"The judgements of heaven were never so visible upon any people as those which have fallen upon the Scots since [the sale of Charles I.]; for, besides the sweeping furious plague that reigned in Edinburgh, and the incredible number of witches which have increased, and have been executed there since; besides the sundry shameful defeats they have received by the English, who carried away more of them prisoners than they were themselves in number; besides that many of them died of mere hunger; besides that they were sold away slaves, at half a crown a dozen, for foreign plantations among savages; I say besides all this chain of judgements, with diverse others, they have quite lost their reputation among all mankind; some jeer them, some hate them, and none pity them."—Howell's German Dict., p. 65., 1653.
Echard, in Hist. Eng., vol. ii. p. 727., speaking of the prisoners taken at Worcester, says that Cromwell
"marched up triumphantly to London, driving four or five thousand prisoners like sheep before him; making presents of them, as occasion offered, as of so many slaves, and selling the rest for that purpose into the English plantations abroad."
W. DN.
Lachrymatories.—There is absolutely no authority in any ancient author for this name, and the best scholars speak of these vessels as the bottles usually called lachrymatories, &c. It would be curious to discover when the name was first used, and by whom first this absurd use was imagined. It [illegible] that their proper use was to contain perfumes, scents, and unguents, as sweet odours to rest with the departed. Becker says:
"Bottles, filled with perfumes, were placed inside the tomb, which was besprinkled odoribus. These are the tear-flasks, or lachrymatories, so often mentioned formerly."—Gallus, p. 413. Eng. Tr.
A wasteful use of perfumes at funerals (sumptuosa respersio, Cicero de Legibus, ii. 23.) was forbidden by the Twelve Tables. The eighth verse of the fifty-sixth Psalm,
"My flight thou numberest: put my tears in thy bottle: stand they not in thy book?"—Hengstenberg, Clarke's Tr. Edinb.
is, I believe, the only evidence that can be brought in favour of the old opinion; but we surely cannot take the highly figurative language of Eastern poetry to establish a Roman custom of which we have no hint elsewhere. This verse admits of a much simpler interpretation; see Arndt, quoted by Hengstenberg ad locum. From a review of Museum Disneianum, which appeared in No. XXIII. of the Classical Museum, it seems that Mr. Disney has devoted to this subject some pages of the introduction to Part II. of the above work, of which a summary is given by the reviewer.
ED. S. JACKSON.