tarian, for sale, or for gratuitous distribution: a scurvy jest-book was the worst article in his assortment. Mr. Bacon had nothing to counteract his pastoral labours except the pravity of human nature. Of this there must everywhere be but too much; but fortunate indeed is the parish priest who finds himself in like manner stationed where there are no external circumstances to aggravate and excite it.

tyranny of the Puritans. But in Mr. Allison's days Mid-lent Sunday was not allowed to pass without a wholesome and savoury bowl of furmity on the social board: and Easter day brought with it not only those coloured eggs which are the friendly offering of that season throughout the whole north of Europe, but the tansy pudding also, originally perhaps introduced (and possibly by some compulsory converts from Judaism) as a representative of the bitter herbs with which the Paschal Lamb was to be eaten.

Both Christmas-days were kept at the Grange. There were people in those times who refused to keep what they called Pariia

putation or the new were right, was a point on which neither the master nor mistress of this house pretended to form an opinion. On which day the Glastonbury Thorn blossomed they never thought it necessary to inquire, nor did they go into the byre or the fields to see upon which midnight the oxen were to be found on their knees. They agreed with Mr. Bacon that in other respects it was a matter of indifference, but not so that Christmas should be celebrated on the same day throughout Christendom: and he agreed with them that as the ritual ought to be performed at the time appointed by authority, so the convivial observances might be regulated by the old calendar, or still more fitly, repeated according to the old reckoning, in deference to old feelings and recollections which time had consecrated.

Wherever more than ordinary pains were bestowed upon a cottager's or farmer's garden, Mr. Allison supplied the housewife with seed of a better kind than she might otherwise have been able to procure, and with grafts from his most serviceable fruit trees. No one who behaved well in his employment Christmas. But whether the old comwas ever left in want of employment; he had always some work going on, the cost of which was allowed for as charity in his accounts: and when he observed in a boy the diligence and the disposition which made it likely that an opportunity of bettering his condition would not be thrown away upon him, he advised, or if need were, enabled the parents to educate him for trade, and at a proper age provided a situation for him in London. If any of their daughters desired to acquire those useful arts which might qualify them for domestic service, they came to assist and learn from Miss Allison when she distilled her waters, made her cowslip, elder, and gooseberry wines, prepared her pickles and preserves, dried her medicinal plants, or constructed the great goose-pye, which in the Christmas week was always dispatched by the York coach to Bishopsgate Street, for the honour of Yorkshire, and the astonishment of the Londoners. They came also when preparations were making for a holiday, for old observances of this kind were maintained as duly there as by the Romans when the Laws of the Twelve Tables were in use, and every man constantly observed his family festivals as thereby enjoined.

Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday are still in general usage; indeed I do not know that it was ever deemed malignant and idolatrous to eat them on that day even under the

In Bishopsgate Street it had been found convenient to set down the children and their young guests on these occasions at Pope-Joan, or snip-snap-snorum, which was to them a more amusing because a noisier game. But here was room for more legitimate gambols; and when a young party had assembled numerous enough for such pastime, hunt the slipper, hot cockles, or blind-man's buff were the sports of a Christmas evening. These had been days of high enjoyment to Betsey for a few years after their removal into the country; they ceased

to be so when she saw that her aunt's hair | evitable and mournful all, by which their was passing from the steel to the silver hue, | little circle would be lessened, and his or and remembered that her father had reached her manner of life or of existence changed. the term of life, beyond which, in the ordinary course of nature, our strength is but labour and sorrow; - that the one was at

There is no checking the course of time. When the shadow on Hezekiah's dial went back, it was in the symbol only that the miracle was wrought: the minutes in every other horologe held their due course. But as Opifex of this opus, I, when it seems good unto me, may take the hour-glass from Time's hand and let it rest at a stand-still, till I think fit to turn it and set the sands again in motion. You who have got into this my omnibus, know that like other omnibuses, its speed is to be regulated, not according to your individual, and perhaps contrariant wishes, but by my discretion.

