to die of these wounds:" but the abbot answered, "They shall die for it," but the hermit said," Not so, for I will freely forgive them my death, if they are content to be enjoined this penalty (penance) for the safeguard of their souls;" the gentlemen being there present, bid him enjoin what he would, so he saved their lives: then said the hermit, "you and yours shall hold your land of the abbot of Whitby, and his successors in this manner; that upon Ascension-day Even, you or some of you shall come to the wood of Strayheads, which is in Eskdale side, and the same (Ascension-day) at sun rising, and there shall the officer of the abbot blow his horn, to the intent that you may know how to find him, and deliver unto you William de Bruce, ten stakes, eleven street stowers, and eleven yadders, to be cut with a knife of a penny price; and you Ralph de Percy, shall take one and twenty of each sort, to be cut in the same manner; and you Allotson, shall take nine of each sort to be cut as aforesaid, and to be taken on your backs, and carried to the town of Whitby, and to be there before nine o'clock of the same day before mentioned; and at the hour of nine o'clock, if it be full sea, to cease their service, as long as till it be low water, and at nine o'clock of the same day, each of you shall set your stakes at the brim of the water, each stake a yard from another, and so yadder them with your yadders, and to stake them on each side, with street stowers, that they stand three tides, without removing by the force of the water; each of you shall make at that hour in every year, except it be full sea at that hour, which when it shall happen to come to pass, the service shall cease: you shall do this to remember, that you did slay me; and that you may the better call to God for mercy, repent youselves, and do good works. The officer of Eskdale side, shall blow, Out on you! out on you! out on you! for this heinous crime of yours. If you or your successors, refuse this service, so long as it shall not be a full sea, at the hour aforesaid, you or your's shall forfeit all your land to the abbot or his successors; this I do entreat, that you may have your lives, and goods for this service, and you to promise by your parts in heaven, that it shall be done by you and your successors, as it is aforesaid:" and then the abbot said, "I grant all that you have said, and will confirm it by the faith of an honest man." Then the hermit said, "My soul longeth for the Lord, and I as freely forgive these gentlemen my death, as Christ forgave the thief upon the cross;" and in the presence of the abbot and the rest, he said moreover these words, "In manus tuas, Domine commendo spiritum meum, à vinculis enim mortis redimisti me, Domine veritatis," (Into thy hands O Lord I recommend my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me from the bonds of death O Lord of Truth,) and the abbot and the rest said "Amen," and so yielded up the ghost the eighth day of December, upon whose soul God have mercy. Anno Domini, 1160. N. B. This service is still annually performed. FLORAL DIRECTORY. Yarrow, Achillæ multifolium. Dedicated to St. Gall. October 17. St. Hedwiges, or Avoice, duchess of Poland, A. D. 1243, St. Anstrudis, or Anstru, A. D. 688. St. Andrew of Crete, a. D. 761. St. Etheldreda. She was daughter of Annas, king of the East Angles, and born about 630, at Ixning, formerly a town of note on the western border of Suffolk, next Cambridgeshire. At Coldingham Abbey, Yorkshire, she took the veil under Ebba, daughter of king Ethelfrida, an abbess, afterwards celebrated for having saved herself and her nuns from the outrage of the Danes by mutilating their faces; the brutal invaders enclosed them in their convent and destroyed them by fire. Notwithstanding Etheldreda's vow to remain a nun, she was twice forced by her vow; hence she is styled, in the Roher parents to marry, and yet maintained mish breviaries, "twice a widow and always a virgin." On the death of her first husband Tonbert, a nobleman of the East Angles, the isle of Ely became her sole property by jointure, and she founded a convent, and the convent church there; and for their maintenance endowed them with the whole island. She married her second husband Egfrid, king of Northum *Blount by Beckwith. berland, on the death of Tonbert, in 671, but persisted in her vow, and died abbess of her convent on the 23d of June, 679. On the 17th of October, sixteen years afterwards, her relics were translated, and therefore on this day her festival is commemorated. In 870, the Danes made a descent on the isle of Ely, destroyed the convent and slaughtered the inhabitants. By abbreviation her name became corrupted to Auldrey and Audrey.* Tawdry-St Audrey. As at the annual fair in the isle of Ely, called St. Audrey's fair," much ordinary but showy lace was usually sold to the country lasses, St. Audrey's lace soon became proverbial, and from that cause Taudry, a corruption of St. Audrey, was established as a common expression to denote not only lace, but any other part of female dress, which was much more gaudy in appearance than warranted by its real quality and value." This is the assertion of Mr. Brady, in his "Clavis Calendaria," who, for aught that appears to the contrary, gives the derivation of the word as his own conjecture, but Mr. Archdeacon Nares, in his admi an rable "Glossary," shows the meaning to have been derived from Harpsfield, old English historian," who refers to the appellation, and "makes St. Audrey die of a swelling in her throat, which she considered as a particular judgment, for having been in her youth much addicted to wearing fine necklaces." There is not now any grounds to doubt that tawdry comes from St. Audrey. It was so derived in Dr. Johnson's "Dictionary" before Mr. Todd's edition. Dr. Ash deemed the word of" uncertain etymology." HARES AND SQUIRRELS. The pleasant correspondent of Mr. Urban, whose account of his squirrels is introduced on the seventh day of the present month, was induced, by Mr. Cowper's experience in the management of his hares, to procure a hare about three weeks old. "The little creature," he says, at first pined for his dam, and his liberty, and refused food. In a few days I prevailed with him to take some milk from my lips, and this is still his favourite method of drinking. Soon after, observing that he greedily lapped sweet things, *Audley, Brady. Idipped a cabbage-leaf in honey, and thus tempted him to eat the first solid food he ever tasted. I beg leave to add to Mr. Cowper's bill of fare, nuts, walnuts, pears, sweet cakes of all kinds, sea biscuits, sugar, and, above all, apple-pie. Every thing which is hard and crisp seems to be particularly relished.