After this tender appeal he reseats himself on his throne, and listens while the remainder of the maskers recite the following ballad : "As the shepherds watched their flock, Thus they heard the angel sing- When King Herod heard them tell And he sent to kill the child. At this point the goddess seats herself on Herod's throne, appearing overcome with grief, and hiding her face in her hands. They converse together in an under tone, while the actors continue: "A star came from the east country In hunger, cold, and poverty. We will praise God heartily, The fight of Satan and of sin. Now and everlastingly." Here ends the serious portion of the pageant: the bearers, parading their star, then make a threatening declaration of pawning it, unless a cup of Christmas ale be speedly brought to them, and the king of the Morians' land collects the alms; after which they all retire, singing — "We thank you for your charity, The money rang right merrily, And so ends the piece, a strange mixture of folly and sense, of heathenism and Christianity. Its origin, as far as it can be traced, appears to be this. In very early times the following ceremonial was observed in the churches on the festival of the Epiphany-three priests, in regal attire and followed by servants bringing gifts, walked in procession through the town, pointing towards a star in the heavens by which they pretended to be guided. On entering the church an illuminated star was discovered above the high altar, before which stood a priest, who demanded whom they sought. On the reply that they sought the king of the Jews, a curtain was drawn aside, displaying a sleeping child, before whom they fell down and offered their gifts. In process of time this ceremony degenerated into a custom of begging alms from house to house among the lower officials of the churches and convents; the star, which formerly shone within the holy building, accompanying them in their wanderings. This again, by degrees, fell entirely into the hands of the common people, and received a traditionary accumulation. of songs and personages, which has debased it into the incongruous medley of the form in which it is presented at this day. THE HARP AND THE POET. THE wind, before it woos the harp, Is but the wild and tuneless air; Yet, as it passes through the chords, And so the poet's soul converts The common things that round him lie THE fire-side is a seminary of infinite importance. It is important, because it is universal, and because the education it bestows, being woven in with the woof of childhood, gives form and colour to the whole texture of life. There are few who can receive the honours of a college, but all are graduates of the hearth. The learning of the university may fade from the recollection, its classic lore may moulder in the halls of memory, but the simple lessons of home, enamelled upon the heart of childhood, defy the rust of years, and outlive the more mature but less vivid pictures of after-days. ANCIENT LONDON.—No. IV. AFTER the lists and the gibbet, the third great picture of ancient Smithfield is the stake. Not long since a dark square portion of the pavement, now removed, near the gate of St. Bartholomew's Priory, marked the spot where that ill-omened instrument used to be planted. The earliest application of this horrid punishment was resorted to in cases of reputed sorcerers and witches. In the Anglo-Saxon time the imputation of sorcery appears to have been incurred by a lapse from the obligations of baptism to the old superstition and rites of their original heathenism, and the punishment formerly held due to heresy probably originated in primitive association of those offences. The words in Shakspere's play (Henry VI., Part II.)— "The witch in Smithfield shall be burned to ashes," tends to identify the practice with the place; but, as regards the more durable records of Smithfield martyrology, they may be touched upon with more propriety in another part of these writings. To return to St. Bartholomew's Prigry, from which we have been led away by the associations due to its locality: its origin is detailed in a manuscript in the Cottonian collection of the British Museum, which appears to have been written in the fifteenth century, but its matter bears internal evidence of having been originally compiled about the twelfth century, or nearly contemporary with the founder, Rahere-for the writer professes to set down that which they testified to us that sey hym, heard hym, and were presente yn hys werkys and dedis, of the which sume have take their sleepe yn Christe, and sume he zith alyve, and wytnesseth of that we shall after say.” According to this rare and highly illustrative narrative, passages of which rise into a degree of solemn beauty of language. Rahere was a man Sprongying and born of low kynage: whan he attayned the floure of youth, he began to haunte the householdys of noblemen and the palices of prynces, where, under everye elbowe of them he spread their coshyngs with iapys and flatteryngs, delectably anointing their eyes, by thys man to draw * Removed in 1848 in the construction of a sewer: a quantity of bones found underneath were supposed to be those of persons burnt at the stake, and their ashes buried on the spot. They were carried away as sacred relics. to hym their frendschippis, and zit he was not cotent with this, but oft hawnted the king's palice, and amonge the noysefull presse of that tumultuous courte, enformed hymself with polite and