Moreover, I am not bound to ply with this omnibus only upon a certain line. In that case there would be just cause of complaint, if you were taken out of your road.

Mas estorva y desabre en el camino
Una pequeña legua de desvio
Que la jornada larga de contino.

Whoever has at any time lost his way upon
a long journey can bear testimony to the
truth of what the Reverend Padre Maestro
Fray Marco Antonio de Camos says in those
lines. (I will tell you hereafter, reader, (for
it is worth telling,) why that namesake of
the Triumvir, when he wrote the poem from
whence the lines are quoted, had no thoughts
of dedicating it, as he afterwards did, to D.
Juan Pimentel y de Requesens.) But you
are in no danger of being bewildered, or
driven out of your way. It is not in a stage
coach that you have taken your place with
me, to be conveyed to a certain point, and
within a certain time, under such an expect-
ation on your part, and such an engagement
on mine. We will drop the metaphor of
the omnibus, observing, however, by the
bye, which is the same thing in common
parlance as by the way, though critically
there may seem to be a difference, for by
the bye might seem to denote a collateral
remark, and by the way a direct one; ob-
serving, however, as I said, that as Dexter
called his work, or St. Jerome called it for
him, Omnimoda Historia, so might this opus

St. George's welcomed her to Doncaster as a bride. Enough too has been related concerning the Doctor in his single state, to show that he was not unworthy of such a wife. There is, however, more to be told; for any one who may suppose that a physician at Doncaster must have been pretty much the same sort of person in the year 1761 as at present, can have reflected little upon the changes for better and worse which have been going on during the intervening time. The fashions in dress and furniture have not altered more than the style of intellectual upholstery.

Our Doctor flourished in the Golden Age of Magazines, when their pages were filled with voluntary contributions from men who never aimed at dazzling the public, but came each with his scrap of information, or his humble question, or his hard problem, or his attempt in verse.

But now

when all this world is woxen daily worse,* see what a change has taken place through the whole Chriscross Row! As for A, there is Alaric Watts with his Souvenir, and Ackerman with his Forget-me-not, and all the rest of the Annual Albumers. B is a blackguard, and blusters in a popular Magazine. C is a coxcomb who concocts fashionable novels for Colburn; and D is a dunce who admires him. E, being empty and envious, thinks himself eminently qualified for Editor of a Literary Gazette. F figures as a fop in Knight's Quarterly. G is a general reformer, and dealer in Greek scrip. H is Humbug and Hume; and for my I, it may always be found with Mr. Irving and Mrs. Elizabeth Martin. J jeers at the Clergy in Mr. Jeffery's journal. K kicks against the pricks with his friend L, who is In those days A was an Antiquary, and Leigh Hunt, the Liberal. M manufactures wrote articles upon Altars and Abbeys and mischief for the Morning Chronicle. N is Architecture. B made a blunder, which C nobody knows who, that manufactures jokes corrected. D demonstrated that E was in for John Bull, and fathers them upon Rogers. error, and that F was wrong in Philology, O is an obstreperous orator. P was Peter and neither Philosopher nor Physician, Pindar, and is now Paul Pry. Qis the though he affected to be both. G was a Ge- Quarterly Review, and R S Robert Southey, nealogist: H was an Herald, who helped him. who writes in it. T tells lies in the Old I was an inquisitive inquirer, who found Times. U is a Unitarian who hopes to be reason for suspecting J to be a Jesuit. M Professor of Theology at the London Uniwas a mathematician. N noted the weather. versity. V is Vivian Grey. W is Sir O observed the stars. P was a poet, who Walter Scott. X the Ex-Sheriff Parkins. piddled in pastorals, and prayed Mr. Urban Y was the Young Roscius; and Z,-Zounds, to print them. Q came in the corner of the who can Z be, but Zachary Macauley ? page with his query. R arrogated to himOh,self the right of reprehending every one who differed from him. S sighed and sued in song. T told an old tale, and when he was wrong U used to set him right. V was a virtuoso. W warred against Warburton. X excelled in algebra. Y yearned for immortality in rhyme; and Z in his zeal was always in a puzzle.

