Months afford to the pencils of a Turner or Calcott,uncle Zachary's designation, "The PICTURESQUE a Constable or a Collins, or to the talents of the fourSAXONS." In short, every thing Anglo-Saxon from conjointly, each taking to himself one of the sea- my earliest days has been music to my ears, and sons. Who would not desire to possess twelve painting to my eyes. cabinet landscapes, composed of the horticultural and agricultural attributes of each month-the joint labours of worthies like these? Or peradventure, the dilletanti, cognoscenti, connoisseurs, and others, whom these matters concern, taking up the thought, night ask, "and why not cast about, and find a native genius for each month?" Well! be it even so, and it please your reverences, so the thing be done; and if it be done, when it be done, it were well done if it were done quickly. And more quickly would it be done, and better done, by twelve than one, or times be strangely altered.

Who, indeed, that has any Picturesque blood in his veins, said my facetious old friend Captain Grose, who indeed would not go ten miles out of the road to see an Anglo-Saxon monument of art, whether in the shape of a church, or a porch, or even a window, with its zig-zag frieze? Though, alas! Dr. James Bentham, and that still more illustrious antiquary Thomas Gray, have been wont to tell us- -(would I could prove they were wrong, for all my respect for their memories)-that "most of what we have taken for Anglo-Saxon is AngloNorman!" My stars!-but to the point, we know they named the months and thus they were named:

THE SAXON MONTHS.

January was named ÆFTER-YULA, or, after

Thus much being despatched then, gentle reader, we have now to name the twelve. Firstly, then, there can be no offence in naming Turner, as the first. Secondly, I would venture to wager a new shilling, that nineteen out of twenty already anti-Christmas. cipateth Calcott as the second. Be it even so, and if it be your pleasure to arrange the following as they strike your better judgments, doubtless they will be justly marshalled; whilst I cannot do better than by setting them forth alphabetically. Here, then followeth the twelve:

Yea, and as many more could be named, could we
add twelve more months to our calendar. But,
"all in good time," as good old Pick-a-back was
wont to say, and Apollo will cut out work for these.
Indeed, as my great uncle Zachary once said to
George Lambert, (who by the way was an excellent
landscape painter, though now so little known ;) it
was upon the same subject, when Hogarth had made
a drawing, or rather a sketch, of a shepherd-boy,§|
for one of his little pastoral pictures, entitled MAY,
-for George was no hand at painting figures-" I||
like your theme," said my great uncle; "I wish
some of you notable designers would give us the
characteristics of the months-their very names, as
handed down to us from those picturesque Saxon
ancestors of ours, convey agreeable and rural
associations, which conjure up pictures before the
imagination."

I cannot divine how you may feel upon this subject, gentle reader, but somehow, I never dip into the history of the Saxon times but I think of

February, SOL-MONATH, from the returning sun. March, RHEDE, or RETH-MONATH, rough or rugged month.

April, EASTER-MONATH, from a Saxon goddess (Easter).

May, TRI-MILCHI, from the custom of milking thrice a day.

June, SERE-MONATH, the meads in bloom. August, WEOD-MONATH, from the luxuriance of weeds.

September, HÆRFEST-MONATH, the harvest month.

October, WINTER-FYLLETH, winter approaching with the October full moon.

November, BLOT-MONATH, from the blood of cattle killed for store.

December, MIDWINTER-MONATH.

There is extant a Saxon manuscript, a sort of English Georgics, with drawings, describing the rural occupations of each month, which nearly correspond with the agricultural and horticultural seasons of the present time.

