trencher. I now earnestly again craved Sun rises Twilight ends h. m. 5259 3 5 3 57 6 1 The laurentinus flowers, if mild. house. January 4. On the 4th of January 1664, Mr. Pepy went "to the tennis-court, and there saw the king (Charles II.) play at tennis. But," says Pepys, " to see how the king's play was extolled, without any cause at all, was a loathsome sight; though sometimes, indeed, he did play very well, and deserved to be commended; but such open flattery is beastly. Afterwards to St. James's park, seeing people play at pall mall." Pall-Mall. a crùmb of this stone; and, at last, out of January 3.-Day breaks The most common memorial of this 66 "If a stroke with a pail-mail bettle upon a bowl makes it fly from it." Yet, Evelyn speaks twice of Pall-mall, as a place for playing in; although he calls such a place at Toms' a mall only.§ On the 4th of January, 1667, Mr. Pepys had company to dinner; and “at night to sup, and then to cards, and, last drunk out of a wood cup, as a Christmas of all, to have a flaggon of ale and apples, draught, which made all merry." Cups. Pepys took his Christmas draught "out of a wood cup," a writer says, "Of drinking cups divers and sundry sorts we have; some of elme, some of box, some of maple, some of holly, &c.; mazers, broad-mouthed dishes, noggins, whiskins, piggins, crinzes, ale-bowls, wassell-bowls, court-dishes, tankards, kannes, from a pottle to a pint, from a pint to a gill. Other bottles we have of leather, but they are most used amongst the shepheards and harvest-people of the countrey: small jacks we have in many ale-houses of the citie and suburbs, tip't with silver, besides the great black jacks and bombards at the court, which, when the Frenchmen first saw, they reported, at their returne into their countrey, that the Englishmen used to drinke out of their bootes: we have, besides, cups made out of hornes of beasts, of cocker-nuts, of goords, of the eggs of ostriches; others made of the shells of divers fishes, brought from the Indies and other places, and shining like mother of pearle. Come to plate; every taverne can afford you flat bowles, French bowles, prounet cups, beare bowles, beakers: and private householders in the citie, when they make a feast to entertaine their friends, can furnish their cupboards with flagons, tankards, beere-cups, wine-bowles, some white, some percell gilt, some gilt all over, some with covers, others without, of sundry shapes and qualities."* From this it appears that our ancestors had as great a variety of drinking vessels as of liquors, in some of which they were wont to infuse rosemary. Rosemary. In a popular account of the manners of an old country squire, he is represented as stirring his cool-tankard with a sprig of rosemary. Likewise, at weddings, it was usual to dip this grateful plant in the cup, and drink to the health of the new-married couple. Thus, a character in an old play, says, Before we divide Our army, let us dip our rosemaries Rosemary was borne in the hand at marriages. Its virtues are enhanced in a curious wedding sermon.§ "The rose Heywood's Philocothonista, 1635, Brand. Nares. The City Madam. A Marriage Present by Roger Hackett, D. D. 1607 4to., cited by Brand mary is for married men, the which, by name, nature, and continued use, man challengeth as properly belonging to himself. It overtoppeth all the flowers in the garden, boasting man's rule: it helpeth the brain, strengtheneth the memory, and is very medicinal for the head. Another property is, it affects the heart. Let this ros marinus, this flower of man, ensign of your wisdom, love, and loyalty, be carried, not only in your hands, but in your heads and hearts." At a wedding of three sisters together, in 1560, we read of "fine flowers and rosemary strewed for them, coming home; and so, to the father's house, where was a great dinner prepared for his said three bride-daughters, with their bridegrooms and company.' Old playst frequently mention the use of rosemary on these occasions. In a scene immediately before a wedding, we have " Lew. Pray take a piece of rosemary. Mir. I'll wear it. But, for the lady's sake, and none of yours. In another we find "the parties enter with rosemary, as from a wedding."§ Again, a character speaking of an intended bridegroom's first arrival, says, “look, an the wenches ha' not found un out, and do present un with a van of rosemary, and bays enough to vill a bow-pot, or trim the head of my best vore-horse."|| It was an old country custom to deck the bridal-bed with sprigs of rosemary.