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olden days which are no more. I hope you will cull your flowers of antiquity, and collect all you can for our trade; there is

a story of St. Dunstan, the smith, with his tongs, pinching the devil by the nose, &c

An Ode on Smithery, 1610.

"By reading of old authors we do find
The smiths have been a trade time out of mind;
And it's believed they may be bold to say,
There's not the like to them now at this day.
For was it not for smiths what could we do,
We soon should loose our lives and money too;
The miser would be stript of all his store,
And lose the golden god he doth adore :
No tradesman could be safe, or take his rest
But thieves and rogues would nightly him molest ;
It's by our cunning art, and ancient skill,
That we are saved from those who would work ill.
The smith at night, and soon as he doth rise,
Doth always cleanse and wash his face and eyes;
Kindles his fire, and the bellows blows,
Tucks up his shirt sleeves, and to work he goes:
Then makes the hammer and the anvil ring,
And thus he lives as merry as a king.

A working smith all other trades excels,
In useful labour wheresoe'er he dwells;
Toss up your caps ye sons of Vulcan then,
For there are none of all the sons of men,
That can with the brave working smiths compare,
Their work is hard, and jolly lads they are.
What though a smith looks sometimes very black,
And sometimes gets but one shirt to his back
And that is out at elbows, and so thin
That you through twenty holes may see his skin;
Yet when he's drest and clean, you all will say,
That smiths are men not made of common clay
They serve the living, and they serve the dead,
They serve the mitre, and the crowned head;
They all are men of honour and renown,
Honest, and just, and loyal to the crown.
The many worthy deeds that they have done,
Have spread their fame beyond the rising sun
So if we have offended rich or poor,
We will be good boys, and do so no more.

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manners; for the same reason, his suggestion to "polish up" has been declined The homeliness of those who preceded him is not discreditable to him, or any of the brethren of his trade. They are daily increasing in respectability, and ought to be a thriving branch. Compared with those who lived before them, they have extraordinary means of becoming acquainted with the principles of their varied manufacture, by becoming members of the Mechanics' Institution. Many blacksmiths have already joined that society. A diligent and good hand who knows

more than his fellows, will be the best workinan, and get the most money; and frugality abroad, and economy at home, will secure his independence. Attendance at the Mechanics' Institution will teach these things: and St. Clement cannot be better honoured than by observing them.

ST. CLEMENT, at Woolwich.

R. R. obligingly communicates with his name, the following account of an annual ceremony on the evening of St. Clement's day, by the blacksmiths' apprentices of the dockyard there.

(For the Every-Day Book.)

One of the senior apprentices being chosen to serve as old Clem, (so called by them,) is attired in a great coat, having his head covered with an oakham wig, face masked, and a long white beard flowing therefrom; thus attired, he seats himself in a large wooden chair, chiefly covered with a sort of stuff called buntin, with a crown and anchor, made of wood, on the top, and around it, four transparencies, representing "the blacksmiths' arms," "anchor smiths at work," "Britannia with her anchor," and "Mount Etna." He has before him a wooden anvil, and in his hands a pair of tongs and wooden hammer which, in general, he makes good use of whilst reciting his speech. A mate, also masked, attends him with a wooden sledge-hammer; he is also surrounded by a number of other attendants, some of whom carry torches, banners, flags, &c.; others battle-axes, tomahawkes, and other accoutrements of war. This procession, headed by a drum and fife, and six men with old Clem mounted on their shoulders, proceed round the town, stopping and refreshing at nearly every public house, (which, by the by, are pretty numerous,) not forgetting to call on the blacksmiths and officers of the dockyard: there the money-box is pretty freely handed, after old Clem and his mate have recited their speeches, which commence by the mate calling for order, with

"Gentlemen all, attention give,

And wish St. Clem, long, long to live." Old Clem then recites the following speech :

"I am the real St. Clement, the first founder of brass, iron, and steel, from the ore. I have been to Mount Etna, where the god Vulcan first built his forge, and forged the armour and thunderbolts for the god Jupiter. I have been through the deserts of

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"Come all you Vulcans stout and strong,
Unto St. Clem we do belong,
I know this house is well prepared
With plenty of money and good strong beer,
And we must drink before we part,
All for to cheer each merry heart.
Come all you Vulcans, strong and stout,
Unto St. Clem I pray turn out;
For now St. Clem's going round the town,
His coach and six goes merrily round.
Huzza,-a,-a."

