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contract of marriage and promises of love; one half whereof was kept by the woman, while the other part remained with the man. The Dialogue between Kitty and Filbert in the "What d'ye call it," by Gay, illustrates the usage :

Yet, Justices, permit us, ere we part,

To break this Ninepence as you've broke our heart."

Filbert (breaking the ninepence) - As this divides, thus are we torn in twain.

Kitty (joining the pieces)-And, as this meets, thus may we meet again.

In "The Country Wake," a comedy by Dogget, 4to., London, 1696, Act v. sc. i., Hob, who fancies he is dying, before he makes his last will and testimony, as he calls it, when his mother desires him to try to speak to Mary, "for she is thy wife, and no other," answers, "I know I'm sure to her and I do own it before you all; I ask't her the question last Lammas, and at Allhallow's-tide we broke a piece of money; and if I had lived till last Sunday we had been ask'd in the church." Mr. Douce's MS. Notes say: "Analogous to the interchangement of rings seems the custom of breaking a piece of money. An example of this occurs in Bateman's Tragedy,' a wellknown penny history, chap. v." A lawbook, "Swinburne on Spousals," p. 10, says: "Some spousals are contracted by signs, as the giving and receiving a ring, others by words."

It appears to have been formerly a custom, also, for those who were betrothed to wear some flower as an external and conspicuous mark of their mutual engagement. Spenser, in his "Shepherd's Calendar," says,

"Bring coronations and sops in wine
Worn of paramours."

Sops in wine were a species of flowers among the smaller kind of single gilliflowers or pinks.*

CREELING.

In 1792 the minister of Galston, in Ayrshire, mentions a singular custom there: "When a young man wishes to pay his addresses to his sweetheart, instead of going to her father's, and professing his passion, he goes to a public-house,

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and, having let the landlady into the secret of his attachment, the object of his wishes is immediately sent for, who seldom refuses to come. She is entertained with ale and whisky, or brandy; and the marriage is concluded on. The second day after the marriage a "creeling," as it is called, takes place. The young wedded pair, with their friends, assemble in a convenient spot. A small creel, or basket, is prepared for the occasion, into which they put some stones: the young men carry it alternately, and allow themselves to be caught by the maidens, who have a kiss when they succeed. After a great deal of innocent mirth and pleasantry, the creel falls at length to the young husband's share, who is obliged to carry it generally for a long time, none of the young women having compassion upon him. At last his fair mate kindly relieves him from his burden; and her complaisance, in this particular, is considered as a proof of her satisfaction with the choice she has made. The creel goes round again; more merriment succeeds; and all the company dine together, and talk over the feats of the field.*

TRUE-LOVERS-KNOTS.

Among the ancient northern nations a knot seems to have been the symbol of indissoluble love, faith, and friendship. Hence the ancient runic inscriptions, Hickes's, are in the form of a knot; and hence, among the northern English and Scots, who still retain, in a great measure, the language and manners of the ancient Danes, that curious kind of knot, which is a mutual present between the lover and his mistress, and which, being considered as the emblem of plighted fidelity, is therefore called "a true-love knot:" a name which is not derived, as words "true" and "love." but formed may be naturally supposed, from the from the Danish verb "trulofa," fidem do, I plight my troth, or faith. Thus, in the Islandic Gospels, the following passage in the first chapter of St. Matthew confirms, beyond a doubt, the sense here given "til einrar Meyar er trulofad var einum Manne," &c.; i. e. to a virgin espoused; that is, who was promised, or had engaged herself to a man, &c. Hence, evidently, the "bride favors,"

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By me it resteth there,
The cause is not else where.

So have I seene the sicke to turne and turne againe,

As if that outward change could ease his inward paine:

But still, alas! in vaine,
The fit doth still remaine.

Yet goodnes is the spring from whence this ill doth grow,

For goodnes caused the love, which great

respect did owe,
Respect true love did show;

True love thus wrought my woe.

Gay, in his Pastoral called "the Spell," describes the rustic manner of knitting the true-love-knot :

As Lubberkin once slept beneath a tree, I twitched his dangling garter from his knee; He wist not when the hempen string I drew, Now mine I quickly doff of Inkle blue; Together fast I tye the garters twaine, And, while I knit the knot, repeat this strainThree times a true-love's knot I tye secure : Firm be the knot, firm may his love endure.

In England these knots of ribands were formerly distributed in great abundance as bride favors, even at the marriages of persons of the first distinction. They were worn at the hat, and consisted of ribands of various colors. M. Misson,

in his Travels in England, printed in 1696, says, "Formerly, in France, they gave Livrees de Noces, which was a knot of ribands, to be worn by the guests upon their arms; but that is practised now only among peasants. In England it is done still amongst the greatest noblemen. These ribands they call 'favors,' and give them not only to those that are at the wedding, but to five hundred people besides. T'other day, when the eldest son of M. de Overkerque married the duke of Ormond's sister, they dispensed a whole inundation of those little favors: nothing else was here to be met with, from the hat of the king down to that of the meanest servant." Ozell, in a note to his translation of Misson, says: "The favor was a pretty large knot, of several colors, gold, silver, carnation, and white. This is worn upon the hat for some weeks." The only color for wedding-favors at this time [1831] is white.

The bride favors have not been omitted in "The Collier's Wedding," a northern provincial poem :

The blithsome bucksome country maids,
With knots of ribands at their heads,
And pinners flutt'ring in the wind,
That fan before and toss behind, &c.

The same poem, speaking of the youth
attending the bridegroom, says,
Like streamers in the painted sky,
At every breast the favors fly.

Bridal Colors.

In a curious old book "The fifteen Comforts of Marriage," a conference is introduced concerning bridal colors in dressing up the bridal-bed by the bridemaids." Not, say they, with yellow ribbands, these are the emblems of jealousy -not with Fueille mort, that signifies fading love-but with true blue, that signifies constancy, and green denotes youth-put them both together, and there's youthful constancy. One proposed blue and black, that signifies constancy till death; but that was objected

to as those colors will never match. Violet was proposed as signifying religion: this was objected to as being too grave: and at last they concluded to mingle a gold tissue with grass green, which latter signifies youthful jollity." For the bride's favors, top-knots, and garters, the bride proposed blue, gold color, lemoncolor, &c. Gold-color was objected to as signifying avarice. The younger bride

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She gives him double forces, to endure
And to enjoy; by being one with him,
Feeling his joies and griefes with equal sense;
And like the twines Hippocrates reports,
If he fetch sighs, she draws her breath as
short:

If he lament, she melts herself in teares :
If he be glad, she triumphs; if he stirre,
She moves his way; in all things his sweet
ape:

And is, in alterations passing strange,
Himselfe divinely varied without change.
Gold is right precious; but his price infects
With pride and avarice; authority lifts

Hats from men's heads; and bows the strong

est knees,

Yet cannot bend in rule the weakest hearts; Musick delights but one sense; nor choice

meats;

One quickly fades, the other stir to sinne;
But a true wife, both sense and soul delights,
And mixeth not her good with any ill;

Her virtues, ruling hearts, all powers command;

All store without her leaves a man but poore;
And with her, povertie's exceeding store;
No time is tedious with her; her true worth
Makes a true husband thinke his arms enfold
(With her alone) a compleate world of golde.
Chapman, 1606.

CONJUGAL FELICITY.

love; but, when a man dwells in love, then the breasts of his wife are pleasant as the droppings upon the hill of Hermon, her eyes are fair as the light of heaven; she is a fountain sealed, and he can quench his thirst, and ease his cares, and lay his sorrows down upon her lap, and can retire home to his sanctuary and refectory, and his gardens of sweetness and chaste refreshments. No man can

tell, but he that loves his children, how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society. -Jeremy Taylor.

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There is nothing can please a man without love: and if a man be weary of the wise discourses of the Apostles, and of the innocency of an even and a private fortune, or hates peace, or a fruitful year, he hath reaped thorns and thistles from the choicest flowers of paradise; for September 8.---Day breaks

Than all that bards e'er feign; or tuneful skill
Has e'er struck forth from artificial notes :-
Theirs is that language, ignorant of ill,
Born from a perfect harmony of power and

will.

C. Lloyd, 1821.

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nothing can sweeten felicity itself, but

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ARCH ERECTED IN GRACECHURCH STREET, FOR THE CORONATION PROCESSION OF JAMES I. FROM THE TOWER TO WESTMINSTER, 1603-4.

