him in a low tone to be silent; that having got a subject whieh would suit them, they resolved he should be spared, on condition that he carried the body to a place in the woods, where they had a gig in waiting for it. This was glad tidings to the poor countryman; so issuing from his place of imprisonment, he bent his back willingly to receive the odious burden. The load soon adjusted, and he sallied forth from the burialground between two sturdy vampires, who were to be his guides, and watched him with most woolfish vigilance. The road was long and dark; with much sweating, however, he at last arrived at the place where he had calculated on being relieved. The gig, however, was not to be seen; but the inen, who were at some distance be hind, told him to lay down his burden, aud untie the sack to see that all was right. John tumbled down the detested heap, and, from his terror of the fellows, having opened it (though with much reluctance), was horribly astonished, when the imagined corpse started up, and insisted on being carried half a mile farther, to a little ale-house, at a corner of the wood. Thunderstruck and aghast at this unexpected requisition, John would willingly have crept into a snail-shell to escape the extraordinary stranger; but as this was impossible, and as the furze and underwood prevented speedy flight, his next resource was a desperate offer of battle, which, however, the spectre declined, vanishing among the trees with a hearty and horrible laugh. John scrambled home the best way he could, terrified lest he should stumble over a living corpse in every ditch;

nor did he learn till some time after (when he only gathered it from the banters of his comrades), that in the whole affair he had only been made the sport of three fellows who had been employed to protect the churchyard, after a recent funeral, from the jackalls of the dissectors.

FATHER BOURDELOT (who has sometimes been called the French Tillotson) was to preach once on Good-Friday, and the proper officer came to attend him to church, his servant said that he was in his study, and that if he pleased he might go up to him. In going up stairs he heard the sound of a violin, and as the door stood a little ajar, he saw Bourdelot stripped into his cassock, playing a good brisk tune, and dancing to it about his study. He was extremely concerned, for he esteemed that great man highly, and thought he must be run distracted. However, at last he ventured to rap gently at the door. The Father immediately laid down his violin, hurried on his gown, came to him, and with a composed and pleasant look said, Oh, Sir, is it you? I hope I have not made you stay: I am quite ready to attend you." The poor man, as they were going down, could not help mentioning his surprise at what he had heard and seen. Bourdelot smiled, and said, "Indeed you might be a little surprised, if you don't know any thing of my way on these occasions ; but the whole of the matter was this, in thinking over the subject of the day, I found my spirits too much depressed to speak as I ought to do, so had recourse to my usual method of music and a little motion. It had its effect; I am quite in proper temper, and go now with pleasure to what I would else have gone to in pain.”

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PULPIT WIT.-A Methodist preacher, remarking that some of his congregation had fallen asleep during his sermon, suddenly called out "Fire! Fire!". "Where? Where?" exclaimed the faithful, who were roused by this unexpected aların. In bell," thundered he, "for those who sleep while their minister preaches!"

LONDON- Printed and Published by T. Wallis. Camden Town.

EASTER-TIDE, or the week succeeding Easter Sunday, is, and has been immemorially, a season of great festivity. Not only, as bound by every tie of gratitude to do, did man rejoice on this occasion, but it was the belief of the vulgar, that the sun himself partook of the exhiliration, aud regularly danced on Easter-day. To see this glorious spectacle, therefore, it was customary for the common people to rise before the sun on Easter morning; and though, we may conclude, they were constantly disappointed, yet might the habit occasionally lead to serious thought and useful contemplation; metaphorically considered, indeed, the idea' may be termed both just and beautiful; for as the earth and her valleys, standing thick with corn, are said to laugh and sing, so on account of the Resurrection, the heavens and the sun may be said to dance for joy; or, as the Psalmist words it," the heavens may rejoice and the earth may be glad."

The great amusement of our ancestors on Easter holydays, instead of attending theatres or rolling down Greenwich-hill, as is the case with a considerable part of the population of the metropolis at the present day, consisted in playing at hand-ball, a game at which, says the ritualist Belinthus and Durandus, Bishops and Archbishops, used upon the Continent, at this period, to recreate them

selves with their inferior Clergy; nor was it uncommon for corporate bodies on this occasion in England to amuse themselves in a similar way with their burgesses and young people. Anciently this was the custom, says Mr. Brand, at Newcastle, at the feasts of Easter and Whitsun-tide, when the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriff, accompanied by great numbers of the burgesses, used to go yearly at these seasous to the Forth, or mall of the town, with the mace, sword, and cap of maintenance, carried before them; and not only countenance, but frequently join in the diversions of hand-ball, dancing, &c.; and similar customs were kept up in other coun tries. Why they should play at hand-ball at this time," observes a writer on the subject, rather than any other game, I have not been able to find out; but I suppose it will be readily granted, that this practice of so playing, was the original of our present recreations and diversions on Easter holydays." In some parts the Morris dance, of which such fre quent mention is made in our old poets, was performed at Easter (though it more properly belonged to May), as recorded by Warner in the following line:

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At Paske begun our morrise: and ere Penticost our May.

