cent state, through the church, shaded by waving peacocks' feathers, attended by his guardia nobile, in princely uniform, glittering with gold, their helmets adorned with plumes of feathers; the ambassadors and their wives; the senators and their trains; the Armenian bishops and priests, in very splendid robes; the cardinals, bishops, and all the Roman troops in grand procession. The pope blesses the people from the terrace, who receive the benediction on their knees, and look up with eager eyes for the indulgences that are scattered amongst them by some of the cardinals. In the evening there is a grand illumination of St. Peter's. "On entering the Piazza," says a traveller, "we beheld the architecture of the dome, façade, and colonnade, all marked out by soft lamps: a bell tolled, and in a moment, as if struck by a magical wand, the whole fabric burst into a dazzling blaze of the most beautiful light; nor could we conceive how the sudden transition was effected. Fireworks and festivities concluded the evening."

In Spain, Portugal, South America, wherever indeed the Catholic religion extends, similar church plays, pageants and rejoicings prevail. In the Greek church, nay even in Turkey, Easter is a great festival. The Russians celebrate it with extraordinary zeal. At Moscow no meetings of any kind take place without repeating the expressions of peace and joy, CHRISTOS VOSCRESS! Christ is risen! To which the answer always is the same; VOISTINEY VOSCRESS! He is risen indeed! On EasterMonday begins the presentation of the Paschal eggs. Lovers to their mistresses, relations to each other, servants to their masters, all bring ornamented eggs. The meanest pauper in the street presenting an egg, and repeating the words CHRISTOS VOSCRESS, may demand a salute even of the empress. All business is laid aside; the upper ranks are engaged in visiting, balls, dinners, suppers, masquerades; while boors fill the air with their songs, or roll about the streets drunk. Servants appear in new and tawdry liveries, and carriages in the most sumptuous parade.

In all this may be seen what Easter was in England when it was a Catholic country-what a change in our observance of times the Reformation has produced! Fifteen days were the festivities usually kept up; in many places servants were permitted to rest from their labours; all courts of justice were shut up, and all

public games of a worldly nature were forbidden. Still in London it is a great week of relaxation to the mechanics, who pour out to Greenwich and other places by thousands to enjoy themselves. On Easter Monday 1834, as stated under the head of "Sunday in the Country," it appeared that no less than 100,000 persons went by the steam-vessels to different places. In large towns, EasterMonday is a holiday, and you may see a few swings, shows, and whirligigs for the children; but as you go farther into the country, all trace of this once great festival fades away. In the midland counties you rarely see a Paschal, or as it is more commonly called, a Pace-Egg. These eggs, which are almost as ancient as the Ark, of which they are a symbol, are to be found in almost all civilized countries. They are an emblem of the resurrection. As the whole living world went into the ark, and were shut up for a season, like the life in the egg, so by the egg, the ancients for ages symbolized the tradition of that great event, bringing eggs to the altars of their gods. The Hindoos even conceive their god Brahme, once in a cycle of ages, to enter into the egg, with the whole animated universe, and to float, like the ark, on the waters of eternity, till the time comes to reproduce himself and all things with him. So the Gnostics engrafted this idea on the Christian religion; for the entrance of Christ into the tomb, and his resurrection, were at once typified by the ark, and the egg, its symbol. This adopted custom, as all such customs do which have a sentiment in them dear to the human heart, flew far and wide. We have seen that the Russians give paschal-eggs: but what is more singular, the Mohammedans do the same. In France, in the week preceding Easter, baskets full of eggs boiled hard, of a red or violet colour, are seen in the streets, and the children amuse themselves with playing with, and afterwards eating them. In Egypt, the cattle and trees were coloured red at this period, because, they said, the world was once on fire at this time. The egg, placed on the paschal table of the Jews, was a symbol of the destruction of the human race, and of its regeneration. The egg entered into all the mysterious ceremonies called apocalyptic; and the Persians, who present it at the commencement of the new year, know that an egg is the symbol of the world. Throughout the country of Bonneval, on the day preceding Easter Sunday, and during the

first days of that week, the clerks of the different parishes, beadles, and certain artisans, go about from house to house to ask for their Easter eggs. In many places the children make a sort of feast at breakfast in Easter on red or yellow eggs. The Druids had the egg in their ceremonies; and near Dieppe is a Druidical barrow, where a fête used to be held by the country people, till the Revolution, where vast crowds of both sexes assembled from the neighbouring villages, and gave themselves up to a day of sports and rejoicing, in which eggs figured most singularly.

