communion, or hold high and solemn converse with us from the graves in which we laid them years ago. And this result of the minute and accurate partitions of time, which consists in the establishment of a series of points for periodic celebration, is, as regards its public and social operation, more important than may at first sight appear. The calendar of almost every country is, as we have observed, filled with a series of anniversaries, religious or secular, of festival or abstinence, or instituted for the regulation of business or the operations of the law. In England, independently of those periods of observance which are common to the realm and written in her calendar, there are few districts which are without some festival peculiar to themselves, originating in the grant of some local charter or privilege, the establishment of some local fair, the influence of some ancient local superstition, or some other cause, of which, in many cases, the sole remaining trace is the observance to which it has given rise,--and which observance does not always speak in language sufficiently clear to give any account of its parent. Around each of these celebrations has grown up a set of customs and traditions and habits, the examination into which has led to many a useful result, and which are for the most part worth preserving, as well for their picturesque aspect and social character as for the sake of the historic chambers which they may yet help us to explore. Their close resemblance, as existing amongst different nations, has formed an element in the solution of more than one problem which had for its object a chapter of the history of the world; and they may be said, in many cases, to furnish an apparent link of connection between generations of men long divided and dwelling far apart. They form, too, amid the changes which time is perpetually effecting in the structure of society, a chain of connection between the present and former times of the same land, and prevent the national individuality from being wholly destroyed. They tend to preserve some similarity in the moral aspect of a country from epoch to epoch, and, without having force enough to act as drags on the progress of society towards improvement, they serve for a feature of identification amid all its forms. Curious illustrations they are, too, of national history; and we learn to have confidence in its records when we find in some obscure nook the peasant of to-day, who troubles himself little with the lore of events and their succession, doing that which some ancient chronicler tells us his ancestors did a thousand years ago, and keeping in all simplicity some festival, the story of whose origin we find upon its written page.