Year's gifts most valued by their British ancestors; which consisted of the mistletoe bough, cut down with a golden knife, and distributed among them by the Druids of their tribes. After-times gave to that wintery parasite of the oak a less mystic signification than that attached to it in the faith of the Celtic nations, to whom it was a pledge of safety and good fortune.

The Carnival was a worthy successor to the Feast of Fools its glory grew, while that of the former declined; but was almost restricted to the south of Europe, and flourished especially in Italy, from whose language its name-signifying Fautall, to flesh-was derived. The custom of masking on that day is said to have been introduced by the Venetians, amongst whom it was always common; and being in many respects suited to the Italian genius and character, it still prevails to a considerable extent in those showy but grotesque celebrations for which the peasant or mechanic of Italy musters up his whole stock of merriment and paras, as the Carnival has been for many centuries the only holiday enjoyed by those classes. The splendours and the license of the Carnival at Venice were standing themes with the old tourists; but they have long since shared the fortunes of its deserted palaces. At Rome, the festival is still observed with all its ancient honours; and in Paris it is kept as a day of more than usual display and freedom, particularly among the lower orders; while in Britain, under the Catholic name Shrovetide-from the Saxon word shrive, to confess-it was distinguished only by a feast of pancakes, prepared of old in both castle and cottage, but now remembered no more except in remote hamlets.

Valentine's Day is said to be the heir of a Roman festival at which the young unmarried were accustomed to draw lots, by way of divination, regarding their future partners, in the temple of Venus. When transferred to the saint whose name it bears, this practice remained associated with the day, according to tradition, because St Valentine was the only one among the fathers of the church who contemned celibacy: its observance is old in Britain, but has undergone various modifications before reaching the present form of postoffice employment. Shakspeare, in the play of ' Hamlet,' introduces a rustic song, from which it appears that about this time, or earlier, the choice of Valentines, then meaning persons only, was shown by visits; and in the reign of Charles II. it was exhibited by presents, especially of gloves. Pepys in his 'Diary' mentions with wonted minuteness half-a-dozen pairs bought for his Valentine.'

The moon has been the governess of many festivals: the apparent growth and wane of that familiar planet, in its revolution round the earth, presents in all climates a species of visible calendar, which they that see may read: it is the simplest method of astronomical computation, and is still in use among the Mohammedan nations, who reckon their year by moons. The Greater and Lesser Bairem are the only festivals countenanced by the Moslem faith; the latter, which is of comparatively little note, is kept sixty days after the former: it begins with the new moon immediately following the Ramagan-a month of fasting from sunrise to sunsetwhich no doubt contributes to the welcome of the feast. In Mohammedan cities this is given with a general burst of illumination, prepared for some hours previously, and loud shouts from all the dervises, the moment the imaun, who has been on the look-out, announces from the minaret that he has descried the first bright edge of the new moon. The Great Bairem continues for three days, and is the special season for present-making in the East; even European residents and ambassadors are expected to remember the pachas and viziers to some purpose. The festival is believed to have existed long before the days of Mohammed, and was probably adopted from the Jews, whose ancient celebrations of the new moon are known to all acquainted with their history. Travellers have remarked

that the only trace of stated festivals observed among the aborigines of Australia was a sort of assembly which they were accustomed to hold on their wide plains, in order to practise the kangaroo dance under the new moon; but their traditional reasons for so doing have never been assigned. The full moon has also its attendant festivals: the Olympic Games, which were celebrated every fourth year, and governed the historical calendar of ancient Greece, four years being reckoned an Olympiad, commenced at the first full moon after the summer solstice with sacrifice and feast, and were attended by the expert of all nations, who contended for prizes in every department of gymnastics, as well as in eloquence, music, and poetry.

Every year, on the fifteenth day of the first moon, the emperor of China repairs in great state to a certain field, accompanied by the princes and the principal officers, prostrates himself, and touches the ground nine times with his head, in honour of Tien the god of heaven. He pronounces a prayer prepared by the Court of Ceremonies, invoking the blessing of the great being on his labour and that of his people; then, as the high-priest of the empire, he sacrifices a bullock to heaven as the fountain of all good. Whilst the victim is offered on the altar, a plough, drawn by a pair of oxen highly ornamented, is brought to the emperor, who throws aside his imperial robes, lays hold of the handle of the plough, and opens several furrows over the whole field. The principal mandarins follow his example. The festival closes with the distribution of money and cloth amongst the peasantry.

