to sit together, and say whatever comes into their heads; when the pretty name of Flora or Fanny was not a whit more charming to me than Tom or Jack; and when a pound of marbles, with half a score of shouting boy-playmates, were as pleasing as a dance with a party of smiling, rosy girls; I recollect some of my female friends, while gathering flowers in a meadow, would stop, and, plucking a large daisy, pull off the petals one by one, repeating at the same time the words

Rich man, poor mau, farmer, ploughman, thief;"

fancying, very seriously, that the one which came to be named at plucking the last petal would be her husband. Another way of knowing the future husband (inerior only to the dark words of that high priestess of the oracles of Hymen, the tunning gypsey), is, to pluck an even ash-leaf, and, putting it into the hand, to say,

The even ash-leaf in my hand, "The first I meet shall be my man." Then, putting it into the glove, to say,

"The even ash-leaf in my glove, "The first I meet shall be my love." And, lastly, into the bosom, saying,

· The even ash-leaf in my bosom, "The first I meet shall be my husband. " Soon after which the future husband will make his appearance, and the lass may observe him as accurately as she will.

Midsummer Eve, however, is the great time with girls for discovering who shall be their husbands; why it is so, more than any other, I cannot tell, unless, indeed, the sign Gemini, which the sun then leaves, is symbolical of the wedding union: but, however that may be, a maiden will walk through the garden at midsummer, with a rake on her left shoulder, and throw hemp-seed over her right, saying, at the same time

"Hemp-seed I set, hemp-seed I sow. "The man that is my true-love come after me and mow."

It is said by many who have never tried it, and some who have, without effect, that the future husband of the hemp-sowing girl will appear behind her with a scythe, and look as substantial as a brass image of Saturn on an old timepiece. Or if, at going to bed, she put her shoes at right angles with each other, in the shape of a T, and say,

"Hoping this night my true love to see, "I place my shoes in the form of a T." they say she will be sure to see her husband in a dreani, and perhaps in reality, by her bed-side. Besides this, there is another method of divination. A girl, on going to bed, is to write the alphabet on small pieces of paper, and put them into a bason of water with the letters downward; and it is said that in the morning she will find the first letter of her husband's name turned up, and the others as they were left.

The celebration of Peace, in August, 1814, took place when I was a boy, old enough to enjoy the merry doings at my native village, and to remember them till

now.

The respectable inhabitants subscribed largely to treat the poor with a public dinner of beef and pudding, and strong beer. Their festival was held in a field by the river side, where several hundreds of people, young and old, sat down at two long lines of tables. Their hearing was gratified by the lively music of a band; and their taste and smell by the savour of a wholesome old English meal, at which they held their noses for an hour over the steam of boiled beef, or thrust them at intervals into the cool deepening vacuum of the beer jug. Their sight was afterwards indulged with spectacles o' village merry-making; and their feelings by the twistings and twinings, and spiritstirring hop, skip, and jump agitations of the dance gallopades were not then invented, or two thousand people might have hopped along in a string, like a row of little mop-stem-riding_boys on their wooden horses. Among the sports were Jumping in sacks, thus performed :-half a dozen men were put into as many sacks, which were tied round their necks, and gave them the shape of a row of blacking jars in a shop. In this state they were to hop a given distance for the mastery; and, as they could not erect themselves into the natural perpendicular of the human body, whe they fell down, there were what may have been called resurrection men, to help them up There was Grinning through horse-collars, in which the winner is he who can thrust through a horse's collar the ugliest sample of a human face, either by showing the odd substitutes which nature might have stuck in his head for features, or else by distorting them into something still more unlike, and uglier than natural features Besides these there was Running by young

women, a sport in which the victress received a white holland shift; not without having shown, however, by the high upflinging of her "light fantastic toe" in the race, that she could mark her initials, and, at least No. 2, upon it. Running for the pig with the greased tail was a famous general chase, in which the individual who caught the pig by the tail became its lawful owner-when, after many long strides and hard strainings, many a breathless wight overtook the galloping porker, and grasped the slippery little member, " Heu omnis effusus labor!" it slipped through the fingers, and the trotters carried off the head, hams, and sides, at full speed, till a dexterous victor made them his own. An effigy of Buonaparte was also carried about: this the good people first hung, then shot, and lastly burnt; thus securing the arch enemy of England by various deaths, as, in a suit at law, the plaintiff secureth the defendant by the various counts in the declaration.