The Pace-Eggs seem now to have retired northward in England. In Yorkshire and Lancashire, and so northward, they may be found. They are boiled hard, and beautifully coloured with various colours, some by boiling them with different coloured ribbons bound round them; others by colouring them of one colour, and scraping it away in a variety of figures; others by boiling them within the coating of an onion, which imparts to them the admired dye. Early in the morning of Easter-Monday, in the Lancashire towns and villages where wooden clogs are worn, you may hear a strange clatter on the pavement under your window. It is the children, who are running to and fro, begging their Pace-Eggs.

In Staffordshire, Shropshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, and Durham, they still retain the custom of heaving or lifting on Easter Monday and Tuesday. In some of these counties on Monday, the men lift the women by taking hold of their arms and legs, which is repeated nine times; and on Tuesday the women use the like ceremony with the men. In other places, the men on one day go decorated with ribbons into every house into which they can get an entrance, force every woman to be seated in this vehicle, and lift her up three times with loud huzzas; and on the next the women claim the same privilege. In some places the women sit out in the streets, and practise this odd ceremony on every male passenger that they can catch, giving him a salute round; afterwards laying him under contribution, and the sum thus derived they lay out in a tea-drinking.

Ball-play used to be practised on Easter-Sunday in the church, the clergy and dignitaries joining in it. Corporations with the mace, sword, and cap of maintenance, carried before them, used to go out on Monday, to play at ball, and dance with the ladies.

They used to eat tansy-pudding and bacon as customary to the time. These, and many other, to us, ridiculous customs were all of ancient pagan origin engrafted on Christianity, and had all a symbolical meaning, most probably unperceived by the multitude who used them. The lifting three times had reference to the resurrection after three days; the ball was a symbol of the world; tansy the bitter herbs of the passion, and bacon to express their abhorrence of Jews, the destroyers of the Saviour.

We now see how all these festivities were kept alive by the art and power of the church, and how soon they fell into mere pageants when the Reformation poured in a truer light.

That the Reformation did effect this change is most convincingly proved by the retention of the old Catholic religious plays still in Catholic countries. Mr. Hone, in his "Ancient Mysteries," brings together a variety of modern instances of such things on the continent; and our travellers can furnish us with more. Moore's mention of these plays in his "Fudge Family in Paris," in 1817, must be familiar to everybody:

What folly

To say that the French are not pious, dear Dolly,
When here one beholds so correctly and rightly,
The Testament turned into melo-drames nightly;
And doubtless, so fond they're of scriptural facts,
They will soon get the Pentateuch up in five acts.
Here Daniel, in pantomime, bids bold defiance
To Nebuchadnezzar and all his stuffed lions.

In a note, he adds, that in this "Daniel, ou la Fosse aux Lions," JEHOVAH himself is made to appear! In 1822, M. Michelot, the Editor of the Mirour, was arraigned at the tribunal for having ridiculed the state religion, because he had published a description of a puppet-play just then witnessed at Dieppe, consisting of the birth of Christ, the passion, and the resurrection! and in which our Saviour, the Virgin, Judas, Herod, etc., were most revoltingly introduced. During Congress at Vienna in 1815, the Allied Monarchs used to attend a sacred comedy, of David, performed by the comedians of the National Theatre, in which Austrian soldiers fired off their muskets and artillery in the character of Jews and Philistines! It is needless to say that nothing of the kind could be tolerated in this country.

THIS is the only ancient religious festival that has become a popular one since the Reformation, through the addition of a modern circumstance. Clubs, or Friendly Societies, have substituted for the old church ceremonies, a strong motive to assemble in the early days of this week as their anniversary; and the time of the year being so delightful, this holiday has, in fact, become more than any other, what May-day was to the people. Both men and women have their Friendly Societies, in which every member pays a certain weekly or monthly sum, and on occasions of sickness or misfortune, claims a weekly stipend, or a sum of money to bury their dead. These Societies were very prudential things, especially before the institution of Savings' Banks, which are still better; and in the vicinity of towns have become most important resources for the working class, and especially servants.