is entirely due to the subject. I have only endeavoured to partly discharge a long contracted debt,-to fulfil a promise of some standing-and to leave behind me a brief record of WENSLEYDALE, as it WAS, and as it IS,— such as may partially gratify the inhabitants until an abler shall come who will do full justice to its chronicles and its beauties.

But whilst I have scanned the history of the bygonejust named the great of old according to their succession, and given a passing glance at existing objects as they attract the traveller or resident, I have left well nigh wholly untouched, a deep mine of intense interest to all whose whole world does not consist of the steamship, the locomotive, and the engine;-the factory, the countinghouse, and-Gold. I mean local superstitions, manners, games, and usages; all highly valuable, because each must be accounted the representative of some nearly forgotten fact.

Many, it is true, are rude and uncouth enough, but by far the greater part possess much beauty, and hidden meanings. There was a time in merry England when good and high-born men felt no shame to take part in sports that are but children's pastimes now; but that was the time when they knew the science of the saints, and gave "to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's." Alas, few render true homage to either in this day.

Science may have less effect in ameliorating man's condition than that pure and simple, almost childlike faith, which enabled the meanest peasant to gather from lowly herbs and wayside flowers legends which filled his thoughts, whence sprung reflections which purified his

mind. Fables ere now have brought forth good fruit, where ethics have proved like the barren tree, or deadly

upas.

"Wo's me-how knowledge makes forlorn;

The forest and the field are shorn

Of their old growth, the holy flowers-
Or if they spring, they are not ours.

Many ancient practices are yet retained, however, and usages are preserved of which few townspeople have any knowledge. The bridal customs much resemble those followed in other rural districts of England; if we except an old one still adhered to in the high dales. When the happy united couple are on their return from church, the occupant of the first house they pass stands ready with a bowl of liquor, of quality according to his ability, which the wedding party quaff; and this compliment is repeated by each householder in succession, if his purse allows; so that no inconsiderable quantity must be imbibed before they reach home. Then money and bride-cake are scattered amongst the crowd, and a race for a ribbon follows.

At funerals, one from each in the township is bidden. Cake and wine or ale are handed to every guest, and nonattendance on these mournful occasions is regarded as a personal slight to the deceased.

The Christmas customs are like those prevailing through the north. The Waits, the Yule Clog,-the Virgin Chimes, the frumenty, cheese, and ale,—and the evergreen decorations, (1) are familiar to all. Not so the Sword-dance, which has come down to us from the

(1) The evergreen decorations have undoubtedly descended to us from the remote era of Druidism. When the severity of winter drove the Druid from the wilderness, and compelled him to offer his devotions in a more sheltered place, he failed not to bear away with him such branches of ever-green as the woods afforded. With these he decorated the walls of his domestic temple, hoping no doubt, by that means, to ensure the presence and protection of his tutelar deity. At the same inclement season, when we celebrate the Incarnation of the Son of God we adorn, in a similar manner, our sanctuaries and habitations. On account of its harmless simplicity, and its not militating against any ordinance of revealed religion, the custom has been continued from the ages of Druidism, to the present day.

Pliny, mentions the veneration in which the Misletoe was held by the Druids; and, in the 44th chapter of his 17th Book, minutely describes their ceremony of gathering it: which description is thus versified by the old Warwickshire Poet, Drayton, who wrote about the close of the 15th Century.

"Sometimes within my shades, in many an ancient wood,

Whose often-twined tops Phoebus' fires withstood.
The fearless British Priest, under an aged oak,
Taking a milk-white bull, unstrained with the yoke,
And with an axe of gold, from that Jove-sacred tree
The Misletoe cut down: then with a bended knee
On th' unhew'd altar laid, put to the hallow'd fires;
And, while in the sharp flame the trembling flesh expires,
Up to th' eternal heav'n his bloodied hands did rear:
And while the murm'ring woods e'en shudder'd as with fear,
Preach'd to the beardless youth the soul's immortal state;
To other bodies still how it shou'd transmigrate,
That to contempt of death them strongly did excite."

Polyolbion, 9th Song.

The following exquisitely graphic lines, from the pen of "Father Prout," appeared some few years ago in a popular London periodical; and need no apology for their re-publication.

THE MISLETOE.

A Prophet sat in the Temple gate,
And he spoke each passer by

In thrilling tones-with words of weight—
And fire in his rolling eye.

"Pause thee, believing Jew'

"Nor make one step beyond "Until thy heart hath conned

"The mystery of this wand."

Danes, and is both graceful and warlike enough when well and correctly executed. Till within a generation or so, young men of high respectability used to take part in this military game, and the dresses were often expensive. At Easter several relics of Catholic usages are perceptible. Perhaps few know anything of the ceremonies of Palm Sunday, yet many make a point of gathering palms And a rod from his robe he drew ;

"Twas a withered bough

Torn long ago

From the trunk on which it grew,

But the branch long torn
Shewed a bud new born,

That had blossomed there anew;
That wand was "JESSE's" rod-,"
Symbol, 'tis said,

Of HER-the Maid

Yet mother of our God!

A Priest of EGYPT sat meanwhile
Beneath his palm tree hid,

On the sacred brink of the flowing Nile,
And there saw mirror'd, 'mid

Tall obelisk and shadowy pile

Of ponderous pyramid,

One lowly, lovely, Lotus plant,

Pale orphan of the flood;

And long did that aged hierophant,

Gaze on the beauteous bud;

For well he thought, as he saw it float

O'er the waste of waters wild,
On the long remember'd cradle boat,
Of the wond'rous Hebrew child-

Nor was that lowly lotus dumb

Of a mightier Infant still, to come,
If mystic skiff

And hieroglyph

Speak aught in LUXOR's catacomb.
A GREEK sat on Colonna's cape,
In his lofty thoughts alone,
And a volume lay on PLATO's lap,
For he was that lonely one ;-

And oft as the sage

Gazed o'er the page

His forehead radiant grew,

For in Wisdom's womb

Of the WORD to come

on that festival, as some also do of making crosses on Good Friday, the only time in all the year at wnich they remember the holy sign. Easter or Pasch eggs too, are dyed of different colours-the symbol of the resurrection.

A vision blest his view

He broached that theme in the ACADEME

Of the teachful olive grove

And a chosen few that secret knew

In the PORCH's dim alcove.

A SYBIL sat in Cuma's cave

In the hour of infant ROME,

And her vigil kept and her warning gave

Of the HOLY ONE to come.

Twas she who culled the hallowed branch

And silent took the helm

When he the Founder-Sire would launch

His bark o'er Hades' realm:

But chief she poured her vestal soul
Thro' many a bright illumin'd scroll,
By priest and sage,

Of an after-age,

Conned in the lofty CAPITOL.

A DRUID stood in the dark oak wood,

Of a distant northern land,

And he seem'd to hold a sickle of gold

In the grasp of his withered hand,
And he moved him slowly round the girth

Of an aged oak, to see

If an orphan plant of wondrous birth
Had clung to the old oak tree.
And anon he knelt and from his belt
Unloosened his golden blade,

Then rose and culled the MISLETOE
Under the woodland shade.

O blessed bough! meet emblem thou
Of all dark EGYPT knew,

Of all foretold to the wise of old,

TO ROMAN, GREEK, and JEW.

And long, God grant, time honor'd plant

Live we to see thee hung

In cottage small as in baron's hall

Banner and shield among!

Thus fitly rule the mirth of Yule

Aloft in thy place of pride,

Still usher forth in each land of the North

The solemn CHRISTMAS TIDE!