WHO has not heard of the Vicar of Bray, and his turning, turning, and turning again? Here is his church, and a goodly tower withal, which we, in our turn, have endeavoured to turn to the illustration of our pages. There is no sinister motive in the selection; but if we have hit the white, or rather the black, of such variableness, "let the galled jade wince," and pay the Mirror the stale compliment of veluti in speculum.

Bray is a small village about one mile from Maidenhead, and its name would have remained "unsaid, unsung," had it not been for its never-enough-to-beridiculed Vicar. Camden supposes Bray to have been occupied by the Bibroci, who submitted to Cæsar, and obtained his protection, and with it a secure possession of one of the most beautiful spots in this county; so that submissiveness seems to have been the very air of the place in all times. Philippa, the queen of Edward III., had rents assigned to her from this and the adjoining manor of Cookham. It is now considered as part of the royal domain, being attached to the liberties of Windsor Castle, and retaining some peculiar privileges, among VOL. XVII.

P

which is an exemption from tolls in the adjacent market- towns. In default of male heirs, lands are not divided here among females of the same degree of kindred, but descend solely to the eldest. The church is "a spacious structure," says the Windsor Guide, and "composed of various materials, and exhibiting a mixture of almost every style of architecture," says the "Beauties of England and Wales;" but we leave the reader to his own conclusion from our Engraving, sketched in the summer of last year. We take for granted the church does not change in appearance every year, if its Vicar once did in creed.

The story of the Vicar of Bray is told with some variations, but the fact is not questioned. In the Beauties of England and Wales we read that his name was Simon Symonds, that he possessed the benefice in the reign of Henry VIII. and the three succeeding monarchs, and that he died in the forty-first year of Elizabeth. "This man was twice a Protestant and twice a Papist; and when reproached for the unsteadiness of his principles, which could thus suffer him to veer with every change of admi

482

nistration, replied, that he had always governed himself by what he thought a very laudable principle, which was, never on any terms, if he could avoid it, to part with his vicarage.'"' This creed has been amplified into a song, which we shall quote presently, more for its being a good conceite than for its

scarceness.

The author just quoted from the Beauties observes, in a note-"Several late writers, particularly Ireland and Ferrar, who have mentioned the above circumstances, describe them as happening in the reign of Charles the Second, James the Second, &c. This mistake throws the imputation of apostacy on the worthy person who held the vicarage towards the conclusion of the 17th century. It should be remarked, that the story was first published by Fuller, in his Church History; and as the author' died in the year 1661, it is evident that it must have been circulated previous to that event."

We have not the Church History at hand, but Fuller, in his Worthies, says, "Bray is a village well known in Barkshire, the vivacious Vicar whereof, living under King Henry the Eighth, King Edward the Sixth, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, was first a Papist, then a Protestant, then a Papist, then a Protestant again. This Vicar being tax't by one for being a turncoat, not so (said he) for I always kept my principles, which is this, to live and die Vicar of Bray."

Lastly, here is the song :

THE VICAR OF BRAY.

IN good King Charles's golden days,
When loyalty had no harm in't,
A zealous high-churchman I was,
And so I got preferment.
To teach my flock I never miss'd:
Kings are by God appointed;
And those are damn'd that do resist,
And touch the Lord's anointed:
And this is law, I will maintain
Until my dying day, sir,
That whatsoever king shall reign,
I will be Vicar of Bray, sir.

When royal James obtain'd the throne,
And Popery came in fashiou,

The penal laws I hooted down,
And read the declaration :

The Church of Rome I found would fit
Full well my constitution;
And had become a Jesuit,
But for the Revolution,

And this is law, &c.

When William was our king declared,
To ease the nation's grievance,

With this new wind about I steer'd,
And swore to him allegiance:
Old principles I did revoke,

Set conscience at a distance;
Passive obedience was a joke,
And pish for non-resistance.

And this is law, &c.

When gracious Aune ascends the throne,
The Church of England's glory,
Another face of things was seen,
And I became a Tory:
Occasional conformists base,

I damn'd their moderation,
And thought the church in danger was
By such prevarication,

And this is law, &c.
When George in pudding-time came o'er,
And moderate men look'd big, sir,
I turu'd a cat-in-pan once more,
And then became a Whig, sir:
And so preferment I procured
By our new faith's defender,
And always every day abjured
The Pope and the pretender.
The illustrious house of Hanover,
And Protestant succession,
To these I do allegiance swear
While they can keep possession:
For by my faith and loyalty

And this is law, &c.

