Medicus-magus, : a poem, in three cantos; with a glossary. / by Richard Furness.

  • Richard Furness
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medicus-magus, : a poem, in three cantos; with a glossary. / by Richard Furness. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/80 (page 16)
    A few short pounds to save, employ’d his care, Some half-score sheep to buy, each winter fair, To range the cliffs, or crop the flowery steep, Or, just to run with neighbour Prim-Gaps sheep : To turn the penny—keep his country wake. Or stop a breach which sudden floods might make. The price of lead and wool, important things ! Weigh’d more with him than all the pomp of kings ; For well he knew that wealth’s a transient tov, Save the small sum that man can here enjoy :— Look’d through all nature’s providential store, Enjoy’d her simpler gifts, nor sigh’d for more. None had more skill in Wapentake, or Soke,* To dial drifts, plumb sumps, or take a cope ; To cut the wondrous rod,j' and thence define The place and bearing of the hidden mine : In shaft, and scrinn, bro3,(\-rake,flatt,pipe, and vein, His mode of timbering shew’d all others mean ; * Wapentake, or Weapon-take.—[ Woepan, armour, and Getcecon, to render.—Sax.] The same as Hundred, or division of a County, so called, because on certain oc- casions, the inhabitants gave up their arms, or weapons, in token of subjection to their lord.—See Somner. Soke is the territory in which the Chief Lord exercises his liberty of keeping Courts, within his own territory or jurisdiction : also, a Quit-rent, or payment, made by the vassal, for acting in the quality of a Sockman, or free- holder. •j- This was the Virgula divinatoria, or hazel rod in the shape of the letter Y, which being cut according to the planetary aspect, and held by the two forked ends, some pretended would discover mines (!)