than at any other time of the day, it being a custom of the tradespeople to have their yearly accounts settled about this time, and scarcely a draper, grocer, hatter, ironmonger, bookseller, or other respectable tradesman, but is provided with an ample store of beef and home-brewed October, for the welcome of their numerous customers, few of whom depart without taking quantum suff. of the old English fare placed before them.

Now, (according to an old saying,) is the town alive. John takesJoan to see the shows, -there he finds the giant-here the learned pig the giantess and dwarf-the menagerie of wild beasts-the conjuror and Mr. Merry Andrew cracking his jokes with his quondam master. Here it is “Walk up, walk up, ladies and gentlemen, we are now going to begin, be in time, the price is only twopence." Here

is Mr. Warr's merry round-about, with "a horse or a coach for a halfpenny."Here is Rebecca Swain with her black and red cock, and lucky-bag, who bawls out, "Come, my little lucky rogues, and try your fortune for a halfpenny, all prizes and no blanks, a faint heart never wins a fair lady."-Here is pricking in the garter.-Raffling for gingerbread, with the cry of "one in ; who makes two, the more the merrier."-Here is the Sheffield hardwareman, sporting a worn-out wig and huge pair of spectacles, offering, in lots, a box of razors, knives, scissors, &c., each lot of which he modestly says, " is worth seven shillings, but he'll not be too hard on the gaping crowd, he'll not take seven, nor six, nor five, nor four, nor three, nor

A tall and portly dame, six feet full, with a particular screw of the mouth, and whom the writer recollects when he was a mere child, thirty years ago; none who have seen and heard her once, but will recollect her as long as they live.

two, but one shilling for the lot,-going at one shilling-sold again and the money paid."-Here are two earthenware-men bawling their shilling's worth one against the other, and quaffing beer to each other's luck from that necessary and convenient chamber utensil that has modestly usurped the name of the great river Po. Here is poor Will, with a basket of gingerbread, crying "toss or buy." There is a smirking little lad pinning two girls together by their gowns, whilst his companion cracks a Waterloo bang-up in their faces. Here stands John with his mouth wide open, and Joan with her sloe-black ogles stretched to their extremity at a fine painted shawl, which Cheap John is offering for next to nothing; and here is a hundred other contrivances to draw the "browns" from the pockets of the unwary, and tickle the fancies of the curious; and sometimes the rogue of a pickpocket extracting farmer Anybody's watch or money from his pockets.

This is Pack Monday fair, till evening throws on her dark veil, when the visiters in taking their farewell, stroll through the rows of gingerbread stalls, where the spruce Mrs. or Miss Sugarplum pops the cover of her nut-cannister forth, with "buy some nice nuts, do taste, sir, (or ma'me,) and treat your companion with a paper of nuts." By this time the country folks are for jogging home,and vehicles and horses of every description on the move, and the bustle nearly over, with the exception of what is to be met with at the inns, where the lads and lasses so disposed, on the light fantastic toe, assisted by the merry scraping of the fiddler, finish the fun, frolic, and pastime of Pack Monday Fair. R. T.

I am, &c.

lines accurately. Their import impressed me in my boyhood, and one fine summer's afternoon, a year or two ago, I involuntarily repeated them while musing beside that part of the "New River" represented in the engraving. I had strolled to "the Compasses," when "the garden," as the landlord calls it, was free from the nuisance of" company;" and thither I after wards deluded an artist, who continues to" use the house," and supplies me with the drawing of this sequestered nook.

This "gentle river" meanders through countless spots of surprising beauty and variety within ten miles of town. When I was a boy I thought "Sadler's Well's arch," opposite the "Sir Hugh Myddelton," (a house immortalized by Hogarth,) the prime part of the river; for there, by the aid of a penny line, and a ha'porth of gentles and blood-worms, "mixed," bought of old Turpin, who kept the little fishing-tackle shop, the last house by the river's side, at the end next St. John'sstreet-road, I essayed to gudgeon gudgeons. But the "prime" gudgeon-fishing, then, was at "the Coffin," through which the stream flows after burying itself at the Thatched-house, under Islington road, to Colebrooke-row, within half a stone's throw of a cottage, endeared to me, in later years, by its being the abode of "as much virtue as can live." Past the Thatched-house, towards Canonbury, there was the "Horse-shoe," now no more, and the enchanting rear-since despoiled-of the gardens to the retreats of Canonbury-place; and all along the river to the pleasant village of Hornsey, there were delightful retirements on its banks, so "far from the busy haunts of men," that only a few solitary wanderers seemed to know them. Since then, I have gone "over the hills and far away,' to see it sweetly flowing at Enfield Chase, near many a cottage of content," as I have conceived the lowly dwellings to be, which there skirt it, with their little gardens, not too trim, whence the inmates cross the neat iron bridges of the "New River Company," which, thinking of "auld lang syne," I could almost wish were of

