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the same, but the leaves are thicker: whatever smell they may have had is lost, and there is no gloss upon them. It might be supposed that the gloss has been worn off; but this is not the case, for most of the tables have never been written on. Some of the edges being a little worn, show that the middle of the leaf consists of paper; the composition is laid on with great nicety. A silver style was used, which is sheathed in one of the covers, and which produces an impression as distinct, and as easily obliterated as a black-lead pencil. The tables are interleaved with common paper."

In July, 1808, the date of the preceding communication, I, too, possessed a table book, and silver style, of an age as ancient, and similar to that described; except that it had not "a Kalender." Mine was brought to me by a poor person, who found it in Covent-garden on a market day. There were a few ill-spelt memoranda respecting vegetable matters formed on its leaves with the style. It had two antique slender brass clasps, which were loose; the ancient binding had ceased from long wear to do its office, and I confided it to Mr. Wills, the almanack publisher in Stationers'-court, for a better cover and a silver clasp. Each being ignorant of what it was, we spoiled a table-book of Shakspeare's time." The most affecting circumstance relating to a table book is in the life of the beautiful and unhappy "Lady Jane Grey." "Sir John Gage, constable of the Tower, when he led her to execution, desired her to bestow on him some small present, which he might keep as a perpetual memorial of her she gave him her table-book, wherein she had just written three sentences, on seeing her husband's body; one in Greek, another in Latin, and a third in English. The purport of them was, that human justice was against his body, but the divine mercy would be favourable to his soul; and that, if her fault deserved punishment, her youth at least, and her imprudence, were worthy of excuse, and that God and posterity, she trusted, would show her favour."*

Having shown what the ancient table book was, it may be expected that I should say something about

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old table books were for private use-mine is for the public; and the more the public desire it, the more I shall be gratified. I have not the folly to suppose it will pass from my table to every table, but I think that not a single sheet can appear on the table of any family without communicating some information, or affording some diversion.

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On the title-page there are a few lines which briefly, yet adequately, describe the collections in my Table Book: and, as e gards my own sayings and doings," the prevailing disposition of my mind is per haps sufficiently made known through the Every-Day Book. In the latter publication, I was inconveniently limited as to room; and the labour I had there prescribed to myself, of commemorating every day, frequently prevented me from topics that would have been more agreeable to my readers than the "two grains of wheat in a bushel of chaff," which I often consumed my time and spirits in endeavouring to discover and did not always find.

In my Table Book, which I hope will never be out of "season," I take the liberty to annihilate both time and space," to the extent of a few lines or days, and lease and talk, when and where I can, according to my humour. Sometimes I present an offering of "all sorts," simpled from out of-the-way and in-the-way books; and, at other times, gossip to the public, as to an old friend, diffusely or briefly, as I chance to be more or less in the giving "vein" about a passing event, a work just read, print in my hand, the thing I last thought of, or saw, or heard, or, to be plain, about "whatever comes uppermost. In short my collections and recollections come forth just as I happen to suppose they may most agreeable or serviceable to those whom I esteem, or care for, and by whom I desire to be respected.

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MY TABLE Book is enriched and diver sified by the contributions of my friends the teemings of time, and the press, give i novelty; and what I know of works of ar with something of imagination, and the assistance of artists, enable me to add pic torial embellishment. My object is to blend information with amusement, and utility with diversion.

MY TABLE BOOK, therefore, is a series of continually shifting scenes a kind o literary kaleidoscope, combining popula forms with singular appearances-by which and to which, I respectfully trust, man youth and age of all ranks may be amused will gladly add something, to improve it views.

2.8

ANDANTE.

From the Every Day Book; set to Music for the Table Book,

By J. K.

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brook, That murmur'd so lately with glee, And places a

snowy

peruke On the head of each bald - pated

tree.

For the remaining verses see the Every-Day Book, vol. ii. p. 26.

.S.

The New Year.

HAGMAN-HEIGH.

Anciently on new year's day the Romans were accustomed to carry small presents, as new year's gifts, to the senators, under whose protection they were severally placed. In the reigns of the emperors, they flocked in such numbers with valuable ones, that various decrees were made to abolish the custom; though it always continued among that people. The Romans who settled in Britain, or the families_connected with them by marriage, introduced these new year's gifts among our forefathers, who got the habit of making presents, even to the magistrates. Some of the fathers of the church wrote against them, as fraught with the greatest abuses, and the magistrates were forced to relinquish them. Besides the well-known anecdote of sir Thomas More, when lord chancellor, many in stances might be adduced from old records, of giving a pair of gloves, some with "linings," and others without. Probably from thence has been derived the fashion of giving a pair of gloves upon particular occasions, as at marriages, funerals, &c. New year's gifts continue to be received and given by all ranks of people, to commemorate the sun's return, and the prospect of spring, when the gifts of nature are shared by all. Friends present some small tokens of esteem to each other-husbands to their wives, and parents to their children. The custom keeps up a cheerful and friendly intercourse among acquaintance, and leads to that good-humour and mirth so necessary to the spirits in this dreary season. Chandlers send as presents to their customers large mould candles; grocers give raisins, to make a Christmas pudding, or a pack of cards, to assist in spending agreeably the long evenings. In barber's shops "thriftbox," as it is called, is put by the apprentice boys against the wall, and every customer, according to his inclination, puts something in. Poor children, and old infirm persons, beg, at the doors of the charitable, a small pittance, which, though collected in small sums, yet, when put together, forms to them a little treasure; so that every heart, in all situations of life, beats with joy at the nativity of his Saviour. The Hagman Heigh is an old custom observed in Yorkshire on new year's eve, as appertaining the to season. The keeper of the pinfold goes round the town, attended

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* Every-Day Book, i. 9.

by a rabble at his heels, and knocking at certain doors, sings a barbarous song, beginning with

