noted representative of the German school, also put upon canvas his ideal of the Annunciation. The engraving on page 27 is the work of Ernest Deger, a German artist of the present century, and a member of Overbeck's association known as the "Nazarites," from their devotion

to religious art. Another exponent of modern German art in this particular field is Heinrich Hoffmann.

The modern French school has its representative picture of the Annunciation in that shown on page 26, by William Adolphe Bouguereau, whose work in both religious and secular art is well known.

The Flemish school has its exponent in Van Eyck (1366-1426), an artist to whom has been ascribed the credit (which, however, has been disputed) of first introducing the use of oil colors.

Of the Spanish school perhaps Murillo's (1618-1682) painting is the best-known example.

English artists of the nineteenth century have also given us their ideas of how the Annunciation should be depicted on canvas. Perhaps two of the most noted names are the representatives of the "romantic" school, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

The highest Order of knighthood of the ducal house of Savoy -now the royal house of Italy is known as the "Order of the Annunciation." It dates, under its present name, from 1518, when it superseded the Order of the Collar, founded by Count Amadeus of Savoy in 1362. The medal of the Order bears a representation of the Annunciation, and its collar is decorated with alternate golden knots and enameled roses. The kings of Italy are the grand masters of the Order.

In Rome, Annunciation Day has always been celebrated with pomp and splendor. In the early part of this century the windows were hung with draperies of crimson and yellow silk, and occupied by ladies in gorgeous attire. The churches were patrolled by the Pope's horse-guards in full-dress uniforms and wearing in their

caps sprigs of myrtle as a sign of rejoicing. Another detachment of the guards, mounted on black chargers, rode forward, to the sound of trumpets and the beating of drums, to clear the way for a bareheaded priest on a white mule, bearing

cloth which covered their heads, leaving only an orifice for one eye, these girls entered the choir, two by two, and, in the midst of the Sacred College, prostrated themselves at the feet of the Pope. An ecclesiastic stood by, holding a basin full of little bags, each enclosing a bank note. The notes were the value of about forty dollars for those who chose marriage, and

THE ANNUNCIATION-W. A. BOUGUEREAU

of sixty dollars for those who preferred the convent. Each girl humbly declared her choice and received her bag, kissed it reverently, made a profound obeisance, and turned away. The young women

left the church in procession, each of the future nuns being distinguished by a garland of flowers.

This custom, little varied, continues to the present day. The beneficiaries, who must be of good family and irreproachable character, are the carefully-selected protegées of the Archconfraternity of the Most Holy Annunciation, which originated

in Rome in 1460, under Pius II. The society is composed of two hundred responsible Roman citizens, and the annual distribution of the dowry is both interesting and imposing.

In 1500 Queen Jeanne of Valois founded at Bourges, France, an order of nuns in honor of the Annunciation, and a Genoese widow named Maria Fornari founded a similar order in 1604.

The fact that the feast falls in Lent has made its general observance inconspicuous, and partially explains the paucity of peculiar customs and popular traditions with regard to it. These, however, are not wholly lacking. It was once held that anything planted on this day would take root easily. It was considered an auspicious day for the sowing of seeds, and if there was a clear sky before sunrise the faithful looked forward to a fruitful year. According to an ancient proverb a hoar-frost on this date could do no harm.

This anniversary, known as "Lady Day," was once highly observed in England. The Synod of Worcester, in 1240, forbade, by one of its canons, all servile work on that day. This ruling was later confirmed by the various provincial and diocesan councils, in all respects except agricultural labor. It is a somewhat remarkable fact that no fewer than 2, 120 English churches were named in honor of the Virgin Mary, and 102 bore her name associated with that of some other saint. The religious importance of "Lady Day" has been minimized since the Reformation, and it has now little more than a fiscal significance, as the day on which the first quarter of annual rent falls due.

Popular tradition in England still predicts public misfortune if Lady Day and Easter should fall on the same date. The old superstition is thus expressed:

"When our Lady falls in our Lord's lap, Then England beware of great mishap." This coincidence occurred in 1853 and 1864, but history records no evil results.

