035 with other figures. By another MS. in the same library it is said, that Henry Hardware, Esq., the mayor, in 1599, caused the giants in the Midsummer show to be broken," and not to goe the devil in his feathers ;" and it appears that he caused a man in complete armour to go in their stead but in the year 1601, John Ratclyffe, beer-brewer, being mayor, set out the giants and Midsummer show as of old it was wont to be kept. In the time of the commonwealth the show was discontinued, and the giants with the beasts were destroyed. At the restoration of Charles II., the citizens of Chester replaced their pageant, and caused all things to be made new, because the old models were broken. According to the computation, the four great giants were to cost five pounds a-piece, at the least, and the four men to carry them were to have two shillings and six-pence each; the materials for constructing them were to be hoops of various sizes, deal boards, nails, pasteboard, scale board, paper of various sorts, buckram, size-cloth, and old sheets for their body-sleeves and shirts, which were to be coloured; also tinsel, tinfoil, gold and silver leaf, and colours of various kinds, with glue and paste in abundance. The provision of a pair of old sheets to cover the "father and mother giants," and three yards of buckram for the mother's and daughter's hoods, seems to prove that three of these monstrous pasteboard figures represented females. A desire to preserve them may be inferred from an entry in the bill of charges:-" For arsnick to put into the paste, to save the giants from being eaten by the rats, one shilling and four-pence." There was an item in the estimate-" For the new making the city mount, called the maior's mount, as auntiently it was, and for hireing of bays for the same, and a man to carry it, three pounds six shillings and eight-pence." Twenty-pence was paid to a joiner for cutting pasteboard into several images for the "merchant's mount," which being made, "as it auuciently was, with a ship to turn round," cost four pounds, including the hiring of the bays," and five men to carry it. The charge for the ship, and new dressing it, was five shillings. Strutt, who sets forth these particulars, conjectures, that the ship was probably made with pasteboard, that material seeming, to him, to have been a principle article in the manufacturing of both these movable mountains. The ship was turned, he says, by means of a swivel, attached to an iron handle underneath the frame; the "bays" was to hang round the bottom of the frames "elephant and to the ground, and so conceal the bearers. Then there was a new castell, and a cupid," with his bows and arrows, " suitable to it;" the castle was covered with tin foil, and the cupid with skins, so as to appear to be naked, and the charge for these, with two men to carry them, was one pound sixteen shillings and eight-pence. The "four beastes called the unicorne, the antelop, the flower-de-luce (?) and the camell, cost one pound sixteen shillings and four-pence each, and eight men were paid sixteen shillings to carry them. Four boys for carrying the four hobby-horses, had four shillings, and the hobby-horses cost six shillings and eight-pence each. The charge for the new dragon, with six naked boys to beat at it, was one pound sixteen shillings. Six morris-dancers, with a pipe and tabret, had twenty shillings; and "hance-staves, garlands, and balls, for the attendants upon the mayor and she riffs cost one pound nineteen shillings.' These preparations it will be remembered were for the setting forth of the Midsummer-watch at Chester, so late as the reign of Charles II. After relating these particulars, Mr. Strutt aptly observes, that exhibitions of this kind for the diversions of the populace, are well described in a few lines from a dramatic piece, entitled "A pleasant and stately Morall of the Three Lordes of London:" "Let nothing that's magnifical, Mai-games and maskes, with mirthe and minstrelsie, Strutt s Sports. Somersetshire Custom. In the parishes of Congresbury and Puxton, are two large pieces of common land, called East and West Dolemoors, (from the Saxon dal, which signifies a share or portion,) which are divided into single acres, each bearing a peculiar and different mark cut in the turf; such as a horn, four oxen and a mare, two oxen and a mare, a pole-axe, cross, dung-fork, oven, duck's-nest, hand-reel, and hare's-tail, On the Saturday before Old-Midsummer, several proprietors of estates in the parishes of Congresbury, Puxton, and Week St. Lawrence, or their tenants, assemble on the commons. A number of apples are previously prepared, marked in the same manner with the before-mentioned acres, which are distributed by a young lad to each of the commoners from a bag or hat. At the close of the distribution each person repairs to his allotment, as his apple directs him, and takes possession for the ensuing year. An adjournment then takes place to the house of the overseer of Dolemoors, (an officer annually elected from the tenants,) where four acres, reserved for the purpose of paying expenses, are let by inch of candle, and the remainder of the day is spent in that sociability and hearty mirth so congenial to the soul of a Somersetshire yeoman.* 25th, 1755, informed me that Mr. Horne, according to an established custom at Magdalen-college in Oxford, had begun to preach before the university on the day of St. John the baptist. For the preaching of this annual sermon, a permanent pulpit of stone is inserted into a corner of the first quadrangle; and, so long as the stone pulpit was in use, (of which I have been a witness,) the quadrangle was furnished round the sides with a large fence of green boughs, that the preaching might more nearly resemble that of John the baptist in the wilderness; and a pleasant sight it was: but for many years the custom has been discontinued, and the assembly have thought it safer to take shelter under the roof of the chapel." Pulpits. Without descanting at this time on the manifold construction of the pulpit, it may be allowable, perhaps, to observe, that the ambo, or first pulpit, was an elevation consisting of two flights of stairs; on the higher was read the gospel, on the lower the epistle. The pulpit of the present day is that fixture in the church, or place of worship, occupied by the minister while he delivers his sermon. Thus much is observed for the present, in consequence of the mention of the Oxford pulpit; and for the purpose of introducing the representation of a remarkably beautiful structure of this kind, from a fine engraving by Fessard in 1710. This pulpit is larger than the pulpit of the church of England, and the other Protestant pulpits in our own country. It is a pulpit of the Romish church with a bishop preaching to a congregation of high rank. It is customary for a Roman Catholic prelate to have the ensigns of his prelacy displayed in the pulpit, and hence they are so exhibited in Fessard's print. This, however, is by no means so large as other pulpits in Romish churches, which are of increased magnitude for the purpose of congregating the