¶ Rosemary denoted rejoicing. Hence in an account of a joyful entry of queen Elizabeth into the city of London, on the 14th of January, 1558, there is this passage: "How many nosegays did her grace receive at poor women's hands? How often-times stayed she her chariot, when she saw any simple body offer to speak to her grace? A branch of rosemary, given to her grace, with a supplication by a poor woman, about Fleet Bridge, was seen in her chariot till her grace came to Westminster." It is a jocular saying, among country people, that, where the rosemary-bush flou Stow's Survey, by Strype. Elder Brother, a Play, 1637, 4to. ¶ Brand. rishes in the cottage garden, "the grey mare is the better horse;" that is, the wife manages the husband. Shakspeare intimates the old popular applications of this herb. It was esteemed as strengthening to the memory; and to that end Ophelia presents it to Laertes. "There's rosemary, that 's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember." In allusion to its bridal use, Juliet's nurse asks Romeo, "Doth not rosemary and Romeo both begin with a letter?" And she intimates Juliet's fondness for him, by saying, "she hath the prettiest sensations of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it." The same play denotes its use at funerals. When friar Laurence and Paris, with musicians, on Juliet's intended bridal, enter her chamber, and find her on the bed, surrounded by the Capulet family, mourning for her death, he sympathises with their affliction, and concludes by directing the rosemary prepared for the wedding to be used in the offices of the burial: Stick your rosemary On this fair corse; and, as the custom is, In all her best array, bear her to church. Of a bride who died of the plague on her wedding-night it is said, "Here is a strange alteration; for the rosemary that was washed in sweet water, to set out the bridal, is now wet in tears to furnish her burial."* It was usual at weddings to dip the rosemary in scented waters. Respecting a bridal, it is asked in an old play, "Were the rosemary branches dipped?" Some of Herrick's verses show that rosemary at weddings was sometimes gilt. The two-fold use of this fragrant herb is declared in the Hesperides by an apostrophe. To the Rosemary Branch. Grow for two ends, it matters not at all, One of a well-known set of engravings, by Hogarth, represents the company assembled for a funeral, with sprigs of rosemary in their hands. A French traveller, in England, in the reign of William III., describing our burial solemnities and the preparation of the mourners, says, "when they are ready to set out, they nail up the coffin, and a • Dekker's Wonderful Year, 1603, 4to. Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornfu Lady, 1616, 4to. servant presents the company with sprigs of rosemary: every one takes a sprig, and carries it in his hand till the body is put into the grave, at which time they all throw their sprigs in after it." A character in an old play,† requests If there be Any so kind as to accompany My body to the earth, let there not want For entertainment. Prithee, see they have A sprig of rosemary, dipt in common water, To smell at as they walk along the streets. In 1649, at the funeral of Robert Lockier, who was shot for mutiny, the corpse was adorned with bundles of rosemary on each side, one half of each was stained with blood. At the funeral of a country girl, it is said, that, To show their love, the neighbours far and Paul Van Somer, an artist of great merit, born at Antwerp in 1576, died in London, and was buried at St. Martins in the fields on the 5th of January 1621. His pencil was chiefly employed on portraits of royal, noble, and eminent personages. He painted James I. at Windsor, and Hampton Court; the lord chancellor Bacon, and his brother Nicholas, at Gorhambury; Thomas Howard earl of Arundel, and his lady Alathea Talbot, at Worksop; William earl of Pembroke, at St. James's; and the fine whole-length of the first earl of Devonshire in his robes, "equal," says Walpole "to the pencil of Vandyke, and one of the finest single figures I have seen." Van Somer seems to have been the first of those artists who, after the accession of James I., arrived and established themselves in England and practised a skilful management of the chiaro-scuro. His portraits were admired for great elegance of attitude, and remarkable blance. resem It was fortunate for the arts that king James had no liking towards them and let them take their own course; for he would probably have meddled to introduce as bad a taste in art as he did in literature. Hayley says, James, both for empire and for arts unfit, His sense a quibble, and a pun his wit, Whatever works he patronised debased; But happy left the pencil undisgraced. Zeuxis, the renowned painter of antiquity, flourished 400 years before the birth of