After having gone round the town and collected a pretty decent sum, they retire to some public house, where they enjoy as good a supper as the money collected will allow. R. R.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Convex Wood Sorrel. Oxalis convexula. Dedicated to St. Clement.

November 24.

St. John of the Cross, A. D. 1591. St. Chrysogonus. Sts. Flora and Mary, A. D. 851. St. Cianan, or Kenan, Bp. of Duleek, in Ireland, A. D. 489.

London in November.

Months," there is a feeling account of In the already cited "Mirror of the certain days in the metropolis, at this season, which every one who has sojourn ed in "that overgrown place" will immediately recognize to be "quite correct."

"Now the atmosphere of London begins to thicken over head, and assume its natural appearance, preparatory to its becoming, about Christmas time, that palpable obscure,' which is one of its proudest boasts; and which, among its other merits, may reckon that of engendering those far-famed fogs, of which every body has heard, but to which no one has ever done justice. A London fog, in November, is a thing for which I have a sort of natural affection-to say nothing of an acquired one-the result of a hackneycoach adventure, in which the fair part of

the fare threw herself into my arms for protection, amidst the pleasing horrors of in overthrow.

“As an affair of mere breath, there is something tangible in a London fog. In the evanescent air of Italy, a man might as well not breathe at all, for any thing ne knows of the matter. But in a wellmixed metropolitan fog, there is something substantial and satisfying. You can leel what you breathe, and see it too. It is like breathing water,-as we may supDose the fishes to do. And then the taste of it, when dashed with a due seasoning of seacoal smoke, is far from insipid. It I also meat and drink at the same time: Something between egg-flip and omelette toufflée, but much more digestible than either. Not that I would recommend it medicinally, especially to persons of queasy stomachs, delicate nerves, and afflicted with bile. But for persons of a good ro

a side saddle, who, to his astonishment, presented a pistol, and demanded his money. In amazement he asked her what she meant, and received his answe from a genteel looking man, who coming to him on horseback, said he was a brute to deny the lady's request, and enforcea this conviction by telling him that if he did not gratify her desire immediately be would shoot him through the head. The butcher could not resist an invitation to be gallant, when supported by such argu ments, and he placed six guineas and h watch in her hands.*

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bust habit of body, and not dainty withal, St. Catharine, 3d Cent. St. Erasmus, or

(which such, by the by, never are,) there is nothing better in its way. And it wraps you all round like a cloak, too—a patent water-proof one, which no rain ever penetrated. No-I maintain that a real London fog is a thing not to be sneezed atif you help it. Mem. As many spurious imitations of the above are abroad, such as Scotch mists, and the like,—which are no less deleterious than disagreeable, please to ask for the 'true London particular,' as manufactured by Thames, Coalgas, Smoke, Steam, & Co. No others are genuine."

Water-proof Boots and Shoes.

Take one pound of drying (boiled linseed) oil, two ounces of yellow wax, two ounces of spirits of turpentine, and one of Burgundy pitch, melted carefully over a slow fire. With this composition new shoes and boots are to be rubbed in the sun, or at a distance from the fire, with a small bit of sponge, as often as they become dry, until they are fully saturated; the leather then is impervious to wet, the thoes and boots last much longer, acquire softness and pliability, and thus prepared, are the most effectual preservatives against cold.

A Notable Woman.

On the 24th of November, 1735, a butcher near Rumford, in Essex, was rode up to by a women well mounted on

Elme.

St. Catharine.