Easter, the most generally - observed of Christian festivals, occurs, as decreed by the Council of Nice, on the first Sabbath after the full moon on or after the equinox. It is especially rejoiced in by the Greek Church throughout her wide dominions. At the same season, splendid processions move under the green olives of Jerusalem, and through the deep snows of Moscow; but their Easter is different from that of the West, as the nations of the Greek faith retain what is commonly called Old Style-the calendar as it stood at the Council of Nice in 322-consequently reckon our 1st of April the equinox, and keep the festival accordingly. The said 1st of April, All-fool's Day with our fathers, though scarcely a festival in the ordinary sense, was long and widely distinguished by its peculiar license for practical jokes. The custom can be early traced in France, Germany, and even Hungary; but its origin remains in more than rustic obscurity.

May-Day, though essentially rural in its character, is a festival whose very memory is bound up with pleasant and graceful associations. It was probably a natural tribute to the general joy and beauty of the season, and early practised among the Greeks, the Celtic nations, and the Saxons, by whom it was bequeathed to the rustic hamlets of England, lingering among them almost till our own railway times. It has been referred to by every poet from Chaucer to Tennyson, whose May Queen' is at least the most popular of his poems. Cervantes mentions it in his day as one of the rural feasts of Spain; and the celebration of MayDay with garlands, queen, and morris dances, was considered one of the grandest affairs of London in the fifteenth century.

Beltane E'en, the Vigil of St John, or Midsummer Eve-for by all these names it has been known-is now scarcely recognised except in the remote districts of Ireland, where fires may be seen kindling from hill to hill as the sun goes down, and round them groups of the younger peasantry, gathered to dance, sing, and chat, till the long twilight of that season fades into the dewy night. The festival is old among the remnants of the Celtic race, and has been observed in the Highlands of Scotland, in Wales, and in Brittany. Some say it was derived from the Guebre faith or fire-worship, introduced into Ireland by the builders of those round towers that have been such a puzzle to antiquaries. Certain it is that traces of it are found throughout

Asia: the well-known Chinese Feast of Lanterns is supposed to have a similar origin; and on the steppes of European Russia it is practised exactly as on the hills of Ireland. The affinity of human beliefs and fashions might be almost proved from festivals; but among those of summer days, there is one peculiar to North-western India and the adjoining Persian provinces, extolled by all the poets of Asia as the Feast of Roses. It occurred when that queen of flowers-for the cultivation and abundance of which those regions have always been remarkable-was in its fullest bloom, and flourished most under the early Mohammedan sovereigns, who were accustomed to leave the cities with their whole court and harem for some chosen spot, where they might enjoy its sports in rustic ease-the burden of Eastern etiquette being cast aside for the time. Moore gives a glowing description of this feast in his Lalla Rookh.' But on the principle that mankind naturally rejoice over their profits, it evidently originated from the fact, that the rose has for several ages furnished the chief articles of commerce to those provinces, in the form of a variety of perfumes, including the famous attar and rose-water, both indispensable to an Asiatic toilet.

but the peasants of Russia and France, though so far apart, concurred in appropriating a kind of individual festival from that literal calendar: the French called it their 'Fête,' and the Russians their Names-Day,' being, in fact, the day of the saint whose name a person happened to bear, which was therefore celebrated by his or her friends after the fashion of their respective countries. Parties were made in France, and presents in Russia; but the custom is still retained in the dominions of the czar, and servants particularly never permit their names-day to pass without the knowledge of both master and mistress.

The utility of festivals to nations and society in general is a question of considerable controversy: the opposing arguments are founded chiefly on the interruptions they occasion in public business, the facilities they afford for improvidence and idleness, and the abuses by which they have been too frequently disgraced among the working-classes, to the injury of both their means and morals. There is sad truth in this last objection; but, on the other hand, it is contended that the institution of festivals is natural to humanity, and one of the distinguishing traits of our species; that they serve great moral purposes, in reviving the pious or elevating recollections connected with those events which they generally commemorate, and apt to be forgotten in the dusty bustle of business, or the dull routine of mechanical employment. It is also maintained that they contribute to the cultivation of the social virtues, and refresh, with needful relaxation and amusement, the toil-worn lives of the labouring population, which without them would be all work, and no

The last day of October, our Scottish Halloween, and the Saxon Allhallows, though now fallen into nearly total neglect, was one of the most noticeable and peculiar of all our popular festivals; the celebration of the feast only at night, surrounded by a perfect network of legendary beliefs and tales, which Burns has so graphically sketched for the amusement, or perhaps instruction, of less credulous generations, mark it with strange characters of mingled mirth and fear. It may be observed that something of the latter has been attached to the eve of almost every festival in the popular belief of different countries. To the German peasant, St Mark's Eve, which occurs at the opposite season, was notable for the same degree of activity among the spiritual powers characteristic of our Halloween; and in the western provinces of France, Christmas Eve was invested with a still more extraordinary terror, as on that night the domestic animals, especially cattle, were believed to be endowed with the power of speech; but their conversation was fatal to all the human family, for those who heard it invariably died soon after. These remnants of what in old English phrase is called 'Fochlore,' illustrate the times to which they belong no less than the specimens of quaint carving and rude utensils exhibited in our museums. Both represent a state of things which has been, and enlarge our knowledge of the past with all its lessons.

