364 CHRISTMAS TIDE. 



DEC. '29. St. Thomas Becket, bishop of Canter* 

 bury, m. a.d. 1 170. 

 St. Marcellus, abbot of the Acoemetes, 485. 

 St. Evroul, abbot and confessor, 596. 



Obs. St. Thomas ii Becket was born in London in 1117. His 

 father when on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was taken captive by the 

 Saracens, and while with them a young Syrian lady was converted 

 by him, who with him escaped from the emir their master, and, being 

 baptized in England by the name of Maud, was married to him in 

 St. Paul's Church at London. Of this connection Thomas a Becket 

 was the result. The life and elevation of Becket is well written by 

 John of Salisbury, and included in Butler's Lives. His assassination 

 in the Cathedral of Canterbury at vespers before the altar of St. 

 Bennet is well known, as is the penance and scourging of the king 

 afterwards for having been privy to this sacrilegious murder. The 

 reliques of Becket were put into a costly shrine, and there remained 

 in the cathedral till the monsters of the " Reformation," among 

 other sacrilegious acts, plundered it ; the infamous King Henry 

 took the gold and jewels ; and the body of the saint was burnt. A 

 bone of his arm is however preserved, and shewn at the church of St. 

 Waltrude at Mons, and his hair shirt is divided between the College 

 of Douay and the Abbey of Liesse. Other vestments were pre- 

 served at St. Berlin's Abbey at St. Omer's, and other places of the 

 Netherlands. 



Genista Heath Erica Genistopha fl. 



The burning of Peat and sometimes of Heathmould at this time 

 of year produces a pleasant smell, that scents the air far and wide. 

 The burning of weeds during all the autumnal and winter months is 

 also a pleasing rustic picture. 



At this dreary season, while travelling along the road or skirting 

 the woody suburbs of our country villages, we are often cheered by 

 the blaze of the gipsey's fire, and her vagrant aiid half naked family 

 around it. Rogers, in his " Pleasures of Memory," has thus de- 

 scribed the gipsey : 



Down by yon hazel copse at evening blazed 



The Gipsey's faggot. There we stood and gazed ; 



Gaz'd on her sunburnt face with silent awe, 



Her tattered mantle, and her hood of straw ; 



Her moving lips, her cauldron brimming o'er ; 



The drowsy brood that on her back she bore. 



Imps, in the barn with mousing owlet bred, 



From rifled roost at nightly revel fed ; 



Whose dark eyes flash'd thro' locks of blackest shade. 



When in the breeze the distant Watclidog bayed : 



And heroes fled the Sybil's muUered call, 



Whose elfin prowess scaled the orchard wall. 



As o'er my palm the silver piece she drew, 



And traced ihe line of life with searching view, 



How throbb'd my fluttering pulse with hopes and fears, 



To learn the colour of my future years ! 



