So, after all

This terrible squall,
Fiddle-de-dee

's at the top of the tree,

And Dol-drum and Fal-de-ral-tit sing small. Now Fiddle-de-dee sings loud and clear,

At I can't tell you how many thousands a year, And Fal-de-ral-tit is considered "Small Beer; And Ma'am'selle Cherrytoes

Sports her merry toes,

Dancing away to the fiddles and flutes,

In what the folks call a "Lithuanian" in boots.

So here's an end to my one, two, and three;
And bless the Queen,-and long live She!
And grant that there never again may be
Such a halliballoo as we've happened to see
About nothing on earth but "Fiddle-de-dee."

[Of a truth, Ingoldsby is a great gun in all matters of merriment: the light artillery of his wit is very amusing.]

Varieties.

Aristotle thought that the dead are affected, in the other world, by the honour or the reproach which is justly ascribed to their memory in this.

Good Sense is as often to be found among the illiterate, as among those who have enjoyed the opportunities of education.

The Parish of St. Peter-le-Poor, in the city of London, is oddly named, seeing that there are few districts so rich; insomuch that a late historian of the metropolis believed the parish to have scarcely a poor family in it.

Puritanism,-In All-hallows, Lombard-street, during the reign of the godly, the puritanical vestry passed a resolution, that if any person should come to church "on the day called Christ's birth-day," they should be compelled to leave it.

Getting Money-Old Mr. Strahan, the printer, (the founder of his typarchical dynasty,) said to Dr. Johnson, that "there are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money;" and he added, that "the more one thinks of this, the juster it will appear." Johnson agreed with him.

Changes of Life.-It is well for us that in early life we never think of the vicissitudes which lie before us; or look to them only with pleasurable anticipations as they approach.

"Youth

Knows nought of changes: Age hath traced them oft, Expects and can interpret them."

The thought of them, when it comes across us, in middle life, brings with it only a transient sadness, like the shadow of a passing cloud. We turn our eyes from them while they are in prospect; but when they are in retrospect, many a lingering look is cast behind. The Doctor.

Pastry Schools, (i. e. schools in which persons are taught to make pastry,) are common in Scotland, but were tried, without success, in London, about the middle of the last century.-The Doctor. [To this circumstance may be referred the rarity of wellmade pastry in English families, and the superior excellence of the Scotch in this branch of domestic economy. The best bakers in London are mostly Scotsmen.]

Farming. It is a fact, not unworthy of notice, that the most intelligent farmers, in the neighbourhood of London, are persons who have taken to farming as a business, because of their strong inclination for rural employments; one of the very best in Middlesex, when the survey of that county was published by the Board of Agriculture, had been a tailor.The Doctor.

Retrospection.-Every one who looks back upon the scenes of his youth, has one spot upon which the last light of the evening sunshine rests.

American Settlements have strange names. Mr. John Davis, when travelling in the States, met a lad in the wilderness, and asked him," How far, my boy, is it to Frying Pan?" The boy replied, "you

be in the Pan now!"

Opportunity, which makes thieves, makes lovers also, and is the greatest of all matchmakers.

Story-telling. It is doubtful whether stories which, in themselves, are purely painful, ought ever to be told.

Steam Carriage.-The Cambridge Advertiser states, that Mr. Hancock's steam-carriage, Automaton, has accomplished the journey between Cambridge and London, over the common road, in four hours and a half. The distance is fifty-two miles.

The number of prisoners, under seventeen years of age, confined in the prisons of England and Wales, in the course of the last year, was 11,444 males, and 2,156 females.

Retort Courteous.-Louis XV. frequently talked to his courtiers in a manner extremely disagreeable to them, without intending to give them pain. One day, when Cardinal de Luynes was paying his respects to him, "Cardinal," said the king to him, "your great grandfather died of an apoplexy; and you look as if you would die of an apoplectic stroke." "Sire," answered the Cardinal, "fortunately for us, we do not live in the times when kings are prophets."

Care of a Horse.-It would be wiser to put up with personal neglect, than to overlook it towards a horse: no truly good servant will do it. When it is done, however, use one remonstrance; but be on your guard: and the next time it is repeated, make it the last, by discharging such a servant at once, or more and more mischief will ensue. The servant who is dishonest towards the horses under his charge, will rob you when he can; and we ourselves had rather suffer by the latter than the former.Blaine's Encyclopædia of Rural Sports.

Margate in Winter.-The boarding-house keepers have shut up their houses, and gone away in anguish; the taverns take their carpets up, and you can have your choice of 120 beds in any one of them; but one dismal waiter remains to superintend this vast echoing pile of loneliness, and the landlord pines for summer; the flies for Ramsgate stand tenantless beside the pier; and about four sailors, in peajackets, are to be seen in the three principal streets; in the rest, silence, closed shutters, torpid chimneys, enjoying their unnatural winter sinecure-not the clack of a patten echoing over the cold, dry flags.Fraser's Magazine.

