Westminster Hall is generally believed to have been built by William Rufus, about the year 1097, during his absence in Normandy, and it is traditionally stated, that on his return from the wars there, he affected disappointment at its dimensions, as being not half big enough, and fitter for his bed chamber than the public hall of his palace with which it was connected. The outside walls of Westminster Hall and part of its north end (which was visible during the recent renovation) sufficiently prove the Hall of William Rufus to have been a rude structure; and the difficulty of explaining in what manner such a span of Roof could have been supported before the flying buttresses were erected, was done away by the developement of an ancient triple door-way at the northern entrance, indicating that the Hall was originally divided by pillars of wood or stone, so as to form a nave and side-aisles in the manner of a large church. Such as it was, the Hall answered the purposes of Royal Feasting and National Councils, as well as for the usual Courts of Justice, till the reign of Richard II., when, from the effects of time, and of a fire which destroyed the roof, it became absolutely necessary to rebuild the Hall, or to give it a thorough repair. The last was chosen, and executed with so much judgment and good taste, as to remain one of the best specimens of English architecture; which soon afterwards degenerated into a detail and ramification of ornament, calculated to exhibit the dexterity of the stone-mason, instead of the genuine grandeur and propriety which satisfies the mind while contemplating the work of a consummate architect. It is not a little singular that the actual contract for part of this repair is still extant, and is published in Rymer's Fœdera. It bears date the 18th March, in the eighteenth year of Richard II. (A. D. 1395), and by it certain masons, therein named, undertake to place a wellsecured table (entablature or coping) two feet of assize in height, on the outside wall, and to infix twenty-six souses (underprops or corbels) of Caen stone in the Hall (no doubt for the support of the timber-framed roof), and also to line the inside of the wall with Ryegate stone. All this was to be finished by Candlemas (2nd February) then next ensuing; and the rest of the work must have proceeded with equal rapidity, as the roof, and even the northern portal, was finished (as far as we now see it) four years afterwards, when the unhappy misguided Richard was driven from the throne, after keeping his last Christmas in this Hall! Indeed that the work was hurried beyond what was proper, sufficient evidence appears in the settlement, or swerving of the eastern tower, where it joins the older building; and the masonry of the wall which supported the great northern window, was found to have been so badly bonded as to create surprise that it should have stood so long. The inconvenience of Westminster Hall being under repair, was then felt even more sensibly than at present: if there was less law, there was more feasting in it; and on occasion of a Parliament, A. D. 1397, the king was under the necessity of building a temporary room for a meeting in New Palace-yard. This room was open on all sides, and it said (a Lancastrian calumny perhaps) that "to secure the freedom of debate," the King placed around it his Cheshire Guards, with bows bent and arrows drawn ready to shoot. Certainly that Parliament was very obsequious to the King's wishes. How severely he expiated the insult in another Parliament two short years afterwards, let history and Shakspeare tell. We return to the northern Portal of the Hall. The evident intention of the architect was to ornament the basement story to the utmost extent of his art, and, by just gradation, to arrive at a beautiful simplicity in the battlements of the towers and the weathering, or coping course of the gable between them. The canopied niches which flank the lower windows of each of the towers, are rivals worthy of the basement niches, differing in form and fashion, but inferior to none of them in workmanship. They seem to have been intended for tutelary Saints. The Groined Porch of the Hall door is worthy of notice, surmounted as it is by one of the earliest and finest specimens of pannelled ornament; on the Eastern spandrel of the door-way appears to hang a medallion carved with the favorite device of Richard, his own escutcheon displayed and supported by three Angels, with a chained Hart couchant under a tree. Over the Western spandrel of the door-way, the escutcheon of Edward the Confessor appears in like fashion, either in token of his being founder of the Old Palace, or of Richard's especial reverence for the Sainted King. The same or similar devices appear on the stone moulding around the inside of the Hall, and Angels supporting escutcheons are the most prominent ornaments of the cieling timbers; which are yet more worthy of admiration for the peculiar continuation of the appearance of pan nelled ornament there displayed, which, in a general coup d'œil, we cannot but carry with us from the gate-way into the Hall. The dimensions of the Hall are eighty yards by twenty-two, and therefore nearly four-tenths of a statute acre in area. The ridge of the roof thirty yards from the floor, of which seven yards reach to the souses or corbels, seven more to the Angels (which range with the side-walls), and sixteen yards is the perpendicular height of the roof itself. The roof of Westminster Hall has always been admired for its beautiful carpentering, which supported a massive covering of lead for four hundred years, and scarcely feels the weight of modern slating. ON THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY. (For the Mirror.) FEBRUARIUS, in the Roman chronology, the second month of