293 Koyen kasen—lit. cow-cheeses, because they were made from the milk of cows, and not of sheep, as is not uncommon in the Netherlands. ↑
296 De barbier—the barber. This is the person who on a former occasion (page 121) was called de surgijn—the surgeon. In the general decline of science during the middle ages, surgery, as a branch of medicine, became neglected, and its practice, in the rudest form, fell into the hands of the barber; from whose ordinary avocations of cutting the hair, shaving the beard, paring the nails, etc., the step was not very great to the operations of tooth-drawing, bleeding, cupping, dressing wounds, setting broken limbs, etc. And, with these functions of the surgeon, the barber not unreasonably assumed his title also.
The rivalry between these barber-surgeons and the pure surgeons, who again sprang up on the revival of learning, is matter of history.
In England, a compromise between the two rival bodies was early effected by means of the union of the barber-surgeons and surgeons of London, by the statute of 32 Hen. VIII, c. 41 (A.D. 1540), which, while nominally amalgamating them, virtually effected the separation of the two professions; inasmuch as those members of the united corporation “using barbery”—as it was somewhat barbarously expressed—were prohibited from “occupying any surgery, letting of blood, or any other thing belonging to surgery, drawing of teeth only except”; while, on the other hand, surgeons were forbidden to “use barbery”. And the natural consequence was their formal separation into two entirely distinct bodies by the Act of 18 Geo. II, c. 15 (A.D. 1745).
On the continent, the barber-surgeon retained his rank to a much later date; and in France, in particular, till the revolution of 1793. [126]But, instead of abandoning the razor to the hair-dresser, he still claimed the right of wielding it, “as being a surgical instrument”; so that, in order to distinguish between the two, it was ordained by Louis XIV, that the barber-surgeon should have for his sign a brass basin, and should paint his shop-front red or black only, whereas the barber-hairdresser should display a pewter basin, and paint his shop-front in any other colour. Blue was the colour usually adopted by the barber-hairdressers, and to this colour their name has in consequence become attached. That the connexion between the two is still not lost sight of in France, is proved by the following extract from the Comédies et Proverbes of Alfred de Musset, p. 510:—
“Madame de Léry.—Autant j’adore le lilas, autant je déteste le bleu.
Mathilde.—C’est la couleur de la constance.
Madame de Léry.—Bah! c’est la couleur des perruquiers.”
Un Caprice.
Those professors of shaving and hairdressing, whose poles, painted red or black alternating with white, still decorate our streets, commit therefore a great mistake in using either of these two colours. “True like the needle to the pole,” as Lieutenant Taffril wrote to Jenny Caxon (“To cast up to her that her father’s a barber and has a pole at his door, and that she’s but a manty-maker hersel! Fy for shame!”), they should confine themselves to the colour of constancy—and of the hairdressers; unless, indeed, they should happen to unite tooth-drawing to their other avocations, in which case they might perhaps, in strict right, be entitled to set up the red or black stripe of the barber-surgeons. ↑
297 Die gheleghentheyt diente van ons waer ghenomen te zijn—it was important for us to avail ourselves of the opportunity. ↑
313 Independently of the quiet humour of this observation, it is worthy of remark, as showing that at that early period the cooling of wine by means of ice or snow was practised by the Dutch. ↑
315 Steen-colen—stone or mineral coal; so called to distinguish it from charcoal, the usual fuel on the continent. ↑
316 Maer wy wachtede ons voor de weerstuijt niet—but we did not guard ourselves against the consequences. ↑
323 Haelde flucks edick ende vreef hem dat in zijn aensicht—quickly fetched some vinegar and rubbed his face with it. ↑
332 De Reus—the Giant, as the constellation Orion is called, after the Arabic El-djebbâr. The star Bellatrix γ Orionis, which was here observed, is usually said to be in the left shoulder. It depends, however, upon which way “the Giant” is considered as looking. The exact declination of this star for the end of the year 1596 is + 5° 58′,4 N.; so that, after allowing 2′,6 for refraction, the complement of the height of the Pole is 14° 17′, and the height of the Pole is 75° 43′.
It is not possible for Betelgeuze, (α) in the right shoulder of Orion, to have been the star observed; for the latitude resulting from it would be upwards of 79°. ↑
348 Dattet int afgaen vanden bergh was: te weten, dat de son zijn wegh wederom nae ons toe nam—that we were now going down hill; that is to say, the sun was now on his way back to us. ↑
349 De daghen die langhen zijn de daghen die stranghen, dan hoope dede pijn versoeten—“the days that lengthen are the days that become more severe [?];” but “hope sweetened pain”. These are two Dutch proverbs, strung together somewhat after the fashion of Sancho Panza. The former is equivalent to “as the day lengthens, so the cold strengthens”, and “cresce ’l dì, cresce ’l freddo”, cited in Ray’s English Proverbs, p. 37. ↑
352 Ter poorten van de steden incomen—come in at the gates of the towns. It would almost seem that in the text the word is sleden and not steden; so that the meaning would be, “come in at the gates from their sledges”. But, as the fact is that the boors enter the gates in their carts, and that those who come in sledges must necessarily reach the town by the water side, where there are no gates, it can scarcely be doubted that the proper reading is steden. The translator appears to have wished to provide for both cases. ↑
369 Drie Coninghen Avondt—Three Kings’ Even. The fifth of January, as being the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, is properly “Twelfth Night”. But, in England, the vigils or eves of all feast days between Christmas and the Purification having been abolished at the Reformation (see Wheatley, Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, Oxford, 1846, p. 165), this season of festivity, thus deprived of its religious character, was transferred to the evening after the feast; so that Twelfth Night was thenceforward kept on the evening of the 6th of January. ↑