Be Twelfth-day queen for the night here.

Which known, let us make
Joy-sops with the cake;

And let not a man then be seen here,
Who unurged will not drink,

To the base from the brink,

A health to the king and the queen here.

Next, crown the bowl full
With gentle lamb's-wool;

Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,

With store of ale too;

And thus ye must do
To make the wassail a swinger.

Give them to the king

And queen wassailing;

And though with ale ye be wet, here,

Yet part ye from hence,

As free from offence,

As when ye innocent met here.

HERRICK.

END OF CHRISTMAS.

Partly work, and partly play

Ye must on St. Distaff's day;

From the plough soon free your team,
Then come home and fother them.
If the maids a spinning go,
Burn the flax, and fire the tow;
Scorch their plackets, but beware
That you singe no maiden-hair.
Bring in pails of water then,
Let the maids bewash the men:
Give St. Distaff all the night,

Then bid Christmas sport good night;

And next morrow, every one

To his own vocation.

Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and mistletoe,
Down with the holly, ivy, all

Wherewith

ye dressed the Christmas hall;

That so the superstitious find

No one least branch there left behind;
For look, how many leaves there be
Neglected there, maids, trust to me,
So many goblins you shall see.

ST. AGNES' EVE.

St. Agnes' Eve-Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

HERRICK.

HERRICK.

The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:

Numb were the beadsman's fingers while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seem'd taking flight for heaven without a death,

Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.

They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve,
Young virgins might have visions of delight,
And soft adorings from their loves receive
Upon the honey'd middle of the night,
If ceremonies due they did aright;
As, supperless to bed they must retire,

And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require

Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

FAIRIES.

Farewell rewards and Fairies!

Good housewives now may say;

For now foul sluts in dairies,

Do fare as well as they:

And, though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,

Yet who of late, for cleanliness,

Finds sixpence in her shoe?

Lament, lament, old abbies,

The fairies' lost command;
They did but change priest babies,

But some have changed your land :
And all your children stol'n from thence
Are now grown Puritans,
Who live as changelings ever since,

For love of your domains.

At morning and at evening both,
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep and sloth
These pretty ladies had.

When Tom came home from labour,

Or Ciss to milking rose,

Then merrily went their tabour,

And nimbly went their toes.

KEATS.

Witness, those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary's days
On many a grassy plain.
But since of late Elizabeth,
And, later, James came in,
They never danced on any heath,
As when the time hath bin.

By which we note the fairies
Were of the old profession:
Their songs were Ave Maries,
Their dances were procession.
But now, alas! they all are dead,
Or gone beyond the seas,
Or farther for religion fled,
Or else they take their ease.

A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure;
And whoso kept not secretly

Their mirth, was punished sure:
It was a just and Christian deed
To pinch such black and blue:
Oh, how the commonwealth doth need
Such justices as you!

Now they have left our quarters;
A Register they have,

Who can preserve their charters ;

A man both wise and grave.
An hundred of their merry pranks,

By one that I could name,

Are kept in store; con twenty thanks
To William for the same.

To William Churne of Staffordshire
Give laud and praises due,

Who every meal can mend your cheer
With tales both old and true:

To William all give audience,

And pray ye for his noddle,
For all the fairies' evidence
Were lost, if it were addle.

CORBET.

362.-THE VOLUBLE LADY.

JANE AUSTEN.

[OF the hundreds of Novels that have been published since the beginning of the present century, who can remember even the names of a twentieth part? The larger number are quietly sleeping on the shelves of the circulating libraries of the country towns, destined only to see the light when some voracious spinster has exhausted all that is new of a teeming press, and in desperation plunges into the antiquities of a past generation. But there are six novels that can never be old-the works of the inimitable Jane Austen. No dust will ever settle on them, even in the libraries of the least tasteful of communities. Old and young, learned and unlearned, equally delight in the productions of the marvellous young woman, who drew the commonest incidents and characters of the most ordinary domestic life, with a skilfulness that manifests, more than anything we know, the surpassing power of that Art which makes realities more true than the thing itself beheld through a common medium. This is, indeed, genius. Jane Austen, the daughter of the rector of Steventon, in Hampshire, was born in 1775; died 1817.]

Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax, escorted by the two gentlemen, walked into the room. Everybody words were soon lost under the incessant flow of Miss Bates, who came in talking, and had not finished her speech under many minutes after her being admitted into the circle at the fire. As the door opened she was heard,"So very obliging of you!-No rain at all. Nothing to signify. I do not care for myself. Quite thick shoes. And Jane declaresWell ! (as soon as she was within the door), well ! This is brilliant indeed! This is admirable. Excellently contrived, upon my word. Nothing wanting. Could not have imagined it. So well lighted up! Jane, Jane, look! did you ever see anything? Oh! Mr. Weston, you must really have had Aladdin's lamp. Good Mrs. Stokes would not

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