Margaret duchess of Newcastle, who died in 1673," filled nearly twelve volumes folio with plays, poems, orations, philosophical discourses, "and miscellaneous pieces. Her lord also amused himself with his pen. This noble pair were honoured by the ridicule of Horace Walpole, who had more taste than feeling; and, notwithstanding the great qualities of the duke, who sacrificed three quarters of a million in thankless devotion to the royal cause, and, though the virtues of his duchess are unquestionable, the author of "The Dormant and Extinct Baronage of England" joins Walpole in contempt of their affection, and the means they employed to render each other happy during retirement. This is an extract from one of the duchess's poems :

Melancholy.

I dwell in groves that gilt are with the sun,
Sit on the banks by which clear waters run;
In summers hot down in a shade I lie,
My music is the buzzing of a fly;

I walk in meadows, where grows fresh green grass,
In fields, where corn is high, I often pass;
Walk up the hills, where round I prospects see,
Some brushy woods, and some all champains be;
Returning back, I in fresh pastures go,

To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low;
In winter cold, when nipping frosts come on,
Then I do live in a small house alone;
Altho' tis plain, yet cleanly 'tis within,
Like to a soul that's pure and clear from sin;
And there I dwell in quiet and still peace,
Not fill'd with cares how riches to increase;
I wish nor seek for vain and fruitless pleasures,
No riches are, but what the mind intreasures.
Thus am I solitary, live alone,

Yet better lov'd, the more that I am known;
And tho' my face ill-favour'd at first sight,
After acquaintance it will give delight.
Refuse me not, for I shall constant be,
Maintain your credit and your dignity.

Elizabeth Thomas, (born 1675, died 1730,) in the fifteenth year of her age, was disturbed in her mind, by the sermons she heard in attending her grandmother at meetings, and by the reading of high predestirarian works. She "languished for some time," in expectation of the publication of bishop Burnet's work on the Thirty-nine Articles. When she read it, the bishop seemed to her more candid in stating the doctrines of the sects, than explicit in his own opinion; and, in this perplexity, retiring to her closet, she entered on a self-discussion, and wrote the following poem :

Predestination, or, the Resolution.

Ah! strive no more to know what fate
Is preordain'd for thee:

"Tis vain in this my mortal state,

For Heaven's inscrutable decree
Will only be reveal'd in vast Eternity.
Then, O my soul!

Remember thy celestial birth,

And live to Heaven, while here on earth:
Thy God is infinitely true,

All Justice, yet all Mercy too:
To Him, then, thro' thy Saviour, pray
For Grace, to guide thee on thy way,

And give thee Will to do.
But humbly, for the rest, my soul!

Let Hope, and Faith, the limits be
Of thy presumptuous curiosity!

Mary Chandler, born in 1687, the daughter of a dissenting minister at Bath, commended by Pope for her poetry, died in 1745. The specimen of her verse, selected by Mr. Dyce, is

Temperance.

Fatal effects of luxury and ease!

We drink our poison, and we eat disease,
Indulge our senses at our reason's cost,
Till sense is pain, and reason hurt, or lost.
Not so, O Temperance bland! when rul'd by thee,
The brute's obedient, and the man is free.
Soft are his slumbers, balmy is his rest,
His veins not boiling from the midnight feast.
Touch'd by Aurora's rosy hand, he wakes
Peaceful and calm, and with the world partakes

The joyful dawnings of returning day,

For which their grateful thanks the whole creation pay, All but the human brute: 'tis he alone,

Whose works of darkness fly the rising sun.

'Tis to thy rules, O Temperance! that we owe
All pleasures, which from health and strength can flow;
Vigour of body, purity of mind,

Unclouded reason, sentiments refin'd,
Unmixt, untainted joys, without remorse,'
Th' intemperate sinner's never-failing curse.

Elizabeth Tollet (born 1694, died 1754) was authoress of Susanna, a sacred drama, and poems, from whence this is a seasonable extract:

Winter Song.