carnal suavyte by which he might drawe to him the hertys of many oone, &c." Thus far the orthography of the original, which is composed in Latin and English. Further extracts may be modified (as regards spelling only) for the sake of convenient perusal. "But," continues the writer, who shows no disposition to excuse the levity and sycophancy of Rahere's early career, 'the inward seer and merciful God of all, the which out of Mary Magdalene cast out seven fiends; the which, to the Fisher gave the keys of Heaven, mercifully converted this man from the error of his way, and added to him so many gifts of virtue." Rahere now undertook a pilgrimage to Rome, and there," at the shrines of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, he, weeping his deeds, prayed to our Lord for remission of them." While tarrying there, "he began to be vexed with grievous sickness, and his dolours, little and little, taking their incrcase, he drew to the extreme of life." In his dread he vowed, "that if health God would him grant, that he might return to his own country, he would make an hospital in recreation of poor men, and to them so there gathered, necessaries minister after his power. And not long after the benign and merciful Lord beheld this weeping man, and gave him his health, approved his vow. So of his sickness recovered he was, and in short time, whole made, began homeward to come, his vow to fulfil that he had made. When he would perfect his way that he had begun, in a certain night he saw a vision, full of dread and sweetness." In this vision St. Bartholomew appeared to Rahere, and commanded him to found a church in a place chosen by Divine will, in the suburbs of London, at Smithfield. On his arrival in London, Rahere made known to the king the obligation he had taken upon him, and was received with favour, for a traditionary sanctity was associated with the spot pointed to for his intended church, through a revelation in reference to it which had been announced by Edward the Confessor, in one of those prophetic ecstasies by which he was visited in his latter years. Also "Three men of Greece," says the manuscript, "came to London, and upon this spot worshipped God, and prophesied that here should be built an acceptable temple, and that its fame should attain from the spring of the sun to the going down." Although the king gave Rahere a favourable audience, it does not appear that he extended any immediate aid towards his project beyond a grant of land. He began upon his own resources to clear a portion of ground for the foundations of his church, itself, according to the manuscript, no small undertaking. "Right unclean it was, and as a marsh damp and fenny, with water almost every time abounding, and that that was eminent above the water, dry, was deputed to be the gibbet, or gallows of thieves, and to the torment of others that were arraigned (deepnyd) by judicial authority." Truly, when Rahere had applied his study to the purgation of this place, and decreed to put his hand to that holy building, he was not ignorant of Satan's wiles, for he made and feigned himself unwise, and outwardly pretended the cheer of an idiot, and began a little while to hide the "secretness of his soul." By means of this artifice, which, perhaps, he justified by the example of David,* he, by his oddities, attracted idle people and children, and— "with this use and help stones and other things (profitable to the building) lightly he gathered together. He played with them, and from day to day made himself more vile in his own eyes. But having thus won this attention he improved the opportunity for exhorting and instructing his playfellows, so that now he stirred his audience to gladness, that all the people applauded him, and incontinent he proffered sadness, and so now of their sins, that all the people were compelled unto sighing and weeping." In this way the work went on, and- "the church he made of comely stone work, tablewise. And an hospitalhouse, a little longer off from the church, by himself he began to edify. The church was founded (as we have taken of our elders) in the month of March, in the name of our Lord Jhu Christ, in memory of most blessed Bartholomew Apostle, the year from the incarnation of the same Lord our Saviour Mmo C XIIJ. Then holding and ruling the holy see of Rome, most holy father Pope Calixtus the Second. President in the church of England, William Archbishop of Canterbury, and Richard Bishop of London, the which of due law and right hallowed that place in the east part of the aforesaid field† (and bishoply authority dedicated the same that time full brief and short) as a cemetery. Reigning the younger son of William Rothy, first king of Englishmen in the north, Herry the First, XXXty years, and a side half (approximate), the third year of his reign."‡ Thus was the foul and polluted spot purged and sanctified by the token of the cross, and he who had wrought this wondrous change was proved not unwise as he was trowed, but very wise, and that that was hid and secret openly began to be made to all men, and," says his biographer, "whose heart lightly should take or admit such a man, not product of gentle blood, not greatly endowed with literature or of divine kynage. * 1 Sam. xxi. 13. † Smithfield. The chronology, here vaguely expressed, seems to date from the reduction of the north of England by William the Conqueror, and from the commencement of St. Bartholomew's Church in the third year of Henry I. |