Late one evening in the spring of 1817, the rustic inhabitants of Almondsbury, in Gloucestershire, were surprised by the entrance of a young female in strange attire. She wore leather shoes and black worsted stockings, a black stuff gown with a muslin fril! at the neck, and a red and black shawl round her shoulders, and a black cotton shawl on her head. Her height was about five feet two inches, and she carried a small bundle on her arm containing a few necessaries. Her clothes were loosely and tastefully put on in an oriental fashion. Her eyes and hair were black, her forehead was low, her nose short, her mouth wide, her teeth white, her lips large and full, her under lip projected a little, her chin was small and round, her hands were clean and seemed unused to labour. She appeared about twenty-five years of age, was fatigued, walked with difficulty, spoke a language no one could comprehend, and signified by signs her desire to sleep in the village The cottagers were afraid to admit her, and sought the decision of Mr. Worrall, a magistrate for the county, at Knole, whose lady caused her own maid to accompany her to a public-house in the village, with a request that she should have a supper, and a comfortable bed. In the morning Mrs. Worrall found her, with strong traces of sorrow and distress on her countenance, and took her with her to Knole, but she went reluctantly. It was Good Friday, and at the mansion, observing a cross-bun, she cut off the cross, and placed it in her bosom. Paper and a pen were handed to her to write her name; she shook her head : and when she appeared to comprehend what was meant, pointed to herself, and cried 66 Caraboo.' The next day she was taken to Bristol, examined before the mayor, at the Council-house, and committed to St. Peter's Hospital as a vagrant, whither persons of respectability flocked to visit the incomprehensible inmate. From that place Mrs. Worrall removed her once more to Knole. A gentleman, who had made several voyages to the Indies, extracted from her signs, and gestures, and articulation, that she was the daughter of a person of rank, of Chinese origin, at "Javasu," and that whilst walking in her garden, attended by three women, she had been gagged, and bound, and carried off, by the people of a pirateprow, and sold to the captain of a brig, from whence she was transferred to another ship, which anchored at a port for two days, where four other females were taken in, who, after a voyage of five weeks, were landed at another port: sailing for eleven more weeks, and being near land, she jumped overboard, in consequence of ill usage, and swimming ashore, found herself on this coast, and had wandered for six weeks, till she found her way to Almondsbury. She described herself at her father's to have been carried on men's shoulders, in a kind of palanquin, and to have worn seven peacocks' feathers on the right side of her head, with open sandals on her feet, having wooden soles; and she made herself a dress from some calico, given her by Mrs. Worrall, in the style of her own which had been embroidered. The late Mr. Bird, the artist, sketched her, according to this account, as in the engraving. VOL. II.-104. Caraboo. recitals, and her general conduct, were To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. In the year 1824, Caraboo having returned from America, took apartments in New Bond-street, where she made a public exhibition of herself-admittance one shilling each person; but it does not appear that any great number wer! to see her. 2. GENTLE CRAFTSMEN, An opportunity has not occurred, till now, to introduce the following A Lady's old Shoe, and Clog. It was purposed to have been accompanied by others: as it is, indulgence is craved for it as a specimen of the art and dexterity of our ancestors in shoe-making and wearing. It is drawn from the original, purchased by Mr. J. J. A. F., with other curiosities, at the sale of the Leverian Museum. The shoe is of white kid leather, calashed with black velvet. There are marks of stitches by which ornaments had been affixed to it. Its clog is simply a straight piece of stout leather, inserted in the underleather at the toe, and attached to the heel. That such were walked in is certain; that the fair wearers could have run in them is impossible to imagine. They were in fashion at the Res Robin Hood breathed his last, in the year 1247. The accounts of the life of this extraordinary outlaw are so various, and so much mixed up with fable, that to render a true history of him would be almost impossible. His real name was Fitz-Ooth, his grandfather, Ralph Fitz-Ooth Earl of Kyme, whose name appears in the Roll of Battle Abbey, came over to England with William Rufus, and was married to a daughter of Gilbert de Gient earl of Lincoln.* His father, William Fitz-Ooth, in the times of feudal dependancy, was a ward of Robert earl of Oxford, who, by the King's order, gave him his niece in marriage, the third daughter of lady Roisia de Vere, countess of Essex.t Having dissipated his fortune, Robin Ooth, or Hood, as he was named, joined a band of depredators, and, as their chief, laid heavy contributions, for his support, on all such as he deemed rich enough to bear the loss. He was famed for his courage, skill in archery, and kindness to the poor, who often shared with him in the plunder he Stukeley's Palæographia Britannica, No. 11. 1745. + Ibid. had taken. The principal scene of his exploits is said to have been in Sherwood Forest, and the period, that of the reign of Richard I., thus described by Stowe : "In this time (1190) were many robbers and outlaws; among the which Robin Hood and Little John, renowned thieves, continued in woods, dispoyling and plundering the goods of the rich; they killed none but such as would invade them, or by resistance for their own defence. "The said Robert entertained an hundred tall men and good archers with such spoiles and thefts as he got, upon whom four hundred (were they ever so strong) durst not give the onset. He suffered no woman to be oppressed, violated, or otherwise molested; poor men's goods he spared, abundantly relieving them with that which by theft he got from abbeys, and the houses of rich earles: whom Major (the historian) blameth for his rapine and theft, but of all thieves he affirmeth him to be the prince, and the most gentle theefe." * "It is said," writes Baker, "that he was of noble blood, at least made noble, no less than an earl, for deserving services, but having wasted his estate in riotous courses, very penury forced him to this course."