He must originally have been a kind of secular beadle of the community, or a curfew constable, to see the whole population well a-bed in good season.

In Britain, too, you might have beheld this tendency, where the lordly curfew quenched the lights in castle and cot from beneath a very extinguisher of a roof.

And down the shadowy lane, in tinklings clear, The pastoral curfew of the cow-bell rung.

[v] of swallow flocks that twittering sweep, The solemn curfew swinging long and deep; The talking boat that moves with pensive sound,