LONDON: Published by GEORGE BERGER, Holywell Street, Strand. Printed by WHITEHEAD, & Co. 76, Fleet Street, where all Communications for the Editor may be addressed.

much disputed. Edward the elder is likewise said, by Camden, to have built a tower on the north bank of the river Sow, about a year after the erection of that which his sister founded. The next remarkable mention of Stafford and its castles occurs in Domesday, wherein it is stated that the Conqueror built a castle here: this, however, was soon demolished; but was restored by Ralph de Stafford, a distinguished warrior, in the reign of Edward III. The whole, except the keep, was destroyed in the contentions between the House of Stuart and the Parliament.

Independently of its attraction as one of the most striking objects on the Grand Junction Railway, this castle-keep must be regarded as an interesting relic of the architecture of the middle ages, especially adapted, by its situation, for defence and security.

THE OLD BUREAU DRAWER.

(Continued from page 175.)
XIV.

Mrs. Ramsbottom, again. [ANOTHER letter from that indefatigable tourist and graphic describer, which appears, like the last, to have been intended for the John Bull.]

My dear Editor,-As it is some little time since I last wrote to you, I think you will be glad to hear what we have been about. I have been staying at Brighton for the benefit of the vapid bath, and have been bambooed by Mohammet's three times a-week, which has done my rheumatiz a world of good. I recovered so well that I have been enabled to cross over to Dip, so called on account of its sea-bathing, and from thence have come on to Paris with the Fulmers, where we arrived on the 25th inst. You are aware I have been in Paris before, but I send you some accounts of different places which I did not notice in my former tower.

The morning after we arrived, we hired an extempore servant, not having brought one with us. The French call him a lacka-daisy de place. He is to shew us all the lions; but, for my part, I have seen quite enough of wild beasts in England. We walked through the Faux-pas something, I forget the name, where the Bar-steel formerly stood; so called from the many iron bars to secure the prisoners. We then returned, and crossed one of the bridges, which the French call Ponds: I never could understand why. The name would be more appropriate to the water underneath. This took us to the Palace of the Looksombre; so called, because it is in such a dull situation. Here we were indulged with a prohibition of pictures. There was a very fine one, of Runymede presenting a Cup of Nectarine to the Gods; and another, of Morpheus perspiring all the Birds and Beasts with his Music. There were tigers, and lepers, and pantheons, and all sorts of animals, both bipod and tripod, a dancing with all their might. I was much struck with a full-length portrait of a lady, painted by one M. Angelo

(?) whether the member of parliament. We afterwards visited a small private gallery of statuts, where we saw some beautiful sculpture-particularly a head of Sisera, the great Roman orator, by the celebrated Canuto. Proceeding from thence, we looked into the Hospital for Incurables. I wonder they get any patients to go into it, if they cannot cure.

Returning home to our hotel, we were nearly run over. Lavy was so much frightened, that she went into violent high

asterisks; but fortunately I had my bottle of romantic vinegar with me, which, with the help of some heart's-ease from a chymist's shop, soon put her to rights. I was a long time, however, before I could make the people understand me; for though I can parley French pretty well, I don't speak it geometrically, as my daughter does. The words are simple enough, but the idiotisms puzzle me.

Lavy was too weak to walk further, so we got her into a polacre-a thing like a hackney coach. In the evening she was well enough to go with us to the theatre, where the play was Otho, the Moor of Venus. I did'nt like the man who did the Moor. They called him Tall-moor, but I thought him rather short. He was taller than Mr. Kean, to be sure. After all, it was not Shakspur's Otho, but only a French transportation, by one Lucy.

A gentleman, near me, said Ducee; I suppose he meant deuced bad; and I thought so too; but it wouldn't become a lady to make such an exculpation.

Early the next day we hired an overture for an excrescence to Versailles; Mr. Fulmer followed in a crabrollee, which is a large gig with a head. We passed the Place Louis Quinzy, where Louis the 19th was bulletined by Roguespear, and the other butchers of the Rational Convention. It makes one blood cradle to think of the many bloody asseverations and massy curs which took place on this spot; and yet those wretches, like the Hunts, and the Watsons, and the Thistlewoods of our day, call themselves patriarchs.

We made a circus on our return to visit Moll-mason, the favourite retreat of Bunaparte, where he spent so much of his time with the Empress Josephus.

