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writer of this (the parish priest) has seen fifty of the inhabitants assembled there, on the first day of the year, dancing by moonlight, with no other music than their own singing."

son,

In Mr. Stewart's "Popular Superstitions of the Highlands," there is some account of the Candlemas bul, on new year's cve, as introductory to the new year. The term Candlemas, applied to this seais supposed to have originated in some old religious ceremonies performed by candlelight. The Bull is a passing cloud, which Highland imagination perverts into the form of that animal; as it rises or falls or takes peculiar directions, of great significancy to the seers, so does it prognosticate good or bad weather. The more northern nations anciently assigned portentous qualities to the winds of new year's eve. One of their old legends in Brand may be thus versified—the last line eking out the verse:

If New Year's eve night-wind blow south,
It betokeneth warmth and growth;
If west, much milk, and fish in the sea;
If north, much cold, and storms there will be ;
If east, the trees will bear much fruit
If north-east, flee it man and brute.

Mr. Stewart says, that as soon as night sets in it is the signal with the Strathdown highlander for the suspension of his usual employment, and he directs his attention to more agreeable callings. The men form into bands with tethers and axes, and, shaping their course to the juniper bushes, they return home laden with mighty loads, which are arranged round the fire to-dry till morning. Acertain discreet person is despatched to the dead and living ford to draw a pitcher of water in profound silence, without the vessel touching the ground, lest its virtue should be destroyed, and on his return all retire to rest. Early on new year's morning the Usque-Cashrichd, or water from the dead and living ford, is drank, as a potent charm, until next new year's day, against the spells of witchcraft, the malignity of evil eyes, and the activity of all infernal agency. The qualified highlander then takes a large brush, with which he profusely asperses the occupants of all beds; from whom it is not unusual for him to receive ungrateful remonstrances against ablution. This ended, and the doors and windows being thoroughly closed, and all crevices stopped, he kindles piles of the collected juniper, in the dif

ferent apartments, till the vapour from the burning branches condenses into opaque clouds, and coughing, sneezing, wheezing, gasping, and other demonstrations of suffocation ensue. The operator, aware that the more intense the "smuchdan," the more propitious the solemnity, disregards these indications, and continues, with streaming eyes and averted head, to increase the fumigation, until in his own defence he admits the air to recover the exhausted household and himself. He then treats the horses, cattle, and other bestial stock in the town with the same smothering, to keep them from harm throughout the year. When the gudewife gets up, and having ceased from coughing, has gained sufficient strength to reach the bottle dhu, she administers its comfort to the relief of the sufferers: laughter takes place of complaint, all the family get up, wash their faces, and receive the visits of their neighbours, who arrive full of gratulations peculiar to the day. Mu nase choil orst, "My Candlemas bond upon you " is the customary salutation, and means, in plain words, "You owe me a new year's gift." A point of great emulation is, who shall salute the other first; because the one who does so is entitled to a gift from the person saluted. Breakfast, consisting of al! procurable luxuries, is then served, the neighbours not engaged are invited to partake, and the day ends in festivity.

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Riding stang, a custom that will be observed on hereafter, prevails in some parts of England on new year's day to the present hour. The " stang" is a cowl-staff; the cowl is a water-vessel, borne by two persons on the cowl-staff, which is a stout pole whereon the vessel hangs. "Where's the cowl-staff?" cries Ford's wife, when she purposes to get Falstaff into a large buck-basket, with two handles; the cowl-staff, or stang," is produced, and, being passed through the handles,the fat knight is borne off by two of Ford's men. A writer in the Gentleman s Magazine, 1791, says, that in Westmoreland and Cumberland, on the 1st of January, multitudes assemble early in the morning with baskets and stangs," and whoever does not join them, whether inhabitant or stranger, is immediately mounted across the "stang," and carried, shoulder height, to the next public-house, where sixpence liberates the prisoner Women are seized in this way, and car

ried in baskets-the sex being privileged from ridingstang," in compliment, perhaps, to the use of side-saddles. In the same part of the country, no one is allowed to work on new year's day, however industrious. Mr. Ellis shows that it was a new year's day custom in ancient Rome for tradesmen to work a little only, for luck's sake, that they might have constant business all the year after.

