tleman was deprived of his just reward by fraudful anticipation. He says, "I thought it advisable to secure the exclusive property of it by a patent; but in consequence of one of the patent instruments having been exhibited to one of the London opticians, the remarkable properties of the kaleidoscope became known before any number of them could be prepared for sale. The sensation excited in London by this premature exhibition of its effects is incapable of description, and can be conceived only by those who witnessed it. It may be sufficient to remark, that, according to the computation of those who were best able to form an opinion on the subject, no fewer than two hundred thousand instruments have been sold in London and Paris during three months." The Kaleidoscope. Trifle! let us from thy store April 17. St. St. Anicetus, Pope, 2d. Cent. St. Simeon, Stephen, Abbot, a. D. 1134. Bishop, and other Martyrs, ▲. D. 341. Hock, OR HOKE DAY OR TIDE. At Antiquaries are exceedingly puzzled respecting the derivation of this annual festival, which commenced the fifteenth day after Easter, and was therefore a movable feast dependent upon Easter.* Though Matthew Paris, who is the oldest authority for the word Hoke-day, says it is "quindena pascha," yet Mr. Douce assigns convincing reasons for taking it as the second Tuesday after Easter. Hock-tide, which seems to have included Monday and Tuesday, collections of Hockmoney were made in various parishes by the churchwardens, until the Reformation. Tuesday was the principal day. Hock Monday was for the men, and Hock Tuesday for the women. On both days the men and women alternately, with great merriment, intercepted the public roads-with ropes, and pulled passengers to them, from whom they exacted money to be laid out for pious uses; Monday probably having been originally kept as only the vigil or introduction to the festival of Hock-day. Mr. Brand unaccountably, because inconsistently with his previous representations respecting the antiquity of the custom of heaving at Easter, derives that custom from the men and women Hocking each other, and collecting money at Hock-tide. It is a tradition that this festival was instituted to commemorate the massacre of the Danes in England, under Etheldred, in the year 1002; a supposition however wholly unsupportable, because that event happened on the feast of St. Brice, in the month of November. Another and more reasonable opinion is, that the institution celebrated the final extinction of the Danish power by the death of Hardicanute, on the sixth day before the ides of June, 1042. men Yet, in relation to the former event, "certain good-hearted men of Coventry" petitioned, "that they might renew their old storial show" of the Hock-tide play before queen Elizabeth, when she was on a visit to the earl of Leicester, at his castle of Kenilworth, in July, 1575. According to "Laneham's Letter," this "storial show" set forth how the Danes were for quietness borne, and allowed to remain in peace withal, until on the said St. Brice's night they were "all despatched and the realm rid;" and because the matter did show "in action and rhymes" how valiantly our English women, for love of their country, behaved, the " of Coventry" thought it might move some mirth in her majesty. "The thing," said they, "is grounded in story, and for pastime (was) wont to be played in our city yearly without ill example of manners, papistry, or any superstition:" and they knew no cause why it was then of late Laid down, "unless it was by the zeal of certain of their preachers; men very commendable for their behaviour and learning, and sweet in their sermons, but somewhat too sour in preaching away their pastime." By license, therefore, they got up their Hock-tide play at Kenilworth, wherein capt. Cox," a person here indescribable without hindrance to most readers, "came marching on valiantly before, clean trussed and garnished above the knee, all fresh in a velvet cap, flourishing with his ton-sword, and another fence-master with him, making room for the rest. Then proudly came the Danish knights on horseback, and then the English, each with their alder-pole martially in their hand." The meeting at first waxing warm, then kindled with courage on both sides into a hot skirmish, and from that into a blazing battle with spear and shield; so that, by outrageous races and fierce encounters, horse and man sometimes tumbled to the dust. Then they fell to with sword and target, and did clang and bang, till, the fight so ceasing, afterwards followed the foot of both hosts, one after the other marching, wheeling, forming in squadrons, triangles, and circles, and so winding out again; and then got they so grisly together, that inflamed on each side, twice the Danes had the better, but at the last were quelled, and so being wholly vanquished, many were led captive in triumph by our English women. This matter of good pastime was wrought under the window of her highness, who beholding in the chamber delectable dancing, and therewith great thronging of the people, saw but little of the Coventry play; wherefore her majesty commanded it on the Tuesday following, to have it full out, and being then accordingly presented, her highness laughed right well. Then too, played the "goodhearted men of Coventry" the merrier, and so much the more, because her majesty had given them two bucks, and five marks in money; and they prayed for her highness long happily to reign, and oft to come thither, that oft they might see her; and rejoicing upon their ample reward, and triumphing upon their good acceptance, vaunted their play was never so dignified, nor ever any players before so beatified.