[Hebrew: T.A.]
Roasting Mice for Hooping-cough is also very common in Norfolk; but I am sorry to say that a more cruel superstitious practice is sometimes inflicted on the little animal; for it is not many years since I accidentally entered the kitchen in time to save a poor little mouse from being hung up by the tail and roasted alive, as the means of expelling the others of its race from the house. I trust that this barbarous practice will soon be forgotten.
R.G.P.M.
The Story of Mr. Fox.—Your correspondent F.L., who has related the story of Sir Richard, surnamed Bloody, Baker, is, doubtless, aware of a similar tale with which Mr. Blakeway furnished my late friend James Boswell, and which the latter observed "is perhaps one of the most happy illustrations of Shakspeare that has appeared."—(Malone's Shakspeare, vol. vii. pp. 20. 163.)
The two narratives of Bloody Baker and Mr. Fox are substantially the same. Variations will naturally creep in when a story is related by word of mouth; for instance, the admonition over the chamber in Mr. Fox's house—
"Be bold, be bold! but not too bold
Lest that your heart's blood should run cold."
is altogether of a more dignified character than the similar warning given by the parrot, at p. 68. Each of these worthies, Baker and Fox, is seen bringing into his house the corpse of a murdered lady, whose hand falls into the lap of the concealed visitor; but in Fox's story the ornament on the hand is a rich bracelet, in Baker's a ring. The assassins are, in both stories, invited to the visitor's house, and upon Fox summary justice is inflicted.
It may be asked, if Baker was burned, how came he to have a tomb with gloves, helmet, &c., suspended over it in Cranbrook Church? Such honour was not paid to a man of higher rank in Salisbury Cathedral, a murderer also, who was hung, viz., Lord Stourton. Dodsworth tells us that till about 1775, no chivalrous emblems were suspended over the latter, but only a twisted wire, with a noose, emblematic of the halter. Allow me to ask, What instances have we of tombs or gravestones, as memorials of individuals who have suffered at the stake, exclusive of those monuments which in after times may have been raised in honour of distinguished martyrs at the Reformation?
J.H.M.