-The iris of the hare is very beautiful; it has the appearance of the gills of a young mushroom, seeming to consist of very delicate fibres, disposed like radii issuing from a common centre. I shall be glad to be informed by any person, skilled in anatomy, whether this structure of the iris be not of use to enable the to bear the constant action of the eye light; as it is a common opinion that this animal sleeps, even in the day-time, with its eyes open. I have observed, likewise, that the fur of the hare is more strongly electrical than the hair of any other animal. If you apply the point of a finger to his side in frosty weather, the hairs are immediately strongly attracted towards it from all points, and closely embrace the finger on every side." It should be added from this agreeable writer, as regards the squirrel, that he was much surprised at the great advantage tail, which brings his body so nearly to an the little animal derives from his extended equipoise with the air, as to render a leap or fall from the greatest height perfectly safe to him. "My squirrel has more than once leaped from the window of the second story, and alighted on stone steps, or on hard gravel, without suffering any inconvenience. But I should be glad to have confirmation, from an eye-witness, of what Mr. Pennant relates on the credit of Linnæus, Klein, Rzaczinski, and Scheffer, viz. that a squirrel sometimes crosses a river on a piece of bark by way of boat, using his tail as a sail. Not less astonishing is the undaunted courage of these little brutes: they seem sometimes resolved to conquer as it were, by reflection and fortitude, their natural instinctive fears. I have often known a squirrel tremble and scream at the first sight of a dog or cat, and yet, within a few minutes, after several abortive attempts, summon resolution enough to march up and smell at the very nose of his gigantic enemy. These approaches he always makes by short abrupt leaps, stamping the ground with his feet as loud as he can; his whole mien and countenance most ridiculously expressive of ancient Pistol's affected valour and intrepidity." IN RE SQUirrels. Be it remembered, that C. L. comes here and represents his relations; that is to say, on behalf of the recollections, being the next of kin, of him, the said C. L., and of sundry persons who are 66 aye treading" in the manner of squir rels aforesaid; and thus he saith: For the Every-Day Book. What is gone with the Cages with the climbing Squirrel and bells to them, which were formerly the indispensable appendage to the outside of a Tinman's shop, and were in fact the only Live Signs? One, we believe, still hangs out on Holborn; but they are fast vanishing with the good old modes of our ancestors. They seem to have been superseded by that still more ingenious refinement of modern humanity-the Tread-mill; in which human Squirrels still perform a similar round of ceaseless, improgressive clambering; which must be nuts to them. We almost doubt the fact of the teeth of this creature being so purely orange coloured, as Mr. Urban's correspondent gives out. One of our old poets-and they were pretty sharp observers of nature-describes them as brown. But perhaps the naturalist referred to meant of the colour of a Maltese orange," "# which is rather more obfuscated than your fruit of Seville, or Saint Michael's; and may help to reconcile the difference. We cannot speak from observation, but we remember at school getting our fingers into the orangery of one of these little gentry (not having a due caution of the traps set there), and the result proved sourer than lemons. The Author of the Task somewhere speaks of their anger as being "insignificantly fierce," but we found the demonstration of it on this occasion quite as significant as we desired; and have not been disposed since to look any of these "gift horses" in the mouth. Maiden aunts keep these "small deer" as they do parrots, to bite people's fingers, on purpose to give them good advice "not to venture so near the cage another time." As for their "six quavers divided into three quavers and a dotted crotchet," I suppose, they may go into Jeremy * Fletcher in the "Faithful Shepherdess."-The Satyr offers to Clorin, -grapes whose lusty blood Is the learned Poet's good, Sweeter yet did never crown The head of Bacchus ; nuts more brown Than the squirrels' teeth that crack them. CHARLTON FAIR. Commonly called HORN FAIR. At the pleasant village of Charlton, on the north side of Blackheath, about eight miles from London, a fair is held annually on St. Luke's day. It is called "Horn Fair," from the custom of carrying horns at it formerly, and the frequenters still wearing them. A foreigner travelling in England in the year 1598, mentions horns to have been conspicuously displayed in its neighbourhood at that early period. Upon taking the air down the river (from London), on the left hand lies Ratcliffe, a considerable suburb. On the opposite shore is fixed a long pole with rams-horns upon it, the intention of which was vulgarly said to be a reflection upon wilful and contented cuckolds."