66

wood. Further on, the river gracefully recedes into the pleasant grounds of the late Mr. Gough the antiquary, who, if he chiefly wrote on the manners and remains of old times, had an especial love and kind feeling for the amiable and picturesque of our own. Pursuing the river thence to Theobalds, it presents to the "contemplative man's recreation," temptations that old Walton himself might have coveted to fall in his way and why may we not " suppose that the vicinity of the New River, to the place of his habitation, might sometimes tempt him out, whose loss he so pathetically mentions, to spend an afternoon there." He tells "the honest angler," that the writing of his book was the "recreation of a recreation," and familiarly says, whole discourse is, or rather was, a picture of my own disposition, especially in such days and times as I have laid aside business, and gone a fishing with honest Nat, and R. Roe; but they are gone, and with them most of my pleasant hours, even as a shadow that passeth away and returns not."

"the

I dare not say that I am, and yet I cannot say that I never was, an angler; for I well remember where, though I cannot tell when, within a year, I was enticed to "go a fishing," as the saying is, which I have sometimes imagined was derived from Walton's motto on the title of his book :-"Simon Peter said, I go a fishing: and they said, we also will go with thee.-John xxi. 3." This passage is not in all the editions of the "Complete Angler," but it was engraven on the titlepage of the first edition, printed in 1653. Allow me to refer to one of "captain Wharton's almanacs," as old Lilly calls them in his "Life and Times," and point out what was, perhaps, the earliest advertisement of Walton's work: it is on the back of the dedication leaf to "HEMEROSCOPEION: Anni Eræ Christianæ 1654." The almanac was published of course in the preceding year, which was the year wherein Walton's work was printed.

This advertisement I deem a biblio maniacal curiosity. Only think of the first edition of Walton as a "booke of eighteen-pence price!" and imagine the good old man on the day of publication, walking from his house "on the north side of Fleet-street, two doors west of the end of Chancery-lane," to his publisher and neighbour just by, " Richard Marriot, in S. Dunstan's Churchyard," for the purpose of inquiring “how” the book "went off." There is, or lately was, a large fish in effigy, at a fishing-tackle maker's in Fleet-street, near Bell-yard, which, whenever I saw it, after I first read Walton's work, many years ago, reminded me of him, and his pleasant book, and its delightful ditties, and brought him before me, sitting on "a primrose bank" turning his "present thoughts into verse"

THE ANGLER'S WISH.

I in these flowery meads would be:
These crystal streams should solace me;
To whose harmonious bubbling noise
I with my angle would rejoice:
Sit here, and see the turtle-dove
Court his chaste mate to acts of love :

Or, on that bank, feel the west wind
Breathe health and plenty: please my mind,
To see sweet dew-drops kiss these flowers,
And then washed off by April showers:
Here, hear my Kenna sing a song;
There, see a blackbird feed her young,
Or a leverock build her nest:
Here, give my weary spirits rest,
And raise my low-pitch'd thoughts above
Earth, or what poor mortals love:

Thus, free from law-suits and the noise
Of princes' courts, I would rejoice:

Or, with my Bryan, and a book,
Loiter long days near Shawford-brook ;
There sit by him, and eat my meat,
There see the sun both rise and set;
There bid good morning to next day;
There meditate my time away;

And angle on; and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.

NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. Mean Temperature... 52. 05.

October 11

This is "Old Michaelmas Day."

"DUNCAN'S VICTORY." On the 11th of October, 1797, admiral

Duncan obtained a splendid victory over the Dutch fleet off Camperdown, near the isle of Texel, on the coast of Holland. For this memorable achievement he was created a viscount, with a pension of two His lordthousand pounds per annum. ship died on the 4th of August, 1804; he was born at Dundee, in Scotland, on the 1st of July, 1731. After the battle of Camperdown was decided, he called his crew together in the presence of the captured Dutch admiral, who was greatly affected by the scene, and Duncan kneeling on the deck, with every man under his command," solemnly and pathetically offered up praise and thanksgiving to the God of battles;-strongly proving the truth of the assertion, that piety and courage should be inseparably allied, and that the latter without the former loses its principal virtue."*

NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. Mean Temperature.... 51 82.