They

In the evening, we went, by invocation, to a party at a French Marquizes. called it a sorry one; but I thought every thing very grand. The ladies pressed me to take a hand at cards, and several offered to give up their places in order to take me in, which was very complacent; but I did not see any cribbage table, or all fours, which are the only games I understand.

The next day we saw the King go to high Mars: he looks very infirm with the gout and rheum, and his legs were wrapped up in funnels. We saw a good many more sights, such as the Hospital of Saltpetre; the Malefactory of Goblins; the Ecole de Fallacy, (which answers to our Pottecary's Hall,) and the Garden of Plants: by the bye, how could it be a garden of anything else? And, taking a short pommade in the Elizabeth Fields, we dined again at the Traitors, where we had soup made of potash, a hamlet, and

some ciceroni. The waiter's name I found was Garson, for everybody called him by his name. Indeed, this seems to be the general custom in Paris; for instance, we were in a shop the other dayby the bye, it was called a magazine, from which I concluded they sold gunpowder, and was terribly afraid of an explosion; but Mr. Fulmer assured me that everything in the shop might go off without any harm to us: but this is only by way of epilogue. To return from my aggression. I observed, whenever people came in to ask the price of anything, the mistress always called them by their christian names. The most common names were Frank and Sue, with now and then a Billy. Even the clerk at Mr. Roastchild's, the banker, when Mr. Fulmer went with me to present our letter of interdiction, called him Billy, which I certainly thought rather familiar; but Mr. F. shewed no shagreen—he is always polite and indigent. The bankers gave us, amongst the rest, a very bright piece of gold; and on my asking what coin it was, they said, a "Louis dis week." I had seen a great many Louis, but none so late as this week; so I suppose there has just been a new coinage.

It will be expected that I shall say something of the political recurrences of the country I am visiting, particularly as so few visitors have diluted upon this tropic. The chamber of deputies are not chosen like our members of Parliament; but by electuary colleges, sent from each district, or aggrandisement. I have before described how the debates are carried on. There is a minister of war-a minister of moreen-of the home apartment, &c. &c. The minister for foreign affairs, it is said, has sent in his portmanteau to the king, and it is not yet known who is to be his predecessor.

This morning has been spent in deranging our future plans. Lavy and I were for distending our tower into Italy; but Mr. Fulmer assuaged us from undertaking it at this season, especially as my daughter is rather delicate. I confess I should like to have gone to Rome, if it were only for the salt-water bathing. Lavy will have it that it is an inland place; but that can't be, for everybody has read of the sea of Rome. She says it is only a paper sea; but that is nonsense. Besides, I should have liked to see the grand Furnival at Easter. It was then proposed that we should return by Belzebub and the low countries; but I don't like going amongst low people; I have never been used to it. We have at last determined to return through Normandie. So we shall embro

cate at Dippe, and land at Brighton again, where we may have a chance of seeing Her Majesty (God bless her!)-if she is still at the Paywilliam, which looks for all the world like a parcel of China jars on a tea-board. Besides, I want Lavy to try Mr. Mohammet's vapid bath, and get bambooed, which, I think, will do her as much good as it did me. Mr. Fulmer strongly advises us to travel by the stage, and talks of going to the managerie to secure places for us; but I do not much admire the dilly-jaunts, from what I have seen of them: they are great lumbering things, like a travelling show of the Boneasses, or the Yorkshire Giant. I should prefer going in a carrots. I dread the journey, if we are to be jolted over the stones all the way, as we were in coming. I wish the roads were muckmodernized, as they are in England. We are only waiting now for our pass-pots, which are to be counteracted by the English convoy, and then visaveed by the French minister. Believe me yours eternally,

LAVINIA RAMSBOTTOM.

MOON WORSHIP.

ALBERT.

HAIL pensive planet! were it not a crime,
To aught but Nature's Lord to bend the knee,
How sweet 'twould be at midnight hour to climb
Some mountain's silver'd brow, and worship thee.
So placid thy fair face,-so still the scene
On which I gaze,-so mellow'd by thy light,-
That Fancy wishes day had never been,
To mar the beauty of so soft a night.
G. A. M.

RELIGIOUS ANTIQUITIES.

THE PAX.

In the 20th volume, page 536, of the Archæologia, or Miscellaneous Tracts, &c., relating to Antiquity, published by the London Society of Antiquaries, is a fine engraving of an ancient religious instrument, called a Pax; which is a small crucifix, with other pious devices, in an ornamented frame, commonly and entirely of brass or other metal-sometimes of ivory, as is the one sold at the sale of the late eminent antiquary, John Carter, Esq., and which is now in the possession of John Gage, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn. The Pax from which the Engraving is taken, was sent to the Society by the late venerable Dr. Milner, accompanied with the following letter, addressed to the Secretary :— "Wolverhampton, March 21st, 1821

"Dear Sir,

"I herewith send, for your inspection, and that of our learned brethren of the Society of Antiquaries, should you judge it worthy of that honour, an ecclesiastical

instrument of ancient use in the Roman Catholic Church, though now hardly known to the members of it, called a Pax.

