that I would willingly have refrained altogether from foreing upon his attention this hateful subject especially amid such scenes and objects as we have just been contemplating: but I was afraid that my silence might have seemed to give consent to it.deniyia mang 3200 T T We must now transport ourselves to the environs of London, and see what this happy season is producing there for to leave the very heart of the country, and cast ourselves at once into the very heart of the town, would be likely to put us into a temper not suited to the time. Now, on Palm Sunday, boys and girls (youths and maidens have now-a-days got above so childish a practice,) may be met early in the morning, in blithe, but breakfastless companies, sallying forth towards the pretty outlets about Hampstead and Highgate, on the one side the water, and Camberwell and Clapham on the other all of which they innocently imagine to be "the country"-there to sport away the pleasant hours till dinner-time, and then return home with joy in their hearts, endless appetites in their stomachs, and bunches of the sallow willow with its silken bloom-buds in their hands, as trophies of their travels. Now, at last, the Easter week is arrived, and the poor have for once in the year the best of it-setting all things, but their own sovereign will, at a wise defiance. The journeyman who works on Easter Monday, even though he were a tailor itself, should lose his caste, and be sent to the Coventry of mechanics-wherever that may be. In fact, it cannot happen. On Easter Monday ranks change places Jobson is as good as Sir John-the "rude mechanical" is "monarch of all he surveys" from the summit of Greenwich-hill--and when he thinks fit to say "It is our royal pleasure to be drunk!" who shall dispute the proposition? Not I, for one. When our English mechanics accuse their betters of oppressing them, the said betters should r reverse the old appeal, and refer from Philip sober to Philip drunk; and then nothing more could be said. But Now, they have no betters, even in their own notion of the matter. And, in the name of all that is transitory, envy them not their brief supremacy! It will be over before the end of the week, and they will be as eager to return to their labour as they now are to escape from it: for the only thing that an Englishman, whether high or low, cannot endure patiently for a week together, is, unmingled amusement. At this time, however, he is determined to try. Accordingly, on Easter Monday all the narrow lanes and blind alleys of our metropolis pour forth their dingy denizens into the suburban fields and villages, in search of the said amusement--which is plentifully provided for them by another class, even less enviable than the one on whose patronage they depend:-for of all callings, the most melancholy is that of purveyor of pleasure to the poor. During the Monday our determined holiday-maker, as in duty bound, contrives, by the aid of a little or not a little artificial stimulus, to be happy in a tolerably exemplary manner. On the Tuesday, he fancies himself happy today, because he felt himself so yesterday. On the Wednesday he cannot tell what has come to him-but every ten minutes he wishes himself at home where he never goes but to sleep. On Thursday he finds out the secret that he is heartily sick of doing nothing, but is ashamed to confess it: and then what is the use of going to work before his money is spent? On Friday he swears that he is a fool for throwing away the greater part of his quarter's savings without having any thing to show for it-and gets gloriously drunk with the rest, to prove his words: passing the pleasantest night of all the week in a watch-house. And on Saturday, after thanking "his worship" for his good advice, of which he does not remember, a word, he comes to the wise determination that, after all, there is nothing like working all day long in silence, and at night spending his earnings and his breath in beer and politics! So much for the Easter week of a London holiday maker. But there is a sport belonging to Easter Monday, which is not confined to the lower classes, and which, fun forbid that I should pass over silently. If the reader has not, during his boyhood, performed the exploit of riding to the turn-out of the stag on Epping Forest;-following the hounds all day long,--at a respectful distance;-returning home in the evening with the loss of nothing but his hat, his hunting whip, and his horse-not to mention a portion of his nether person;-and finishing the day by joining the Lady Mayoress's ball at the Mansion-house ;if the reader has not done all this when a boy, I will not tantalize him by expatiating on the superiority of those who have. And if he has done it, I need not tell him that he has no cause to envy his friend who escaped with a flesh-wound from the fight of Waterloo-for there is not a pin to choose between them! I have little to tell the reader in regard to London exclusively, this month which is lucky, because I have left myself less than no space at all to tell it in. I must mention, however, that now is heard in her streets, the prettiest of all the cries which are peculiar to them "Come buy my primroses!"--and but for which, the Londoners would have no idea that Spring was at hand. Now, spoiled children make "fools" of their mamas and papas;-which is but fair, seeing that the said mamas and papas return the compliment during all the rest of the year.--Now, not even a sceptical apprentice but is religiously persuaded of the merits of Good-Friday, and the propriety of its being so called--since it procures him two Sundays in the week instead of one. Finally,--Now, exhibitions of paintings court the public attention, and obtain it, in every quarter;-on the principle, I suppose, that the eye has, at this season of the year, a natural hungering and thirsting after the colours of the Spring leaves and flowers, and rather than not meet with them at all, it is content to find them on painted canvass ! THE RITTER BANN. A BALLAD. BY T. CAMPBELL. THE Ritter Bann from Hungary While other knights held revels, he And in Vienna's hostelrie Slow paced his lonely room. But seeing with him an ancient dame "Ha! nurse of her that was my bane, I wish it blotted from my brain: "Sir Knight," the abbot interposed, "This case your ear demands;" And the crone cried, with a cross enclosed "Remember, each his sentence waits; Sweet Mercy's suit, on him the gates You wedded undispensed by Church, Her house denounced your marriage-band, And the ring you put upon her hand Then wept your Jane upon my neck, To my Howel Bann's Glamorgan hills;' You were not there; and 'twas their threat, To-morrow morning was to set I had a son, a sea-boy in She wrote you by my son, but he' To die but at your feet, she vow'd' Would both have sped and begg'd our bread, For when the snow-storm beat our roof, Who grew as fair your likeness proof 'Twas smiling on that babe one morn She shunn'd him, but he raved of Jane, Her anger sore dismay'd us, For our mite was wearing scant, So I told her, weeping bitterly, And she housed us both, when, cheerfully, My child to her had sworn, That even if made a widow, she Would never wed Kinghorn.” Here paused the nurse, and then began "Three months ago a wounded man He heard me long, with ghastly eyes At last by what this scroll attests For years of anguish to the breasts The treachery took she waited wild; I felt her tears for years and years Fame told us of his glory, while Aud whilst she bless'd his name, her smile No fears could damp; I reach'd the camp, And if my broad-sword fail'd at last, 'Twas long and well laid on. This wound's my meed, my name's Kinghorn, My foe's the Ritter Bann.' The wafer to his lips was borne, And we shrived the dying man. He died not till you went to fight The Turks at Warradein; But I see my tale has changed you pale."- And brought a little page who pour'd It out, and knelt and smiled :— The stunn'd knight saw himself restored To childhood in his child. And stoop'd and caught him to his breast, Laugh'd loud and wept anon, And with a shower of kisses press'd The darling little one. "And where went Jane ?"" To a nunnery, Sir Look not again so pale Kinghorn's old dame grew harsh to her."— "And has she ta'en the veil ?" "Sit down, Sir," said the priest, "I bar Rash words."-They sat all three, And the boy play'd with the knight's broad star, As he kept him on his knee. "Think ere you ask her dwelling-place," The abbot further said; "Time draws a veil o'er beauty's face More deep than cloister's shade. Grief may have made her what you can The priest undid two doors that hid Tears bathed her beauty's bloom. ! |