+ Robin Hood was the hero of many popular songs, several of which are to be found in Evans's Collection of Old Ballads," as early as the reign of Edward III. R. Langlande, a priest, in his "Pierce Plowman's Visions," notices him : "I cannot perfitly my Paternoster, as the priest it singeth, I can rimes of Robenhod and Randal of Chester, But of our Lorde or our Lady I learne nothyng at all." He is reported to have lived till the year 1247; but Baker, in his "Chronology," makes his death, which is said to have been caused by treachery, to have taken place in the reign of Richard I. "The King set forth a Proclamation to have him apprehended; it happened he fell sick, at a certain nunnery in Yorkshire, called Berckleys, and desiring to be let blood, was betrayed, and made to bleed to death." Stowe's Annals, 159. + Baker's Chronicles, 94. ✰ Ibid. The manner of his death is also recorded in an old ballad, entitled " Robin Hood and the valiant Knight, together with an Account of his Death and Burial." "And Robin Hood he to the green wood, And there he was taken ill. And he sent for a monk, to let him blood Now this being done, his archers did run, At Kirklees, in Yorkshire, formerly a Benedictine nunnery, is a gravestone, near the park, under which it is said Robin Hood lies buried. There is the remains of an inscription on it, but it is quite illegible. Mr. Ralph Thoresby, in his "Ducatus Leodiensis," gives the following as the epitaph : : "Hear undernead dis laith stean Obiit 24 kal. Dekembris, 1247." Some of his biographers have noticed him as earl of Huntingdon, but they are not borne out in this by any of the old ballads, this epitaph alone calling him by that title. All the learned antiquarians agree in giving no credence to the genuineness of the above composition, alleging, among other causes, the quaintness of the spelling, and the pace of the metre, as affording them strong grounds for suspicion. However strongly the name and exploits of Robin Hood may have been impressed on our memories from the "oft told" nursery tales, yet we have lately had it in our power to become more intimately, and, as it were, personally acquainted with this great chieftain of outlaws, through the medium of the author of Waverley," who has introduced "friend Locksley" to the readers of his "Ivanhoe," in such natural and glowing colours, as to render the forgetting him utterly impossible. Leadenhall-street. HENRY BRANDON Christmas-ebe. BELLMAN'S VERSES This night (you may my Almanack believe) Is the return of famous Christmas-ove : Ye virgins then your cleanly rooms prepare, Another on the same. Now, Mrs. Betty, pray get up and rise, care: And let Doll's ingenuity be seen, In decking all the windows up with green. It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader, that several notices of this day have been already presented; yet, many as they are, there are others from whence a few may be gleaned, with the probability of their still being acceptable. With Mr. Leigh Hunt, who is foremost among modern admirers of the old festivals of the season, Christmas is, as it ought to be, the chief. His papers, in 1817, which occasioned the following letter, are not at hand to cite; and, perhaps if they were, the excellent feelings of his "fair correspondent" might be preferred to some of even his descriptions. To the Editor of the Examiner. Sir, I am of the number of your readers who recollect, with pleasure and gratitude, your papers last year on keeping Christmas, and I looked forward with a hope, which has not been disappointed, that you would take some notice again of its return. I feel unwilling to intrude on your valuable time, yet I cannot refrain from thanking you for your cheering attempts to enforce a due observance of this delightful season. I thank you in my own name, and I thank you in the name of those to whom the spring of life is opening in all its natural and heartfelt enjoyments. I thank you in the name of the more juvenile part of the holyday circle, who, released from the thraldom of school discipline, are come home, (that expressive word,) to bask awhile in the eyes and the smiles of their fond parents; and, lastly, I thank you on behalf of those who have none to plead for them, and to whom pleasure is but a name-the sick at heart and sick in body, the friendless and the fatherless, the naked and the hungry. To all of these I hope to exend a portion of happiness and of help, • Bellman's Treasury, 1707. with a heart full of gratitude to HIM who has "cast my lot in a goodly heritage.” I have, under this feeling, been for some days past busily employed in preparing for passing Christmas worthily. My beef and mince-meat are ready, (of which, with some warm garments, my poor neighbours will partake,) and my holly and mistletoe gathered; for I heartily approve of your article, and am of opinion that to the false refinement of modern times may be traced the loss of that primitive and pure simplicity which characterised "other beg leave to add that learned and truly times." To your list of "authorities" I Christian prelate, Bishop Hall, who, in his "Contemplation on the Marriage of Cana," so strongly enforces the doctrine, that the Creator is best honoured in a wise and rational enjoyment of the crea In Mr. Nichols's Collection of Poems there are some pleasant verses, which seem to have proceeded from his own pen: To HY MN, Esq. When you talk about Leicester |