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the hill of Yapawu, where, in the words of the Mahawanso, on the summit of the Subha mountain, inaccessible to enemies, having built a city like Alakamanda (the most beautiful of celestial cities) he resided, like another Wessawanno (the regent of the north) protecting that part of the country and the religion from the Kerala monsters." *

The city, as I have said, lay at the base of the rock; but a winding path, with rude steps, leads to the top, which doubtless was a place of refuge in times of danger. A similar instance of this occurs at Seegiri, which however, unlike Yapahoo, partakes more of the fortress than the palace.

About the year A.D. 1267, Yapahoo, as well as Pollanarua and Kurnegalle, were greatly embellished and ornamented by Bosat Wijaya Bahoo, son of Pandita Praakrama Bahoo III., who, in A.D. 1303, after his succession to the throne, was murdered at Pollanarua by his adigar, Mita Séna. The army, however, remained faithful to the royal family, and proclained his brother, who had fled to Yapahoo, under the title of King Bhuwaneka Bahoo I. This king, who, prior to his accession, had lived at Yapahoo, now made it the seat of government, and removed the sacred Dalada thither.

During this reign, Koola Saikera Raja, king of Pandi (Madura), sent an army into Ceylon, and placed it under the command of his tributary, Aareya Chakkrawarti, king of Jaffna. Yapahoo was taken, and the sacred relic carried off to Madura.

From this time Yapahoo ceased to be the capital; but it still appears to have been a place of considerable importance for the next 200 years.

In the reign of Sree Praakrama Kotta, a descendant of the royal family was made Dissave of Yapahoo, and shortly after the accession of Jayaa Bahoo II., A.D. 1464, he rebelled, put the king to death, and was raised to the throne under the title of Bhuwaneka Bahoo VI.

In A.D. 1527, Yapahoo was the place of refuge of the two elder sons of Wijaya Bahoo VII., when they fled from their father, who sought to put them to death. They assembled their forces, and, attacking him in their turn, murdered him, and the eldest became king, as Bhuwaneka Bahoo VII.

The last mention of Yapahoo in history is in the reign of Don Juan Dharmapaala, whom the Portuguese set up in A. D. 1542, when, among the many aspirants to the throne, one,

I am indebted for these particulars to two very inteltigent native gentlemen-Messrs. L. De Zoysa and S. Jayeillleke.

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I was going one morning from Southampton to London. I had the carriage to myself as far as Kingston; here a little man got in who at once attracted my attention by the peculiarity of his dress, appearance, and manner. He was in evening dress, everything about him, from the silk-faced dress-coat to the patent leather boots, being bran new. A fact of which he was far from being unconscious; each of his garments, in its turn, attracted his notice and approving smile.

The only thing about him that violated evening etiquette was his necktie, a blue one, negligently arranged à la Byron under a rolling collar.

From this I augured that he was a poet, for turn-down collars were by no means so common then as now; the fashion prescribing terrific gills, which, in short-necked men, endangered the safety of their whiskers and ears. My surmise was confirmed by his long hair, its natural tendency to curl being combated by the copious exhibition of grease, and probably by assiduous brushing.

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His face, however, was somewhat against my theory instead of being thin and pale, with eyes "in fine frenzy rolling," it was round, dumpling-like, and rosy; his little eyes deeply set in tunnels of fat, which, as he chuckled from time to time, were half closed by his rising cheeks, and presented to view a mere slit; his nose short, turned up, and garnished at the tip with six or seven curly hairs; his mouth expansive, and his teeth very good fortunately, as he showed them all, not even concealing the wisdom teeth, which were not quite come down.

He was well made, what there was of him ; he was not much above five feet high, rather disposed to embonpoint.

In his button-hole he wore a magnificent white camellia, which, I regret to say, I saw, admired, coveted, and determined to possess, by fair means if possible, if not, by foul.

This flower, too, attracted much of his attention; he bestowed frequent glances upon it, muttering what I conceived to be poetry, inspired by the purity and delicacy of the flower.

I was considering how I might best commence

a conversation which would acquire me the good graces of this gentleman, and ultimately make me the possessor of the camellia, when he saved me the trouble of breaking the ice by saying,

"Candidly, sir, what do you think of my tailor?"