* FLORAL DIRECTORY, Fravi's Cowl. Arum Arisarum Dedicated to St. Stephen of Citeaux April 18. St. Apollonius, A. D. 186. St. Galdin, St. Laserian, or Molaisre, Abp. 1176. Bp. of Leighlin, a. D. 638. CHRONOLOGY. 1689. The infamous judge Jefferies died in the tower, whither he had been committed by the lords of the council, after he had been taken in the disguise of a common sailor for the purpose of leaving England. He was born at Acton, near Wrexham, in Denbighshire, and being raised to the bench, polluted its sanctity by perversions of the law. His habits and language were vulgar and disgusting. John Evelyn says, "I went this day to a wedding of one Mrs. Castle, to whom I had some obligation; and it was to her fifth husband, a lieutenantcolonel of the city. She was the daughter * Concerning the Coventry Hock-tide play, it is reasonable to expect curious information from a forthcoming "Dissertation on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries, anciently performed at Coventry, chiefly with reference to the vehicle, characters, and dresses of the actors," by Mr. to the corporation manuscripts, and to other Thomas Sharp, of Coventry, who, with access sources hitherto unexplored, and, above all, with the requisite knowledge and qualifications, will probably throw greater light on the obsolete drama, than has devolved upon it from the la bours of any preceding antiquary. of one Bruton, a broom-man, by his wife, who sold kitchen-stuff in Kent-street, whom God so blessed, that the father became very rich, and was a very honest man; and this daughter was a jolly, friendly woman. There were at the wedding the lord mayor, the sheriff, several aldermen, and persons of quality; above all sir George Jefferies, newly made lord enier ustice of England, who, with Mr. justice Withings, danced with the bride, na were exceeding merry! These great men spent the rest of the afternoon, till eleven at night, in drinking healths, taking tobacco, and talking much beneath the gravity of judges that had but a day or two before condemned Mr. Algernon Sidney, who was executed the 7th of Dec. 1683, on Tower-hill, on the single witness of that monster of a man, lord Howard of Escrick, and some sheets of paper taken in Mr. Sidney's study, pretended to be written by him, but not fully proved." James II. found Jefferies a fit instrument for his arbitrarypurposes. After the defeat of the duke of Monmouth in the west, he employed the most sanguinary miscreants, and Jefferies among the rest, to wreak his vengeance on the deluded people. Bishop Burnet says, that Jefferies's behaviour was brutally disgusting, beyond any thing that was ever heard of in a civilized nation; "he was perpetually either drunk or in a rage, liker a fury than the zeal of a judge." He required the prisoners to plead guilty, on pretence of showing them favour; but he afterwards showed them no mercy, hanging many immediately. He hanged in several places about six hundred persons. The king had a daily account of Jefferies' proceedings, which he took pleasure to relate in the drawing-room to foreign ministers, and at his table he called it Jefferies's campaign. Upon Jefferies' return, he created him a peer of England, by the title of earl of Flint. During these "bloody assizes," the lady Lisle, a noble woman of exemplary character, whose husband had been murdered by the Stuart party, was tried for entertaining two gentlemen of the duke of Monmouth's army; and though the jury twice brought her in not guilty, Jefferies sent them out again and again, until, upon his threatening to attaint them of treason, they pronounced her guilty. Jefferies, before he tried this ady, got the king to promise that he would not pardon her, and the. only fayour she obtained was the change of her sentence from burning to beheading. Mrs. Gaunt, a widow, near Wapping, who was a Baptist, and spent her time in acts of charity, was tried on a charge of having hid one Burton, who, hearing that the king had said that he would sooner pardon rebels than those who harboured them, accused his benefactress of having saved his life. She was burned at the stake. The excellent William Penn, the Quaker, saw her die, and related the manner of her death to Burnet. She laid the straw about her for her burning speedily, and behaved herself so heroically, that all melted into tears. Six men were hanged at Tyburn, on the like charge, without trial. At length, the bloody and barbarous executions were so numerous, that they spread horror throughout the nation. England was an acaldema: the country, for sixty miles together, from Bristol to Exeter, had a new and terrible sort of sign-posts or gibbets, bearing the heads and limbs of its butchered inhabitants. Every soul was sunk in anguish and terror, sighing by day and by night for deliverance, but shut out of all hope, till the arrival of the prince of Orange, on whom the two houses of parliament bestowed the crown, Jefferies had attained under James II. to the high office of lord chancellor. 