A communication in an English journal of January 1324 relates, that in Paris on new year's day, which is called le jour d'étrennes, parents bestow portions on their children, brothers on their sisters, and husbands make presents to their wives. Carriages may be seen rolling through the streets with cargoes of bon-bons, souvenirs, and the variety of et cæteras with which little children and grown-up children are bribed into good humour; and here and there pastrycooks are to be met with, carrying upon boards enormous temples, pagodas, churches, and playhouses, made of fine flour and sugar, and the embellishments which render French pastry so inviting. But there is one street in Paris to which a new year's day is a whole year's fortune-this is the Rue des Lombards, where the wholesale confectioners reside; for in Paris every trade and profession has its peculiar quarter. For several days preceding the 1st of January, this street is completely blocked up by carts and waggons laden with cases of sweetmeats for the provinces. These are of every form and description which the most singular fancy could imagine; bunches of carrots, green peas, boots and shoes, lobsters and crabs, hats, books, musical instruments, gridirons, frying-pans, and saucepans; all made of sugar, and coloured to imitate reality, and all made with a hollow within to hold the bon-bons. The most prevailing device is what is called a cornet, that is, a little cone ornamented in different ways with a bag to draw over the large end, and close it up. In these things, the prices of which vary from one franc (tenpence) to fifty, the bon-bons are presented by those who choose to be at the expense of them, and by those who do not, they are only wrapped in a piece of paper; but bon-bons in some way or other must be presented. It would not, perhaps, be an exaggeration to state that the amount expended for presents on new year's day in Paris, for sweetmeats alone, exceeds 500,000 francs, or 20,000. sterling Jewellery is also sold to a very

large amount, and the fancy artic.es exported in the first week in the year to England and other countries, is computed at one-fourth of the sale during the twelve months. In Paris it is by no means uncommon for a man of 8,000 or 10,000 francs a year to make presents on new year's day which cost him a fifteenth part of his income. No person able to give must on this day pay a visit empty-handed Every body accepts, and every man gives according to the means which he possesses. Females alone are excepted from the charge of giving. A pretty woman, respectably connected, may reckon her new year's presents at something considerable. Gowns, jewellery, gloves, stockings, and artificial flowers, fill her drawing-room; for in Paris it is a custom to display all the gifts, in order to excite emulation, and to obtain as much as possible. At the palace the new year's day is a complete jour de fête. Every branch of the royal family is then expected to make handsome presents to the king. For the six months preceding January 1824, the female branches were busily occupied in preparing presents of their own manufacture, which would fill at least two common-sized waggons. The duchess de Berri painted an entire room of japanned pannels, to be set up in the palace; and the duchess of Orleans prepared an elegant screen. An English gentleman who was admitted suddenly into the presence of the duchess de Berri two months before, found her, and three of her maids of honour, lying on the carpet, painting the legs of a set of chairs, which were intended for the king. The day commences with the Parisians, at an early hour, by the interchange of their

visits and bon-bons. The nearest relations

are visited first, until the furthest in blood have had their calls; then friends and acquaintances. The conflict to anticipate each other's calls, occasions the most agreeable and whimsical scenes among these proficients in polite attentions. In these visits, and in gossiping at the confectioners' shops, which are the great lounge for the occasion, the morning of new year's day is passed; a dinner is giver by some member of the family to all the rest, and the evening concludes, like Christmas day, with cards, dancing, or any other amusement that may be preferred. One of the chief attractions to a foreigner in Paris is the exhibition, which opens there on new year's day, of the finest specimens of the Sevres china manu

factured at the royal establishment in the neighbourhood of Versailles during the preceding year.

Undoubtedly, new year's gifts originated in heathen observances, and were grossly abused in after ages; yet latterly they became a rational and pleasant mode of conveying our gentle dispositions towards those we esteein. Mr. Audley, in his compendious and useful" Companion to the Almanack," says, with truth, that they are innocent, if not praiseworthy; and he quotes this amiable sentiment from Bourne: "If I send a new year's gift to my friend, it shall be a token of my friendship; if to my benefactor, a token of my gratitude; if to the poor, which at this season must never be forgot, it shall be to make their hearts sing for joy, and give praise and adoration to the Giver of all good gifts." The Jews on the first day of their new year give sumptuous entertainments, and joyfully wish each other a happy new year." This salutation is not yet obsolete even with us; but the new year's gift seldom arrives, except to honest rustics from their equals; it is scarcely remembered with a view to its use but by young persons, who, "unvexed with all the cares of gain," have read or heard tell of such things, and who, with innocent hearts, feeling the kindness of the sentiment, keep up the good old custom among one another, till mixture with the world, and "long experience, makes them sage, and sordid.