The constant prize at hand-ball,

during Easter, was a tansey-cake, supposed to be allusive to the bitter herbs used by the Jews on their festival at this time. Seldem (in his Table Talk), speaking of our chief holydays, remarks, that "our meats and sports have much of them relation to church works. The coffin of our Christmas pies, in shape long, is in imitation of the crutch (rack or manger). Our choosing Kings and Queens on Twelfth-night, hath reference to the three Kings. So likewise our eating of fritters, whipping of tops, roasting of herrings, Jack of Lents, &c., they are all in imitation of church works, emblems of martyrdom. Our tansies at Easter have reference to the bitter herbs; though, at the same time, it was always the fashion for a man to have a gammon of bacon, to show him himself to be no Jew." So, in an old black letter collection of carols, we find

Some at Easter cometh Alleluya,
With butter, cheese, and a tansay:

which reminds one of the passage in the Oxford Sausage, p. 22:

On Easter Sunday be the pudding seen, To which the tansey lends her sober green.

Fuller has noticed this Easter game of hand-ball, under his Cheshire, where, explaining the origin of the proverb "When the daughter is stolen shut Pepper-gate," he says, the Mayor of the city had his daughter, as she was playing at ball with other maidens in Pepper-street, stolen away by a young man through the same gate, whereupon he caused it to be shut up."

pears to be the origin of decking the churches at this time with flowers.

Another old custom (namely, the eating of eggs and green sauce) on on this day, is mention by Dugdale in his Origines Juridiciates, where, speaking of the Commons at Gray'sinn, in the time of Elizabeth, says "and likewise, whereas they (the gentlemen of the House) had used to have eggs and green sauce on Easterday, after Service and Communion, for those gentlemen that came to breakfast. that in like manner they should be provided at the charge of the House." This practice is alluded to in the Doctrine of the Masse Book (1554), in the form of "the hallowing of the Pascal lambe, eggs and herbs on the Easter Daye;" where the following passage occurs: 66 0 God, who art the maker of all flesh, who gavest commandments unto Noe and sonnes concerning cleane and unelean beastes, who hast also permitted mankind to eat cleane four-footed beastes, even as egges and

green herbes." The form concludes with the following Rubrick :-" Afterward let it be sprinkled with holvewater and censed by the priest."

The eggs eaten on this occasion were called pasche eggs, several of which also, usually gilt or stained with various colours, were given away as presents. This observance appears to have arisen from a superstition prevalent among the Roman Catholics, that eggs were an emblem of the Resurrection; and, indeed, in the Ritual of Pope Paul the Fifth, which was composed for the use of England, Scotland, and Ireland, there is a prayer for the consecration of eggs on account of the resurrection. On this custom Mr. Brand has well observed, that "the ancient Egyptians, if the resurrection of the body had been a tenet of their faith, would perhaps have thought an egg no improper hieroglyphical representation of it. The exclusion of a living creature by incubation, after the vital principle has lain a long time dormant or extinct, is a process so truly marvellous, that if it could be

disbelieved, would be thought by some a thing so incredible, as that the author of life should be able to resuscitate the dead."

Le Brun, in his voyages, tells us that the Persians, on the 20th of March, 1704, kept the festival of the solar new yer, which he says lasted several days, when they mutually presented each other, among other things, with coloured eggs.

Easter, says Gebeliu, and the new year, have been marked by similar distinctions: among the Persians, the new year is looked upon as the renewal of all things; and is noted for the triumph of the sun of nature, as Easter is with Christmas, for that the sun of Justice, the Saviour of the worldtriumph over death by his resurrection.

The feast of the new year, he adds, was celebrated at the vernal equinox -that is, at the time when the Christians, removing their new year to the winter solstice, kept only the Festival of Easter. Hence, with the latter, the Feast of Eggs has been attached to Easter, so that eggs are no longer made presents of at the new year.

Father Garmeli, in his History of Customs, tells us that during Easter and the following days, hard eggs, painted of different colours, but principally red, are the ordinary food of the season. In Italy, Spain, and Provence, says he, where almost every ancient superstition is retained, there are in the public places certain sports with eggs.

This custom he derives from the Jews and Pagans, for he observes it was common to both.

The Jewish wives, at the Feast of the Passover, which happens at this time, upon a table prepared for that purpose, place hard eggs, the symbols of a bird called Ziz, concerning which, the Rabbins have a thousand fabulous accounts. Various other particulars as to this practice of eggs, occur in different anthors who have treated of Easter.

By the law concerning holydays, made in the time of King Alfred the Great, it was appointed that the

week after Easter should be kept holy.

In Lewis's Presbyterian Eloquence, speaking of the tenets of the Puritans, he observes, that "all games, where there is any hazard of loss, are strictly forbidden; not so much as a game at stool-ball for a tansey, or a cross and pyle for the odd penny at a reckoning, upon pain of damnation."

Durand tells us, that on Easter Tuesday, wives used to beat their husbands; on the day following, the husbands their wives, but assigns no reason for the origin of this odd cus

tom.

The rolling of young couples down, Greenwich-hill, at Easter and Whit suntide, appears from the following. extract from Fletcher's Translations and Poems (1656), in a poem called May-Day, to be the vestiges of a May game :

The game at best, the girls May-roul'd must bee,

Where Croyden and Mopsa, he and shee,

Each happy pair make one hermaphrodite,

And tumbling, bounce together black and white.

GIANTS.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy." SHAKSPEARE.

THAT giants have existed, I think can scarcely be doubted; but whether they ever formed a DISTINCT race, or were merely formed by the freaks of nature, has long been the subject of disquisition. The ancients speak of giants as familiarly known, but their errors on other subjects have been so gross, that we can hardly place any reliance on their relations, and as most old writers speak merely from the circumstance of skeletons having been dug up, and as it is well known, that anatomical knowledge was then in its infancy, it is more than probable, .

that they mistook the bones of animals for those of men.

An European woman, named Madalena de Nigueza, emigrated to South America, and married an Indian in Carthagena, with him she travelled to his native village, near the wild and savage countries of Guanoas and Chiquitos. She and her husband were made prisoners by the barbarous borderers, and carried many hundred miles to the south, where they were exchanged for other commodities in the course of traffic. At their last place of distination, they found the inhabitants alarmed by an incursion of an army of giants. The Indians attempted not flight, but concealment. The enemy at length appeared; they consisted of four bundred men, the lowest being nine feet, and the tallest about eleven feet in height; their features were handsome, their forms muscular and well proportioned, their voices deep, clear, and sonorous, and they were of a merciful and benign disposition. The giants took her to their country, where she lived four years; the women she described as being about six feet and a half high. This woman escaped from them, and travelled down the western shore, which bounds the pacific ocean, and was brought off by a Spanish bark to Europe. She was examined every way on the subject, and always adhered to the tale, with all the appearance of veracity; indeed, she could have no probable motive for propagating a falsehood.

Some Dutch voyagers relate, that the straits of Magellan, they saw men whose stature exceeded ten feet, and who wore no covering but a kind of short cloak hanging over their shoulders. They seemed anxious to come on board the ships, but the seamen fired upon them, by which two or three were killed. Upon this they began to tear down the trees, to form a rampart for defence.

In Legan county, Kentucky, about the year 1804, a bone thus described was dug up :-" Half of a skull bone has been found in sinking one of

Capt. Berry's salt-wells deeper, it weighs 246lbs. the eye-bole is so large that a man common size can creep through it; the bone is sound and entire round the aperture, though decayed in same other parts, the nostril appears to have been immensely large, but the cavity of brain is not larger than a pint bowl. Some of the double-teeth have been found weighing SIX POUNDS each!

Jacob le Maire, in his voyage to the Straits of Magellan, (about 1615) states, that he found at Port Desire several graves covered with stones, and having the curiosity to remove them, discovered human skeletons eleven feet in length. This in some measure corroberates the account of the Dutch voyagers.

The Greeks described Orestes elevan feet and a half high. The giant who was shewn at Rouen, in 1735-6, called "the Norman Giant," was eight feet six or seven inches, and the celebrated Irish Giant was of the same height.

Sir Hans Sloane, who admits the fact of skeletons twenty-five, nay, thirty feet long, having been discovered, supposes them to have been those of whales, or other large fishes. Now this argument is most absurd. The skeleton of a whale consisting principally of one long bone, to which the others are attached, and, of course, having neither legs, nor arms, nor any bones that can in the slightest degree resemble them.

The discovering skeletons, admitting them to be human, I am not at all inclined to think any proof of a NATION of giants having ever existed; but the evidence of Madalena de Nigueza, the Dutch voyagers, and Jacob le Maire, seems conclusive.

About 1796, qne T. Jessop Earrubria published a work at Madrid, called Giganthalogia; it is extremely curious, containing a number of instances which almost compel a belief, that, at one time at least, a race of giants existed. This work, I believe, has never been translated.

One answer that may be given to these observations is, that the pongo