_Ashton Faggot: A Devonshire Custom._--The ashton faggot is burned on Christmas eve. The faggot is composed entirely of ash timber, and the separate sticks or branches are securely bound together with ash bands. The faggot is made as large as can conveniently be burned in the fireplace, or rather upon the floor, grates not being in use. A numerous company is generally assembled to spend the evening in games and amusement, the diversion being heightened as the faggot blazes on the hearth, as a quart of cider is considered due, and is called for, and served upon the bursting of every hoop or band bound round the faggot. The timber being green and elastic, each band generally bursts open with a smart report when the individual stick or hoop has been partially burned through. _Offerings to the Apple-trees: Devonshire Superstition._--It was a custom in Devonshire, and probably in some of the adjoining counties also, to perform the following ceremonial on Old Christmas Eve, or Twelfth Day, namely: In the evening the farmer's family and friends being assembled, hot wheat-flour cakes were introduced, with cider; and this was served round to the company, the cake being dipped in the cider, and then eaten. As the evening wore on, the assembled company adjourned into the orchard, some one bearing hot cake and cider as an offering to the principal tree in the orchard; the cake was deposited on a fork of the tree, and the cider was then thrown over it, the men firing off muskets, fowling-pieces, pistols, &c., the women, girls, and boys shouting and screaming to the trees with all the excitement of young Indians the following rhyme:-- "Bear blue, apples and pears enoug'; Barn fulls, bag fulls, sack fulls. Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" Query, Do these customs prevail to this day either in Devonshire or in other European countries? R. R. POETICAL IMITATION. It has always been a pleasing office of criticism, to observe how often an excellent thought, having sprung from some master mind, or from some inferior mind in a happy moment, has been used by succeeding writers. Homer, "à quo, ceu fonte perenni, Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis," has, in _Il._ v. 406. _et seq._, the following lines: "Νήπιος, οὐδὲ τὸ οἶδε κατὰ φρένα Τυδέος υἱὸς Ὅττι μάλ' οὐ δηναιὸς, ὃς ἀθανάτοισι μάχοιτο, Οὐδέ τί μιν παῖδες ποτὶ γούνασι παππάζουσιν, Ἐλθόντ' ἐκ πολέμοιο καὶ αἰνῆς δηϊοτῆτος." "The son of Tydeus is foolish and rash, nor is aware that he who fights with the immortals is not long-lived, and that _no children, as he returns from war and strife, gather round his knees to call him father_." The idea of children saluting their parent at his knees, has been adopted, and accompanied with various additions, by several subsequent authors. Among the writers in Homer's language, however, we find no imitation of it, unless the following lines of Callimachus can be regarded as taken from it: