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Grose says: Any unmarried woman fasting on Midsummer Eve, and at midnight laying a clean cloth, with bread, cheese, and ale, and sitting down as if going to eat, the street-door being left open, the person whom she is afterwards to marry will come into the room and drink to her by bowing; and after filling the glass will leave it on the table, and, making another bow, retire.'

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[Mother Bunch mentions "the old experiment of the Midsummer shift." It is thus: My daughters, let seven of you go together on a Midsummer's Eve, just at sun-set, into a silent grove, and gather every one of you a sprig of red sage, and return into a private room, with a stool in the middle each one having a clean shift turned wrong side outwards, hanging on a line across the room, and let every one lay their sprig of red sage in a clean basin of rose-water set on the stool; which done, place yourselves in a row, and continue until twelve or one o'clock, saying nothing, be what it will you see; for, after midnight, each one's sweetheart or husband that shall be, shall take each maid's sprig out of the rose-water, and sprinkle his love's shift; and those who are so unfortunate as never to be married, their sprigs will not be moved, but in lieu of that, sobs and sighs will be heard. This has been often tried, and never failed of its effects." Another edition of Mother Bunch says: "On Midsummer Eve three or four of you must dip your shifts in fair water, then turn them wrong side outwards, and hang them on chairs before the fire, and lay some salt in another chair, and speak not a word. In a short time the likeness of him you are tc

marry will come and turn your smocks, and drink to you; but, if there be any of you will never marry, they will hear a bell, but not the rest."]

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Lupton, in his Notable Things, b. i. 59, tells us: "It is certainly and constantly affirmed that on Midsummer Eve there is found, under the root of mugwort, a coal which saves or keeps them safe from the plague, carbuncle, lightning, the quartan ague, and from burning, that bear the same about them and Mizaldus, the writer hereof, saith, that he doth hear that it is to be found the same day under the root of plantane, which I know to be of truth, for I have found them the same day under the root of plantane, which is especially and chiefly to be found at noon.' In Natural and Artificial Conclusions, by Thomas Hill, 1650, we have: "the vertue of a rare cole, that is to be found but one houre in the day, and one day in the yeare. Diverse authors affirm concerning the verity and vertue of this cole; viz. that it is onely to be found upon Midsummer Eve, just at noon, under every root of plantine and of mugwort; the effects whereof are wonderful; for whosoever weareth or beareth the same about with them, shall be freed from the plague, fever, ague, and sundry other diseases. And one author especially writeth, and constantly averreth, that he never knew any that used to carry of this marvellous cole about them, who ever were, to his knowledge, sick of the plague, or (indeed) complained of any other maladie."

"The last summer," says Aubrey, in his Miscellanies, 1696, p. 103, "on the day of St. John Baptist, [1694,] I accidentally was walking in the pasture behind Montague house; it was twelve a clock. I saw there about two or three and twenty young women, most of them well habited, on their knees, very busie, as if they had been weeding. not presently learn what the matter was; at last a young man told me that they were looking for a coal under the root of a plantain, to put under their heads that night, and they should. dream who would be their husbands. It was to be found that day and hour."

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The following, however, in part an explanation of this singular search, occurs in the Practice of Paul Barbette, 1675, p. 7: "For the falling sicknesse some ascribe much to coals pulled out (on St. John Baptist's Eve) from under the roots of mugwort: but those authors are deceived, for they are not

coals, but old acid roots, consisting of much volatile salt, and are almost always to be found under mugwort: so that it is only a certain superstition that those old dead roots ought to be pulled up on the eve of St. John Baptist, about twelve at night."

The Status Scholæ Etonesis, A.D. 1560, (MS. Addit. Brit. Mus. 4843,) says, "In hac Vigilia moris erat (quamdiu stetit) pueris, ornare lectos variis rerum variarum picturis, et carmina de vita rebusque gestis Joannis Baptistæ et præcursoris componere: et pulchre exscripta affigere Clinopodiis lectorum, eruditis legenda." And again,-" Mense Junii, in Festo Natalis D. Johannis post matutinas preces, dum consuetudo floruit accedebant omnes scholastici ad rogum extructum in orientali regione templi, ubi reverenter a symphoniacis cantatis tribus Antiphonis, et pueris in ordine stantibus venitur ad merendam."

In Torreblanca's Dæmonologia, p. 150, I find the following superstition mentioned on the night of St. John, or of St. Paul: "Nostri sæculi puellæ in nocte S. Joannis vel S. Pauli ad fenestras spectantes, primas prætereuntium voces captant, ut cui nubant conjectant." Our author is a Spaniard.

Scott, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, p. 144, tells us : Against witches "hang boughs (hallowed on Midsummer Day) at the stall door where the cattle stand."

