the sovereigns of England may be traced back to the time of Henry VI. In Rymer's Fadera, vol. x. p. 387, a list is given of gifts received by the king between Christmas Day and February 4, 1428, consisting of sums of 40s., 20s., 13s. 4d., 10s., 6s. 8d., and 3s. 4d.

A manuscript roll of the public revenue of the fifth year of Edward VI. has an entry of rewards given on New-Year's Day to the king's officers and servants, amounting to £155, 5s., and also of sums given to the servants of those who presented New-Year's gifts to the king.

A similar roll has been preserved of the reign of Philip and Mary. The Lord Cardinal Pole gave a saulte,' with a cover of silver and gilt, having a stone therein much enamelled of the story of Job; and received a pair of gilt silver pots, weighing 143 ounces. The queen's sister, the Lady Elizabeth, gave the fore part of a kyrtell, with a pair of sleeves of cloth of silver, richly embroidered over with Venice silver, and rayed with silver and black silk; and received three gilt silver bowls, weighing 132 ounces. Other gifts were-a sacrament cloth; a cup of crystal; a lute in a case, covered with black silk and gold, with two little round tables, the one of the phisnamy of the emperor and the king's majesty, the other of the king of Bohemia and his wife. Other gifts consisted of hosen of Garnsey-making, fruits, sugar-loaves, gloves, Turkey hens, a fat goose and capon, two swans, two fat oxen, conserves, rose-water, and other articles.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the custom of presenting New-Year's gifts to the sovereign was carried to an extravagant height. The queen delighted in gorgeous dresses, in jewellery, in all kinds of ornaments for her person and palaces, and in purses filled with gold coin. The gifts regularly presented to her were of great value. An exact and descriptive inventory of them was made every year on a roll, which was signed by the queen herself, and by the proper officers. Nichols, in his Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, has given an accurate transcript of five of these rolls. The presents were made by the great officers of state, peers and peeresses, bishops, knights and their ladies, gentlemen and gentlewomen, physicians, apothecaries, and others of lower grade, down to her majesty's dustman. The presents consisted of sums of money, costly articles of ornament for the queen's person or apartments, caskets studded with precious stones, valuable necklaces, bracelets, gowns, embroidered mantles, smocks, petticoats, looking-glasses, fans, silk stockings, and a great variety of other articles. Howell, in his History of the World, mentions that 'Queen Elizabeth, in 1561, was presented with a pair of black silk knit stockings by her silk-woman, Mrs Montague, and thenceforth she never wore cloth hose any more.' The value of the gifts in each year cannot be ascertained, but some estimate may be made of it from the presents of gilt plate which were in all instances given in return by the queen; an exact account having been entered on the roll of the weight of the plate which each individual received in return for his gift. The total weight in 1577-8 amounted to 5882 ounces. The largest sum of

NEW-YEAR'S GIFTS.

money given by any temporal lord was £20; but the Archbishop of Canterbury gave £10, the Archbishop of York £30, and other spiritual lords £20 or £10. The total amount in the year 1561-2 of money gifts was £1262, 11s. 8d. The queen's wardrobe and jewellery must have been principally supplied from her New-Year's gifts.

The Earl of Leicester's New-Year's gifts exceeded those of any other nobleman in costliness and elaborate workmanship. The description of the gift of 1571-2 may be given as a specimen : 'One armlet, or shakell of gold, all over fairely garnished with rubyes and dyamondes, haveing in the closing thearof a clocke, and in the fore part of the same a fayre lozengie dyamonde without a foyle, hanging thearat a round juell fully garnished with dyamondes, and perle pendant, weying 11 oz. qu. dim., and farthing golde weight: in a case of purple vellate all over embranderid with Venice golde, and lyned with greene vellat.'

