doore to doore, whereas the prisoners were to be executed.

"On the seventh of May, Iohn Lincoln, one Shirwin, and two brethren, named Betts, with divers other were adjudged to dye. They were on the hurdles drawne to the standard in Cheape, and first was Lincolne executed and as the other had the ropes about their neckes, there came a commandement from the king, to respit .he execution, and then were the prisoners ent againe to prison, and the armed men sent away out of the citie.

"On the thirteenth of May, the king came to Westminster-hall, and with him the lord cardinall, the dukes of Norfolke, and Suffolke, the earles of Shrewsbury, Essex, Wiltshire, and Surrey, with many lords and other of the kings councell; the lord maior of London, aldermen and other chiefe citizens, were there in their best liveries, by nine of the clocke in the morning. Then came in the prisoners, bound in ropes in a ranke one after another, in their shirts, and every one had a halter about his necke, being in number 400 men, and 11 women.

"When they were thus come before the kings presence, the cardinall laid sore to the maior and aldermen their negligence, and to the prisoners he delared how justly they had deserved to dye. Then all the prisoners together cryed to the king for mercy, and there with the lords besought his grace of pardon: at whose request, the king pardoned them all. The generall pardon being pronounced, all the prisoners shouted at once, and cast their halters towards the roofe of the hall. The prisoners being dismissed, the gallowes were taken downe, and the citizens tooke more heed to their servants: keeping (for ever after) as on that night, a strong watch in Armour, in remembrance of Evill May-day.

"These great Mayings and Maygames made by the governours and masters of this city, with the triumphant setting up of a great shaft (a principall May-pole in Cornehill, before the parish of saint Andrew) therefore called Vndershaft, by meane of that insurrection of youths, against aliens on May-day, 1517. the o. of Henry the eighth, have not been so freely used as before."

DRURY-LANE MAY-POLE

There was formerly a May-pole put up by a "smith" at the north end of little

Drury-lane, to commemorate his daughter's good fortune, who being married to general Monk, while a private gentleman, became duchess of Albemarle, by his being raised to the dukedom after the Restoration. The May-pole is only mertioned here on account of its origin. It appears, from a trial at bar on actior. of trespass, that the name of this "smith" was John Clarges, that he was a farrier in the Savoy, and farrier to colonel Monk and that the farrier's daughter, Anne, was first married in the church of St. Laurence Pountney to Thomas Ratford, son of Thomas Ratford, late a farrier, servant to prince Charles, and resident in the Mews. She had a daughter, who was born in 1634, and died in 1638. Her husband and she "lived at the Three Spanish Gipsies in the New Exchange, and sold wash-balls, powder, gloves, and such things, and she taught girls plain work. About 1647, she, being a sempstress tc colonel Monk, used to carry him linen." In 1648, her father and mother died. In 1649, she and her husband "fell out, and parted." But no certificate from any parish register appears reciting his burial. in 1652, she was married in the church of St. George, Southwark, to "general George Monk;" and, in the following year, was delivered of a son, Christopher (afterward the second and last duke of Albemarle abovementioned), who "was suckled by Honour Mills, who sold apples, herbs, oysters," &c. One of the plaintiff's witnesses swore, that "a little before the sickness, Thomas Ratford demanded and received of him the sum of twenty shillings; that his wife saw Ratford again after the sickness, and a second time after the duke and duchess of Albemarle were dead." A woman swore, that she saw him on "the day his wife (then called duchess of Albemarle) was put into her coffin, which was after the death of the duke," her second husband, who died Jan. 3, 1669-70. And a third witness swore, that he saw Ratford about July 1660. In opposition to this evidence it was alleged, that "all along, during the lives of duke George and duke Christopher, this matter was never questioned"

that the latter was universally received as only son of the former-and that "this matter had been thrice before tried at the bar of the King's Bench, and the defendant had had three verdicts." The verdict en the trial was in favour of sir Walter Clarges, a grandson of the farrier, who