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New year's day in London is not observed by any public festivity; but little social dining parties are frequently formed amongst friends; and convivial persons may be found at taverns, and in publicans' parlours, regaling on the occasion. Dr Forster relates, in his "Perennial Calendar," that many people make a point to wear some new clothes on this day, and esteem the omission as unlucky: the practice, however, from such motives, must obviously be confined to the uninformed. The only open demonstration of joy in the metropolis, is the ringing of merry peals from the belfries of the nunerous steeples, late on the eve of the new year, and until after the chimes of the clock have sounded its last hour.

On new year's day the man of business opens new account-books. "A good beginning makes a good ending." Let every man open an account to himself; and to begin the new year that he may expect to say at its termination-it has been a

good year. In the hilarity of the season let him not forget that to the needy it i a season of discomfort.

There is a satisfaction

In doing a good action:

and he who devises liberal things will find his liberality return to him in a ful! tide of happiness. An economist can afford to be generous. "Give me neither poverty nor riches," prayed the wise man. To him who is neither encumbered by wealth, nor dispirited by indigence, the stores of enjoyment are unlocked.

He who holds fast the Golden Mean,
And lives contentedly between

The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door
Embitt'ring all his state.

The tallest pines feel most the pow'r
Of wintry blasts; the loftiest tow'r

Comes heaviest to the ground;
The bolts that spare the mountain's side
His cloud-capt eminence divide,

And spread the ruin round.
The well-inform'd philosopher
Rejoices with a wholesome fear,

And hopes, in spite of pain;
If Winter bellow from the North,
Soon the sweet Spring comes dancing forth
And Nature laughs again.

If hindrances obstruct thy way,
Thy magnanimity display,

And let thy strength be seen;
But oh! if fortune fill thy sail
With more than a propitious gale,
Take half thy canvass in.

CHRONOLOGY.

Cowper.

1308. On the 1st of January in this year, William Tell, the Swiss patriot, associated himself on this day with a band of his countrymen, against the tyranny of their oppressors. For upwards of three centuries the opposition was carried on, and terminated by the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, declaring the independence of Switzerland.

1651. On the 1st of January Charles II. was crowned at Scone king of the Scots Charles, when a child, was weak in the legs, and ordered to wear steel-boots. Their weight so annoyed him that he pined till recreation became labour. An old rocker took off the steel-boots, and concealed them; promising the countess of Dorset, who was Charles's governess, that she would take any blame for the act

on herself

in. It is very cold this morning, is it
not?'- Very cold, sir.'-' Very cold
indeed, isn't it?'—' Very cold indeed,
sir.'-More than usually so, isn't it,
even for this weather?' (Here the ser-
vant's wit and good nature are put to a
considerable test, and the inquirer lies on
thorns for the answer.) Why, Sir...

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Soon afterwards the king, Charles I., coming into the nursery, and seeing his boy's legs without the boots, angrily demanded who had done it? "It was I, sir," said the rocker," who had the honour, some thirty years since, to attend on your highness, in your infancy, when you had the same infirmity wherewith now the prince, your very own son.. I think it is.' (Good creature! There is troubled; and then the lady Cary, is not a better, or more truth-telling ser(afterwards countess of Monmouth) com- vant going.) I must rise, howevermanded your steel-boots to be taken off, Get me some warm water.'-Here comes who, blessed be God, since have gathered a fine interval between the departure of strength, and arrived at a good stature." the servant and the arrival of the hot Clare, chaplain to Charles II., at the time water; during which, of course, it is of the affair happened, related this anecdote 'no use' to get up. The hot water to old Fuller, who in 1660, contemplating comes. Is it quite hot?'-'Yes, sir.' "the restoration," tells the story, and quaintly exclaims, "the nation is too noble, when his majesty shall return from foreign parts, to impose any other steelboots upon him, than the observing the laws of the land, which are his own stockings, that so with joy and comfort he may enter on what was his own inheritance." The nation forgot the "steel-boots," and Charles forgot the "stockings."

