ho,' Reynard is rarely seen, till he is run-in upon-once, perhaps, in the whole run, skirting a wood or crossing a common. It is an idea that is pursued in a whirlwind of horses, to a storm of canine music, worthy, both of the largest lion that ever leaped among a band of Moors, sleeping at midnight by an extinguished fire on the African sands. There is, we verily believe it, nothing foxy in the fancy of one man in all that glorious field of three hundred. Once off and away, while wood and welkin ring, and nothing is felt, nothing is imagined in that hurricane flight, but scorn of all obstructions, dikes, ditches, drains, brooks, palings, canals, rivers, and all the impediments reared in the way of so many rejoicing madmen, by nature, art and science in an inclosed, cultivated, civilised, and Christian country. There they go, prince and peer, baronet and squire the nobility and gentry of England, the flowers of the men of the earth, each on such a steed as Pollux never reined, nor Philip's warlike son-for could we imagine Bucephalus here, ridden by his own tamer, Alexander would be thrown out during the very first burst, and glad to find his way dismounted to a village alehouse for a pail of meal and water. Hedges, trees, groves, gardens, orchards, woods, farm-houses, huts, halls, mansions, palaces, spires, steeples, towers, and temples, all go wavering by, each demigod seeing, or seeing them not, as his winged steed skims or labours along, to the swelling or sinking music, now loud as a regimental band, now faint as an echo. Far and wide over the country are dispersed the scarlet runners; and a hundred villages pour forth their admiring swarms, as the main current of the chace roars by, or disparted rivulets float wearied and all astray, lost at last in the perplexing woods. Crash goes the top timber of the fivebar gate-away over the ears flies the ex-rough-rider in a surprising somerset; after a succession of stumbles, down is the gallant grey on knees and nose, making sad work among the fallows. Friendship is a fine thing, and the story of Damon and Pythias most affecting indeed-but Pylades eyes Orestes on his back, sorely drowned in sludge, and tenderly leaping over him as he lies, claps his hand to his ear, and with a Hark forward; tantivy!' leaves him to remount, lame and at leisure; and ere the fallen has

risen and shaken himself, is round the corner of the white village church, down the dell, over the brook, close on the heels of the striving pack, all a yell, up the hill crowned by the Squire's Folly.

"Every man for himself, and God for us all!' is the devout and ruling apothegm of the day. If death befal, what wonder? since man and horse are mortal; but death loves better a wide, soft bed, with quiet curtains and darkened windows in a still room, the clergyman in one corner with his prayers, and the physician in another with his pills, making assurance doubly sure, and preventing all possibility of the dying Christian's escape. Let oak branch smite the too slowly stooping skull, or rider's back not timely levelled with his steed's; let faithless bank give way,

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and bury in the brook; let hidden drain yield to forefeet and work a sudden wreck; let old coal-pit, with briery mouth betray; and roaring river bear down man and horse to cliffs unscalable by the very Welsh goat; let duke's or earl's son go sheer over a quarry twenty feet deep and as many high, yet without stop or stay down the rocky way,' the hunter train flows on; for the music goes fiercer and more savage-lo! all that remains together of the pack, in far more dreadful madness than hydrophobia, leaping out of their skins, under insanity from the scent, for Kelpies can hardly now make a crawl of it; and ere he, they, whipperin, or any one of the other three demoniacs, have time to look in one another's splashed faces, he is torn into a thousand pieces, gobbled up in the general growl, and, snug and smooth, and dry and warm, and cozy as he was an hour and twenty-five minutes ago exactly, in his furze bush in the cover, he is now piecemeal in about thirty distinct stomachs; and is he not, pray, well off for sepulture!"

THE SLEEP OF THE YEAR.

Now frolicsome, fruit-bearing Nature is dull-
'Tis the sleep of the year, for its garners are full :
When if for a moment we linger or roam,
The fields are forlorn, and we hie away home.
The hearty old farmer now fills up his can,
And seizes his pipe, fire-side comfort his plan:
His tastes never costly, yet unto him dear,
He lives at his ease in the sleep of the year.

