busy preparation was heard in every dwelling in the village of . We doubt if the expectation of the tournament at Ashby de la Zouche excited a greater sensation among knights-templars, Norman lords, and wandering chevaliers, than the anticipation of the exhibition produced upon the young people of . Labour and skill were employed and exhausted in preparations for the event. One day was allotted for the examination of the scholars, and the distribution of prizes; and another for the exhibition, during which the young men and boys were to display those powers that were developing for the pulpit, and the bar, and the political harangue. The young ladies were with obvious and singular propriety excluded from any part in the exhibition except that on the first drawing aside, (for they did not know enough of the scenic art to draw up the curtain,) the prize composition was to be read by the writer of it.
The old and the young seemed alike interested in promoting the glories of the day. The part of a king, from one of Miss More's Sacred Dramas, was to be enacted, and there was a general assembly of the girls of the village to fit his royal trappings. A purple shawl was converted by a little girl of ready invention into a royal robe of Tyrian dye. The crown blazed with jewelry, which to too curious scrutiny appeared to be not diamonds, but paste; not gold, but gold-leaf, and gold beads; of which fashionable New-England necklace, as tradition goes, there were not less
