ringing and dancing. These are called _timber
vasts_. The houses of the new freemen are, on this day, distinguished by
a holly bush, as a signal for their friends to assemble and make merry.
This ridiculous ceremony is attributed to King John, who being mired in
the well, as a punishment for not mending the road, made the above custom
a part of the charter of the town.
H.B.A.
* * * * *
THE ANECDOTE GALLERY.
* * * * *
DOCTOR PARR.
How many a fine mind has been lost to mankind by the want of some
propitious accident, to lead it to a proper channel; to prevent its
current from "turning awry and losing the name of action!" We know not
whether the story of Newton's apple be true, but it may serve for an
illustration, and if that apple had not fallen, where would have been his
Principia? If the Lady Egerton had not missed her way in a wood, Milton
might have spent the time in which he wrote "Comus," in writing "Accidence
of Grammar;" and if Ellwood, the quaker, had not asked him what he could
say on "Paradise Regained," that beautiful poem (so greatly underrated)
would have been lost to us.
Samuel Parr was born at Harrow-on-the-Hill, June 15 (o.s.) 1747. He was
the son of Samuel Parr, a surgeon and apothecary of that place, and
through him immediately descended from several considerable scholars, and
remotely (as one of his biographers, Mr.
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