Ask me no more, my truth to prove,
What I would suffer for my love :
With thee I would in exile go,
To regions of eternal snow;
O'er floods by solid ice confin'd;

Thro' forest bare with northern wind;,
While all around my eyes I cast,
Where all is wild and all is waste.
If there the timorous stag you chase,
Or rouse to fight a fiercer race,

amongst our neighbours, 'Auld Robin Gray' was always called for. I was pleased in secret with the approbation it met with; but such was my dread of being suspected of writing anything, perceiving the shyness it created in those who could write nothing, that I carefully kept my own

secret.

"Meantime, little as this matter seems to have been

worthy of a dispute, it afterwards became a party question between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Robin Gray' was either a very very ancient ballad, composed perhaps by David Rizzio, and a great curiosity, or a very very modern matter, and no curiosity at all. I was persecuted to avow whether I had written it or not,-where I had got it. Old Sophy kept my counsel, and I kept my own, in spite of the gratification of seeing a reward of twenty guineas offered in the newspapers to the person who should ascertain the point past a doubt, and the still more flattering circumstance of a visit from Mr. Jerningham, secretary to the Antiquarian Society, who endeavoured to entrap the truth from me in a manner I took amiss. Had he asked me the question obligingly, I should have told him the fact distinctly and confidentially. The annoyance, however, of this important ambassador from the Antiquaries, was amply repaid to me by the noble exhibition of the Ballat of Auld Robin Gray's Courtship,' as performed by dancing-cogs under my window. It proved its popularity from the highest to the lowest, and gave me pleasure while I hugged myself in obscurity."

The two versions of the second part were written many years after the first; in them, Auld Robin Gray falls sick,-confesses that he himself stole the cow, in order to force Jenny to marry him,-leaves to Jamie all his possessions,-dies, and the young couple, of course, are united. Neither of the Continuations is given here, because, though both are

beautiful, they are very inferior to the original

tale, and greatly injure its effect.

Auld Robin Gray.*

When the sheep are in the fauld, when the cows come hame,

When a' the weary world to quiet rest are gane,
The woes of my heart fa' in showers frae my ee,
Unken'd by my gudeman, who soundly sleeps by me.

Young Jamie loo'd me weel, and sought me for his

bride;

But saving ae crown-piece, he'd naething else beside. To make the crown a pound,† my Jamie gaed to sea; And the crown and the pound, O they were baith_for me!

The text of the corrected copy is followed.

"I must also mention" (says lady Anne, in the letter already quoted)" the laird of Dalziel's advice, who, in a téte-à-tête, afterwards said, My dear, the next time you sing that song, try to change the words a wee bit, and instead of singing, 'To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea, say, to make it twenty

Before he had been gane a twelvemonth and a day,
My father brak his arm, our cow was stown away;
My mother she fell sick-my Jamie was at sea-
And auld Robin Gray, oh! he came a-courting me.

My father cou'dna work-my mother cou'dna spin ;
I toil'd day and night, but their bread I cou’dna win ;
Auld Rob maintain'd them baith, and, wi' tears in his
ee,

Said, "Jenny, oh! for their sakes, will you marry me?''

My heart it said na, and I look'd for Jamie back;
But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack:
His ship it was a wrack! Why didna Jamie dee?
Or, wherefore am I spar'd to cry out, Woe is me!

My father argued sair-my mother didna speak,
But she look'd in my face till my heart was like to
break;

They gied him my hand, but my heart was in the sea;
And so auld Robin Gray, he was gudeman to me.

I hadna been his wife a week but only four,
When mournfu' as I sat on the stane at my door,
I saw my Jamie's ghaist-I cou'dna think it he,
Till he said, "I'm come hame, my love, to marry thee!"

O sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say of a';
Ae kiss we took, nae mair-I bad him gang awa.
I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to dee;
For O, I am but young to cry out, Woe is me!