The Fair Day is to the milk-maids and striplings of some villages one of the brightest in their calendar. As the time approaches to it, their joy rises, like the mercury in a barometer at the coming of fine weather. The children lessen their outlay for toys and sweetmeats, and hoard the saved pence; and the trite observation on meeting friends, that "it is fine weather," gives place to the earnest question, "Be gwain to fa-yer o' Monday?" Some time ago, on a fine day in September, I went to a famous fair, held at the foot of one of the green hills of Dorset. When I first set out I walked along the still shady lanes alone, but, as I drew near the fair-place, I commingled with a stream of people, all tending to the same point. There were groups of white-gowned, redfaced lasses, led by their swains with bunches of flowers stuck in the but on holes of their long blue coats, and switching in one hand a tough ground-ash stick. I had not a fair mate myself, and could well listen to their observations. "How much money hast got vor fayer?" said a ruddy little boy to another, whom he had a little before overtaken. "Zix-pence," said the other, with a grin of satisfaction; thumping his hand on his pocket, and erecting his body into a posture of dignity he thought himself entitled to by his wealth. Alas! thought I, how true is it that our wants are only imaginary, and that riches and poverty are only relative

terms! this boy is proua to go to fair with his sixpence, while many spendthrifts think themselves stinted if they have not hundreds to squander in things as worthless as those that will be bought by him. With these thoughts in my mind, my attention was drawn to the rude, though well-meant, salutation of a Dorset swain, who, seeing a friend forward, crept softly behind him, and with the full force of an arm which had perhaps been long exercised in mowing, or swinging the flail, laid his stick athwart his back, upon which his acquaintance looked round, and received his assailant with a hearty shake of the hand. I was by this time in the fair, where the din of drums and horns at the shows, the loud invitation, "Walk up, walk up," of the showmen, the hum of voices, the squeaking of fiddles, and the creaking of rattles, made altogether a medley of sounds which, supposing with Pope "all discord harmony not understood," would have been very pleasing to my ear, but for my ignorance of harmony. Seeing a merry-Andrew come out at one of the shows, I went up to listen to a few of his much-repeated, though still laugh-stirring jokes. He was surrounded by a crowd of starers, with their faces all worked up into grins, so exactly like his own that they seemed reflections of his own-like the faces you would see were you to twist your mouth to the expression of drolling laughter, and look into a multiplying glass. The dense crowd around the show was, however, suddenly scattered by a bull. He had escaped from the cattle fair, to exhibit himself at full run among the standings, where he was received with chuckles and shouts by those who were out of his way, and with screams from women and children in his line of race: after a short peep at the humours of the fair, he was prevailed upon to retire, and leave the bipeds to their former fun. I withdrew with the coming on of the evening: as I wound round the hill the noise of the fair died gradually away, and I reached my home in silence.

A Perambulation, or, as it might be more correctly called, a circumambula.. tion, is the custom of going round the boundaries of a manor or parish, with witnesses, to determine and preserve recollection of its extent, and to see that no encroachments have been made upon it, and that the landmarks have not been

taken away. It is a proceeding commonly regulated by the steward, who takes with him a few men and several boys who are required to particularly observe the boundary lines traced out, and thereby qualify themselves for witnesses, in the event of any dispute about the landmarks or extent of the manor, at a future day. In order that they may not forget the lines and marks of separation, they "take pains" at almost every turning. For instance, if the boundary be a stream, one of the boys is tossed into it; if a broad ditch, the boys are offered money to Jump over it, in which they of course fail, and pitch into the mud, where they stick as firmly as if they had been rooted there for the season; if a hedge, a sapling is cut out of it, and used in afflicting that part of their bodies upon which they rest in the posture between standing and lying; if a wall, they are to have a race on the top of it, when, in trying to pass each other, they fall over on each side, some descending, perhaps, into the still stygian waters of a ditch, and others thrusting the "human face divine" into a bed of nettles; if the boundary be a sunny bank, they sit down upon it, and get a treat of beer, and bread and cheese, and, perhaps, a glass of spirits. When these boys grow up to be men, if it happens that one of them should be asked if a particular stream were the boundary of the manor he had perambulated, he would be sure to say, in the manner of Sancho Pança, "Ees, that 'tis, I'm sure o't, by the same token that I were tossed into't, and paddled about there lik a water-rot, till I wor hafe dead." If he should be asked whether the aforesaid pleasant bank were a boundary,--" O, ees it be," he would say, that's where we squat down, and tucked in a skinvull of vittles and drink." With regard to any boundary perambulated after that, he would most likely declare, "I won't be sartin; I got zo muddled up top o' the banks, that don'

know where we ambulated arter that." W. BARNES.

