EARL OF ELLESMERE. See there! see there! What yonder swings And creaks 'mid whistling rain?" "Gibbet and steel, the accursed wheel; A murderer in his chain. Hollo! thou felon, follow here : And thou shalt prance a fetter dance And hurry! hurry! clash, clash, clash! And fleet as wind through hazel bush The wild career attends. Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode, How fled what moonshine faintly shewed! How fled the earth beneath their feet, The heaven above their head! JANUARY 1. "Dost fear? dost fear? The moon shines clear, And well the dead can ride; Does faithful Helen fear for them?" "O leave in peace the dead!" "Barb! barb! methinks I hear the cock; The sand will soon be run: Barb! barb! I smell the morning air; The race is well-nigh done." Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode, Splash! splash! along the sea ; is red, the spur drops blood, scourge The flashing pebbles flee. The “Hurrah! hurrah! well ride the dead; The bride, the bride is come: And soon we reach the bridal-bed, For, Helen, here's my home."' 6 In his latter days, as a professor in the university of Göttingen, Bürger was inefficient, yet still much respected as the writer of the immortal Lenore. When Tieck became acquainted with him, he had been lately separated from his third wife. He was lean, pale, shrunken-misery was written in his features. His voice had lost its force; he could only make himself intelligible with difficulty; and yet he was obliged to speak. Now and then he would ride out, and there was something spectral about the pale man as he trotted through the streets of Göttingen on his lean white horse. One was reminded of the Ride of Death, which he had so forcibly described. Sometimes a ray of sunshine would fall on his gloomy soul, when any one succeeded in drawing him against his will into his old circle of good friends, whom he now anxiously avoided-shunning, indeed, all intercourse with mankind. In unconstrained moments, Bürger could appear unconstrained, sympathetic, and even cheerful. He had something amiable and child-like in his nature.'-KÖPKE's Reminiscences of Ludwig Tieck, 1856. FRANCIS, EARL OF ELLESMERE. There is something in Johnson's remark, that personal merits in a man of high rank deserve to be handsomely acknowledged.' Sure of homage on account of birth and means, it must be unusually good impulses which lead him to study, to useful arts, or to administrative WILLIAM WYCHERLEY. business. The second son of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, destined to an immense collateral inheritance, the Earl of Ellesmere devoted himself to elegant literature-in which his own efforts were far above mediocrity-to the patronage of the ennobling arts, and to disinterested duty in the public service. The benevolence of his nature led him in early life, as a member of the House of Commons, to lean to a liberal class of measures which were then little patronised, but the benefits of which were afterwards realised. At a time, moreover, when few were thinking much of the tastes and gratifications of the great body of the people, Lord Ellesmere prepared a splendid picture gallery which he made easily accessible to the public. This amiable nobleman died on the 18th February 1857. WILLIAM WYCHERLEY. While a literary man has his natural life, like other men, his fame has another and distinct life, which grows to maturity, flourishes a greater or less of time, decays, and comes to an space end, or in rare cases perseveres in a sort of immortality. Wycherley is one of the larger class of poets whose fame-life may be said to have died. First, his poems dropped out of notice; finally, his plays. Yet his name has still a place in literary biography, if only for one or two anecdotes which it includes, and for his having as a veteran patronised the youthful Pope. One of Wycherley's most successful plays was entitled The Plain Dealer; and thereby hangs one of the anecdotes: Wycherley went down to Tunbridge, to take either the benefit of the waters or the diversions of the place; when walking one day upon the Wells Walk, with his friend Mr Fairbeard of Gray's Inn, just as he came up to the bookseller's, the Countess of Drogheda, a young widow, rich and beautiful, came to the bookseller and inquired for The Plain Dealer. 66 Madam," says Mr Fairbeard, "since you are for the Plain Dealer, there he is for you," pushing Mr Wycherley towards her. 66 Yes," says Mr Wycherley, "this lady can bear plain dealing, for she appears to be so accomplished, that what would be a compliment to others, when said to her would be plain dealing." No, truly, sir," said the lady, "I am not without my faults more than the rest of my sex: and yet, notwithstanding all my faults, I love plain dealing, and never am more fond of it than when it tells me of a fault." "Then, madam," says Mr Fairbeard, "you and the Plain Dealer seem designed by heaven for each other." 'In short, Mr Wycherley accompanied her on her walks, waited upon her home, visited her daily at her lodgings whilst she stayed at Tunbridge, and after she went to London, at her lodgings in Hatton Garden, where in a little time he obtained her consent to marry her.'