d please--
Alas! that thoughts so gross man's noblest powers should seize.

But, bowed beneath the cross, see! prostrate fall
The mummeries that long enthralled our isle;
So perish error! and wide over all
Let reason, truth, religion ever smile:
And let not man, vain, impious man defile
The spark heaven lighted in the human breast;
Let no enthusiastic rage, no sophist's wile
Lull the poor victim into careless rest,
Since the pure gospel page can teach him to be blest.

Weak, trifling man, O! come and ponder here
Upon the nothingness of human things--
How vain, how very vain doth then appear
The city's hum, the pomp and pride of kings;
All that from wealth, power, grandeur, beauty springs,
Alike must fade, die, perish, be forgot;
E'en he whose feeble hand now strikes the strings
Soon, soon within the silent grave must rot--
Yet Nature's still the same, though we see, we hear her not.

J. HORNER.

_Wilsill, near Pateley Bridge, Sept. 1829._

[Footnote 3: Yorkshire. This wonderful assemblage lies scattered in
groups, covering a surface of nearly forty acres of heathy moor.
The numerous rocking-stones, rock-idols, altars, cannon rocks, &c.
evidently point out this spot as having been used by the Druids in
their horrid and mysterious ceremonies. The position of some of these
rocks is truly astonishing; one in particular resting upon a base of
a few inches, overhangs on all sides many feet; while others seem
suspended and balanced as if they hung in air.]

[Footnote 4: Human sacrifices formed part of the religious rites of
the Druids.]

* * * * *

MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.

* * * * *

PLEDGING HEALTHS.

The origin of the very common expression, to _pledge_ one drinking,
is curious: it is thus related by a very celebrated antiquarian of
the fifteenth century. "When the _Danes_ bore sway in this land, if
a native did drink, they would sometimes stab him with a dagger or
knife; hereupon people would not drink in company unless some one
present would be their _pledge_ or surety, that they should receive no
hurt, whilst they were in their draught; hence that usual phrase, I'll
_pledge you_, or be a pledge for you." Others affirm the true sense of
the word was, that if the party drank to, were not disposed to drink
himself, he would put another for _a pledge_ to do it for him, else
the party who bega