than ours. Indeed, the opinions of the moderns on this subject have been adopted within a century from those great masters, after having been rejected during many ages. It would be reckoned almost an absurdity at present, to doubt of those stars being suns like ours, each respectively having planets of their own, revolving around them, and forming various solar systems, more or less resembling ours. Philosophy, at present, admits this theory, derived from the ancients, and founded on the most solid reasonings of astronomical science. The elegant work of Fontenelle, on the “Plurality of Worlds,” first rendered the conception familiar to common minds.
This notion of a plurality of worlds was generally inculcated by the Greek philosophers. Plutarch, after giving an account of it, says, that “he was so far from finding fault with it, that he thought it highly probable there had been, and were, like this of ours, an innumerable, though not absolutely infinite, multitude of worlds; wherein, as well as here, were land and water, invested by sky.”
Anaximenes was one of the first who taught, that “the stars were immense masses of fire, around which certain terrestrial globes, imperceptible to us, accomplished their periodic revolutions.” By these terrestrial globes, turning round those masses of fire, he evidently meant planets, such as ours, subordinate to their own sun, and forming a solar system.
Anaximenes agreed with Thales in this opinion, which passed from the Ionic to the Italic sect; who held, that every star was a world, containing in itself a sun and planets, all fixed in that immense space, which they called ether.
Heraclides, and all the Pythagoreans likewise taught, that “every star was a world, or solary system, having, like this of ours, its sun and planets, invested with an atmosphere of air, and moving in the fluid ether, by which they were sustained.” This opinion seems to have been of still more ancient origin. There are traces of it in the verses of Orpheus, who lived in the time of the Trojan war, and taught that there was a plurality of worlds; a doctrine which Epicurus also deemed very probable.
Origen treats amply of the opinion of Democritus, saying, that “he taught, that there was an innumerable multitude of worlds, of unequal size, and differing in the number of their planets; that some of them were as large as ours, and placed at unequal distances; that some were inhabited by animals, which he could not take upon him to describe; and that some had neither animals, nor plants, nor any thing like what appeared among us.” The philosophic genius of the illustrious ancient discerned, that the different nature of those spheres necessarily required inhabitants of different kinds.
This opinion of Democritus surprised Alexander into a sudden declaration of his unbounded ambition. Ælian reports, that this young prince, upon hearing Democritus’s doctrine of a plurality of worlds, burst into tears, upon reflecting that he had not yet so much as conquered one of them.
It appears, that Aristotle also held this opinion, as did likewise Alcinoüs, the Platonist. It is also ascribed to Plotinus; who held besides, that the earth, compared to the rest of the universe, was one of the meanest globes in it.
Satellites.—Vortices.
In consequence of the ancient doctrine of the plurality of worlds, Phavorinus remarkably conjectured the possibility of the existence of other planets, besides those known to us. “He was astonished how it came to be admitted as certain, that there were no other wandering stars, or planets, but those observed by the Chaldeans. As for his part, he thought that their number was more considerable than was vulgarly given out, though they had hitherto escaped our notice.” Here he probably alludes to the satellites, which have since been manifested by means of the telescope; but it required singular penetration to be capable of forming the supposition, and of having, as it were, predicted this discovery. Seneca mentions a similar notion of Democritus; who supposed, that there were many more of them, than had yet come within our view.
However unfounded may be the system of vortices promulgated by Descartes, yet, as there is much of genius and fancy in it, the notion obtained great applause, and ranks among those theories which do honour to the moderns, or rather to the ancients, from whom it seems to have been drawn, notwithstanding its apparent novelty. In fact, Leucippus taught, and after him Democritus, that “the celestial bodies derived their formation and motion from an infinite number of atoms, of every sort of figure; which encountering one another, and clinging together, threw themselves into vortices; which being thoroughly agitated and circumvolved on all sides, the most subtile of those particles that went to the composition of the whole mass, made towards the utmost skirts of the circumferences of those vortices; whilst the less subtile, or those of a coarser element, subsided towards the centre, forming themselves into those spherical concretions, which compose the planets, the earth, and the sun.” They said, that “those vortices were actuated by the rapidity of a fluid matter, having the earth at the centre of it; and that the planets were moved, each of them, with more or less violence, in proportion to their respective distance from that centre.” They affirmed also, that the celerity with which those vortices moved, was occasionally the cause of their carrying off one another; the most powerful and rapid attracting, and drawing into itself, whatever was less so, whether planet or whatever else.
Leucippus seems also to have known that grand principle of Descartes, that “all revolving bodies endeavour to withdraw from their centre, and fly off in a tangent.”