ments, on these occasions, upon the bonfires of the neighbouring towns, of which they took away some of the ashes by force this they called " carrying off the flower (probably the flour) of the wake." Moresin thinks this a vestige of the ancient Cerealia.

:

It appears from the sermon preached at Blandford Forum, in 1570, by W. Kethe, that, in the Papal times in this country, fires were customary, not only on the Eves of St. John the Baptist at Midsummer, and of St. Peter and St. Paul the Apostles, but also on that of St. Thomas à Becket, or, as he is there styled, "Thomas Becket the Traytor."

The London Watch on this evening, put down in the time of Henry the Eighth, and renewed for one year only in that of his successor, has been already noticed under Midsummer Eve. It appears also from the Status Scholæ Etonensis, 1560, that the Eton boys had a great bonfire annually on the east side of the church on St. Peter's Day, as well as on that of St. John Baptist.

In an old Account of the Lordship of Gisborough in Cleveland, Yorkshire, and the adjoining coast, printed in the Antiquarian Repertory from an ancient manuscript in the Cotton Library, speaking of the fishermen, it is stated, that "upon St. Peter's Daye they invite their friends and kinsfolk to a festyvall kept after their fashion with a free hearte, and noe shew of niggardnesse: that daye their boates are dressed curiously for the shewe, their mastes are painted, and certain rytes observed amongst them, with sprinkling their prowes with good liquor, sold with them at a groate the quarte, which custome or superstition suckt from their auncestors, even contynueth down unto this present tyme."

PROCESSUS AND MARTINIAN.

[The following proverbial lines relating to this day (July 2,) were copied from an early MS. by Cole, in vol. 44 of his MS. Collections:

"Si pluat in festo Processi et Martiniani,
Imber erit grandis, et suffocatio grani."]

TRANSLATION OF ST. THOMAS.

"In Translatione D. Thomæ (mense Julii) solebant rogum construere, sed nec ornare lectos, nec carmina componere, sed ludere si placet preceptori." Status Scholæ Etonensis, A.D. 1560, MS. ut supra.

ST. ULRIC.

JULY 4.

THE following are the ceremonies of this day preserved in Googe's Translation of Naogeorgus:

"ST. HULDRYCHE.

"Wheresoever Huldryche hath his place, the people there brings in
Both carpes and pykes, and mullets fat, his favour here to win.
Amid the church there sitteth one, and to the aultar nie,
That selleth fish, and so good cheep, that every man may buie :
Nor any thing he loseth here, bestowing thus his paine,
For when it hath beene offred once, 'tis brought him all againe,
That twise or thrise he selles the same, ungodlinesse such gaine
Doth still bring in, and plentiously the kitchin doth maintaine.
Whence comes this same religion newe? what kind of God is this
Same Huldryche here, that so desires and so delightes in fishe?"
The Popish Kingdome, fol. 55.

TRANSLATION OF MARTIN.

[A similar tradition was current on this day, July 4th, to that now ascribed to St. Swithin

"Martini magni translatio in pluviam det

Quadraginta dies continuere solet."]

ST. SWITHIN'S DAY.

JULY 15.

THE following is said to be the origin of the old adage: "If it rain on St. Swithin's Day, there will be rain more or less for forty-five succeeding days." In the year 865, St. Swithin, Bishop of Winchester, to which rank he was raised by King Ethelwolfe, the Dane, dying, was canonized by the then Pope. He was singular for his desire to be buried in the open churchyard, and not in the chancel of the minster, as was usual with other bishops, which request was complied with; but the monks, on his being canonized, taking it into their heads that it was disgraceful for the saint to lie in the open churchyard, resolved to remove his body into the choir, which was to have been done with solemn procession on the 15th of July. It rained, however, so violently on that day, and for forty days succeeding, as had hardly ever been known, which made them set aside their design as heretical and blasphemous; and instead, they erected a chapel over his grave, at which many miracles are said to have been wrought.

