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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL JAN. 12, 1907.

St. George. In comes I, St. George ; For old England have I won many bloody battles. I did in Egypt the Dragon slew, And manv people know that to be true. If you will search this world all round, You will never find another man to match my mind. Another version begins :

I ope the door and enter in ;

I hope your favour for to win.

Whether I rise or whether I fall,

I '11 do my best to please you all ;

St. George is here,

And swears that he '11 come in,

And if he does

I know he'll pinch my skin.

The braggart Slasher in one of the Derby- shire versions I have heard boasts :

My head is made of brass,

My body 's made of steel,

My hands are made of knuckle-bone,

And I can make him feel.

The only printed version I know is one issued in Manchester by Abel Heywood, in which the Fool comes first, saying : Room, room, brave gallants, gives us room to sport, For in this room we wish to have our court ; And here repeat to you our merry rhyme, For remember, good sirs, this is Easter-time.

The finishing lines of several versions I have heard are very mixed. They are said either by Betsy Beelzebub or Devil Doubt. Betsy says :

All ye ladies and gentlemen That sit round the fire, My box it would speak If it had but a tongue ;

A little of your money would do us no wrong. Devil Doubt's ending is :

Money I want, money I '11 have ;

If you won't give me money,

I '11 sweep you to the grave.

The rough speech of the actors can hardly be reproduced. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

This play is, or was a few years ago, performed at Newland, in Gloucestershire.

R. B R.

South Shields.

BIDDING PRAYER (10 S. vi. 448). The earliest Bidding Prayer of which I have knowledge is included in the late Canon Simmons's ' Lay-Folks Mass-Book,' issued by the E.E.T.S. It was heard at York before the Norman conquest, and it began with " Wutan we gebiddan," which the editor modernized into " Let us pray." Antexample dated 1405 opened with " De- precemur Deum Patrem omnipotentem," and had " Ye sail pray " at the head of most of its clauses. About fifty years later, ' Derfrendes, ye sail make a speciall prayer,"

is recorded. There was also a version with "We shall"; and in 1509 "We shall" is printed in the ' Manuale secundum usum Matris Ecclesie Eboracensis ' (see pp. 62-80). At present it is the use of York that the preacher should say " Ye shall pray." The Bidding does not now run precisely like the version given by Canon Simmons in 1879 (p. 320) ; and it has at one part been judiciously lengthened by remembrance of the officers and men of His Majesty's forces " in and around " the ancient city.

There are three pitfalls for the unwary in the pulpit of York Minster, and it is astonishing to find how many strange, or perhaps I should say stranger, divines slip into one or more of them, without being at all aware of their misfortune. The faithful are commanded to pray for the Catholia Church, " especially for that branch of it to which we in this kingdom belong and herein for our Most Gracious Sovereign Lord, King Edward," and many others. Very frequently the reader interpolates a period after " herein " with startling effect. Occasionally, " this metropolitical Church " figures as "metropolitan" ; and once in a while somebody finds a stumbling-block in " William Dalrymple, Lord Archbishop of this Province," or makes mention of the Prince and Princes of Wales, instead of the Princess. The summons to pray for a blessing on seats of sound learning and religious education, the universities, colleges, and schools of the United Kingdom, " par- ticularly on the Grammar School attached to this Cathedral Church," has in it a sug- gestion of bathos, for drawing attention ta which I hope I may be forgiven.

ST. SWITHIN.

In ' Loss and Gain ; or, the Story of a Convert,' chap, ii., by Cardinal Newman, we read :

"Sheffield said 'Now I must say the sermon

itself, and not the least of all the prayer before it what do they call it?'

" 'The Bidding Prayer,' said Reding.

" ' Well, both sermon and prayer are often arrant fudge. I don't often go to University sermons, but I have gone often enough not to go again without compulsion. The last preacher I heard was from the country. Oh, it was wonderful ! He began at the pitch of his voice "Ye shall pray." What stuff ! "Ye shall pray" because old La timer or Jewell said " Ye shall praie," therefore we must not say " Let us pray."'

F. E. R. POLLARD-URQTJHART.

Castle Pollard, Westmeath.

In the * Apostolical Constitutions,' sup- posed to have been compiled during the second and third centuries, the prayer for