"To-night it is the new year's night, to-morrow is the day;

We are come about for our right and for our ray,
As we us'd to do in old king Henry's day:
Sing, fellows, sing, Hagman Heigh," &c,

The song always concludes with “ wishing a merry Christmas and a happy new year." When wood was chiefly used as fuel, in heating ovens at Christmas, this was the most appropriate season for the hagman, or wood-cutter, to remind his customers of his services, and to solicit alms. The word hag is still used in Yorkshire, to signify a wood. The "hagg" opposite to Easby formerly belonged to the abbey, to supply them with fuel. Hagman may be a name compounded from it. Some derive it from the Greek Ayun, the holy month, when the festivals of the church for our Saviour's birth were celebrated. Formerly, on the last day of the year, the monks and friars used to make a plentiful harvest, by begging from door to door, and reciting a kind of carol, at the end of every stave of which they introduced the words “agia mene,” alluding to the birth of Christ. A very different interpretation, however, was given to it by one John Dixon, a Scotch presbyterian minister, when holding forth against this custom in one of his sermons at Kelso. "Sirs, do you know what the hagman sig nifies? It is the devil to be in the house; that is the meaning of its Hebrew original."

SONNET

ON THE NEW YEAR.

When we look back on hours long past away,
And every circumstance of joy, or woe
That goes to make this strange beguiling show,
Call'd life, as though it were of yesterday,
We start to learn our quickness of decay.
Still Aies unwearied Time;-on still we go; "
And whither?-Unto endless weal or woe,
As we have wrought our parts in this brief play.
Yet many have I seen whose thin blanched locks
But ill became a head where Folly dwelt,
Who having past this storm with all its shocks,

Had nothing learnt from what they saw or felt: Brave spirits! that can look, with heedless eye, On doom unchangeable, and fixt eternity.

Clarkson's History of Richmond, cited by a cor respondent, A. B.

Antiquities.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

The following letter, written by Horace Walpole, in relation to the tombs, is curious. Dr. whom he derides, was Dr. Zachary Pearce, dean of Westminster, and editor of Longinus, &c.

Strawberry-hill, 1761.

I heard lately, that Dr. learned personage, tomb of Aylmer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, a very great personage, be removed for Wolfe's monument; that at first he had objected, but was wrought upon by being told that hight Aylmer was a knight templar, a very wicked set of people as his lordship had heard, though he knew nothing of them, as they are not mentioned by Longinus, I own I thought this a made story, and wrote to his lordship, expressing my concern that one of the finest and most ancient monuments in the abbey should be removed; and begging, if it was removed, that he would bestow it on me, who would erect and preserve it here. After a fort night's deliberation, the bishop sent me an answer, civil indeed, and commending my zeal for antiquity! but avowing the story under his own hand. He said, that at first they had taken Pembroke's tomb for a knight templar's;-observe, that not only the man who shows the tombs names it every day, but that there is a draught of it at large in Dart's Westminster;-that upon discovering whose it was, he had been unwilling to consent to the removal, and at last had obliged Wilton to engage to set it up within ten feet of where it stands at present. His lordship concluded with congratulating me on publishing learned authors at my press. I don't wonder that a man who thinks Lucan a learned author, should mistake a tomb in his own cathedral. If I had a mind to be angry, I could complain with reason,—as having paid forty pounds for ground for my mother's funeral-that the chapter of Westminster sell their church over and over again: the ancient monuments tumble upon one's head through their neglect, as one of them did, and killed a man at lady Elizabeth Percy's funeral; and they erect new waxen dolls of queen Elizabeth, &c. to draw visits and money

a very had consented to let the

very

Angoulême, in the sixteenth century, being
awakened during the night, she was sur-
prised at an extraordinary brightness which
illuminated her chamber; apprehending it
to be the fire, she reprimanded her women
for having made so large a one; but they
assured her it was caused by the moon.
The duchess ordered her curtains to be un-
drawn, and discovered that it was a comet
which produced this unusual light.
"Ah!"
exclaimed she, "this is a phenomenon
which appears not to persons' of common
condition. Shut the window, it is a comet,
which announces my departure; must
prepare for death." The following morning
she sent for her confessor, in the certainty
of an approaching dissolution. The phy-
sicians assured her that her apprehensions
were ill founded and premature. "If I had
not," replied she, "seen the signal for
death, I could believe it, for I do not feel
myself exhausted or peculiarly ill." On
the third day after this event she expired,
the victim of terror. Long after this period
all appearances of the celestial bodies, not
perfectly comprehended by the multitude,
were supposed to indicate the deaths of
sovereigns, or revolutions in their govern-

ments.

Two PAINTERS.

When the duke d'Aremberg was confined at Antwerp, a person was brought in as a spy, and imprisoned in the same place. The duke observed some slight sketches by his fellow prisoner on the wall, and, conceiving they indicated talent, desired Rubens, with whom he was intimate, and him a pallet and pencils for the painter, who by whom he was visited, to bring with was in custody with him. The materials requisite for painting were given to the artist, who took for his subject a group of soldiers playing at cards in the corner of a cried out that it was done by Brouwer, prison. When Rubens saw the picture, he whose works he had often seen, and as often admired. Rubens offered six hundred guineas for it; the duke would by no means part with it, but presented the painter with a larger sum. Rubens exerted his interest, becoming his surety, received him into his and obtained the liberty of Brouwer, by house, clothed as well as maintained him, and took pains to make the world acquainted with his merit. But the levity of Brouwer's temper would not suffer him long to consider his situation any better than a state of confinement; he therefore quitted Rubens, and died shortly afterwards, in conBrantome relates, that the duchess of sequence of a dissolute course of life

from the mob.

Biographical Memoranda.

COMETARY INfluence.

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