In the reign of James I. the money gifts seem to have been continued for some time, but the ornamental articles presented appear to have been few and of small value. In January 1604, Sir Dudley Carleton, in a letter to Mr Winwood, observes: New-Year's Day passed without any solemnity, and the accustomed present of the purse and gold was hard to be had without asking.' Mr Nichols, in a note on this passage, observes: During the reigns of King Edward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, the ceremony of giving and receiving New-Year's gifts at Court, which had long before been customary, was never omitted, and it was continued at least in the early years of King James; but I have never met with a roll of those gifts similar to the several specimens of them in the Progresses of Queen Elizabeth. He afterwards, however, met with such a roll, which he has copied, and in a note attached to the commencement of the roll, he makes the following remarks: Since the note in that page [471 of vol. i., Progresses of James I.] was printed, the roll here accurately transcribed has been purchased by the trustees of the British Museum, from Mr Rodd, bookseller of Great Newport Street, in whose catalogue for 1824 it is mentioned. It is above teu feet in length; and, like the five printed in Queen Elizabeth's "Progresses," exhibits the gifts to the king on one side, and those from his majesty on the other, both sides being signed by the royal hand at top and bottom. The gifts certainly cannot compete in point of curiosity with those of either Queen Mary's or Queen Elizabeth's reign. Instead of curious articles of dress, rich jewels, &c., nothing was given by the nobility but gold coin.' The gifts from the nobility and prelates amounted altogether to £1293, 13s. 4d. The remainder were from persons who held some office about the king or court, and were generally articles of small value. The Duke of Lennox and the Archbishop of Canterbury gave each £40; all other temporal lords, £20 or £10; and the other spiritual lords, £30, £20, £13, 6s. 8d., or £10. The Duke of Lennox received 50 ounces of plate, the Archbishop of Canterbury 55 ounces; those who gave £20 received about 30 ounces, and for

six months preceding January 1824, the female branches were busily occupied in preparing presents of their own manufacture, which would fill at least two common-sized wagons. The Duchess de Berri painted an entire room of japanned panels, to be set up in the palace, and the Duchess of Orleans prepared an elegant screen. An English gentleman, who was admitted suddenly into the presence of the Duchess de Berri two months before, found her and three of her maids of honour, lying on the carpet, painting the legs of a set of chairs, which were intended for the king. The day commences with the Parisians, at an early hour, by the interchange of their visits and bon-bons. The nearest relations are visited first, until the furthest in blood have had their calls; then friends and acquaintances. The conflict to anticipate each other's calls, occasions the most agreeable and whimsical scenes among these proficients in polite attentions. In these visits, and in gossiping at the confectioners' shops, which are the great lounge for the occasion, the morning of New-Year's Day is passed; a dinner is given by some member of the family to all the rest, and the evening concludes, like Christmas Day, with cards, dancing, or any other amusement that may be preferred.'

HOBSON, THE CAMBRIDGE CARRIER. Died, January 1, 1630-1, Thomas Hobson, of Cambridge, the celebrated University carrier, who had the honour of two epitaphs written upon him by Milton. He was born in or about 1544; his father was a carrier, and he bequeathed to him the team ware, with which he now goeth, that is to say, the cart and eight horses,' harness, nag, &c. After his father's death, he continued the business of a carrier with great success; a considerable profit was then made by carrying letters, which the University of Cambridge licensed persons to do, before and after the introduction of the post-office system. The old man for many years passed monthly with his team between his own home in Cambridge, and the Bull Inn in Bishopsgate-street, and back again, conveying both packages and human beings. He is also said to have been the first person in the kingdom who let horses for hire, and the scrupulous pertinacity with which he refused to allow any horse to be taken from his stables except in its proper turn, has given him a kind of celebrity. If the horse he offered to his customer was objected to, he curtly replied, This or none;' and 'Hobson's choice-this or none,' became a proverb, which it is to this day. Steele, in the Spectator, No. 509, however, considers the proverb to be 'by vulgar error taken and used when a man is reduced to an extremity, whereas the propriety of the maxim is to use it when you would say, There is plenty, but you must make such a choice as not to hurt another who is to come after you.' He lived in Cambridge, and observing that the scholars rid hard, his manner was to keep a large stable of horses, with boots, bridles, and whips, to furnish the gentlemen at once, without going from college to college to borrow.' He used to tell the scholars they would come time enough to London if they 34

