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and a jovial evening, by way of harvesthome."

Statistical Account of Scotland.

The festival of the in-gathering in Scotland, is poetically described by the elegant author of the "British Georgics."

THE KIRN.

Harvest Home.

grange

The fields are swept, a tranquil silence reigns,
And pause
of rural labour, far and near.
Deep is the morning's hush; from grange to
Responsive cock-crows, in the distance heard,
Distinct as if at hand, soothe the pleased ear;
And oft, at intervals, the flail, remote,
Sends faintly through the air its deafened sound.

Bright now the shortening day, and blythe its close,
When to the Kirn the neighbours, old and young,
Come dropping in to share the well-earned feast.
The smith aside his ponderous sledge has thrown,
Raked up his fire, and cooled the hissing brand
His sluice the miller shuts; and from the barn
The threshers hie, to don their Sunday coats.
Simply adorned, with ribands, blue and pink,
Bound round their braided hair, the lasses trip
To grace the feast, which now is smoking ranged
On tables of all shape, and size, and height,
Joined awkwardly, yet to the crowded guests
A seemly joyous show, all loaded well :
But chief, at the board-head, the haggis round
Attracts all eyes, and even the goodman's grace
Prunes of its wonted length. With eager knife,
The quivering globe he then prepares to broach;
While for her gown some ancient matron quakes,
Her gown of silken woof, all figured thick
With roses white, far larger than the life,
On azure ground, her grannam's wedding garb,
Old as that year when Sheriffmuir was fought.
Old tales are told, and well-known jests abound,
Which laughter meets half way as ancient friends,
Nor, like the worldling, spurns because thread bare

When ended the repast, and board and bench
Vanish like thought, by many hands removed,
Up strikes the fiddle; quick upon the floor
The youths lead out the half-reluctant maids,
Bashful at first, and darning through the reels

With timid steps, till, by the music cheered,
With free and airy step, they bound along,
Then deftly wheel, and to their partner's face,
Turning this side, now that, with varying step.
Sometimes two ancient couples o'er the floor,
Skim through a reel, and think of youthful years.

Meanwhile the frothing bickers,* soon as filled,
Are drained, and to the gauntress† oft return,
Where gossips sit, unmindful of the dance.
Salubrious beverage! Were thy sterling worth
But duly prized, no more the alembic vast
Would, like some dire volcano, vomit forth
Its floods of liquid fire, and far and wide
Lay waste the land; no more the fruitful boon
Of twice ten shrievedoms, into poison turned,
Would taint the very life blood of the poor,
Shrivelling their heart-strings like a burning scroll.

In the island of Minorca, "Their harvests are generally gathered by the middle of June; and, as the corn ripens, a number of boys and girls station themselves at the edges of the fields, and on the tops of the fence-walls, to fright away the small birds with their shouts and cries. This puts one in mind of Virgil's precept in the first book of his 'Georgics,'

Et sonitu terrebis aves,'

and was a custom, I doubt not, among the Roman farmers, from whom the ancient Minorquins learned it. They also use for the same purpose, a split reed, which makes a horrid rattling, as they

shake it with their hands."

Grahame.

thorp, one from Grimsbury, and one from Nethercote. These are called field-men, and have an entertainment provided for them upon the day of laying out the meadow, at the appointment of the lord of the manor. As soon as the meadow is measured, the man who provides the feast, attended by the hay-ward of Warkworth, brings into the field three gallons of ale. After this the meadow is run, as they and, when this is over, the hay-ward brings term it, or trod, to distinguish the lots; into the field a rump of beef, six penny loaves, and three gallons of ale, and is allowed a certain portion of hay in return, though not of equal value with his provi sion. This hay-ward and the master of the feast have the name of crocus-men. In running the field each man hath a boy allowed to assist him. On Monday morning lots are drawn, consisting some of eight swaths and others of four. Of these the first and last carry the garlands. The two first lots are of four swaths, and whilst these are mowing, the mowers go double; and, as soon as these are finished, the following orders are read aloud :— Oyer, Oyez, Oyez, I charge you, under God, and in his majesty's name, that you keep the king's peace in the lord of the manor's behalf, according to the orders and customs of this meadow. No man or men shall go before the two garlands; if you + Wooden frames on which beer casks are set.-Johnson.

In Northamptonshire, "within the liberty of Warkworth is Ashe Meadow, divided amongst the neighbouring parishes, and famed for the following customs observed in the mowing of it. The meadow is divided into fifteen portions, answering to fifteen lots, which are pieces of wood cut off from an arrow, and marked according to the landmarks in the field. To each lot are allowed eight mowers, amounting to one hundred and twenty in the whole. On the Saturday sevennight after midsummer-day, these portions are laid out by six persons, of whom two are chosen from Warkworth, two from Over

• Beakers.

do, you shall pay your penny, or deliver your scythe at the first demand, and this so often as you shall transgress. No man, or men, shall mow above eight swaths over their lots, before they lay down their scythes and go to breakfast. No man, or men, shall mow any farther than Monksholm-brook, but leave their scythes there, and go to dinner; according to the custom and manner of this manor. God save the king! The dinner, provided by the lord of the manor's tenant, consists of three cheesecakes, three cakes, and a newmilk cheese. The cakes and cheesecakes are of the size of a winnowing-sieve; and the person who brings them is to have three gallons of ale. The master of the feast is paid in hay, and is farther allowed to turn all his cows into the meadow on Saturday morning till eleven o'clock; that by this means giving the more milk the cakes may be made the bigger. Other like customs are observed in the mowing of other meadows in this parish."*

Harvest time is as delightful to look on to us, who are mere spectators of it, as it was in the golden age, when the gatherers and the rejoicers were one. Now, therefore, as then, the fields are all alive with figures and groups, that seem, in the eye of the artist, to be made for pictures-pictures that he can see but one fault in; (which fault, by the by, constitutes their only beauty in the eye of the farmer;) namely, that they will not • Bridges' Northamptonshire.

stand still a moment, for him to paint them. He must therefore be content, as we are, to keep them as studies in the storehouse of his memory.

