and variety. The patronage it has received from the public is the most gratifying evidence of its superior desert.

We pray the pardon of our readers for concluding this article with a few paragraphs upon the subject of New Year's Gifts.

There is something exceedingly joyous and grateful to a kind and social spirit in this annual interchange of gifts and gratulations. For a few hours, at least, we throw aside the calculations of selfishness, and take delight in the pleasure we can bestow on others. Relations, friends, servants, all partake of this bounty of the New Year. In many parts of Europe, it is a day of active business in the purchase and distribution of presents of compliment; and all who furnish appropriate articles for the occasion, reap an abundant harvest. The toyman; the confectioner; the jeweller; the bookseller; and, indeed, every vender of elegant trifles, find employment and profit, when the heart and the purse are opened; and men appear to cherish no feeling but liberality and good will to each other. In this country, the same spirit prevails in a degree; and the children, at least, look with the fondest anticipations to the coming of Christmas and the New Year.

We are not acquainted with the people or the period to which we are indebted for this custom. It is certainly of high antiquity; and has a general prevalence in Europe. In the French Dictionnaire de la Fable," edited by Noel, a man of great distinction in literature, we have an account of a Roman goddess, Strenia, who presided over the presents made on the first day of the year, which were called Strenæ; and, he adds, sacrifices were made to her on that day. If this author is to be understood, and such we think is his meaning, to say that in the Roman Mythology there was a goddess specially to preside over the gifts of the New Year, we believe he has fallen into an error; he would have been more correct in saying that the honours of the New Year, and of superintending the presents then bestowed, were conferred on the goddess Strenia, or Strenua, not as one of her original attributes or offices; for she was the deity of the brave; of courage; activity; vigilance, and strength; having nothing to do with the New Year, its customs, presents or ceremonies; but because a simple plant was, at first, the New-Year's Gift, or offering, from friend to friend, and from all to the emperor; and that plant was taken from a grove consecrated to her.

We will, without, we hope, labouring the matter too much, advert to some authorities on this question. Grævius, in his

learned and ponderous Thesaurus, gives nearly eighty folio pages to the history of Strenæ; stating that the name Strena, was derived from the goddess Strenua, or Strenia, (speaking of them as the same,) that is, the goddess of strength, courage, &c. And why derived from her? Not because she was the goddess of these gifts, or was specially charged with presiding over them, but because the plant Vervain, of which the presents originally consisted, was collected in her grove; and because these gifts were thought particularly to be due to the brave-strenuis.

We presume that the name Strena was derived from this goddess; although even this point is not clear of some contradictory evidence.-Dr. Rees introduces another derivationhe says, "The ancient lawyers derive the word hence, that these presents were only given "viris strenuis ;" and proceeds, "Symmachus adds, that the use of them was first introduced by king Tatius, Romulus's colleague, who received branches of vervain, gathered in the sacred grove of the goddess Strenua, as a happy presage of the beginning of the year.-Anciently, a pound of gold was given to the emperor every new year's day, by way of Strena.-Du Cange observes that strina or strinna, denoted a kind of tribute which the people of Dalmatia or Croatia, paid to the Venetians, or to the kings of Hungary, whom they obeyed voluntarily."

It is agreed that the custom of making gifts, on the New Year's day, was introduced into Rome by Tatius, king of the Sabines, and the colleague in power of Romulus; to whom presents were offered on that day by the people, of the plant called vervain, gathered in the wood consecrated to Strenua, the goddess of strength, activity, vigilance, and courage; and it is from this deity the gifts received the name of Strenæ.The Romans made presents of this plant to their friends, on the same day. After some time, instead of this simple and unostentatious plant, the original Strena, gifts of gold, silver, jewels, and other valuable articles, were made to the emperor on the first day of the year; and Augustus received them from the senators, and other rich and great men, to a great amount and value. The devices by which the powerful contrive to get their hands into the pockets of their inferiors, are very expansive and contagious; and, accordingly, we find that the proudest of the English monarchs did not disdain to furnish their wardrobes and jewelry with these annual gifts or contributions, which could hardly be called voluntary; nor to receive them from all classes of their subjects; from peers, bishops, cooks, cutlers, and dustmen.

We think Brady is inaccurate in saying, "the Romans who settled in Britain, soon spread this custom (of New-Year's gifts) among our forefathers"-It prevailed in Britain, when the Romans conquered it, and long before; and was, more probably, brought there by the first inhabitants, the Gauls. The Druids, both of Gaul and Britain, put an infinite value on the plant, Misseltoe; and connected it with many of their superstitious ceremonies; gathering it at a particular season, (in December) with processions and vast parade, singing hymns and songs in honour of their deities; making sacrifices and putting up prayers to their gods, to make this plant the means of communicating prosperity to those who should partake of it. On the first day of the year, after having blessed and consecrated it, the Druids distributed the misseltoe to the people, promising and wishing them a happy Year. We may infer that the custom of making presents on the New Year had its origin in this practice of the Druids; for in Burgundy, and other provinces in France, the children, when asking their New-Year's gift, use the cry, "the New-Year to Misseltoe"-Whether we should look still farther into past times for this custom, or fix its origin with these mysterious ministers of a barbarous and terrible superstition, we cannot say.

The similarity in so many striking particulars between the custom of the Romans and that of the Druids, is very curious and surprising; and the archaiologist might find an inquiry into it, an interesting employment. We are informed, that it was first known in Rome, in the reign of Tatius; but do not know whether it was invented at that time, or was brought there by the Sabine people. But how does it so accord with the ceremonies of the Druids? We can hardly forbear to refer them to some common origin, although we find no other coincidence in the habits and manners of the Romans and Britons, when Cæsar brought them together. With both nations, these presents were offered on the first day of the year; they consisted of plants, of a different kind it is true; they were collected in a sacred grove or wood; they were considered as a promise of prosperity in the ensuing year; and were accompanied by a declaration or wish to that effect. It was a religious ceremony with both; so far as related to the place and manner of collecting the plant, and its supposed influence. Has all this happened by the mere workings of chance? Or is there some common feeling or principle in mankind directing it? That good wishes, and even gifts should be interchanged on the commencement of a year, is not so extraordinary; but the similarity of the gifts, and in the ceremonies on obtaining and offering them, is not so easily ac

counted for. The history of the inhabitants of this earth, is full of deep mystery and unknown truth. Nations now separated by untrodden distances, and still more by their condition and habits, may once have been one people; and those who now dwell in the same land, may have been brought together by a course of events and changes, of which not a glimpse remains. How, and when, and where, the tide of population and civilization has flowed and ebbed on this "pendent world," philosophy has not "dream'd of;" nor how its people have been cast and scattered over its surface. Men may amuse themselves with theories and speculations on the outside and inside of the earth; but universal ignorance of it remains; and will probably continue to the end.