HOBSON, THE CARRIER.

did not ride too fast.' By his rule of taking the horse which stood next the stable-door, every customer,' says Steele, was alike well served according to his chance, and every horse ridden with the same justice. This memorable man stands drawn in fresco at an inn (which he used) in Bishopsgate-street, with an hundred pound bag under his arm.'

Hobson grew rich by his business: in 1604, he contributed £50 to the loan to King James I. In 1626, he gave a large Bible to the church of St Benedict, in which parish he resided. He became possessed of several manors, and, in 1628, gave to the University and town the site of the Spinning House, or Hobson's Workhouse.' In 1630, Hobson's visits to London were suspended by order of the authorities, on account of the plague being in London; and it was during this cessation from business that he died. Milton, in one of his epitaphs on him, quaintly adverts to this fact, remarking that Death would never have hit him had he continued dodging it backwards and forwards between Cambridge and the Bull.

Hobson was twice married. By his first wife he had eight children, and he survived his second wife. He bequeathed considerable property to his family; money to the corporation, and the profits of certain pasture-land (now the site of Downing College) towards the maintenance and heightening of the conduit in Cambridge. He also left money to the poor of Cambridge, Chesterton, Waterbeach, Cottenham, and Buntingford, of which latter place he is believed to have been a native. He was buried in the chancel of Benedict's church, but no monument or inscription marks the spot. In one of Milton's humorous epitaphs on him, reference is made to his cart and wain, which proves that there is no foundation for the popular opinion that Hobson carried on his business by means of packhorses. In the second epitaph it is amusing to hear the author of England's solemn epic indulging in drolleries and puns regarding poor Hobson, the carrier: 'Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death, And too much breathing put him out of breath; Nor were it contradiction to affirm Too long vacation hastened on his term. Merely to drive the time away he sickened, Fainted, and died, nor would with all be quickened. Ease was his chief disease; and, to judge right, He died for weariness that his cart went light: His leisure told him that his time was come, And lack of load made his life burdensome : Obedient to the Moon, he spent his date In course reciprocal, and had his fate Linked to the mutual flowing of the seas; Yet, strange to think, his wain was his increase. His letters are delivered all and gone, Only remains this superscription.'

Several memorials of the benevolent old carrier, who is believed to have reached his eighty-fifth year, are preserved. There was formerly a picture of him at Anglesey Abbey; and Roger Yorke had another, supposed to have belonged to Mrs Katherine Pepys, who, in her will dated 1700, bequeathed old Mr Hobson's picture." His saddle and bridle were preserved in the town-hall at Cambridge during the present cen

tury. A public-house in the town was called Old Hobson,' and another Hobson's House; but he is traditionally said to have resided at the south-west corner of Pears Hill, and the site of the two adjoining houses were his stables. Even in his life-time his popularity must have been great, as in 1617 was published a quarto tract, entitled 'Hobson's Horseload of Letters, or Precedent for Epistles of Business, &c.'

The name of Hobson has been given to a street in Cambridge, in which have long resided Messrs Swann and Sons, carriers, who possess a curious portrait of Hobson, mounted on a stately black nag. This was preserved for many years at Hobson's London inn, the Bull, in Bishopsgate Street.'-Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, vol. iii. p. 236.

There are several engraved portraits of Hobson: that by John Payne, who died about 1648, represents Hobson in a cloak, grasping a bag of money, and has these lines underneath:

'Langh not to see so plaine a man in print,
The shadow's homely, yet there's something in't.
Witness the Bagg he wears (though seeming poore),
The fertile Mother of a thousand more:
He was a thriving Man, through lawful gain,
And wealthy grew by warrantable faime.
Men laugh at them that spend, not them that gather,
Like thriving sonnes of such a thrifty Father."