His fields, deeply ploughed, are prepared for the frost,
That all things may serve him, and nothing be lost;
Well drained and well furrowed, he's quite at his ease,
And rains may fall heavy, or not, as they please:
His cattle look well, deeply buried in straw,
Well housed and well fed, now the weather is raw :
His barns all brimfull, his stack-yard, too, near,
A solid affair in the sleep of the year!

His farm is his garden, you see 'tis his pride,
For neatness, for produce, known both far and wide:
And of sheep, and of cattle, well bred, he can speak ;
And see but his horses-how strong and how sleek!
His face and his fire well each other beseem,
Whilst he breathes out the smoke in a leisurely stream.
You see what he thinks of his face makes it clear-
His harvest is made-'tis the sleep of the year!

The Peer, or the Statesman-what cares he for them?
Or Prince in his palace for root or for stem?
His farm is his kingdom-he knows all is right;
He hears the flail going from morning to night.
His neighbours drop in, just to chat and to smoke;
To feel he is happy, and laugh at his joke;
His home is his palace-he's nothing to fear-
But sinks to sweet sleep in the sleep of the year.
RICHARD HOWITT.

ANTIQUARIAN NOTICES.*

October is from the Latin without any change, and is thus designated as having been the eighth month from March.

By our Saxon ancestors it was called Wynmonat, i.e. Wine-month; and Winterfulleth, or Winterfyllith. ALLHALLOW'S EVE; HALLOW EVEN; HALLOWEEN ; HOLY EVE; NUTCRACK NIGHT.-October 31st. This Eve is so called from being the vigil of All Saints' Day, and is the season for a variety of superstitions and other customs. In the north of England many of these are still found to linger. One of the most common is that of diving for apples; or of catching at them with the mouth only, the hands being tied behind, and the apples suspended on one end of a long transverse beam, at the other extremity of which is fixed a lighted candle. The fruit and nuts form the most prominent parts of the evening feast, and from this

* From "Soane's Book of the Months." 2 vols. London: H. G. Bohn, 1849.

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circumstance the night has obtained one of its names, namely Nutcrack Night. Nuts also were employed as one, and perhaps the oldest of the many modes of divination practised at this season, for Hutchinson is quite correct when he says of this eve, that "it seems to retain the celebration of a festival to Pomona, when it is supposed the summer stores are opened on the approach of winter. Divinations and consulting of omens attended all these ceremonies in the practice of the heathen. Hence in the rural

sacrifice of nuts, if the nuts lie still and burn together, it prognosticates a happy marriage or a hopeful love; if, on the contrary, they bounce and fly asunder, the sign is unpropitious." Here, again, as in so many instances, the custom may be traced back from an unmeaning frolic to a popish superstition, and from that to a classic rite. "Nuts have a religious import," says the Romish calendar; and going yet farther back, we find that this is but an echo from the times of paganism. Amongst the Romans it was a custom for the bridegroom to throw nuts about the room that the boys might scramble for them, thereby as some will have it, intimating that the new husband meant henceforth to lay aside the sports of boyhood.

In Scotland they" set up bon-fires in every village. When the bon-fire is consumed, the ashes are carefully collected into the form of a circle. There is a stone put in near the circumference for every person of the several families interested in the bon-fire; and whatever stone is moved out of its place, or injured before the next morning, the person represented by the stone is devoted, or fey, and is supposed not to live twelve months from that day. The people received the consecrated fire from the Druid priests, which was supposed to continue for a year."

We have similar traces of this fire-worship in North Wales, where it is the custom on Allhallow Even to kindle a large fire, under the name of Coel Coeth, in the most conspicuous place each house, and keep it up in the night for about an hour. When the fire is almost extinguished every one flings into the ashes a white stone, which he has previously marked, and, having said their prayers as they pace around the embers, they all go to bed. The first thing in the morning they search for the stones, it being