The following account of a pageant which took place at Christmas, 1440, is from the records of Norwich:"John Hadman, a wealthy citizen, made disport with his neighbours and friends, and was crowned King of Christmas. He rode in state through the city, dressed forth in silks and tinsel, and preceded by twelve persons habited as the twelve months of the year, their costumes varying to represent the different seasons of the year. Alter King Christmas followed Lent, clothed in white garments trimmed with herring skins, on horseback, the horse being decorated with trappings of oyster-shells, being indicative that sadness and a holy time should follow Christmas revelling. In this way they rode through the city, accompanied by numbers in various grotesque dresses, making disport and merriment,some clothed in armour, carrying staves, and occasionally engaging in martial combat; others, dressed as devils, chased the people, and sorely affrighted the women and children; others, wearing skin-dresses, and counterfeiting bears, wolves, lions, and other animals, and endeavouring to imitate the animals they represented, in roaring and raving, alarming the cowardly and appalling the stoutest hearts."
DalmatiaAt Selenico, in Dalmatia, according to Fortis; they elect a king at Christmas, whose reign lasts only a fortnight; but notwithstanding the short duration of his authority, he enjoys several prerogatives of sovereignty: such, for example, as that of keeping the keys of the town, of having a distinguished place in the cathedral, and of deciding upon all the difficulties or disputes which arise among those who compose his court. The town is obliged to provide him with a house suitable to the dignity of his elevated situation. When he leaves his house, he is always compelled to wear a crown of wheat-ears, and he cannot appear in public without a robe of purple or scarlet cloth, and surrounded by a great number of officers. The governor, the bishops, and other dignitaries, are obliged to give him a feast; and all who meet him must salute him with respect. When the fortnight is at an end, the king quits his palace, strips off his crown and purple, dismisses his court, and returns to his hovel. For a length of time this pantomimical king was chosen from amongst the nobles, but at present it has devolved on the lowest of the people.
NEW BOOKS
THE LITERARY SOUVENIR, FOR 1833,
[Is, in our estimation, a splendid failure. It lacks the variety which the Annual should possess for a family of readers; and its sameness is, moreover, of the saddest character in the whole region of romance. The stories are long, and lazily told; and they overflow with the most lugubrious monotony. There is scarcely a relief throughout the volume, from Wordsworth's "majestic sonnet" on Sir Walter Scott, to Autumn Flowers, by Agnes Strickland; we travel from one end to the other, and all is lead and leadendull, heavy, and sad, as old Burton could wish; and full of moping melancholy, unenlivened by quaintness, or humour of any cast. Not that we mean to condemn the pieces individually; but, collectively, they are too much in the same vein: the Editor has studied too closely his text-motto:
"Fairy tale to lull the heir,
Goblin grim the maids to scare."
It is all shade, without a gleam of sunshine, if we except two or three of the most trifling of the papers. The best tale in the volume is the Marsh Maiden, by Leigh Ritchie; next is the Jacobite Exile and his Hound: Retrospections of Secundus Parnell, are an infliction upon the reader; and these, with two mediocre tales, and a sketch or two, make up the prose contents. The poetry has greater merit, though almost in one unvaried strain. Mr. Watts has contributed but one lyric, and Mrs. Watts a stirring ballad of Spanish revenge; Mary Howitt has contributed a fairy ballad, pretty enough; and the Sin of Earl Walter, a tale of olden popish times in England, of some 60 or 70 verses. We quote two specimens from the poetry:]
SONNET ON SIR WALTER SCOTT'S QUITTING ABBOTSFORD FOR NAPLES
By William WordsworthA trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light
Engendered, hangs o'er Eildun's triple height:
Spirits of Power assembled there complain
For kindred Power departing from their sight;
While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain,
Saddens his voice again and yet again.
Lift up your hearts, ye Mourners! for the might
Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes;
Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue
Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows,
Follow this wondrous Potentate. Be true
Ye winds of ocean and the midland sea,
Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope!
THE SKELETON DANCE
After the German of GoetheThe warder looked out at the mid-hour of night,
Where the grave-hills all silently lay;
The moon-beams above gave so brilliant a light,
That the churchyard was clear as by day:
First one, then another, to open began;
Here came out a womanthere came out a man,
Each clad in a shroud long and white.
And then for amusementperchance it was cold
In a circle they seemed to advance;
The poor and the rich, and the young and the old,
But the grave-clothes impeded the dance:
And as no person thought about modesty there,
They flung off their garments, and stripped themselves bare,
And a shroud lay on each heap of mould.
They kicked up their heels, and they rattled their bones,
And the horrible din that they made
Went clickety-clacketyjust like the tones
Of a castanet noisily played.
And the warder he laughed as he witnessed the cheer,
And he heard the Betrayer speak soft in his ear,
"Go and steal away one of their shrouds."
Swift as thought it was donein an instant he fled
Behind the church portal to hide;
And brighter and brighter the moon-beam was shed,
As the dance they still shudderingly plied;
But at last they began to grow tired of their fun,
And they put on their shrouds, and slipped off, one by one,
Beneath, to the homes of the dead.
But tapping at every grave-hill, there staid
One skeleton, tripping behind;
Though not by his comrades the trick had been played
Now its odour he snuffed in the wind:
He rushed to the doorbut fell back with a shock;
For well for the wight of the bell and the clock,
The sign of the cross it displayed.
But the shroud he must havenot a moment he stays;
Ere a man had begun but to think,
On the Gothic-work his fingers quickly he lays,
And climbs up its chain, link by link.
Now woe to the warderfor sure he must die
To see, like a long-legged spider, draw nigh
The skeleton's clattering form:
And pale was his visage, and thick came his breath;
The garb, alas! why did he touch?
How sick grew his soul as the garment of death
The skeleton caught in his clutch
The moon disappeared, and the skies changed to dun,
And louder than thunder the church-bell tolled one
The spectre fell tumbling to bits!
[and one of the prose tales, abridged:]
BEATRICE ADONY AND JULIUS ALVINZI
There is not in all Germany a more pleasant station for a regiment of horse than the city of Salzburgh, capital of the province of that name, in the dominions of the House of Austria. Here, during the summer and autumn of 1795, lay the third regiment of Hungarian hussars. This corps had sustained a heavy loss during the campaign of the year previous in Flanders, and was sent into garrison to be recruited and organized anew. Count Zichy, who commanded it, was a noble of the highest rank, of princely fortune, and of lavish expenditure; and being of a cheerful and social turn of mind, he promoted all the amusements of the place, and encouraged the gaiety of his officers.