Here are a few of those studies, which he may practise upon till doomsday, and will not then be able to produce half the effect from them that will arise spontaneously on the imagination, at the mere mention of the simplest words which can describe them :-The sunburnt reapers, entering the field leisurely at early morning, with their reaphooks resting on their right shoulders, and their beer-kegs swinging to their left hands, while they pause for a while to look about them before they begin their work.-The same, when they are scattered over the field: some stooping to the ground over the prostrate corn, others lifting up the heavy sheaves and supporting them against one another, while the rest are plying their busy sickles, before which the brave crop seems to retreat reluctantly, like a half-defeated army. Again, the same collected togefresh themselves, while the lightening ther into one group, and resting to rekeg passes from one to another silently, and the rude clasp-knife lifts the coarse meal to the ruddy lips.-Lastly, the piledthe lessening sheaves, and swaying from up wain, moving along heavily among side to side as it moves; while a few, whose share of the work is already done,

and watch the near completion of it.* lie about here and there in the shade,

KENTISH HOP PICKING.

Mirror of the Months.

Who first may fill

The bellying bin, and cleanest cull the hops.

Nor ought retards, unless invited out

By Sol's declining, and the evening's calm,
Leander leads Lætitia to the scene

Of shade and fragrance-Then th' exulting band
Of pickers, male and female, seize the fair
Reluctant, and with boisterous force and brute,
By cries unmov'd, they bury her in the bin.
Nor does the youth escape-him too they seize,
And in such posture place as best may serve
To hide his charmer's blushes. Then with shouts
They rend the echoing air, and from them both
(So custom has ordain'd) a largess claim.

Smart.

[graphic]

SEPTEMBER.

The harvest-men ring Summer out
With thankful song, and joyous shout;
And, when September comes, they hail.
The Autumn with the flapping flail.

This besides being named "gerstmonat" by the Anglo-Saxons, they also called haligemonath, or the holymonth," from an ancient festival held at

See vol. i. p. 1147.

this season of the year. A Saxon menology, or register of the months, (in Wanley's addition toHickes,) mentions it under that denomination, and gives its derivation in words which are thus literally translated "haligemonath-for that our

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I at my window sit, and see

Autumn his russet fingers lay
On every leaf of every tree;

I call, but summer will not stay.

She flies, the boasting goddess flies,

And, pointing where espaliers shoot,
Deserve my parting gift, she cries,

I take the leaves, but not the fruit.

Still, at this season

The rainbow comes and goes,

The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth ;

But yet we know, where'er we go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

"I am sorry to mention it," says the author of the Mirror of the Months, "but the truth must be told even in a matter of age. The year then is on the wane. It is declining into the vale' of months. It has reached a certain age.'-It has 'reached the summit of the hill, and is not only looking, but descending, into the valley below. But, unlike that into which the life of man declines, this is not a vale of tears; still less does it, like that, lead to that inevitable bourne, the kingdom of the grave. For though it may be called (I hope without the semblance of profanation) the valley of the shadow of death, yet of death itself it knows nothing. No-the year steps onward towards its temporary decay, if not so rejoicingly, even more majestically and gracefully, than it does towards its revivification. And if September is not so bright with promise, and so buoyant with hope, as May, it is even more embued with that spirit of serene repose, in which the only true, because the only continuous enjoy. ment consists. Spring never is, but always to be blest; but September is the

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month of consummations-the fulfiller of all promises-the fruition of all hopesthe era of all completeness.

"The sunsets of September in this country are perhaps unrivalled, for their infinite variety, and their indescribable VOL. II.-90.

beauty. Those of more southern countries may, perhaps, match or even surpass them, for a certain glowing and unbroken intensity. But for gorgeous variety of form and colour, exquisite delicacy of tint and pencilling, and a certain placid sweetness and tenderness of general effect, which frequently arises out of a union of the two latter, there is nothing to be seen like what we can show in England at this season of the year. If a painter, who was capable of doing it to the utmost perfection, were to dare depict on canvas one out of twenty of the sunsets that we frequently have during this month, he would be laughed at for his pains. And the reason is, that people judge of pictures by pictures. They compare Hobbima with Ruysdael, and Ruysdael with Wynants, and Wynants with Wouvermans, and Wouvermans with Potter, and Potter with Cuyp; and then they think the affair can proceed no farther. And the chances are, that if you were to show one of the sunsets in question to a thorough-paced connoisseur in this department of fine art, he would reply, that it was very beautiful, to be sure, but that he must beg to doubt whether it was natural, for he had never seen one like it in any of the old masters!"

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