I replied that I had not the advantage of knowing him, a circumstance which I regretted the more, as his work showed him to be a man of no common ability; I added, that he was fortunate in having a client whose figure and air would set off garments, even though fabricated with less consummate skill.

He tried to look modestly unconscious, and said,

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"And who, sir, may this client be with the distingué figure and air? As you say that you do not know my tailor, I might almost fancy that your truly flattering observations were addressed to me; but my figure, though not deformed, is small, that is to say, rather below than above the average size; and as for my air, though I flatter myself that I possess some of that je ne sais quoi which distinguishes men like you and me from the vulgar herd, still neither my figure nor air is worthy of the very glowing eulogium which you have bestowed upon them. No, sir, really; indeed, sir, really ;" and he chuckled, blinked his eyes, and cast glances on his little round limbs of more than parental fondness. I I perceived that he was not inaccessible to flattery, and did not despair of obtaining the camellia by fair means.

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"I should apologise," said I, "for so personal a remark; it slipped from me unconsciously; but you must have heard it frequently from the lips and seen it in the eyes of the gentle sex. You are not insensible to their witcheries; I see that in your eye; nay, that camellia in your button-hole proves you to be the happy bondman of some black-eyed Houri."

"How did you find that out? You must know something about me; you might have guessed that I was in love; but how did you find out the colour of her eyes?"

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"Well, I did not know positively. thought it likely, most in accordance with the eternal fitness of things, that you, who have blue eyes, should be enslaved by black ones. Was I right?"

"Well, I can hardly tell you; I trust you may be right, but the fact is, I have never seen the lady's eyes.”

"Never seen her eyes! Ah, I see: a mysterious courtship, truly poetic, veiled lady, gentle voice, white hand, one raven lock just peeping from its concealment, fairy form, taper ankles, little tiddly-iddly feet."

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"Sir," said he, grasping my hand, we aro kindred spirits—you have felt the divine afflatus-you have struck the wild harp, and burst into the inspiring melody of song. We are poets, sir, brother poets. Were it not a breach of the confidence she has reposed in me, I would tell you the history of our loves, our hopes, and our sorrows."

"You forget that, so long as you conceal the lady's name, there can be no breach of confidence. She is the unknown quantity; let X represent her."

"Not X; I shall have to repeat her name often in the course of my narrative; she would then become double, treble, or even quadruple X, and she is not stout."

“Well, then, let Y represent her; it is a slender and graceful letter."

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Good, let Y, for the moment, represent, unworthily, the name of my adored charmer. I am a poet, sir, as you have already perceived, and not altogether unknown to the public; in the Poets' Corner' of the Trottingbury Mercury exegi monumentum ære perennius! You may have seen some of my contributions to that journal signed Beta.' I will just repeat you my 'Ode to the Morning.''

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"Pray don't take the trouble; I know the poem by heart, and recited it only last week to D at the Athenæum Club. Just now

I am burning with impatience to hear your story."

"You have read my poem then I had scarcely ventured to hope that the weak breathings of my muse had penetrated so far as London."

"Why, my dear sir, there are six copies of the Trottington Mercury on the table of the Athenæum Club, and it is difficult to get hold of one of them; yet no one reads any part of it but the 'Poets' Corner.""

"Not Trottington, Trottingbury Mercury. Well, I'll go on with my story. One evening, I had just finished my 'Imitations of Anacreon,' and had taken them to the office of the Trot| tingbury Mercury. The last feeble flicker of twilight was about to give way to the solemn darkness of night. There was a holy stillness,

a quiet calm about the hour, that seemed to soften the heart, to prepare it for gentle impressions. In front of the office of the Trottingbury Mercury is a garden. There, roses should vie with geraniums, the graceful woodbine should twine round the trellis-work, and the stately lily should be there in the pride of her virgin purity; but I regret to say it is planted with potatoes. In this garden there are two gates. I was going down the path which leads to one of them, and repeating a beautiful stanza of my own composition. (I

never read the works of other people, it destroys originality of thought.) As I was going down this path, I chanced to look towards the other gate a fairy form was passing through it. I will not attempt to describe the beauties of that glorious vision. I rushed straight across the garden in chase; but the potato stalks tripped me up, and I fell, sprained my ankle, and was incapacitated for further pursuit. I limped back to the office, and asked the clerk"Who is that divine creature, who has just left your office?'

you think that a budding rose would be more emblematic of your rising hopes ? if so, I think I could manage to get you one."