October 12.

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 12th of October, 1748, was born at St. John's near Worcester, Mr. William Butler, the author of "Chronological, Biographical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Exercises," an excellent work, for young persons especially, a useful compendium in every library, and one to which the editor of the Every-Day Bonk has been indebted as a ready guide to many interesting and important events.

In the seventh edition of Mr. Butler's work just mentioned, we are informed by his son, Mr. John Olding Butler, that his father was educated in the city of Worcester. Having acquired considerable knowledge, and especially an excellent style of penmanship, he in 1765 repaired to the metropolis, and commenced his career as a teacher of writing and geography. In these branches of education he attained the highest repute on account of the improvements which were introduced by him in his mode of instruction. His copies were derived from the sources of geography, history, and biographical memoirs. A yet more extensive and permanent benefit was conferred upon young persons by the many useful and ingenious

* Butler's Chronological Exercises,

works which he published, a list of which is subjoined. They contain a mass of information, both instructive and entertaining, rarely collected in one form, and are admirably adapted to promote the great design of their author-the moral, intellectual, and religious improvement of the rising generation; to this he consecrated all his faculties, the stores of his memory, and the treasures of his knowledge.

As a practical teacher Mr. Butler had few superiors, and his success in life was commensurate with his merit: he was the most popular instructor in his line.

A strict probity, an inviolable regard to truth, an honourable independence of mind, and a diffusive benevolence, adorned his moral character; and to these eminent virtues must be added, that of a rigid economy and improvement of time, for which he was most remarkable. How much he endeavoured to inculcate that which he deemed the foundation of every virtue, the principle of religion, may be seen in his Chronological, &c., Exer cises :" to impress this principle on the youthful heart and mind was considered by him as the highest duty. Mr. Butler's professional labours were commenced at the early age of seventeen, and were continued with indefatigable ardour to the last year of his life, a period of fifty-seven years. In estimating the value of such a man, we should combine his moral principle with his literary employments; these were formed by him into duties, which he most conscientiously discharged: and he will be long remembered as one who communicated to a large and respectable circle of pupils solid information, examples of virtue, and the means of happiness; and who, in an age fruitful of knowledge, by his writings instructed, and will long continue to instruct the rising generation, and benefit mankind. His virtues will live and have a foree beyond the grave.c

Mr. Butler died at Hackney, August 1, 1822, after a painful illness, borne with exemplary patience and resignation. He was one of the oldest inhabitants of that parish, and was interred there, by his own desire, in the burying-ground attached to the meeting-house of his friend, the late

Rev. Samuel Palmer

A list of Mr. Butler's books for the use of young persons.

1. CHRONOLOGICAL EXERCISES, already mentioned. Price 68. bound,

เ

2. An engraved. INTRODUCTION to ARITHMETIC, designed to facilitate young beginners, and to diminish the labour of the tutor. 48. 6d. bound.

3. ARITHMETICAL QUESTIONS, on a new plan; intended to answer the double purpose of arithmetical instruction and miscellaneous information. 68. bound.; 4. GEOGRAPHICAL and BIOGRAPHICAL EXERCISES, on a new plan. 4s

5. EXERCISES on the GLOBES, inter spersed with historical, biographical, chro nological, mythological, and miscellaneous information, on a new plan. The ninth edition. 68. bound.

6. A numerous collection of ARITHMETICAL TABLES. 8d.

7. GEOGRAPHICAL EXERCISES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT; with maps, and a brief account of the principal religious sects. 58. 6d. bound.

8. MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS, relat ing principally to English history and biography. Second edition, enlarged. 4s.

Mr. BOURN, son-in-law of Mr. Butler, and his associate in his profession upwards of thirty years, purchased the copyright of the greater part of Mr. Butler's number of editions, and if the Everyworks. They have passed through a Day Book extend a knowledge of their value, it will be to the certain benefit of those for whose use they were designed. The envious and suspicious may deny that there is such a quality as interestedness in human actions," yet the editor has neither friendship nor intimacy with any one whom this notice may appear to favour. He only knows Mr. mends them as excellent aids to parents

"dis

Butler's books, and therefore recom

and teachers.