1794. Died Charles Pratt, earl Camden, born in 1713. As chief justice of the common pleas, he was distinguished for having discharged the celebrated John Wilkes from the tower By that decision, general warrants were pronounced illegal; and for so great a service to his country, lord Camden received the approbation of his fellow citizens; they conferred on him the freedom of their cities, an placed his picture in their corporation halls. He was equally distinguished for opposing the opinion of prerogative lawyers in matters of libel. At his death he was lord president of the council. Firm of purpose, and mild in manners, he was a wise and amiable man. It is pleasantly related of him, that while chief justice, being upon a visit to lord Dacre,at Alveley, in Essex, he walked out with a gentleman, a very absent man, to a hill, at no great distance from the house, upon the top of which stood the stocks of the village. The chief justice sat down upon them; and after a while, having a mind to know what the punishment was, he asked his companion to open them and put him in This being done, his friend took a book from his pocket, sauntered on, and so completely forgot the judge and his situation, that he returned to lord Dacre's. In the mean time, the chief justice being tired of the stocks, tried in vain to release himself. Seeing a countryman pass by, he endeavoured to move him to let him out, but obtained nothing by his motion."No, no, old gentleman," said the countryman, 66 you was not set there for nothing;" and left him, until he was released by a servant of the house despatched in quest of him. Some time after he presided at a trial in which a charge was brought against a magistrate for false imprisonment, and for setting in the stocks. The counsel for the magistrate, in his reply, made light of the whole charge, and more especially setting in the stocks, which he said every body knew was no punishment at all. The chief justice rose, and leaning over the bench, said, in a half-whisper," Brother, have you ever been in the stocks?" "Really, my lord, never." "Then I have," said the judge, "and I assure you, brother, it is no such trifle as you represent." 1802. Dr. Erasmus Darwin died. He was born at Newark in Nottinghamshire, in 1732, and attained to eminence as a physician and a botanist. His decease was sudden. Riding in his carriage, he found himself mortally seized, pulled the check-string, and desired his servant to help him to a cottage by the road-side. On entering, they found a woman within, whom the doctor addressed thus, "Did you ever see a man die?" No, sir." "Then now you may." The terrified woman ran out at the door, and in a few minutes Darwin was no more. He strenuously opposed the use of ardent spirits, from conviction that they induced dreadful maladies, especially gout, dropsy, and insanity; hence his patients were never freed from his importunities, and the few who had courage to persevere benefited by his advice. THE MAID SERVANT. Holidays being looked forward to with unmixed delight by all whose opportunities of enjoying them are dependent upon others, a sketch of character at such a season may amuse those whose inclination is not sufficiently strong to study the original, and just enough to feel pleasure in looking at the picture. The out line and finishing of that which is here exhibited prove it the production of a master hand. "The maid servant must be considered as young, or else she has married the butcher, the butler, or her cousin, or has otherwise settled into a character distinct from her original one, so as to become what is properly called the domestic. The maid servant, in her apparel, is either slovenly or fine by turns, and dirty always; or she is at all times snug and neat, and dressed according to her station. In the latter case, her ordinary dress is black stockings, a stuff gown, a cap, and neck-handkerchief pinned corner-wise behind. If you want a pin, she just feels about her, and has always one to give you. On Sundays and holidays, and perhaps of afternoons, she changes her black stockings for white, puts on a gown of a better texture and fine pattern, sets her cap and her curls jauntily, and lays aside the neck-handkerchief for a high body, which, by the way, is not half so pretty. There is something very warm and latent in the handkerchief,thing easy, vital, and genial. A woman in a high-bodied gown, made to fit her like a case, is by no means more modest, and is much less tempting. She looks like a figure at the head of a ship. We could almost see her chucked out of doors into a cart with as little remorse as a couple of sugar-loaves. The tucker is much better, -some as well as the handkerchief; and is to the other, what the young lady is to the ser vant. pro The one always reminds us of the Sparkler in the Guardian; the other of Fanny in Joseph Andrews.' But to return:-The general furniture of her ordinary room, the kitchen, is not so much her own as her master's and mistress's, drawer of the dresser of the table, in and need not be described; but in a company with a duster and a pair of snuffers, may be found some of her