Christ, and raised to great perfection the art which the labours of Apol • Walpole's Painters. lodorus had obtained to be esteemed. Zeuxis invented the disposition of light and shadow, and was distinguished for coloring. He excelled in painting females; his most celebrated production was a picture of Helen, for which five of the loveliest virgins of Crotona in Italy sat to him by order of the council of the city. Yet he is said to have lost the prize for painting in a contest with Parrhasius. The story runs, that Zeuxis's picture represented grapes so naturally that the birds flew down to peck at them; and that Parrhasius's picture represented a curtain, which Zeuxis taking to be a real one desired to be drawn aside to exhibit what his adversary had done: On finding his mistake, he said that he had only deceived birds, whereas Parrhasius had deceived a master of the art, To some who blamed his slowness in working, he answered, that it was true he was long in painting his designs, but they were designed for posterity. One of his best pieces was Hercules in his cradle strangling serpents in the sight of his affrighted mother; but he himse.f preferred his picture of a wrestler, under which he wrote, "It is more easy to blame than to imitate this picture." He is the first painter we read of who exhibited the pro ductions of his pencil for money." Zeuxis was succeeded by Apelles, who never passed a day without handling his pencil, and painted such admirable likenesses, that they were studied by the physiognomists. We speak of the Romans as ancients; ancients; and the Greeks of the Egyptians the Romans spoke of the Greeks as as their ancients. It is certain that from them they derived most of their knowledge in art and science. If the learning of Egypt were now in the world, our attainments would dwindle into nothingness The tombs and mummies of the Egyptians show their skill in the preparation of colors and that they practised the arts of design and painting. Vast monuments of their mighty powers in architecture and sculpture still remain. We derive from them, through the Greeks, the signs of the zodiac. The Greeks painted on canvas or linen, placed their pictures in frames, and decorated their walls with designs in fresco. Their sculpture contained portraits of dis • Bayle. tinguished personages, in which they were imitated by the Romans. The frieze of the Parthenon is supposed to represent portraits of Pericles, Phidias, Socrates, and Alcibiades. Nero caused to be exhibited a portrait of himself on a canvas 120 feet high. The Anglo-Saxons illuminated their man fection of the apothecaries can equal their excellent virtue. But these delights are in the outward senses; the principal delight is in the mind, singularly enriched with the knowledge of these visible things, setting forth to us the invisible wisdom and admirable workmanship of Almighty God." Sun rises -sets. Twilight ends. h. m. 5 58 8 2 3 58 6 The bearsfoot, Helleborus fætidus, flowers. January 6. uscripts with miniatures; from this prac- January 5.-Day breaks. Our old herbalist John Gerard, in dedicating his "Historie of Plants" to the great Secretary Cecil, Lord Burleigh, thus eloquently begins: "Among the manifold creatures of God, that have in all ages diversely entertained many excellent wits, and drawn them to the contemplation of the divine wisdom, none have provoked men's studies more, or satisfied their desires so much, as plants have done; and that upon just and worthy causes. For, if delight may provoke men's labor, what greater delight is there than to behold the earth apparelled with plants, as with a robe of embroidered work, set with orient pearls, and garnished with great diversity of rare and costly jewels? If variety and perfection of colors may affect the eye, it is such in herbs and flowers, that no Apelles, no Zeuxis, ever could by any art express the like if odors or if taste may work satisfaction, they are both so sovereign in plants, and so comfortable, that no con Andrews Forbroke. EPIPHANY-TWELFTH DAY. In addition to the usage, still continued, of drawing king and queen on Twelfth night, Barnaby Googe's versification describes a disused custom among the people, of censing a loaf and themselves as a preservative against sickness and witchcraft throughout the year. Twise sixe nightes then from Christmasse, doth burne by franckensence : when night approcheth nere, Before the coles and frankensence to be perfumed there : First bowing downe his heade he standes, Whom followeth streight his wife, and doth Which doth preserue they say their teeth, and sicknesse all the yeare. this odour great and small, An other takes the loafe, whom all the reast do follow here, |