NEW YEAR'S DAY IN MANY LANDS.

children are allowed to sit up, in order to see the new year come in. The evening is spent in social enjoyment. At the family altar the voice of thanksgiving is heard for the mercies of the past year, with prayer for God's blessing for the new year. When the watchman on the church-tower sounds his horn, according to German custom, to proclaim midnight, all wish each other a happy new year, and go to bed.

One New Year's Day passed on the gold fields of Victoria I shall never forget. On the 31st of December I walked about twentyseven miles through the rain and mud to spend the next day with an old shipmate I had once sailed with in the whale fishery. About nine o'clock that night I reached the bank of Campbell's Creek, which at that time of the year should have been nothing but a chain of water-holes. The heavy rain during the day had fed the bed of the stream until it was a broad and rapid current which I could not safely undertake to cross. I was within half a mile of my journey's end. On the valley across the stream were lights gleaming from restaurants and other places of refreshment, and an old friend was waiting anxiously to meet me; but I was on the wrong side of the river, on a high rocky plain-a "Bay of Biscay," where no one was living-and there I had to remain all that night and until the next day in the afternoon, when at the risk of my life, by being carried down the stream more than a quarter of a mile, I reached the other side by swimming.

To these personal recollections of New Year's Day in many lands, we append some of the curious lore collected by Mr. Hone in his "Every-Day Book," prefacing the extract with a few sentences from one of Charles Lamb's genial essays:

"Every man hath two birthdays: two days, at least in every year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his mortal duration. The one is that which in an especial manner he termeth his. In the gradual desuetude of old observances, this custom of solemnising our proper birthday hath nearly passed away, or is left to children, who reflect nothing at all about the matter, nor understand anything beyond the cake and orange. But the birth of a new year is of an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or cobbler. No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam."

"Ringing out the Old and ringing in the New Year, with A merry New Year! a happy New Year to you!' on New Year's Day,

were greetings that moved sceptred pride, and humble labour, to smiles and kind feelings in former times; and why should they be unfashionable in our own?

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"Dr. Drake observes, in Shakspeare and his Times,' that the ushering in of the New Year, or New Year's tide, with rejoicings, presents, and good wishes, was a custom observed, during the sixteenth century, with great regularity and parade, and was as cordially celebrated in the court of the prince as in the cottage of the peasant. "The Rev. T. D. Fosbroke, in his valuable Encyclopædia of Antiquities,' adduces various, authorities to show that congratulations, presents, and visits were made by the Romans on this day. The origin, he says, is ascribed to Romulus and Tatius, and that the usual presents were figs and dates, covered with leaf-gold, and sent by clients to patrons, accompanied with a piece of money, which was expended to purchase the statues of deities. He mentions an amphora (a jar) which still exists, with an inscription denoting that it was a New Year's present from the potters to their patroness. He also instances from Count Caylus a piece of Roman pottery, with an inscription wishing a happy New Year to you;' another, where a person wishes it to himself and his son; and three medallions with the laurel leaf, fig, and date; one, of Commodus; another, of Victory; and a third, Janus standing in a temple, with an inscription, wishing a happy New Year to the emperor. New Year's gifts were continued under the Roman emperors until they were prohibited by Claudius. Yet in the early ages of the Church the Christian emperors received them; nor did they wholly cease, although condemned by ecclesiastical councils on account of the pagan ceremonies at their presentation.

"The late Rev. John Brand, in his 'Popular Antiquities,' edited by Mr. Ellis, observes from Bishop Stillingfleet, that among the Saxons of the North, the festival of the New Year was observed with more than ordinary jollity and feasting, and by sending New Year's gifts to one another. Mr. Fosbroke notices the continuation. of the Roman practice during the middle ages; and that our kings, and the nobility especially, interchanged presents. Mr. Ellis quotes Matthew Paris, who appears to show that Henry the Third extorted New Year's gifts; and he cites from a MS. of the public revenue, anno 5, Edward the Sixth, an entry of 'rewards given on New Year's Day to the king's officers and servants in ordinary, 155 5s., and to their servants that present the king's majestie with New Year's gifts.' An orange stuck with cloves seems, by reference to Mr. Fosbroke and our early