"By no means; I should have told you that is our signal for recognition: we are each to wear a white camellia over the heart."

How truly has it been said that the first step in crime is the only difficult one! Facilis est descensus Averni. I had begun by coveting the one camellia, and resolving to obtain it by fair means, if possible. I now resolved to resort to the foulest means, if necessary, for

""That,' said he, grinning, 'is a contributor its capture, and to use it as a decoy to obtain to our "Poets' Corner."' the other white camellia now in the possession

"She is a poetess, then-I knew it must be of the poetesss of Trottingbury. To what a So. What is her name?'

"Won't do,' said the clerk, with his tongue in his cheek, she wishes to remain incog.'

"Baffled in my inquiries, I returned to my couch, but not to sleep. That vision still haunted me; I thought of the white hand, the raven locks, the taper ankle, the tiddly-iddly feet. Evening after evening did I lie in wait before the office, in hopes of again meeting her, but in vain. Things went on so for a month, and every day I fell deeper in love, my appetite diminished, and I lost nearly two pounds in weight. At length a happy inspiration came upon me. I would pour out my soul in poetry, I would tell my love in the 'Poets' Corner' of the Trottingbury Mercury. She was a poetess, she would read it: the sympathy which exists between kindred minds would tell her that she was the object addressed. I wrote the lines entitled 'A Glorious Twilight Vision.' Never in my most inspired moments had I so successfully portrayed the inward workings of the tender passion; for I then only imagined them, now I felt them. I will just repeat you those lines."

"Pray don't, sir; I remember them well." "I felt sure that she to whom they were addressed would read them, and reply; and I was not deceived. The next time I went to the office, the clerk said, 'There is a letter here, meant for you I suppose.' It was directed, Beetroot, Esq., contributor to the "Poets' Corner" of the Trottingbury Mercury.' The dear girl evidently did not understand Greek, and by the similarity of sound was led into this very pardonable mistake. It showed she wasn't a blue-stocking, and I rejoiced at it.

"To make a long story short, we commenced a correspondence, but have never met; but this day she has given me a rendezvous at Pursell's, the pastrycook, in Cornhill. It is in honour

of this occasion that I wear for the first time those garments, the fitting of which you so justly admire."

precipice was my passion for white camellias hurrying me!

As it was essential to prove his identity in the coming rendezvous, it was evidently useless to try to persuade him to give it to me; my only chance was to steal it, or take it by force.

Calling his attention to some objects on the roadside, I dexterously severed the stalk with a tap from my cane, and slipped the flower into my pocket, unperceived.

I then said that, though I had read and learned by heart the contents of the "Poets' Corner" in the Trottingbury Mercury, it would still be a treat to hear some of these chefs d'œuvre repeated by the author.

He needed no pressing. Without once thinking of his camellia, he favoured me with an uninterrupted stream of poetry till our arrival at Waterloo Station. I then took a hurried leave of him, jumped into a cab, and, transferring the camellia from my pocket to my button-hole, drove to Pursell's to complete my conquest.

We soon arrived there. Being in a capital humour, I was about to give the cabman a double fare. But what!-how is that? I tried my pockets one after another; no purse; the cabman began to eye me suspiciously.

"My good man," said I, "I find that I have lost my purse, but my portmanteau is a sufficient gurantee for the payment of your fare. Drive me to Lincoln's Inn Fields, I have a friend there who will lend me some money. The cabman saw the justice of my remark, and drove me to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where my friend received me with open arms, and placed his purse at my disposal.

The journey was rather an expensive one for me, for not only was my purse gone, but my watch and a valuable gold snuff-box. It appeared that the poet and I had been intent on similar designs; but while my ambition extended no further than white camellias, he had a weakness for articles of value and cur

"And the camellia," I suggested, "don't rent coin of the realm.

It is needless to add, that I did not return to Pursell's to complete my conquest, nor have I ever again met my friend the poet.

WIGS.

