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in the avenues, to the scales and little countinghouse box in which sits the female accountant, "brisk as a bee" and full of the "Ready-reckoner:" fishmongers are no less active in showing the large eels and dainty fish, that are "fresh as a daisy" and cold as death: sprats arrive in abundance, and are cried up and down alleys and streets with wondrous competition: pew-openers now have leave of their churchwardens to buy quantum sufficit of yew, laurel, holly, and other evergreens to tie in bunches to the sconces and interior parts of churches: idle shopkeepers cannot be persuaded yet to clear the filth from their doors, thinking, perhaps, a temporary obstruction is a perma

Dec. 1826.

nent attraction: watchmen now veer forth early at noon, with lanterns at their breasts, though it would be difficult to read the secrets deposited within: poulterers are early at market, and their shops are piled with poultry in a state of nudity and death: the undertaker is busy, like the tailor, with his work, and the charms of Christmas give temporary bustle to most classes of tradesmen: the green-grocer is decorating his half-glazed windows with his best fruits and most attractive edibles, which are served as luxuries rather than generous enjoyments; and his sly daughter takes care a certain branch of the business shall not be forgotten-I allude

to

The Mistletoe.

Sweet emblem of returning peace,
The heart's full gush, and love's release;
Spirits in human fondness flow
And greet the pearly Mistletoe.
Many a maiden's cheek is red
By lips and laughter thither led;
And flutt'ring bosoms come and go
Under the druid Mistletoe.

Dear is the memory of a theft

When love and youth and joy are left ;-
The passion's blush, the roses glow,
Accept the Cupid Mistletoe.

Oh! happy, tricksome time of mirth
Giv'n to the stars of sky and earth!
May all the best of feeling know,
The custom, of the Mistletoe!
Spread out the laurel and the bay,
For chimney-piece and window gay:
Scour the brass gear-a shining row,
And Holly place with Mistletoe.
Married and single, proud and free,
Yield to the season, trim with glee:
Time will not stay, he cheats us, so-
A kiss?'tis gone!—the Mistletoe

A GLOOMY MORNING BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

It is methinks a morning full of fate!

It riseth slowly, as her sullen car

Had all the weights of sleep and death hung
at it!

She is not rosy-finger'd, but swoln black'
Her face is like a water turn'd to blood,

And her sick head is bound about with clouds,

As if she threatened night ere noon of day!

It does not look as it would have a hail

Or health wished in it, as of other morns.

*, *, P.

Jonson.

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The Wonder of the West.

"And where did she come from? and who can she be?
Did she fall from the sky? did she rise from the sea?"

Late one evening in the spring of 1817, the rustic inhabitants of Almondsbury, in Gloucestershire, were surprised by the entrance of a young female in strange attire. She wore leather shoes and black worsted stockings, a black stuff gown with a muslin frill at the neck, and a red and black shawl round her shoulders, and a black cotton shawl on her head. Her height was about five feet two inches, and she carried a small bundle on her arm containing a few necessaries. Her clothes were loosely

and tastefully put on in an oriental fashion. Her eyes and hair were black, her fore head was low, her nose short, her mouth wide, her teeth white, her lips large and full, her under lip projected a little, her chin was small and round, her hands were clean and seemed unused to labour. She appeared about twenty-five years of age, was fatigued, walked with difficulty, spoke a language no one could comprehend, and signified by signs her desire to sleep in the village. The cottagers

were afraid to admit her, and sought the
decision of Mr. Worrall, a magistrate for a blogo
the county, at Knole, whose lady caused
her own maid to accompany her to a
public-house in the village, with a re-
quest that she should have a supper, and
a comfortable bed.

In the morning Mrs. Worrall found her, with strong traces of sorrow and distress on her countenance, and took her with her to Knole, but she went reluctantly. It was Good Friday, and at the mansion, observing a cross-bun, she cut off the cross, and placed it in her bosom.

Paper and a pen were handed to her to write her name; she shook her head: and when she appeared to comprehend what was meant, pointed to herself, and cried "Caraboo." The next day she was taken to Bristol, examined before the mayor, at the Council-house, and committed to St. Peter's Hospital as a vagrant, whither persons of respectability flocked to visit the incomprehensible inmate. From that place Mrs. Worrall removed her once more to Knole. A gentleman, who had made several voyages to the Indies, extracted from her signs, and gestures, and articulation, that she was the daughter of a person of rank, of Chinese origin, at "Javasu," and that whilst walking in her garden, attended by three women, she had been gagged, and bound, and carried off, by the people of a pirateprow, and sold to the captain of a brig, from whence she was transferred to another ship, which anchored at a port for two days, where four other females were taken in, who, after a voyage of five weeks, were landed at another port: sailing for eleven more weeks, and being near land, she jumped overboard, in consequence of ill usage, and swimming ashore, found herself on this coast, and had wandered for six weeks, till she found her way to Almondsbury. She described herself at her father's to have been carried on men's shoulders, in a kind of palanquin, and to have worn seven peacocks' feathers on the right side of her head, with open sandals on her feet, having wooden soles; and she made herself a dress from some calico, given her by Mrs. Worrall, in the style of her own which had been embroidered. The late Mr. Bird, the artist, sketched her, according to this account, as in the engraving.

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VOL. II.-104.

Caraboo.

The particulars connected with these recitals, and her general conduct, were romantic in the extreme. At the end of two months she disappeared; and, to the astonishment of the persons whose sympathies she had excited, the lady Caraboo, a native of Javasu, in the east, was discovered to have been born at Witheridge in Devonshire, where her father was a cobbler! A very full account of her singular imposition is given in "A Narrative," published by Mr. Gutch of Bristol, in 1817, from whence this sketch is taken. After her remarkable adventures, she found it convenient to leave this country. A Bath correspondent writes as follows:To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

In the year 1824, Caraboo having returned from America, took apartments in New Bond-street, where she made a public exhibition of herself-admittance one shilling each person; but it does nct appear that any great number wert to see her.