The festivals of Christendom were mostly instituted for religious purposes, from which, however, the greater part were soon alienated; and in the progress of the dark ages they increased to such a degree, that at one period Europe had not a single common or working-day throughout the entire year, all being dedicated to one commemoration or another. In short, to quote from a modern poet, They had weeks of Sundays, a saint's day every day;' but as a matter of necessity, the majority remained unobserved, for to the great mass of mankind life can never be a succession of holidays;

privileges and arrangements are liable to abuses, and those to which they have been subjected, are no arguments against festivals.

CURIOSITIES OF MENDICANCY.

IN the Journal of the Statistical Society' there are some curious particulars given of the progress of mendicancy in London. During the past twenty years, English mendicancy, as shown in the applications to the Mendicity Society, has scarcely varied at all in the average. The principal increase was in the severe winters of 1832-3 and 1837-8; and a corresponding decrease occurred in the mild winter of 1842-3. This accounts naturally for the variation, and shows that there is neither a moral nor economical deterioration going on among the people.

Irish mendicancy, on the other hand, has increased in London so enormously, that there are about eleven Irish relieved for one English! It is stated that the food-tickets of the Mendicity Society were probably one of the causes of this influx of mendicants. It is supposed that the low lodging-house keepers contrived to obtain a supply of the tickets, and offered them as bonuses to their customers. The news would immediately fly throughout the country, and induce thousands of tramps to pay the metropolis a visit. The rapidity of communication among persons of this class is illustrated by a very remarkable fact: two days before the closing of the Society's office, on the death of the assistant manager in 1848, there were 697 cases, and on the following day not one applicant appeared! A system of communication, therefore, must exist among the London mendicants about equal in effect and rapidity to that of the telegraph. In the course of a single day the whole vast body were informed that it would be a waste of time to present themselves in Red Lion Square on the following morning.

The alteration in the poor-law in the years 1837-9 is described as another cause of the evil, so far as London is concerned. Before that period it was the custom of the metropolitan parishes to refuse relief to all but those who had a settlement in the parish; but since then, a wandering mendicant has as good a right to relief as a resident. The remedy suggested is the discontinuance

of all establishments which provide food or lodging for mendicants without inquiry or the labour test; and to open in their stead district receiving-houses under the superintendence of the police, where, in return for the labour of the applicants, they might be supplied for a limited time both with bed and board. Such places would accommodate the really deserving labourer moving in quest of work; and they would be carefully shunned by the tramps, whom they would bring under the power of the Vagrant Act.

But eleven Irish beggars in London for one English -with an enormous majority on the same side in the amount of crime, as is shown by the reports from the great provincial towns! This is the startling curiosity in the affair; and taken in conjunction with the large sums mentioned from time to time as being remitted to Ireland, the produce of work, theft, and beggary, it points to a state of things without a parallel in history.

MISFORTUNES OF MR NIBBS.

THE other day, on glancing over a newspaper, the following paragraph, descriptive of proceedings in the Court of Bankruptcy, met our eye. The name of the party only is altered:

'Mr Commissioner sat, but the cases disposed of were of no public interest. Augustus Nibbs, who was director of a society called the

Coal Company, came up on the question of certificate. Mr Nibbs, an elderly gentleman, had retired from trade on a handsome independence, and was unfortunately induced to become a member of this bubble company. Being the only solvent man in the concern, he was sued for the debts of the company, and ruined. His honour expressed his surprise at the credulity with which Mr Nibbs had suffered himself to be gulled by sharpers, but at the same time expressed his concern at the condition to which he was reduced.-Certificate granted.'

We think the reporter for the press was scarcely justified in saying that the above case had no public interest. To our mind it is full of meaning and instruction. We have never, in so few words, read a more affecting case of individual ruin—hopes destroyed, confidence abused by the blackest roguery. We offer a tribute of compassion to Mr Nibbs, although we know nothing of him beyond what the reporter has given of his sad history. Ignorant of actual particulars, we can nevertheless easily fancy a biography for the unfortunate gentleman. Every line in the paragraph aids the imagination.