In the portfolios of the collector too, may be found etchings and engravings of the months by various of the Dutch and Flemish masters. A very curious set was in the possession of the late Samuel Shelley, the miniature painter of worthy memory, at least two hundred years old; among which was the rural occupation of hiving of bees, wherein was represented good housewives tinging of brass pans, and the men with the hives, having their faces

have been cut off so soon, perchance," said the mas- boys, held conclave on the case, and came to this ter of the free-school, but for his own wayward determination, without a dissentient voice, and what will;" and this was plausible enough, for many of is more, without dissension, saith mine authority, the ancients of the village used to shake their heads, THAT OUT THE USHER SHOULD not go. "And particularly Master Maul, the bone-setter, a man much, I question," quoth Silly-crow to Lawyer who doctor'd for the rheumatiz, when Pick-a-back|| Keepsake, "with deference due to your better would up to his knees be seen at the mill-tail, at even-head-piece, if the question of his ejectment could tide, routing for minnow bait, along with our boys. have been carried into force, against this motherly Even Old Bull-rush, thorough varment as he was, dictum, by the Lord Chancellor himself." Thus the ancient poacher, as he waxed old, walked by the our good-hearted Usher purchased the title Pick-amaxims of Doctor Maul, and kept his feet warm back. when he reached four score.

But our Old Pick-a-back could never do enough for our boys. It was kindness in his official, as well as demi-official capacities, that acquired him the appellation PICK-A-BACK.

66

"Never can I forget his funeral," quoth Sillycrow, "that was the point of time, the climaxnote ye, your reverences. It was when the vicar, looking you as one of the pictured saints, with awful voice, gave, Earth to earth, Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust, and the loose clods returned a dank and deathy sound from the coffin of beloved Picka-back. It was then that all our boys, good boys, burst simultaneously into tears.

May be,

"Didst see my gentle master laid low? ah, well

Know then, it happened "many years agone," as Prudence Pope was used to say, the homely touch, Old Merryweather ordered Pick-a-back to horse a boy for robbing of an orchard. The magistrate himself laid the complaint, who was an illconditioned "'Tis piteous to see the aged weep for youth cut hunx, as all the country knew. The Usher pleaded off i'the bud, but it seems natural enough, fond for the delinquent, for flogging was not much in hope frustrate, and what not. It moveth me much Vogue at Occum Rogus's School. Flog the jack-more to see youth weeping at the of old age, grave anapes," quoth Justice Doodle, (he was descended I know not why," quoth Silly-crow. of the Doodles of Flint Hall,)" or I'll trounce him || it hath more of what your gentle-folk call sentiment. at the Quarter Sessions." So the Usher was con- Something, I trow, angelical about it." strained to the unwilling office of horsing the culprit, by the peremptory mandate of his worship.a-day!" quoth Patience Pope. "Good hap, for The urchin had received some half-dozen strokes of aught we know, his blessed spirit saw the sight. Merryweather's rod, and bellowed out most lustily, For Grim, the chimney-sweeper be said to walk when ALL the dogs without set up a howling. o'nights, why not then, one so good as he, who Aye, the dogs, kind hearts," quoth Patience ne'er did no one wrong? I would not be presumpPope, if it be not profane to say so of dumb tuous, but all fell out, nor more nor less, just as brutes, who cannot bear to hear the cries of human || dear master could have wished. Peace to his righwoe." But our Usher was a match for Squire teous bones." Doodle. I'fegs, how prompt he was, at paying off "Poor Master Pick-a-back," said Master Maul, a trick in kind. Away he shot, the urchin on his the bone-setter, the next evening at the village back, right though the market place-'twas market || club. "Of the fifty and two scholars, forty and nine day-and as he ran, set up a hue-and-cry-Here took a last look, down his deep pit-hole, through comes the flogging justice; by which strange crazy their misty eyes, as tho'f he'd been their great prank, the boy escaped with less than half a whip-grandsire," (wiping a tear from his own ;)" and ping, and his Worship Doodle was dubbed Justice Flozzer, until his dying day, at least so saith my chronicle.

This crazy frolic, though as well it might, had not the laughing Fates, who seemed to clap their hands at almost all that happ'd at Occum-Rogus terposed. This frolic, then, had nearly gone to et our friendly Usher clean cashiered; but the fathers of the boys, or rather, as Patience Pope jeclared upon her dying bed, the mothers of the

the other three, biggish boys too, cried at home by the school fire, with grief and the belly-ache, from eating green gooseberries, while sickening for the meazles. But there is no such thing as clouting old heads upon young shoulders, sure enow. Boys will be boys, and as good Queen Bess, of pious memory, once said to Roger Ascham-Who the devil, Master Roger, would keep a school!"

