his song.

'At the Funeralls in Yorkeshire, to this day, they continue the
custome of watching & sitting up all night till the body is
inhersed. In the interim some kneel down and pray (by the corps)
some play at cards some drink & take Tobacco: they have also
Mimicall playes & sports, e.g. they choose a simple young fellow to
be a Judge, then the suppliants (having first blacked their hands by
rubbing it under the bottom of the Pott) beseech his Lo:p [_i.e._
Lordship] and smutt all his face. ['They play likewise at
Hott-cockles.' --_Sidenote._] Juvenal, Satyr II.

"Esse aliquos manes, et subterranea regna,
"Et contum, & Stygio ranas in gurgite nigras,
"Atq. una transire vadum tot millia cymba.

'This beliefe in Yorkshire was amongst the vulgar (& phaps is in
part still) that after the persons death, the Soule went over Whinny
moore ['Whin is a furze.' --_Sidenote_.] and till about 1616 (1624)
at the Funerall a woman came [like a Praefica] and sung this
following Song.'

Then follow several verses scratched out, and then the Dirge, to which,
however, is prefixed the remark,

'This not ye first verse.'

As regards the doubtful reading 'sleete' for 'fleet,' there is curiously
contradictory evidence. Pennant, in his _Tour in Scotland_, MDCCLXIX.
(Chester, 1771, pp. 91-92), remarks:--

'On the death of a Highlander, the corps being stretched on a board,
and covered with a coarse linen wrapper, the friends lay on the
breast of the deceased a wooden platter, containing a small quantity
of salt and earth, separate and unmixed; the earth, an emblem of the
corruptible body; the salt, an emblem of the immortal spirit. All
fire is extinguished where a corps is kept; and it is reckoned so
ominous, for a dog or cat to pass over it, that the poor animal is
killed without mercy.

'The _Late-wake_ is a ceremony used at funerals: the evening after
the death of any person, the relations and friends of the deceased
meet at the house, attended by bagpipe or fiddle; the nearest of
kin, be it wife, son, or daughter, opens a melancholy ball, dancing
and greeting; _i.e._ crying violently at the same time; and this
continues till daylight; but with such gambols and frolicks, among
the younger part of the company, that the loss which occasioned them
is often more than supplied by the consequences of that night. If
the corps remains unburied for two nights the