their year, so called from Februa, a feast held therein. In the first ages of Rome, February was the last month of the year, and preceded January, till the decemviri made an order that February should be the second month of the year, and come after January. In this month, "The shifting gales with milder influence blow, Cloud o'er the skies, and melt the falling snow; The soften'd earth with fertile moisture teems, And, freed from icy bonds, down rush the swelling streams." Dr. Aikin says, “the earlier part of this month may still be reckoned winter, though the cold generally begins to abate. The days are now sensibly lengthened, and the sun has power enough gradually to melt away the ice and snow. The hard weather generally breaks up with a sudden thaw, attended by a south wind and rain, which all at once dissolves the snow. Torrents of water then pour from the hills, every brook is swelled into a large stream, which rushes violently into the rivers; the pavement of ice with which they are covered now breaks up in every direction with the noise of thunder, and the floating masses dashed against barges and bridges, force down every thing that obstructs their passage; the bed of the river becomes unable to carry off this vast accumulation of water, it swells over the banks, inundates the bordering fields, and sweeps away cattle, mills, hay-stacks, gates, trees, and, in short, almost every thing that it reaches. The manure is carried off from the fields; high banks, with the trees upon them, are undermined and give way; and, in the space of a few hours, incalculable losses are sustained." "Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point, Blow hollow, blustering from the south. Subdued, The frost resolves into a trickling thaw. Spotted the mountains shine; loose sleet deAnd floods the country round. Sudden from the scends, hills, O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts, A thousand snow-fed torrents rush at once; And where they rush, the wide resounding plain Is left one slimy waste." THOMSON'S SEASONS, Winter, line 988. ground in February, but few flowers as Many plants emerge from under yet adorn the fields and pastures. Snowdrops are sometimes fully opened from the beginning of the month, often peeping out amidst the snow. Mrs. Barbauld sweetly describes this early effort of Nature's delicate, flowery tribe thus: Already now the snow-drop dares appear, The first pale blossom of th' unripen'd year, As Flora's breath, by some transforming power, Had changed an icicle into a flower. And winter lingers in its icy veins." Its name and hue the scentless plant retains, the following relating to this month:Ray, in his collection of Proverbs, has February fill-dike, be it black, or be it white; But if be white, it's the better to like. All the moneths in the year curse a fair Februeer." Snow brings a double advantage; it not only preserves the corn from the bitterness of the frost and cold, but enriches the ground by reason of the nitrous salt, which it is supposed to contain. The Alps, and other high mountains, are frequently covered all the winter with snow, soon after it is melted to become like a garden, so full of luxuriant plants and variety of flowers. It is worth the noting, that mountainous plants are for the most part larger than those of the same genus which grow in lower grounds; and that these snowy mountains afford greater variety of species than plain countreys. See notes to Ray's Proverbs, published at Cambridge, 1670. Shakspeare says, "You have such a February face, tice, they could think of nothing else; their property, their farms, their looms, their nets, their establishments of industry were all lying waste; their time and talents were all absorbed in this intoxicating pursuit. At what period gaming was introduced into England, it would be difficult to determine; but there are few countries where it is carried on to a greater extent. Montaigne seems to have been well aware of the evils of gaming, and gives us the reason why he relinquished it. "I used," says he, "to like formerly games of chance with cards and dice; but of that folly I have long been cured, merely because I found that whatever good countenance I put on when I lost, I did not feel my vexation the less." More than that, we have seen breaches scarcely to be healed between those who sat down to the gaming table in perfect good humour, but rose up from it in that disposition; but who can describe the abandonment too frequently attendant on this destructive practice; the friendship of such men is a confederacy in vice, and that they cannot depend on each other, has been too recently exemplified by its fatal consequences: its deteriorating influence upon the temper and disposition, as well as the pecuniary affairs-its false effects, in short, both to the unhappy individual who is curst with the propensity and to society in general. Connecting cause with effect, it leads to misery, and everlasting ruin, even to robbery and murder! In gaming, Judge Blackstone says, several parties engaged to cast lots to determine upon whom the ruin shall at present fall, that the rest may be saved a little longer. Taken in any light, this is an offence of the most alarming nature, tending, by necessary consequence, to promote public idleness, theft, and debauchery, among those of a lower class; and, among persons of a superior rank, it hath frequently been attended with the sudden ruin and desolation of ancient and opulent families, an abandoned prostitution of every principle of honour and virtue, and too often hath ended in selfmurder. To this passion every valuable consideration has been made a sacrifice; and it is a passion which has lamentably prevailed in our own country, and which we seem to have derived from our ancestors, the ancient