Halcyon Days, in antiquity, implied seven days before, and as many after, the winter solstice--because the halcyon laid her eggs at this time of the year, and the weather during her incubation being, as your correspondent observes, usually calm. The phrase was afterwards employed to express any season of transient prosperity, or of brief tranquillity--the _septem placidae dies_ of human life:
The winter solstice just elapsed; and now Silent the season, sad alcyone Builds near the sleeping wave her tranquil nest.
When great Augustus made war's tempest cease, His halcyon days brought forth the arts of peace.
The halcyon built her nest on the rocks adjacent to the brink of the ocean, or, as some maintain, on the surface of the sea itself:
Alcyone compress'd Seven days sits brooding on her wat'ry nest, A wintry queen; her sire at length is kind, Calms every storm, and hushes every wind.
It is also said, that during the period of her incubation, she herself had absolute sway over the seas and the winds:
May halcyons smooth the waves, and calm the seas, And the rough south-east sink into a breeze; Halcyons of all the birds that haunt the main, Most lov'd and honour'd by the Nereid train.
Alcyone, or Halcyone, we are informed, was the daughter of Aeolus (king of storms and winds), and married to Ceyx, who was drowned in going to consult an oracle. The gods, it is said, apprized Alcyone, in a dream, of her husband's fate; and when she discovered, on the morrow, his body washed on shore, she precipitated herself into the watery element, and was, with her husband, metamorphosed into birds of a similar name, who, as before observed, keep the waters serene, while they build and sit on their nests.
In a late number, you gave among the "County Collections," with which a correspondent had furnished you, the old Cornish proverb--
"Hinckston Down well wrought, Is worth London dearly bought."
Possibly your correspondent was not aware that the true reading of this proverb is the following:--
"Hinckston Down well wrought, Is worth a monarch's ransom dearly bought."
The lines are thus quoted by Mr. Barrington, in his elaborate work on the middle ages, and refer to the prevailing belief, that Hinckston Down is a mass of copper, and in value, therefore, an equivalent for the price set on the head of a captive sovereign. Perhaps, as some elucidation of so intricate a subject as that of the ransoming prisoners during the middle ages, the following remarks may not be deemed altogether unworthy of insertion in your pages.