clergy, when their occupations at the altar have ceased, before the eye of the congregation; and hence it is common for many of them to sit robed, by the side of the preacher, during the sermon. An English lady visiting France, who had been mightily impressed by the rites of the Roman Catholic religion, revived there since the restoration of the Bourbons, was induced to attend the Protestant worship, at the chapel of the British ambassador. She says "the splendour of the Romish service, the superb dresses, the chanting, accompanied by beautiful music, the lights, and the other ceremonies, completely overpowered my mind; at last on the Sunday before I left Paris I went to our ambassador's chapel, just to say that I had been. There was none of the pomp I had been so lately delighted with; the prevailing character of the worship was simplicity; the minister who delivered the sermon was only sufficiently elevated to be seen by the auditors; he preached to a silent and attentive congregation, whose senses had not been previously affected; his discourse was earnest, persuasive, and convincing. I began to perceive the difference between appeals to the feelings and to the understanding, and I came home a better Protestant and I hope a better Christian than when I left England." Quarter-day. For the Every-Day Book. This is quarter-day !-what a variety of thought and feeling it calls up in the minds of thousands in this great metropolis. How many changes of abode, voluntary and involuntary, for the better and for the worse, are now destined to take place! There is the charm of novelty at least; and when the mind is disposed to be pleased, as it is when the will leads, it inclines to extract gratification from the anticipation of advantages, rather than to be disturbed by any latent doubts which time may or may not realize. Perhaps the removal is to a house of decidedly superior class to the present; and if this step is the consequence of augmented resources, it is the first indication to the world of the happy circumstance. Here, then, is an additional ground of pleasure, not very heroic indeed, but perfectly natural. Experience may have shown us that mere progression in life is not always connected with progression in happiness; and therefore, though we may smile at the simplicity which connects them in idea, yet our recollection of times past, when we ourselves indulged the delusion, precludes us from expressing feelings that we have acquired by experience. The pleasure, if from a shallow source, is at least a present benefit, and a sort of counterpoise to vexations from imaginary causes. It does not seem agreeable to contemplate retrogression; to behold a familydescending from their wonted sphere, and becoming the inmates of a humbler dwelling; yet, they who have had the resolution, I may almost say the magnanimity, voluntarily to descend, may reasonably be expected again to rise. They have given proof of the possession of one quality indispensabie in such an attempt that mental decision, by which they have achieved a task, difficult, painful, and to many, impracticable. They have shown, too, their ability to form a correct estimate of the value of the world's opinion, so far as it is influenced by external appearances, and boldly disregarding its terrors, have wisely resolved to let go that which could not be much longer held. By this determination, besides rescuing themselves from a variety of perpetually recurring embarrassments and annoyances, they have suppressed half the sneers which the malicious had in store for them, had their decline reached its expected crisis, while they have secured the approbation and kind wishes of all the good and considerate. The consciousness of this consoles them for what is past, contents them with the present, and animates their hopes for the future. Now, let us shift the scene a little, and look at quarter-day under another aspect. On this day some may quit, some may remain; all must pay-that can! Alas, that there should be some unable! I pass over the rich, whether landlord or tenant; the effects of quarter-day to them are sufficiently obvious: they feel little or no sensation on its approach or arrival, and when it is over, they feel no alteration in their accustomed necessaries and luxuries. Not so with the poor man; I mean the man who, in whatever station, feels his growing inability to meet the demands periodically and continually making on him. What a day quarter-day is to him! He sees its approach from a distance, tries to be prepared, counts his expected means of being so, finds them short of even his not very sanguine expectations, counts again, but can make no more of them; and while day after day elapses, sees his little stock diminishing. What shall he do? He perhaps knows his landlord to be inexorable; how then shall he satisfy him? Shall he borrow? Alas, of whom? Where dwell the practicers of this precept -"From him that would borrow of thee turn thou not away?" Most of the professors of the religion which enjoins this precept, construe it differently. What shall he do? something must be soon decided on. He sits down to consider. He looks about his neatly-furnished house or apartments, to see what out of his humble possessions, he can convert into money. The faithful wife of his bosom becomes of his council. There is nothing they have, which they did not purchase for some particular, and as they then thought, necessary purpose; how, then, can they spare any thing? they ruminate; they repeat the names of the various articles, they fix on nothing-there is nothing they can part with. They are about so to decide; but their recollection that external resources are now all dried up, obliges them to resume their task, and resolutely determine to do without something, h. wever painful may be the sacrifice. Could we hear the reasons which persons thus situated assign, why this or that article 843 should by no means be parted with, we em 844 sort, (assistance from without not being means that sighs and tears are produced, where once smiles and tranquillity existed; or, perhaps, that long che rished hopes of surmounting difficulties, have by one blow been utterly desof expedients troyed, that the stock long becoming threadbare, is at last quite worn out, and all past efforts rendered of no avail, though some for a time seemed likely to be available. It means that the hollowness of professed friends has been made manifest; that the busy tongue of detraction has found employment; that malice is rejoicing; envy is at a feast; and that the viands are the afflictions of the desolate. Landlord! ponder on these consequences ere you distrain for rent, and let your heart, rather than the law, be the guide of your conduct. The additional money you may receive by distraining may, indeed, add something to the luxuries of your table, but it can hardly fail to diminish your relish. You may, perhaps, by adopting the harsh proceeding, add down to your pillow, but trust not that your sleep will be tranquil or your dreams pleasant. Above all remember the benediction"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall |