The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1822-01-01 00:00:00

77,7"-","

TI Tit LESCOPE R• 1&n.
JANUARY.
The ^tot gives to this root► by the Reason rye takes
irons Jame., one or their derioitica, towboat they save Iwo
farm; hreatHe, on the one side, the Bret day of this 'smolt
looked towardh the new year, mut, on the other, towards the
.old one.
REMARKABLE DAYS IN JANUARY Int.
1.--CIRCUMCNION.

This festival was instituted it the loath century, hs com-
memorate the circumcision of err Saviour. Thin is also
New Year's day, which his ever been considered a
of joy sod cutigrstulation fur blessings received and denten
escaped in the past year. The ancient citations of going
ahead with the trassait, • bowl of spiced ale,' on New
Yeses-eve, Twelfth-Hight, and Christmas eve, is stilt kept
up in Imlay plumes. The mode of proceeding its the western
(rowdies of Eoglrind is an follows :—A company of sic men,
having provided themselves wills • little bowl, set nut ots the
essownieueement of the new year to visit she inhabitants of
the town or village in which they live. They rarely begin
until the candle, are lighted, when, without ceremony, they
silently open the door, and, is no audible voice, begin to
sing some barbarous lines that seem to have neither sense
nor tweeier, any further than they coltishu a reincat that
those within will bestow sometbiag ou
Three poor jolly wassail boys,
Come travelliug throtogis the mire;
and, having obtained thus either is meal, 'frisk, nr money,
and sometimes in all, they retire suet repeat the sato.• ditty
at flit neat door. lies Juasuu ban given us iwu curious
personilication• of the wassail; the lest iu his Forest, N 0.3 ;
while giving an account of a rural feast in the ball of Sir
Robert Wroth, he says,
The rout of nasal folk ranee thronging in,
Their fwd.-nem then is thought we nib—
The jolly neutral walks the often rusittl,
And in their cups their cares are drowned.
and, the second, its • earifillealli HI, Illasgote, as it was pre-
sented at Court in 1618; where Wassail, as one of the ten
children of Christmas, Is represeoted in the following quaint
manner: Like a MINI seaspoter, and songster; her rage
bearing a brown. bowls, direst with ribboned:, and romantic
before her.
Fletcher, in hie Patna/el Shtpterdess, has given a striking
description of the festivity attendant on the wassail bowl :
The woods, or some near town
Thal is a neighbour to the bordering down
Ilsth draws them thither, 'bout sense hasty sport,
(Jr spiced vassal held, to which resort
All the yotiog men and maids of many a rote,
Whilst the trim minstrel! strikes his merry note.
Tie persons thus accompanyiag the wassail bowl, espe-
cially thus* who deuced and played, were called wassailers,
au oppellatiou which it was afterwards monomers to bestow
tiu all who indulged. at any season, in intemperate mirth.
Hence Mania introduce, his Lady, iu Comore, embus use
a she term in the culturing beautiful primp :
Metkonght it was the sound
Of riot and dl-managed merriment,
.• Soak as the joctind !lisle, or gamesome pipe
Stirs Hp among the tome nialettered hinds,
When for their teeming narks, nod granges fall,
' In wanton dance, they praise the houtrieuses Pan,
And thank the gods %miss. 1 should be 'with
To meet the rudeness, and swilled iusolence,
Of such late wassailers.
New Yeses.das is still observed in Scotland with mock
hilarity, sad some cartons ceremonies, for an account of
which we leer to nor last volume, pp. 1-3. Consul. also
T. T. from 1814 to 1819 itsclnitve, for • description of many
inierrsting customs, sow obsolete. In Cornwall, it is con.
mitered very unlucky to pay mosey on the first day of January,
as it ensures a coulinumage of disburoentents throughout the
sear.

11T11.11,AfT TIME.
The sky is blue, the sward is men,
The leaf urns the bough is seta,
The wind cosies from the balmy weal,
The lurk somenter builds its nest,
1.13 e bre hems uu hum Sewer in Sower,
Till dbn •nd premise hour;
The jcnuus year arrive.; but when
Shill bye-past tunes come ban k again!
I think ou childhood's glowing years—
How sun, huge bright, the scene appears!
How calm, how ciumilreA, pawed away
The bowl, long, summer holiday !
I OM). RI/I 11111.1e-.-1 lIIR,t not dream—
Tuo 'beautiful these visions seem

For emelt, sari .aurtsl luau; but when
Shall bye-part tenors come back again
think of sunny eves so soft,
Tun deeply Gle, enjoyed tun oft,
Vt h. at ihruue:b the bloomy firlds I rowed
With her, the earliest, deseest lobed;
Ai wend whose term I yet survey,
le thought, a bright celestial ray
Tu present scenes denied; and when

Stall bye. pal itmes cume bads ago u?

Alas! the world at distance seen
Appeared all blissful and serene.
An Edea formed to tempt the foul,
iVitte crystal streams, and euldeu fruit;
Thal world, when tried and trod, is found
A rocky waste, a thoiay Kround!
We then reve.t to youth; but when
Shall kya•pst times come back again '•

• illarkwood'v lleogszior, vol. ix. p. 390, and our lost
volume p 3.

RAMSG/17'E. DBCEMBER 49.

During the last few drys the weather has heen
rely a. mpestwaws, and a great many sad of 'hyping
have taken shelter in this harbour, among winch wi re
several Calais picket., winch were unable to enter
Dover. although they wade for that port, and after-
wards got in here.
The Victoire sod another French packet, anal
one of the Doves vessehr, came in yesterday after-
noon front Calais, and landed their yassengers h. re.
There are a great many weasels now remaining
in Itarnsgste Pier, that hare taken shelter on ac-
count of the bad weather.

Yesterday snorting, shoot five retina, the lions, of Mr.
Pearson, of Nelson-terrace, Stoke Nei/Meow, was barKlari.
Dimly broken nitio, and ploodered of valuably articles to the
amount of 1001. 'rise thieves 'shred their entrance by
boring 14 boles in the panel of the witnlow Antler with a
centre bit, mid laavtag taken the piece out, unfastened the
bolts, ■nd by thin means got into the parlour from whence
they stole the properly.
Yeah...day afternoon, shout three o'clock, as a fine boy
about 13 years of ar, the son of Mr. Cavity, a glOlll.
grocer in Great Turnstile, Holborn, was riding a borer to
the farrier', to the Narrow part of Carey-slreel, vicar
Chancery-lane, he suet a loaded cart which bad a bar of iron
lying athwart and projecting about half a yard beyond the
wheel, which coming suddenly in contact with the leg of the
youth, threw him off the borer, and the whirl p.issirag over
his thigh utifortunately broke it in a dreadful runimer.
The lad was immediately taken to Mr. Hallmark's, the
'argon, iu Chaneery.lanr, whose assistant eternised and
ascertained the fracture, but from the timid state of the thigh
it Mil 1101 decried advisable t►en to attempt reducing it. In
the confusiva no one thought of stopping the cart, wham.
improper Mediae was the sole cause of the academe. The
urfintunate sufferer bore his misfuritrue with the most heroic
fortitude; calling out the instant the cart passed over him
to stop the home, and giving bar address, almost is the same
breath, to the person woo supported him. He was conveyed
borne in a hacker°, coach, Mr. Welbauk's assistant, with
item benignity, accompanying hilt.