2.

GENTLE CRAFTSMEN,

An opportunity has not occurred, till now, to introduce the following

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A Lady's old Shoe, and Clog.

It was purposed to have been accompanied by others: as it is, indulgence is craved for it as a specimen of the art and dexterity of our ancestors in shoe-making and wearing. It is drawn from the original, purchased by Mr. J. J. A. F., with other curiosities, at the sale of the Leverian Museum.

The shoe is of white kid leather, calashed with black velvet. There are marks of stitches by which ornaments had been affixed to it. Its clog is simply a straight piece of stout leather, inserted in the underleather at the toe, and attached to the heel. That such were walked in is certain; that the fair wearers could have run in them is impossible to imagine. They were in fashion at the Res

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Robin Hood breathed his last, in the year 1247.

The accounts of the life of this extraordinary outlaw are so various, and so much mixed up with fable, that to render a true history of him would be almost impossible.

His real name was Fitz-Ooth, his grandfather, Ralph Fitz-Ooth Earl of Kyme, whose name appears in the Roll of Battle Abbey, came over to England with William Rufus, and was married to a daughter of Gilbert de Gient earl of Lincoln.*

His father, William Fitz-Ooth, in the times of feudal dependancy, was a ward of Robert earl of Oxford, who, by the King's order, gave him his niece in marriage, the third daughter of lady Roisia de Vere, countess of Essex.t

Having dissipated his fortune, Robin Ooth, or Hood, as he was named, joined a band of depredators, and, as their chief, laid heavy contributions, for his support, on all such as he deemed rich enough to bear the loss.

He was famed for his courage, skill in archery, and kindness to the poor, who often shared with him in the plunder he

Stukeley's Palæographia Britannica, No. 11. 1745. + lbid.

had taken. The principal scene of his exploits is said to have been in Sherwood Forest, and the period, that of the reign of Richard I., thus described by Stowe :

"In this time (1190) were many robbers and outlaws; among the which Robin Hood and Little John, renowned thieves, continued in woods, dispoyling and plundering the goods of the rich; they killed none but such as would invade them, or by resistance for their own defence.

"The said Robert entertained an hundred tall men and good archers with such spoiles and thefts as he got, upon whom four hundred (were they ever so strong) durst not give the onset. He suffered no woman to be oppressed, violated, or otherwise molested; poor men's goods he spared, abundantly relieving them with that which by theft he got from abbeys, and the houses of rich earles: whom Major (the historian) blameth for his rapine and theft, but of all thieves he affirmeth him to be the prince, and the most gentle theefe."*

"It is said," writes Baker, "that he was of noble blood, at least made noble, no less than an earl, for deserving services, but having wasted his estate in riotous courses, very penury forced him to this course."+

Robin Hood was the hero of many popular songs, several of which are to be found in "Evans's Collection of Old Ballads," as early as the reign of Edward III. R. Langlande, a priest, in his "Pierce Plowman's Visions," notices him :

"I cannot perfitly my Paternoster, as the priest it singeth,

I can rimes of Robenhod and Randal of
Chester,

But of our Lorde or our Lady I learne no-
thyng at all."

He is reported to have lived till the year 1247; but Baker, in his "Chronology," makes his death, which is said to have been caused by treachery, to have taken place in the reign of Richard I. "The King set forth a Proclamation tc have him apprehended; it happened he fell sick, at a certain nunnery in Yorkshire, called Berckleys, and desiring to be let blood, was betrayed, and made to bleed to death." ↑

Stowe's Annals, 159. + Baker's Chronicles, 94. * Ibid.

The manner of his death is also recorded in an old ballad, entitled "Robin Hood and the valiant Knight, together with an Account of his Death and Burial."

"And Robin Hood he to the green wood,

And there he was taken ill.

And he sent for a monk, to let him blood
Who took his life away;

Now this being done, his archers did run,
It was not time to stay."

At Kirklees, in Yorkshire, formerly a Benedictine nunnery, is a gravestone, near the park, under which it is said Robin Hood lies buried. There is the remains of an inscription on it, but it is quite illegible. Mr. Ralph Thoresby, in his "Ducatus Leodiensis," gives the following as the epitaph: :

"Hear undernead dis laith stean
Laiz Robert Earl of Huntington,
Nea arcir ver az hie sa geude:
An piple kaud im Robin Heud.
Sic utlawz as hi, an iz men,
Wil England never sigh agen.

Obiit 24 kal. Dekembris, 1247." Some of his biographers have noticed him as earl of Huntingdon, but they are not borne out in this by any of the old ballads, this epitaph alone calling him by that title. All the learned antiquarians agree in giving no credence to the genuineness of the above composition, alleging, among other causes, the quaintness of the spelling, and the pace of the metre, as affording them strong grounds for suspicion.

However strongly the name and exploits of Robin Hood may have been impressed on our memories from the "oft told" nursery tales, yet we have lately had it in our power to become more intiquainted with this great chieftain of outmately, and, as it were, personally aclaws, through the medium of the author of

Waverley," who has introduced «friend Locksley" to the readers of his "Ivanhoe," in such natural and glowing colours, as to render the forgetting him utterly impossible.

Leadenhall-street.

HENRY BRANDON.

Christmas-ebe.

BELLMAN'S VERSES
Upon Christmas-eve.

This night (you may my Almanack believe)

Is the return of famous Christmas-eve:

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