Blount tells us that St. Swithin, a holy Bishop of Winchester about the year 860, was called the weeping St. Swithin, for that, about his feast, Præsepe and Aselli, rainy constellations, arise cosmically, and commonly cause rain. Gay, in his Trivia, mentions

"How if, on Swithin's feast the welkin lours,
And ev'ry pent-house streams with hasty show'rs,
Twice twenty days shall clouds their fleeces drain,
And wash the pavements with incessant rain."

Nothing occurs in the legendary accounts of this Saint, which throws any light upon the subject; the following lines occur in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1697:

"In this month is St. Swithin's Day;
On which, if that it rain, they say

Full forty days after it will,
Or more or less, some rain distill.
This Swithin was a sanit, I trow,
And Winchester's bishop also.

Who in his time did many a feat,
As Popish legends do repeat:

A woman having broke her eggs
By stumbling at another's legs,
For which she made a woeful cry,
St. Swithin chanc'd for to come by,
Who made them all as sound, or more
Than ever that they were before.
But whether this were so or no,
"Tis more than you or I do know.
Better it is to rise betime,

And to make hay while sun doth shine,
Than to believe in tales or lies

Which idle monks and friars devise."

[And in Poor Robin for 1735:

"If it rain on St. Swithin's Day;
I've heard some antient farmers say
It will continue forty days,
According to the country phrase.
'Tis a sad time, the lawyers now,
And doctors nothing have to do,
Likewise the oyster women too."

Ben Jonson, in Every Man out of his Humour, thus alludes to the day :-"O, here St. Swithin's, the fifteenth day; variable weather, for the most part rain; good; for the most part rain. Why, it should rain fourty days after, now, more or less; it was a rule held afore I was able to hold a plough, and yet here are two days no rain; ha! it makes me to muse."] Churchill thus glances at the superstitious notions about rain on St. Swithin's Day :

July, to whom, the dog-star in her train,

St. James gives oisters, and St. Swithin rain."

These lines upon St. Swithin's Day are still common in many parts of the country:

"St. Swithin's Day, if thou dost rain,
For forty days it will remain :

St. Swithin's Day, if thou be fair,
For forty days 'twill rain na mair."

A pleasant writer in the World, No. 10 (the late Lord Orford), speaking on the alteration of the style, says: "Were our astronomers so ignorant as to think that the old proverbs would serve for their newfangled calendar? Could they imagine that St. Swithin would accommodate her rainy planet to the convenience of their calculations?''

There is an old saying, that when it rains on St. Swithin's Day, it is the Saint christening the apples.

In the Churchwardens' Accounts of the parish of Horley, in the county of Surrey, under the years 1505-6, is the following entry, which implies a gathering on this saint's day, or account: "Itm. Saintt Swithine farthyngs the said 2 3eres, 38. 8d."

In Lysons's Environs of London, i. 230, is a list of church duties and payments relating to the church of Kingston-uponThames, in which the following items appear: "23 Hen. VII. Imprimis, at Easter for any howseholder kepying a brode gate, shall pay to the paroche prests wages 3d. Item, to the paschalld. To St. Swithin d. Also any howse-holder kepyng one tenement shall pay to the paroche prests wages 2d. Item, to the Paschal d. And to St. Swithin d."

[The following local proverbs may find a place here:

"If St. Swithin greets [weeps], the proverb says,
The weather will be foul for forty days.

A shower of rain in July, when the corn begins to fill,
Is worth a plough of oxen, and all that belongs theretill.

Some rain, some rest;

Fine weather isn't always best.

Frosty nights, and hot sunny days,

Set the corn-fields all in a blaze, (i.e. they have a tendency to forward the ripening of the 'white' crops."]

ST. KENELM'S DAY.

JULY 17.

[A VERY curious custom was formerly practised at Clent, in the parish of Hales-Owen, co. Salop. "A fair was wont to be held in the field in which St. Kenelm's Chapel is situate; it is of very ancient date, and probably arose from the congregating together of numbers of persons to visit the shrine of St. Kenelm on the feast of the Saint, 17th of July. By the 33d Henry VIII., the fair, or rather, we presume, the tolls of the fair, were granted to Roger de Somery, the Lord of Clent. The article of cheese was the principal commodity brought for sale till, about a quarter of a century ago, the fair was numbered amongst the bygones. Clent was royal demesne, and