At St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, it is still the custom to sell a species of bun known as « Pope Ladies." A legend thus accounts for their origin. A noble lady and her attendants were benighted while travelling to St. Albans. Lights in the clock-tower at the top of a hill guided their steps to a monastery, to which the grateful lady gave a sum of money to provide an annual distribution to the poor, on Annunciation Day, of cakes baked in the form of ladies. For many years this bounty was distributed by the monks. With the Reformation the dole came to an end, but the local bakers continue to bake and sell buns of the same pattern.

The festival of the Annunciation was the day chosen for the most celebrated dole in the history of England. Lenten doles were numerous in past centuries, though the custom itself seems to antedate the establishment of the penitential season. "Doles," says St. Chrysostom, "were used at funerals to procure the rest of the soul of the deceased, that he might find his Judge propitious." The earliest doles were usually appointed and described by the dying testator, and were distributed among the actual attendants at the funeral. At a later period the doles were sent to the homes of the village in which the donor had died. One form of the ceremony was to send a small loaf of bread to every neighbor, with no distinction as to age or circumstances. fuse to receive it was regarded as an act of particular disrespect.

To re

Doles were occasionally appointed as fees for poor persons, who, attired and equipped according to the directions of the dying, should act as hired mourners at the funeral. This practice prevailed in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth

centuries. Scions of the ducal house of Gloucester, and of the noble families of Fitzharding, Windsor, and Poyning, as well as many other persons less distinguished, sought for a while to escape utter oblivion by leaving on record their petty vanities in this respect. The comparatively modern feature of "mutes" at funerals seems to have had its origin in this custom. A "pilgrim's dole" of bread and ale, said to have been established by Cardinal Beaufort, is still offered to all wayfarers at the Hospital of St. Cross, in Winchester. Emerson, when visiting England in 1848, claimed and received this dole.

The latest as well as the most logical evolution of this form of almsgiving was the custom of leaving money or lands, the interest or rent of which was to be devoted to some specified form of charity, as a memorial of the donor. In this Lady

Mabel de Itchenborne seems to have established the precedent.

The ancient manor of Tichborne lies near Winchester. Two hundred years prior to the Norman Conquest this manor was known as Itchenborne, because within its borders rose the River Itchen. Shortly after the first Plantagenet ascended the throne, Sir Roger de Itchenborne, knight, married Mabel, only daughter and heiress of Sir Ralph de Lamerston, of the Isle of Wight. After many years of godly living and kindness to the poor, Lady Mabel, realizing that she was near to death, besought Sir Roger to bestow upon her such means as would enable her to leave a loaf of bread to all applicants, on Annunciation Day, forever. Sir Roger was unwilling

to grant the request, except under a condition extremely hard for his wife, who had been bedridden for many years. He said, in effect: «To-morrow will be Christmas. All the land from yonder oak-tree that you can traverse north and east while the morning Yule log burns, I will enclose within parallel lines corresponding on the south and west, and it shall be your own."

The following morning Lady Mabel was borne to one corner of the park, and, at the lighting of the Yule log, commenced her painful task. Before the cry came from the hall that the log was in ashes, she had won a tract of fifteen acres of rich land, known to-day as

The Crawls,"

in memory of her painful task. The land was surveyed and deeded to Lady Mabel, but her heroic deed had hastened her end. A few hours later the parish priest was summoned to prepare her for death. While awaiting his coming she called her household around her and prophesied that the house of De Itchenborne would prosper as long as the dole to the poor should be continued, but that if it were ever neglected the family name would be lost for the want of male issue, and that in such an event the baronet of the day would be the father of seven sons, the eldest of whom would have seven daughters, but no sons. She then accepted the ministrations of her confessor and died.

Few, if any, of the early charities of England answer to-day the intent of the donors. Doubtless the alms-deed of Lady Mabel had the longest record of all. Through more than six centuries of sunshine and shadow the house of Tichborne continued, at Annunciation, to distribute the dole.

Different branches of the family

- children and grandchildren -came to assist in the ceremony of distribution. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries six hundred loaves were baked on the day preceding Annunciation. This number grew, in time, to one thousand, fifteen hundred, and two thousand loaves. In the eighteenth century more than three thousand loaves and from £65 to £90 in money were distributed annually.