I never more will falter,
And George my lawful king shall be
Until the time shall alter.

And this is law, &c.

ANOTHER OLD SONG.

ORIGIN OF THE SONG "FOUR AND TWENTY FIDDLERS ALL ON A ROW.

THE fiddle was not allowed to be a concert instrument till the reign of Charles the Second, who, in imitation of Louis the Fourteenth, established a band of twenty-four violins, alias fiddles, which gave birth to Tom Durfey's song of "Four and Twenty Fiddlers all on a Row," &c.: a humorous production, in which there is a mockery of every instrument, and almost every trade, and which used to be performed between the acts, or between the play and farce, by some man of humour at benefits.

The author of the Guardian, in No. 67, gives an account of Tom Durfey, with a view to recommend him to the public notice for a benefit play, and says, that he remembered King Charles the Second leaning on Tom Durfey's shoulder more than once, and humming over a song with him.

Roi des Violons, or King of the Fid, dlers, was anciently a title in France. It became defunct, in 1685, owing to anarchy thus harmony and discord cannot agree. P. T. W.

ROSEDALE ABBEY.

(For the Mirror.)

"A churchyard!-'tis a homely word, yet full Of feeling; and a sound that o'er the heart Might shed religion." R. MONTGOMERY.

RUINS! So dark and lone,

The pride of other years,
On which the stars have shone,
To light the mourners' tears;
The ivy clings to ye,
And softly hums the bee
Where violets blue are blooming,
The liquid dews perfuming,

Beneath each withered tree.

Tombs o'er your nameless stone
What gentle hearts have wept,
And there, at midnight lone,
Their silent vigils kept;

There Beauty laid her wreath,
And Love seem'd "strong as death,"
Around the pale shrines sighing,
While plaintive winds were dying
With music in their breath.

But childhood loves to stray
Whene'er the sward is green,
Round your mementos grey,

And haunts the mouldering scene;
Aud lovely in repose,

At sunset's gorgeous close,
Your holy walls seem blending
With-purple light descending
Upon the beauteous rose.

Tombs of the past unknown!

Ye are fringed with violets blue, And clouds have laved your stone With sweetest tears of dew;

But when, by angels given,

The last dread peal of heaven

As many of the pages of your extensively-circulated little work have preserved memorials of Laurence Sterne, I hope you can spare room for the underwritten extract, from a letter of his to Mr. Garrick, dated Paris, March, 1762, and which may be seen in Vol. I. of

Mrs. Medalle's "Letters of the late L. Sterne."

My object in thus troubling you is, in the hope (perhaps you will say an almost forlorn, or distant one) that possibly some one of your readers, either here or abroad, may be able to suggest where it is likely the under-mentioned wholelength portrait may now be of that once very distinguished man.

A CONSTANT READER,

"I shandy it away fifty times more than I was ever wont, talk more nonsense than ever you heard me talk in your days-and to all sorts of people. Qui le diable est cet homme là .......... said Choiseul, t'other day. You'll think me as vain as a devil, was I to tell you the rest of the dialogue..... The Duke of Orleans has suffered my portrait to be added to the number of some odd men in his collection; and a gentleman who lives with him has taken it most expressively, at full length. purpose to obtain an etching of it, and to send it to you."

EPITOME OF THE ANCIENT KINGDOM OF POLAND. (For the Mirror.)

POLAND was once the country of the Vandals, who left it to invade the Roman Empire. The kingdom began, by favour of Otho III., Emperor of Germany, under Boleslaus, 999; Red Russia was added to it in 1059; Pomerania, that had been separated 180 years, again united with it, 1465; embraced Christianity, 965; the order of the White Eagle instituted in 1705. The peasants in Poland were serfs or slaves, and the value of an estate was not estimated from its extent, but from the number of the peasants who were transferred, like cattle, from one master to another. The first person who granted freedom to his peasants was Zamoiski, formerly grand chancellor, who in 1760 enfranchised six villages. The Jews were first introduced into Poland about the time of Casimir the Great; they were indulged with great privileges, and became so numerous that Poland was styled the Paradise of the Jews. So late as the thirteenth century, the Poles retained the custom of killing old men when past their labour, and such children as were born imperfect. "The natural strength of Poland, if properly exerted, (says a modern writer) would have formed a more certain bulwark against the ambition of her neighbours than the faith of treaties;" and it is worthy of remark, that of the three partitioning powers, Prussia was formerly in a state of vassalage to the republic; Russia once saw her capital and throne possessed by the Poles, under Sigismund III. whose troops got possession of Moscow, and whose son, Ladislaus, was chosen Great Duke of Muscovy, by a party of the Russian John Sobieski, King of Poland, who, nobles; and Austria was indebted to in 1683, compelled the Turks to raise the siege of Vienna, and delivered the house of Austria from the greatest dangers it ever experienced.