Those were happy times when each little star was satisfied with twinkling in his own sphere. No one thought of bouncing about like a cracker, singeing and burning in the mere wantonness of mischief, and then going out with a noise and a stink.

- se oggidi vivesse in terra
Democrito, (perchè di lagrimare
Io non son vago, e però taccio il nome
D' Eraclito dolente ;) or, se vivesse
Fra' mortali Democrito, per certo
Ei si smascellerebbe della risa,
Guardando le sciocchezze de' mortali.†

A CERTAIN Ludovicus Bosch, instead of having his coat of arms, or his cypher engraved to put in his books, had a little print of himself in his library. The room has a venerable collegiate character; there is a crucifix on the table, and a goodly proportion of folios on the shelves. Bosch, in a clerical dress, is seated in an easy chair, cogitabund, with a manuscript open before him, a long pen in his hand, and on his head a wig which, with all proper respect for the dignity and vocation of the wearer, I cannot but honestly denominate a caxon. The caxon quizzifies the figure, and thereby mars the effect of what would otherwise

have been a pleasing as well as appropriate design. Underneath in the scrolled framing

is this verse,

In tali nunquam lassat venatio sylvâ.

Dr. Charles Balguy, of Peterborough, had for the same purpose a design which, though equally appropriate, was not so well conceived. His escutcheon, with the words

Jucunda oblivia vitæ

--

oblivious of its business. Like Ludovicus
Bosch, but remember, I beseech you,
Ladies! his wig was not a caxon; and, more-
over, that when he gave an early hour to
his books, it was before the wig was put on,
and that when he had a leisure evening for
them, off went the wig, and a velvet or
silken cap, according to the season, supplied
its place;
like Bosch, I say, when he was
seated in his library, — but in no such con-
ventual or collegiate apartment, and with
no such assemblage of folios, quartos, and
all inferior sizes, substantially bound, in ve-
nerable condition, and “in seemly order
ranged;" nor with that atmospheric odour
of antiquity, and books, which is more grate-
ful to the olfactories of a student than the
fumes of any pastille; but in a little room,
with a ragged regiment upon his shelves, and
an odour of the shop from below, in which
rhubarb predominated, though it was some-
times overpowered by valerian, dear to cats,
or assafoetida which sprung up, say the
Turks, in Paradise, upon the spot where the
Devil first set his foot: like Bosch, I say,
once more and without farther parenthesis,—

-

(περισσοὶ πάντες οἱ 'ν μέσῳ λόγοι, *)

like Bosch, the Doctor never was weary with pursuing the game that might be started in a library. And though there was no forest at hand, there were some small preserves in the neighbourhood, over which he was at liberty to range.

Perhaps the reader's memory may serve him, where mine is just now at fault, and he may do for himself, what some future editor will do for me, that is supply the name of a man of letters who, in his second childhood, above, and his name and place of abode below, is suspended against an architectural devised a new mode of book-hunting: he pile of books. It was printed in green. I used to remove one of the books in his found it in one of our own Doctor's out-of-library from its proper place, and when he the-way volumes, a thin foolscap quarto, printed at Turin, 1589, being a treatise della natura de' cibi et del bere, by Baldassare Pisanelli, a physician of Bologna.

Dr. Balguy's motto would not have suited our Doctor. For though books were among the comforts and enjoyments of his life from boyhood to old age, they never made him

had forgotten, as he soon did, where it had been put, he hunted the shelves till he found it. There will be some who see nothing more in this affecting anecdote than an exemplification of the vanity of human pursuits; but it is not refining too much, if

* EURIPIDES.