in
many parishes, but in a very different manner.[701] In "King Lear" (iii.
6), Edgar says: "Come, march to wakes and fairs, and market towns." We
may also compare "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2) and "Winter's Tale" (iv.
2). In "Hamlet" (i. 4) it is used in the sense of revel.

[701] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. i. pp. 1-15.

CHAPTER XII.

BIRTH AND BAPTISM.

As every period of human life has its peculiar rites and ceremonies, its
customs and superstitions, so has that ever all-eventful hour which
heralds the birth of a fresh actor upon the world's great stage. From
the cradle to the grave, through all the successive epochs of man's
existence, we find a series of traditional beliefs and popular notions,
which have been handed down to us from the far-distant past. Although,
indeed, these have lost much of their meaning in the lapse of years, yet
in many cases they are survivals of primitive culture, and embody the
conceptions of the ancestors of the human race. Many of these have been
recorded by Shakespeare, who, acting upon the great principle of
presenting his audience with matters familiar to them, has given
numerous illustrations of the manners and superstitions of his own
country, as they existed in his day. Thus, in "Richard III." (iii. 1),
when he represents the Duke of Gloster saying,

"So wise so young, they say, do never live long,"

he alludes to the old superstition, still deeply rooted in the minds of
the lower orders, that a clever child never lives long. In Bright's
"Treatise of Melancholy" (1586, p. 52), we read: "I have knowne children
languishing of the splene, obstructed and altered in temper, talke with
gravity and wisdom surpassing those tender years, and their judgments
carrying a marvellous imitation of the wisdome of the ancient, having
after a sort attained that by disease, which others have by course of
yeares; whereof I take it the proverb ariseth, that 'they be of shorte
life who are of wit so pregnant.'" There are sundry superstitious
notions relating to the teething of children prevalent in our own and
other countries. In "3 Henry VI." (v. 6), the Duke of Gloster, alluding
to the peculiarities connected with his, birth, relates how

"The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried
'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'
And so I was; which plainly signified
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog."

It is still believed, for instance,