This saint is in the church of England calendar, and the almanacs. It is doubtful whether she ever existed; yet in massbooks and breviaries, we find her prayed to and honoured by hymns, with stories of her miracles so wonderfully apocryphal that even cardinal Baronius blushes for the threadbare legends. In Alban Butler's memoirs of this saint, it may be discovered by a scrutinizing eye, that while her popularity seems to force him to relate particulars concerning her, he leaves himself room to disavow them; but this is hardly fair, for the great body of readers of his "Lives of the Saints," are too confiding to criticise hidden meanings. "From this martyr's uncommon erudition," he says, "and the extraordinary spirit of piety by which she sanctified her learning, and the use she made of it, she is chosen, in the schools, the patroness and model of christian philosophers." According to his authorities she was be headed under the emperor Maxentius, or Maximinus II. He adds, "She is said first to have been put upon an engine made of four wheels joined together, and stuck with sharp pointed spikes, tha when the wheels were moved her bod might be torn to pieces. The acts ada that at the first stirring of the terrible engine, the cords with which the marty

• Gentleman's Magazine,

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ST. CATHARINE AND THE EMPEROR MAXENTIUS. FROM A STAINED GLASS WINDOW IN WEST WICKHAM CHURCH, KENT, 1825.

VOL. I

753

3 C

was tied, were broke asunder by the invisible power of an angel, and, the engine falling to pieces by the wheels being separated from one another, she was delivered from that death. Hence, the name of "St. Catharine's wheel."

The Catharine-wheel, a sign in the Borough, and at other iuns and public houses, and the Catharine-wheel in fireworks, testify this saint's notoriety in England. Besides pictures and engravings representing her pretended marriage with Christ, others, which are more numerous, represent her with her wheel. She was, in common with other papal saints, also painted in churches, and there is still a very fine, though somewhat mutilated, painting of her, on the glass window in the chancel of the church of West Wicknam, a village delightfully situated in Kent, between Bromley and Croydon. The editor of the Every-Day Book went thither, and took a tracing from the window itself, and now presents an engraving from that tracing, under the expectation that, as an ornament, it may be accept able to all, and, as perpetuating a relic of antiquity, be still more acceptable to a few. The figure under St Catharine's feet is the tyrant Maxentius. In this church there are other fine and perfect remains of the beautifully painted glass which anciently adorned it. A coach leaves the Ship, at Charing-cross, every afternoon for the Swan, at West Wickham, which is kept by Mr. Crittel, who can give a visiter a good bed, good cheer, and good information, and if need be, put a good horse into a good stable. A short and pleasant walk of a mile to the church the next morning will be gratifying in many ways. The village is one of the most retired and agreeable spots in the vicinity of the metropolis. It is not yet deformed by building speculations.

St. Catharine's Day.

Old Barnaby Googe, from Naogeorgs, says

"What should I tell what sophisters
on Cathrins day devise?

Or else the superstitious toyes
that maisters exercise."

Anciently women and girls in Ireland kept a fast every Wednesday and Saturday throughout the year, and some of them also on St. Catharine's day; nor would they omit it though it happened on their birthday, or they were ever so ill. The reason given for it was that the girls might get good husbands, and the women better ones, either by the death, desertion. or reformation of their living ones.*

St. Catharine was esteemed the saint and patroness of spinsters, and her holiday observed by young women meeting on this day, and making merry together, which they call "Cathar'ning."+ Something of this still remains in remote parts of England.

Our correspondent R. R. (in Novem"On the 25th of Nober, 1825,) says, vember, St. Catharine's day, a man dressed in woman's clothes, with a large wheel by his side, to represent St. Catharine, was brought out of the royal arsenal at Woolwich, (by the workmen of that place,) about six o'clock in the evening, seated in a large wooden chair, and carried by men round the town, with attendants, &c. similar to St. Clement's. They stopped at different houses, where they used to recite a speech; but this ceremony has been discontinued these last eight or nine years."

Much might be said and contemplated in addition to the notice already taken of the demolition of the church of St. Catharine's, near the Tower. Its destruction has commenced, is proceeding, and will be completed in a short time. The surrender of this edifice will, in the end, become a precedent for a spoliation imagined by very few on the day when he utters this foreboding.

25th of November, 1825.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Sweet Butter-bur. Tussilago fragrans Dedicated to St. Catharine.

Camden Brit.

↑ La Motte on Poetry and Painting, 1750, 12mo.

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