with a dagger in one hand, and "Hooks and Eyes for an Unbeliever's Breeches," in the other, revelled in the destruction of all that was intellectual in the land. When the lute, the virginals, the violde-gambo, were hushed for the inharmonious bray of their miserable conventicles,' and the quaintly appropriate signs of the ancient taverns and music shops were pulled down to make room for some such horrible effigy as we see dedicated to their high priest, John Knox, on a wall in the odoriferous Canongate of Modern Athens.3 in all the Reasons that can be made for them are notably refuted, the objections answered, and the case so clear and resolved as that the judgment of any man that is not froward and perverse may easilie be satisfied; wherein is manifestly proved that it is not onely unlawful to bee an actor, but a beholder of those vanities, &c. &c." "What a poor pimping business is a Presbyterian place of worship; dirty, narrow and squalid: stuck in the corner of an old Popish garden such as Linlithgow, and much more, Melrose."-ROBERT BURNS. 2 Two wooden heads, with this inscription under it: "We three loggerheads be." The third was the spectator. The tabor was the ancient sign of a music shop. Tarleton kept an eating-house with this sign. Apropos of signs-Two Irishmen beholding a hatchment fixed against a house, the one inquired what it was? "It's a bad sign!" replied the other mysteriously. Paddy being still at fault as to the meaning, asked for further explanation." It's a sign," cried his companion with a look of immeasurable superiority, "that somebody is dead!" • Those who would be convinced of the profaneness of the Deep was the gloom of those dismal days! The kitchens were cool; the spits motionless. The green holly and the mystic mistletoe were blooming abominations. The once rosy cheeks of John Bull looked as lean as a Shrove-Tuesday pancake, and every rib like the tooth of a saw. Rampant were those times, when crop-ear'd Jack Cameronians and Covenanters have only to read "Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence displayed, or the Folly of their teaching discovered from their Books, Sermons, and Prayers," 1738,a volume full of ludicrous impieties. We select one speci men. Mr. William Vetch, preaching at Linton, in Tiviotdale, said, "Our Bishops thought they were very secure this long time. "Like Willie Willie Wastel, I am in my castel. All the dogs in the town Dare nor ding me down. "Yea, but there is a doggie in Heaven that has dung them all down." 1 "The Lamentable Complaints of Nick Froth the Tapster, and Ruleroast the Cook," 4to. 1641. 2 The magical properties of the mistletoe are mentioned both by Virgil and Ovid; and Apuleius has preserved some verses of the poet Lelius, in which he mentions the mistletoe as one of the things necessary to make a magician. In the dark ages a similar belief prevailed, and even to the present day the peasants of Holstein, and some other countries, call the mistletoe the "Spectre's Wand," from a supposition that holding a branch of mistletoe in the hand will not only enable a man to see ghosts, but to force them to speak to him! The mistletoe is peculiar to Christmas. Presbyter was as blythe as shepherd at a wake.1 1 "We'll break the windows which the whore And when the Popish saints are down, We'll burn the fathers' learned books, We'll down with all that smells of wit, The downfall of May-games, 4to. 1660. By Thomas On May 1, 1517, the unfortunate shaft, or May-pole, gave rise to the insurrection of that turbulent body, the London apprentices, and the plundering of the foreigners in the city, whence it got the name of Evil May-day. From that time the offending pole was hung on a range of hooks over the doors of a long row of neighbouring houses. In the 3rd of Edward VI. an over-zealous fanatic called Sir Stephen began to preach against this May-pole, which inflamed his audience so greatly, that the owner of every house over which it hung sawed off as much as depended over his premises, and committed piecemeal to the flames this terrible idol ! The "tall May-pole" that "once o'erlooked the Strand," (about the year 1717,) Sir Isaac Newton begged of the parish, and dancing! For the disciples of Stubbes and Prynne having discovered by their sage oracles, that May-games were derived from the Floralian Feasts and interludes of the pagan Romans, which were solemnised on the first of May; and that dancing round a May-pole, adorned with garlands of flowers, ribbons, and other ornaments, was idolatry, after the fashion of Baal's worshippers, who capered about the altar in honour of their idol; resolved that the Goddess Flora should no longer receive the gratulations of Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, and Robin Hood's merry men, on a fine May morning; a superstition derived from the Sibyl's books, horribly papistical and pagan. and it was carried to Wanstead in Essex, where it was erected in the park, and had the honour of raising the greatest telescope then known. The New Church occupies its site. "But now (so Anne and piety ordain), A church collects the saints of Drury Lane." 1 "Good fellowes must go learne to daunce The brydeal is full near a : There is a brall come out of Fraunce, I praye the mynstrell make no stoppe, For we wyll merye be a." From an unique black letter ballad, printed in 1569, "Intytuled, Good Fellowes must go learne to Daunce.'" Nor was the "precise villain" less industrious in confiscation and sacrilege.' Painted windowsLucifer's Missal drawings!—he took infinite pains to destroy; and with his long pike did the devil's work diligently. He could endure no cross2 but 1 Sir Robert Howard has drawn an excellent picture of a Puritan family, in his comedy of "The Committee." The personages are Mr. Day, chairman to the committee of sequestrations; Mrs. Day, "the committee-man's utensil," with “curled hair, white gloves, and Sabbath-day's cinnamon waistcoat;" Abel, their booby son, a fellow "whose heart is down in his breeches at every turn ;" and Obadiah, chief clerk, dull, drawling, and heinously given to strong waters. We are admitted into the sanctum sanctorum of pious fraud, where are seated certain honourable members, whose names cannot fail to enforce respect. Nehemiah Catch, Joseph Blemish, Jonathan Headstrong, and Ezekiel Scrape! The work of plunder goes bravely on. The robbing of widows and orphans is “building up the new Zion." A parcel of notched rascals laying their heads together to cheat is "the cause of the righteous prospering when brethren dwell together in unity ;" and when a canting brother gives up lying and the ghost, Mr. Day remarks that "Zachariah went off full of exhortation!" It was at the sacking of Basing House, the seat of the venerable Marquis of Winchester, that Harrison, the regicide and butcher's son, shot Major Robinson, exclaiming as he did the deed, “Cursed is he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently." Hugh Peters, the buffooning priest, was of the party. 2 The erection of upright stone crosses is generally supposed to have dated its origin from the custom which the first Christians in this island adopted of inscribing the Druid stones with a cross, that the worship of the converted idolator might be transferred from the idol to the emblem of his faith; and |