ST MACARIUS.

which remains in the metropolis, and shews how well adapted were the inns of old for the representation of stage plays. That the Bull was indeed for this purpose, we have evidence-the yard having supplied a stage to our early actors before James Burbage and his fellows obtained a patent from Queen Elizabeth for erecting a permanent building for theatrical entertainments. Tarlton often played here.-Collier's Annals, vol. iii. p. 291, and Tarlton's Jests, by Halliwell, pp. 13, 14. Anthony Bacon (the brother of Francis) lived in Bishopsgate Street, not far from the Bull Inn, to the great annoyance of his mother, who dreaded that the plays and interludes acted at the Bull might corrupt his servants.

Dr Stukeley says that Hobson, the famous carrier, had a brother who lived at Holbeach, and was one of those who first set up the cattlemarket in Smithfield.

JANUARY 2.

St Macarius of Alexandria, anchoret. St Concordius, martyr. St Adelard, abbot.

[It is not possible in this work to give special notices of all the saints of the Romish calendar; nor is it desirable that such should be done. There are, however, several of them who make a prominent figure in history; some have been remarkable as active and self-devoted missionaries of civilisation; while others supply curious examples of the singularities of which men are capable under what are now very generally regarded as morbid views of religion. Of such persons it does not seem improper that notices of a dispassionate nature should be given, among other memorable matters connected with the days of the year.]

ST MACARIUS.

St Macarius was a notable example of those early Christians who, for the sake of heavenly meditation, forsook the world and retired to live in savage wildernesses. Originally a confectioner in Alexandria, he withdrew, about the year 325, into the Thebais in Upper Egypt, and devoted himself wholly to religious thoughts. Afterwards, he took up his abode in still remoter deserts, bordering on Lybia, where there were indeed other hermits, but all out of sight of each other. He exceeded his neighbours in the practice of those austerities which were then thought the highest qualification for the blessed abodes of the future. For seven years together,' says Alban Butler, he lived only on raw herbs and pulse, and for the three following years contented himself with four or five ounces of bread a day;' not a fifth part of the diet required to keep the inmates of modern gaols in good health. Hearing great things of the self-denial of the monks of Tabenna, he went there in disguise, and astonished them all by passing through Lent on the aliment furnished by a few green cabbage leaves eaten on Sundays. He it was of whom the striking story is told, that, having once killed a gnat which bit him, he immediately hastened

35

in a penitent and self-mortifying humour to the marshes of Sceté, which abound with great flies, a torment even to the wild boar, and exposed himself to these ravaging insects for six months; at the end of which time his body was a mass of putrid sores, and he only could be recognised by his voice.

The self-devoting, self-denying, self-tormenting anchoret is an eccentricity of human nature now much out of fashion; which, however, we may still contemplate with some degree of interest, for the basis of the character is connected with both true religion and true virtue. We are told of Macarius that he was exposed to many temptations. One,' says Butler, was a suggestion to quit his desert and go to Rome, to serve the sick in the hospitals; which, by due reflection, he discovered to be a secret artifice of vain-glory inciting him to attract the eyes and esteem of the world. True humility alone could discover the snare which lurked under the specious gloss of holy charity. Finding this enemy extremely importunate, he threw himself on the ground in his cell, and cried out to the fiends, " Drag me hence, if you can, by force, for I will not stir." Thus he lay till night, and by this vigorous resistance they were quite disarmed.