Germans; who, according to the account given of them by Tacitus, were bewitched with the spirit of play to a most exorbitant degree. "They addict themselves," says he, "to dice (which is wonderful) when sober, and as a serious employment, with such a mad desire of winning or losing, that, when stripped of every thing else, they will stake at last their liberty, and then their very selves. The loser goes into a voluntary slavery, and, though younger and stronger than his antagonist, suffers himself to be bound and sold. And this perseverance in so bad a cause, they call the point of honour.". "One would think (says Blackstone) that Tacitus was describing a modern Englishman. Against a spirit so frantic, laws can be of little avail, because the same false sense of honour that prompts a man to sacrifice himself, will deter him from appealing to a magistrate. Yet it is proper that restricting and protecting laws should be enacted, and that they should be publicly announced, and repeatedly inculcated, if possible to preserve the unwary, if not to reclaim those who are on the brink of ruin." Father le Compte, in his Travels to China, says, 66 Gaming is equally prohibited among the common people and the mandarins; and yet this does not Linder their playing, and frequently losing all they have their lands, houses, children, and even their wives, which are all sometimes laid on a single card."_ Shakspeare says, "keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student from his book, and it is wonderful." Lord Bacon says, "a gamester, the greater the master he is in his art, the worse man he is." And Addison says, "could we look into the mind of a common gamester, we should see it full of nothing but trumps and matadores; his slumbers are haunted with kings, queens, and knaves." SADNESS. BY MR. WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT. 1651. Whiles I this standing lake, Swath'd up with yew and cypress boughs, Do move by sighs and vows, Let sadness only wake; That whiles thick darkness blots the light, My thoughts may last another night : In which double shade, By heav'n and me made, O let me weep, And fall asleep, And forgotten fade. Hark! from yond' hollow tree, Whiles the hermit wolf howls, The raven hovers o'er my bier, Pipes my elegy, And warns me to die; Whiles from yond' giaves, AT a very early period, it was customary to spread a cloth, or cover, upon tables appropriated for holding refreshments; and in the more ennobled ranks of society, we find this practice prevalent almost among all nations, where civilization has polished the manners of the people; any omission of this requisite mark of politeness would have been considered an insult. The use of the table cloth among the Romans, we are told by Montfauçon, began in the time of the early Emperors; he adds, that their fabric was fine linen, generally much ornamented, with stripes of gold and purple, and sometimes painted, or wrought with gold, decorated at the corners with golden tags. The use of table linen was (according to D'Arcy) very rare in England about the thirteenth century; but, we find the Anglo-Saxons, before the Norman conquest, dined with a clean cloth, denominated reod sceat, which was by their successors termed drapet; this latter term we find in several instances in "Spenser's Faery Queen," evidently alluding to linen cloths, now modernized into drapery; hence, it is pretty certain that table cloths were by no means unusual in this country at a very early period. In the life of Saint Ives, we find it mentioned that even a cloth was laid for a poor man. Ducange relates a singular feudal privilege; "that the Lord was entitled to the table cloth and towel, used at the house were he dined; the honour of a frequent visit would surely have made him no welcome guest, when we consider the value of these articles at that time. The same author relates, that a father giving advice to his son, most strongly urges him, as a means of future success in life, to have his table covered with a clean cloth. And we find there was a violent complaint made against the monks for putting their visiters to a table, not without any cloth certainly, but before a dirty one. It appears that table cloths were used by the nobility and gentry of great value, the price was seldom less than one hundred marks; at that time, indeed, almost a fortune for a poor man. Fosbroke, in his " Antiquities," writes, that damask table linen is of a very ancient date, and quotes La Brocquiere for a description of some table cloths used abroad; he says, "They are four feet in diameter, and made round, having rings attached to them, and are, when the dinner is finished, drawn up together like a purse, so that not a crumb of the remnants may be lost." JACOBUS. LINES, TO AN INFANT ON ITS MOTHER'S WELCOME, oh! welcome, stranger dear, Thy father's stronger arm shall guard In heav'n, high seated on his throne; The Novelist. No. XLVI. R. F. EPONINA AND SABINUS, A ROMAN STORY. SABINUS was a Roman, who, during the civil wars, engaged himself in a party who were against Vespasian, and even aspired to the empire. But when the power of Vespasian was well established, Sabinus only bestowed attention on the means, by which he might shake off his persecutions; in a short time he thought of one as doleful, as it was new; he was possessed of vast subterraneous passages, unknown to the world, and in these he determined to hide himself; this melancholy retreat, at least freed him from the insupportable fear of punishment, and he bore in his bosom the hope that some new revolution would give him the possibility of reappearing in the world. But, amongst the many sacrifices, which his situation forced him to make, there was one above all which he had at heart. He had a young, beautiful, sensible, and |