* The story unfortunately does not end so Cibber's Lives of the Poets, 5 vols. 1753; vol. iii. p. 252. pleasantly. The lady proved unreasonably jealous, and led her husband a rather sad life. After her death, her bequest to him was disputed at law, and, drowned in debt, he was immured in a jail for seven years!-such frightful penalties being then exigible by creditors. LOUIS XII. OF FRANCE. He was one of the few sovereigns of France who were entirely estimable. He was sober, sweet-natured, modest, laborious, loved knowledge, was filled with sentiments of honour, religion, and benevolence. He strove by economy to keep down the amount of the public burdens, and when his frugal habits were ridiculed in the theatre, he said laughingly that he would rather have the people to be amused by his stinginess than groan under his prodigality. He held as a principle that the justice of a prince obliged him to owe nothing, rather than his greatness to give much. It was rare indeed to find such correct ideas regarding the use and value of money in those days. The first wife of Louis XII. being dead, he married, at fifty-three, a second and youthful spouse, the Princess Mary, sister of Henry VIII., and did not outlive the event three months. His widow returned to her own country, and married her first lover, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. CORONATION OF CHARLES II. AT SCONE, 1651. On the 1st of January 1651, the son of Charles I. was crowned as Charles II. by the Scots at Scone, the southern part of the country being occupied at the time by Cromwell with a hostile army. The extreme measure of cutting off the late king and extinguishing the monarchy was generally disapproved of in Scotland; but in taking up the young king, the Scots were chiefly animated by a desire of preserving and advancing their favourite Presbyterian church arrangements, according to the spirit of the famous Solemn League and Covenant. Charles, who was then only twenty, being anxious to get a footing in his father's lost dominions, consented, much against his will, to accept this Covenant, which inferred an active persecution of both popery and prelacy; and the Scots accordingly received him amongst them, fought a battle for him against Cromwell at Dunbar, and now crowned him. A sermon was preached on the occasion by Mr Robert Douglas, who had the reputation (but upon no just grounds) of being a descendant of Mary queen of Scots. The crown was put upon the young king's head by the Marquis of Argyle, whom ten years after he sent to the scaffold for compliances with Cromwell. The defeat of the Scots and their young king at Worcester on the 3d September of this year put an end to Charles's adventure, and he with difficulty escaped out of the country. How he subsequently treated the Covenant and its adherents need not here be particularised. MARCH OF GENERAL MONK FROM COLDSTREAM. On the 1st of January 1660, General Monk commenced that march from Scotland to London which was so instrumental in effecting the Restor DISCOVERY OF THE PLANETOIDS. ation. He started with his little army of six or seven thousand men from the town of Coldstream, in Berwickshire-a name which has been commemorated in the title of a regiment which he is believed to have embodied at the place, or soon after. Monk had spent about three weeks at Coldstream, which was a favourable spot for his purpose, as the Tweed was there fordable; but he seems to have found it a dismal place to quar. ter in. On his first arrival, he could get no provisions for his own dinner, and was obliged to content himself with a quid of tobacco. His chaplains, less easily satisfied, roamed about till they obtained a meal at the house of the Earl of Hume near by.-Monk, a Historical Study, by M. Guizot, translated by J. Stuart Wortley, 1838. UNION OF IRELAND WITH GREAT BRITAIN, 1801. On the 1st of January 1801-the initial day of the nineteenth century-Ireland passed into an incorporating union with Great Britain, and the three kingdoms were thenceforth styled the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The expression, initial day of the nineteenth century,' requires something to be said in its defence, for many persons regard the year 1800 as the beginning of the present century. The year 1801 is, in reality, entitled to this honour, because then only had the previous century been completed. To make this plain, let the reader reflect that it required the year 100 to complete the century, and so on through all that followed. To first century, the year 200 to complete the second say, then, that the year 1800 was the first of a fact. new century, is to be led by sound, instead of DISCOVERY OF THE PLANETOIDS. On the 1st of January 1801, the Sicilian astronomer, M. Piazzi, discovered a new planet, to which he gave the name of Ceres, in honour It was the first discovered of a number of such of a goddess formerly in much esteem in Sicily. bodies of small size, which occupy the place due of Mars and Jupiter. [At present (1883), the to one such body of large size, between the orbits number is over 235.] 