that on silver; hence the demolition of those beautiful edifices that once adorned Cheapside, and other remarkable sites in ancient times. The sleek rogue read his Bible' upside down, and hated his neighbour: his piety was pelf; his afterwards the Saxon kings frequently erected crosses previously to a battle, at which public prayers were offered up for victory. After the Norman conquest crosses became common, and were erected in market-places, to induce honesty by the sanction of religion: in churchyards, to inspire devout and pious feelings; in streets, for the deposit of a corpse when borne to its last home; and for various other purposes. Here the beggar stationed himself, and asked alms in the name of HIM who suffered on the cross. They were used for landmarks, that men might learn to respect and hold sacred the boundaries of another's property. Du Cange says that crosses were erected in the 14th Richard II. as landmarks to define the boundaries between Kesteven and Holland. They were placed on public roads as a check to thieves, and to regulate processions. At the Reformation (?!!) most of the crosses throughout the kingdom were destroyed, when the sweeping injunction of Bishop Horne was formally promulgated at his Visitation in 1571, that all images of the Trinity in glass windows, or other places of the church, be put out and extinguished, together with the stone cross in the churchyard! We devoutly hope, as Dr. Johnson hoped of John Knox, that Bishop Horne was buried in a cross-road. "They like none but sanctified and shuttle-headed weavers, long-winded boxmakers, and thorough-stiching cobblers, thumping felt-makers, jerking coachmen, and round-headed button-makers, which spoyle Bibles while they thumb over the leaves with their greasie fingers, and sit by the fireside scumming their porridge-pot, while their zeal seethes over in applications and interpretations of Scripture delivered to their godliness gluttony. His grace' was as long as his face. The gnat, like Macbeth's "Amen," stuck in his throat; but the camel slid down merrily. What a weary, working-day world would this have been under his unhospitable dominion!2 How unlovely and lachrymose! how sectarian and sinister! A bumper of bitters, to be swallowed with a rising gorge, and a wry face! All literature would have resolved itself into " The ignorant wives and handmaids, with the name and title of deare brethren and especially beloved sisters."-The doleful Lamentation of Cheapside Crosse, or Old England sick of the Staggers, 1641. 1 One Lady D'Arcy, a well-jointured, puritanical widow, having invited the next heir in the entail to dine with her, asked him to say grace. The young gentleman, thinking that her ladyship had lived quite long enough, expressed his wishes thus graciously :— "Good Lord of thy mercy, Take my good Lady D'Arcy Unto her heavenly throne; That I, little Frank, May sit in my rank, And keep a good house of my own!" 2 John Knox proclaimed the mild sentence, which was loudly re-echoed by his disciples, that the idolator should die the death, in plain English (or rather, God be thanked! in plain Scotch) that every Catholic should be hanged. The bare toleration of prelacy—of the Protestant prelacy !— was the guilt of soul-murder. These were the merciful Christians! the sainted martyrs! who conducted the inquisitorial tyranny of the high commission, and imposed the test of that piece of impious buffoonery, the "Holy League and Covenant!!" who plain Pathway to Penuriousness;" Peachum's "Worth of a Penny, or a caution to keep Money; and the "Key to unknowne Knowledge, or a Shop of Five Windows," "Which if you do open, to cheapen and copen, You will be unwilling, for many a shilling, To part with the profit that you shall have of it;" and the drama, which, whether considered as a school of eloquence or a popular entertainment, is entitled to national regard, would have been proscribed, because-having neither soul for sentiment, eye for beauty, nor ear for poetry, it was his pleasure to be displeased. His humanity may be summed up in one short sentence, "I will take care, my dear brother, you shall not keep your bed in sickness, for I will take it from under you." There are two reasons why we don't trust a man-one, because we don't know him, and the other because we do. Such a man would have shouted " Hosannah!" when the Saviour entered Jerusalem in triumph; and cried "Crucify him!" when he went up the mountain to die. visited the west of Scotland with the free quarters of the military, and triumphed so brutally over the unfortunate, patriotic and gallant Montrose. The Scotch Presbyterians enacted that each episcopalian was liable to transportation who should baptize a child, or officiate as a clergyman to more than four persons, besides the members of his own family! Seeing how little party spirit, religious controversy, and money-grubbing have contributed to the general stock of human happiness—that pre-eminence in knowledge is Only to know how little can be known, To see all others' faults, and feel our own," we cry, with St. Patrick's dean, “ Vive la bagatelle!" Democritus lived to an hundred. Death shook, not his dart, but his sides, at the laughing philosopher, and "delay'd to strike" till his lungs had crowed their second jubilee: while Heraclitus was Charon's passenger at threescore. But the night wanes apace; to-morrow we must rise with the lark. Fill we a cup to Mercury, à bon repos ! A bumper at parting! a bumper so bright, Though the clock points to morning, by way of good night! Time, scandal, and cards, are for tea-drinking souls! Our skins full of wine, and our hearts full of glee ! Not buxom Dame Nature, a provident lass! Abhors more a vacuum, than Bacchus's glass, Where blue-devils drown, and where merry thoughts swim As deep as a Quaker, as broad as his brim! Like rosy fat friars, again and again Our beads we have told, boys!-in sparkling champagne ! Our gravity's centre is good vin de grave, ! If truth in a well lie,-ah! truth, well-a-day! When Venus is crusty, and Mars in a miff, |