The great and remarkable merit of Mr. Dyce is, that in this beautifully printed volume, he has reared imperishable columns to the honour of the sex, without a questionable trophy. His "specimens" are an assemblage so individually charming, that the mind is delighted by every part whereon the eye rests, and scrupulosity itself cannot make a single rejection on pretence of inadequate merit. He comes as a rightful herald, marshalling the perfections of each poetess, and discriminating with so much delicacy, that each of his pages is a page of honour to a high-born grace, or dignified beauty, His book is an elegant tribute to departed and living female genius; and while it claims respect from every lady in the land for its gallantry to the fair, its intrinsic worth is sure to force it into every well-appointed library.

merks, for a Scottish pund is but twenty penee, and Jamie was na such a gowk as to leave Jenny and gang to sea to lessen his gear. It is that line [whisper'd he] that tells me that sang was written by some bonnie lassie that didna ken the value of the Scots money quite so well as an auld writer in the town of Edin burgh would have kent it.""

the city of Winchester were shut. A court, called the pavilion, composed of the bishop's justiciaries and other officers, had power to try causes of various sorts for seven miles round. The bishop had a toll of every load or parcel of goods passing through the gates of the city. On St. Giles's eve the mayor, bailiffs, and citizens of Winchester delivered the keys of the four gates to the bishop's officers. Many and extraordinary were the privileges granted to the bishop on this occasion, all tending to obstruct trade and to oppress the people. Numerous foreign merchants frequented this fair; and several streets were formed in it, assigned to the sale of different commodities. The surrounding monasteries had shops or houses in these streets, used only at the fair; which they held under the bishop, and often let by lease for a term of years. Different counties had their different stations.

According to a curious record of the establishment and expenses of the household of Henry Percy, the fifth earl of Northumberland, A. D. 1512, the stores of his lordship's house at Wresille, for the whole year, were laid in from fairs. The articles were "" wine, wax, beiffes, muttons, wheite, and malt." This proves that fairs were then the principal marts for purchasing necessaries in large quantities, which are now supplied by frequent trading towns and the mention of "beiffes and muttons," (which are salted oxen and sheep,) shows that at so late a period they knew little of breeding cattle.

The monks of the priories of Maxtoke in Warwickshire, and of Bicester in Oxfordshire, in the time of Henry VI., appear to have laid in yearly stores of various, yet common necessaries, at the fair of Stourbridge, in Cambridgeshire, at least one hundred miles distant from either monastery.

February 14.

VALENTINE'S DAY.

Now each fond youth who ere essay'd An effort in the tinkling trade, Resumes to day; and writes and blots About true-love and true-love's-knots; And opens veins in ladies' hearts; (Or steels 'em) with two cris-cross darts,(There must be two)

Stuck through (and through)

His own and then to s'cure 'em better
He doubles up his single letter→→→

Type of his state,
(Perchance a hostage
To double fate)

For single postage:
Emblem of his and my Cupidity;
With p'rhaps like happy end-stupidity.

FRENCH VALENTINES.

Menage, in his Etymological Dictionary, has accounted for the term "Valentine," by stating that Madame Royale, daughter of Henry the Fourth of France, having built a palace near Turin, which, in honour of the saint, then in high esteem, she called the Valentine, at the first entertainment which she gave in it, was pleased to order that the ladies should receive their lovers for the year by lots, reserving to herself the privilege of being independent of chance, and of choosing her own partner. At the various balls which this gallant princess gave during the year, it was directed that each lady should receive a nosegay from her lover, and that, at every tournament, the knight's trappings for his horse should be furnished by his allotted mistress, with this proviso, that the prize obtained should be hers. This custom, says Menage, occasioned the parties to be called "Valentines."

An elegant writer, in a journal of the present month, prepares for the annual festival with the following

LEGEND OF ST. VALENTINE.;

From Britain's realm, in olden time,
By the strong power of truths sublime,
The pagan rites were banish'd;
And, spite of Greek and Roman lore,
Each god and goddess, fam'd of yore,
From grove and altar vanish'd.
And they (as sure became them best)
To Austin and Paulinius' hest
Obediently submitted,
And left the land without delay-
Save Cupid, who still held a sway
Too strong to passively obey,

Or be by saints outwitted.
For well the boy-god knew that he
Was far too potent, e'er to be
Depos'd and exil'd quietly

From his belov'd dominion;
And sturdily the urchin swore
He ne'er, to leave the British shore,
Would move a single pinion.

• Dr. Drake's Shakspeare and his Times. See also the Every-Day Book for large particulars of the day.