'It was noted that between the orbits of Mercury and Venus there is an interval of thirty-one millions of miles; between those of Venus and the Earth, twenty-seven millions; and between those of the Earth and Mars, fifty millions; but between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter there and forty-nine millions of miles, to the apparent intervenes the tremendous gap of three hundred interruption of the general order, which, however, is again resumed beyond Jupiter.' This wide interval, and some other considerations, having raised the suspicion of an unknown planet between Mars and Jupiter, a combination of twenty-four practical observers was formed to search for the missing link. On New-Year's Day 1801, ere they had well got into harness, Piazzi, one of their number [at Palermo], made an observation on a small star in Taurus, which he took for one of Mayer's. On the 2d of January, he found that the supposed star had retro how graded no less than 4' in ER, and 3 in north declination. This retrogradation continued till about the 12th, when the movement became direct, and he followed the body till it was lost in the solar rays. Illness, however, prevented his getting observations enough to establish its nature, and he considered it to be cometary. Meantime, he had written to Bode and Oriani on the subject, but the delays of the post in that comparatively recent day, by keeping back the intelligence, precluded its being examined during that apparition. Curiosity and zeal were, ever, on the alert; Bode immediately suspected the real nature of the stranger; and Olbers, Burckhardt, and Gauss computed its orbit from the slender data thus afforded. The knowledge of its having been stationary on the 12th of January, with an elongation from the sun of 4 2° 37' 48" aided the computation, and proved it to be a superior planet. ... Thus was Ceres discovered on the 1st of January_1801. Its diameter, according to Sir William Herschel, is only 163 miles.'-SMYTHE's Cycle of Celestial Objects, i. 154. New-Year's Day Festivities. •Long ere the lingering dawn of that blithe morn His rousing call; no sounds but sounds of joy Grahame. As New-Year's Day, the first of January bears a prominent place in the popular calendar. It has ever been a custom among northern nations to see the old year out and the new one in, with the highest demonstrations of merriment and conviviality. To but a few does it seem to occur that the day is a memorandum of the subtraction of another year from the little sum of life; with the multitude, the top feeling is a desire to express good wishes for the next twelvemonths' experience of their friends, and be the subject of similar benevolence on the part of others, and to see this interchange of cordial feeling take place, as far as possible, in festive circumstances. It is seldom that an English family fails to sit up on the last night of the year till twelve o'clock, along with a few friends, to drink a happy New Year to each other over a cheerful glass. Very frequently, NEW-YEAR'S DAY FESTIVITIES. too, persons nearly related but living apart, dine with each other on this day, to keep alive and cultivate mutual good feeling. It cannot be doubted that a custom of this kind must tend to obliterate any shades of dissatisfaction or jealous anger, that may have arisen during the previous year, and send the kindred onward through the next with renewed esteem and regard. To the same good purpose works the old custom of giving little presents among friends on this day: "The King of Light, father of aged Time, Hath brought about that day which is the prime, To the slow-gliding months, when every eye Wears symptoms of a sober jollity.' . Charles Lamb had a strong appreciation of the social character of New-Year's Day. He remarks that no one of whatever rank can regard it with indifference. Of all sounds of all bells,' says he, most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the old year. I never hear it without a gathering up of my mind to a concentration of all the images that have been diffused over the past twelvemonth; all I have done or suffered, performed or neglected, in that regretted time. I begin to know its worth as when a person dies. It takes a personal colour; nor was it a poetical flight in a contemporary, when he exclaimed: One could wish that the genial Elia had added something in recommendation of resolutions of improvement of the year to come, for which NewYear's Day is surely a most appropriate time. Every first of January that we arrive at, is an imaginary milestone on the turnpike track of human life at once a resting-place for thought and meditation, and a starting point for fresh exertion in the performance of our journey. The man who does not at least propose to himself to be better this year than he was last, must be either very good or very bad indeed! And only to propose to be better, is something; if nothing else, it is an acknowledgment of our need to be so, which is the first step towards amendment. But, in fact, to propose to oneself to do well, is in some sort to do well, positively; for there is no such thing as a stationary point in human endeavours; he who is not worse to-day than he was yesterday, is better; and he who is not better, is worse.'