Over the hills and far awaw, He knew no harm, he knew no guilt, No laws had broke, no blood had spilt; If rogues his father did betray, What's that to him that's far away? Over the hills and far awaw, Beyond those hills and far awaw The wind may change and fairly blaw, And blaw him back that's blown awaw'. *8. 1827.-REV. LEGH RICHMOND, M.A., DIED, ÆT. 57. He was Rector of Turvey, in Bedfordshire, formerly of Trinity College, Cambridge, and chaplain to his late Royal Highness the Duke of Kent. He was only son of the late Henry Richmond, M.D. of Bath. While at college, he was most known for his love of music, in which he was a considerable proficient, both as a performer and a composer, and was the leading person, in a harmonic society, which published a collection of catches and glees. On taking orders, he married, and went to reside at Brading, in the Isle of Wight, as curate: he now took a decidedly religious turn, and here he composed those beautiful stories, The Dairyman's Daughter (which has been translated into upwards of nineteen different languages), The Negro Servant, The Young Cottager, and others; on account of which, he was chosen the principal secretary to the Religious Tract Society. He both preached and spoke extempore with great fluency and neatness, and was a very efficient advocate for that and other religious societies. We understand that his Remains, with a Memoir prefixed, are in progress for publication, for the benefit of his widow and family.-J. P. 'Ellis's Original Letters, Second Series, vol. iv, p. 281. *8. 1827.-GILBERT BURNS DIED. Gilbert Burns was born about the year 1760. He was eighteen months younger than his brother Robert, Scotland's most gifted bard. With him he was early inured to toil, and rendered familiar with the hardships of the peasant's lot; like him, too, he was much subject to occasional depression of spirits. Gilbert was the archetype of his father, a very remarkable man: his piety was equally warm and sincere; and, in all the private relations of life, as an elder of the church, a husband, a father, a master, and a friend, he was pre-eminent. His writings are deficient in that variety, originality, and ease, which shine so conspicuously even in the prose works of the poet; but they have many redeeming points about them. His taste was as pure as his judgment was masculine. He has been heard to say, that the two most pleasurable moments of his life were, first, when he read Mackenzie's story of La Roche; and, secondly, when Robert took him apart, at the breakfast or dinner hour, during harvest, and read to him, while seated on a barley-sheaf, his MS. copy of the farfamed Cotter's Saturday night. In 1819, Gilbert Burns was invited by Mess". Cadell and Davies to revise a new edition of his brother's works; to supply whatever he found wanting, and correct whatever he thought amiss. He accepted the invitation; and, by appending much valuable matter to the late Dr. Currie's biography, he at once vindicated his brother's memory from many aspersions which had been cast upon it, and established his own credit as an author. On receiving payment for his labour, the first thing he did was, to balance accounts, to the uttermost farthing, with the widow and family of his deceased brother. The letter which accompanied the remittance of the money was, in the highest degree, creditable to his feelings. 11.-ROGATION SUNDAY. About the time of the corn-harvest and the vintage, the Greeks sacrificed a heifer, and prayed to the gods for the preservation of the fruits of the earth. The victim was led three times round the harvest field; a crowd followed, forming the procession, at the head of which went the priest, crowned with oak leaves, and singing hymns. The Sementine of the Romans had the same object. They were celebrated by the country people in honour of Tullus; and we read that Cybele was in great veneration among the Gauls. When they were apprehensive of a bad harvest, they placed her statue in a chariot drawn by oxen, which made the tour of the fields and vineyards; the people preceded the goddess, singing their hymns, and the principal magistrates followed barefooted. Thus, when St. Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, established in his diocese, in 469, a procession called des Fêtes Humiliées (operosissima festivitas), afterwards called the Gallic litanies or minors, he did not so much introduce a new custom as change the direction of one already established. They who formed a part of this procession were to be barefooted, to wear hair-cloth, and to have their heads sprinkled with ashes; the priests were clad in black, and the crosses and relics were covered with black veils; hence it was called the black procession. A monk praises the Emperor Charlemagne for assisting at this procession barefooted, as did also the chief of the Gauls: the winged dragon, which was carried about in this procession in the last century, was also the remains of Paganism, and contributes to prove that this and many other ceremonies were adopted in opposition to the Pagan processions, in which the images of their gods were carried through the street. At Commercy, in the ci-devant Lorraine, during the Rogation week, religious processions are made in the fields; and, at this period of the year, a little fair is held for the sale of tarts and cakes; hence, the fair is not only called Rogation-day Fair, but the day or fair of Quichottes, the diminutive of Quiche, which signifies, in the language of the country, a tart, or small piece of pastry. The cakes made for this occasion are called craquelins (cracknels), and are in the form of a bracelet, representing a serpent with his tail in his mouth, a symbol of the sun; others are in the shape of a half moon; and almost all of them have poppy seeds in the inside, called, in the patois of the country, semegan. May not the use of this seed confirm the mystic character of the cake-particularly if we recollect that the poppy was the emblem of fecundity among the ancients, and that it was always added to the sheaf of corn offered to Ceres? Further, the capsule of the poppy, which is almost circular, has the top, or head of it, radiated like the sun. The little tarts are round, and notched, or festooned, at the edges.-See a further account of the observance of Rogation days in France, by M. Chateaubriand, in our last volume, p. 136. *12. 1641.-EARL OF STRAFFORD BEHEADED. Among what are called The King's Pamphlets in the British Museum, the collection of which, begun by a Mr. George Thomason, was continued by an especial order of King Charles the First, there is a single folio sheet, printed at London in 1641, containing VERSES lately written by THOMAS EARLE of STRAFFORD. Go, empty Joyes, With all your noyse, And leave me here alone In sweet sad silence to bemoane Goe and insnare With your false ware Some other easie wight, And cheat him with your flattering light; Of Honours, Favour, Wealth, and Power, Fill his big minde With gallant winde Of insolent applause: Let him not feare all curbing lawes, But dreame of something like a Crowne, Let him appeare In his bright sphere, Like Scynthia in her pride, With star-like troups on every side; Welcome sad Night, Grief's sole delight, Your mourning best agrees With Honour's funerall obsequies: In Thetis lap he lies Mantled with soft securities, Whose too-much sun-shine blinds his eyes. Was he too bold That needs would hold With curbing raines the Day, Who with ambitious wings did fly I fall, I fall, Whom shall I call? Alas can he be heard Who now is neither loved nor feared? You, who were wont to kisse the ground Heav'ns twinkling fires, When, from their glorious seat, To imitate Those Lights, whose pallidnesse Their course one way is bent: The reason is, theres no dissent In Heaven's High Court of Parliament'. 15.-ASCENSION DAY. From the earliest times, a day was set apart to commemorate our Lord's ascension into Heaven. On this day, parish boundaries are frequently perambulated, accompanied by well-known customs. For an account of an annual ceremony still practised at Tissington, in Derbyshire, on this day, consult our last volume, pp. 137-140. 19.-SAINT DUNSTAN. St. Dunstan was born at Glastonbury in 924. He was successively Bishop of Worcester and London, 1 See Ellis's Original Letters, Second Series, vol. iii, p. 288, 289, and also p. 281 et seq., for an interesting Letter of Lord Strafford's, when Viscount Wentworth. |