1801. January 1. The Union of Great Britain with Ireland commenced according to act of parliament, and the event was solemnized by the hoisting of a new royal flag on the Tower of London, accompanied by the firing of guns there and in St. James's Park. On the 3d the king received the great seal of Great Britain from the lord chancellor, and causing it to be defaced, presented to him a new great seal for the United Kingdom. On the same day, January 1st, 1801, Piazzi, the astronomer at Palermo, discovered a new primary planet, making an eleventh of that order: he called it Ceres, from the goddess of that name, who was highly esteemed by the ancients of Sicily.

Usually at this period the rigour of cold Is severely felt. The indisposition of lie-abeds to face its severity is pleasantly pictured by Mr.Leigh Hunt, in a paper in the Indicator. He imagines one of those persons to express himself in these terms: "On opening my eyes, the first thing that meets them is my own breath rolling forth, as if in the open air, like smoke out of a cottage-chimney. Think of this symptom. Then I turn my eyes sideways and see the window all frozen over. Think of that. Then the servant comes

Perhaps too hot for shaving: I must wait a little?—No, sir; it will just do.' (There is an over-nice propriety sometimes, an officious zeal of virtue, a little troublesome.) Oh-the shirt — you must air my clean shirt :-linen gets very damp this weather.'-'Yes, sir.' Here another delicious five minutes. A knock at the door. Oh, the shirt-very well. My stockings-I think the stockings had better be aired too.'- Very well, sir.'

Here another interval. At length every thing is ready, except myself I now cannot help thinking a good deal-who can?-upon the unnecessary and villainous custom of shaving; it is a thing so unmanly (here I nestle closer)-so effeminate, (here I recoil from an unlucky step into the colder part of the bed.)-No wonder, that the queen of France took part with the rebels against that degenerate king, her husband, who first affronted her sinooth visage with a face like her own. The emperor Julian never showed the luxuriancy of his genius to better advantage than in reviving the flowing beard. Look at cardinal Bembo's picture-at Michael Angelo's-at Titian's-at Shak speare's-at Fletcher's-at Spenser's-at Chaucer's-at Alfred's-at Plato's. could name a great man for every tick of my watch. Look at the Turks, a grave and otiose people-Think of Haroun Al Raschid and Bed-ridden Hassan-Think of Wortley Montague, the worthy son of his mother, a man above the prejudice of his time-Look at the Persian gentlemen, whom one is ashamed of meeting about the suburbs, their dress and appearance are so much finer than our own-Lastly, think of the razor itself-how totally opposed to every sensation of bed-how cold, how edgy, how hard! how utterly

I

"

different from any thing like the warm and circling amplitude, which

Sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses.

may help you to cut yourself, a quivering body, a frozen towel, and an ewer full of ice; and he that says there is nothing to oppose in all this, only shows, at any rate

Add to this, benumbed fingers, which that he has no merit in opposing it."

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THIS engraving represents simple methods by which, at this season especially, the health of young persons may be maintained, and the constitution invigorated. Two round parallel bars at two feet distance from each other, on round standards three or four feet high, firmly fixed in the ground, will afford boys the ineans of actively exerting their limbs and muscles and if the ends of a pole be let into opposite walls or fastened to trees, the boys may be taught to climb single ropes, and hold on while swinging by them. The engraving is placed before the eyes of parents and teachers with the hope of directing their attention to gymnastic exercises, as diversions for youth, and they are referred to a practical treatise on the subject by Mr. Clias, that may be safely used. His judicious reasoning must convince every reader of their importance to the rising generation, and that it is within the means of all classes of persons to let boys acquire a knowledge of the feats represented in the

plates to his work, for teaching which his explanations are numerous and clear.

An unseasonable occurrence in the cellar of the late sir Joseph Banks may be acceptable in the mention, and excite particular sympathy in persons who recreate with the juice of the vine: as a fact, it may tend to elucidate the origin and nature of vegetable fungi, particularly of that species termed mushroom. The worthy baronet had a cask of wine rather too sweet for immediate use; he therefore directed that it should be placed in a cellar, in order that the saccharine matter it contained might be more perfectly decomposed by age. At the end of three years, he directed his butler to ascertain the state of the wine, when, on attempting to open the cellar door, he could not effect it, in consequence of some powerful obstacle. The door was cut down, and the cellar found to be completely filled with a firm fungous vegetable production-so firm that it was

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