* The merrymakings of New-Year's Eve and New-Year's Day are of very ancient date in England. The head of the house assembled his family around a bowl of spiced ale, comically called lamb's wool, from which he drank their healths; then passed it to the rest, that they might drink too. The word that passed amongst them was the ancient Saxon phrase, Wass hael; that is, To your health. Hence this came to be recognised as the Wassail or Wassel Bowl. The poorer class of people carried a bowl adorned with ribbons round the neighbourhood, begging for something wherewith to obtain the means of filling it, that they too might enjoy wassail as well as the rich. In their compotations, they had songs suitable to the occasion, of which a Gloucestershire example has been preserved: * Mirror of the Months. "Wassail! wassail! over the town, Be here any maids, I suppose here be some; Sing hey O maids, come troll back the pin, What follows is an example apparently in use amongst children: 'Here we come a wassailing, Among the leaves so green, Chorus. Love and joy come to you, And to your wassel too, And God send you a happy New Year, And God send you a happy New Year! We are not daily beggars, That beg from door to door; Made of stretching leather skin, Bring us out a table, And spread it with a cloth; And some of your Christmas loaf. That round the table go! Good master and mistress, While you're sitting by the fire, Chorus. Love and joy come to you,' &c. § The name of some horse. The name of another horse. The name of a cow. Notes and Queries, i. 137. NEW-YEAR'S DAY FESTIVITIES. The custom of wassail at the New Year was kept up in the monasteries as well as in private houses. In front of the abbot, at the upper end of the refectory table, was placed the mighty bowl styled in their language Poculum Caritatis, and from it the superior drank to all, and all drank in succession to each other.* The corporation feasts of London still preserve a custom that affords a reflex of that of the wassail bowl. A double-handled flagon full of sweetened and spiced wine being handed to the master, or other person presiding, he drinks standing to the general health, as announced by the toastmaster; then passes it to his neighbour on the left hand, who drinks standing to his next neighbour, also standing, and so on it goes, till all have drunk. Such is the well-known ceremony of the Loving Cup. Till very few years ago in Scotland, the custom of the wassail bowl at the passing away of the old year might be said to be still in comparative vigour. On the approach of twelve o'clock, a hot pint was prepared-that is, a kettle or flagon full of warm, spiced, and sweetened ale, with an infusion of spirits. When the clock had struck the knell of the departed year, each member of the family drank of this mixture A good health and a happy New Year and many of them' to all the rest, with a general hand-shaking, and perhaps a dance round the table, with the addition of a song to the tune of Hey tuttie taitie: 'Weel may we a' be, Ill may we never see, And the gude companie !' &c. The elders of the family would then most probably sally out, with the hot kettle, and bearing also a competent provision of buns and shortbread, or bread and cheese, with the design of visiting their neighbours, and interchanging with them the same cordial greetings. If they met by the way another party similarly bent, whom they knew, they would stop and give and take sips from their respective kettles. Reaching the friend's house, they would enter with vociferous good wishes, and soon send the kettle a-circulating. If they were the first to enter the house since twelve o'clock, they were deemed as the firstfoot; and, as such, it was most important, for Archæologia, xi. 420. + Receipt for Making the Wassail Bowl.-Simmer a small quantity of the following spices in a teacupful of water, viz.:-Cardamums, cloves, nutmeg, mace, ginger, cinnamon, and coriander. When done, put the spice to two, four, or six bottles of port, sherry, or madeira, with one pound and a half of fine loaf sugar (pounded) to four bottles, and set all on the fire in a clean bright saucepan; meanwhile, have yolks of 12 and the whites of 6 eggs well whisked up in it. Then, when the spiced and sugared wine is a little warm, take out one teacupful; and so on for three or four cups; after which, when it boils, add the whole of the remainder, pouring it in gradually, and stirring it briskly all the time, so as to froth it. The moment a fine froth is obtained, toss in 12 fine soft roasted apples, and send it up hot. Spices for each bottle of wine -10 grains of mace, 46 grains of cloves, 37 grains of cardamums, 28 grains of cinnamon, 12 grains of nutmeg, 48 grains of ginger, 49 grains of coriander seeds.-Mark Lane Express. |