Bishop Hall, in his Triumph of Rome, p. 58, says, that "St. John is implored for a benediction on wine upon his day."

A singular custom at Oxford, on the day of St. John, Baptist, still remains to be mentioned. The notice of it, here copied, is from the Life of Bishop Horne, by the Rev. William Jones, (Works, vol. xii. p. 131.)—" A letter of July the 25th, 1755, informed me that Mr. Horne, according to an established custom at Magdalen College, in Oxford, had begun to preach before the University, on the day of Saint John the Baptist. For the preaching of this annual sermon, a permanent pulpit of stone is inserted into a corner of the first quadrangle; and so long as the stone pulpit was in use, (of which I have been a witness,) the quadrangle was furnished round the sides with a large fence of green boughs, that the preaching might more nearly resemble that of John the Baptist in the wilderness; and a pleasant sight it was: but for many years the custom

has been discontinued, and the assembly have thought it safer to take shelter under the roof of the chapel."

[A chap-book in my possession gives the following method "to know what trade your husband will be: On Midsummer Eve take a small lump of lead (pewter is best), put it in your left stocking on going to bed, and place it under your pillow; the next day being Midsummer Day, take a pail of water, and place it so as the sun shines exactly on it, and as the clock is striking twelve, pour in your lead or pewter melted and boiling hot; as soon as it is cold and settled, take it out, and you will find among the emblems of his trade, a ship is a sailor, *ools a workman, trees a gardener, a ring a silversmith or jeweller, a book a parson or learned man, and so on."]

Lupton, in his Book of Notable Things, ed. 1660, p. 40, says: "Three nails made in the vigil of the Nativity of St. John Baptist, called Midsommer Eve, and driven in so deep that they cannot be seen in the place where the party doth fall that hath the falling sickness, and naming the said parties name while it is doing, doth drive away the disease quite." Cullinson, in his Somersetshire, iii. 586, says: "In the parishes of Congresbury and Puxton are two large pieces of common land, called East and West Dolemoors (from the Saxon dal, which signifies a share or portion), which are divided into single acres, each bearing a peculiar and different mark cut in the turf, such as a horn, four oxen and a mare, two oxen and a mare, a pole-axe, cross, dung-fork, oven, duck's nest, hand-reel, and hare's-tail. On the Saturday before Old Midsummer, several proprietors of estates in the parishes of Congresbury, Puxton, and Week St. Lawrence, or their tenants, assemble on the commons. A number of apples are previously prepared, marked in the same manner with the beforementioned acres, which are distributed by a young lad to each of the commoners from a bag or hat. At the close of the distibution each person repairs to his allotment, as his apple directs him, and takes possession for the ensuing year. An adjournment then takes place to the house of the overseer of Dolemoors (an officer annually elected from the tenants), where four acres, reserved for the purpose of paying expenses, are let by inch of candle, and the remainder of the day is spent in that sociability and hearty mirth so congenial to the soul of a Somersetshire yeoman." [Midsummer Eve was formerly thought

to be a season productive of madness. So Olivia observes,
speaking of Malvolio's seeming frenzy, that it "is a very
Midsummer madness;" and Steevens thinks that as
"this
time was anciently thought productive of mental vagaries, to
that circumstance the Midsummer Night's Dream might
have owed its title." Heywood seems to allude to a similar
belief, when he says1—

"As mad as a March hare; where madness compares,
Are not Midsummer hares as mad as March hares ?"]

ST. PETER'S DAY.

JUNE 29.

STOW tells us that the rites of St John Baptist's Eve were also used on the Eve of St. Peter and St. Paul: and Dr. Moresin informs us that in Scotland the people used, on this latter night, to run about on the mountains and higher grounds with lighted torches, like the Sicilian women of old in search of Proserpine. 2

In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, 1792, iii. 105, the Minister of Loudoun in Ayrshire, under the head of Antiquities, tells us : "The custom still remains amongst the herds and young people to kindle fires in the high grounds, in honour of Beltan. Beltan, which in Gaelic signifies Baal, or Bel's fire, was anciently the time of this solemnity. It is now kept on St. Peter's Day.'

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I have been informed that something similar to this was practised about half a century ago in Northumberland on this night; the inhabitants carried some kind of firebrands about the fields of their respective villages. They made encroach

Halliwell's Introduction to a Midsummer Night's Dream, p. 3.

2 "Faces ad Festum divi Petri noctu Scoti in montibus et altioribus locis discurrentes accendere soliti sunt, ut cum Ceres Proserpinam quærens universum terrarum orbem perlustrasset."-Papatus, p. 56.

3 Sir Henry Piers, in his description of Westmeath, makes the ceremonies used by the Irish on St. John Baptist's Eve common to that of St. Peter and St. Paul.

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