Mr Augustus Nibbs is an elderly person retired from business. By a long course of diligence in his profession, he had realised a competent fortune, and had retired to a neat villa at Hampstead, Norwood, or some other pleasant suburban retreat. In this delightful seclusion, within an omnibus distance of town, and an arrangement by which he might read the morning paper daily,' Mr Nibbs had every reason to look forward to a few years of tranquil enjoyment, along with the aged partner of his fortunes. There is a slight difficulty as to whether Mr Nibbs had any family. We rather believe he had an only daughter, who was grown up, and married, and therefore, as he supposed, off his hands. But the marriage of Eliza, as we shall call the daughter, had not turned out happily, so far as worldly prosperity is concerned. Her husband had not been successful in business, and shortly after the retirement of the father, his son-in-law stood very much in want of a situation. Let us here moralise for a moment.

The putting of sons, sons-in-law, or brothers into business, or giving them a share of your own concern, is often a very perilous thing. You mean well, no doubt. Your heart glows with delight at the notion of giving James, Thomas, or whatever his name is, a chance of getting forward in the world. And all very right, if the said young personage is really deserving and competent to the undertaking-if he possess that degree

of skill, steadiness, and self-denial which will enable him to do battle in the great struggle in which society is engaged. If you be not perfectly sure on these points, don't make the risk. Let James feel by experience that he must be self-reliant. And if reasonable help and advice fail, far rather put James on an aliment for life than send him into business. Give him L.100 a year to do nothing. It will be the cheapest way in the end. Fathers-in-law are not always Solomons. Mr Nibbs was anxious to see his son-in-law employed; and his son-in-law seconded the intention. Just at this juncture there appeared an advertisement in the Times' announcing the formation of a joint-stock company for supplying London with coal on surprisingly profitable terms to the subscribers, and vast benefit to the public. Nibbs was taken with the idea. His money was little better than rotting in the 3 per cents. Here was an opportunity for making an investment; and besides, if he took a hand in the thing, it might be the means of getting a good situation for Tom, that unfortunate son-in-law of his. Here we again take the liberty of moralising a little.

One with another, at least three-fourths of all the joint-stock companies projected rest on false or delusive statements. Decent people, who have retired for life to their easy-chairs, are not blessed with a thorough perception of this fact. There they sit reposingly at one side of the parlour fire, their wife on the other. There is a pleasant warmth from the grate. A favourite little dog lies stretched out confidingly on the rug, a picture of animal ease and enjoyment. No sound is heard but the cheerful piping of a canary, which is hung up to bask in the sun's rays at the kitchen window. Employment-old man reading the paper; missus' at darning or crotchet. Now who would have the soul to break up this scene; shift the accessories; turn out the old gentleman from his well-earned chimney-corner; break the heart of the wife; send the little dog adrift to be the sport of butchers' boys; and kill the canary? Trust us, there are such upbreaks. The law is an unrelenting monster; and those may think themselves well off who do not come under its talons.

Not to wander too far from the point: the worthy beings whom we talk of commit a serious indiscretion when they have anything to do with joint-stock companies. To understand these concerns, you require to go about and hear all the gossip respecting them-who has got them up? whether the names appended to prospectuses are real or sham? what, soberly speaking, are the prospects of success? Not being assured on these points, let the schemes, however fair-looking in print, pass unheeded. By no means attend any preliminary meeting. If you do, you will get yourself in some way or other committed. Should you be afflicted with a benevolent tendency, be only still more on your guard. Let all projects involving money-risks be examined on rigorous commercial principles. It may sound harshly to say this; but who thanks Mr Nibbs for having ruined not only himself, but his wife, his dog, and his canary, all to help on a concern which he had some notion would benefit his son-in-law?

Unfortunate Nibbs! It was a bad business your ever going near that preliminary committee meeting of the Coal Association. Why did you ever take the chair, and feel flattered at seeing your name down as a director? That polite gentleman in the satin waistcoat and rings, who acted as secretary, was a regular sharper. The whole thing was a schenie concocted to cause decent people like yourself to lose their money.

And had not Mrs Nibbs always her suspicions? Do not you remember her saying to you one day, when you were taking your hat to go out, 'Really, my dear, I wish you would have nothing to do with them joint-stock concerns? What business have you to run such risks? Are not we quite comfortable as we are? Any more money would do us no sort of good; we could not eat, drink, or sleep better if we had the whole Bank of England. Twelve and a