Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/429

 10 s. VIL MAY 4, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

353

not resemble ' Rebecca ' so much, it is ac counted for by the fact that the one (' The Dramatist ') is " the life of the Authoress," and the other " an Historical Tale." Moser had been reminded of ' The Vicar of Wake- field ' on perusing ' Rebecca ' ; and on p. 105 of the ' Tales ' the authoress men- tions " Goldsmith's Country Pastor." In the two works one finds similar sentiments, and frequent quotations from English poetry. Mrs. Holbrook had been a Miss Jackson, and a " Jackson " is one of the well-behaved characters (as we know from Moser) in the missing volume of ' Rebecca.'

From the title-page of ' Constantine Castriot ' (Rugeley, 1829) one of the four volumes of A. C. Holbrook to be found in the British Museum, and recorded in the ' D.N.B.' we learn that she had also pub- lished ' Strictures on the Stage ' (which may be the same book as that entitled ' The Dramatist ; or, Memoirs of the Stage,' Birmingham, 1809) and ' Eleanor of Brit- tany.' From that of the 'Tales' (1821) we see that she had published ' Sorrows not Merited.' There are, therefore, three of her works quite unrepresented in our national library. It certainly is remarkable that neither in 1821 nor in 1809 she should have claimed to be the authoress of her (if hers it was) earliest contribution to litera- ture.

The perusal of Aphorisms for Youth,' 1801 (printed by Knight & Compton, Middle Street, Cloth Fair, and published by Lack- ington, Allen & Co.), suggests the possibility that it also was compiled by Mrs. Holbrook. There are copies of it in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library. As a frontispiece it has an engraving of Cornelia giving lessons to her two sons.

On p. 13 of ' The Dramatist ' Mrs. Hol- brook quotes an epitaph, written in 1806, for her father, who died, 22 March, 1798, at Norwich. Was it set up on his grave ? P. 27, she uses the word " callet " ; p. 47, she writes, " it would, indeed, have been a miracle, and ranked higher than the famous Countess's 365 children at a birth, or the noted female of rabbit-breeding memory." Her mother " was a native of Cork," and she had " friends in Staffordshire." where ' Rebecca ' was printed. On. p 68 of the first volume one'finds : " I love free enquiry truth will never lose by free enquiry." EDWARD S. DODGSON.

" HAMMALS " (10 S. vii. 248). I feel sure that the word used by the Northumbrian woman referred to by MR. MACMICHAEL

was not " hammals," but " almons " or " awmuns." The custom of " giving the bairn its awmuns " (pronounced in this neighbourhood like the word " almonds " without the d sound) was formerly common all over the north of England, and still prevails in country districts. Tt is mentioned by Brand under the section in vol. ii. dealing with christening customs. Mackenzie, in his ' History of Northumberland ' (vol. i. p. 205), writing in 1825 of the manners and customs of the people of this county, said : " It would be thought very unlucky to send away a child the first time its nurse has brought it on a visit without giving it an egg, salt, or [and ?] bread." These were the child's " awmuns."

Nowadays in this neighbourhood the child receives three things in the first three houses it enters. Usually the three things- are a silver coin (a threepenny bit or a six- pence), an egg, and a piece of salt. The last, I am told, is considered an essential ; the- other two, so far as I can learn, are occa- sionally varied. In the case of my eldest son, his mother tells me he got the three things mentioned, together with a piece of sugar. The " awmuns " are placed on the child's lap, and it is thus made to carry its " awmuns " out of the house itself, as they are not removed from its lap until the house has been left. This would seem also to be an essential part of the ceremony.

JOHN OXBERRY. Gateshead.

What the witness from Northumberland in the Divorce Court intended to say was most likely " alms." pronounced " allums "" and misreported " hammals." Henderson, ' Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,' p. 12, describes the gift as follows :

" Much importance attaches to the baby's first visit to another house, on which occasion it is expected that he should receive three things an egg, salt, and white bread or cake : the egg a sacred emblem from the remotest antiquity, and the cake and salt, things used alike in Jewish and pagan

sacrifices I have heard an old woman in Durham

_peak of this as the child receiving alms. ' He could not claim them before he was baptized,' she said ; ' but now he is a Christian he has a right to go and ask alms of his fellow Christians.'"

RICHD. WELFORD.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Is not this a misreported word, or an " operator's " ill-reading of " hansels "- the gifts for luck placed in the hands of babies on their presentation to friends of the mother ? The custom is not yet dead in the Midlands. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.