p. 438, for the article above quoted; and for a reply
to it from the _Daily Gazetteer_ contained in p. 499 of the same volume.

[23] In reference to this imaginary charm, Sir Thomas Browne observes,
in his "Vulgar Errors." "What natural effects can reasonably be
expected, when, to prevent the Ephialtes, or Nightmare, we hang a hollow
stone in our stables?" Grose also states, "that a stone with a hole in
it, hung at the bed's head, will prevent the nightmare, and is therefore
called a hag-stone." The belief in this charm still lingers in some
districts, and maintains, like the horse-shoe affixed to the barn-door,
a feeble stand against the superstition-destroying "march of intellect."

[24] Brown's Pastorals.

[25] The Merry Beggars.

[26] The parties to be wedded find out a dead horse, or any other beast,
and standing one on the one side, and the other on the other, the
patrico bids them live together till death do them part; and so shaking
hands, the wedding dinner is kept at the next alehouse they stumble
into, where the union is nothing but knocking of cannes, and the sauce,
none but drunken brawles.--DEKKAR.

[27] Receiver.

[28] Memoirs, of the right villainous John Hall, the famous, and
notorious Robber, penned from his Mouth some Time before his Death,
1708.

[29] A famous highwayman.

[30] A real gentleman.

[31] Breeches and boots.

[32] Gipsy flask.

[33] How he exposes his pistols.

[34] For an account of these, see Grose. They are much too _gross_ to be
set down here.

[35] "The shalm, or shawm, was a wind instrument, like a pipe, with a
swelling protuberance in the middle."--_Earl of Northumberland's
Household Book_.

[36] Perhaps the most whimsical laws that were ever prescribed to a gang
of thieves were those framed by William Holliday, one of the prigging
community, who was hanged in 1695:

Art. I. directs--That none of his company should presume to wear shirts,
upon pain of being cashiered.

II.--That none should lie in any other places than stables, empty
houses, or other bulks.

III.--That they should eat nothing but what they begged, and that they
should give away all the money they got by cleaning boots among one
another, for the good of the fraternity.

IV.--That they should neither learn to read nor write, that he may have
them the better under command.

V.--That they should appear every morning by nine, on the parade, to
receive necessary orders.

VI.--That none shoul