Though for more than six hundred years this charity fed the poor for one day in the year, kept its foundress in pious memory, and furnished to other wealthy families an example worthy of emulation, its distribution became at length an intolerable burden, not only to the house of Tichborne, but to the neighboring gentry. Tichborne Park became, in Mid-Lent, the rendezvous of tramps, beggars, costermongers, pickpockets, sneak-thieves, and acrobats, each with the implements of his calling, and all ready to commit any depredation that opportunity made possible. These undesirable guests camped in extemporized shelters all over the fields and gardens of the manor.

With the distribution in 1799 the dole was discontinued. By a strange coincidence, in 1821 Lady Mabel's prophecy was partially fulfilled, for in that year the head of the family died, leaving seven sons. The eldest succeeded to the baronetcy, and died in 1845, leaving seven daughters. He was succeeded by his eldest brother, who, on his marriage in 1826 with Miss Doughty, a Lincolnshire heiress, had taken the name of Doughty-Tichborne. At the death of his only son, in 1835, Mr. Doughty-Tichborne, impressed by the singular fulfilment of Lady Mabel's prophecy, besought his elder brother to restore the dole. This was done, with certain restrictions confining it to the poor of the parish of Tichborne. In this manner it continues to be distributed to the present day.

It is fitting that Lady Mabel, a saintly woman as well as a prophetess of no mean attainment, should sleep her long slumber among scholars, prelates, and kings. Near the recessed doorway of the Lady Chapel of Winchester Cathedral, just where the sunlight falls most beautifully through the exquisite windows of the choir, may be seen the altar-tomb bearing the effigy of the first-known and greatest of the women of the house of Tichborne.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

GABRIELLE MARIE JACOBS.

"F

་

RANGIOLA! frangiolà! frangiolàji!" with a long quavering accent on the "ji," "Soudt-ji! Soudt-ji!» "Salep-ji! Salep-ji!" "Mohalibéji! Mohalibé-ji!"— and all the world in the city of Constantine knows that-" jocund day

Stands tiptoe on the Bithynian mountain tops," - for these sounds are the ordinary avant couriers of the morn.

Right in front of my window lies a peaceful old Turkish cemetery, and cutting its dusty path through the crooked or overturned tombstones and ragged old cypress-trees, a road winds down the hill and past the soldiers' barracks to Galata. It is a lovely morning in early May. The rising sun touches with gold the gray old mosque just beyond and the fresh green of the plane-trees on the further hills, while along the path, gay in varying costumes, and laden with cans, baskets, stands, bags, and mysterious steaming cages and braziers, marches a motley procession of honorable merchants,the bread-man, the milk-man; the salep-man, the coal-man, and the sweet-man, -all howling their several wares at the top of their voices.

Nor are these peripatetic gentlemen confined to any one locality or any special nationality. They are everywhere and anywhere, of any race and every tongue. Along the Golden Horn, by the Sweet Waters of Europe and Asia, at every landing along the Bosphorus, in front of every house where a wedding or any other festivity is taking place, at the end of the great bridge, especially on the Stamboul side, in front of every mosque and Turkish court, before the madressa or common schools, from house to house and door to door they go, surrounded always, if they carry anything eatable, by their friends the dogs. The humble "lights and liver" vender, especially, who bears his wares suspended in ghastly, dangling array from a long pole balanced on his shoulder, is the object of devoted attention from the dusty yellow curs who follow his fascinating lead, lick

ing their chops in eager anticipation. If he be a pious Mussulman he will occasionally call a halt at an open bit of ground and treat his canine following to a pallid lung or crimson heart; but it not infrequently happens that without waiting for that auspicious season the hungry pack decide to help themselves, and while his attention is concentrated on some prospective customer, united in one wild attack, they sweep the pole of his whole stock in trade.

Upon the shaker-ji's or sweetmeat-peddler's treasury of sweets, too, they cast envious eyes, and often at the end of the bridge, where he has set down his stand of red candy dogs, flamboyant roosters, pink sugared almonds, and sticky sweetgum, planting over it his insignia of office, a waving plume of bright tissue paper, these knowing creatures will ostensibly

THE LIVER-SELLER

start a fight under his very nose, trip up the spreading legs of his little table, and, before the miserable owner can call upon the Prophet to protect him, the last vestige of his toothsome wares has vanished from the sight of men.

The Persians,-grave and bearded, are also candy-venders; but the Constantino