October 9

9th of October, 1690, died at the age of eighty-seven sir John Maynard, ar eminent lawyer, who had been active in the prosecution of the earl of Strafford and archbishop Laud. He subscribed to the solemn league and covenant, had sat in the assembly of divines, and was sent with Glynn to the Tower by the parliament, for opposing the victorious army. Not in the least intimidated, he told the house that, by voting no more addresses to Charles I., they virtually dissolved themselves; and, when forcibly secluded, he boldly broke in, and vehemently, but vainly, pleaded for the king's life. During the protectorate, he was equally intrepid in pleading the cause of a gentleman, who refused the payment of a tax not granted by parliament. On that occasion he was sent, with two other lawyers, to the Tower; but was released upon his submission, and named serjeant to the protector Oliver, as he was afterwards to Richard Cromwell his successor. Charles I. recalled him to the coif, knighted him, and would have made him a judge, but he refused the intended honor. At the revolution he waited upon the prince of Orange, who, observing his great age, said, "You must have outlived all the men of the law who have been your contemporaries:" Maynard replied, "Yes sir; and, if your highness had not come over, I should have outlived the law itself." When the prince was declared king, he named sir John Maynard one of the lords commissioners of the great seal. His professional skill was very great. He died at Gunnersbury, in the parish of Ealing, and was buried in that church. He is called in the register "the lord Manard."*

At Hertford assizes, 4 Car. I., the following information was taken by Sir John Maynard, from the deposition of the minister of the parish where a murder was committed:-"That the body being taken out of the grave thirty days after the party's death, and lying on the grass, and the four defendants (suspected of murdering her) being required, each of them touched the dead body; whereupon the brow of the dead, which before was of a livid and carrion color, began to have a

• Noble.

BLEEDING OF THE MURDERED. King James I., in his "Dæmonology," says, "In a secret murther, if the dead carkasse be at any time thereafter handled by the murtherer, it will gush out of blood, as if the blood were crying to heaven for revenge of the murtherer."

The author of the "Living Librarie, 1621," inquires, "Who can allege any certaine and firme reason why the blood runnes out of the wounds of a man murdred, long after the murder committed, if the murderer be brought before the dead bodie ?"

Reginald Scot too, in his "Discovery of Witchcraft," says, "I have heard by credible report, that the wound of a man murthered renews bleeding at the presence of a dear friend or of a mortal enemy. Divers also write that if one pass by a murthered body (though unknown) he shall be striken with fear, and feel in himself some alteration of nature."

In relation to this belief is the following in Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 4to:-"A gentlewoman went to church so concealed, that she thought nobody could know her. It chanced that her lover met her, and knew her, and spake unto her: Sir, (she answered) you mistake me, how know ye me! All too well, replied the gentleman, for so soon as I met you, behold my wounds fell fresh a bleeding! Oh, hereof you only are guilty."*

for declining to take the oaths to William and Mary. Upon that occasion he wrote a paper, addressed to the members of his cathedral, in which he declared his rights still valid; and affixed it at the entrance of the choir. This was thought so great an insult on the government that the attorney-general was ordered to prosecute him for it. It is a singular fact that his brother John Ilickes had been a non-conformist minister, and was executed for being concerned in Monmouth's rebellion; and that George became the champion of the nonjurors, and, changing his clerical garb, sheltered himself at AmersDr. White Kennett, who was a violent den, in Oxfordshire, under the roof of a revolutionist." Good resulted from the association of these two opposite characters. It was impossible for them to converse sciably on church religion and their general topic was literature. Kennett obtained Hickes's assistance in ac

quiring a knowledge of the northern European languages; and this intercourse laid the foundation of Dr. Hickes' "Thesaurus," putation for immense learning in Angloa work which gained him, a deserved reSaxon, and the Runic and other northern dialects. At length Hickes was discovered in his asylum at his friend elsewhere. He secreted himself in Lon Kennett's, and compelled to fly for privacy don, and lived in obscurity, until lord chancellor Somers, who venerated his learning, procured a noli prosequi, which still he was insensible to moderation. freed Hicke's from personal danger; He bore inveterate hatred to archbishop Tillotson, whom he treated in controver sy as an "atheist," but the amiable primate used no acrimony in reply. He called bishop Burnet a liar, and the prelate retorted, by charging Hickes with being all but a papist. Hickes, with a constancy which the stake could not have shaken, made heaven's gate so narrow that it could admit none but a few nonjurors to pass. Whilst we lament his bigotry, we exult in his learning, which has done honour to his country*