Here they are! The "sweeps" ale come! Here is the garland and the lord and lady! Poor fellows! this is their great festival. Their garland is a large cone of holly and ivy framed upon hoops, which gradually diminishes in size to an apex, whereon is sometimes a floral crown, knots of ribbons, or bunches of flowers; its sides are decorated in like manner; and within it is a man who walks wholly unseen, and hence the garland has the semblance of a moving hillock of evergreens. The chimney-sweepers' jackets and hats are bedizened with gilt embossed paper; sometimes they wear coronals of flowers in their heads; their black faces and legs are grotesquely coloured with Dutch-pink; their shovels are scored with this crimson_pigment, interlaced with white chalk. Their lord and lady are magnificent indeed; the lord

is always he tallest of the party, and selected from some other profession to play this distinguished character: he wears a huge cocked hat, fringed with yellow or red feathers, or laced with gold paper: his coat is between that of the full court dress, and the laced coat of the footman of quality; in the breast he carries an immense bunch of flowers; his waistcoat is embroidered; his frill is enormous; his "shorts" are satin, with paste knee-buckles; his stockings silk with figured clocks; his shoes are dancing pumps, with large tawdry buckles; his hair is powdered, with a bag and rosette; he carries in his right hand a high cane with a shining metal knob, and in his left a handkerchief held by one cor ner, and of a colour once white. His lady is sometimes a strapping girl, though usually a boy in female attire, indescriba

bly flaunty and gaudy; her head in full dress; in her right hand a brass ladle, in her left a handkerchief like to my lord's. When the garland stops, my lord and lady exhibit their graces in a minuet de la cour, or some other grave movement; in a minute or two they quicken into a dance, which enables my lord to picture his conceptions of elegance; the curvilinear elevation of his arm, with his cane between his finger and thumb, is a courtly grace, corresponding with the stiff thrownback position of his head, and the strait fall of the handkerchief in the other hand. My lady answers these inviting positions by equal dignity; they twirl and whirl in sight of each other, though on opposite sides of the dancing garland, to the continued clatter of the shovel and brush held by each capering member of the sooty tribe. The dance concluded, my lord and my lady interchange a bow and a curtsy; my lord flings up his canearm, displaces his magnificent hat with the other hand, and courteously bends, with imploring looks, to spectators at the adjacent windows or in the street; the little sootikins hold up their shovels, my lady with outstretched arm presents the bowl of her ladle, and " the smallest do"nations are thankfully received" by all the sable fraternity. This is the chimneysweepers' London pageant on May-day 1825; but for the first time, there was this year added a clown, a-la-Grimaldi, to one or two of the sweeping processions; he grimaces with all his might, walks before Jack-in-the-green on his hands or his feet, as may be most convenient, and practises every antic and trick that his ingenuity can devise, to promote the interest of his party.

It is understood, however, that the offerings on the festival are not exclusively appropriated to the receivers; masters share a certain portion of their apprentices' profits from the holiday; others take the whole of the first two days' receipts, and leave to the worn-out, helpless objects, by whom they profit all the year round, no more than the scanty gleanings of the third day's performance. ELIA, AND JEM WHITE'S FEAST TO THE

SWEEPS.

ELIA, the noble heart of ELIA, responds to these humble claimants upon humanity; they cry and have none to help them; he is happy that a personal misfortune to himself can make one of them laugh; he

imagines "all the blood of all the How ards" in another; he conceives no degra dation by supping with them in public at "Bartlemy Fair." Kind feelings and honesty make poets and philosophers. Listen to what Elia says:

"I have a kindly yearning toward these dim specks-poor blots-innocent black

nesses

"I reverence these young Africans of our own growth-these almost clergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption; and from their little pulpits (the tops of chimnies), in the nipping air of a December morning, preach a lesson of patience to mankind.

"When a child, what a mystericus pleasure it was to witness their operation! to see a chit no bigger than one'sself enter, one knew not by what process, into what seemed the fauces Averni-to pursue him in imagination, as he went sounding on through so many dark, stifling caverns, horrid shades!-to shudder with the idea that now, surely, he must be lost for ever'-to revive at hearing his feeble shout of discovered day-light-and then (O, fulness of delight) running out of doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon emerge in safety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious like some flag waved over a conquered citadel! I seem to remember having been told, that a bad sweep was once left in a stack with his brush, to indicate which way the wind blew. It was an awful spectacle certainly; not much unlike the old stage direction in Macbeth, where the 'Apparition of a child crowned with a tree in his hand rises.'

"Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy early rambles, it is good to give him a penny. It is better to give him two-pence. If it be starving weather, and to the proper troubles of his hard occupation, a pair of kibed heels (no unusual accompaniment) be superadded, the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to a tester.

"I am by nature extremely susceptible of street affronts; the jeers and taunts of the populace; the low-bred triumph they display over the casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a gentleman. Yet can I endure the jocularity of a young sweep with something more than forgiveness.- Ir the last winter but one, pacing along Cheapside with my accustomed precipitation when I walk westward, a treacherous slide brought me upon my back in

an instant. I scrambled up with pain and shame enough-yet outwardly trying to face it down, as if nothing had happened when the roguish grin of one of these young wits encountered me. There he stood, pointing me out with his dusky finger to the mob, and to a poor woman (I suppose his mother) in particular, till the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) worked themselves out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red from many a previous weeping, and sootinflamed, yet twinkling through all with such a joy, snatched out of desolation, that Hogarth--but Hogarth has got him already (how could he miss him?) in the March to Finchley, grinning at the pie-man-there he stood, as he stands in the picture, irremovable, as if the jest was to last for ever-with such a maximum of glee, and minimum of mischief, in his mirth-for the grin of a genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in it that I could have been content, if the honour of a gentleman might endure it, to have remained his butt and his mockery till midnight.

"I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what are called a fine set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips (the ladies must pardon me) is a casket, presumably holding such jewels; but, methinks, they should take leave to air' them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, or fine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must I confess, that from the mouth of a true sweep a display (even to ostentation) of those white and shining ossifications, strikes me as an agreeable anomaly in manners, and an allowable piece of foppery. It is, as when

"A sable cloud

Turns forth her silver lining on the night. It is like some remnant of gentry not quite extinct; a badge of better days; a hint of nobility :-and, doubtless, under the obscuring darkness and double night of their forlorn disguisement, oftentinies lurketh good blood, and gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry, and a lapsed pedigree. The premature apprenticements of these tender victims give but too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine, and almost infantile abductions; the seeds of civility and true courtesy, so often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be accounted for) plainly hint at some forced

adoptions; many noble Rachels mourning for their children, even in our days, countenance the fact; the tales of fairyspiriting may shadow a lamentable verity, and the recovery of the young Montague be but a solitary instance of good fortune, out of many irreparable and hopeless defiliations.

"In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years since-under a ducal canopy-(that seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity to visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which the late duke was espe cially a connoisseur)-encircled with curtains of delicatest crimson, with starry coronets inwoven-folded between a pair of sheets whiter and softer than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius-was discovered by chance, after all methods of search had failed, at noon-day, fast asleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehow confounded his passage among the intricacies of those lordly chimnies, by some unknown aperture had alighted upon this magnificent chamber; and, tired with his tedious explorations, was unable to resist the delicious invitement to repose, which he there saw exhibited; so, creeping between the sheets very quietly, laid his black head upon the pillow, and slept like a young Howard.

"Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle. But I cannot help seeming to perceive a confirmation of what I have just hinted at in this story. A high instinct was at work in the case or I am mistaken. Is it probable th poor child of that description, with whatever weariness he might be visited, would have ventured, under such a penalty as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets of a duke's bed, and delibeiately to lay himself down between them, when the rug or the carpet presented an obvious couch, still far above his pretensions-is this probable, I would ask, if the great power of nature, which I contend for, had not been manifested within him, prompting to the adventure? Doubtless this young nobleman (for such my mind misgives me that he must be) was allured by some memory, not amounting to full consciousness, of his condition in infancy, when he was used to be lapt by his mother, or his nurse, in just such sheets as he there found. into which he was now but creeping back as into his proper incunabula and resting-place. By no other theory, than by this sentiment