perty, such as a brass thimble, a pair of scissars, a thread-case, a piece of wax candle much wrinkled with the thread, an odd volume of 'Pamela,' and perhaps a sixpenny play, such as George Barnwell,' or Mrs. Behn's Oroonoko." There is a piece of looking-glass also in the window. The rest of her furniture is in the garret, where you may find a good looking-glass on the table; and in the window a Bible, a comb, and a piece of soap. Here stands also, under stout lock and key, the mighty mystery—the box,— containing among other things her clothes, two or three song-books, consisting of nineteen for the penny; sundry tragedies at a half-penny the sheet: the Whole Nature of Dreams laid open,' together with the Fortune-teller,' and the Account of the Ghost of Mrs. Veal;''the story of the beautiful Zoa who was cast away on a desert island, showing how,' &c. : some half-crowns in a purse, including pieces of country money, with the good countess of Coventry on one of them riding naked on the horse; a silver penny wrapped up in cotton by itself; a crooked sixpence, given her before she came to town, and the giver of which has either forgotten her or been forgotten by her, she is not sure which; two little enamel boxes, with looking-glass in the lids, one of them a fairing, the other a trifle from Margate;' and lastly, various letters, square and ragged, and directed in all sorts of spelling, chiefly with little letters for capitals. One of them, written by a girl who went to a day school with her, is directed 'miss.'-In her manners, the maid servant sometimes imitates her young mistress; she puts her hair in papers, cultivates a shape, and occasionally contrives to be out of spirits. But her own character and condition overcome all sophistications of this sort; her shape, fortified by the mop and scrubbing-brush, will make its way; and exercise keeps her healthy and cheerful. From the same cause her temper is good; though she gets into little heats when a stranger is over saucy, or when she is told not to go so heavily down stairs, or when some unthinking person goes up her wet stairs with dirty shoes-or when she is called away often from dinner; neither does she much like to be seen scrubbing the streetdoor-steps of a morning; and sometimes she catches herself saying, 'drat that butcher,' but immediately adds, God forgive me.' The tradesmen indeed, with their compliments and arch looks, seldom give her cause to complain. The milkman bespeaks her good humour for the day with Come, pretty maids.' Then follow the butcher, the baker, the oilman, &c. all with their several smirks and little loiterings; and when she goes to the shops herself, it is for her the grocer pulls down his string from its roller with more than ordinary whirl, and tosses, as it were, his parcel into a tie,for her, the cheesemonger weighs his butter with half a glance, cherishes it round about with his patties, and dabs the little piece on it to make up, with a graceful jerk. Thus pass the mornings between working, and singing, and giggling, and grumbling, and being flattered. If she takes any pleasure unconnected with her office before the afternoon, it is when she runs up the area-steps, or to the door to hear and purchase a new song, or to see a troop of soldiers go by; or when she happens to thrust her head out of a chamber window at the same time with a servant at the next house, when a dialogue infallibly ensues, stimulated by the imaginary obstacles between. If the maid-servant is wise, the best part of her work is done by dinner time; and nothing else is necessary to give perfect zest to the meal. She tells us what she thinks of it, when she calls it a bit o' dinner.' There is the same sort of eloquence in her other phrase, a cup o' tea;' but the old ones, and the washerwomen, beat her at that. After tea in great houses, she goes with the other servants to hot cockles, or What-are-my-thoughts like, and tells Mr. John to have done then;' or if there is a ball given that night, they throw open all the doors, and make use of the music up stairs to dance by. In smaller houses, she receives the visit of her aforesaid cousin; and sits down alone, or with a fellow maid servant, to work; talks of her young master, or mistress, Mr. Ivins (Evans): or else she calls to mind her own friends in the country, where she thinks the cows and all that' beautiful, now she is away. Meanwhile, if she is lazy, she snuffs the candle with her scissars; or if she has eaten more heartily than usual, she sighs double the usual number of times, and thinks that tender hearts were born to be unhappy. Such being the maid-servant's life in doors, she scorns, when abroad, to be any thing but a creature of sheer enjoyment. The maid-servant, the sailor, and the schoolboy, are the three beings that enjoy a holiday beyond all the rest of the world: and all for the same reason,-because their inexperience, peculiarity of life, and habit of being with persons or circumstances or thoughts above them, give them all, in their way, a cast of the romantic. The most active of moneygetters is a vegetable compared with them. The maid-servant when she first goes to Vauxhall, thinks she is in heaven. A theatre is all pleasure to her, whatever is going forward, whether the play, or the |