“Jasper brings myrrh, Melchior frankincense, Balthazar gold.
He who carries these three names of the kings about with him
Will, through Christ’s favour, be delivered of the falling sickness.”
In the trial of the smugglers for the murder of Chater and Galley, excisemen of Chichester, in the last century, one of the prisoners was found with this charm in his pocket. With this scrap of paper in his possession, he had considered himself quite safe from detection.
“Three kings brought three gifts to the King of Kings.
They gave myrrh to him as man, gold as king, and frankincense as God.”
“But come now, for already hovers Cain with his bundle of thorns
On the confines of the two hemispheres, and touches the
Waves beneath Seville.”
“But tell me, what are the dark spots
On that body, which makes them down there on earth
Talk of Cain and the bundle of thorns!”
[443] Paul’s Jacks were the little automaton figures that struck the hours in old St Paul’s. Similar puppets, or figures, were also on other London churches.