*

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.

ADVENT.

(_For the Mirror_.)

In the North Riding of Yorkshire, the young folks retain a very ancient
custom during Advent. They make a wax figure representing the infant Jesus,
and place it in a small wooden case, with evergreens, which hide all but
the figure. A napkin is thrown over the box; and the puppet is thus
carried about, and exhibited from door to door, by a boy, the others
chanting some supplicatory lines. The same custom prevails in Wales.

In Italy, a wax figure representing the Virgin, inclosed in a beautifully
carved wooden case, is placed on the back of an ass, and exhibited through
the country during Advent. Every traveller on seeing it prostrates himself
immediately, and crosses himself, and considers himself in duty bound to
bestow his charity on the proprietor. Others carry emblematical figures
through the different towns, or sit by the road side, and uncover the
effigy to every passer-by.

W.H.H.

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CURIOUS MANORIAL RIGHT.

(_For the Mirror_.)

At Ripley Castle, in Yorkshire, the seat of Sir William Ingilby, there is
in the great staircase an elegant Venetian window, in the divisions of
which, on stain-glass, are a series of escutcheons, displaying the
principal quarterings and intermarriages of the Ingilby family since their
settling at Ripley, during a course of 430 years.

In one of the chambers of the tower is the following sentence, carved on
the frieze of the wainscot:--"In the yeire of owre Ld. MDLV. was this
howse buyldyd, by Sir Wyllyam Ingilby, Knight, Philip and Marie reigning
that time."

John Pallisser, of Bristhwaite, formerly held his lands of the manor of
Ripley, by the payment of a red rose at Midsummer, and by carrying the
boar's head to the lord's table all the twelve days of Christmas.

W.G.C.

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NOTES OF A READER.

EUGENE ARAM.

We intend to quote a few scenes and snatches from Mr. Bulwer's
extraordinary novel of this name. At present, however, we can only
introduce the ill-fated hero.

(Two young ladies, daughters of the lord of the Manor, approach Aram's
house:--)

"Madeline would even now fain have detained her sister's hand from the
bell that hung without the porch half embedded in ivy; but Ellinor, out of
patience--as she well might be--with her sister's unseasonable prudence,
refused any longer delay. So