"I trow!" quoth Silly-crow," never were such bookish folks as we of our town. This comes of

the parsonage library, whither thither, all who run may read. Physic, Chirurgery, and Polemics. O the wise-acres of Occum-Rogus!"

Old Pick-a-back was an universal genius, as the squire himself used to aver, and ought to have been president of a college. This was the burden of his song at the Quarter Sessions, when his worship was appealing for an addition to the old Usher's salary. The funds were rich enough, I wot.

sometimes, lo! Old Expectation, putting up his spectacles again in shagreen case, will shrugging say, I' faith, Long-look'd-for might as well have staid at home.

Even so with our contemporary Mr. Peter Coxe his promised volume-so long looked for—lo! it is come at last; and then, no sooner come, than many a paper-knife was quick in requisition, by hosts of friendly hands.

"Indeed, this is a handsome book," quoth one; and verily worth waiting for," rejoined another. "And I rejoice," exclaimed a third," that I subscribed for a large-paper copy." "Welcome, Linco-welcome home!"*

"Very fine talking, your Worship," answereth Pick-a-back, with a modest bow. "What do they" teach at your Universities, save Latin and Greek." Mark you, gentle reader, this was the good squire, not old grumpus Doodle, the other magistrate; he would not put out his crutch to save a sinking saint from drowning.

Now Pick-a-back taught his good boys, those who had ever so little a modicum of wit, something of every thing. By which token, quoth Silly-crow, "our Ŏccum-Rogus scholars know nothing." But Silly-crow knew better, he was a wag.

It is something though, my worthy author, to live in days like these, when a world of patrons can be pricked down upon the card, with four guineas, set off against their honoured names for a largepaper copy.

It is something, too, to add, that this noble spirit of patronage has been well bestowed. For we have lived to hail the epoch, when the British press gives birth to the most admired illustrated books of any press in Christendom: and this we owe not to the munificence of a Leo-or a Louis le Grand-but to Public Spirit, and National Taste; to an enlightened age; the long-looked-for, the so devoutly-wished, and the now consummated, flowing from a source the more to be prized as the most || likely to last.

"We have given to the world one circumnavigator," said Master Merryweather, reckoning on his fingers. "That's one," quoth Silly-crow; "and two first rate mathematicians." "That maketh three," quoth the under usher. "And one incomparable, almost incomprehensible, metaphysician," "which maketh four." Master Merryweather dealt in long words, it was his pride, it was his foible. "Mirabillissimum!" Thus the worthy Merryweather would proceed, bragging of his disciples, painters, poets, soldiers, sailors, physicians, lawyers, merchants, and divines, though to lower the fond old prater a peg or two, sly Silly-crow would add, "He was no Kneller, nor he a Pope, We are surrounded by a social neighbourhood; nor t'other a Marlborough, nor this man a Hawke, we live on very social terms with the Appinghams nor that man a Sydenham, nor the next a Bacon, at the manor-house, and the Coddringtons at the nor your trader a Gresham, nor your parson a Til-grove, with the commodores at the hall, and the lotson." "Pox take you," Old Merryweather would exclaim: "What then! but they were all good members of the Common weal!"

A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod;

And-An honest man's the noblest work of God

The subject which our author has chosen, bears upon the very face of it a title to our regard. The Social Day. The very word conveys pleasurable associations-it is national.

vicars at the moat-house: yes, we are on a social footing with all the parish, said the three spinstersisters, worthy ladies. Then, thither will I retire, said their good old uncle from Bombay. Ah! girls, there is no region upon earth like old England;

And it became a proverb-“ Occum-Rogus, where and the grey-headed warrior is gone to add another dwelleth none but honest men."

THE SOCIAL DAY.

LONG-LOOK'D-FOR, COME AT LAST!

to their social circle.

This little fiction, peradventure, is the sense in which our author uses the word; and, by way of illustration, introduces his readers to a family, a few miles from town, which may be regarded as a

A HOMELY saying this; but when the said Long-picture, or specimen of a class, that seems almost ooked-for really comes, and empties his travelling budget, the question is, what have we here? and

peculiar to our soil-one, of the many, who tenant the villas, so beautifully sprinkled over our land