66

In a handsome three and sixpenny tract, entitled London Pageants," Mr. John Gough Nichols has compiled "Accounts of fifty-five Royal Processions and VOL. I.-34.

Entertainments in the City of London." It is printed in octavo, and embellished with a folding quarto plate (from which the preceding engraving is copied), after

2 M

one of seven very rare folio prints representing "The Arches of Triumph erected in honor of the High and Mighty Prince James, the first of the name king of England, and the sixth of Scotland, at his Majesty's entrance and passage through his honorable Citty and Chamber of London, upon the 15th day of March, 1603. Invented and published by Stephen Harrison, Joyner and architect; and graven by William Kip." In 1803 a set of these prints, at Mr. Woodhouse's sale, produced twenty-six guineas, and therefore Mr. Nichols's view of one of these coronation arches enhances the interest of his work. It abounds in curious knowledge, familiarly communicated upon competent authority, and is consequently a desirable publication to all who wish to be acquainted, at a small expense, with the old royal processions in the metropolis. On reference to Mr. Nichols's "London Pageants," we find, that, from very early times, the kings of England made processions through London to their coronation.

In 1236, Henry III. having solemnized his marriage with Eleanor of Provence, at Canterbury, they were met, on their way to London, by the mayor, aldermen, and principal citizens, on horseback, richly arrayed in silk embroidered robes, each carrying a gold or silver cup, in token of the privilege claimed by the city, of being chief butler of the kingdom, at the king's coronation; and so they rode with the king and queen to their coronation at Westminster: there were set out in the streets pompous shows, and at night the city was splendidly illuminated with cressets and other lights. This seems to be the first coronation procession through the city upon record.

The procession of Richard II. on St. Swithin's day, 1377, is remarkable. The king, then a youth, clad in white garments, with a multitude of attendants, rode from the tower after dinner, through the city. The conduits ran with wine. In the Cheap was erected a castle spouting wine with four towers, and in each tower a beautiful virgin in white, of like stature and age with the king; on his approach each virgin blew in his face leaves of gold, and threw on him and his horse counterfeit gold florins, and, filling wine from the castle spouts into gold cups, presented wine to the king and his nobles; and on the top of the castle was a golden angel, holding a crown, and so contrived,

that he bowed down when the king came, and offered him the crown. There were other pageants, or shows, at other places in the line of route, but this was the most striking.

On

The return of Henry V. from his victory at Agincourt was welcomed with great rejoicing. The king was met at Blackheath by the mayor and aldermen of London, arrayed in orient grained scarlet, and 400 commoners in beautiful murrey, all with rich collars and chains, and on horseback. At St. Thomas a Watering he was received by the London clergy in solemn procession, with sumptuous copes, rich crosses, and censers. At London bridge, on the top of the tower, stood a gigantic figure with an axe in his right hand, and in his left the keys of the city hanging to a staff, in manner of a porter; by his side was a female figure, of scarcely less stature, intended for his wife: around them was a band of trumpets and other wind instruments: and on the towers were banners of the royal arms. each side of the drawbridge was a lofty tower; one was painted to represent white marble, and the other green jasper; they were surmounted by figures of the king's beasts, an antelope, with a shield of the royal arms from his neck, holding a sceptre with his right foot; and a lion bearing in his right paw the royal standard. At the foot of the bridge, next the city, was raised a tower, having in the middle a splendid pavilion, under which stood a beautiful image of St. George, armed, except his head, which was crowned with laurel, studded with precious gems; behind him was crimson tapestry, bearing a multitude of glittering shields, and on one side of him was his triumphal helmet, and on the other his arms, a red cross; he held in his right hand the hilt of his sword, girted, and in his left a scroll, extending along the turrets, and inscribed, Soli Deo Honor et Gloria. In an adjoining edifice innumerable boys, representing the angelic host, in white, with glittering wings, and sprigs of laurel in their hair, on the king's approach sang an anthem, accompanied by organs. The tower of the Conduit on Cornhill was decked with a tent of crimson cloth, and ornamented with the king's arms, and those of St. George, St. Edward, and St. Edmund. Under the pavilion was a company of hoary prophets, in golden coats and mantles, and their heads covered with gold

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