black Kate would marry him these three years.' I was diverted from a further observation of these combatants, by a foot-ball match, which was on the other side of the green; where Tom Short behaved himself so well, that most people seemed to gree, it was impossible that he should remain a bachelor until the next wake.' Having played many a match myself, I could have looked longer on this sport, had I not observed a country girl, who was posted on an eminence at some distance from me, and was making so many odd grimaces, and writhing and distorting her whole body in so strange a manner, as made me very desirous to know the meaning of it. Upon my coming up to her, I found that she was overlooking a ring of wrestlers, and that her sweetheart, a person of small stature, was contending with a huge brawny fellow, who twirled him about, and shook the little man so violently, that by a secret sympathy of hearts it produced all those agitations in the person of his mistress, who I dare say, like Cælia in Shakespear on the same occasion, could have wished herself invisible to catch the strong fellow by the leg.' The squire of the parish treats the whole company every year with a hogshead of ale; and proposes a beaver hat as a recompense to him who gives most falls. This has raised such a spirit of emulation in the youth of the place, that some of them have rendered themselves very expert at this exercise; and I was often surprised to see a fellow's heels fly up, by a trip which was given him so smartly that I could scarce discern it. I found that the old wrestlers seldom entered the ring until some one was grown formidable by having thrown two or three of his opponents; but kept themselves as it were in a reserved body to defend the hat, which is

always

always hung up by the person who gets it in one of the most conspicuous parts of the house, and looked upon by the whole family as something redounding much more to their honour than a coat of arms. There was. a fellow who was so busy in regulating all the ceremonies, and seemed to carry such an air of importance in his looks, that I could not help inquiring who he was, and was immediately answered, that he did not value himself upon nothing, for that he and his ancestors had won so many hats, that his parlour looked like a haberdasher's shop.' However, this thirst of glory in them all, was the reason that no one man stood lord of the ring for above three falls while I was among them.

، The young maids, who were not lookers-on at these exercises, were themselves engaged in some diversion; and upon my asking a farmer's son of my own parish what he was gazing at with so much attention, he told me, that he was seeing Betty Welch,' whom I knew to be his sweet-heart, pitch a bar.'

In short, I found the men endeavoured to show the women they were no cowards, and that the whole company strove to recommend themselves to each other, by making it appear that they were all in a perfect state of health, and fit to undergo any fatigues of bodily labour.

"Your judgment upon this method of love and gallantry, as it is at present practised among us in the country, will very much oblige,

Sir, yours, &c.'

'Love and marriages are the natural effects of these anniversary assemblies. I must therefore very much approve the method by which my correspondent tells me each sex endeavours to recommend itself to the

other, since nothing seems more likely to promise å healthy offspring or a happy cohabitation. And I believe I may assure my country friend, that there has been many a court lady who would be contented to exchange her crazy young husband for Tom Short; and several men of quality who would have parted with a tender yoke-fellow for black Kate.

I am the more pleased with having love made the principal end and design of these meetings, as it seems to be most agreeable to the intent for which they were at first instituted, as we are informed by the learned Dr. Kennet, with whose words I shall conclude my present: paper:

These wakes, says he, were in imitation of the antient ayana, or love-feasts; and were first established in England by pope Gregory the great, who, in an epistle to Melitus the abbot, gave order that they should be kept in sheds or arbories made up with branches or boughs of trees round the church.'

He adds, that this laudable custom of wakes prevailed for many ages, until the nice puritans began to exclaim against it as a remnant of popery; and by degrees the precise humour grew so popular, that at an Exeter assizes the lord chief baron Walter made an order for the suppression of all wakes: but on bishop Laud's complaining of this innovating humour, the king commanded the order to be reversed.'

E. BUDGELL.

THEODOSIUS AND CONSTANTIA, A TALE. No. 164. CONSTANTIA was a woman of extraordinary wit and beauty, but very unhappy in a father, who, having arrived

arrived at great riches by his own industry, took delight in nothing but his money. Theodosius* was the younger son of a decayed family, of great parts and learning, improved by a genteel and virtuous education: When he was in the twentieth year of his age he became acquainted with Constantia, who had not then passed her fifteenth. As he lived but a few miles distant from her father's house, he had frequent opportunities of seeing her; and by the advantages of a good person, and a pleasing conversation, made such an impression on her heart as it was impossible for time to efface. He was himself no less smitten with Constantia. A long acquaintance made them still diseover new beauties in each other, and by degrees raised in them that mutual passion which had an influence on their following lives. It unfortunately happened, that in the midst of this intercourse of love and friend. ship between Theodosius and Constantia, there broke out an irreparable quarrel between their parents, the one valuing himself too much upon his birth, and the other upon his possessions. The father of Constantia was so incensed at the father of Theodosius, that he contracted an unreasonable aversion towards his son, insomuch that he forbade him his house, and charged his daughter upon her duty never to see him more. In the mean time, to break off all communication between the two lovers, who he knew entertained secret hopes of some favourable opportunity that should bring them together, he found out a young gentleman of a good fortune, and an agreeable person, whom he pitched

The Theodosius and Constantia' of Dr. Langhorne, a collection of letters, in 2 vols. 12mo, takes its rise from this, paper.

upon as a husband for his daughter. He soon concerted this affair so well, that he told Constantia it was his design to marry her to such a gentleman, and that her wedding should be celebrated on such a day. Constantia, who was overawed with the authority of her father, and unable to object any thing against so ad vantageous à match, received the proposal with a profound silence, which her father commended in her as the most decent manner of a virgin's giving her consent to an overture of that kind. The noise of this intended marriage soon reached Theodosius, who, after a long tumult of passions, which naturally rise in a lover's heart on such an occasion, writ the following letter to Constantia :

The thought of my Constantia, which for some years has been my only happiness, is now become a greater torment to me than I am able to bear. Must I then live to see you another's? The streams, the fields, and meadows, where we have so often talked together, grow painful to me; life itself is become a burthen, May you long be happy in the world! but forget that there was ever such a man in it as

Theodosius.'

This letter was conveyed to Constantia that very evening, who fainted at the reading of it; and the next morning she was much more alarmed by two or three messengers, that came to her father's house one after another, to inquire if they had heard any thing of Theodosius, who it seems had left his chamber about midnight, and could no where be found. The deep melancholy, which had hung upon his mind some time before, made them apprehend the worst that could be

fall