As a peaceful frame of mind and fraternal charity are indispensable conditions for worthily receiving or assisting at the divine mysteries of the Christian religion, St. Paul commanded the professors of it, in several epistles to them, to "salute one another in a holy kiss."* That this was literally practised, in the first ages of the Church, we learn from the Apostolical Constitutions, together with some particulars respecting the method of performing this ceremony, as appears in the following extract from them: :"Let the bishop salute the Church, and say, The peace of God be with you all: and let the people answer, And with thy spirit. Then let the deacon say to all, Salute one another with a holy kiss; and let the clergy kiss the bishop, and the laymen the laymen, and the women the women."†

The custom of giving the kiss of peace before the communion, in the more solemn service of the Roman Catholic Church, called the high mass, is still kept up among the officiating clergy, as likewise among the men and women of the different religious orders. It is performed by the parties placing their hands upon each other's shoulders, and bringing their left cheeks nearly in contact with each other. So, also, it appears to have been practised by the laity, during the whole of the middle ages; while the men and the women were separated from each other, by being placed in different parts of the churches. But when the sexes began to be mixed together, in the less solemn service, called the low mass, which seems to have begun to take place in the twelfth or thirteenth century, a sense of decorum dictated to the bishops the use of an instrument, called, by some, a Pax; by some, a Tabula Pacis; and, by others, an Osculatorium; which the priest kissed first, then the clerk, and, lastly, the people who assisted at the service, one after another, instead of the former fraternal embrace.

Among the constitutions of Walter de Grey, Archbishop of York, under date of the year 1250, among the ornaments and other ecclesiastical implements of a principal or parish church, which the pastor and the people belonging to it were required respectively to furnish, mention is made of an Osculatorium. ‡

In the council of Merton, held in the year of our Lord 1300, the same instrument is called Tabula Pacis ;§ but in a

* 1 Cor. xvi. 20; 2 Cor. xiii. 12; 1 Thes. v. 26; Rom. xvi. 16.

+ L. viii. c. xi. apud Coteller, p. 345.
Concil. Labbei, tom. xi. pl. i. p. 703.

§ Ibid. pl. ii. p. 1431.

constitution of Robert de Winchelsea, of the same date, it retains its name of Osculatorium, and, in a different one, it is called Osculare.†

The general disuse of this plate is attributed, by the learned Le Brun, to certain jealousies which were found to rise among individuals, about priority in having it presented to them. The use of the Pax was not among the ceremonies that were at first abrogated at the Reformation in England: on the contrary, it was enforced by the Royal Ecclesiastical Commissioners of Edward VI., and rendered more ostensible than it had been, as appears by the following injunction, published at the Deanery of Doncaster, in 1548: "The clerke shall bring down the Paxe, and, standing without the church door, shall say loudly to the people these words: This is the token of joyful peace, which is betwixt God and man's conscience, &c."§

The present Pax is the more perfect of two such instruments, which, with certain vestments, processional crosses, and other similar articles, have escaped the profane plunder of both the Reformation and the Grand Rebellion, and have been preserved by the Catholics of these parts, down to our own times.

I have the honour to be, dear sir,
Your most faithful servant,
JOHN MILNER.

To Henry Ellis, Esq., &c.

SHAFTESBURY PRIZE BYZANT.

THE custom of this ceremony is very ancient. The first written authority that occurs relating to it, is in the Court Rolls of Gillingham manor, dated March is the custom in the tything of Motcombe, 6th, 1527, to this effect: "Mem.: That it time out of remembrance, that the Sunday after Holy Rood day, in May, every Shaston shall come down that same day year, every parish within the borough of into Enmore Green, at one of the clock at afternoon, with their minstrells and mirth of game; and from one of the clock till two there they shall dance. And the Mayor of Shaston shall see the Queen's bailiff have a penny loaf, a gallon of ale, to see the order of the dance that day. and a calf's head, with a pair of gloves, Queen's bailiff have not his duty, (i.e. the And if the dance fail that day, and the

calf's head, &c.) then the bailiff and his men shall stop the water of the wells from the borough of Shaston from time to time."

* Concil. Labbei, tom. xi. pl. ii. p. 1438. + Ibid.

Explication Literale, &c., de la Messe, tom. i.

p. 595.

§ Burnet's Hist. of the Reform. vol. ii. Collect. p. ii. Num. 21.