+ An old newspaper states, that it was formerly a custom for a procession to go from some of the inns in Bishopsgatestreet, in which were, a king, a queen, a miller, a counsellor, &c., and a great number of others, with horns in their hats, to Charlton, where they went round the church three times. This was accompa↑ Hentzner. * Page 1360. nied by so many indecencies on Black- "A sermon," says Mr. Brand, "is preached at Charlton church on the fair day." This sermon is now discontinued on the festival-day: the practice was created by a bequest of twenty shillings a year to the minister of the parish for preaching it, The horn-bearing at this fair may be conjectured to have originated from the symbol, accompanying the figure of St. Luke: when he is represented by sculpture or painting, he is usually in the act of writing, with an ox or cow by his side, whose horns are conspicuous. These seem to have been seized by the former inhabitants of Charlton on the day of the saint's festival, as a lively mode of sounding forth their rude pleasure for the holiday. Though most of the painted glass in the windows of the church was destroyed during the troubles in the time of Charles I., yet many fragments remain of St. Luke's ox with wings on his back, and goodly horns upon his head; indeed, with the exception of two or three armorial The The procession of horns, customary,at Charlton fair, has ceased; but horns still continue to be sold from the lowest to "the best booth in the fair." They are chiefly those of sheep, goats, and smaller animals, and are usually gilt and decorated for their less innocent successors to these ornaments. The fair is still a kind of carnival or masquerade: On St. Luke's-day, 1825, though the weather was unfavourable to the customary humours, most of the visitors wore masks; several were disguised in women's clothes, and some assumed whimsical characters. spacious and celebrated Crown and Anchor booth was the principal scene of their amusements. The fair is now held in a private field: formerly it was on the green opposite the church, and facing the mansion of sir Thomas Wilson. The late lady Wilson was a great admirer and patroness of the fair; the old lady was accustomed to come down with her attendants every morning during the fair, "and in long order go," from the steps of her ancient hall, to without the gates of her court-yard, when the bands of the different shows hailed her appearance, as a signal to strike up their melody of discords: Richardson, always pitched his great booth in front of the house. Latterly, however, the fair has diminished; Richardson was not there in 1825, nor were there any shows of consequence, "Horns! horns!" were the customary and chief cry, and the most conspicuous source of frolic: they were in the hat and bonnet of almost every person in the A few years ago, it was usual for rout. neighbouring gentry to proceed thither in their carriages during the morning to see the sports. The fair lasts three days. One of the pleasantest walks from Greenwich is over Blackheath, along by the park-wall to Charlton; and from thence after passing through that village, across Woolwich common and Plumstead common, along green lanes, over the foot paths of the fields, to the very retired and rural village of East Wickham, which lies about half a mile on the north side of Welling, through which is the great London road to Dover. There are various pleasant views for the lover of cultivated nature, with occasional fine bursts of the broad flowing Thames. Students in botany and geology will not find it a stroll, barren of objects in their favourite sciences. FLORAL DIRECTORY. Floccose Agaric. October 19. Sts. St. Peter, of Alcantara, A. D. 1562. Cent. The Last Rose of Summer. "Tis the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone, All her lovely companions No flower of her kindred, To reflect back her blushes," Or give sigh for sigh! Sendou, 7th Cent. St."Adian, Bp. of son. In the Migration of Birds. Woodcocks have now arrived. autumn and setting in of winter they keep dropping in from the Baltic singly, or in pairs, till December. They instinctively land in the night, or in dark misty weather, for they are never seen to arrive, but are frequently discovered the next morning in any ditch which affords them shelter, after the extraordinary fatigue occasioned by the adverse gales which they often have to encounter in their aerial voyage. They do not remain near the shores longer than a day, when they are sufficiently recruited to proceed inland, and they visit the very same haunts which they left the preceding seaIn temperate weather they retire to mossy moors, and high bleak mountainous parts; but as soon as the frost sets in, and the snows begin to fall, they seek lower and warmer situations, with boggy grounds and springs, and little oozing mossy rills, which are rarely frozen, where they shelter in close bushes of holly and furze, and the brakes of woody glens, or in dells which are covered with underwood: here they remain cealed during the day, and remove to different haunts and feed only in the night. From the beginning of March to the end of that month, or sometimes to the middle of April, they all keep drawing towards the coasts, and avail themselves of the first fair wind to return to their native woods. The snipe, scolopax gallinago, also comes now, and inhabits similar situations. It is migratory, and met with in all countries: like the woodcock, it shuns the extremes of heat and cold, by keeping upon the bleak moors in summer, and seeking the shelter of the valleys in winter. In unfrozen boggy places, runners from springs, or any open streamlets of water, they are often found Moore. in considerable numbers.* I'll not leave thee, thou lone one! To pine on the stem, Since the lovely are sleeping, Thus kindly I scatter Thy leaves o'er the bed, So soon may I follow, When friendships decay, This bleak world alone? con |