p round the confines of
the town, when they return, sword in hand, and are met by women decorated
with ribands, bells, &c. 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. Field, asserts) from Sir W. Parr,
who lived in the reign of Edward IV., and whose granddaughter was Queen
Catharine Parr, of famous memory. It does not appear from Parr's writings
(as far as we remember) that he laid claim to this high ancestry; yet the
name of Catharine, which he gave to one of his daughters, may be imagined
to imply as much. His mother, whose maiden name was Mignard, was of the
family of the celebrated painter. It was the accident of Parr's birthplace
that, probably, laid the foundation of his fame, for to the school of his
native village, then one of the most flourishing in England, he was sent
in his sixth year; whilst, under other circumstances, it is likely that
he would have been condemned to an ordinary education and his father's
business. So many seeds is Nature constantly and secretly scattering, in
order that one may fall upon a spot that shall foster it