Of other sounds :-now view the city-barge
Draw its huge bottom through the furrowed Thames,
Breasting the adverse surge: O do but think
You stand in TEMPLE-GARDENS, and behold
London herself on her proud stream afloat,
For so appears this fleet of Magistracy
Holding due course to WESTMINSTER.

Here the Lord Mayor lands, and proceeds to the Exchequer to be sworn; after this, he returns by water, and disembarks at Blackfriars. The cavalcade advances to Guildhall amidst admiring crowds of citizens, their wives, and children.

11. SAINT MARTIN.

He was a native of Hungary, and for some time followed the life of a soldier; but afterwards took orders, and was made Bishop of Tours, in France, in which see he continued for twenty-six years. Martin died about the year 397, much lamented, and highly esteemed for his virtues. Formerly, a universal custom prevailed of killing cows, oxen, swine, &c. at this season, which were cured for winter consumption; as fresh provisions were seldom or never to be had during the dreary months which succeed November. This practice is yet retained in some country villages. Martinmas is still celebrated on the Continent by good eating and drinking; and was antiently, in England, a day of feasting and revelry, as will appear by some extracts from a pleasing little ballad, entitled Martilmasse-day :

It is the day of Martilmasse,

Cuppes of ale should freelie passe.
What though wynter has begunne
To push downe the summer sunne,
To our fire we can betake,
*And enjoye the crackling brake ;
Never heedinge wynter's face
On the day of Martilmasse.

*

Some do the citie now frequent,
Where costlie shows and merriment
Do weare the vaporish ev'ninge out
With interlude and revellinge rout;

Such as did pleasure Englande's queene,
When here her royal Grace was seen;
Yet will they not this daye let passe,
The merrie daye of Martilmasse.

When the dailie sportes be done,
Round the market crosse they runne;
Prentis laddes, and gallant blades,
Dancing with their gamesome maids,
Till the beadel, stout and sowre,
Shakes his bell, and calls the houre;
Then farewell ladde and farewell lasse
To th' merry night of Martilmasse.

Martilmasse shall come againe,
Spite of wind and snow and raine;
But many a strange thing must be done,
Many a cause be lost and won,
Many a tool must leave his pelfe,
Many a worldlinge cheate himselfe,
And many a marvel come to passe,
Before return of Martilmasse.

13. SAINT BRITIUS.

-

Britius, or Brice, succeeded St. Martin in the bishopric of Tours in the year 399. He died in 444. 17.-SAINT Hugh.

Our saint was a native of Burgundy, or Gratianopolis. At first he was only a regular canon, but afterwards a Carthusian monk, and at length, through the favour of King Henry II, was constituted Bishop of Lincoln. In this see he obtained great fame, not only for his extraordinary austerity of life, and excellent economy, but for his rebuilding the cathedral from the foundation. Hugh died on this day, in the year 1200, of an ague. In 1220, he was canonized at Rome, and his remains were taken up October 7, 1282, and deposited in a silver shrine. The monks relate many strange stories of him; one of which is too remarkable to be passed over in silence. Hugh coming one day to Godstow, a celebrated nunnery near Oxford, saw a hearse in the middle of the choir, covered with silk, and a great number of tapers burning round it, as was usual after the inter

E e

ment of distinguished persons: he immediately inquired who was buried there; and, being informed that it was the celebrated Fair Rosamond, a mistress of King Henry II, who had procured several valuable privileges for their house, he immediately ordered her body to be dug up, saying it was a place too sacred for such a person. He also had the corpse removed into the open churchyard, where her monument was to be exposed to public view, to deter other women from following so dissolute and dishonourable a life.

20.-EDMUND, KING AND MARTYR.

Edmund, king of the East-Angles, having been attacked by the Danes in 870, and unable to resist them, heroically offered to surrender himself a prisoner, provided they would spare his subjects. The Danes, however, having seized him, used their utmost endeavours to induce Edmund to renounce his religion; but refusing to comply, they first beat him with clubs, then scourged him with whips, and afterwards, binding him to a stake, killed him with their arrows. His body was buried in a town, where Sigebert, one of his predecessors, had built a church; and where afterwards (in honour of his name) a more spacious building was erected, which together with the town was named St. Edmunds-bury; but it is now called Bury.

22.-SAINT CECILIA.

Cecilia was a Roman lady, who, refusing to renounce her religion, was thrown into a furnace of boiling water, and scalded to death. Others say that she was stifled in a bath, a punishment frequently inflicted, at that time, on female criminals of rank. She suffered martyrdom about the year 225. Cecilia is regarded as the patroness of music, and is represented by Raffaelle with a regal in her hand. All the adoration of this saint seems to have arisen from the tradition of her being a skilful musician, and that an

angel who visited her was drawn from the mansions of the blessed by the charms of her melody; a circumstance to which Dryden has alluded in the conclusion of his celebrated Ode to Cecilia :

Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's severest rage disarm;
Music can soften pain to ease,

And make despair and madness please;
Our joys below it can improve,

And antedate the bliss above.

This the divine CECILIA found,

And to her Maker's praise confined the sound,
When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,
Th' immortal powers incline their ear;
Borne on the swelling notes, our souls aspire,
While solemn airs improve the sacred fire;
And angels lean from heaven to hear.

At last divine CECILIA came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast from her sacred store
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,

POPE.

With nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before.

23.-SAINT CLEMENT.

DRYDEN,

Clement I was born at Rome, and was one of the first bishops of that place; this see he held about sixteen years; from the year 64 or 65 to 81. He was remarkable for having written two Epistles, so excellent, and so highly esteemed by the primitive Christians, that the first was for some time considered canonical. Clement was sentenced to work in the quarries, and afterwards, having an anchor fastened about his neck, was drowned in the sea.

23.-0. MART.

Old Martinmas-Day, an antient quarter day.

25.-SAINT CATHERINE.

Our saint was born at Alexandria, and received a liberal education. About the year 305, she was converted to Christianity, which she afterwards professed with

the utmost intrepidity, openly reproving the pagans for offering sacrifices to their idols, and upbraiding the Emperor Maxentius, to his face, with the most flagrant acts of tyranny and oppression. She was condemned to suffer death by rolling a wheel over her body stuck round with iron spikes.-Catherine Tide is very generally observed in Wiltshire and parts adjacent, where it is supposed to be kept in honour of a certain bonne vivante queen, a namesake of the saint to whom this day is dedicated.

27.-ADVENT SUNDAY.

This and the three subsequent Sundays, which precede the grand festival of Christmas, take their name from the Latin advenire, to come into, or from the word adventus, an approach. These Sundays and the week days which follow are set apart by the church of England, to prepare the minds of Christians for the proper celebration of our Saviour's Nativity; in the same manner as Lent is intended to introduce the Feast of the Resurrection. Hence some old ecclesiastical writers have termed Advent altera quadragesima, another Lent.

30. SAINT ANDREW.

Andrew was the son of James, a fisherman at Bethsaida, and younger brother of Peter. At the dispersion of the apostles, the province assigned to Saint Andrew was that part of the world then distinguished by the name of Scythia, and its neighbouring countries. Having travelled in these parts, and converted many to the Christian faith, he returned and preached the gospel in Epirus. After he had planted Christianity in several places, he came to Patræ, a city of Achaia, where geus the proconsul, enraged at his undauntedly publishing the doctrines of Christ, condemned him to be crucified on a cross, of the form of an X; and, that his death might be more lingering, he was fastened with cords.