from many stations, and variety of culture, these samples of all afford a reasonable average of the quality. It has been thought, but I trust and believe only in the apprehension of evil, that leasing is injurious to the morals of the poor, affording them an opportunity and initiating them in petty pilfering; but if the disposition existed, it could be practicable but in very few instances; mutual jealousy would prevent individual success, and immediate detection would follow the filching of numbers. The commencement of many ceremonies and solemnities is lost by perversion, or in the obscurity of years; the stream of habit may trickle on from age to age, till it flows in time a steady current, yet the original source remain unknown: but this custom of gleaning the remnant of the field we know existed from the earliest periods, three thousand years and upwards for certain; for, if it were not then first instituted, it was secured and regulated by an especial ordinance of the Almighty to the Israelites in the wilderness, as a privilege to be fully enjoyed by the poor of the land, whenever their triumphant armies should enter into possession of Canaan. By this law, the leasing of three products was granted to the destitute inhabitants of the soil,—the olive, the grape-vine, and corn; the olive-tree was to be beaten but once; the scattered grape in the vintage was not to be gathered; and in the field where the corn grew, “clean riddance” was not to be made, the corners were to be left unreaped, and even the forgotten sheaf was not to be fetched away by the owner, but to be left for the “poor and the stranger the fatherless and the widow.” This was not simply declared once, as an act of mercy, but enjoined and confirmed by ordinances thrice repeated, and impressed with particular solemnity; “I am the Lord thy God,” I have given thee all, and I command unreserved obedience to this my appointment. Revolving in our minds, as we old-mannered people often do, the forms, rites, and usages of earlier days, we occasionally regret that fashions by gradual neglect have passed away, and can never be revived, to give that feeling of pleasure which a natural growth seemed to have inspired. Some, though probably of pagan origin, were innocent and harmless practices; the maypole, with all its flowery wreaths, so often surrounded by the dance and the song, is now but seldom seen, where we have known it, especially in the lace-making counties, the evening and almost sole recreation, after long hours of unhealthy occupation, for happy groups of “Those pale maids who weave their threads with bone;”