As soon

as he arose they renewed the assault; and he, to stand firm against them, filled two great baskets with sand, and laying them on his shoulders, travelled along the wilderness. A person of his acquaintance meeting him, asked him what he meant, and made an offer of easing him of his burden; but the saint made no other reply than this: "I am tormenting my tormentor." He returned home in the evening, much fatigued in body, but freed from the temptation. St Macarius once saw in a vision, devils closing the eyes of the monks to drowsiness, and tempting them by diverse methods to distractions, during the time of public prayer. Some, as often as they approached, chased them away by a secret supernatural force, whilst others were in dalliance with their suggestions. The saint burst into sighs and tears; and, when prayer was ended, admonished every one of his distractions, and of the snares of the enemy, with an earnest exhortation to employ, in that sacred duty, a more than ordinary watchfulness against his attacks. St Jerom and others relate, that, a certain anchoret in Nitria having left one hundred crowns at his death, which he had acquired by weaving cloth, the monks of that desert met to deliberate what should be done with the money. Some were for having it given to the poor, others to the church; but Macarius, Pambo, Isidore, and others, who were called the fathers, ordained that the one hundred crowns should be thrown into the grave and buried with the corpse of the deceased, and that at the same time the following words should be pronounced: May thy money be with thee to perdition. This example struck such a terror into all the monks, that no one durst lay up any money by him.'

Butler quotes the definition of an anchoret given by the Abbot Rancé de la Trappe, as a lively portraiture of the great Macarius: When,'

* Butler's Lives of the Saints. + Acts viii. 20.

GENERAL WOLFE.

says he, a soul relishes God in solitude, she thinks no more of anything but heaven, and forgets the earth, which has nothing in it that can now please her; she burns with the fire of divine love, and sighs only after God, regarding death as her greatest advantage: nevertheless they will find themselves much mistaken, who, leaving the world, imagine they shall go to God by straight paths, by roads sown with lilies and roses, in which they will have no difficulties to conquer, but that the hand of God will turn aside whatever could raise any in their way, or disturb the tranquillity of their retreat: on the contrary, they must be persuaded that temptations will everywhere follow them, that there is neither state nor place in which they can be exempt, that the peace which God promises is procured amidst tribulations, as the rose buds amidst thorns; God has not promised his servants that they shall not meet with trials, but that with the temptation he will give them grace to be able to bear it: heaven is offered to us on no other conditions; it is a kingdom of conquest, the prize of victory-but, O God, what a prize!'

Born.-John, Marquis of Granby, 1721; General Wolfe, Westerham, Kent, 1727.

Died.-Publius Ovidius Naso, the Roman poet, 18; Titus Livius, the Roman historian, 18, Padua; Alexander, Earl of Rosslyn, Lord Chancellor of England, 1805; Dr John Mason Good, 1827; Dr Andrew Ure, chemist,

1857.

GENERAL WOLFE.

When, in 1759, Pitt entrusted General Wolfe with the expedition against Quebec, on the day preceding his embarkation, Pitt, desirous of giving his last verbal instructions, invited him to dinner at Hayes, Lord Temple being the only other guest. As the evening advanced, Wolfe, heated, perhaps by his own aspiring thoughts, and the unwonted society of statesmen, broke forth in a strain of gasconade and bravado. He drew his sword and rapped the table with it, he flourished it round the room, and he talked of the mighty things which that sword was to achieve. The two Ministers sat aghast at an exhibition so unusual from any man of real sense and spirit. And when, at last, Wolfe had taken his leave, and his carriage was heard to roll from the door, Pitt seemed for the moment shaken in the right opinion which his deliberate judgment had formed of Wolfe: he lifted up his eyes and arms, and exclaimed to Lord Temple: Good God! that I should have entrusted the fate of the country and of the administration to such hands!' This story was told by Lord Temple himself to the Rt. Hon. Thomas Grenville, the friend of Lord Mahon, who has inserted the anecdote in his History of England, vol. iv. Lord Temple also told Mr Grenville, that on the evening in question, Wolfe had partaken most sparingly of wine, so that this ebullition could not have been the effect of any excess. The incident affords a striking proof how much a fault of manner may obscure and disparage high excellence of mind. Lord Mahon adds: It confirms Wolfe's own avowal, that he was not seen to advantage in the common occur