"The partition of Poland (says Mr. Coxe,) was first projected by the King of Prussia."

In 1794, Suwarof laid siege to Praga, a fortified suburb of Warsaw, and carried it by assault, with a tremendous carnage. The king was compelled to abdicate, and the whole country was incorporated in the dominion of Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

Early in 1797, Stanislaus arrived at Petersburgh, and, according to the appointment of the sovereign, fixed his residence in the Marble Palace, on the banks of the Neva; but his death, which

"Oh, my dear, you are never in the wrong."

The violent passion of one lady for her lap-dog, the turning away of her old housemaid by another; a tavern bill torn by the wife, and a tailor's by the husband; a quarrel about the kissing crust, spoiling of dinners, and coming home late of nights, are so many several articles which occasioned the reprobation of some scores of demandants, whose names are recorded in the aforesaid register.

Without enumerating other particular persons, I shall content myself with observing that the sentence pronounced against one Gervase Poacher is, that he might have had bacon to his eggs, if he had not heretofore scolded his wife when they were over-boiled. And the deposition against Dorothy Doolittle runs in these words-That if she had so far usurped the dominion of the coal fire (the stirring whereof her husband claim ed to himself) that by her good will she never would suffer the poker out of her

hand.

I find but two couples in the first century that were successful. The first was a sea captain and his wife, who, since the day of their marriage, had not seen one another till the day of the claim; the second was an honest pair in the neighbourhood-the husband was a man of plain good sense and a peaceable temper, and the woman was dumb.

THOS. HY. PRS..

"March borrow it fra Averill
Three days and they were ill,
Also March said to Aprill
I see three hogs upon a hill,
But send your three first days to me
And I'll be bound to gar them die.
The first it sall be wind and weet,
The next it sall be snaw and sleet,
The third it sall be sic a freeze,
Sall gar the birds stick to the trees,
But when the Borrowed Days were gone,
The three silly hogs came bedglin home.",
Complaint of Scotland.

The Country Almanack for 1676, says of April-

"No blushing blasts from March needs April

borrow,

His own oft proves enow to breed us sorrow,
Yet if he weyr with us to sympathize,
His trickling tears will make us wipe our eyes."
In the British Apollo, the meaning
of the old poetical saying is asked-

"March borrows of April

Three days and they are ill,
April returns them back again
Three days, and they are rain."

In Devonshire the three first days of March are called "blind days," unlucky days, and upon them no farmer will sow his seed.

If one

Dr. Jamison in his Dictionary of the Scottish Language, says "These days being generally stormy, our forefathers have endeavoured to account for this circumstance by pretending that March borrowed them from April, that he might extend his power so much longer. Those (he adds) who are much addicted to superstition, will neither borrow nor lend on any of these days. should propose to borrow of them they would consider it as an evidence that the person wished to employ the article borrowed, for the purposes of witchcraft against the lenders. Some of the vulgar imagine that these days received their designation from the conduct of the Israelites, in borrowing the property of the Egyptians. This extravagant idea must have originated partly from the name, and partly from the circumstance of these days nearly corresponding to the time when the Israelites left Egypt, which was on the fourteenth day of the month Mib or Nisan, including part of our March and April. I know not whether our Western Magi suppose that the inclemency of the borrowing days had any reference to the storm which proved so fatal_to_the J. R. Egyptians."

The Selector;

AND

LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

MARINO FALIERO.

(Continued from page 206.)

SUCH is Sanuto's brief narrative of the origin of this conspiracy; and we have nothing more certain to offer. It is not easy to say whence he obtained his intelligence. If such a conversation as that which he relates really did occur, it must have taken place without the presence of witnesses, and therefore could be disclosed only by one of the parties. It is far more likely that the chronicler is relating that which he supposed, than that which he knew; and, as it must be admitted that the interview with the admiral of the Arsenal occurred, and that, immediately after it, the doge was found linked with the daring band of which that officer was chief, there is