"THE invention of Periwigs," writes an old author, "is of so great use, and saves men so much trouble, that it can never be laid aside. It helps to disguise the thief, to make an ill face tolerable, the tolerable handsome, to ease the lazy of trouble, and to make men their vassals-if women would but wear them." Time has negatived these authoritative opinions. The reader does not need to be informed that periwigs have been long since dispensed with, swept away to the limbo of obsolete and worn-out fashions. Here and there, it is true, a peruke still survives, as a sort of specimen of a race hastening to extinction, as a ghost of a glory departed for ever. The man of fashion laughs it to scorn, the doctor knows it not, the divine shrinks from it. The most conservative of bishops now-adays, would no more dream of crowning his poll with a "busby," than of donning a wreath

of roses. On the bench aud at the bar the wig still prevails, however: lawyers so love and cling to precedent; the court will give no audience, Justice is deaf as well as blind to the counsellor without his wig. In the legal tribunals, its last stronghold, the wig rules with severity, small states are ever the most despotic on the bench and at the bar, yes, and on the coach-box,-for, unaccountable fact, coachmen of distinction still wear wigs,-in this unexpected place outside the carriage the wig still governs, as one sometimes sees a power possessing small plots of territory inconveniently situate in the very midst of a neighbour's lands.

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That women have never worn wigs is not strictly correct; whether men have been thereby made more especially their vassals is another question. The "front" secured by a velvet fillet, or even "the complete head of hair" assumed by age, when Time has stolen away beauty and lustre,-not without a struggle, he leaves footprints enough on the scene of the contest, is not here referred to. But the confessed wig, involving the absolute shearing off of natural tresses to wear in lieu by preference an artificial head-covering, has certainly been adopted by woman. Not so much in

the case of Mrs. Pepys. The inimitable Diarist, under the date of March, 1662, chronicles: "By-and-bye comes La Belle Pierce to see my wife, and to bring her a pair of perukes of hair as the fashion is for ladies wear, which are pretty and of my wife's

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own hair." He may simply mean of the same colour; very abundant tresses were the mode; Mrs. Pepys had probably sought assistance from art to comply with the fashion; had not really made sacrifice of her own locks. But in the next century, ladies had raised the cry of "the wig, the whole wig, and nothing but the wig." When George the Second reviewed the Guards in 1727 (habited in grey cloth faced with purple, with a purple feather in his hat), the three eldest Princesses "went to Richmond in

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riding habits with hats and feathers and periwigs." Later still, "têtes" and "heads," were advertised at extraordinary prices. The Lace-chamber on Ludgate Hill offered one Brussels head at 40., one ground Brussels head at 301., one looped Brussels head at 301." Lace mob-caps, conical hats, flowers, feathers, ribbons, and even representations of butterflies, caterpillars, coaches and horses, in blown glass, crowned these head-dresses, which added as it were another story to woman's stature, towering some eighteen inches above her (her high heels gave her some four or five inches more), so that many ladies of quality began to complain that they were compelled to sit in quite a crouching attitude in their carriages, to prevent the elaborate structure on their heads from being crushed against the roof. The Tatler (No. 180), in ridicule of the high heels aud lofty perukes of its day, had advertised a stage-coach to start from Nando's Coffee-house for Mr. Tiptoe's dancingschool every evening, adding, "N. B. Dancing shoes not exceeding four inches height in the heels, and periwigs not exceeding three feet in length, are carried in the coach-box gratis.” In the reign of Queen Anne the high headdresses of the ladies had afforded much matter for the Spectator's comments and criticisms, and the fashion abated; the complaint that the female part of the species were taller than the men ceased to be reasonable; ladies who had been once nearly seven feet high were found in truth to want some inches of five, and a fear was expressed that, like trees newly lopped and pruned, a great increase of growth would follow the reduction. This indeed proved correct; height became the vogue again. After George the Third's accession, the size of the head-dress became more preposterous than ever.

Charles the Fifth is said to have first brought short hair into fashion, when, afflicted with severe head-aches, he had his locks clipped as close as might be. But succeeding generations tired of this mode, and permitted their hair to grow long. The Cavaliers more than ever cherished their flowing curls,—following the fashion of their martyred king, and distinguishing themselves markedly from their oppo

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